By strict definition it not imperialism, but the stance of some of these nations is hypocritical. The Canadian Prime minister is making a big noise about freezing Ghaddafi's assets in Canadian. But they had no problem doing business with Libya and accepting his money last month.
I would guess that he was not killing his own people in public, using imported mercenaries, last month. Unless you believe that Gaddafi has a right to kill his own people to maintain power then why shouldn't states exert political pressure to stop the bloodshed.
If there is any hypocrisy at play it is that Western nations are not showing enough current support to these freedom movements.
So a man remains in power for 40+ years with no sign of legitimate elections, sponsors terrorism around the world, ammasses a fortune of billions of dollars because he is a sweet and charming kinda guy.
I guess no repression ever occurred because nobody ever noticed before.
And when did killing yuh ‘own people’ suddenly become so morally superior to killing those who are not your ‘own people’?
Here is a dirty little well kept secret. Canada is one of the largest arms dealers in the world. They are especially adept at selling weapons to repressive third world regimes. Some of them are being used right now in Libya to repress and kill Ghaddif’s ‘own people’. The Canadian Prime minister is very willing to leave his 'own people' stranded in Libya and grandstand about 'freedom'. Expedient diplomacy at its best.
Where was the West when East Timor, Rwanda and southern Sudan were soaked in rivers of blood? No oil worth grabbing? Or does a revolution have to be fought on twitter and facebook to be legitimate
zandolie, southern sudan have plenty oil.
is de point yuh making dat de West is unprincipled and does double talk? 
I'd hardly call less than 0.5% of the world oil reserves 'plenty oil'.
The point I was trying to make was the West will make noise about the universality of the quest for freedom and democracy but often appear selective of the political waves it chooses to support. Sometimes it seems to be driven by race, sometimes it seems to be driven by resources and other ecomomic interests. Its not precisely about unprincipled double talk, but about the criteria for choosing which social movement is supported outside of economic interests, e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, having lackeys already in place, combinations thereof.
All manner of Western oil conglomerates, finance houses and compaines doing business with Ghaddfi and family in Libya for donkey years. But all of a sudden we pretend to be filled with righteous indignation like is only yesterday Ghaddifi started slaughtering people wholesale. The level of assinine hypocrisy and hysteria is the press is especially telling. I heard some jackass Canadian 'journalists' this morning are calling for Lionel Ritchie, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Usher and Mariah Carey to issue apologies for performing in Libya for 'blood money'
Funny they don't think it appropriate to ask the Canadian banking institutions that accepted literally billions of dollars of Ghaddfi's money to apologize as well. The Harper government is now patting themselves on the back for freezing
2.3 billion dollars of these Canadian assests last night.
