Pratique du Shadowing: Libya: How To Kill a Nation - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo
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This video is sponsored by Aura.
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In the morning of September 1st, 1969, Peter Wakefield, Councillor and Consul General of the British Embassy in Benghazi,
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Libya, was on his way to meet with the Libyan Prime Minister to discuss the dire situation in the country
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because of what he considered serious disturbances that were indicative of an imminent coup.
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Thinking aloud on his walk, his thoughts were quickly interrupted by armed men in military fatigues who instead directed him to a radio station in Benghazi.
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Having no choice, he followed.
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Once there, he was introduced to a dapper young man, his words, waiting to announce a momentous change that had just taken place.
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His men were restrained and polite, and he was firmly and calmly in control, orchestrating events with ease.
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The coup Wakefield was adamant in warning his superiors in Britain about had just occurred.
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The history of Libya Much like the rest of the global south, the history of Libya has been one of colonialism, subjugation, and exploitation.
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The one exception in their history being the Jamahiriya era, a period characterized by a populist nationalist movement spearheaded by Muammar al-Qadhafi
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that attempted to tear Libyan wealth away from the colonial hands of Britain, France, and others, and invested back into the lives of regular Libyans.
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Jamahiriya is an Arabic word that doesn't have a direct translation in English, but the closest meaning is government of the popular masses, a term that encapsulated Gaddafi's Libya.
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In 1912, the Ottoman Empire who ruled Libya during this period was rapidly losing influence over its territories
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and was in a general state of decay.
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Italy, seeing this development, defeated the Ottomans in the Italo-Turkish War that same year, after which Italy took over and installed Italian governors in the existing provincial states of Libya.
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Following the rest of European colonial endeavors, approximately 150,000 Italians began to settle in Libya, reaching 20% of the Libyan population at its peak.
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This matter of affairs didn't last though, as following Italy's defeat in World War II, Libya was occupied by the Allies.
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It was administered by the UK until 1951, when the Kingdom of Libya was granted independence by the UN.
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Unsurprisingly, the UK followed their West Asian script and formed an allied puppet government in the country under King Idris.
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In 1959, large amounts of oil were discovered, and almost overnight, money poured into Libya from western capital eager to take advantage of the new discovery.
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Plenty of oil well flowed into the hands of a puppet royal family handing out sweetheart deals to western conglomerates
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while regular Libyans remained poor.
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During this time, in a neighboring country, a young Egyptian officer by the name of Jamar bin Nasr
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heads a group of military officers called the Free Officers Movement in overthrowing the Egyptian king Farouk.
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The success of this revolution was a major milestone for Gaddafi's life
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and helped shape the beliefs he had later espoused in his seminal Green Book, wherein he laid out his political philosophy and his ideas for government.
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Following Egyptian events, the young Gaddafi and many Arabs like him were emboldened by the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis.
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Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, previously jointly owned by Britain and France despite being on Egyptian soil, which angered Western powers since it meant that they couldn't exploit Egypt anymore.
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Egypt was, rightly, flexing its sovereignty.
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This attempt at bettering the lives of the Egyptian people was
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met with a joint British-French-Israeli invasion resulting in what was called the Second Arab-Israeli War.
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The result was a completely unnecessary loss of life, an opportunistic and highly destructive attack from Israel, and the reopening of the canal to business.
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In the Suez Crisis, Gaddafi saw imperialism's barrel aim and fire at Egypt from Britain and France, with the approval of the United States, of course.
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However, he also saw an Arab leader in his country not only resist these powerful nations, but triumph against them, with the help of vocal Soviet diplomatic and coming military support.
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While Israel retreated, they destroyed infrastructure, tore up roads, and destroyed homes in the Sinai and Gaza.
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Some things never change, it seems.
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Regardless, Nasser managed to rise above this challenge, so Gaddafi didn't waste much time trying to follow in his footsteps.
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Back in Libya, Gaddafi was a cadet in the Libyan army, where he gathered around him a group of fellow military officers
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who wished to overthrow the Western-backed monarchy in favor of a republic.
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The organization Gaddafi formed and led was, creatively named, the Free Officers Movement, as a homage to his hero Nasr, and at a school in Musrata, he began planning his revolution.
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He instructed his friend from primary school, Mohammed Khalil, to recruit civilians and to ensure they were their age or younger.
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Gaddafi was to recruit the officers officers.
