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So Much For Libyan Rebel Oil Exports: Gaddafi Forces Destroy Last Fuel Tanks Under Rebel Control; NATO Land Offensive Now Unavoidable
And so the badly thought out experiment to supply Libyan rebels with a central bank, to be used to fund an "alternative" fuel industry comes to a prompt and fiery end. Reuters reports that "Libyan government forces destroyed four fuel storage tanks and set several others ablaze in rebel-held Misrata, dealing a blow to the port city's ability to withstand a government siege, rebels said on Saturday." Not surprisingly this fits in perfectly with the assumption first postulated by Zero Hedge that Gaddafi will destroy his entire oil infrastructure before letting it fall into "enemy" hands. This likely marks the end of the Libyan rebellion and will force NATO to launch a land offensive or suffer a crushing blow to its already shaky reputation as globocop, especially now that the US is in theory at least, out of the air campaign against Gaddafi. Which means that the boots on the ground are soon coming. Alas, it will not be the marines in the Kearsarge. As the below naval update map indicates, the Kearsarge has been relieved and now has left the theater of operations, however replaced with LHD 5 Bataan.
More from Reuters:
Misrata, the last remaining city in the west under rebel control, has been under siege for more than two months and has witnessed some of the war's fiercest fighting.
Rebels gave varying accounts of the bombardment but said it hit fuel used for export as well as domestic consumption.
"Four (fuel) tanks were totally destroyed and a huge fire erupted which spread now to the other four. We cannot extinguish it because we do not have the right tools," rebel spokesman Ahmed Hassan told Reuters.
"Now the city will face a major problem. Those were the only sources of fuel for the city. These tanks could have kept the city for three months with enough fuel," he said by telephone.
The video of the burning tanks can be seen below:
And another big black eye for NATO:
NATO coalition aircraft have been bombing Libyan government military targets and enforcing a no-fly zone under a U.N. resolution. Western and Arab countries this week agreed to provide rebels with millions of dollars in non-military aid to help them keep services and the economy running.
Rebels have long been demanding more heavy weapons to take on the Libyan leader's better-armed and trained forces.
The head of the rebel forces in eastern Libya retracted an assertion by a rebel spokesman that Italy had agreed to supply them with weapons to help in their fight to oust Gaddafi.
"We have not received any weapons, not from Italy nor from any other country," Abdel Fattah Younes told al Jazeera television. "Maybe one of the brothers failed to express himself properly ... we apologise to Italy on behalf of the brothers in the National Council."
A spokesman for the rebels' Transitional National Council had told a news conference in Benghazi earlier in the day that weapons would be provided to the insurgents soon.
In Rome, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said no such agreement had been reached.
Italy has backed the rebels, formally recognising the transitional council as the only legitimate representatives of the country, but it is unlikely it would go further than other countries in the anti-Gaddafi coalition.
In the meantime the Libyan civil war continues to get "accidentally" hit Tunisian cities:
The Tunisian town of Dehiba has been hit repeatedly by stray shells in recent weeks, and on Saturday Tunisia condemned the "extremely dangerous" shelling and said it would take all necessary measures to protect its sovereignty.
The Libyan government denied targeting Tunisian soil deliberately.
"We said this (shelling) was an error and we have apologised that this took place and have asked the military forces to ensure this doesn't happen again," Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi told a news conference in Tripoli.
The battle is over the Dehiba-Wazzin border crossing, whose control gives the rebels a road from the outside world into strongholds in the Western Mountains region. Gaddafi's forces control a far bigger crossing to the north.
And while NATO ponders how to best break to the world that it has failed in Phase 1 of the Libyan offensive, it appears that 1.6 million of barrels of oil will be out of the supply system for a long time. Furthermore, with developments in Syria and Yemen getting worse by the day, we are confident that geopolitical worries will once again trump margin hikes, and crude will promptly return in the triple digits within a week.
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What??? China dumping U.S. Treasuries?
Heh, we'll just simply default.
China is the ultimate bagholder.
With only 1.5% of their reserves in gold, they are truly screwed.
They are stuck with all of our paper.
If they mess with our interests, we can simply stop paying interest payments to China.
We got them by the nuts. LOL...
You sure about that 1.5% ? Confucius says man who go to bed with itchy tuches wake up with smelly finger.
Is China Secretly Stealth-Buying Gold?
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-china-secretly-stealth-buying-gold-2010-6
And they can retaliate by nationalizing the operations of every fortune 500 company. Check mate, moron.
And where could you possibly come up with the "factual" percent of 1.5 of China reserves in Gold? just askin.....
Very, very Bullish for Oil and PMs...expect to see $220 as Nomura predicted:
http://mises.org/daily/3010
Anyone who thinks "they" can control the Free Market Forces, esp with War Afoot will get a nasty surprise.
"Don't mess with Mr. Market"
Boots on the ground is highly unlikely in Libya. Many reasons for this, 3 biggest as I see it are:
1. Who are the Rebels? What are they fighting for? Besides wanting to take out Ghadaffi, no one knows what they are fighting for. We could end up with worse than Ghadaffi.
