By Eric Margolis
August 27, 2011
".....As a modest historian, I am always delighted when history draws striking parallels. We now see the fascinating spectacle of those old colonial powers, Britain, France, and Italy, starting to move back into their former overseas possessions.
Britain ruled Libya until a young colonel named Muammar Gadaffi overthrew the doddering old British puppet, King Idris. The US lost one of its largest bombers bases at Libya’s Wheelus Field. Neither nation was to forgive Gadaffi.
Imperial Britain had seized Libya from Italy’s fascist regime in 1943. Italy colonized Libya after tearing it away from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Italy used concentration camps and poison gas to terrorize Libyans into submission.
France, whose colonial empire included neighboring Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Chad, and Niger, long competed with Italy and Spain for regional domination. Mussolini’s Fascist regime pressed claims to Tunisia, Corsica, Nice and Cannes....
The big question now is which foreign power will dominate Libya. The United States, which has waged this little war from well offstage? Italy, which gets most of its oil from Libya? France, where President Sarkozy has been hinting at a Mediterranean union – bien sure, under French tutelage?
Oil is a potent aphrodisiac. Libya has vast reserves of premium, low-sulphur oil and gas, and a hundred-year supply of ancient artesian water...."
August 27, 2011
".....As a modest historian, I am always delighted when history draws striking parallels. We now see the fascinating spectacle of those old colonial powers, Britain, France, and Italy, starting to move back into their former overseas possessions.
Britain ruled Libya until a young colonel named Muammar Gadaffi overthrew the doddering old British puppet, King Idris. The US lost one of its largest bombers bases at Libya’s Wheelus Field. Neither nation was to forgive Gadaffi.
Imperial Britain had seized Libya from Italy’s fascist regime in 1943. Italy colonized Libya after tearing it away from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Italy used concentration camps and poison gas to terrorize Libyans into submission.
France, whose colonial empire included neighboring Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Chad, and Niger, long competed with Italy and Spain for regional domination. Mussolini’s Fascist regime pressed claims to Tunisia, Corsica, Nice and Cannes....
The big question now is which foreign power will dominate Libya. The United States, which has waged this little war from well offstage? Italy, which gets most of its oil from Libya? France, where President Sarkozy has been hinting at a Mediterranean union – bien sure, under French tutelage?
Oil is a potent aphrodisiac. Libya has vast reserves of premium, low-sulphur oil and gas, and a hundred-year supply of ancient artesian water...."
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