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Their efforts culminated in 1964 with the first meeting of his free officers organization on a beach in Talmisa, a village in eastern Libya.
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How romantic.
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By 1969, King Idris was very old and had actually attempted to abdicate twice before the revolution, but was convinced by his colonial patrons and local aristocrats to stay in power.
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He wanted him his successor, but it was concluded that any such successor wouldn't last long due to their extreme unpopularity with the Libyan people.
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Rising inequality and dissatisfaction with Idris' corrupt regime was so great
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that Gaddafi's Revolution wasn't the only coup attempt in town, in fact.
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There were multiple mutually exclusive coup plots in the works.
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The CIA and British intelligence assumed the Shelley family, a highly corrupt bunch siphoning off oil wells for themselves, whom King and Dries heavily relied on, would take over.
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And these intelligence agencies secretly supported the motion.
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The CIA always picks the strangest bedfellows, after all.
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All this is to say that the political situation in Libya was fragile and obviously so to any observer.
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So, when Peter Wakefield radioed back to Britain that there was a coup in Libya and that the leadership had officially changed, The only surprise was that it was Gaddafi and his group that ended up in power.
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Gaddafi didn't let anyone know the date of the revolution for fear of foreign intervention, though it could have been assumed as King Andres was away on a diplomatic visit to Turkey in early September,
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and unsurprisingly, the revolution took place on September 1st.
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70 men of the Free Officers Movement scrambled to take over the various government posts.
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Almost everything went wrong.
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Radios didn't work, drivers weren't posted in the right places, Some of the guns didn't even have ammunition, but through providence and luck, it worked out in the end for the revolutionaries.
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After two hours, Benghazi was in their hands.
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Over the next few days, the rest of Libya enthusiastically joined the bloodless revolution.
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Back to video in just a second.
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When dust settled following the coup, the Shelley family went on a global tour trying to start foreign intervention in Libya to lukewarm reactions.
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The new Libyan administration wasted no time in expelling foreign troops and forcing multinational oil companies to submit to their authority.
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Growing up, Gaddafi's family was very poor, and he became the first in his family to be literate.
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In spite of this experience, however, he developed a distinct view of the working class different to Marx, Lenin, and Mao.
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All attempts at unifying the material base of a society in order to solve the problems of government, or at putting an end to the struggle in favor of a party, class, sect, or tribe have failed.
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All endeavors aimed at appeasing the masses through the election of representatives or through parliaments have equally failed.
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continue such practices would be a waste of time and a mockery of the people.
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To say that Gaddafi's philosophy was or wasn't socialism is difficult because Libyan development swung wildly during the various decades.
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What can be said is that his ideas don't centralize on the working class
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and instead took a more typical post-colonial nationalist approach.
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Despite this, the Libyan population was slowly proletarianized and made significant gains under Gaddafi.
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Attacks on the bureaucracy, the reorganization of industry along cooperative of lines and the abolishment of private, not personal property all took place,
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but his philosophy can be better described as an emancipatory democratic nationalism.
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This democratic aspect refers to the form that takes place in his Green Book, a particular form of direct democracy.
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It is meant to hand power over to the people entirely, with more horizontal structures, while not entirely eschewing hierarchy.
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The direct authority of the people shall be the basis of the political system in the socialist people's Libyan Arab Jamal Hariyyeh.
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is vested in the people, who alone shall have such authority.
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The people shall exercise their authority through people's congresses, people's committees, syndicates, trade unions and professional leagues,
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and the general people's congress." The people's congresses comprise the most innovative aspect of Vadafi's notion of government.
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While the structure may appear chaotic and complicated, it's actually pretty easy if they are conceptualized as layers of an onion rather than a strict vertical hierarchy.
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The one similarity his government has in common with liberal republics is separating government powers into three distinct bodies, those being the local committees, people's congresses, and executive revolutionary councils.
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From these political bodies, the will and need of the people was ascertained, debated, and made law.
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The purpose of this process was to give the people direct control over all decisions of the state, including the ratifying of treaties,
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creating economic policy, and passing laws governing all aspects of public policy.
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In practice, these three bodies worked in an interlocking manner, such as that responsibility increased at each level.
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Local committees comprised the largest base of political participation and power.
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It was through these 800 local committees that the needs and will of the people was collected and catalogued.
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All Libyans were allowed, encouraged in fact, to participate in these local committees.
