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US aims to drown ME protests in blood

A political activist says the US is using humanitarian aid to Libya as a pretext for military intervention, its core intention being to abort the revolutions and to “drown the protests in blood.”

In an interview with Press TV, author of The Hidden History of Zionism Ralph Schoenman warned that any form of intervention on the part of imperialist powers only aims to subjugate the people of the region.

Press TV: For protesters, who have to face the protest, who have had to bury their dead, and have had to face live fire as they walk to the mosque, is it understandable that they would be angry when Robert Gates comes to Bahrain in the middle of chaos and supports King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa?

Schoenman: The Al Khalifas have been the creatures of Washington for the longest of times and they are the lynchpin as you say, not merely of the fifth fleet but of command headquarters of US intelligence in the area. Specifically the Saudis have Special Forces already prepared to intervene in Bahrain and have sent over 30 tanks across the causeway into Bahrain. It’s important to understand as well that in the province [of] Katif, the Saudi regime has condemned any protests, because there is a general uprising beginning in Saudi Arabia itself.

I should also point out that the daily Independent reports the United States’ secret plan to arm Libyan rebels with Saudi arms. Saudis are air-lifting weapons to Benghazi, because what is at stake of course for the US in its intervention with Libya is to cease control of the popular upraising and to demonize their most recent client, Muammar Gaddafi.

Muammar Gaddafi had as his chief publicist and ally, known as the prince of darkness, Richard Pearl and all of the project for New American Century calling for US military intervention, were in fact the ardent allies of Gaddafi since 2003 when 306 major factories were privatized when the oil companies Exxon Mobile, Chevron, and notably Repsol in Italy were put in the control of the oil in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi was personally rewarded, according to the Italian press, with five percent shares in Fiat.

Gaddafi since 2003 has been their man in Tripoli. Specifically in 2006, Condoleezza Rice issued a joint statement in conjunction with Gaddafi. So we have to be very clear about this. The uprising against Gaddafi, who has supported other dictators in the region, is being deployed as a pretext by US imperialism to intervene, to cease control of that uprising, to put its forces on the ground to dictate the outcome of the uprisings in Egypt, in Saudi Arabia potentially, in Bahrain today and across the region.

Press TV: Is this the case that the US is damned if they do and damned if they don’t? When they don’t act, there’s criticism that they’re not doing anything. As soon as they take action, they’re criticized for interfering. What is exactly expected of them?

Schoenman: One percent of the population owns more than 95 percent of the rest of us combined in the US. This is a tiny capitalist ruling class that exerts imperial hegemony over people of the world. In the Arab east, semi-colonial country-selling regimes have been imposed of boarding the anti-colonial revolution and these regimes brooded torture centers. In Egypt, 100 families own 90 percent of the wealth. In Libya, there is 30 percent unemployment now and an 85 percent increase in basic food stuffs in a country with 6.5 people and huge oil wealth with 7.2 billion [barrels of] oil reserves, greater than those in Saudi Arabia.

The United States rulers are not in any doubt as to what their intent is. They are looking for as John Kerry has said, as McCain has said, as Hillary Clinton has stated, seizing the opportunity and pretext for intervening militarily on the ground, first in Libya to control the outcome and to prevent the oil workers of gaining control of the oil in Libya and for imposing another country-selling regime on the pretext of opposing Gaddafi, who they have supported.

One important point; do you really believe that the imperialism of the US having killed 2 million people in Iraq and half a million in Afghanistan cares about the fate of a thousand Libyan poor? That is a pretext! Humanitarian aid! It has to do with imperialist desires to put troops on the ground in Libya to dictate the outcome in Egypt and Saudi Arabia as Admiral Moen, John McCain have stated explicitly.

Press TV: Will these in the end be complete revolutions. Will regimes change or just regime amendments?

Schoenman: Any military intervention under any pretext. Its main purpose is to subjugate the people and to inflict a massacre and a dictatorship, yet again. In Egypt, the emergency laws remain yet intact, in Egypt the military command is in place. It’s just cosmetics on the corpse with the removal of Mubarak, but the workers’ movement brought down Mubarak through its strikes across the country. And the six-point demand of the steel workers in Egypt points the way for the whole region; constituent assembly, social ownership of the means of productions, workers’ control. Those are the demands of a revolutionary movement and that is the essence of independence in the region.

Revolution has only just begun. It’s unfolding; it’s developing its own program and leadership. And the US is desperate to abort it, desperate to drown it in blood, under whatever pretext, including the pretext of humanitarian aid to Libya, as it cedes to subjugate the people and to establish a beach head for military intervention in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, and Egypt.

Yet again, any intervention on the part of imperial powers has only the intention of subjugating the people, and drowning their protests in blood. Oppose it, resist it. The resistance in Egypt and the region speak to the people of the world, as in Wisconsin, and in France and Italy.

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