Excellent contribution @richq11 !
Agreed, that the Cablegate records released by Wikileaks laid bare the motivations of empire. The propaganda machine did its part to guide the narrative with claims of "terrorism" / "Muslim extremists" / "Rapists" and a threat to stability in the region.
Most people in the West know very little about Libya and the high quality of life in the oil rich country. They even had free healthcare, something the US continues to deny its own people!
The point about the Gaddaffi's plans to develop a gold backed Dinar for African nations being one of the impetuses for the invasion is certainly more believable than Gaddaffi bombing his own people in one of the most prosperous nations in Africa and feeding troops dick pills to mass-rape Libyan women. It is far more likely that Libya represented a prosperous, non-western, alternative model that could not be tolerated by the global political powers and financial institutions such as he IMF as you point out. The threat to stability in the region was the emergence of any wealthy independent African nations operating outside of the established order. With the destruction of Libya neocolonialism would be free to continue on unmolested.
This was the time of the Arab Spring and in the wake of the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt and the unrest in Tunisia. It's interesting how the citizen lead revolutions that were taking place to oust neighboring dictators was used by NATO allies as a cover to invade Libya.
Over time it becomes more and more clear how Al Qaeda is really a proxy army for the US and its allies in the Middle East.
We need to ask ourselves: If Al Qaeda really was the crazed Muslim extremists that we are told they are - why have they not attacked Israel or Saudi Arabia? It's a question worth exploring.
Great piece Rich!
AND congratulations on diving into the Wikileaks archives!
We're happy you took the plunge and thanks for all your great research.
Keep Digging!
Thank you, high praise indeed.