The U.S. government cannot confirm rumors circulating online that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is dead, a senior U.S. official told NBC News, after oil traders cited a rumor that Gaddafi had been shot as reason for falling oil prices.
Rumors swirled Thursday that Muammar Gaddafi, pictured here speaking last week, had been shot. |
Asked if Washington had reason to believe that Gaddafi, who is seeking to crush protests against his 41-year rule in the oil-exporting North African nation, was dead, the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "No."
Traders also cited earlier reports that Saudi Arabia was in talks with European refiners to make up for the loss of Libyan crude and rumors of a possible release of U.S. emergency oil stockpiles as weighing on oil prices.
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Another rumor posted on this otherwise very good blog.
ReplyDeleteGaddafi did some good things with the nationalization of the oil industry and attempts to distribute the oil incomes a bit more fairly amongst Libyans.
ReplyDeleteHe was always a bit of an Ego tripper and attempted to fight both western Imperialism as well as fight Communism by ‘inventing’ his own “third” radical Muslim socialist way .
Neither fish nor fowl he always appeared a little crazy.
As they say one mans terrorist is another countries freedom fighter.
While the west still coddled up to Apartheid for example ,as Mandela still points out South Africans have deep respect for the Man as he was always a supporter of anti racist Democracy in south Africa during the dark times.
Perhaps he even supplied some arms and ‘terrorist” military training for the Blacks in South Africa and Rhodesia ?
He was even reported to have shipped arms to the Irish IRA
And he was not to keen on Israeli Euro-colonialism .
For third world people these were seen as his merits . An arab leader in a country different from the usual Arab reactionary puppet regimes .
Like the Saudis and later the bought of Egyptions
For westerners these acts were seen as his Terrorist crimes.
This radicalism and search for radical alternatives to solve third world peoples problems with Neo-colonialism bought him into conflict with western imperialism as a supporter of anti-colonialist Terrorism .
Seen as a little crazy it was easy for the West to blame him for terrorist crimes he may not have actually been responsible for ,like the Lockerbie plane destroyed by a planted terrorist bomb.
This acts led to economic sanctions and blockades by America and its western Allies.
But Gaddafi was always able to maintain good relations with its principle market for its oil and Gas Italy despite blockades and sanctions.
In recent years after paying “compensation” and giving up his “weapons of mass destruction” and nuclear programs, Libya was put off the official Terrorist country list Gaddafi now was a man US Imperialism could do business with!
Sucked back into the system after years of pressure the old radical was tamed and the as the opportunities for corruption for Gaddafi and his family expanded . Gaddafi himself turning into a slightly mad or eccentric ex radical revolutionary poser, with nothing revolutionary to do, but now feted by the west as a responsible if dotty servant.
The west would have liked to see stability with a smooth dynastic transfer of power to a less eccentric son in the traditional Elite Arab way.
Every person has his or her contradictory aspects and good and bad points.So to with the life of Gaddafi.
Perfection is hard to find.
What he said x 2
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