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FOIA'd Email Shows French Motives for Overthrowing Libya [pdf]

40 points by cryoshon 11y ago

rubberstamp 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > 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 11y ago
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_2011_Libyan_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_involvement_in_the_...
bsaul 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
  - s_q_b 11y ago
    (1) Nope, you're correct. "Perfect storm" refers to a confluence of events combining at the same time to create an extreme outcome. Home run generally refers to a singular event of great benefit, an analogy that derives from baseball. Your English is much better than you think, especially with grasping idioms. I've seen worse in HYP writing seminars.
  - bsaul 11y ago
    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.
achamayou 11y ago
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.
irixusr 11y ago
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 11y ago
  "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_exorbitant_privilege http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/an_exorbit... 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-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB...
  - irixusr 11y ago

40 points by cryoshon 11y ago

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 11y ago
> 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 11y ago

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_2011_Libyan_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_involvement_in_the_...

bsaul 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.
- s_q_b 11y ago
  (1) Nope, you're correct. "Perfect storm" refers to a confluence of events combining at the same time to create an extreme outcome. Home run generally refers to a singular event of great benefit, an analogy that derives from baseball. Your English is much better than you think, especially with grasping idioms. I've seen worse in HYP writing seminars.
- bsaul 11y ago
  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.

achamayou 11y ago

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.

irixusr 11y ago

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 11y ago
"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_exorbitant_privilege http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/economic_studies/an_exorbit... 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-idUSBRE92D0PG20130314 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-war-anniversary-idUSB...
- irixusr 11y ago