Hi Graham, great article. I understand that one of the big reason he was taken out is that he was stockpiling gold and he wanted Libya off the American Dollar Standard and he was also trying to get other countries to do the same, so they took him out. Do you know if that is true?
Very true. But I have been digging and it could be Sarkozy's fingerprints. Apparently there was a Hillary Clinton leaked memo saying that France was concerned about Libya and their plans for the dinar. Could be more to be rooted out if it was looked into. The Americans have laws about assassinating foreign leaders, I am not sure where the French stand. What do you think?
When French intelligence blew up Greenpeace's ship "The Rainbow Warrior", they did finally admit to it, and stood trial. That is unthinkable for the U.S.
Er, did America not just assassinate a foreign leader, on 28 February?
Subject: French Strategic Positioning and Internal Assessments on Libya
1. Overview
This memorandum provides an assessment of French political, military, and economic motivations for supporting international military action against the Gaddafi regime.
Information is derived from sensitive sources within French government and intelligence circles.
2. French Strategic Motives
French leadership, particularly President Nicolas Sarkozy, is driven by five primary objectives in Libya:
A. Secure Preferential Access to Libyan Oil
French officials view the conflict as an opportunity to strengthen France’s energy position by gaining favorable contracts from a post‑Gaddafi government.
B. Expand French Influence in North Africa
Sarkozy aims to position France as the dominant Western power shaping political outcomes in the region following the Arab Spring.
C. Domestic Political Considerations
A successful intervention is expected to boost Sarkozy’s standing within France, where he faces political pressure and declining popularity.
D. Reassert French Military Leadership
The Élysée sees Libya as a chance to demonstrate French military capability, reinforce its leadership role within NATO, and validate recent defense reforms.
E. Counter Gaddafi’s Influence in Francophone Africa
French intelligence is concerned that Gaddafi has been actively working to undermine France’s monetary and political influence in sub‑Saharan Africa.
3. Gaddafi’s Gold and the African Currency Initiative
French intelligence reports that:
Libya possesses approximately 143 tons of gold
and a similar quantity of silver
These reserves were allegedly intended to support the creation of a pan‑African currency, envisioned as a gold‑backed dinar.
This initiative was assessed as:
a potential alternative to the CFA franc, the currency used in 14 Francophone African states
a direct challenge to France’s long‑standing monetary influence in Africa
a move that could shift regional financial alignment away from Paris
This concern is described as a significant factor in France’s urgency to act against Gaddafi.
4. Gaddafi’s Broader Activities in Africa
According to French assessments, Gaddafi has:
provided financial support to political actors across Francophone Africa
funded African Union initiatives
offered loans and investments outside French‑controlled financial channels
promoted himself as a continental patron and alternative to Western influence
These activities have been interpreted as part of a deliberate strategy to reduce French leverage in its traditional sphere of influence.
5. Situation Assessment Inside Libya
French intelligence provides the following battlefield and political insights:
Gaddafi’s forces remain cohesive but strained, relying heavily on loyalist tribes
Rebel groups are fragmented, with varying levels of capability and cohesion
Continued international pressure is expected to erode regime stability
Key tribal and military defections could accelerate the collapse of the government
6. French Expectations Post‑Intervention
France anticipates that:
a post‑Gaddafi government will be favorably disposed toward French interests
Paris will gain preferential access to reconstruction contracts and energy resources
France will strengthen its strategic position in both North Africa and the Sahel
The intervention will reinforce France’s leadership role within NATO and the EU
7. Analytical Note
The memo implicitly warns that France’s public humanitarian justification for intervention does not fully reflect its strategic and economic motivations.
Paris is pursuing a multi‑layered agenda, with the CFA franc threat and Gaddafi’s African ambitions playing a more significant role than publicly acknowledged.
