BBC News (Apr5,2k11) The entire article is strongly recommended!
refWrite editorial: Among the countries that have already recognized
the rebels -- as they are called in the press, but surely they are quite
distinctively revolutionaries, as I woud say -- Italy (which was a chief
buyer of Libyan oil before the revolution) and now has officially
extended recognition to the nascent state and is expected soon to order
oil from the New Libya, thereby joining the Persian Gulf state of Qatar,
the icebreaker both in recognition of a new Libyan state and in purchase
of Libya's chief commerical commodity thru the new export terminal in
the revolutionaries hands.
Revolutionary Libya reportedly has sold 1 million barrels of oil to Qatar
to be exported on a tanker of Liberian registry and carrying the latter's
flag, a tanker owned apparently by Greek shipping interests.
All in all, present developments constitute the restoration of globalized
commerce in Libya's revolutionary zone, a state income to the new
political entity of revolutionary Libya, and the denial of that income
stream to both the old Gadaffi Libya and its state oil company. Already
the chief relevant market indicator, Brent Crude Oil Futures, has
indicated a previous peak in world oil prices, followed now by a drop
of prices in the last several hours, apparently on the news of an active
re-supply of crude from Libya (see the chart on the BBC webpage).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Mekkes-Rookmaker Club for Geostrategic Studies
an intermittent refWrite feature for neo-constantinians
---------------------------------------------------------------------
These developments in the economy, and the political economy, of the
new near-state political entity in Libya, taken together, mean that the
revolutionaries will be able to pay their forces and perhaps thus also
the expenses of training the New Libya's forces, making any outsiders
used in that training possibly the employees of the new entity. De facto
military employees will be able to serve the newly-independent
political-entity of the New Libya on that entity's own dime. An
important point to be sure, considering all the niceties of the situation
geostrategically.
For information on the actual overall military situation as such, I
recommend readers refer themselves to the Stratfor Global Intelligence
website which has an excellent article "The Libyan War of 2011" by
George Friedman accompanied by a very informative map of
"Military Assets in the Mediterranean" (you can enlarge the map
on that webpage). While it downplays the new entity of a near-state
in control of its occupied areas (perhaps becawz it lags behind on the
latest commercial-economic news covered here), and the political
economic implications of that latest news for statehood which remains
informal and de facto, yet the Stratfor piece and map make vivid the
chances for the revolutionaries to win a formalization of the
state-existence of the New Libya.
In the terms of the juridician and political philosopher Herman
Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), professor of law at the Free University in
the previous generation, the New Libya already satisfies his criterion
of control over a territory (tho this remains hotly contested as to its
extent and boundaries) which is the foundational function of all states
the world has known so far (and thus does not include the UN or
NATO); but his further criterion of the leading function for true state
existence -- the juridic aspect of the new political entity -- has not yet
been achieved with formal democratic elections or a settled court
system (compare the formalities which have taken place in Egypt
and the provision there of new and hopefully more honest, more
democratic elections). We can only hope and pray for the same in the
New Libya. Nevertheless, the economic recovery in the revolutionary
zone is encouragingly signified by the planned loading of the ship with
oil destined for Qatar.
A note in closing this editorial comment: Two figures who followed
and enhanced the thawt-stream initiated by Dooyeweerd, JPA Mekkes
(1898-1987) and Hans Rookmaker (1922-1977), were both officers in
the Dutch military and met one another while incarcerated in the same
Nazi prison camp during Hitler's occupation of their country. After the
War, Mekkes became a professor of philosophy himself, and
Rookmaker became a professor of art history. The Mekkes-Rookmaker
Club gathers that small demographic who are interested in Dooyeweerd
and who also share a concern for geostrategic awareness, generally
following a neo-constantian approach that validates non-pacificist
Christians found in militarily-difficult situations.
-- all BBC materials and editorial comment posted by EconoMix
5 April 2011 Last updated at 09:48 ET
The first export of oil from rebel-held areas of eastern Libya for almost three weeks is due to begin later.
Libyan state TV broadcast footage of what it said was Col Gaddafi in Tripoli
Libya's opposition groups are making plans to load a tanker believed
to have now docked at a terminal near Tobruk.
It comes as NATO air strikes were reported against pro-Gaddafi forces
and rebels gathered near the town of Brega.
Libya's government has remained defiant, with an envoy who is visiting
Europe insisting that Col Muammar Gaddafi will not step down.
-- BBC materials posted by Politicarp
