The Libya thread

[JackRiddler]

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Now I'm such an immature American with trivial concerns that I actually spent time searching for "The Gaddafi Look," the Saturday Night Live mock-ad for a fashion line from the late 1970s or 1980s that spoofed the Jordache jeans commercials.

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[DrVolin]

That's actually a worthwhile thing to do if you want to learn about him and his regime. He is definitely the Michael Jackson of dictators. Meanwhile the revolt in Libya is gathering steam. It will be interesting seeing whether one of the tribes will get the leadership, or whether the country will split into four (or more?) along ancestral territory lines.

[23]

I was rummaging through some Australian news sources for some additional info re. the earthquake in NZ and came across this:

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/us ... z1Ek50NWEH
US about to order Libya invasion - Castro

CUBA and Nicaragua have sprung to the defence of embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, with Fidel Castro claiming Washington plans to order a NATO invasion of Libya to seize oil interests.

"To me, it's absolutely clear that the Government of the United States is not interested in peace in Libya," said the 84-year old former Cuban leader, who still heads the Cuban Communist Party.

Washington, he said, "will not hesitate to give the order for NATO to invade that rich country, perhaps in the coming hours or days."

There has been no immediate reaction to turmoil in Libya from Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, Mr Gaddafi's closest ally in the region.

But Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega defended his friend, saying he had spoken with Mr Gaddafi, who is "waging a great battle ... and in these circumstances is trying to dialogue, and defend the integrity of the nation so that it does not break up, and so that there is no anarchy."

Libya is confronting a growing diplomatic backlash against the bloody crackdown on protesters, denouncing charges it was carrying out massacres.

[DrVolin]

Maybe not the US, but I was wondering this morning whether Egypt might not step in to stabilize the situation in the Western Desert, where the oil is, of course. The relatively weak military regime is looking for ways to stabilize itself, deflect domestic attention outward, and ingratiate itself with the western backers of middle east peace.

[8bitagent]

Looks like it's officially now an insurgency war, with the military now handing off heavy weaponry to whoever will take it to Tripoli to finish the fight:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 9#41725259

Wouldn't surprise me if Kuhdaffy sabotages the oil fields, releases all the prisoners and sets out to go in a blaze of glory.

[Plutonia]

Just now: Al Jabal Al Akhdar battalion defects and joins protesters

[Plutonia]

AnonQC Anonyme
Libya's interior minister resigns, predicts protest movement will achieve victory 'in a matter of days or hours' http://bit.ly/fSF5Zn

[tazmic]

Now I'm such an immature American with trivial concerns that I actually spent time searching for "The Gaddafi Look," the Saturday Night Live mock-ad for a fashion line from the late 1970s or 1980s that spoofed the Jordache jeans commercials.

vanity fair

[AlicetheKurious]

Egyptians hardly had time to take a breath and come to terms with the upheaval in their own country, before they were caught up in the cataclysmic events next door. I use the word "cataclysm" advisedly. The only news we're getting is from individuals who have managed to maintain contact, somehow, with someone in Libya, from amateur videos, from Libyan TV, and from the thousands of Egyptians who have managed to flee Libya (there are around 1 million Egyptians living in Libya and they're screaming for help). Al Jazeera uses a correspondent there, but all reports are by phone (probably satellite phone).

Yesterday the death toll was reported by Al-Jazeera to be at least 800 and is probably much, much higher than that. Eyewitnesses report that foreigners are driving armored police cars and shooting machine-guns indiscriminately. According to others, unidentified snipers and pilots in Libyan Air Force planes have fired on demonstrators and in crowded residential areas. Also according to Al Jazeera, unidentified armed thugs, some from African and other foreign countries, have broken into hospital morgues and stolen the bodies of murdered demonstrators.

Qaddafi is crazy and if anybody ever had any doubts, his last speech proved it. I kept thinking, "A bullet in the head is the most merciful thing." I almost felt sorry for him, because he really is insane and shouldn't be held responsible for his actions, although he has to be stopped by any means from doing more harm.

On the other hand, the speech by his son Seif al-Islam is the one that chilled me to the bone. I can't believe I used to think of him as a good guy. He always seemed to be saying and doing the right things and trying to make things better for his people, even against his father's will. But in his speech, the mask fell off and he was revealed to be a coldly contemptuous sociopath, oddly enough just like Gamal Mubarak.

It's striking that, despite the many differences, there are also some strange parallels with Tunisia's Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. All three began as national heroes: Ben Ali was a brave member of the resistance against the French colonialist regime, Mubarak was a fighter-pilot hero of the 1973 war and Qaddafi led the coup that overthrew the Libyan monarchy so that Libya could join a unified progressive Arab nationalist front against foreign aggression and occupation. Despite the Western demonization of Qaddafi, he started out as a genuine, if somewhat naive, idealist who began with the best intentions before it all went so horribly wrong. Another parallel is that all three began their steep descent into madness or whatever in the mid-1980s. Someday when they're all dead and buried (the sooner the better), somebody should study in depth the factors that transformed them from young men willing to sacrifice and die for their people into the insatiably greedy, murderous ghouls we see today.

