Libyan War : Political and strategic aspects

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 18 Oct 2011 20:22

Yes indeed, as credible as Al-Guardian ever gets.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 19 Oct 2011 03:07

Rudra,

Sadly you are wasting your time. When I brought this particular item up many moons ago...

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 0#p1064031

The response was quite chilling. "Tough luck & Collateral damage". Gaddafi good good good only, must kiss his A$$ only were common responses.

As Ramana has pointed out, this a function of a lack of moral compass.

svenkat · Post by **svenkat** » 20 Oct 2011 17:05

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/ ... FK20111020

Gadaffi dead.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 20 Oct 2011 17:38

Theo_Fidel wrote:Rudra,

Sadly you are wasting your time. When I brought this particular item up many moons ago...

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 0#p1064031

Aah yes, I had posted some links previously ... worth mentioning them again -

Pan Am 103 Why Did They Die? - http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,975399,00.html

Also: Flight from the truth - http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jun/2 ... features11

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 20 Oct 2011 17:47

svenkat wrote:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/ ... FK20111020

Gadaffi dead.

End of another leader who never understood western elites, and rubbed too many other players the wrong way. Unfortunately his people will suffer.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Oct 2011 18:14

And gave up his WMD too soon. Look at H&D tha SP generals get as long as they have their clown jewels.

Was it execution after capture for how can he die after being captured?

Klaus · Post by **Klaus** » 20 Oct 2011 18:25

Veteran Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi has been killed by new regime forces in their final assault on the last pocket of resistance in his hometown Sirte, a National Transitional Council spokesman said Thursday.

A video circulating among NTC fighters in Sirte showed mobile phone footage of what appeared to be Gaddafi's bloodied corpse.

In the grainy images seen by an AFP correspondent, a large number of NTC fighters are seen yelling in chaotic scenes around a khaki-clad body which has blood oozing from the face and neck.

The body is then dragged off by the fighters and loaded in the back of a pick-up truck.

A stills photograph taken on a mobile phone and obtained by AFP showed Gaddafi heavily bloodied but it was not clear from the picture whether he was alive or dead at the time.

In the grainy image, Gaddafi is seen with blood-soaked clothing and blood daubed across his face

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 20 Oct 2011 19:21

WMD would not have made a difference. How was he going to launch a nuke at desert fighters?

One day NK & Iran will fall as well.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Oct 2011 19:22

I think we see a model for how TSP will fall. Only the rebels willl be more hardline Islamists.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 20 Oct 2011 19:23

TV footage shows Libya fighters dragging Gaddafi body

Al Jazeera English Television broadcast on Thursday what it said was exclusive footage clearly showing the body of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi being dragged by rebels along a street.

The footage showed the half naked body of the toppled Libyan strongman being stripped of his shirt. His face was red with blood and had a bullet hole in the side of his head.

The legs of a uniformed transitional government fighter were showing next to Gaddafi's face.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl ... 429098.cms

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 20 Oct 2011 20:27

Theo_Fidel wrote:WMD would not have made a difference. How was he going to launch a nuke at desert fighters?

One day NK & Iran will fall as well.

it would be better if Iran and NK were also taken care of by "internal" moves than by external aggression. especially Iran. Western involvement plants more chaos, especially this region. better to let the population, which is moving away from Islamism in Persia, make the necessary changes.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 20 Oct 2011 21:17

ramana wrote:I think we see a model for how TSP will fall. Only the rebels willl be more hardline Islamists.

Would there be bombing involved? TSP is a nuke state and the US has no problems bombing it right now.
Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, fell in different ways even though next to each other. They also did not disintegrate.

TSP will fall in its own way. It fall will only happen when it disintegrates. I mean ask yourself how close it is to Somalia yet it persists as does Somalia itself.

BTW NATO bombing is to finally stop.

It is astonishing how these dictators all end up hiding in hole in the ground when the end comes. What happens to the courage and stand and fight like a man, etc....
Gaddafi's hole. Caught like a sewer rat. History of rinse repeat. Assad next.
NSFW.!!!!

Saddam.

