Libya Not an Oil War? Star Wars Syndrome has set in

Short after Obama's statement that there'd be "no boots on the ground" in Libya it was revealed that there were, indeed, boots on the ground. CIA had agents there, training the "rebel forces", and probably funnelling funds and arms into the country. We can safely assume they had agents in the country long before the public reports about an uprising.

It qualifies as a military presence: The largest growth in the US military sector has been in the clandestine units. As I've written before, Libya is a pilot, a proto-type of a new type of remote warfare combining the US Military Academy's doctrine of psychological warfare with extended use of the NATO arm, along with Predator strikes.

The reports of 6,000 killed by Ghadaffi loyalists, the presence of African mercenaries and grotesque Viagra rape incidents are sorely lacking evidence, particularly since increasingly larger parts of the American and British news agencies have been enrolled in or infiltrated by clandestine services since the days of "embedded journalism."

Only if you take at face value claims made by the same media and the same officials and pundits who sold us the Osama bin Laden spectre, the invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq, there's reason to put absolute faith in the early reports about Ghadaffi's massacres.

Let's not speak too soon, because the wheels are still in spin. New rports indicate that the narrative around the NATO campaign is so vulnerable, volatile and insincere there's a need to silence dissent with in the ranks of independent journalists in Libya.

Just Another Oil War, and You Got Suckered Again

"This is not another oil war", even progressives rant. How can it be an oil war? Western companies already had access to Libyan oil.

Well, there's an understatement. Just short before the UN resolution Ghadaffi was best friends with the West. Back in the days media report after media report highlighted how Ghadaffi had changed, demolished his WMD programmes, apologized for aiding terrorists and submitted to the ways of the West.

Ghadaffi was being remodelled. In fact, his son Saadi Gadaffi, captain of the Libyan national soccer team, signed a contract with the Italian Peruggia. He was formerly on the board of the Italian team Juventus, of which 7.5 % is owned by a Libyan consortium.

But conveniently, just as the final move to put to rest the dubious saga of Osama bin Laden, Ghadaffi is recast for the role as arch-villain in the fastest humanitarian intervention in the history of UN.

We're back to Lockerbie references, and Ghadaffi who was once an entertaining character with an impressive track record of stabilizing the African nation and securing housing, decent wages and women's rights, is all of a sudden one of the prime evils, a dark Lord of Sith with a poor taste in clothing.

All of his comments are bizarre, and "murderous" is an adjective that must be used even by critics of the NATO campaign, unless you prefer "mad dog."

The problem was not bad ties to the West, or lack of acess to Libyan oil fields, which account for 2 percent  of the world's crude, but has an exemplary rate of production and flexibility.

The problem was a massive Sino-Russian presence limiting that access, but even worse, pressing the Western oil companies and threatening Chinese dominance of the courted African oil reserves.

The gains made by the Russian and Chinese oil companies have been lost in the process, as NATO gets ready to set up shop.

ENI leads the new race for the oil rights. The intervention effectively resets the competition. US and European troops are ready to exploit whatever opportunity they would get to move in.

Bretton Woods Suits Move in: Worse Than Boots

And after the uniforms, as always, follows the suits. Libya, like Egypt, will be offered a substantial package of "loans and grants" to be administered by IMF and her policies will effectively be directed by Western powers.

It's already happening with the frozen capital of Ghadaffi, which will be paid be paid back under certain conditions.

In Egypt, most notably, it took place three days after the opening of the Rafah passage. Loans and grants were generously offered by Western nations, but Rafah was shut down by the transitional military regime after pressure from Washington - Knesset was concerned that it broke the Gaza Strip Siege.

That's how the ball rolls in this game. The first winners are Exxon, BP and Chevron. The losers are China and Russia.

To paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, war is an extention of business. It's not only about full access rather than competition about rights and prices, which strengthens Libyan sovereignty and their ability to negotiate and prosper from oil revenues internally, but also about crude prices in general.

Just like ignorant people said that the marginal oil output of Iraq was not enough to justify suspicions of an oil motive, they're out with the same argument in the case of Libya.

But Libya like Iraq is among the major oil producers, and the resumption of the country's oil production is expected to put downward pressure on crude oil prices. The point of the Western policy towards Libya is to "return" the prices to lower levels than before the conflict, not the same.

That can only be achieved through a relatively controlled destabilization of the Libyan society.

The big question for those with a humanitarian streak is if Libyan sovereignty will benefit from the NATO-rebel coopration. Will the public economy of Libya be allowed to remain stable under the Bretton Woods?

Will women enjoy equal or higher rates of education, employment and emancipation under a new regime?

Will the Western oil companies pay signficiant dividend to Libya as a nation, and will the average Libyan benefit from the oil revenues in the shape of reasonable real wages and secure housing programs?

Movie Programming Exploited in War Propaganda

Knowing the agenda of the neo-liberal West and the history of IMF, the notion is almost laughable. Add to that strong Al Qaeda presence in the rebel forces, and the real threat of a reactionary backlash, and you got an unsustainable situation in which the people of Libya will suffer more.

Libya is the latest example of Blue Screen Politics, the latest chapter in the long and dramatic saga of Middle-Eastern super-villains against the noble Jedi Knights of the West.

The images of Ewoks and Chewbaccas fighting around places with colorful names like Ras Lanuf has wiped out the last remaining critical sense in the mainstream of Western news audiences.

They are suffering Star Wars Syndrome.

Star Wars Syndrome: Buying into political rhetoric and nomenclature designed to trigger subconscious stereotypes and emotions about a conflict embedded through popular movie franchises like Star Wars.

Soon we will soon here regrets from the progressives, and those who backed the operation will conveniently forget that they were the ones drumming up the excitement.

More call-backs on early reports indicating that the massacres were perpetrated by rebel forces directed by CIA, and that people on the street expressing disappointment with the fruits of the "revolution".

When do we see the first "we were better off under Ghadaffi report?" The bookmakers are already opening up for bets.