Qaddafi, in his rambling speech, kept identifying himself with the legendary Libyan hero Omar Mukhtar, who led the resistance against the Italian occupation of Libya during WWI. As one Arab journalist put it, Qaddafi compares himself to Omar Mukhtar, but his actions are those of Mussolini. (BTW I strongly recommend the 1981 movie "Lion of the Desert", not only because it is an excellent film, but because this is one of the few foreign-made films that portrays Arabs and Arab history from an Arab point of view. It has been and continues to be immensely popular among succeeding generations of Arab audiences. I myself saw it at least a dozen times during my twenties; I imagine most Libyans have seen it far more times than that.)

PS: One reason for the confusion about how to spell Qaddafi's name in English is that despite one spelling in Arabic, it's pronounced differently in different national and even local dialects in Arabic. The closest to a phonetic pronunciation of his name in classical Arabic is "al Qathafi" (with a soft "th" like in "these") but some Arabs might pronounce it "Gaddafi" or "Gathafi" or "Qazzafi".

As for "Moammar", between the "Mo" and the "ammar" there is a sound that does not even exist outside of Arabic, represented by the letter "ein": the closest approximation of it is when a doctor puts a tongue depressor deep in your mouth and tells you to say "aaagh".

[DevilYouKnow]

Fighting Nears Tripoli, Where Qaddafi Keeps Grip on Power

Libyans fleeing across the country’s western border to Tunisia reported fighting over the past two nights in the town of Sabratha, home of an important Roman archeological site 50 miles west of Tripoli. Reuters reported that thousands of Libyan forces loyal to Col. Qaddafi had deployed there.

“The revolutionary committees are trying to kill everyone who is against Qaddafi,” said a doctor from Sabratha who had just left the country, but who declined to give his name because he wanted to return.

There were also reports of fighting in Misurata, a provincial center 130 miles west of the capital. A witness said that messages being broadcast from the loudspeakers of local mosques were urging people to attack the government’s opponents, following Colonel Qaddafi’s call in a defiant television address Tuesday night for ordinary citizens to assist in eliminating opponents of his regime.

A local radio station that had been broadcasting opposition messages was reported to have been attacked. In the southern city of Sabha, considered a Qaddafi stronghold, large protests were also reported.

In Rome, meanwhile, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Wednesday said the death toll from days of unrest in Libya was likely more than 1,000, and worried that violence there could spark Islamic extremism. Noting that the situation was chaotic, Mr. Frattini told reporters that he believed estimates that more than 1,000 Libyan civilians had been killed in the clashes with security forces and government supporters “appear to be true.”

In Tripoli, the streets were relatively quiet Wednesday morning, a resident said, but armed mercenaries were still in the streets . A bloody crackdown drove protesters from the streets on Tuesday, and residents had described a state of terror.

“All the government buildings in Tripoli are burned down,” one resident said. “But the mercenaries, they have weapons. The Libyans don’t have weapons, they will kill you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/world/africa/24libya.html?hp

[DevilYouKnow]

Libya-Italy oil pipeline completely dried up, says AJE.

Alleged mercenaries in Tripoli:

[Jeff]

Just now: Al Jabal Al Akhdar battalion defects and joins protesters

I apologize to the officers if I'm misreading their body language, but they look as though they've been scared shitless into doing the right thing. And that's more heartening right now than if their decision was born of conviction.

[DevilYouKnow]

Gaddafi loses more Libyan cities

Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's long-standing ruler, has reportedly lost control of more cities as anti-government protests continue to sweep the African nation despite his threat of a brutal crackdown.

Protesters in Misrata said on Wednesday they had wrested the western city from government control. In a statement on the internet, army officers stationed in the city pledged "total support for the protesters".

Much of the country's east also seemed to be in control of the protesters, and an Al Jazeera correspondent, reporting from the city of Tobruk, 140km from the Egyptian border, said there was no presence of security forces.

"From what I've seen, I'd say the people of eastern Libya are the ones in control", Hoda Abdel-Hamid, our correspondent, said.

She said there were no officials manning the border when the Al Jazeera team crossed into Libya.

'People in charge'

"All along the border, we didn't see one policeman, we didn't see one soldier and people here told us they [security forces] have all fled or are in hiding and that the people are now in charge, meaning all the way from the border, Tobruk, and then all the way up to Benghazi.

"People tell me it's also quite calm in Bayda and Beghazi. The do say however that "militias" are roaming around, especially at night. They describe them as African men, they say they speak French so they think they're from Chad."

Major General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the armed forces in Tobruk, told Al Jazeera that the troops led by him had switched loyalties. "We are on the side of the people," he said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011223125256699145.html

AJE now: Air Force pilot ejected from plane rather than follow orders to bomb protesters. Yellow-helmeted (!) militias hunt for protesters (cellphone video).

[tazmic]

http://yfrog.com/h3un88j
from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

[DevilYouKnow]

The yellow-hats: