Libyan War : Political and strategic aspects

[Johann]

Libya even before the revolution was as enormously dependent on foreign labour as any Gulf country. The vast majority of that labour -skilled and unskilled- left when things got violent. The country's infrastructure has been badly battered in the fighting, and there was massive capital flight as well.

In short Libya's economy is a wreck, and unless the Libyans can pull together, that labour, capital and expertise will not return and produce the kind of critical mass needed for reconstruction and recovery. Its a vicious cycle, because if people's high expectations aren't met that frustration will turn in to more political conflict which will in turn retard economic recovery. It took Iraq five years to climb out of that downward spiral. We shall see if Libya can avoid it.

[Singha]

there being no american boots onsite , I figure the chinese and their 25000 workers will be back soon enough, eager not to cede any ground or abandon any of their ongoing projects.

western europeans / americans would be hardly keen to work there onsite anyway for a long time - but chinese/indic/asian types will filter back soon if the new Govt honours the old contracts - which is a open q because no doubt some crony capitalism was there to benefit Qadhafi friends - all dictators operate on that model.

[brihaspati]

It all comes down to the prominence of Islamic education/institutions. Gaddafi castrated them and the population is relatively nonradicalized. If the new dispensation is not careful in 20 years the Islamics could ramp up and create that core 10% of the population they need to destroy a country.

One must always remember that Libya is far larger than Iraq in Area. It has about 1/2 the oil but is unexplored. And has about 1/3 the population. It is a relatively large Arab state. The fact that Obama and NATO got this done with a few bombs shows how wrong George Bush/Dick Cheney approach to Iraq was. At least at this snapshot moment.

WRT Saudi Arappia the world will never let a 10 million barrel per day producer descend to Taliban/Paki status. As many have pointed out the funds for Madarassa's actually largely comes from the population. Even in Kuwait there are donation and collection points for radical Islamist groups in many prominent places. I remember seeing one in the Airport 5 years ago, with Burga clad women making contributions as they walked by. It is an oil state phenomenon, not just Arappia.

The padshahi will be in trouble too - once they think they have sorted out the Airanians for good. But you and I can at least open a bottle in celebration.

As for "Islamism" taking roots after removal of dictators - I do not see why India should be worried about that at all. After all the ideology and the faith itself is inherently good isn't it? All those bad thingies happen onlee because of lack of economic development and the exceptions of prosperous Muslim nations getting more and more radicalized - Turkey/KSA/Malaysia/Indonesia - are exceptions that do not contradict the general rule! Even if the same feature happens in every Muslim country - they will all become just that - exceptions to the rule that Islamic radicalism is generated onlee because of lack of "development" and growth.

So if "growth" can be ensured in Libya - why should there be any fear of "Islamism"?

My long stated analysis about the Iranian radicalsim was that the first phase that got hijacked by Khomeini with western help - was the first phase of Iran's long and hard trek out of Islamism. This brought the eager beaver mullahs into state power and hence over time - with their murderous greed for dominance and power - the mullahs will expose the real imperialistic militant personal power drive within the core. The Republican Guard generation will fondly identify with Khomeini -but the next gen will be disillusioned. This is the second phase starting now. Once two generational cycles are over - roughly 2/3 of the population against the ruling dispensation - regime is overthrown. Within the next 30 years Iran will change and throw out the mullahcracy if not Islam totally.

We need this democratization and humanization process to happen in the Islamic world, and Libya is a first hand example and experiment - even if in the short term it appears to give power to some Islamists.

[Johann]

there being no american boots onsite , I figure the chinese and their 25000 workers will be back soon enough, eager not to cede any ground or abandon any of their ongoing projects.

western europeans / americans would be hardly keen to work there onsite anyway for a long time - but chinese/indic/asian types will filter back soon if the new Govt honours the old contracts - which is a open q because no doubt some crony capitalism was there to benefit Qadhafi friends - all dictators operate on that model.

Singha, the more risk friendly companies like the Italian ENI are already working on restoring their production. I doubt the others will be far behind. Besides the whole struggle to replace one old system of patronage (the rebels definitely have issues with the governments like Russia, Venezuela and South Africa that backed the Qadhafis to the end) with a new one is the weakness authority of the transitional government, or rather the fragility of the consensus that holds it together that is a bigger problem.

Like most outfits of their sort from Baghdad to Benghazi world the rebel brigades are composed of young guys from the same area, and they are loyal first and foremost to each other and their commanders. Now a lot of these guys have businesses and families they want to go back to, but some of the younger ones don't have much else going on. Unless the political system stabilises and functions well, the whole situation can very easy turn in to a prolonged factional crisis with different areas run by their own militias. Nobody wants to see Libya remain a failed state, because it is those conditions that jihadi groups thrive in - Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq etc.

