Libya's beleaguered ruler Muammar Gaddafi has resorted to desperate measures in his violent clampdown on pro-democracy protests, further pushing Libya into chaos.
Press TV has conducted a telephone interview with the writer and radio host, Stephen Lendman to discuss the matter further. The following is the rough transcription of what Lendman had to say.
Press TV: Mr. Lendman, will any intervention make the situation any better? It just seems the more we go on, the more defiant Muammar Gaddafi gets.
Stephen Lendman: I think a few points are very important. Number one: Gaddafi is absolutely desperate. Nobody should run a country for over four decades but of course we see in countries throughout the region, Yemen, Egypt under Mubarak, the monarchies in Monaco, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. There's no democracy. You have one party rule. You have people in power and staying there. And I can understand this. I despise what Gaddafi's doing. I mean who can go along with that. But I can understand that somebody who's been in power all this time can't even conceive that tomorrow morning or next week or next month, it will change. Mubarak couldn't see it. I have reports that he's very depressed that he's still alive. Out of office he simply can imagine he's not president of the country and at the same time there's no question in my mind, and I wrote about it and discussed it on my own radio program 'The progressive news hour in America' that Mubarak was poised. Mubarak was poised by an alliance of Washington, the Obama administration, the Pentagon and the Egyptian military. I could see it as it was developing. You could hear it in the US media by the way they covered events. When NATO, when an ally is being attacked, you don't get reports in the US media, they're suppressed. It was wall to wall Egypt when those protests were going on. It's wall to wall Libya now with the protests going on. I smell a rat. Again I despise Gaddafi. Libyans deserve much better than him. They have for many years. But I suspect that Washington is doing the pushing.
I don't agree with Gaddafi in his way of doing things ...he's picking on the wrong people. This has got nothing to do with al-Qaeda or Osama [bin Laden]. Osama died in 2001. He should know that. Or anybody associated with these people. We're talking about the Western influence. We're talking about Washington and I don't know and I can't prove and I could be wrong. But I strongly believe that Washington is doing the pushing.
Press TV: Mr. Lendman, let's just widen the scope a bit and bring in Bahrain. I think Bahrainis are really the people can empathize the most with the Libyans out of all the countries facing protests at the moment. Bahrainis really faced that military crackdown as well alongside their Libyan counterparts. When it comes to a country like Bahrain, the US Fifth Fleet is there. Mike Mullen has just been to the country, basically praising the king for how he has dealt with the protests. What is the Washington factor in a country like Bahrain?
Stephen Lendman: The worst thing in the world for any of these countries is to get meddling from America and Western powers. That is poison. They should avoid that at all cost. Bahrain is very important to America. The fact that the Fifth fleet is there, an extremely important location, besides the region's oil which is very secondary and the country's oil which is very secondary to the fleet, otherwise the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff never would have gone over there. And Bahrain has mostly faded from the news in America. There were reports earlier but there were nothing like the coverage in Egypt and Libya and of course what's going on in Bahrain is going on in Yemen. It's also going on in Algeria.
Algeria has been completely blacked out of the news in America. And there's a lot of violence just taking place in Algeria. They have a president but the president has very little power, Boutafliqa, and the military runs the country. Well, Bahrain is a tiny country and an island but again the US fleet is there and extremely important. I don't expect Americans to send in the marines but they have the US Navy right there. So they can put marines on those ships. If worst came to worst, it is very possible the Americans might intervene.
Press TV: Mr. Lendman, very briefly, when it comes to the US media on the different kind of coverage, what do you think is the deal-breaker... there's a lot of investment in a country like Libya. So why are they covering Libya when they still have a lot to lose and not covering a country like Bahrain?
Stephen Lendman: Well, you have a short-term loss for a long-term gain. The scheme is, as far as I am concerned, also in Egypt is, you get rid of the headman but you keep the regime. So that's exactly what has happened in Egypt and people are back on the streets protesting again. I hope they stay there. I hope they understand they have been cheated. They have gotten absolutely nothing. A military junta will give them no democracy. I mean that is absolutely firm. That's what Washington wants to see in Libya. They want to get rid of Gaddafi, I do believe they keep the regime intact under new people that Washington controls. So again the Libyan people will get nothing whatsoever. I agree on sanctions also on any of these countries sanctions do nothing. Especially to an oil-rich country, nobody knows that better than Iran. You've had sanctions piled on sanctions, piled on sanctions...as long as you have vast oil revenues, what are they going to do? If your main export was broccoli, that would be another story. There's plenty of broccoli around the world and they have got what doesn't come from you if you sent it but oil is another situation.
Oil is valued, especially with what's going on, the threat of some of it being cut off. So oil is valued and the price keeps going up. And of course you bring in more revenues and all the other oil-producing countries do as well. And by the way there are predictions by people who have a little bit of say in this country who think that the price of oil is going a lot higher. And it goes much higher and the problem is short term now. In short term, it would be to throw the world into another recession. But again forget the short term, think the long term. That is the way the strategists here think.