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 20 Oct 2011 22:22

Looks like Gaddafi was captured alive and then shot at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75YhFScM5sU
(Not for faint hearted people)

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 20 Oct 2011 22:32

holy crap.....they beat the shit out of him.....he was bloodied, and played around like a rag doll. he should have killed himself when he realized his last "stronghold" was abut to fall.....this is what Shiva Tandavam looks like. may there be many more such Tandavas in the coming years and decades.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 20 Oct 2011 22:52

In Romania the leader Nicolai Caucsecu, also got the same treatment. It was that fear that made PRC overreact to Tian Mein Square protests.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 20 Oct 2011 23:09

Dictators have very vicious enemies.

habal · Post by **habal** » 20 Oct 2011 23:15

Only thing proven by this is that for all western causes, one will always find some native useful idiots. The rat hole drain thingy all seems manufactured, he in all likelihood was being constantly monitored by NATO and threatened all the time by air strikes.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 20 Oct 2011 23:15

Acharya wrote:Dictators have very vicious enemies.

Did you folks see Mussolini's completely disfigured face after he was killed and hanged upside down? Its creepy and is available on youtube. It is eerily similar to what happened today. Almost photocopy.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 21 Oct 2011 00:17

Whenever dictators die before they can be tried, it means some of their friends were very very worried about them being captured alive. Even if captured alive, trials and a quick execution is a must.

But then isn't that the game the dictators themselves played in coming to power? Zia finished off Bhutto - his patron. The Afghans had played the same game well during the transition to proto-Talebanism-monarchism-back-to-Talebanism with Daud and Najibullah. Hitler finished off his close patron too on the eve of power. Stalin could have been implicated in Lenin's death who handpicked him in the pre-revolutionary days.

It would have been good to have Q tried formally, but obviously his many friends would have had trouble with that. I am mighty pleased that Q was finished off. His own ex-collaborators saw to it. That is a mighty additional reason to be pleased. Only because here was an Islamist who had played with the idea of an independent "Kashmir". An opportunist without any morality - as all typical Islamists are.

Will I not be similarly glad, if the apes in the Occupation Government of Pakistan are similarly finished off by their Islamist friends backed up by their Christian friends from the shadows? Oh, I will! I will. Even a wee bit of revenge for everything done by that theology -whether by a birather theology or self-goal, is always sweet. Will always be sweet. Life after life, until the very roots of that ideology is wiped off.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Oct 2011 00:22

Not PC but very true.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 21 Oct 2011 00:24

I'm glad Gaddafi dead. Keeping Saddam alive caused the insurgency to spiral.

Key Question. Will TSP rename Gaddafi Stadium?

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 21 Oct 2011 04:15

I had the same question!! would napakis now rename their Lahori stadium?

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 21 Oct 2011 04:58

devesh wrote:holy crap.....they beat the shit out of him.....he was bloodied, and played around like a rag doll. he should have killed himself when he realized his last "stronghold" was abut to fall.....

If you are going to die, its always better to die as a martyr which he did.

He did not flee his country and faught to the end with what little resources he had.

It earns him a place in the minds of any present and future insurgent which makes him strong even in death.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 21 Oct 2011 06:02

Brother Leader's War Machine: Exclusive: The secret photo albums of Muammar al-Qaddafi offer a rare look at the colonel's guns and ammo.

Gripping and Grinning with the Colonel: Exclusive: From the secret archives of the deposed Libyan leader, rare photographs of four decades of Muammar al-Qaddafi's photo ops with heads of state.

habal · Post by **habal** » 21 Oct 2011 07:13

brihaspati wrote:Whenever dictators die before they can be tried, it means some of their friends were very very worried about them being captured alive. Even if captured alive, trials and a quick execution is a must.

But then isn't that the game the dictators themselves played in coming to power? Zia finished off Bhutto - his patron. The Afghans had played the same game well during the transition to proto-Talebanism-monarchism-back-to-Talebanism with Daud and Najibullah. Hitler finished off his close patron too on the eve of power. Stalin could have been implicated in Lenin's death who handpicked him in the pre-revolutionary days.

It would have been good to have Q tried formally, but obviously his many friends would have had trouble with that. I am mighty pleased that Q was finished off. His own ex-collaborators saw to it. That is a mighty additional reason to be pleased. Only because here was an Islamist who had played with the idea of an independent "Kashmir". An opportunist without any morality - as all typical Islamists are.