[joshvajohn]

It is time for India to support the Libyan people in terms of giving them some good constitutional development, democratic institutions such as three tier kind of democracy and even getting some contract in oil industries and make some good business with the democratic govt in libya.

[RajeshA]

RajeshA
when the governments tend to kill their own people other countries will interfere. some people cannot escape by saying this is a western propaganda. Whether it is Libya or Srilanka, the regimes cannot survive if they kill their own people.

All that may be true, but the West has zero moral standing for undertaking anything anywhere!

It is all a story of national interests of various countries. Humanitarian rhetoric is only a mask! And using that Western mask to argue here, using their see-through propaganda is plain juvenile! No offense intended!

Besides I responded to your comment about Assad and not Qaddafi.

[Victor]

Weird report from China Daily:

Gadhafi son Saif at hotel after arrest report

TRIPOLI - Saif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi who rebels and the International Criminal Court said had been arrested, arrived late on Monday at the Tripoli hotel where foreign reporters are staying.

Saif appeared at the Rixos Hotel late at night and spoke to foreign journalists there.

Television footage showed him pumping his fists in the air, smiling, waving and shaking hands with supporters outside the hotel, as well as holding his arms aloft with each hand making the V for victory sign.

[Klaus]

Saif al-Islam reportedly leading a fightback in Tripoli, news of his capture by rebel forces was untrue: Link

Barack Obama also presses Qaddafi to "explicitly" give up power.

Gaddafi's eldest son, Mohammed, whose arrest had also been announced, has escaped, the Libyan ambassador to Washington told CNN.

Rebels claimed this morning that Gaddafi 's 42-year reign over, saying they controlled 80 percent of the capital, but fierce resistance from regime troops has forced rebels to give up some of the ground they captured during Operation Mermaid Dawn, launched at the weekend.

Rebel reinforcements were heading into Tripoli and NATO jets reportedly have carried out airstrikes in the Gaddafi compound this morning.

[habal]

obviously one can take reports from western agencies only with a pinch or bucket of salt as be the case.

btw where is the next anglo-saxon war ?

[sumishi]

obviously one can take reports from western agencies only with a pinch or bucket of salt as be the case.

btw where is the next anglo-saxon war ?

Syria, or/and Iran

[Singha]

the rebels prolly arrested some body doubles if saif al is still on the loose and leading the loyalist forces.

[Theo_Fidel]

Rebel reinforcements from Misrata have arrived in Tripoli by road. First batch was about 1000 fighters. Bab Al-Aziziya area where Gaddafi is probably hiding has been surrounded. This the only significant pocket left. Seif Gaddafi made the mistake of revealing himself and his papa's position which was probably the aim of the entire deception. Now that the rebels have a fix on their location, expect full scale assault.

[habal]

this is a war by falsehood. Apparently rebels were sent in by helicopters into Tripoli on a threat issued by NATO that they would burn the city of tripoli down if they didn't allow the rebels in. So that pattern of Eyeraq, South America etc continues . . .

but rebels don't have numbers and they can't replenish easily. They are just a few odd tribes from the east and berbers, whatever the spin otherwise.

[Philip]

Britain's secret role in Libya-exposed!

The west's manipulation and active participation in Libya,misusing a UN mandate that merely called for safeguarding civilians,has turned out to be a return to the old ways of the imperialist,looking to overthrow a dictator and install a puppet regime of their won so that they can loot the vast oil reserves of Libya for them selves.

Some sourcesd also say that the SAS and other mercenary outfits are active;ly involved on the ground,advising the "rebels",whose latest victories would be impossible without the assiatance of western "contractors" and covert special forces,apar frm the air campaign against the Libyan forces.It was not too long ago that the Libyan army loyal to Gadhaffi were at the gates of Benghazi.A midnight crisis meet of NATO saw them immediately launch air attacks agaainst the Libyan forces to save the day.Unrelenting strikes ever since have killed cores of innocent Libyan civilians and reportedly even Gadhaffi's children.Thse baby-killers now are on the brink of success,but the future of Libya with its various tribal loyalties remains to be seen.The clarion call is now for an actaul UN intervention on the ground,legitimising th west's Libyan takeaway.As we are now told that the US will be in Afghanistan until 2024 (!),putting to pasture the litany of lies about a US withdrawal,expect the fait accompli of another new colony of the west in the N.African desert this time ,after Afghanistan and Iraq,and the ever-increasing number of small weak resource-rich states threatened with similar "takeaways".The next stop is Syria!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ipoli.html

Libya: secret role played by Britain creating path to the fall of Tripoli
The key role played by Britain in equipping and advising Libya’s rebel fighters for their final push on Tripoli was becoming clear last night as Col Muammar Gaddafi’s remaining forces staged a last stand around his bunker.

