Libya is a war by foreign oil companies to grab the largest oil and water reserves in Africa and stop the funding of African self determination. 
Libyan oil profits didn’t go to private corporations, like most countries, but instead funded huge public projects which enriched all of Africa: 

(1) African satellite (saving all of Africa huge fees for European satellite); 


(2) The Great Man-Made River (African water self-sufficiency where Libya-Eygpt-Sudan would  surpass Israel as regional agriculture giant and be the breadbasket of Africa); 


(3) African Development Bank (replacing World Bank; with pro-African development loans);


(4) the gold dinar (a single African currency made from gold that would replace the American dollar due to its basis in gold, a true sharing of the wealth” that would shift the economic balance of the world. Arab and Africa nations would use a currency based on African gold that would free the world from rule by American dollar/Wall Street and British Pound/London’s banking elite). 


(5) African Union (African wide legislative body seeking to end AFRICOM, U.S. military bases in almost every African country, and end foreign-funded attacks on sovereign African countries seeking to use their own natural resources for their own, local development).

This attack on Libya was a huge attack on Africa and everyone (from America to Somalia) seeking to curb rapacious U.S.-EU global corporations from plundering the world.

The National Transition Council are much less democratic than Gadhafi. Gadhafi turned Libyans from among the poorest in Africa to the very richest in Africa thanks to nationalizing the oil, building the greatest water system the world has ever seen, and implementing free education, healthcare, housing and jobs. Libya under Gadhafi had greater freedoms for Christians, Jews and women that almost any other Muslim country, and less scapegoating against oppressed minority’s like LGBTI folks and Sufis. 

That is why it took massive NATO boots on the ground and billions of U.S. dollars worth of military might to overthrow Gadhafi and the majority of the Libyan people. 

The imperialist group of NATO-EU-U.S. has taken over Libya– and in doing so a lot of the basis for African self determination. The “rebels” look like no other countries rebels, they are young men with shiny uniforms playing with guns–not regular Libyan people. Not the women and children that are core for any real rebellion.

Libyan people, many American do not support this re-colonialization of Africa and your precious, sovereign resources. Our U.S. media lies about our daily struggles against our own societal elite (Wall Street, corporations, banks; their use of police to stop peaceful protest).  We carry you in our hearts in our protests (OccupyTogether.org & OccupyWallSt.org).  Your capture by our rulers takes our best hope away for a better world, and we are devastated.

The assertion that “the problems are internal and the solutions external” as a “secularized 19th century approach” is wonderful.

“If violence, no matter how relentless, is always issue driven, then you realize internal and external faces for both problem and solution.”

A powerful frame for looking at a variety of problems around the world and, I suspect, one that Obama brings intuitively to the table. In any case, profoundly different from the toxicity of the past eight years.

But please lose the gratuitous swipe at Bush. I didn’t vote for him, and think he’s one of our worst presidents, but there’s little evidence that he “stole the election”. And whether he did or not, the comment made me question Mamdani’s ability to analyze data.

Thank you for giving voice to some frequent concerns shared by most African intellectuals and africanists. We may disagree on the specifics but many of us have to deal with the same incomprehension about Africa, in Euro-America. This is a case for discussing a number of misconceptions about such a diverse continent. Here, Curt Keim’s Mistaking Africa might be useful.

Interesting that Chris should refer so frequently to anthropology, even though Mamdani didn’t take the bait. In this case, anthropology as a discipline may not serve as the best conversation starter but it seems clear that the epistemological basis of ethnography (if not the methodological apparatus behind ethnographic field research) can serve to provide the necessary insight.

Chris, thank you for beginning the conversation.