Will I not be similarly glad, if the apes in the Occupation Government of Pakistan are similarly finished off by their Islamist friends backed up by their Christian friends from the shadows? Oh, I will! I will. Even a wee bit of revenge for everything done by that theology -whether by a birather theology or self-goal, is always sweet. Will always be sweet. Life after life, until the very roots of that ideology is wiped off.

both Qaddafi and his son were in regular radio contact with NATO according to certain eyewitness close to family. When they first threatened him with bombing Tripoli to stone ages during the stalemates, that is what prompted him to leave Tripoli with his family. NATO forced Qaddafi into allowing a column of rebels to enter Tripoli, and strike a few poses for photo-ops and announce end of war and this was when these rebels had zero support base in Tripoli.

they could not allow him to live because it would be exposed that NATO had openly threatened to wipe out civilian populations in war amongst many other diabolical misdeeds.

then there is the axim of those who live by the sword, die by the sword which applies to Qaddafi. But this axim of natural justice rings hollow because anglo-saxon actors and perpetrators aren't being put to the sword. So this isn't justice in natural course but fake and manufactured justice. In fact massive injustice given propaganda cover. So far there was a balance of evil in the two Abrahamic forces. One controlled oil and global wealth and another controlled just oil. Now the ones controlling just oil are being wiped out which will leave us with just the bigger evil to contend with. Now that is some major relief.

the collapse of so many dictators in such a short space of time is extremely significant in that these dictators though brutal and malevolent oversaw a certain balance of power in their region. Now that they are out of the picture, the region will come under control of a different set of actors. Freedom of speech with replace freedom of livelihood. True justice will begin once these well-fed Benghazi rebels start feeling the globalist pinch and suffer 18 hr power cuts with no food around.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 21 Oct 2011 07:16

Altair wrote:
Acharya wrote:Dictators have very vicious enemies.
Did you folks see Mussolini's completely disfigured face after he was killed and hanged upside down? Its creepy and is available on youtube. It is eerily similar to what happened today. Almost photocopy.

maybe not for faint hearted!!!!

BhairavP · Post by **BhairavP** » 21 Oct 2011 08:05

^That's Mussolini and Clara Petacci, no?

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 21 Oct 2011 08:13

Yes, check his face, almost flatened out

sumishi · Post by **sumishi** » 21 Oct 2011 08:16

habal wrote:...
the collapse of so many dictators in such a short space of time is extremely significant in that these dictators though brutal and malevolent oversaw a certain balance of power in their region. Now that they are out of the picture, the region will come under control of a different set of actors. Freedom of speech with replace freedom of livelihood. True justice will begin once these well-fed Benghazi rebels start feeling the globalist pinch and suffer 18 hr power cuts with no food around.

The ‘Arab Spring’ and beyond: The Hindu, October 20, 2011
-- Madanjeet Singh (founder of the South Asia Foundation)

The aborting of the 2011 revolutionary waves of protests has given the Anglo-Americans another opportunity to install Islamists in the Arab world.

The Arab Spring is a misnomer used by the media to describe the uprising that the self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi unleashed in Tunisia on December 18, 2010 in protest against police corruption and ill-treatment — a spark that ignited into wildfire and spread to Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen and to other countries. In January, Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, the fountainhead of Islamic fundamentalism.

But it was in Egypt that the computer-literate working class youth and their supporters among middle-class college students, created a veritable revolution, fanned by the whirlwind of many human rights activists, labour, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and especially unemployed youth. A Facebook page set up to promote the demonstrations, attracted tens of thousands of followers. The government mobilised the riot police and resorted to infiltration to break the uprising, but the demonstrations by students and labour activists continued in Tahrir Square, until President Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign on February 11, 2011, after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency.

The euphoria that chants such as “the people and the Army are united” that had reverberated around Egypt’s squares created, was rudely snuffed out within a week by the Egyptian military Generals, who grabbed power from President Hosni Mubarak. They did not identify themselves as partners in the revolution, but claimed to be the sole bearer of its legitimacy. The haste with which they discarded the façade of secularism that Mubarak’s authoritarian regime was using against the Muslim Brotherhood, resulted in the largest demonstration on Friday, July 29, by thousands of Islamists since the uprising, calling for the imposition of strict Shariah law. Many demonstrators carried Saudi Arabian flags and placards that said: ‘Bin Laden is in Tahrir.’ As recently as 2009, the Brotherhood had called for a ban on women or Christians serving as Egypt’s President.

Tahrir Square, once the scene of wild celebrations, turned into a battlefield as the Army moved in to disperse the activists, beating them with clubs and electric rods, and even firing live ammunition. Hundreds have since been thrown in jail and 12,000 civilians have been tried in military tribunals — a number that is far more than was treated thus during Mubarak’s 30-year dictatorship. Widespread torture by beatings, electrocution, and even sexual assault by military personnel, has been reported. The police, in connivance with the authorities, have shot and killed Coptic Christians who protested against Islamists that had set fire to their churches. The Egyptian Coptic Patriarch, Chenouda III, was awarded the 2000 UNESCO Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence for encouraging interfaith dialogue.