Xcpt:

For weeks, military and intelligence officers have been helping the rebels plan their co-ordinated attack on the capital, and Whitehall sources have disclosed that the RAF stepped up raids on Tripoli on Saturday morning in a pre-arranged plan to pave the way for the rebel advance.

MI6 officers based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi had honed battle plans drawn up by Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) which were agreed 10 weeks ago.

The constantly-updated tactical advice provided by British experts to the rebel leaders centred on the need to spark a fresh uprising within Tripoli that could be used as the cue for fighters to advance on the city.

But when it finally came, the speed with which it achieved its goal took everyone, including the rebels, by surprise.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that although the uprising in Tripoli began on Saturday night, the first phase of the battle for the capital had begun hours earlier, when RAF Tornado GR4 aircraft attacked a key communications facility in south-west Tripoli as part of the agreed battle plan.

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On Saturday morning five precision-guided Paveway IV bombs were dropped on the Baroni Centre, a secret intelligence base headed by Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi.

The aircraft then struck at least one main battle tank belonging to Gaddafi’s troops, and in the afternoon another RAF patrol destroyed an artillery piece on the western edge of Tripoli and a nearby command and control facility.

On the ground, the rebels had spent weeks smuggling weapons, communications equipment and battle-hardened fighters into Tripoli, setting up secret arms dumps around the capital and waiting for a pre-arranged signal to trigger the uprising.

Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the TNC, told the Daily Telegraph that the agreed signal was a televised speech by the TNC chairman, Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil, which was broadcast via the Qatar-based Libya TV on Saturday evening.

Mr Jalil told the citizens of Tripoli “you have to rise to the event”, and as dusk fell at around 8pm local time a group of rebels seized their chance and took control of the Ben Nabi Mosque close to the city centre.

Using loudspeakers which normally call people to prayer, they began anti-Gaddafi chants to confirm the start of what rebel leaders called Operation Mermaid Dawn – the battle for Tripoli, which is nicknamed Mermaid in Arabic.

Mr Shammam said: “The start of the uprising was pre-arranged. We used our TV station for Mr Jalil to give a speech calling for the uprising and soon most of the people of Tripoli were on the streets.”

The timing of the uprising caught Gaddafi completely by surprise; the rebels had spent that day flushing out that last of his forces from Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli, and the Brother Leader had clearly expected them to regroup, reorganise and re-arm - as they had done in the past after each major battle - before making an attempt on Tripoli.

Instead, the rebels who had been fighting in Zawiyah were making a dash for the capital, and in the skies overhead RAF Tornados and Typhoons were launching further surgical strikes on pre-planned targets.

The RAF and its alliance partners carried out 46 sorties on Sunday alone, relying heavily on the RAF’s Brimstone ground attack missile system that can pick out targets close to civilian areas with incredible accuracy, minimising the risk of civilian casualties.

Gaddafi’s bunker at Bab al-Aziziya was pounded throughout the night, and the Tornados’ advanced electronics also enabled aircraft already in the sky to hit Gaddafi targets as they were identified, using a system known as dynamic targeting.

Gaddafi’s command and control centres, set up in industrial buildings or even empty schools, were also attacked, crippling the Libyan despot’s ability to direct his troops.

On the ground, meanwhile, the rebels sent out mass text messages to regime opponents waiting in Tripoli for a signal to rise up, and as Gaddafi’s forces tried in vain to suppress the revolt it spread out across 13 suburbs.

By Sunday afternoon the rebels who had been fighting in Zawiyah were just miles away from the outskirts of Tripoli.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, confirmed yesterday that Britain had equipped the fighters with a range of “non-lethal” kit including advanced telecommunications equipment and 1,000 sets of body armour.

They had also been given night vision goggles, which proved crucial in picking out snipers who had been sent by Gaddafi to impede their progress towards the capital.

The battle plan also included a sea-borne assault on Tripoli launched from the port of Misrata to the east, which landed at dawn on Sunday.

Gaddafi took to the airwaves to make a series of increasingly desperate appeals for Libyans to defend Tripoli from the rebels as “a matter of life and death” but the crackling recordings of his voice – and a lack of any video footage – led to speculation that he had either fled the country or had gone into hiding in a 2,000-mile network of tunnels built in the 1980s.

