Libya’s incoming strongman Haftar will send the oil out to Europe

Libya’s incoming strongman Haftar will send the oil out to Europe—and keep its migrants in

European values are fairly clear: they want oil to travel northward, not people. Haftar, at the cost of the Libyans themselves, will make that happen.

by Vijay Prashad

You can well imagine the tension when Libya’s beleaguered Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj met with the UN envoy Ghassan Salamé in his office in Tripoli on Monday morning. Not far away, in the south of Libya’s capital, the troops of the Libyan National Army led by General Khalifa Haftar had made rapid advances. They had taken the shell of Tripoli International Airport and had made a dash toward the road that links Libya to Tunisia. Haftar’s troops, well-armed and well-disciplined, had moved northward toward the Ain-Zara neighborhood. On Monday, Haftar’s air force bombed the only working airport in Tripoli—at Mitiga. The United Nations wanted to let al-Serraj know that it would not abandon him.

Part 1 - Khalifa Haftar

It’s hard to follow the ins and outs of Libyan politics, particularly given the fragmentation of the country after the NATO war in 2011. NATO hit Libya very hard, destroying what institutions remained.

As soon as the bombs started falling, General Khalifa Haftar departed for Benghazi (in Libya’s east) from his home in Virginia, just a 10-minute drive from CIA headquarters.

Haftar had been a senior general in the army of Muammar al-Gaddafi, and it was Haftar who had led the charge into Chad during that ill-fated war in 1987. Haftar defected to the United States, dashed out of Libya with his family and arrived in Virginia. The United States government essentially gave Haftar exile status, keeping him in cold storage for when he might be useful. But Haftar was in for a surprise.

The U.S. government led by Barack Obama thought that it controlled the situation in North Africa, when in fact it was flat-footed. Obama’s team felt that it could continue to support Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak even after Egypt’s military had decided to do away with him.

In Libya, they felt that their man—Haftar—would be able to take the reins and seize Libya for the United States. But when Haftar arrived in Benghazi, he found that the Gulf Arabs—notably the Qataris—had already chosen the next leader of Libya, their banker Mahmoud Jibril. The United States and France bombed Libya to a crisp and Qatar won the initial prize, with Jibril as the head of government.

Libya fell into the worst of the rivalries of the Gulf Arabs. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—with their close friend Egypt—had a grand falling out with Qatar—and its close friend Turkey—in 2014.

Egypt and the UAE, as well as Saudi Arabia, had already decided that Haftar would be their man against Qatar’s Jibril. The Egyptian and Emirati bombers gave Haftar air support as they continued his brutal war in Benghazi and then as he attempted a failed coup in Libya in 2014. Haftar appeared to the Saudis and the Emiratis as the Libyan version of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Haftar saw that el-Sisi was given a long leash, not only by his Gulf Arab allies but also by the West, which said nothing about the human rights violations inside Egypt. If el-Sisi can get away with it, Haftar surmised, so can he.

Source:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/04/08/libyas-incoming-strongman-haftar-will-send-oil-out-europe-and-keep-its-migrants

[2] [3]

Comments

Capitalism & Genocide - Yanis Varoufakis Speech at the Gaza Tribunal, 23rd October 2025, Istanbul

Yanis Varoufakis On 23rd October, Yanis Varoufakis testified in front of the Jury of Conscience in the context of the Gaza Tribunal. His speech focused on the economic forces underpinning the genocide of the Palestinian people. In particular, he spoke on the manner in which capitalist dynamics have historically fuelled the white settler colonial project and, more recently, how the accumulation of a new form of capital - which he calls cloud capital - has accelerated, deepened and amplified the economic forces powering and propelling the machinery of genocide.

Gaza 2 Years On: Yanis Varoufakis & Katie Halper on the Flotilla, Israel's PR Machine & What’s Next

DiEM25 Two years since October 7, Katie Halper (‪@TheKatieHalperShow‬) and Yanis Varoufakis join host Mehran Khalili to break down Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the latest on the flotilla, Israel’s influencer PR push, and the “peace plan”.

The Rise of the Thielverse & the Surveillance State

The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel Whitney Webb traces the Thielverse’s rise and the construction of the bipartisan modern surveillance state that Trump and his benefactors are deploying against dissidents and immigrants today.

Freedom Flotilla Coalition & Thousand Madleens to Gaza sailing to break the siege

Freedom Flotilla Coalition The next wave is already being prepared, help us buy the boats and get them ready to sail!

World leaders rebel against US & Israel: to save Gaza, they demand international intervention

Geopolitical Economy Report Leaders from dozens of countries condemned the USA and Israel in their speeches at the UN General Assembly, demanding international intervention to save Gaza. Diplomats staged a mass walkout to protest Netanyahu's speech. Ben Norton shows how Latin American governments are standing in solidarity with Palestine.

Προβλέψεις ...

GR elections Update (15/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το δεύτερο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 28-30% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 2,5-3% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (11/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το πρώτο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 25-28% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (04/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (29/8): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 4-4,5% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 4-4,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update : Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 26-27% ...

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...

The REAL reason why Trump is attacking Latin America

Geopolitical Economy Report The Donald Trump administration seeks to forcibly impose the US empire's hegemony in Latin America, waging war on Venezuela, imposing sanctions on Colombia's President Gustavo Petro, hitting Brazil with tariffs, and meddling in Argentina's election. Ben Norton explains how Trump and Marco Rubio are trying to cut off all western hemisphere ties with China and Russia, bringing back the colonial Monroe Doctrine, now known as the Donroe Doctrine.

Will Mamdani manage to liberate New York from brutal neoliberalism?

globinfo freexchange Fifty years ago, New York City was on the verge of collapse . The politicians who run the city had borrowed more and more money from the banks to pay for its growing services and welfare. But in the early 70s, the middle classes fled from the city and the taxes they paid disappeared with them. So, the banks lent the city even more. But then, they began to worry about the size of the growing debt and whether the city would ever be able to pay it back. And then, one day in 1975, the banks just stopped. The city held its regular meeting to issue bonds in return for the loans, overseen by the city's financial controller. The banks were supposed to turn up at 11 a.m., but it soon became clear that none of them were going to appear. The meeting was rescheduled for 2 p.m. and the banks promised they would turn up. What happened that day in New York, marked a radical shift in power. The banks insisted that in order to protect their loans, they sho...

How Western media helped build and then protect the Israeli narrative that allowed a genocide to continue

globinfo freexchange For two years, Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in 4K on all of our screens. And for those same two years, many of the Western media institutions meant to hold power to account chose silence, distortion and doubt. Newsrooms repeated Israel's allegations with no pushback, ignored the evidence of genocide even as it played out live. This isn't a story about bias or mistakes. It's a story about how Western media helped build and then protect the Israeli narrative that allowed a genocide to continue. So, how many Palestinian lives have been lost because the world's news outlets chose to repeat Israel's narrative instead of questioning it? From the earliest days following October 7th, Israel's talking points were treated as fact. The now disproven claims of 40 beheaded babies and the story that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields revived with every bombing of a hospital or school despite the mountain of evidence that it...

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog