By Joseph J. Honick

   
We bomb Libya; we put all sorts of highly publicized constraints on their financial dealings, at least theoretically, and turn over the "ball" to NATO.

Then, for reasons one cannot possibly fathom, we find that the glorious pit of wonderful finance, the United States Federal Reserve, provided more than $26 billion in credit to an Arab intermediary for the Central Bank of Libya!

As if that were not enough for stunned disbelief, the Fed gave the buggers the money at interest rates as low as 0.25 per cent while reportedly lending money to the Treasury Department at a much higher rate.

The bank in question is the Arab Banking Corporation, in which the Central Bank of Libya owns 59 percent!

If it were not for the persistence of the persnickety Independent senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, this strange bit of financial madness might not have surfaced at all.

It all came to light when Sanders sent a letter to Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke asking just why our central bank "made at least 46 emergency low-interest loans to the Arab Banking Corporation."
           
The senator also wanted to know why the Bahrain-based Arab Banking Corporation is even allowed to operate branches inside the United States.

Among other things we need and deserve to know beyond these almost eerie money machinations is just how deeply and how widely we are becoming entrenched in still another war when we had hopes of somehow concluding what we already had on our plate.

This question arises as the word from Washington suggests we will toss some stuff at Yemen as well.

Sanders is hardly the major leader of the United States Senate.  He is usually good for a chuckle as he beards his targets on both sides of the aisle from his vantage point of independence. 

But he has caught all of them with their legislative knickers at an embarrassing point along with the presidential rhetoric that seemed aimed at undermining the Libyan dictator.

The bottom line here, if indeed we have found it, is it would appear the American public is getting less than the whole story about our continued and deepening involvement in the Middle East tinderbox when not one additional  new spark could have been needed less.

One of our correspondents here worries about what "prism" gives us the proper focus in the Middle East. The answer to that question would seem to be that we have no idea! 

The nasty wonder is: "Why?"

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Joseph J. Honick is an international consultant to business and government and writes for many publications, including huntingtonnews.net. Honick can be reached at joehonick@gmail.com.

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