Alright y'all Welcome back to the show Since I wore radio now to Libya and Our first guest Eric Margulies.
He's the author of war at the top of the world and American Raj liberation or domination His website is Eric Margulies calm and you can read them all.
I'm pretty sure at Lou Rockwell calm Including his latest Muammar.
He's back.
Oh, man I wanted to hear good news Eric Margulies about the revolution in Libya things aren't going so well, huh?
No, they're not and those who called for Qaddafi's head are now having to look again and Maybe are even thinking about making up with the mad dog of the Middle East as Reagan called him Who's thinking that Hillary Clinton Hillary Clinton?
Who always gets an A for hypocrisy, but also?
President Obama, but much more so the Europeans because they buy all of Libya's oil America doesn't and Libya's oil is very important to Europe their European refineries are tuned For the exact high quality low sulfur content of Libyan oil Italy France Germany Britain or are all major buyers The Italians have been discreet But the French and the British and the lesser degree the Germans have been calling for Qaddafi's head And now they're going to have to reassess their position They're going to have to as in it's over.
That's it They may have been forced to eat camel the old Arab expression and and make nice to Qaddafi again I would like to go kisses sandals If Qaddafi wins as of now it looks like Qaddafi's forces however inefficient they are And I've been with the Libyan army watch them fighting, and they're absolutely hopeless They couldn't fight their way out of a wet Bedouin tent nevertheless the opposition is even more useless, and this is the rag tag bunch of people shooting guns and Relentlessly the Libyan forces are moving in on the stronghold of the opposition Which is Benghazi whether they can take Benghazi or not?
I don't know whether Western special forces are going to come in and start helping them I believe that's already started, but the West still doesn't really know what to do hmm well Why haven't they just gone ahead and done the no-fly whatever the hell a couple of weeks ago when I mean They've been talking about it this whole time.
They won't intervene that was their opportunity We do not want to intervene, but we do learn from our mistakes to an extent and in Washington DC Even mistakes are how you advance your agenda even in the thickest minds and bull in a Chinese shop, Washington DC They're beginning to think about Afghanistan and Iraq where the u.s..
Charged in with flags flying and trumpets blaring Filled with moral indignation and Christian crusading righteousness and all the things and look where they are now They're stuck two trillion dollar Messes so there was caution about Libya There's the point of who are we going to put in power?
Well, they weren't really sure could the u.s..
You know what no-fly zone is really a war It's a euphemism for war and that means attacking all the air defense capabilities and attacking ground targets and gradually getting Sucked into a little ragtag guerrilla war in Libya Which is the last thing the u.s..
Needs right now after not only Iraq and Afghanistan But now that its forces are also involved in Somalia and Yemen and let's not forget Djibouti Yeah, well there have been protests in Djibouti, and I think I read the well I don't know if you tell me how many people live in that country is it even a country little city-state It's about 800,000 people Happy freedom-loving Djibouti and they used to be a French colony there are now there's a large French foreign legion base They're two and a half thousand legionnaires, and they're two and a half thousand American troops quietly stationed in Djibouti Controlling the mouth of the Red Sea you don't read about that much in the American media But it's part of our ever-growing imperial presence around the world the Sun that never sets on the American Empire Yeah, and that's right there across from Based at the mouth of the Red Sea across from Yemen, so that's right Yes, that's what George Bush calls strategery although.
Can't you just park a boat right there?
I mean, it's not like there's another naval power in the world that's trying to challenge our dominance or anything Why do they even need a base in Djibouti?
It's just to be mean to Djiboutians.
Well you can base lots of supplies there and aircraft Transport aircraft and Djibouti is now being used to support US operations against Somalia in southern Kenya and also as a waypoint for A small but growing American president's presence in West Africa and Mali Senegal in the sub-saharan region Hey, can you tell me anything about like you know recent information about the war in Somalia could the al-shabaab movement?
Just put down the guns and go protest and Mogadishu and when Doesn't seem like the government there controls much more than a couple of city blocks a hotel or two That's correct this the government a bunch of stooges who were put in there by the u.s.
And one is a bureaucrat from the New York City government, right?
Well, I hope it does a better job in Somalia than our New York City bureaucrats do there in fact, New York My hometown New York could probably use some Somali advisors The Problem there is that the the so-called is this phony government is a bunch of sock puppets are supported by what is called a African Union peacekeeping force which are in fact about 8,000 mercenaries Hired from Uganda and Kenya and some other places to that are American protectorates to go and keep this government of stooges and power And it is fighting the ship with occasional Ethiopian incursions to another American ally So it's they've managed to stabilize these a favorite Washington word Situation but al-shabaab is just fighting there and will keep on fighting And I think eventually the pro-us government or the u.s.
