independence and unification of all those 3 regions. but its independence, however, came at a cost. the agreement that western friendly, keen interests come into power in 1951. now interests allowed the u. s. and u. k. to build military bases in the country and exchange for economic aid for the americans part they gave about $100000000.00 us dollars to interest, which was a lot of money at that time. especially for a country that was rather impoverished. but it won't be long before libya discovered it wasn't poor at all. as it turns out, libya was sitting on one of the richest oil fields in the world. and certainly the biggest reserves in africa at the time. the year was 1959. the nasir wells hit liquid black gold back then it was called amal and delton. but in just 2 short years, libya was an oil exporter. now this after oil exploration had turned out dry since

$915.00. so let's fast forward 10 years to 969. now there's a saying about jobs and management, right? that when you finally get to go on vacation, that's when anything that can go wrong will go wrong. and that's exactly what happened to king interest of the kingdom of libya. while interest was on holiday and turkey. but some argue he was actually seeking medical treatment. there a young army officer lead a bloodless who to talk to posing king interests in 1969. that officer was more mark adoptee. now when general gadhafi came to power, despite libya, the vast oil well, little had been done for the general public in the way of education, health care, and even basic living standards. back then, only about a quarter 1000000 libyans were actually literate of the estimated 4000000 people of

the country. the majority of libyans lived well below the un poverty line, and many were dying of terrible diseases. in one generation, under gadhafi, it's rule the nationalizing of the countries. oil industry drove the literacy rate up to 88.4 percent, brought libyan life expectancy up to 74 and a half years and a number of other positive indicators as measured by the u. when development program in 2010, just a year before his ouster and death, they called libya a quote, high development country in the middle east and north africa. so in the early, 2000 libya had the highest g d, p per capita. and life expectancy on the entire african continent and percentage against population actually had similar numbers to poverty in the netherlands. i

mean, sounds pretty good, right? especially compared to present day. but let's be clear about something. gadhafi was an all come by yon rainbows and lollipops. he led his country as an authoritarian leader does with an iron fist that came crashing down on anyone who got out of life, political opposition, free speech, all of that iron fist. now gadhafi had a lot of grand ideas though. chief among them building tight bonds with the arab world and unifying africa even before there was an african union. he wanted a joint gold based the nar currency. he put libya and opec, but he also liked the fun rubble groups and what some would say tara campaigns take . for example, the 1988 bombing of the pan am jet over lockerbie, scotland, killing all 259 people on board and 11 more on the ground that you went

subsequently imposed sanctions on libya in 1992. they later removed them in 2003, after libya, formally accepted responsibility for that tragedy. libya had to pay $2300000000.00 us dollars in compensation for their role in international terrorism. but in saving off the arab spring in neighboring kamesia and egypt in 2011, the discontent found its way into libya. aided by us, led nato. a bombing campaign ensued. in aid of gadhafi is opposition. the 7 month campaign rip the corps of the country apart, displacing some $2000000.00 of its residence, causing death in the thousands. now, multiple factions of rebel groups all claiming authority over territory. by all international accounts, libya is a failed state. for his perspective, we'll talk to

a man who actually knew low mark adolphe. he spent decades. busy as a career diplomat, retiring in 1993 as the assistant secretary of state for african affairs. ambassador herman cohen is now the president of cohen, woods international and advisement group on african and mid east business development. mister ambassador, thank you so much for joining us. first can you describe for us physically what libya actually looked like in the 40 years under marg adoptee? i mean, what was life like for the average libyan there? well, i think life was pretty good. it would be, it was plenty of money coming in from oil and they, they could consume of consumer goods. so i think it was significantly above the poverty level for the average, libyan, and there wasn't much involved in politics,

couldn't he just controlled everything. so they weren't asked to, to vote on anything or what have referendum or anything like that. they just said, keep out of politics could actually said, i'll run everything and he made sure that they had a high standard of living. now historically, how would you describe the u. s. position on libya? well, you know, for many years we had a u. s. air base in libya. and this is what we use. well, we were planning to use in case we needed to intervene in the middle east or in africa. and so that was our highest priority. we and as long as the libyan government didn't bother us, we didn't bother them we, we just operated our air base and did exercise there. how would you characterize the, the us libya relationship for all those years prior to gadhafi is death?