His soldiers, sensing the battle was lost, had begun dumping their uniforms wherever they stood, and by midnight on Sunday the rebels had reached Green Square, the symbolic heart of Tripoli, with little resistance.

The speed of the rebel advance was such that Gaddafi’s intended heir, his son Saif al-Islam, had no time to reach his father’s compound, and was captured by rebels on Saturday night.

His brother, Mohammed, was giving a telephone interview to a broadcaster when a gunfight broke out inside his home. The line went dead and seconds later he too was captured.

Mr Shammam said: “The plan was very successful. Our assumption was that it would take a few days but the results were clear in a few hours.

“We were expecting more resistance from Gaddafi’s troops. We thought they were determined to fight to the last moment but it seems like they got tired or lost the cause.”

David Cameron, who was on a family holiday in Cornwall, also seemed to have been caught out by the rapid turn of events.

Although he had been kept up to date with the rebels’ plans, no-one had expected Tripoli to fall so quickly, and the Prime Minister scrambled to get back to Downing Street to chair a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday.

Speaking outside Number 10, he paid tribute to the “incredible bravery, professionalism and dedication” of the RAF pilots, adding: “This has not been our revolution, but we can be proud that we have played our part.”

As the fighting continued in Tripoli last night, the rebels had gained control of around 90 per cent of the city, with the bloodiest battle raging around Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al-Aziziya.

Another of Gaddafi’s sons, Khamis, was reported to have led his eponymous Khamis Brigade into battle from the compound, killing what one official described as “a big number” of rebels.

Tanks rolled out of the compound to begin shelling the city, and snipers fired from rooftops to prevent rebels joining the battle at Bab al-Aziziya.

Loyalist tanks were also deployed at the port, but the rebels continued to press on, and scored further victories.

By mid-afternoon yesterday they had reportedly captured a third son of Gaddafi, Saadi, and at 4pm Libya’s state broadcaster went off the air, removing one of the despot’s final and most important tools in his ability to maintain any form of resistance.

Across Tripoli, its citizens tore down every green flag of the Gaddafi regime they could find, chanting “freedom” in English. By last night, Green Square had been renamed Martyrs’ Square as 42 years of tyranny finally came to an end.

“We came out today to feel a bit of freedom,” said Ashraf Halaby, 30, as he joined the celebrations in the square. “We still don't believe that this is happening.”

PS:Bizarrre!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 42368.html

The son and heir apparent of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, resurfaced free and defiant early today a day after rebels claimed to have captured him, boasting in a bizarre reappearance that his father's loyalists still control parts of Tripoli and would crush the rebellion.

Saif al-Islam's sudden - even surreal - arrival at a Tripoli hotel where foreign journalists are staying threw the situation in the capital into confusion.

It underlined the potential for Gaddafi, whose whereabouts remain unknown, to lash back even as his grip on power seemed to be slipping fast.

Gaddafi son vows to crush rebels

[Philip]

More on the secret British campaign in Libya.The pic-in the link,shows an alleged ex-SAS "adviser"!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... ote]Rebels claim the victory – but did the Brits win it?

Cahal Milmo and Kim Sengupta on the army of spies and special forces at work in Libya
Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Evidence that British special forces were on the ground in Libya advising the rebels first emerged in June. The man in the pink shirt, centre, pictured with rebel fighters near Misrata, is thought to be ex-SAS.

The Berber rebels in the Nafusa Mountains to the west of Tripoli have played a key role in the endgame of Muammar Gaddafi's regime. What has received less publicity is the small but vital part played in that offensive by British intelligence officials, who from their seat in the Libyan highlands have been advising the rebel leadership on the strategy behind their final assault.

Since 19 March – when the Royal Navy launched cruise missiles on Libyan air-defence targets, followed the next day by attacks by Royal Air Force Tornado jets – Britain has placed itself in the front ranks of Western powers enforcing the United Nations resolution protecting civilians from Colonel Gaddafi's forces and simultaneously pursuing the Brother Leader's removal from power.

While the Ministry of Defence has been diligent in providing daily updates on the progress of "Operation Ellamy", the British codename for its £250m part in the Nato campaign in Libya, a quieter London-sponsored offensive has been taking place on the ground for six months, involving an army of diplomats, spooks, military advisers and former members of the special forces.

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One British intelligence operative in the Nafusa Mountains had previously been deployed elsewhere in Libya, including the besieged city of Misrata, part of attempts by London to influence events in Libya beyond the activities of warplanes and naval vessels.