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It provided the average Libyan the opportunity to have their voice actually heard, unlike in representative systems where the voice of the citizen is
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collapsed into the action of the vote at some regularly defined interval.
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One important aspect of these local committees that must be mentioned is
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that despite the ridiculous propaganda that painted the Dhaf is a dictator that wielded an iron fist, Gaddafi's proposals and ideas were subject to similar criticism and rules as those of others,
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though not always to the same extent.
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Two particularly good examples of this happening are
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when Gaddafi proposed ending the death penalty and when he advocated for switching the educational system over to homeschooling.
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Both of these proposals were rejected by these committees and therefore the proposals never made it to the next level of consideration.
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The People's Congresses Now, the People's Congresses were bodies composed of persons elected, or elevated to use the constitutional term, by the 800 local committees.
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The people that were elevated to them didn't engage in traditional electoralism, meaning no candidate campaigning, etc. These are the legislature of the government,
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since these bodies wrote the laws based on what came out of the local committee votes.
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This second level is interesting since it challenges Gaddafi's view that true democracy exists only through the direct participation of the people, and not through the activity of their representatives,
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since those who are quote-unquote elevated to the People's Congress are there to do a single job, to enact the will of the communities via coordinated action with others.
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That's the complexity of governance in a nutshell, I guess.
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At the final layer of this lovely onion, the core, are the Executive Revolutionary Councils.
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These councils were elected from the People's Congresses
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and tasked with the implementation of the laws and politics passed by the People's Congresses.
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Unlike other executive branches, the Executive Revolutionary Councils were accountable only to ordinary citizens that could be recalled at any time.
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Constructed this way, it's clear that the intention was, and in many cases actually was, for power to really lay with the people as a whole rather than a particular group.
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Of course the system wasn't perfect, but it was a relatively successful experiment with direct democracy given the beginning material circumstances,
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imperialist interference in Libya's internal affairs as well as Western support for counter-revolutionary elements in order to destabilize the country.
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Additionally, Western commentators during the era made legitimate criticisms of the system regarding attendance, initiative to speak up, and sufficient supervision.
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Now, the point of any good revolution is to improve the material conditions of the people.
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How does this look like for the average Libyan?
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Almost immediately upon seizing power from the monarchy, Gaddafi threw out the imperialist foreign oil companies and nationalized industry.
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As a result, every Libyan citizen had proceeds from oil sales directly deposited into their bank accounts.
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Prior to the revolution, education and healthcare were luxuries for the poor and rural populations of Libya.
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It cannot be overstated how important it was then that the revolutionary administration nearly immediately made all education and healthcare free.
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In fact, if you didn't get a job upon graduation, the government would pay you the average salary of that profession till you found employment.
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These two social benefits had an immediate and drastic impact, improving the lives of Libyans overnight, historically speaking.
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And Duffy likewise introduced a litany of changes aimed at helping women including, but not limited to, Equal pay for equal work, cash bonuses for children, free daycare,
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employment and income support, and retirement at the age of 55.
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In fact, Libya's record on women's rights was so good
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that the United Nations Human Rights Council praised Libya for the progress and success of women's rights during the Jamaat-e-year period.
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The revolution, the resolution of the Methodist Revolution, of course, has had a little on any of his own current compatriots.
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So far we spent most of the time talking about the early Jamaah-Riye before the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan became president of the US.
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From that point, since every single American president, whether Democrat or Republican, led America's direct multi-decade bipartisan attempt at destroying Libya
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and returning its people to a state of slavery to Western foreign policy and capital interests.
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Libya could be considered the first beginning of the meme, if your country has oil, the US will invade.
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Obviously, the US didn't do what they did in Iraq or Afghanistan, but they did everything just short of that.
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Oil, however, in Libya's case, isn't just a cover for the true reason the West hated Libya.
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Haddafi uplifted the poor at the expense of Western profit.
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In fact, a solid case can be made that it was oil capitalists
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that actually shaped US foreign policy towards Libya following the 1969 revolution.
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Just prior to Reagan's election, under Democrat Jimmy Carter's regime, Libya was added to the state sponsors of terrorism list in 1979.
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Probably using this move under his predecessor as part of the justification, Reagan's administration began pumping out propaganda against Gaddafi and Libya.
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The great tradition of labeling enemy governments and their leaders with a childish insult certainly didn't start with Reagan, but he definitely lowered the bar when he referred to Gaddafi as a mad dog.
