Smoke rises from burning oil storage tanks in the port of Ras Lanuf, Libya, January 23, 2016.
Credit: Der Spiegel
With two separate governments waging war against each other, Libya is crumbling. Islamic State is taking advantage of the turmoil to put down roots in the country. The US is weighing intervention.
The brass band starts playing. The musicians march along the Corniche, their blue uniforms starched and instruments polished and shining. The foreign minister has arranged for the celebration of several grand openings. Shops and cafés have opened their doors and red-black-green flags have been strung up all over, marking the fifth anniversary of the revolution.
Nothing in the capital city of Tripoli hints that Libya is in the throes of a civil war.
Still, an advance car equipped with a signal jammer that is supposed to block the detonation of any remote controlled explosives drives ahead of the foreign minister’s motorcade. And there are only a few […]
This “disaster” or “crisis” or whatever you want to call it, is nothing more than the product of cold, cruel calculations for revenue growth by those who profit from war and conflict. If we had the societal & political will to remove the profitability from these endeavors, we could wind down the whole sordid machine.