It is a clandestine operation that got off to a spectacularly inauspicious start in March when seven SAS soldiers and an MI6 officer were detained by militia members outside the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, during a botched mission to make contact with anti-Gaddafi leaders. Since then, the British auxiliary efforts have been conducted more clandestinely.

A British diplomatic source said: "From quite an early stage there has been a view that Gaddafi's stranglehold would only be broken if there were practical measures on the ground as well as the air campaign. We are not talking legions of SAS crawling through the undergrowth. What we are talking about is offering expertise, diplomatic support and allowing others to be helpful."

The "others" in question are the small groups of former special forces operatives, many with British accents, working for private security firms who have been seen regularly by reporters in the vanguard of the rebels' haphazard journey from Benghazi towards Tripoli.

These small detachments of Caucasian males, equipped with sunglasses, 4x4 vehicles and locally acquired weaponry, do not welcome prying eyes, not least because their presence threatened to give credence to the Gaddafi regime's claims that the rebel assault was being directed by Western fifth-columnists.

Amid frustration and even disdain in British and Allied circles about the ragtag nature of much of the Libyan rebel army – whose reputation as fair-weather fighters proved to be literal in April when two days of rainfall halted their offensive – London has been content for the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council to use funds to buy in ex-SAS men and others with a British military background to help train and advise anti-Gaddafi forces.

The Independent understands that the contracts for the security companies, often signed in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, have involved funds provided by Western countries to the NTC, although much of the money has come from previously frozen regime bank accounts and assets.

The coalition, including Britain, France and Italy, has also funded high-tech equipment used by rebel fighters to communicate their position to Nato commanders as they plot the air strikes that have helped to tilt the balance against Colonel Gaddafi's demoralised military forces. Since March, British forces have destroyed 890 targets in Libya, including 180 tanks or armoured vehicles and 395 buildings.

But it is arguably in the arena of post-conflict planning that the British have been most active. In the wake of last month's decision by London to recognise the NTC as the de facto government of Libya, expelling pro-Gaddafi diplomats in London, the UK mission to Benghazi is now the second largest in North Africa. Diplomats have been engaged in drawing up a blueprint for a post-Gaddafi Libya, including humanitarian aid, help with policing, governance and reform of the military. The prize of being seen as a "friend" in a stable, oil-rich Libya is considerable.

Call for Megrahi's return

Pressure was mounting last night on the British Government to seek the return of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who has been a vigorous supporter of the Gaddafi regime since being returned to Tripoli from a Scottish jail two years ago. The Tory MP Robert Halfon said rebel leaders should be urged to extradite the former intelligence officer. The Foreign Office said: "He was convicted in a Scottish court under Scottish law. He could be returned under the terms of his release but that is a matter for the relevant authorities."

JONATHAN BROWN

[/quote]

[A_Gupta]

Prof. Juan Cole on Libya
http://www.juancole.com/2011/08/13169.html

China, which had called for a ceasefire last March (which would have left Qaddafi with half the country), changed its stance. Ma Zhaoxu, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said, “We have noticed recent changes in the Libyan situation and we respect the Libyan people’s choice.” China is Libya’s biggest oil customer in Asia and probably would like to make oil investments in the new Libya. Likely, however, it will be frozen out in favor of countries that more warmly supported the Benghazi revolutionaries.

[joshvajohn]

Libya rebels overrun Kadhafi compound in Tripoli
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... 41762df.11

[Theo_Fidel]

They have got hold of his snazzy little tuk tuk...

Gaddafi is going to be really pissed now...

[hnair]

western europeans / americans would be hardly keen to work there onsite anyway for a long time - but chinese/indic/asian types will filter back soon if the new Govt honours the old contracts - which is a open q because no doubt some crony capitalism was there to benefit Qadhafi friends - all dictators operate on that model.

Have an uncle who went to Libya (after taking leave from academia at Govt Dental college) and came back after a few years in the 80s. Similarly some govt teachers amongst my school mates' parents too, who went for years long stints. These folks stuck around when Reagan decided to splash a few Mig23s and even more dicey, when Chad borderwars flared up into the "Toyota War", when those Chad factions aligned with Libya, "magically" decided to desert Gaddafi in '86 and threw him out for good. Any kepi-dhaaris found amongst the Chadians were all figments of imaginacione..

Recently, when the bombing started, an old classmate, who was teaching at Trivandrum Medical college, took leave and went in as a "sans Frontiere" surgeon. His FB updates are touching and at the same time, gruesome. Our lad does not shrink away from posting bullet victims' "before" and "after" surgery photos His own way of bringing war horrors to the PYTs of God's own country, who is hankering after trinkets in "joolery shops". And it seems both sides (ex-regime and rebels) has a lot of visible good will towards him, if one goes by pics of him in surgical scrub, at makeshift camps. All of them scrawny types that he helped patch up, they are grinning like old pals of his from good old Indian Coffee House at Medical College Junction.