well, i wouldn't close friendly actually, it was, it was not friendly. after cadaver, he organized a terrorist attack in berlin. it was a u. s. army social club there. and he organized the terrorist attack against the you, the americans and americans kill. so at that point the united states became very hostile and took it alfie and we, we bombed his, his whole, we sent, we said the us, us air force planes from england to bomb his home. and there was a desk, there was a desk of kodak fees adopted child, and this caused him to be very, very angry at the united states. and from that point,

relations were quite bad. now, under brock obama, we saw the fall of gadhafi and ultimately his brutal demise. this came after us lead nato intervention in the country. we know president obama made references to democracy, dictatorship, violence, and so on. however, at one point on the issue of libya, president obama said, quote, we must always measure our interest against the need for action. so what exactly is or was the interest in libya? libya we want to make sure that the next the flow of oil continues. libby as a major produce of crude oil, and if that is interrupted and then the international markets are trouble, prices go up. and actually i would say that that is currently our main interest in

libya. and also we want to make sure that sub saharan africa remained stable and libya has a lot of impact on what goes on in substance. for example, in south east libya, there are major arms deposits their inch in warehouses. and this is the area code. and currently, terrorists in, in the hill countries, the south countries, molly niger and looking at 5 so, terrorists attacking those countries are getting their arms from southern libya in the place, go on. so libya has an impact and what goes on in the rest of africa. and we want libya to be a stable country that's looking to maintain peace and stability and all of that.

well, marg adolphe actually played an outside role in shaping modern day opec methodology . how would you describe his efforts? i mean, was he, you know, a guy that was basically trying to unionize these arab oil countries or do you think it was something else? was there something to the various, how would you describe it? well, his 1st objective. he was remanded for unity and incense that he wanted to . all countries in middle east to become part of libya wanted a large federation of which libya he could. archie would be the head of it. so he, he approach syria producer, he wanted to have the syria arab union joined libya and he was rejected. it was rejected. everyone said, no, we don't want to join libya, so that got him very angry at the arabs. i remember him telling me after that, he says, i'm not, i'm not an arab anymore. i'm an african. he says i'm going to,

i'm going to unity with the africans. and he proposed to have an african union before there was an african union. it was after african union, which he would, he would of course be the head. and he because he had a lot of money. it was inviting a lot of african leaders to come visit him. and he had the molly president of molly as a niger ever president of angola. they all came to visit him, very happy to do that. and he kept proposing less had an african union. busy will become one country, but none, none of them wanted to do that and that was very frustrating for him. and so he, for example, lee, he sent his own troops to northern chad. there is a strip of land in the north of chad that has an air base and he sent troops

unoccupied. it was called that loses strip. and he said, well, now unity with chad. he was using area base to bomb other countries. like he, he sent bombers to bomb cartoon in sudan because they refused to join his him. so he was very aggressive. he was very aggressive and he wanted to be the leader. want to be the leader of war, africa, if he couldn't be the leader of all the countries, he could be the leader of africa. but of course the africans didn't want to join it . and he was very frustrated. can you expand for us on this? libya and his dreams of this big oil monopoly. yes, they will. they had to join opec in order to make sure they get the prices that they wanted and that they could influence. oh pick. no. i don't remember every bows a day. they were exploiting. it was about a 1000000 and he could,

he could influence the price of oil if he wanted to make sure that the price was maximum, because he wanted all that, well, that currency. alright, ambassador cohen has agreed to stick around to unpack more about the situation in libya, and will also get his analysis on modern day diplomacy, or i would say lack thereof. we will discuss it when we return with ambassador cohen, 5th type, the emma will be right back. i is been reported. the sea ice, william burns offered russia 20 percent of ukrainian territory in exchange for indian, the conflict, the kremlin, the white house and the cia all have rejected this reporting, all of which makes us think the opposite. some of the biden administration want to wrap up his needless colon event. for is your media a reflection of reality

in the world transformed what will make you feel safer? high selection for community. are you going the right way or are you being led to somewhere? direct what is true? wharf is great. in the world corrupted, you need to descend a join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. ah ah, need to come to the russian state patrol narrative i phone and ignore some scheme destination that can cause it within the