The Islamic retrogression is a far cry from the colourful secular flowers that had blossomed during the Arab Spring with the establishment of the Baath Party in 1946. “Baath,” which means "resurrection" or "renaissance," was a movement that was founded in Damascus by two Syrian intellectuals: Michel Aflaq, a Greek Orthodox Christian (1910-1989), and Salah al-Bitar, a Sunni Muslim (1912-1980). In the early 1930s, Alfaq and Bitar had gone to study at the Sorbonne University in Paris and worked together to formulate a doctrine that combined aspects of Arab nationalism and socialism committed to Arab unity and the freedom of the Arab world from the clutches of Western colonialism.

On their return to Syria in the early 1940s, they became school teachers, and together with a significant number of Christian Arabs as founding members, they promoted Baathist ideology within a nationalist and secular political framework that rejected the faith-based orientation. These ideas of protecting the minority status of non-Muslims, found favour with the progressive leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement such as Nasser in Egypt, Nehru in India, Tito in Yugoslavia and Sukarno in Indonesia, since the secular ideology helped them to stabilise the ethnic and communal conflicts in their newly independent countries. They also supported the Baathist concept of socialism that differed from classical Marxism.

b]These were among the reasons for Baathism having grown rapidly, establishing a number of branches in different Arab countries. [/b]Baathism went on to form governments in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Egypt briefly when Syria merged with Egypt in 1958, to become the United Arab Republic. There could not have been better interlocutors than Aflaq, representing the Greek civilisation, and Bitar, personifying the Phoenician culture. They conceived their respective religions as a mere appendix attached to the Greek and Phoenician classical antiquity that spread across the Mediterranean region from 1550 BC to 300 BC.

This region, known as the ‘Fertile Crescent,’ comprising ancient Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, was home to the earliest urban communities in the world, spanning some 5000 years of history. It was in ancient Iraq that the first literate societies developed in the late 4th millennium BC. They developed the first cities and complex state bureaucracies, using a highly sophisticated writing system. Their scholars compiled historical, juridical, economical, mathematical, astronomical, lexical, grammatical and epistolary treatises. They invented the first two-wheeled wooden carts and built roads, earlier than 3000 BC. It was this cradle of civilisation that the illegal Anglo-American invasion destroyed. The invaders installed bin Laden’s jihadists to promote their Islamic agenda.

Taha Hussein (1889-1973) was the senior mentor of Aflaq and Bitar. He was one of the most influential 20th century Egyptian writers and intellectuals, known as the pioneer of the Arab Renaissance and the modernist movement in the Arab world. An admirer of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, he was a nationalist, and his vision of Egyptian secular culture was embedded in what he called “Pharaonism.” He believed that “Egypt could only progress without reclaiming its ancient pre-Islamic roots.” He opposed Saudi Arabia’s Stone-Age Islamic culture of the desert that was alien to the rich Arab cultures of the Fertile Crescent.

Taha Hussein was prosecuted for his views and lived in exile for several years. It was not until the 1950s that he was rehabilitated, on the eve of Egypt becoming a republic, and appointed Minister of Knowledge (now the Ministry of Education). This gave him the opportunity to initiate a number of educational reforms, such as free education for children. Like Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first Education Minister of independent India, Taha Hussein left no stone unturned to make education secular. He transformed many of the Koranic schools into secular primary schools and secularised not only the Al-Azhar but also a number of scientific universities that he established. He upgraded several high schools to colleges, such as the Graduate School of Medicine, Agriculture and others.

Since the United States’ alliance with bin Laden’s Mujahideen destroyed the secular Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1989, and dismantled the secular Baath administrations in Iraq for the benefit of al-Qaeda jihadists, the abortion of the 2011 Arab Spring has given the Anglo-Americans another wonderful opportunity to install Islamists in the Arab world. These ferocious vultures are now hovering over Syria, the last bastion of Baathism, under the pretext of democracy, to tear apart the amity between its Muslim and Christian communities. But so far they have found no ruse to directly attack Syria, as President Bashar al-Assad could not be accused of “possessing weapons of mass destruction capable of destroying Western civilisations within 45 minutes.” So the Arab Spring has become the Trojan horse to supply arms and ammunition to the dissidents and escalate the conflict into an emergency to isolate Syria by imposing United Nations sanctions.