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Overname calling was the least of Libya's worries, since it was also under Reagan that senseless and extremely harmful economic sanctions began to be imposed in 1982.
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These sanctions, while harsh, don't compare to the beginning of military action against Libya using
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dubious claims of fighting international terrorism to justify NATO forces bombing Benghazi and Tripoli, of course in an operation named El Dorado Canyon,
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continuing the American tradition of giving the stupidest possible names to their operations.
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Anyways, in the mid-1980s, the US and Israel teamed up to train a group of Libyans to be an insurgent, Western-friendly force in the country of Chad.
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In the years between 1986 through the First Gulf War, Libyans were blamed for two terrorist attacks by the US and France respectively.
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Pan Am Flight 103 in Lockerbie, Scotland, and Flight UTA-772DC in Niger.
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It's difficult to give credence to these claims and the investigations that preceded them, but both acts were said to be in retaliation for illegal military action taken by the US in France against Libya.
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Additionally, Libyan foreign policy on Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, namely that the US shouldn't intervene, started ruffling the feathers of Saudi Arabia, among other Gulf states.
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Simultaneously, Libya became the first Arab state to use the production of oil and its pricing as a weapon against Western aggression.
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In 1992, the US cajoled the United Nations Security Council to pass Resolution 748, which imposed an air and arms embargo, banned the sale of oil equipment,
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and demanded Libya stop and I quote, supporting terrorist groups.
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Those conveniently being any group or nation, the US arbitrarily deems as a terrorist group.
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Of course, never their allies, no matter the atrocities they commit.
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Unfortunately, cracks began to appear in Libya's commitment to anti-capitalism, under intense pressure from various vectors, when it was forced into liberalizing its economy in the late
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1980s to the detriment of the quality of life of Libyan people.
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The trend would never meet the ravenous appetite of oil-crazed capitalists, but the IMF started with the privatization of many state-owned and cooperative enterprises.
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Throughout the rest of the 2000s, Libya's sovereignty was chipped away at by Western vulture capital, by non-stop privatization and IMF loans.
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Do you have thoughts on who might succeed you?
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I gave up power or authority since 1977.
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Ever since that date, I am not in power anymore.
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So you are not the leader of your country?
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I am the leader of the revolution, not the leader of the country.
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Before we discuss how the overthrow of Addafi happened, we should quickly discuss the involvement of the CIA in the lead up to and during the coup, as well as their involvement in the famous Benghazi incident,
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because it offers good context and background for the coup.
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One frustrating aspect of researching CIA operations is the lack of specificity and tenuousness of connections, they often leave room for plausible deniability.
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Unless there's a leak, there's rarely a direct paper trail to a person or group involved with the CIA.
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However, in a 2012 article published by the New York Times, they mentioned that the Obama administration secretly approved arms shipments to Libyan and I quote,
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rebels via secondary nations, an unambiguous admission.
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These shipments were supervised by the CIA, who only had a small number of operatives in Libya at the time.
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The New York Times article in question only mentions this in
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the context of blaming these secondary nations for arms falling in the hands of jihadis.
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Interestingly, in 2014, the United States sued an arms dealer licensed by the US
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State Department who had previously unquestionably worked for the US government
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through the Central Intelligence Agency for lying about an effort to
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arrange for the eventual transportation of $267 million worth of weapons into Libya in 2011 with the, and I quote, assistance of foreign governments.
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Now, I wouldn't normally bring something as esoteric as this, but it implies the lawsuit was a smokescreen
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and they were throwing an arms contractor under the bus for mistakes made by the CIA.
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The specific legal document used for the source of this lawsuit is the initial motion to compel discovery filed by the defendants.
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Turns out, the US government was stubbornly withholding evidence by claiming it wasn't relevant to the case.
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All this is to say, it's very clear the CIA was heavily involved in the coup and played a crucial role in arming people on the ground.
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February 2011 was the beginning of the end for Gaddafi and the admirable experiment in democracy of and for the Libyan people.
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Protests against Gaddafi and the government, the origins of which are still obscure, are claimed by imperial-friendly sources as being against the regime and to demand justice,
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economic reforms, and the resignation of Gaddafi.
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We all know that the US, via the CIA, has a long and storied history of overthrowing governments they didn't like
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or saw as a threat to the domination of the US as the world hegemon.
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They stuck to a true and tested way of overthrowing unfriendly or undesirable governments.