55 will dissipate. okay, so 9 is 2000 speedy one else with we will van in the european union the kremlin. ca, yep, machine. the state on russia for date and square r t spoke neck, given our video agency, roughly all bands on youtube and pinterest and with the oh, and welcome back to the m. o. we are again joined by ambassador herman cohen. thank

you for staying with us, mr. ambassador. as we continue this discussion about libya, so libya has this sort of interesting varied role in the world. it's both part of the era world. it's also part of the african world, which gadhafi thought to really develop with this whole african union idea, even a gold based currency for the continent similar to the you with the euro. did that dream die with gadhafi? or could we see something like that come to fruition maybe in the future? well it, it died, we could as we but it already exists. for example. busy of the french speaking countries that used to be french colonies, they have a common currency. it's called the c f a. and it's backed by the french treasury. so it's a hard currency. and they can, you can use a, c, f, a to import anything from any place in the world. because if you get,

if you pay off and, and see if everybody's happy with that, it's backed by, it's backed by gold. so it's that coming closer coming currency, but having all of africa and common currency that is never been really discussed except by bike adoption himself. but it's, it's never been realized. could, ah see, i might mention right now the cadaver, he believes in revolution. he says i, i support rebel saw the world and he had couple of adventures outside of africa. for example, in northern ireland, when the northern island war was going on against the u. k. i forgot when that ended about 10 years ago. he supported rebels in northern island. he supported the catholic rebels in northern island. he said he sent them money, he sent them arms. and secondly, in the philippines, i believe it was the philippines. there was ever rebellion going against the

philippine government in the island of min did now and he sent arms to the rebels. now, who happened to be the moslems? he said, these moslems are being oppressed and now by the philippine government, i'm going to help them. he did, he said money. so he was, he had his concept of revolution is good, revolution is good and i was support revolutionaries all over the world. and he had these 2 adventures, one in northern island, and one in the philippines. now there are also a lot of external forces at play in libya. the last estimates by the un put around 30000 foreign fighters in the country as of 2021. now beyond the us, there is russia or is turkey. the addictions are there, the you way eat? why so much for an interest in this country, what's on the table in libya that all these other nations,

including the u. s. wish to exert. i don't know, maybe influence or even control over its future. will you know libya? sure. sure. good afternoon. this is not had a unified government. it's really to government. she had one in, in the eastern provinces, syrian acre and united, another government and tripoli in the western provinces, triple atanya. and there was some, there was nothing in the southern province. ok exam is just sort of local local control. so everyone is worried. the egyptians live the border with libya. they are worried that the instability in libya will still over into, into egypt. and the turks feel that they have an interest in protecting turkish interests, which is they're buying oil from libya. ready so, and since there was no real government, it wouldn't be the one government and in an eastern will be another government in

tripoli. everyone said it, it's basically a fail safe. so we want to make sure that the libyan entity remain is stable. and the only way to do that, the only way to do is send troops to the turkish government, send troops in the gyptian, and even the russians, because the russian said mercenaries there who were looking to make money. see mercenaries come and said, oh, we will protect you. but the real interest is to make money. so it libya is still today. basically a fail state. it's really not a modern government today. many have called libya a failed state. i mean, you yourself just assigned it that label. can you expand a little bit more on that for us? i think it was basically cuz he did not want