The computer-literate students and working class youths and their supporters among the middle class who had initiated the protests, are naturally baffled, as I was when India was partitioned by the British colonialists. The impact of the divide-and-rule policy was even more devastating on the subcontinent’s Sufi Islam as Pakistan’s military dictators uprooted it to cut the Gordian knot with Mother India’s secular and pluralist culture. The political scenario in the Arab countries seems to be heading towards one similar to the struggle now being waged in Pakistan between Muslim fanatics and the more moderate sections of society,

As with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Ennahda Party of the Islamist Rachid Ghannouchi is expected to win the elections in Tunisia next month and choose an Assembly to draft a new Constitution. His biographer Azzam Tamimi wrote: “The real struggle of the future will be about who is capable of fulfilling the desires of a devout Muslim. It’s going to be about who is Islamist and who is more Islamist, rather than about the secularists and the Islamists.” During a re¬cent debate with a secular critic, Ghannouchi asked: “If the Islamic spectrum goes from bin Laden to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which of them is Islam?” And he argued: “Why are we put in the same place as a model that is far from our thought, like the Taliban or the Saudi model, while there are other successful Islamic models that are close to us, like the Turkish, the Malaysian and the Indonesian models — models that combine Islam and modernity?”

Ghannouchi seems unaware of Prime Minister Erdogan’s antecedents. As Mayor of Istanbul in 1995, he declared that “the New Year’s Day is a Christian holiday and not a legitimate cause for celebration by Muslims,” and that “shaking hands with the opposite sex is prohibited by Islam.” In 1997, he identified Turkish society as having “two fundamentally different camps — the secularists who follow Kemal Atatürk’s reforms, and the Muslims who unite Islam with Shariah laws.” The secular lullaby he is singing to put his people to sleep and join the European Union, is symbolised by the Islamic hijab with which President Gul’s wife wraps her head.

Regarding Indonesia and Malaysia, Ghannouchi would have known better had he married an Indonesian Muslim — as I did in 1963 — and witnessed how the indigenous syncretistic cultures derived from the secular Buddhism and multicultural Hinduism are being systematically destroyed by the innumerable Wahabi mosques and fundamentalist madrasas that the Saudi petrodollars have built in these countries.

The omens are ominous as thousands of Islamists in Tunis have protested against the screening of a film they condemn as “un-Islamic and blasphemous.” And in Cairo, a student attending a Salafist protest meeting asked: “If democracy means majority, then why do they want to impose on us the views of the minorities — the liber¬als and the secularists — when we Islamists are the major¬ity? Salafis are the extremists that espouse violent jihad against civilians as a legitimate expression of Islam.”

The Arab Springers seem well on their way towards subscribing to the Sunni majoritarian culture and becoming another “epicentre of terrorism” like Pakistan, where even the moderate civilians are throwing rose petals on the assassin of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who was assassinated for defending a Christian woman condemned to die for insulting Islam. The judge of the Anti-Terrorism Court who sentenced Mumtaz Qadri to death has gone into hiding after lawyers attacked his courtroom, and a spate of protests and death threats. Banner-carrying mobs in Lahore, Rawalpindi and other cities are “saluting Qadiri’s glory,” and some fundamentalist organisations have announced huge rewards for anyone who would kill the judge.

“Pakistan once had a violent, rabidly religious lunatic fringe. This fringe has morphed into a majority. The liberals are now the fringe. We are now a nation of butchers and primitive savages. Europe’s Dark Ages have descended upon us,” said Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy, at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 21 Oct 2011 08:27

krishnan wrote:
Altair wrote: Did you folks see Mussolini's completely disfigured face after he was killed and hanged upside down? Its creepy and is available on youtube. It is eerily similar to what happened today. Almost photocopy.
maybe not for faint hearted!!!!

Atleast he was killed before the disfigurement. Gaddafi had no such luck

habal · Post by **habal** » 21 Oct 2011 10:10

Only the template has changed, the basic purpose behind the wars remain the same. Mussolini, Hitler & Ceauceascu were westerners. Osama, Saddam, Qaddafi, Mubarak & Ben Ali are muslim and the western civilians & their sympathizers are supposed to give a silent nod in approval for the continuation of the crusades.

But the war is being fought now in the 21st century, the template is carried over continuation from 13th century. There is long-term purpose to this war. The media & the images gel in with this purpose.

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 21 Oct 2011 10:23

Theo_Fidel wrote:WMD would not have made a difference. How was he going to launch a nuke at desert fighters?

One day NK & Iran will fall as well.

First point, you missed pakistan in that list.

Second, if your logic is correct, please explain why America is hesitant to attack nuclear armed countries?

