The Cynical Dance Macabre

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL

Havana, February 23, 2011, 7:42pm

The policy of plunder imposed by the United States and their NATO allies in the Middle East has gone into a crisis. It has inevitably unraveled with the high cost of grain, the effects of which can be felt more forcefully in the Arab countries where, in spite of their huge resources of oil, the shortage of water, areas covered by desert and the generalized poverty of the people contrast with the enormous resources coming from the oil possessed by the privileged sectors.

While food prices triple, real estate fortunes and the treasures of the aristocratic minority reach millions of millions of dollars.

The Arab world, mainly Muslim in its culture and beliefs, has seen itself additionally humiliated by the imposition of blood and fire by a State that was not capable of fulfilling the basic obligations that were part of their origin, from the colonial order existing up to the end of WW II, by virtue of which the victorious powers created the United Nations Organization and imposed world trade and economy.

Thanks to the treason committed by Anwar El-Sadat at Camp David, the Palestinian State has not been able to exist, despite the UN treaties of November 1947, and Israel became a strong nuclear power, an ally of the United States and NATO.

The US Military Industrial Complex supplied Israel with tens of billions of dollars every year as well as to the very Arab States that were submitted and being humiliated by Israel.

The genie has escaped from the bottle and NATO doesn´t know how to control it.

They are going to attempt to wrest the most benefits from the regrettable events in Libya. Nobody can know at this moment what is happening over there. All the figures and versions, even the most implausible ones, have been spread by the empire via the mass media, sowing chaos and disinformation.

It is obvious that inside Libya a civil war is brewing. Why and how did this happen? Who will pay the consequences? Reuters Agency, echoing the opinion of the well-known Nomura Bank of Japan, stated that oil prices could go beyond any limits:

“‘If Libya and Algeria suspend oil production, prices could reach a maximum of more than 220 dollars a barrel and OPEC´s inactive capacity would be reduced to 2.1 million barrels per day, similar to levels seen during the Gulf War and when values touched 147 dollars a barrel in 2008’, the bank asserted in an article.”

Who could pay that price these days? What would be the consequences in the midst of the food crisis? The main NATO leaders are all worked up. British Prime Minister David Cameron, ANSA informed, “…admitted in a speech in Kuwait that the western nations made a mistake in backing non-democratic governments in the Arab world.” One has to congratulate him on his frankness.

His French colleague Nicolas Sarkozy stated: “The extended brutal and bloody repression of the Libyan civilian population is disgusting”.

Italian Chancellor Franco Frattini stated as “‘believable’ the figure of one thousand dead in Tripoli [...] ‘the tragic numbers shall be a bloodbath’.”

Hillary Clinton stated the following: “…the ‘bloodbath’ is ‘completely unacceptable’ and ‘it has to stop’…”

Ban Ki-moon spoke: “‘The use of violence in the country is absolutely unacceptable’.”
“…‘the Security Council will act according to whatever the international community decides’.” “‘We are considering a series of options’.”

What Ban Ki-moon is really hoping is that Obama pronounces the last word.

The president of the United States spoke this Wednesday afternoon and stated that the Secretary of State would be leaving for Europe in order to agree with their NATO allies on the measures to be taken. On his face once could note the opportunity to spar with John McCain, the far-right-wing Republican senator, pro-Israel Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut and the leaders of the Tea Party, in order to ensure the Democratic Party demands.

The empire´s mass media has prepared the terrain for action. There would be nothing strange about a military intervention in Libya; besides, with that, Europe would be guaranteed almost two million barrels of light oil per day, unless before that events would put an end to the leadership or the life of Gaddafi.

Anyway, Obama´s role is rather complicated. What will the reaction of the Arab and Muslim world be if blood should flow in abundance in that country as a result of that exploit? Would NATO intervention in Libya stem the revolutionary tidal wave surging in Egypt?

In Iraq, the innocent blood of more than a million Arab citizens was spilt when the country was invaded under false pretexts. Mission accomplished!: proclaimed George W. Bush.

Nobody in the world would ever agree with the deaths of defenseless civilians in Libya or anywhere else. And I wonder: will the US and NATO apply that principle on the defenseless civilians that the unmanned Yankee planes and the soldiers of that organization kill every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan?

It is a cynical dance macabre.

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 23, 2011

7:42 p.m.

The Plan is to Occupy Libya

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL

Havana, February 21, 2011, 10:14 pm

The nature of a capitalist system depends upon the institutional framework that supports and shapes it.

Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world. It was their main weapon when they decided to easily liquidate the Cuban Revolution as soon as the first just and sovereign laws were passed in our Homeland: depriving it of oil.

Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed. Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price. The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.

At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields of Iran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them. These became the main suppliers. World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added. Until the beginning of the twentieth century, coal had been the basic source of energy that made industrial development possible, before billions of automobiles and engines consuming the liquid fuel were produced.

The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.

When our Revolution arose, Algeria, Libya and Egypt were not yet oil producers and a great part of the abundant reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and the United Arab Emirates were still to be discovered.

In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and the United Kingdom, conferring fame and glory on Generals Erwin Rommel and Bernard L. Montgomery.

Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert. Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas. Such riches allowed it to reach life expectancy that is almost at 75 years of age and the highest per capita income in Africa. Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.

Libya, which had a million inhabitants when it attained independence, today has somewhat more than 6 million.

The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.

The inhabitants of that country have age-old warrior traditions. It is said that ancient Libyans were a part of Hannibal’s army when he was at the point of destroying Ancient Rome with the troops that crossed the Alps.

One can agree with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media. One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya. For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.

Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolas Maduro when he literally stated that he was “wishing that the Libyan people would find, in the exercise of their sovereignty, a peaceful solution to their difficulties, that would preserve the integrity of the Libyan people and nation, without the interference of imperialism…”

As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.

An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.

The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it. We must condemn it!

Fidel Castro Ruz

February 21, 2011

10:14 p.m.