
FOIA'd Email Shows French Motives for Overthrowing Libya [pdf] - cryoshon
https://www.foia.state.gov/searchapp/DOCUMENTS/HRCEmail_DecWebClearedMeta/31-C1/DOC_0C05779612/C05779612.pdf
======
bsaul
I find it quite disturbing that not a single allegation is properly sourced.
"According to knowledgeable individuals" means absolutely nothing. Not a
single journalist would dare make such accusation on such a thin basis,
especially since what follows are not facts but opinions. We don't even know
if those individuals are close to the french government or to some faction in
libya.

I sincerely hope foreign usa foreign policy is based on more solidely grounded
analysis.

~~~
babebridou
To be honest, as a French person I didn't see anything new in this cable. None
of this was secret, it was pretty much the official stance, except stripped of
the humanitarian aspects such as the ongoing civil war and repression or the
Arab Spring.

It feels like Hillary's advisor was merely watching French TV and transcribing
what journalists and politicians said publicly. The mention of Bernard Henri-
Levy proves it. When you sum up a geopolitical situation in a few sentence,
you don't waste any explaining BHL is a "semi-joke", unless your own knowledge
is cursory.

With regards to the French population, you have to put it in context (April
2011, see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring)
). The Arab Spring was still going "smoothly" elsewhere, and we were all
watching Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and Algeria where things were handled
"more or less peacefully" back then, at least to the French eye. Qadaffi's
repression, on the other hand, was violent from the get-go.

It was a perfect storm (1) for Sarkozy, as on top of the things mentioned in
the cable, he had to prove that he was serious with his Mediterranean Union,
and more importantly he had to disprove the allegations that Qadaffi financed
his election.

Wether it was the right thing to do or not, I personally have no idea, but it
was pretty much a no-brainer at the time for France to distance itself from
Qadaffi during his civil war, and fuel the opposition.

(1): unrelated, but maybe I should have said "homerun" in this case? My
English fails me.

~~~
bsaul
As a french person, i beg to differ. The only publicaly stated reasons for the
intervention was humanitarian, to prevent kadafi from decimating his own
population. You could read other opinions on various newspapers, but nothing
really based on facts, only more or less valid assumptions depending on your
political background.

~~~
babebridou
That's true for the most part, I mean, the government obviously didn't mention
some of the things that are in the cable unless they deliberately wanted to
shoot themselves in the foot, but the news would systematically feature pieces
about Qadaffi's awkward presence on Bastille Day along with the oil, gold and
silver.

My point is that the cable was nothing more than a short compilation of common
knowledge and hearsay, like you said, "more or less valid assumptions" that
you could easily get by switching radio channels a few times during your
tuesday morning commute.

------
irixusr
We shouldn't get upset. Karma is a &itch. Look how much fun France and Europe
is having with all those hungry masses flowing in.

Nor should we surprised

France allowed her colonies independence (without a bloody fight she was
certainly going to loose), on the condition that they used the franc
(technically the convertible franc).

This would enable France and French companies cheap access to African
resources, that is continue what colonialism had been doing <\- stealing
African resources to subsidize France.

Also, it would prop up the franc as France continued to print money to finance
her welfare state (not a judgement on the merits of a welfare state, just a
fact that the French weren't taxing enough to afford it).

We shouldn't be too hard with the French though. The Americans largely do the
same (see how quickly the leader of an oil producing country is deposed is he
declares to ditch the dollar). The Brits gave their empire to the Americans to
piggy back off this.

~~~
falsestprophet
_" The Americans largely do the same (see how quickly the leader of an oil
producing country is deposed is he declares to ditch the dollar). The Brits
gave their empire to the Americans to piggy back off this."_

This petrodollar conspiracy is baffling.

Countries don't hold dollars primarily to buy oil.

The oil and gas industry is only about 4.6% to 6.5% of the global economy.

Countries hold reserve currencies to manage the exchange rate of their
currency. Petrodollar conspiracists would be well served by learning about
foreign exchange reserves.

See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-
exchange_reserves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign-exchange_reserves)

And in any case, only 65% of foreign currency reserves are in the USD.

Furthermore, research shows that being the world's primary reserve currency
affords the United States negligible advantage: 0.3 to 0.5 percent of US GDP
in a normal year.

See:
[http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/an_exorbit...](http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/an_exorbitant_privilege)

Compare that to the costs of "deposing the leader of an oil producing
country": $6 trillion for the Iraq war or about 36% of GDP

See: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-
idUSB...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-
idUSBRE92D0PG20130314)

~~~
irixusr
"is only about 4.6% to 6.5% of the global economy."

You think that's a trivial amount? 4 to 7 % of _all_ human activity is oil or
gas? That includes agriculture, weapons consumer goods, all construction, all
construction materials, all other mining, all electronics, all automotive, all
other energy, all entertainment, all education, all communications, all
pharmaceuticals, all illegal drugs, all human trafficking, etc.

 _just_ 4 or 7%? !

As to the Petro dollar conspiracy,i didn't talk about that (not in regards to
the dollar anyway), just mentioned the longevity of those who walk away from
the buck.

But you brought up some numbers...

To your point that trillions were spent on Iraq, you're confusing the time
line. In 2003 we were told, the war was going to cost a few hundred billion.
And that the Iraqis, so grateful to their liberators, would pay for it with
their oil.

Didn't pan out, it never does, but our actions can only be based on our
current beliefs, not our future ones. We thought the war would be short and
free (remember Bush's "mission accomplished" photo op in 2003).

0.5% of the American GDP is 90 billion, with an NPV of 36 _trillion_
(calculated using the, admittedly the current 0.25%). Chump change indeed.
That's a tremendous amount of wealth.

As to the foreign exchange, 65% are U.S. dollars, while the U.S. is less than
one fifth of the world economy. Bit of an unbalance, no ?

------
achamayou
This only shows what someone (an analyst ?) in the State Department thought
were the French Motives for Overthrowing Qaddafi (one overthrows a ruler,
government, not a whole country).

Whether he was correct or not isn't very easy to establish, given the absolute
lack of supporting information on most of these points.

Re-asserting the position of the French military is far fetched, for a
president that cut its budget and size very significantly. Similarly, claims
about influence do not seem particularly credible given the utter lack of
follow up and French presence in the country after Qaddafi's death.

The only credible point really is c., a desire to improve his popularity at
home.

------
rubberstamp
France is a democracy, but this still happened. Would the French people allow
their president to go to war over reasons stated in this cable, if such a
permission was needed? This is what secrecy brings.

French military didn't had to assert any position in the world. Every
country's military is in a good position to give each other hell.

Did Nicolas do France any good with this decision? A little may be, by taking
some of libya's oil resources. Did he do world any favour? No

~~~
JabavuAdams
> Did Nicolas do France any good with this decision? A little may be, by
> taking some of libya's oil resources

Net loss. Libyan arms are destabilizing the whole Maghreb. Look at Mali.

------
binarray2000
Funny thing is that this document - incidentally? - says nothing about US
involvement in the war in Libya.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_involvement_in_the_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_involvement_in_the_2011_Libyan_Civil_War)

