Thursday, August 24, 2017

Giorgio Cafiero and Elaine Miao — Libya’s Role in the Polarized Sunni World


Backgrounder. MENA is much more complicated than it portrayed in the West. The reasons that the West is there at all are oil and gas, and Israel.

Lobelog
Libya’s Role in the Polarized Sunni World
Giorgio Cafiero, CEO and founder of Gulf State Analyticsa Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy, and Elaine Miao, contributor to Gulf State Analytics

3 comments:

Kaivey said...

It must be terrible living in the ME countries that the US has caused proxy wars there. Ordinary people have probably had their homes and businesses destroyed. Bandits and muslim extremists everywhere pretending to be fighting for god but all really after the oil. Death threats and protection rackets are probably a way of life.

They say that Gaddafi left no culture in libya, but he kept the waring factions apart, even if his regime was brutal in doing so.

We don't know how ordinary Libyans feel, maybe they have all become jihadists.

I live in a nice London suburb right on the Green. I can't imagine bandits and armed terrorists going about my street threatening everyone.

You would think that living in a resource rich country would make the people wealthier, but the ruling elite have no intention of sharing anything with anyone, and then rich westerners come along and buy into it so that own much of it in the end.

This is the pretence Western capitalism. Capitalism makes sense on the micro level with small businesses creating jobs and wealth, but on a macro level you end up with few very wealthy people owning half the world so that people born in resource rich countries end up living in terrible poverty. No one cares.

But Gaddafi shared the Wealth with the people and his banks were publically owned, not controlled by westerners, and that was unacceptable to the ruling elite in the West. Civil war and burning cities were a better option to them. While they are out on their golf courses they don't care.

Matt Franko said...

"I live in a nice London suburb right on the Green. I can't imagine bandits and armed terrorists going about my street threatening everyone. "

Give it a little more time....

Kaivey said...

Yeah, you're right there, Franko. If you read Mike Norman's blog regularly you know there is real evil in the world.