It’s not a coincidence or some accident that the “rebels” identify themselves by flying the flag of the “old” country of Libya.
Libya is a country made up of around 140 distinct tribes of various origins. The Senussi tribe of Eastern Libya used to rule the country under the leadership of King Idris I. King Idris had fought against Italian occupation and during World War II fought with the British to oust the Italians from Africa. As a reward for his support, England backed the creation of a United Kingdom of Libya uniting Tripoli and Benghazi – with Idris as the king, ruling from the capital in Benghazi. Idris lead a monarchy, not a democracy.
As a bonus, Great Britain and the United States operated air bases in Libya under King Idris – those same bases that John Kerry wants to bomb.
USAF Wheelus Air Base was located in Tripoli, along the coast, NorthEast of the city.
British al Adam Base – now called Jalal Abdulnasir Base (See: Gamal Abdel Nasser) – each year Libya celebrates Evacuation day – the day in 1970 when the British abandoned the base. Nassser had ended the monarchy in Egypt, and nationalized the Suez Canal – he didn’t like the idea of the British having a base in Libya in his back yard. al Adam was in the desert, south of Tobruk – which is a small town in Eastern Libya, a few miles in from the Egyptian border. It had been built to allow Allied bombers to bomb Italy.
The Modern History of Libya (Google books)
In 1969, the young Muommar Quadaffi led a coup, throwing the King into exile in Egypt (the King died in 1983). Tripoli, contrary to media reports is not the “capital” of Libya. Gadaffi created a highly decentralized government, putting power into the hands of 20 “General People’s Committee secretariats” – the only central government function located in Tripoli is the Foreign Ministry and the Department of Information.
Being a socialist, one of the things he felt was important was that the tribes around the country all share in the oil wealth – King Idris had steered most of the country’s wealth to Benghazi and his Senussi tribe. Much of the country’s wealth under Quadafi has been spent building the Man Made River to construct a water distribution system from the Nubian Acquifer in the South Sahara desert to provide reliable clean water to the coastal cities of Libya.
That “redistribution of wealth” is a lot of why the “rebels” from Benghazi want to topple al Qaddaffi. It’s no coincidence that they first thing they did was declare that the Eastern Oil Company (Sirte Oil company) is now their oil company, not Libya’s. They are running around with pictures of King Idris and waving 40 year old flags. The University of Libya stands on the grounds of Al Manar Palace, the palace of King Idris.
It’s not about “democracy”. It’s not even about Islam. It’s about the oil money and century old tribal conflict in Africa.
History matters. Media doesn’t – without context.
Bravo Art.
Thanks for the good research.
One of the European news services was kind enough to make a map showing all of the air bases in Iraq, and a count of how many of each type of aircraft Libya has. On the map, it showed one really remote airport as perhaps being important.
If you don’t have vacation plans yet for this summer, consider visiting Ghat, Libya. It’s a very very old city. It is located on the ancient trade route from West Africa to Tripoli – crossing the Sahara desert. It’s surrounded by hills. At last report, the city had one hotel and was believed to maybe have a restaurant Google Maps/Earth shows lots of curious things in the area. It looks like a decidedly unpleasant place.