So filtering in is not needed for injuns who usually did not cut and run at the first hum on the horizon.

[Neshant]

One thing this invasion of Libya taught me is not to trust Associated Press, Reuters and any media based in the country doing the invading. Invariably they promote their own nation's propaganda.

All you'll ever see in their news articles are pictures of rebels doing pious things like praying, flag waving, cheering... Reality is that this is an invasion of a small soverign country to grab its resources but you'll never see them print that.

Next up on the civilian protection invasion list is one of either UAE, Qatar (lackey though they may be) or Kuwait. All sitting on a vast amounts of riches with easy to dispose of sheiks at the top.

Meanwhile one fallout so far is Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has asked that the entire gold hoard of his country be returned from vaults in US, UK. et.al where its supposedly held. Approx 380 tons. Although the amount is large but not humungous, things would sure get interesting if this margin call could not be met.

I wonder what non-white country will be stupid enough to keep its money or gold in the west given how $35 billion of Libya's funds in US banks was ransacked overnight.

[sumishi]

One thing this invasion of Libya taught me is not to trust Associated Press, Reuters and any media based in the country doing the invading. Invariably they promote their own nation's propaganda....

^+10

[Aditya_V]

One thing this invasion of Libya taught me is not to trust Associated Press, Reuters and any media based in the country doing the invading. Invariably they promote their own nation's propaganda....

^+10

See the TVS Wego ad, its message is lost on most viewers.

[sumishi]

See the TVS Wego ad, its message is lost on most viewers.

Kindly elaborate. Meanwhile, one of the gals (curly haired) had three hands!

[Aditya_V]

message in the Ad is simple, most news is manupulated to the reporters view. What is actual happening is X< reporter is saying it is Y>

[sumishi]

message in the Ad is simple, most news is manupulated to the reporters view. What is actual happening is X< reporter is saying it is Y>

Hmmm...nice.
Nitpicking: There is another un-intended message - Tricking mango Indics (straight haired gal) into following the western culture (curly-haired one's antics), while in the end the Indic culture is taken over (curly ends with a classical dance pose)

[habal]

Who’s Behind the Arab Revolutions?
August 22, 2011
By Matthew Raphael Johnson, Ph.D.

“The groups involved in financing the opposition in Egypt and elsewhere include, most commonly, the George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the International Crisis Group (ICG) of the Rothschild family and their many offshoots. Major figures sitting on ICG’s board include George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Senator George Mitchell, Morton Abramowitz, Gen. Wesley Clark and Samuel Berger. They have donated millions of dollars to liberal groups operating against governments in strategic areas. The agenda is identical in each case: liberal democracy, secularism, feminism, and private banking. The mobilization of urban youth has long been an important aspect of Soros/ICG operations from Belarus to Bahrain.”

“The removal of non-liberal states means the ability for Western banks to more easily penetrate places like Libya, that has a government controlled central bank. Strong states in this strategic part of the world make it far more difficult for Rothschild banks to control finance in these states, and as a result, the “opposition” is created as a financial investment.”

http://reasonradionetwork.com/20110822/ ... evolutions

(originally published in The Barnes Review, May/June 2011)

[Singha]

if the qadhafi compound is in rebel hands where exactly is he?

btw the french did arms drops of Milans and explosives in the western mountains a few months ago, perhaps with ex-foreign legion as advisers and trainers. they acknowledged this violation of the NATO terms of engagement when the media exposed it, and carried right on.

as always the strong shall write the rules and enforce them selectively. they shall also write the post-mortem and backchange historical accounts.

[JE Menon]

On the Barbary Coast

Once again on the Barbary Coast,
Navies mighty assembled, boast
An end to the unruly tribal ways
Of the rough-hewn Arabs who there stay

Fire from the sky, not divining why
A people divided: to arms, they cry!
To bring down a ruler who, heretofore
Had fed them naught, but revolutionary lore

To topple the tyrant, they saw no other way
But to turn to the crusaders, of yesterday
So in they come, with aerial might
Like the olden Frankish or Saxon knight

Blood is spilled, and grand bargains made
Broken empires thrilling in nostalgia’s shade
Hoping, perchance, for that one last high
Again to hear another Moor’s last sigh

To the end they stayed, acolytes all
Of the Moor and his progeny, till the final fall
Fealty to the tribe, the clan, the family
Trumped, often, their sense of security