Summary
This reconstructed memo shows that:
France had clear, concrete motives for removing Gaddafi
The gold‑backed African currency was a French concern, not an American one
The memo does not claim Gaddafi threatened the U.S. dollar
It does not suggest an assassination plot
It does explain why France pushed NATO harder than any other nation
It may be true, maybe not. Like the moonshot stories for his rocket programme, and the nuclear reactor stories, much about Muammar Gaddafi was shrouded in a cloak of mystery. There was talk of the "gold dinar", but Libya's own gold reserves are not precisely spectacular. I checked: they have the sixth largest gold reserves in Africa.
However, while there isn't evidence that the U.S. assassinated him in 2011 on that particular ground, it's worth remembering a phrase that came out of the Monsanto scandal involving glysophate: LNG - let nothing go. Round-up was a glysophate-based weedkiller whose dangers were concealed by the maker, Monsanto - it is now vinegar-based under Bayer's ownership; any challenge to the benign characteristics of the product would be aggressively denounced by whatever means, including sponsored academic articles, such that "no accusation could be allowed to go unchallenged", hence "LNG"). Maybe there was an LNG policy on U.S. finance. ACtually, that's very probable.
In 1971, France had asked for its gold back from Fort Knox, and Nixon's reaction was to discontinue the gold standard, whereby the dollar became a fiat currency. The current Iran crisis turns on the insistence that U.S. assistance in getting oil out of the Gulf (with supertankers, originally provided by Getty) would be repaid by the revenue being deposited in New York banks. Hence the petrodollar. Iran is now challenging that. It is chumming up with China to promote the yuan as the new petro-standard. The argument over the Strait of Hormuz looks like a tiff over free trade and maritime law, but it's really about the loss of U.S. control over petroleum deposits, which are being withdrawn from Wall Street. Given those sensitivities over U.S. financial hegemony, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the gold dinar was one reason Gaddafi might have been targeted, but it was the middle of the Arab Spring. He was fleeing. So the gold dinar didn't exactly pose a risk to the U.S. at that time. Who knows?
Hi Graham, great article. I understand that one of the big reason he was taken out is that he was stockpiling gold and he wanted Libya off the American Dollar Standard and he was also trying to get other countries to do the same, so they took him out. Do you know if that is true?
Very true. But I have been digging and it could be Sarkozy's fingerprints. Apparently there was a Hillary Clinton leaked memo saying that France was concerned about Libya and their plans for the dinar. Could be more to be rooted out if it was looked into. The Americans have laws about assassinating foreign leaders, I am not sure where the French stand. What do you think?
When French intelligence blew up Greenpeace's ship "The Rainbow Warrior", they did finally admit to it, and stood trial. That is unthinkable for the U.S.
Er, did America not just assassinate a foreign leader, on 28 February?
You are correct sir. But they have a law on the books that says they shouldn't, so they broke their own law.
It's not illegal when the president does it. Or is told to do it.
UNCLASSIFIED // INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY (PARAPHRASED RECONSTRUCTION)
To: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
From: Sidney Blumenthal
Date: April 2, 2011
Subject: French Strategic Positioning and Internal Assessments on Libya
1. Overview
This memorandum provides an assessment of French political, military, and economic motivations for supporting international military action against the Gaddafi regime.
Information is derived from sensitive sources within French government and intelligence circles.
2. French Strategic Motives
French leadership, particularly President Nicolas Sarkozy, is driven by five primary objectives in Libya:
A. Secure Preferential Access to Libyan Oil
French officials view the conflict as an opportunity to strengthen France’s energy position by gaining favorable contracts from a post‑Gaddafi government.
B. Expand French Influence in North Africa
Sarkozy aims to position France as the dominant Western power shaping political outcomes in the region following the Arab Spring.
C. Domestic Political Considerations
A successful intervention is expected to boost Sarkozy’s standing within France, where he faces political pressure and declining popularity.
D. Reassert French Military Leadership
The Élysée sees Libya as a chance to demonstrate French military capability, reinforce its leadership role within NATO, and validate recent defense reforms.
E. Counter Gaddafi’s Influence in Francophone Africa
French intelligence is concerned that Gaddafi has been actively working to undermine France’s monetary and political influence in sub‑Saharan Africa.