2. Ghadaffi is clearly a NATO enemy. No doubts about that. But Ghadaffi is strongly anti-terrorist and has snubbed any attempts at Al-Qaeda and the like from putting down roots in Libya. As the saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy..."
3. Libya is the low hanging fruit in MENA. Libya was a token strike in the whole MENA thing to say to the world "hey we care what's going on over there." In reality, Libya has the least influential international ties, weak forces and chose to lethally attack their citizens making them the sweetest target available.
In reality if NATO actually cared what was happening over there, the war in Libya would be over already. Libya is not random citizens fighting for extreme causes hiding amongst innocent people. Their military and government is clearly marked and has clear objectives. Any war with Libya would be fought in the 'traditional' sense with clear win/lose objectives. Boots on the ground would last < 60 days.
Killing Coptic Christians in Egypt now. 6 dea, 200 wounded. I gotta go.
Long pork ?
Just so happens I am.... picked up a 8.58 lb loin for $16.13 yesterday....
PASS TARP IV OR WE WILL WITENESS WWVI
Anybody believing in God should have his head examined.
Even more so anybody believing that by wearing a:
1. silly burka
2. silly beard
3. silly hat
4. silly curl
5. silly coat
6. silly rosary
or any other silly and meaningless prop
or by
7. cutting your foreskin or labia,
or any other silly way of mutilating your own body,
an allegedly almighty entity that you may call God would somehow THEN regard you as
A. more valuable
B. more worthy of entering an alleged paradise
C. more deserving of having your soul rescued
D. belonging to the chosen few
I sincerely ask you:
WHAT KIND OF A GOD WOULD THAT BE,
that could be swayed by any of this above mentioned silly and oh so anthropocentric behaviour ?!
There is no difference between a mental illness, called schizophrenia, and the belief in God.
Hearing voices, that nobody else can hear,
seeing people, that nobody else can see,
whose existence cannot be proven,
is a medical condition commonly referred to as schizophrenia.
Have you never watched "A beautiful mind", bitchez ?
Oh and if you say God's non-existence also cannot be proven, then I tell you, that this claim is wrong.
I can prove that God doesn't exist.
I can even prove it in a way, that is neither based on hoodwinking you,
nor forcing and pushing it on you.
The proof is very elegant.
well, Frank, you are simply confusing religious rules & behavior (man-made, misguided, power-tripping, BS) with spiritual reality
"God refuses to prove that (S)He exists because proof denies faith and without faith God is nothing.
Man then counters that the Babel fish is a dead giveaway because it could not have evolved by chance. It therefore proves God exists, but by God's own arguments God does not exist.
God realizes (S)He hadn't thought of that and promptly disappears in a puff of logic."
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Babel_Fish
FOur fuel tanks blow up some where in the world every minute - BTDF
Buy the ducking fip?
The enemy of my enemy doesn't necessarily have to be my friend.
He might fight my enemy for different reasons than I do and might be my enemy, too.
The so-called dog-eat-dog- or everyone-for himself-scenario.
what is going on in the middle east is to distract everyone for what is about to happen in Pakistan!
Webster Tarpley: 'US too broke for real war on Libya' - Vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nviY7kD0qkk
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
interesting.. and fun to listen too..
but the U.S. being to broke to afford another war front?
why? are the printers broke?
does italy having a real excuse for economic woes need to continue?
the U.S. is a Lot of things.. but out of paper, ink and / or printers.. it is Not!
RALLY!!!
video footage i can believe in!
Saw something like this coming a mile off. i imagined an attack on shipping though, annoying. So what`s the likelihood of the ground being sown with salt?
TEPCO to release radiation in Fukushiam No. 1 reactor into atmosphere!
http://silverdoctors.blogspot.com/2011/05/tepco-to-release-radiation-fro...
Don't be too narrow in your thinking! It's above the Equator...henceforth...North Atlantic (OK, off the Atlantic.a bit...but close enough I guess)
Nothing says serious business like naming a ship after a death march.
Partition now surely the most likely outcome.
NICE! I love it. Get em Qadaffi! Qadaffi is my hero. Here's a guy that gives the finger to the IMF, and the World Bank, and doesn't cow down to the international banksters. Africa needs a new communications satellite, and the west won't finance the 400,000,000 project, because they'd rather rent them a satellite for 500,000,000 per year...no international bank will touch the deal, because the cash flow on the rental is just too sweet. Qadaffi steps in and finances the whole thing.
The only leader in the world who pushed for a real gold currency. His country is truly debt free, and has some of the most generous social programs I've ever heard of.
He's a hero to his people, and the only crime I think he's truly guilty of is one of fasion...but for that I suppose he can be excused on account of his body guards.
He's the man, and the west HATES him for it. I hope he absolutely anhilates the so called Rebel scum.
Lockerbie bombing?
Wind Powered Sailing Carriers, Bitchez!
Ugh.. WHoever wins will become the next bad guy. Just a matter of time.