Third, WMDs do make a difference because the west is perennially afraid that the developing countries will do to them what they have been doing to us for the past 3 centuries - namely ethinic cleansing and genocide. Nukes are the only gaurantee against aggression and genocide by the west.

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 21 Oct 2011 10:28

Altair wrote:
Acharya wrote:Dictators have very vicious enemies.
Did you folks see Mussolini's completely disfigured face after he was killed and hanged upside down? Its creepy and is available on youtube. It is eerily similar to what happened today. Almost photocopy.

A person does facial disfiguration on an enemy/target when there is a personal grudge - it amounts to wiping out the memory associated with this person.

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 21 Oct 2011 12:14

We will get a new nigerian mail from now on saying "I am the lawyer of Libyan ex-president Gaddafi, and before he died he and i deposited money 2billion USD in a joint a/c in seycheles, if you are willing please send me 10% of the money and i can deposit the remaining 90% in your account.

Best regards,
Bangwa Bunga"

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 21 Oct 2011 13:19

uk telegraph is showing an autopsy image of gadaffi with a very neat and clear bullet hole in left temple
face does not otherwise appear distorted
it seems likely he was covered in dust and possibly superficial cuts from the airstrike on his convoy and then hid in the culvert
17 of 20 aides were killed or captured with him
if he was killed in rage he would have been peppered with ak rounds...
i guess that is a better outcome for many than having him appear at the hague for a trial

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 21 Oct 2011 18:09

RIP Ghaddhafi. One of the world's most charismatic,eccentric and controversial despots has met his ungainly end,in the manner as expected,as all intelligent analysts predicted he would,fighting to the end true to his own words.

The tragedy of Libya is that this revolution that has overthrown him has been carried out by NATO and the west,on the pretext of saving and protecting civilian lives,using ex-Gaddhafi cronies to replace him.They are as brutal and as venal as his opponents claim he was,at his side for decades and abandoned the SS Ghaddafi only when the west offered them the lucrative kickbacks for oil concessions.While Sarko,Cameron and co. pat themselves on their backs in glee at their victory and return of empire -as I've always said,revenge for the Suez fiasco,the next step in the Libyan page in history is not going to be a smooth peaceful one and might very well resemble Iraq post invasion and defeat of Saddam.

If there is any lesson to be lerant from the downfall of the "last dictator" as Col. G. has been called,it is that when the western leaders come-a-calling,bearing gifts and embrace you,head for the bunker! Gen.Kill-any,are you listening? However as Ramanna wisely put it,Col. G. was too foolish to forswear his WMDs and believe in the promise of friendship with the west.

Satya_anveshi · Post by **Satya_anveshi** » 21 Oct 2011 18:23

WTF to Libya and similar such banana replublics who don't know where they should fit in the overall scheme of things.

Politics is about people and strategy presupposes a vision - Libya's population (less than 7M) is less than many many states within US and less than many individual cities in India/China and yet has managed to fight wars with most of its neighbour, finds a place in most wars, indulges in fight with the super power, associates and funds all manner of terrorists, and wanted to have WMD. WTF again to its politics and to its vision/strategy.

These type of "leaders" (if known earlier) are better off aborted than taking birth and putting stess on resources.

with the kind of resources this country has (although most of the country is desert), it can/could carve out a peaceful and prosperous life (although not liberal due to its janma kundali) for its population for generations. Instead "leaders" like Gadha squander away those resources and makes the lives of people miserable.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Oct 2011 19:02

Satya_Anveshi, I think the long awaited roll back in North Africa is starting. This is the start of new long era akin to 700 AD when Tariq and Murad rolled into the area from Syria.

Most likely Libya will become the new Arabian Somalia and then onward journey.

Recall Somalia fell apart in early 90s due to faction fights.

sumishi · Post by **sumishi** » 21 Oct 2011 19:16

Satya_anveshi wrote:...with the kind of resources this country has (although most of the country is desert), it can/could carve out a peaceful and prosperous life (although not liberal due to its janma kundali) for its population for generations. Instead "leaders" like Gadha squander away those resources and makes the lives of people miserable.

Just pitting the above observation against a different perspective:

Based on Human Development Index, Libya postition is 58 in the world, the highest in Africa.
According to wikipedia, it has the highest nominal per capita GDP in Africa. Since 2000, Libya has recorded favourable growth rates with an estimated 10.6% growth of GDP in 2010.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 21 Oct 2011 21:55

Would like to hear from Johann on the end of this dictator who was initially trained in Britain