I WAS astonished that the Globe took Representative Ed Markey to task for saying that we’re “in Libya because of oil’’ (“Good Ed, bad Ed,’’ Editorial, March 24).
Our whole foreign policy in the Middle East is skewed by our need for oil. We rarely criticize Saudi Arabia, for example, because, after all, they have a lot of oil. And so we haven’t complained that Saudi Arabia is supporting the Sunni leaders of Bahrain against the uprising of its majority Shi’ite population.
Moammar Khadafy’s power is highly dependent on his oil wealth. Indeed, The New York Times on Thursday reported that in 2009, Khadafy demanded that “global energy companies operating in Libya’s oil fields’’ pay his $1.5 billion bill for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103. Some companies balked and others, including US companies, complied. That wasn’t about oil?
And, contrary to your suggestion, Markey did not say that we’ve intervened in Libya to keep oil prices low. No need to put words in his mouth.
Colleen Clark
Cambridge 
