Flashback: U.S. Military Intervention in Libya Aimed to Squelch Gold-Backed African Dinar

Failed Empire – by Andrew B., May 18, 2011

Wars are never actually fought for the reasons sold to the masses:

Some believe it is about protecting civilians, others say it is about oil, but some are convinced intervention in Libya is all about Gaddafi’s plan to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency made from gold, a true sharing of the wealth.

Gaddafi did not give up. In the months leading up to the military intervention, he called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create this new currency that would rival the dollar and euro. They would sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars.

It is an idea that would shift the economic balance of the world. …

And it has happened before.

In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars. Some say sanctions and an invasion followed because the Americans were desperate to prevent OPEC from transferring oil trading in all its member countries to the euro.

A gold dinar would have had serious consequences for the world financial system, but may also have empowered the people of Africa, something black activists say the US wants to avoid at all costs.

Embroiled in wars of aggression throughout the Middle East, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would accept the standard rhetoric about protecting human rights and promoting democracy as motivation for our latest war in Libya.  But judging by the absence of protest in the United States, and the sheer lack of meaningful coverage in the MSM, it would appear that most Americans have bought the fictional narrative.

The prospect of Gaddafi attempting to create an alternative, gold-backed currency would certainly have frightened Western powers, as the current system of profiteering is heavily based on the worthless dollar – a fiat currency.  It seems entirely plausible that the true motivation for the invasion of Libya may well have been this fear of an independent African currency.

We cannot say with any degree of certainty that this was, in fact, the main motivation for the invasion.  What we can say without question, however, is that the official line of promoting human rights and democracy is an absolute farce.  War is a business venture, and it is not undertaken without specific lucrative goals in mind.  Libya’s vast oil reserves undoubtedly played a role in the U.S. decision to invade, but oil in itself is unlikely to offer a strong enough incentive.  If that were the case, after all, why haven’t we attacked Venezuela?

In order for a military intervention to take place, there must be a veritable witches’ brew of temptations, which make the potential fruits of aggression so great that the corporate warlords simply cannot resist.  In Afghanistan we had the Trans-Afghanistan natural gas pipeline, the trillion-dollar mineral reserves, and the option of having a permanent U.S. presence is such a strategic geopolitical location.  In Iraq we had the world’s second largest proven oil reserves and the opportunity to cement U.S. hegemony in the Middle East with the construction of military bases on the scale of small cities.  And in Libya, of course, we have oil reserves, a strategic location and now, it seems, the grave necessity to crush a move towards African independence and the undermining of the dollar as a global benchmark currency.

Don’t buy the lies, folks.  U.S. military intervention is always about material and political gain, and never about ideals.

Failed Empire