Installed government will be driven out Yeah, well, you know I shouldn't go without mentioning that the WikiLeaks cables Showed that the Americans and not just supported the Ethiopian invasion, but really insisted upon it Christmas 2006 and that there never was such a thing as al-shabaab before that that they were the resistance that grew up in response to the American sponsored Ethiopian invasion So and when I say history will record that I mean on this show no one else is going to ever mention that Anywhere ever you can read all about al-shabaab in the media and never will they tell you who these people are where they came?
From what Dick Cheney had to do with it.
That's correct in fact the only stable government that Ethiopia has a Somalia has seen or southern Somalia has seen since the the the death of the former dictator shiat Barre Was called Islamic Courts Union, and it had actually brought some measure of justice and calm and peace to Somalia however a comma Dick Cheney heard about it, and he saw the word Islamist on it, which is like saying commie in the 1950s to Jade Goover and And orders went out to get rid of them Terminate them so it was overthrown and with it went the only Stability and hope for for decent government in Somalia Yeah, well don't worry though our government still the champion of the people of Libya at the same time that we're working to back every No matter how ineffectual no matter how ridiculous a government is like the so-called government of Somalia will still do anything But let the people of the country decide Well, we've got this mania about Islamists, and we have to strike back every time we heard the word word Muslim or Islamist this has been the result of of years of Anti-muslim propaganda in the state so Muslims have become the biggest hate figure in society I don't get I mean what are they afraid of that they'd somehow turn the country into Saudi Arabia Then they'd be the perfect puppet dictatorship, right?
Well.
You've got you've got Uneducated people across the states who believes claptrap about the Muslim caliphates, and they're all gonna make us pray to Mecca Etc etc they're really a lot of Americans who believe that but there are a lot of Americans who can't find Canada or Mexico on The map too, so you have to understand that but you know we're at we're here we're we're still raising a hue and cry about the poor suffering Libyan people who are voting who want their freedom and Demanding the overthrow of Qaddafi Hillary Clinton meeting yesterday with with representatives from the Libyan rebels meanwhile often Bahrain we are applauding the arrival of a thousand troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council most of whom were Saudis to put down the revolution of the people who want democracy there Yeah, well, and it gets worse when we get back.
We'll talk about the AfPak war a little bit about the Saudi Monarchy crushing of the protest movement in Bahrain and more with Eric Margulies author of American Raj Eric Margulies calm.
We'll be right back All right y'all Welcome back to the show Santa war radio I'm Scott Horton on the line is Eric Margulies.
We're talking about the revolutions In the Middle East and you know before we move on to Bahrain.
I guess I want to ask you again Something about Libya here Eric We're talking about how it really looks like Qaddafi's coming out ahead in this war As maybe should have been expected or something I don't know But so I wonder what you think Libya is going to look like after because you know certainly he's got bigger problems than he used to Well, you know the the the Turkish Prime Minister Prime Minister Erdogan a man who is really admirable One of the best minds in that whole part of the world And has done wonders for moving Turkey into the 21st century came out with the best solution a proposal He said that Qaddafi should step back from politics.
He can stay on as a leader and his pants and everything else with guarantees of his life, but he should appoint a prime minister with full powers to Manage Libya and deal with Libya's problems in other words He would become more of a figure at which he claims to be anyway since he holds no Official office that's one thing otherwise He'll either go back to being the Qaddafi We love to hate and then put his son Saif with Islam in power Who's not a dope by any means?
Or he some general will come somebody will come and shoot him and then probably there's a general called General Yunus Who's with the rebels in Benghazi and he is certainly a strong candidate to take over but whatever happens?
It doesn't matter because Libya will still go on selling its oil when the dust settles and you know All is uproar about Libya is it's totally hypocritical It's the next person who's concerned about Libyan democracy and people you talk to ask them to name three Libyan cities Yeah, or two Libyan tribes And they will be dumbfounded yeah, well, you know, I want to see universal rights locally enforced everywhere in the world I just don't want America to help that's all because America doesn't help when it comes to that.
I think that's pretty clear as speaking as US military veteran what I would like to see and I'm proud to see is I like to see the US Navy The seventh fleet going to help Japan in the current horrible crisis that it's going through Rather than going and bombing small countries Well, I'm even opposed to that because then that's the first talking point for the imperialists Is that it's all for the good of the world?