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The general formula is, back-exiled or underground right-wing groups slash government personnel, claim the US
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or its allies are standing up for the rights of the people of another country via a Western-friendly rebel group, and claim that the people are being oppressed by the government or leader the US doesn't like.
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In the case of Libya, this is summed up brilliantly by Obama when he said in a speech, Today we are part of a broad coalition, we are answering the calls of a threatened people,
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and we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.
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What Obama didn't tell the American people about this operation was
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that the CIA and NATO had been on the ground laying the foundation by courting disaffected or opportunistic military personnel, arming citizens ostensibly opposed to Gavdafi,
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as well as drawing new plans for the private Western exploitation of Libyan oil.
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The US and the sources for this video use the word rebels to refer to these two amorphous groups.
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Rebels conjures an image of at least one coherent organization of some size with a political philosophy opposed to
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that of the government of power, basically the opposite of the facts on the ground in Libya.
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This was an amalgamation of loosely associated anti-Gaddafi people.
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However, it wasn't until March, well after the uprising began, that the leadership council was formed following the merger of local rebel groups.
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Calling themselves the Transitional National Council, they declared themselves the rebellion's official leadership, both civil and military.
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They also claimed that they would provide services in areas they held and would guide the country's transition to democratic government.
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While this organization's leadership is of dubious representational value, since it wasn't democratically elected, this is ultimately who the CIA would be supporting until the cessation of hostilities.
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But we are left wondering, who were they?
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The TLDR is opportunists within the Gaddafi government who saw the writing on the wall, asserturped organizations, foreign fighters, a good chunk of them actually being foreign fighters,
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foreign-trained exiles, and those that were swayed by propaganda for the benefit of Western capital.
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That's with the CIA, but what about NATO?
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NATO was given authorization from the UN Security Council to create a no-fly zone over Libya in March 2011, one month after the unrest began in order to protect civilians from airstrikes,
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something never done for protesting people and nations friendly to the US, interestingly enough.
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NATO's military role was to support the TNC by destroying equipment, depots, and resources used by the Libyan army via airstrikes.
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NATO officials made it very clear in the press
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that they wouldn't put troops on the ground and insisted they'd stick to deploying strike aircraft, spy planes, and unmanned drones, which executed many bombing runs over the course of the war.
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Of course, this isn't true, and they did indeed have troops on the ground.
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There were military
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and civilian advisors from Britain assisting the rebels by providing real-time
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intelligence who would go on to stay in the country after the coup to guide events of the new government.
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Britain, France, and Italy also sent in special forces troops to provide logistical support, damage assessment analysis, and forward air controllers.
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Unrest would continue throughout the year with firefights, skirmishes, and full battles between so-called rebel forces, the NATO-backed TNC, and the Libyan military throughout the country.
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From approximately March to August, TNC forces would make steady and substantial progress, reaching the capital, Tripoli, on August 22nd.
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Then, a wrench in the works.
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A complex and highly dangerous situation.
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Outside, an anti-American protest.
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Then, a group of heavily armed militants, approximately two dozen of them, launched an attack firing rocket-propelled grenades.
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An attack, timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9-11, militants attacked the U.S consulate and a heavily armed CIA compound operating a mile away.
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One often overlooked aspect of this infamous operation is
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that it is a perfect example of the iron grip the CIA has on the supposedly free American press
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and how it was used to shape the narrative for the purpose of upholding appearances.
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Bastions of the liberal press such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press were told in advance of the CIA's role in and response to the attacks,
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but, and I quote, agreed to a request by the CIA not to make that information public.
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By deceiving people into thinking that the attack in Benghazi was an attack on American democracy, they could obscure the fact that it was actually an attack on the CIA's illegal presence in Libya,
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and by extension, an attack on U.S imperialism.
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However, the attack wouldn't be enough to put a dent in the gains made by NATO-backed DNC forces
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or the US's support of them.
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Throughout late August and early September, the TNC secured Tripoli and cleared any remaining pockets of Libyan army forces
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and began transferring the operations of the government over to the TNC with British oversight.
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Then, on September 15th, less than a month since the TNC reached Tripoli, the UN recognized the TNC as the legitimate government of Libya.
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For all intents and purposes, September 15th is the official end of what's come to be known as the First Libyan Civil War.
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To quote an expert in the field, It is probable that without the NATO airstrike supporting the rebels,
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they would not have been able to advance West and Gaddafi's forces would have ultimately retaken control of eastern Libya.
