ROME — Italy is doing business with Libyan military commander Gen. Khalifa Haftar, despite backing his militia foes, in a bid to protect Italian military forces now on the ground in the lawless country.
Italy cooperated with Haftar’s forces this week for the smooth delivery of a shipload of 700,000 barrels of oil by tanker to Italy, said Italian security expert Nicola Pedde.
Italy officially supports Libya’s UN-backed government, as well as militias supporting it, which are in turn hostile to Haftar’s forces and a parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk, which backs the general.
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni warned in March that talks with Haftar were not on the agenda.
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WNU editor: It's all about the oil.
5 comments:
Little Italy has a problem here and a big one at that. When NATO invaded Libya and overthrew Khaddaffi, this created an unstable situation flooding Italy with refugees and those attempting to flee the chaos in Libya.
It really seems anyone with an IQ above 50 should have seen this coming. Libya as a member of NATO should have protested loudly against this action even suggesting that if NATO went ahead with the proposed actions against Libya that Italy would withdraw from NATO forthwith. They didn't do this for reasons only known to them.
"It's all about the oil." While oil is important as it is a vital substance in the functioning of even a semi-modern economy let alone a modern one, there had to be something else at work here. Any nation state would be prudent to do all it can to ensure that it and its citizens have access to a stable and reasonable priced supply of oil and oil related products that are sufficient to meet their needs.
The western European nations had good oil deals with the former Libyan government, had even worked a deal to send the Lockerbie bombers back to Libya in order to cement favorable relations with the former Libyan government in a virtual slap in the face to the United States. and, as I recall, a deal ending Libya's nuclear weapons program was reached. As such, it would have made little sense to sacrifice good oil deals in support of "rebels" who were at best an unknown and at worst Al Qaida and those sympathetic to it.
There had to have been something else at work in the Libyan situation that goes beyond oil or economic interests. It never made much sense and the lack of any meaningful protest on the part of Italy never made any sense as such an operation is obviously going to place them in grave danger and has not only done this but has made it more difficult to procure needed oil supplies from Libya.
A bit off topic but America needs to get out of NATO as well. This "alliance" has vastly negative utility for our national security. For lack of a better analogy, we should ask the nations currently in NATO for a "divorce." In a divorce, sometimes the parties involved are civil and sometimes they are not. While we would prefer for this to be a civil situation, much of that is going to be up to them as to how civil it would be.
In the second paragraph, I meant "Italy as a member of NATO." Also, it should be pointed out as a reminder that the "refugees" were/are invaders and should have been/should be treated as such.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/05/ital-m14.html?view=article_mobile
Jay,
Thanks for the link. Assuming I copied it correctly this discusses Italy's role in the Libyian war as of May 2011.
It is an interesting read. Some of the reasons cited are 1.)protecting Italian influence in Libya, 2.)protecting Italian oil intersts, and 3.)sonething about bourgeois.
Italy and the other EU nations already had substantial influence in Libya, excellent oul contracts, and they had effectively slapped the United States accross the face with the deal to return the Lockerbie bombers to Libya. Additionally Gaddafi had kept uncontrolled immigration under control.
War against the former Libyan government undrmined all of that and now western Europe is worse not only in these areas which would have been easy to predict. Additionally things are worse in areas no one might have predicted such as the contributing role this played in the rise of ISIS. As stated, this operation made no sense whatsoever.
Lybia was an Italian Colony,
Some Italian Politician's and Military members thought they could get it back.
18th Century thinking still persists.
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