3. Gaddafi’s Gold and the African Currency Initiative
French intelligence reports that:
Libya possesses approximately 143 tons of gold
and a similar quantity of silver
These reserves were allegedly intended to support the creation of a pan‑African currency, envisioned as a gold‑backed dinar.
This initiative was assessed as:
a potential alternative to the CFA franc, the currency used in 14 Francophone African states
a direct challenge to France’s long‑standing monetary influence in Africa
a move that could shift regional financial alignment away from Paris
This concern is described as a significant factor in France’s urgency to act against Gaddafi.
4. Gaddafi’s Broader Activities in Africa
According to French assessments, Gaddafi has:
provided financial support to political actors across Francophone Africa
funded African Union initiatives
offered loans and investments outside French‑controlled financial channels
promoted himself as a continental patron and alternative to Western influence
These activities have been interpreted as part of a deliberate strategy to reduce French leverage in its traditional sphere of influence.
5. Situation Assessment Inside Libya
French intelligence provides the following battlefield and political insights:
Gaddafi’s forces remain cohesive but strained, relying heavily on loyalist tribes
Rebel groups are fragmented, with varying levels of capability and cohesion
Continued international pressure is expected to erode regime stability
Key tribal and military defections could accelerate the collapse of the government
6. French Expectations Post‑Intervention
France anticipates that:
a post‑Gaddafi government will be favorably disposed toward French interests
Paris will gain preferential access to reconstruction contracts and energy resources
France will strengthen its strategic position in both North Africa and the Sahel
The intervention will reinforce France’s leadership role within NATO and the EU
7. Analytical Note
The memo implicitly warns that France’s public humanitarian justification for intervention does not fully reflect its strategic and economic motivations.
Paris is pursuing a multi‑layered agenda, with the CFA franc threat and Gaddafi’s African ambitions playing a more significant role than publicly acknowledged.
Summary
This reconstructed memo shows that:
France had clear, concrete motives for removing Gaddafi
The gold‑backed African currency was a French concern, not an American one
The memo does not claim Gaddafi threatened the U.S. dollar
It does not suggest an assassination plot
It does explain why France pushed NATO harder than any other nation
It may be true, maybe not. Like the moonshot stories for his rocket programme, and the nuclear reactor stories, much about Muammar Gaddafi was shrouded in a cloak of mystery. There was talk of the "gold dinar", but Libya's own gold reserves are not precisely spectacular. I checked: they have the sixth largest gold reserves in Africa.
However, while there isn't evidence that the U.S. assassinated him in 2011 on that particular ground, it's worth remembering a phrase that came out of the Monsanto scandal involving glysophate: LNG - let nothing go. Round-up was a glysophate-based weedkiller whose dangers were concealed by the maker, Monsanto - it is now vinegar-based under Bayer's ownership; any challenge to the benign characteristics of the product would be aggressively denounced by whatever means, including sponsored academic articles, such that "no accusation could be allowed to go unchallenged", hence "LNG"). Maybe there was an LNG policy on U.S. finance. ACtually, that's very probable.
In 1971, France had asked for its gold back from Fort Knox, and Nixon's reaction was to discontinue the gold standard, whereby the dollar became a fiat currency. The current Iran crisis turns on the insistence that U.S. assistance in getting oil out of the Gulf (with supertankers, originally provided by Getty) would be repaid by the revenue being deposited in New York banks. Hence the petrodollar. Iran is now challenging that. It is chumming up with China to promote the yuan as the new petro-standard. The argument over the Strait of Hormuz looks like a tiff over free trade and maritime law, but it's really about the loss of U.S. control over petroleum deposits, which are being withdrawn from Wall Street. Given those sensitivities over U.S. financial hegemony, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that the gold dinar was one reason Gaddafi might have been targeted, but it was the middle of the Arab Spring. He was fleeing. So the gold dinar didn't exactly pose a risk to the U.S. at that time. Who knows?