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After NATO airstrikes targeting and successfully killing members of Gaddafi's family, including his grandchildren, NATO bombers targeted Gaddafi himself, killing at least 53 people in the process.
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Gaddafi was captured on the 20th of October, 2011, tortured and then killed.
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On display in a local market, his body remained for four days, as mourners from all across the country poured in to pay their respects.
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The resulting government formed by the NATO-backed TNC was extremely weak and struggled to create a functional government, unsurprisingly.
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However, the independent rebel militias, those not within the TNC coalition, were suspicious of members of the new government.
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These particular militias were mostly located in western Libya, and the newly formed government in eastern Libya didn't have much input from those in the west.
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The TNC ordered these militias to disarm, which they refused, and new conflicts began.
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then.
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Healthcare collapsed, economic activity ground to a halt, and open-air slave markets opened up to the glee of NATO, who declared it mission accomplished.
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With the evil of Addafi out of the picture, instability became the new norm.
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This isn't what the West had in mind, or so they say, but it's what they always cause when meddling in another country's business.
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This instability made investors nervous, which meant that there was far less foreign participation in Libya's economy than was hoped for.
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Furthermore, foreign businesses complained about an unpredictable investment climate, low levels of rule of law, and inadequate infrastructure in a recently war-torn country.
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These really are ghouls.
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Obviously, social and military instability in a country makes for a bad economy.
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We have more examples of this phenomenon happening right now.
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However, neoliberal think tanks did their due diligence and studied the post-2011 Libyan economy.
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One report in particular is equal parts honest, unintentionally funny, and mask off about the rentier economy and state welfare that the people had under Addafi.
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And I quote, The traditional role of state welfare has not been transformed.
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A number of ordinary Libyans have become accustomed to a distributive state
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and associate the greater reliance on the private sector after 2003 with the inequities this produced.
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The payments indicate the difficulties for an oil state to avoid using public funds for temporary political goals.
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So much going on here, but it's obscured by the obfuscating jargon of pseudo-intellectual neoliberal think tanks.
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The passage starts by stating that the state welfare system
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that existed under the tyrannical rule of Gaddafi was largely intact because the people have come to, understandably, rely on these funds.
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In short, the welfare system that they had was good, actually, and they'd like to keep it.
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The last sentence in this passage goes on to refer to the system as using public funds for temporary political goals.
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The spin here is very naked.
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They're just saying the people, not our companies, were getting the revenue from their country's oil resources.
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Which, strictly speaking, is true, but they think that's a bad thing.
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I don't.
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The revenue from the national resources of Libya isn't some charitable hand-up.
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It is the Libyan people's wealth, literally.
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It wasn't a temporary political goal since it was actually a foundational element of the revolution in 1969 that, by their own admission, has lasted unbroken since then.
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That's like saying freedom of speech in the US is a temporary political goal.
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Well, it actually might be.
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Despite expectations that oil companies, especially from the US, would descend on Libya to take advantage of the new neoliberal government, this didn't entirely happen.
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Generally, there weren't any major shakeups in contracts made during the Gaddafi government era, and according to Peter Kenyon of NPR in November 2011,
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American companies were actually lagging behind both European and Turkish companies by quite a bit.
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Why?
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The answer isn't flashy and actually repetitive at this point, but the instability caused by the coup and its consequences prevented the proper business environment from forming.
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Don't get me wrong, Libyan oil is now mostly back to enriching Western corporate interests and their local collaborators, just not to the extent that they had hoped for.
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Okay, so what should we take away from all this?
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Libya managed what it did near the height of US hegemony and power, with access to vast oil resources.
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These natural resources were torn from Western capital and its local allies and were handed to the Libyan people.
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This was met with the usual resistance and violence of capital, particularly with the usual sanctions and economic interventions made to discourage industrialization in countries that have natural resources.
299
This prevents them from developing true economic independence, which is a prerequisite for resisting foreign intervention.
300
Finally, through decades of destabilization, the interests of capital triumphed over an otherwise proud nation, overthrowing their leadership and plunging Libya into over a decade of instability,
301
loss of economic development, and life.
302
The Libyan examples, successes, and failures provide us many valuable lessons in the struggle for emancipation from capitalism towards a better future, and it's up to us to neutralize them for the future.
303
That's all for this time, if you like what I do then please consider supporting me on Patreon, it really does help.
