Lately I’ve been puzzled about why NATO and the U.S. have intervened militarily in Libya, but stayed out of popular rebellions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and other middle east countries. Human rights concerns doesn’t seem to fully explain it. After all governments in Yemen and Bahrain in particular have violated human rights without so much as peep from the U.S. Yes, there’s the oil explanation, but Libya doesn’t have that much oil (less than 2% of world exports) and besides Western firms (BP and Marathon) were involved in the production anyway.
Now comes a very interesting piece from Ellen Brown at Web Of Debt. It’s the kind of thing that makes you go “hmmmm”:
If the Gaddafi government goes down, it will be interesting to watch whether the new central bank joins the BIS, whether the nationalized oil industry gets sold off to investors, and whether education and health care continue to be free.
Several writers have noted the odd fact that the Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank – this before they even had a government. Robert Wenzel wrote in the Economic Policy Journal:
I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising. This suggests we have a bit more than a rag tag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences.
Alex Newman wrote in the New American:
In a statement released last week, the rebels reported on the results of a meeting held on March 19. Among other things, the supposed rag-tag revolutionaries announced the “[d]esignation of the Central Bank of Benghazi as a monetary authority competent in monetary policies in Libya and appointment of a Governor to the Central Bank of Libya, with a temporary headquarters in Benghazi.”
Newman quoted CNBC senior editor John Carney, who asked, “Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.”
Libya’s national central bank is not only not part of the BIS, the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland, that regulates and coordinates international banking, but Gaddafi’s government has been actively promoting an alternative international currency and banking structure for African and Arab nations. The alternative currency and banking structure would greatly weaken the power of large, private international banks (largely U.S, British, and European) and facilitate popular policies in those countries. Libya’s status as a non-member of the BIS is a status it shares with Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria. Again, it just makes you go “hmmmm”. I recommend following the link and reading the entire article here.
EconProph 
Ellen makes some important points and the world governing body probably isn’t what one might think, though I am as puzzled as the next guy. All the more reason why someone/group(s) appear to be rather anxious about the Wikileaks disclosures/torture of Bradley Manning? Revelations about the recent forced disclosures by the Federal Reserve of loans to entities which one might have suspected did not seem to qualify only make the picture more convoluted.
The following statement:
‘An article on the BIS website states that central banks in the Central Bank Governance Network are supposed to have as their single or primary objective “to preserve price stability.” They are to be kept independent from government to make sure that political considerations don’t interfere with this mandate. “Price stability” means maintaining a stable money supply, even if that means burdening the people with heavy foreign debts. Central banks are discouraged from increasing the money supply by printing money and using it for the benefit of the state, either directly or as loans.’
would seem to be consistent with the concept of ’empire’. Whether the appropriate phrase is ‘American empire’, ‘Bankster’s International empire’, or some other organization’s ’empire’, the group which is making decisions in the USA appears to be the same one who is determining hational policies via the major political parties in the USA.
Agreed. When BIS promotes the private banking system worldwide, it’s promoting the use of USD as the reserve commodity. The USD has replaced gold or any other mix of reserves using a bundle of currencies. This primarily benefits Wall Street and The Fed since that puts them in the position of holding all the reserve balances. It’s reminds me of the situation in the US in the 1800’s during the so-called free-banking period when virtually all banks had to hold reserve deposits at the big NY banks or at least at money center banks that had deposits on Wall St. That system didn’t end well either, although JP Morgan and buddies made a lot of money in the process.