a strong state in parliament. he didn't want local governors. and actually he was, he was afraid that he would be overthrown if it, if there was people with, with guns and people with authority in the rest of the libya. so he maintained it that way. let me give you an example of one thing that happened. i had a meeting with a private meeting with him and he said, i have something that will interest you. mr. coleman. what is that? i've invited the jewish people to come back to you know, beef before he came to power. it was a king. the king edris who was living in eastern libya and when the palestine thing blew up, when the state of israel was, was established, lot of african countries expelled all the jews. and so did libya,

the king could ask the king edris expelled libyans, jewish people who are mainly italians. no. libya started ours in italian country. so where did these people go? asked went to italy and. busy handsome went to israel, so good api and that's good because they took, they took a lot of their money out. so could api in a private conversation be so this will interest us colon. i'm inviting all that will be in jewish people to come back. should all that wonderful. terrific. and he actually did that. he said, he said emissaries to ro, israel, and should please from back. so a maybe a year later, i was visiting, i didn't talk to gadhafi. i talked to one of these high ranking people. in fact is he had an institute called the institute for the green book, you know, like mounts a gentleman had a red book. he had

a green book with his sayings and so i went to the head of the students. the green book turned out and made friends with it. i said, well, what happened to deduce come back. so yeah, a lot of a king bed. i said what happened and said, they sold all their property. let's forget. so that was their only interest is listed, make sure they get their money and they want to live. you see? so and it turned out that could duffy's wife because his wife was a, a, an italian jewess. and yeah, and what she was doing is taking daffy's money and sending it to good causes israel and i'm sure he didn't know anything about it. but anyway, he had a, he had an interesting encounter. but it's,

it's too bad because the jewish people in libya, the italian jewish people, you know, they were doing industry and that sort of thing. so libya lost all of that enterprise enterprise during the spirit that they had brought. now on your many decades in public service, you are what's called a career diplomat. can you share with us what you've learned about dealing with foreign leaders? well, if to be a successful diplomat, you 1st have to understand who the other guys are. you know, if you, if you get sent to a country, you have to understand who are they, what, what motivates them, and where are the different power structures in the country? and as i look back on my career, i think i spent 3 quarters of my time asking questions. i was asking questions, people, local officials, local dignitaries,

and because i want to know who these people are, what motivates them so that i could recommend policies to washington policy should be. and so it's, it's mainly a question, no understanding also you, we have archives about these countries. know, every embassy, every american embassy sends back reports. this is what's going on this week in the country. so before you even go out, you look at all these reports from previous and from previous diplomats in that country. that gives you knowledge about what, how things are going. and also you want to make contacts, not just with the government, want to talk to people in the press, the want to talk to people in cultural organizations, to example the national association of women. you want to talk to them, you want to talk to youth. national association of libyan youth or

nigerian, you and that sort of thing. you want to talk to a position political parties. he just don't want to talk to the to the, to the party in town. so it's a question of getting around and asking questions. so that's the best way to be a diplomat ambassador her men cohen. thank you so much for sharing all of that insight with us today. interviewing me, appreciate while there is so much chaos in libya right now. so many loud external voices. let's not forget to listen to the softer speakers, those of the average libyan civilian, who by and large, only wish for peace, stability and sovereignty. that's going to do it for this week's episode. modus operandi the show that dig deep into foreign policy. i am your host manila chan. thank you for tuning in. we'll see you again next week to figure out the ammo. the

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ah for ah, when this conflict ends and it will, it must get there will be again commercial relationships, they'll be social relationships, they'll be family relationships. it's going to take some time, but it's natural. and you know, there isn't going to be a great wall built between ukraine and the russian federation. ah

ah, ah destruction. amid rescue efforts in turkey and neighboring syria ravaged by cascade, earthquakes with the trim is felt hundreds of kilometers away with the 2 biggest quakes. magnitude 7.7 and 7 point to take for the most powerful tokyo has seen in decades even more than 2300 confirmed dead. and over 14000 in just a at least 700 killed.