304
I'd like to thank my patrons, so thank you too.
305
Thank you.
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Vocabulaire et conseils d’expression pour cette leçon
Cette leçon d’expression orale de niveau C1 s’appuie sur la vidéo « Libya: How To Kill a Nation ». Les mots qui reviennent le plus souvent : Libya, Libyan, Gaddafi. Cette vidéo contient 305 phrases et 5477 mots à répéter en shadowing. La partie parlée dure 29:55. Le locuteur parle vite, environ 183 mots par minute : attendez-vous à des liaisons et à des sons réduits. Seuls 77 % des mots font partie des 3 000 mots les plus courants en anglais, le vocabulaire est donc exigeant.
Vocabulaire clé de cette vidéo
Les 15 mots les plus avancés de la vidéo, avec leur prononciation et leur sens :
| Mot | Prononciation | Sens |
|---|---|---|
| rebel nom | /ˈɹɛb.əl/ | rebelle |
| aura nom | /ˈɔːɹə/ | aura |
| overthrow verbe | /ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/ | renverser, déposer |
| instability nom | /ɪnstəˈbɪlɪti/ | instabilité |
| elevate verbe | /ˈɛləveɪt/ | élever |
| sanction nom | /ˈsæŋkʃən/ | approbation, validation |
| unsurprisingly adverbe | sans surprise, comme on pouvait s'y attendre | |
| militia nom | /məˈlɪʃə/ | milice |
| dubious adjectif | /ˈdu.bi.əs/ | douteux, dubitatif |
| imperialist nom | /ɪmˈpɪəɹiəlɪst/ | impérialiste |
| nationalize verbe | /ˈnæʃənəlaɪz/ | nationaliser |
| opportunistic adjectif | /ˌɑ.pɚˌt(j)uːˈnɪs.tɪk/ | opportun |
| privatization nom | /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/ | privatisation |
| endeavor nom | /ɛnˈdɛv.ɚ/ | effort, entreprise |
| interestingly adverbe | de façon intéressante |
Les verbes à particule que vous entendrez
| Mot | Sens |
|---|---|
| take over verbe | reprendre |
| give up verbe | se rendre |
| grow up verbe | grandir |
| hand out verbe | distribuer |
| opt out verbe | se désengager |
| run over verbe | renverser |
| sign up verbe | inscrire |
| turn out verbe | se finir, se terminer |
La grammaire de cette vidéo
Les structures que le locuteur utilise le plus, avec les mots exacts de la vidéo :
| Structure | Dans la vidéo |
|---|---|
| Voix passive be + participe passé — l’accent est mis sur ce qui arrive, pas sur qui le fait | is sponsored · was introduced · were restrained |
| Present perfect have/has + participe passé — une action passée qui compte encore maintenant | has been · have failed · has not been transformed |
| Propositions relatives who / which + proposition — une précision sur une personne ou une chose | those who are · independence, which is |
Prononciation à surveiller
Le locuteur utilise 44 contractions et formes réduites, comme didn't, wasn't, isn't. Prononcez-les sous leur forme courte, telles que vous les entendez.
- Les sons « th »: overthrow /ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/
- Les sons « sh » et « zh »: sanction /ˈsæŋkʃən/, militia /məˈlɪʃə/, nationalize /ˈnæʃənəlaɪz/, privatization /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/, shipment /ˈʃɪpmənt/
- Mots longs — placez bien l’accent: instability /ɪnstəˈbɪlɪti/, imperialist /ɪmˈpɪəɹiəlɪst/, nationalize /ˈnæʃənəlaɪz/, opportunistic /ˌɑ.pɚˌt(j)uːˈnɪs.tɪk/, privatization /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/
Les sons difficiles pour les francophones :
- /r/ anglais — langue recourbée, sans frotter la gorge: rebel /ˈɹɛb.əl/, aura /ˈɔːɹə/, overthrow /ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/, imperialist /ɪmˈpɪəɹiəlɪst/, privatization /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/
Comment s’entraîner avec cette vidéo
- Écoutez la vidéo en entier une fois sans parler et notez les mots que vous ne connaissez pas.
- Commencez à la vitesse 0,75×, répétez phrase par phrase, puis revenez à la vitesse normale quand cela devient facile.
- Enregistrez-vous et comparez avec l’original, en faisant attention à des mots comme rebel, aura, overthrow.
Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?
Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.