All we ever do is help people when a tidal wave hits them when really that's not the purpose of the Imperial Navy at all Just makes for great PR.
It does indeed.
All right.
Well, but anyway, so, um, I Don't know if you saw just Romano had a peace call There's no such thing as Libya anyway or something like that about how this is all post-world war to the legacy of Benito Mussolini's fascism there in North Africa where these two or three separate city-states that had existed since time immemorial were forced together under this King under the You know somewhat under the rule of the Western powers at the end of the war Well, Justin must have been reading my columns again.
He often does that Just kidding I Libya is a recently created state by the imperial powers And it never was a state until 1951 when three regions Tripolitania Cyrenaica and the says on which is essentially desert were kind of merged together It's a great oil stress state much like as Iraq was created this artificial monstrosity to Encompass oil wells and different ends of the company a country So first the Italians took Libya the read that region from the Turks and the Ottoman Turks then and the Italians Brutally ruled Libya.
They were the first people to set up concentration camps in the 1920s and 30s there And they used poison gas against the tribes who were fighting back very brutal and Then the British ousted the Italians in the North African campaign and ruled After the war and put in there a puppet King Idris on the throne until he was ousted by Qaddafi It is said with backing from the u.s.
To get rid of a British puppet so they could put their own American puppet in Libya And but he wasn't such a good puppet after all Well, so do you think that the legacy of that could mean possibly that the East could just secede from Tripoli's control?
It could break up But this is a this is a threat that can hangs over much of the Arab world Which was created by with artificial borders by the imperial powers?
And it is fragile not Egypt that has a complete integrity Maybe not Saudi Arabia, but certainly some of the other countries are fragile the economists once put it brilliantly They called the whole Arab world at tribes with flags And it threatens at any given time to revert to its basic tribalism Now Charles Featherstone was on the show another LRC writer Yesterday, and he said he was hearing that there was a quid pro quo going on and that in order to get the Arab League to you know pretend to independently call for American intervention in Libya that The Obama administration made a deal with the Saudis to go ahead and approve their Invading Bahrain in order to help King Hamad put down the revolution there.
What do you think about that?
I don't know.
I haven't been privy to the power there.
I think what happened was usually do-nothing Arab League roused itself to Call for a no-fly zone or war really against Libya However, it wasn't just Hillary Clinton called them and said hey We need you to pretend to be the pressure from below on this one I I I don't think so, but I can't prove it.
It's just my gut feeling That but what they did was They they said well it provided that the UN Security Council gives approval Knowing very well that it was unlikely that the Security Council would approve it.
So they were off the hook From American pressure.
I'm sure there was a good deal of American pressure to do that Particularly on Egypt which still remains the two-thirds under the thumb of the United States And meanwhile, there's American green light to the Saudis to go and send their army or Bedouin units militia units into Bahrain Yeah, well and speaking of which maybe we can end up just the last minute here So it can you give us a word or two about Bahrain and maybe Yemen if we can squeeze it in?
Yemen is a great worry to the Saudis because there are millions of Yemenis in Saudi Arabia as workers there may even be more Yemenis and Saudis there and they're very militant and it worries the hell out of them Bahrain worries the Saudis because it's a thorn in their side.
It's a Shiite thorn in their side the eastern cities in Saudi Arabia are predominantly Sunni there but with trouble going on there for as long as I can remember And they're afraid that what's happened in Bahrain could spark an uprising in in Saudi Arabia The behind all that is how angry the Iranians gonna get so which by the way Iran says the Bahrain is historically part of Iran And there is Saudis and now almost daring Iran to do something So it's dangerous.
I hope cooler had cool heads prevail in Tehran But you never know this situation could get get out of control and flare up into an actual Shooting war between Iran and the Saudis which immediately would drag in the United States boy, I Think that's what George Washington meant about entangling alliances and stuff and president Eisenhower's Cautions and well, yes, and we're caught in an entanglement that we don't really understand And we should start asking ourselves why we're there to begin with Yeah, well, I don't know about starting But yeah, I guess that's really true for most people Maybe now is the time to begin to ask whether this is all productive.
It's not for oil The u.s.
Is the world's largest oil producer or it has the largest oil reserves in the world still.
That's an interesting point We'll have to pick that one up sometime.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
All right, everybody.
It's Eric Margulies Eric Margulies calm.
Thanks very much
