Shady Dealings Helped Qaddafi Build Fortune and Regime

Here is a very interesting article from the N.Y Times which I think will be of interest to my fellow ATSers.
(It is dated from March 24th, however my search did not show it to have been posted.)

Sourced article

In 2009, top aides to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi called together 15 executives from global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields and issued an extraordinary demand: Shell out the money for his country’s $1.5 billion bill for its role in the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 and other terrorist attacks.

If the companies did not comply, the Libyan officials warned, there would be “serious consequences” for their oil leases, according to a State Department summary of the meeting.

And they did pay:

Several industry officials and someone close to the settlement, all speaking only on condition of anonymity, said the payments went through but declined to identify the businesses.

Could this partly explain the recent military involvement in Libya? Perhaps the multi-billion dollar corporations have put some pressure on there respective governments to ensure that these "kickbacks" should be halted.

Looking back on the decision in 2004 to resume business dealings, Juan Zarate, a former top White House and Treasury official in the administration of President George W. Bush, said that officials had believed then that the benefits of trying to rehabilitate Colonel Qaddafi outweighed the obvious risks. “It was a deal with the devil,” Mr. Zarate said.

So, at first, as long as money could be made, there was no shame in "dealing with the devil"... what has changed? One factor that has been an important factor in warfare is the potential to freeze your enemy's assets. Considering the U.S.A. is in dire need of liquidity, and Qaddafi's regime seemed to have no lack of it, I am left to wonder if this held any weight in the recent decision?

All conspiracy angles aside, I believe the article is well worth the read, and it definitely shows that the interests involved are definitely not exclusively those of the U.S. corporations.

the Billmeister

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Originally posted by doubledutch
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whiz?