So many fell, and rotting they lay
As the victorious war-gangs made their way
To the heart of the capital, to grasp and seize
What they thought was freedom, and peace

Rebel warriors welcomed the defecting tanks
And hid crusader mercenaries within their ranks
Guiding them on their way to victory
Down the dust brown avenues of Tripoli

These rustic men, cannon fodder, had they known
That soon the seeds of their future would be sown
And the fastest tendrils to emerge from Libyan soil
Would be the same old crops of Islam, and oil

What now, a grizzled fighter asks, what of you and me?
What about the promise of freedom and democracy?
He turns to the mercenary and to the knight
And looks to the sky for any deliverance in sight

The knight, unsettled, loudly exclaims “you have won liberty”
The mercenary, sympathetic, offers: “money will set you free”
And soon it begins to dawn on the common man, that he
Must prepare to survive another round, of tyranny

So it goes, that a new tale of woes
Befalls a country through misplaced goals
More violence, more doubt, and a little aid at most
Nothing new, nothing old, on the Barbary Coast

[joshvajohn]

JEM It is a nice one to read!!!

[Neshant]

if the qadhafi compound is in rebel hands where exactly is he?

My guess is he has been murdered by NATO already.

[abhishek_sharma]

Why the Libyan revolution may not matter very much

[sumishi]

Why the Libyan revolution may not matter very much

An apartment in the far end of the complex gets ransacked and looted.
The society security guard says to the members - "Don't worry, it does not matter much."
A couple of months later, another one, nearer, was ransacked.
The society security guard says to the members - "Don't worry, it does not matter much. Go to sleep. Hush!"
.....

[Philip]

The SAS is now looking for the Col.! I've rarely seen such a blatant western abuse of the UN.But than what else does one expect from its spineless puppet Sec-Gen. "Bunkum" Moon?

As I said earlier,British SAS forces have been active for "weeks"-it has now been acknowledged,on the ground in Libya.The Empire strikes back and the Imperialists have scored a major victory after Iraq,stealing yet another oil rich nation.

Libya: SAS leads hunt for Gaddafi
British special forces are on the ground in Libya helping to spearhead the hunt for Col Muammar Gaddafi, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ddafi.html

PS:Great poem JEM! Send it to the Times.

[JE Menon]

Thanks Phil, joshvajohn,

Guys, distribution of of poem (if you think worthwhile) is free with only copyleft (thanks for that one doc) being that it was originally posted on BRF (give link please). I've already sent it around to friends etc. Don't want direct attribute at the moment.

After a little while, may post it on a blog I'm thinking of starting.

[Philip]

JEM what you have described in poetic fashion ,Rober Fisk has described in prose!

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 43459.html

Robert Fisk: History repeats itself, with mistakes of Iraq rehearsed afresh
With Gaddafi at large, a guerrilla war eroding the new powers is inevitable

Xcpt:

Doomed always to fight the last war, we are recommitting the same old sin in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi vanishes after promising to fight to the death. Isn't that just what Saddam Hussein did? And of course, when Saddam disappeared and US troops suffered the very first losses from the Iraqi insurgency in 2003, we were told – by the US proconsul Paul Bremer, the generals, diplomats and the decaying television "experts" – that the gunmen of the resistance were "die-hards", "dead-enders" who didn't realise that the war was over. And if Gaddafi and his egg-headed son remain at large – and if the violence does not end – how soon will we be introduced once more to the "dead-enders" who simply will not understand that the lads from Benghazi are in charge and that the war is over? Indeed, within 15 minutes – literally – of my writing the above words (2pm yesterday), a Sky News reporter had re-invented "die-hards" as a definition for Gaddafi's men. See what I mean?

Needless to say, all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds as far as the West is concerned. No one is disbanding the Libyan army and no one is officially debarring the Gaddafi-ites from a future role in their country. No one is going to make the same mistakes we made in Iraq. And no boots are on the ground. No walled-off, sealed-in Green Zone Western zombies are trying to run the future Libya. "It's up to the Libyans," has become the joyful refrain of every State Department/ Foreign Office/Quai d'Orsay factotum. Nothing to do with us!

But, of course, the massive presence of Western diplomats, oil-mogul representatives, highly paid Western mercenaries and shady British and French servicemen – all pretending to be "advisers" rather than participants – is the Benghazi Green Zone. There may (yet) be no walls around them but they are, in effect, governing Libya through the various Libyan heroes and scallywags who have set themselves up as local political masters. We can overlook the latters' murder of their own commanding officer – for some reason, no one mentions the name of Abdul Fatah Younes any more, though he was liquidated in Benghazi only a month ago – but they can only survive by clinging to our Western umbilicals.

