'Imperialist powers after Libyan oil'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/171646.html

The United States and its allies have launched a full-scale imperialistic war on Libya to usurp the wealthy oil nation and impose the continued new world order, a prominent writer says.

Press TV interviewed writer and author of the Hidden History of Zionism Ralph Schoenman regarding the invasion of Libya and the imperialistic goals of the US, UN and NATO allied countries.

Press TV: I'd like to ask you about what you see as the real intention of this war on Libya? Is it really about Gaddafi and controlling his torture and abuse of his own people?

Schoenman: What nauseating rubbish and nonsense that is. This is a full-scale imperialist assault against Libya. 150 cruise missiles and a billion and a half dollars a month, and full-scale armed assault against the population as such. There are countless numbers of civilians who have already been killed in these bombing raids and it's only the beginning.

It is such utter rubbish to think first of all the number 5 to 6 thousand killed by Gaddafi is a fabrication. There is no evidence for that number. But even granting it, since when has the fate of 5,000 Libyan poor been the slightest concern of the imperialist powers who have only one objective? That is the huge control of the oil and to carve it amongst them and subjugate the Libyan people now as they have before.

You see as we are speaking the Saudi troops' with their Cobra attack helicopters are raining death upon the people of Bahrain.100,000 mercenary forces are there with axes and hatches are attacking the population. The doctors and the surgeons are being rounded up and they are disappearing. Is there the slightest interest or concern on the part of the United States or the NATO powers about this? Well of course not.

The NATO US attack on Libya has as its sole objective first of all to subjugate the popular movement, which had in its origins the desire to gain control of the oil production in Libya, and to take it away from the Mobil and Exxon, Total and ENI to which Gaddafi had handed it to the direction of Condoleezza Rice and Richard Chaney with whom he was with close alliance up to a few weeks ago.

This is an imperial undertaking. Have no doubt about it. The scale of the slaughter, and the intensity of the bombardment, which is aimed at populations on the ground will not spare people in their thousands, but you will see them in their hundreds of thousands. Do you think the 2.5 million people in Iraq died from a moon beam in Iraq and Afghanistan from a crossing of the stars? The US-NATO troops that destroyed those countries are at work in Libya as we speak.

Press TV: US officials have said that UAE has given 12 warplanes on Libyan operations as well as Qatar which has given in a hand as far as the imposition of the no-fly zone goes. What do you make of the involvement of these regional countries with regards to their attacks on Libya?

Schoenman: These are puppet regimes. They are corrupt feudal systems that sit on top of their populations like a great incubus sucking the life out of the population and of the country. They are but crude semi-colonial instruments of US imperialism, and they are doing the bidding. They also have their troops at the moment joined with the Saudi troops using nerve gas, and shooting down people in cold blood across Bahrain. They are seizing the hospital and murdering doctors and surgeons. They are stopping people in the streets, and gunning them down in cold blood. A bloodbath is unfolding across Bahrain. Indeed that is a process in which these very emirates are deeply engaged.

But we should remind ourselves that the location of Bahrain is the headquarters of the 5th fleet, and the national security agency of the British that operated a huge torture apparatus in Bahrain for decades. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, when he flew into Manama, facilitated there the invasion by Saudi troops and the [P]GCC. Now he flies into Cairo, and it's important to understand what he's doing in Cairo. Secretary Gates declared that the duration of the war on Libya is open-ended. It's not time limited he said. There is not current time line in terms of when it may end. So what we are looking at here is a classical imperial intervention.

They are massacring people on the ground. Have no doubt about that. Thousands of pounds of explosives 40 to 90 thousand pound bombs are making round trip flights from Missouri. Cruise missiles and tomahawk missiles that are tipped with depleted uranium, which are highly toxic and caused birth deformities across Iraq. That is the reality on the ground because what they are engaged in doing in Libya is seizing control of the movement that was in opposition to Gaddafi in order to secure NATO, and US control over the 44 billion barrels of oil reserves and the oil wealth of Libya. It is to abort and confuse and contain the uprising in Libya. Not to over throw Gaddafi, but to destroy a popular movement.

The best evidence of that is the highly revealing character of the role of Gates in Cairo. He is the 2nd highest ranking US official to visit the Egyptian capital in the wake of last month's ouster of Hosni Mubarak, and he declares his approval of the post-Mubarak military regime because what has it done? It issued a decree outlawing all protests, all demonstrations, all strikes or sit-ins that disrupt private business or in any way affect the country's economy. This military decree calls for stiff criminal penalties for anyone speaking about such an action: a protest, a demonstration, a strike or a sit-in. The Pentagon Chief stated he was preparing military operations in Libya with filed martial Tantawi the head of the Ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces in Egypt. Do you understand what's at work here?

This is the attempt to destroy the Egyptian revolution, to dictate its outcome, and secure the dictatorship of the rotten military and long collusion with Israel, and the vehicle for 10 percent of the population owning 90 percent of the wealth in Egypt. That is what's going on in Libya. Deploying these counter revolutionary forces to impose imperial destruction of the mass movement in Libya, control of its resources and behind the pretext of seeking to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi.

You will see that they will make a quick deal with most of the elements of the Gaddafi regime who will become instruments of control once again as they had weeks ago for imperialism. It's vanishing [has] little to do with any concern about civilian casualties on the ground because they are killing multiples of people in Libya than they imputed to the regime of Gaddafi himself.

Press TV: Let's look at the UN Security Resolution that was passed by the Security Council for imposing this no-fly zone on Libya. Now it has mentioned multiple times the use of mercenary forces by Gaddafi and condemned it. Now the US is using mercenary forces in Afghanistan, in Iraq and there are reports of mercenary forces in Pakistan as well. Why this double standard on the part of the UN where one ruler is outlawed to use mercenary force and the other isn't?

Schoenman: Truth is only a single standard by the members of these nations that have the same class structure of US imperialism itself, and are its instruments across the world. They did the same thing in Somalia. They invaded Somalia on a humanitarian pretext and started a famine that was caused by US forces themselves, and were destroying the villages and agriculture areas of Somalia when they resisted. Siad Barre was a US puppet at the time the headquarters of the United States embassy was in Conoco, the oil company in Mogadishu. That's the nature of the United Nations' cover for imperial destruction of the nation of Somalia, and to carve up its population into starving remnants so the oil could be secured and seized.

It's the same thing [here] the United Nations is facilitating at this very moment in Libya. Libya is but the vehicle for dictating the outcome of the uprising in Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. As we all know, as we speak in Bahrain, the nerve gas and the chemical weapons, which have been unleashed on the population have US canisters to identify their source.

They are one kilometer away from the 5th fleet from where they have been dispersed. Do you think if the United States had the slightest interest in the fate of civilian populations that they would be standing by while nerve gas and chemicals were being used on the population? Of course they don't have any concerns to stop this because they are the authors of this, and they are the agents of it. They are suppliers of it and they're the commanders of it.

What are we talking about here with this UN pretense of humanitarian concerns with so called no-fly zones which are just a pretext for non-stop, saturated bombing on the ground of forces, of infrastructure, of civilian populations regardless whether they are at the moment supporting Gaddafi or are opposed to Gaddafi they will be equal victims of this.

The name of the game is to impose control and a dictatorial re-reign in Libya that will secure the oil being in the hands of the NATO countries and the United States. That is all that is involved with the United Nation's role in Libya to provide pretense and cover for a ruthless and imperial war that is open ended and expanded far beyond the pretense of the so-called no-fly zone.