Sarkozy and Cameron looking like cats who got the cream

You might think that Nicolas Sarkozy had enough to worry about as the French banks endure a huge crisis, or that David Cameron should reflect on his policies as unemployment in Britain hits new highs.

Both of them took the time to leave domestic crises to travel to Libya, where they were given a hero's welcome in Benghazi.

Thousands waved French flags and held up placards saying thank you Britain. The seedy Sarkozy and rich boy Cameron looked like cats with the cream as they were greeted with waves of applause.

Sarkozy said this wasn't a war about oil and there was no hidden agenda. But these countries and their oil companies stand to reap the financial benefits of the war in ways which will be denied to most Libyans.

It's a long time since western rulers were able to parade in this part of Africa as though they owned the place. In fact you have to go back to the colonial days before the Second World War when European powers including Britain, France and Italy treated the countries of North Africa as their playground.

Any local rulers who opposed such treatment -- such as Haile Selassie in Ethiopia (Abyssinia) -- found that they were treated to a taste of modern warfare, in this case being bombed by the Italian fascist dictator, Mussolini. Italy intervened repeatedly in Libya too.

So when it came to the latest war in the region, dressed up as protecting civilians but in reality with the aim of regime change in Libya, the old colonial powers all took the leading role. While backed by the US, it was the European countries which had previously controlled much of the area which stepped in with such enthusiasm.

While the intervention was backed by the UN, and involved lukewarm support from the Arab League, in practice Britain and France led the operation.

Cameron has said that the NATO intervention will continue in order to further 'protect civilians'. This is a lie.

It is now widely accepted, most recently in a report by Amnesty International, that the rebels who opposed Gadaffi and who could not have been put into power without the airforce created by Nato, have carried out a number of atrocities against Gadaffi supporters and troops.

There have been widespread attacks on black Africans which have been little reported in the western media.

NATO is there to ensure a smooth transition to a regime with which the businesses represented by Cameron and Sarkozy can work -- especially the oil businesses. There will be a military presence on the ground to help this process.

Libya looks increasingly like the rehabilitation of the old colonialism. The British prime minister and French president are the latest in a long line who match economic crises at home with war and empire abroad.

While in the 19th century they justified empire by claiming they were taking up the 'white man's' burden' of 'civilizing' the rest of the world, today they talk the language of human rights and democracy. Behind these words however lurks the spectre of the new imperialism, as brutal and bloody as it its old counterpart.

Those Libyans who believe they can really be helped by this process will face a rude awakening, just as the Afghans and Iraqis who once welcomed western intervention have done.