Of course, this war is not the same as our perverted invasion of Iraq. Saddam's capture only provoked the resistance to infinitely more attacks on Western troops – because those who had declined to take part in the insurgency for fear that the Americans would put Saddam back in charge of Iraq now had no such inhibitions. But Gaddafi's arrest along with Saif's would undoubtedly hasten the end of pro-Gaddafi resistance to the rebels. The West's real fear – right now, and this could change overnight – should be the possibility that the author of the Green Book has made it safely through to his old stomping ground in Sirte, where tribal loyalty might prove stronger than fear of a Nato-backed Libyan force.

Sirte, where Gaddafi, at the very start of his dictatorship, turned the region's oil fields into the first big up-for-grabs international dividend for foreign investors after his 1969 revolution, is no Tikrit. It is the site of his first big African Union conference, scarcely 16 miles from the place of his own birth, a city and region that benefited hugely from his 41-year rule. Strabo, the Greek geographer, described how the dots of desert settlements due south of Sirte made Libya into a leopard skin. Gaddafi must have liked the metaphor. Almost 2,000 years later, Sirte was pretty much the hinge between the two Italian colonies of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

And in Sirte the "rebels" were defeated by the "loyalists" in this year's six-month war; we shall soon, no doubt, have to swap these preposterous labels – when those who support the pro-Western Transitional National Council will have to be called loyalists, and pro-Gaddafi rebels turn into the "terrorists" who may attack our new Western-friendly Libyan administration. Either way, Sirte, whose inhabitants are now supposedly negotiating with Gaddafi's enemies, may soon be among the most interesting cities in Libya.

So what is Gaddafi thinking now? Desperate, we believe him to be. But really? We have chosen many adjectives for him in the past: irascible, demented, deranged, magnetic, tireless, obdurate, bizarre, statesmanlike (Jack Straw's description), cryptic, exotic, bizarre, mad, idiosyncratic and – most recently – tyrannical, murderous and savage. But in his skewed, shrewd view of the Libyan world, Gaddafi would do better to survive and live – to continue a civil-tribal conflict and thus consume the West's new Libyan friends in the swamp of guerrilla warfare – and slowly sap the credibility of the new "transitional" power.

But the unpredictable nature of the Libyan war means that words rarely outlive their writing. Maybe Gaddafi hides in a basement tunnel beneath the Rixos Hotel – or lounges in one of Robert Mugabe's villas. I doubt it. Just so long as no one tries to fight the war before this one.

[Prem]

Obsessions

Raiding Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, U.S. Special Forces found “extensive” caches of “modern, electronically recorded” *****. Raiding Moammar Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli, rebels have found “a photo album filled with page after page of pictures of Condoleezza Rice.” Now I’m just curious what goodies’ Bashar Al-Assad of Syria has hidden underneath his bed.

http://www.1115.org/2011/08/25/obsessions/

[joshvajohn]

The Transitional National Council should start working as a power centre in Libya.They should move to Tripoli and start functioning as a national organisation. They should bring out a plan for election within a year or two and also develop some constitutional bases rather than complete constitutional framework which has to be done by the elected govt only.

[Philip]

Cornered.....or is still going to end up as Iraq redux?

Libya: rebels surround apartment block 'hiding' Col Gaddafi
The net appeared to be closing on Muammar Gaddafi as rebels laid siege to a possible hideout and British intelligence sources said that the deposed leader was still in Tripoli.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ddafi.html

Up to 1,000 opposition fighters surrounded an apartment block near Gaddafi’s former headquarters in the Libyan capital, where they exchanged fire with loyalists following unconfirmed reports that the despot was inside with some of his sons.

It also emerged that the rebels might have been only hours away from catching Gaddafi at another address in Tripoli where he is believed to have spent the night.

Gaddafi made yet another television broadcast to urge his remaining supporters to “purify” the capital of “rats”, while his spokesman taunted his enemies by saying the 69-year-old was safe, healthy and “leading the battle for our freedom”.

The first members of the de facto government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), arrived in Tripoli yesterday to begin setting up the institutions that will bring democracy to Libya.

But a large area of the capital remained a war zone as loyalist soldiers continued to put up stubborn resistance in a guerrilla battle that could go on for “weeks”, according to William Hague, the Foreign Secretary

[Theo_Fidel]

Ayesha Gaddafi.. ..what was she thinking..

[sumishi]

Cannot believe it! Some forum members here tacitly accepting/acknowledging the take-over of a nation by wily western globalists, in the guise of humanitarian assistance, and the current and planned future loot of its resources.