A prominent American thinker and writer, professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Noam Chomsky, strongly criticizes the Western intervention in Libya, citing as the main reason Libyan oil.
The professor says:
"Last month, at the international tribunal on crimes during the civil war in Sierra Leone, the trial of former Liberian president Charles Taylor came to an end.
Former U.S. prosecutor David Crane told the Times that the case had faults. International prosecutors intended to fine the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi for murder and mayhem of 1 million 200 thousand people, but the U.S., Britain and their allies prevented that.
The former chief prosecutor, US law professor David Crane, informed The Times that the case was incomplete: The prosecutors intended to charge Muammar Gaddafi, who, Crane said, "was ultimately responsible for the mutilation, maiming and/or murder of 1.2 million people."
But he was not charged. The US, UK and others intervened to block it. Asked why, Crane said, "Welcome to the world of oil"."
Noam Chomsky points out that the dimensions of the U.S. defeat in Iraq could no longer be concealed, even though Washington was trying to conceal the truth with nice phrases. Considerations on oil have prompted the West to respond to what is happening in the Arab world.
In Kuwait, small demonstrations were crushed. But protests intensified in Bahrain, especially after Saudi-led military forces intervened to prevent the collapse of the tiny monarchy.
The world primary energy resources happen to be located near the northern Persian Gulf (or Arabian Gulf, as the Arabs often call it), largely Shiite, a potential nightmare for Western planners.
In Egypt and Tunisia, the popular uprisings won impressive victories, but as the Carnegie Endowment reported, the ruling regimes remained in a slightly modified form.
Chomsky notes that the conflict in Libya is a different case. The West prefers to bring to power in this oil-rich country a person who depends on the West.
On March 22, as Gaddafi's forces started to storm the rebel capital of Benghazi, the top Obama's Middle East adviser Dennis Ross warned that if there were a massacre, "everyone would blame the United States for it"-.
The West did not want the strengthening of Gaddafi as a result of the final suppression of the opposition, and therefore imposed no-fly "zone. That prevented to some extent a massacre in Benghazi.
Nevertheless, discussions have started that the Libyan oil may not be the main reason for Western intervention, because the Western countries received oil under Gaddafi, as it received it Saddam Hussein.
The primary reason of the West, as expressed by George Bush, was that "clients, depending on the West" must be in power in the countries of the region.
Department of Monitoring
Kavkaz Center
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