Merged Libya: People's Revolution / Criminal Imperialism?

[Skeptic]

In related news, the Israeli press is reporting today that in Quaddafi's house were found his son's stash of homosexual porn and his own album of pictures of Condi Rice.

Somehow I thought it would be the other way around.

 

[leftysergeant]

Personally, I hope they open up the economy from the Stalinist model that Gaddafi imposed on them.

Why the hell should they abandon an ecconomic model that seems to have worked, for the most part, for the good of the masses? And where do you expect them to find the water they would need to support a large non-agricultural business base? I don't think I had a drink of non-brackish water the whole year and a half I was there.

Libya could do a booming trade in tourism if it becomes stable. Nice Roman ruins. Colonial Italian architecture. Ancient Berber houses. Some nice places to set up some cafes and adventure tours.

They can do that, to the extent that they might want to, without opening it all up to foreign investors. Check out those hairy faces on the rebels. Do you seriously think they want to become a southern outpost of Europe?

 

[timhau]

Why the hell should they abandon an ecconomic model that seems to have worked, for the most part, for the good of the masses? And where do you expect them to find the water they would need to support a large non-agricultural business base? I don't think I had a drink of non-brackish water the whole year and a half I was there.

Maybe, if the oil business was put to some other use than enriching the Ghaddafi family and they got some extra inflow of cash from tourism, they could invest in water treatment plants?

 

[Ziggurat]

Why the hell should they abandon an ecconomic model that seems to have worked, for the most part, for the good of the masses?

You seem to have a funny definition of "worked".

And "masses".

And "good".

 

[leftysergeant]

You seem to have a funny definition of "worked".

And "masses".

And "good".

Ecconomicly, they were all better off than the people of most African countries.

 

[Chaos]

Ecconomicly, they were all better off than the people of most African countries.

That isn´t really saying much.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Virus, skeptic, Ziggurat,ALT+F4 ... top form. Excellent work, keep it up.

I was, myself, sort of comfortable with Qadafi until I learned about the mercenary forces. That alone should be gounds to hang the kelb ibn kelb.

Ahem... The experts have found it wasn't true.

The using rape as a weapon thing was upsetting.

Ahem... Wasn't true.

And I'm still waiting on any clear evidence protesters were massacred anywhere but right next to military bases and the like.

So again I ask Caustic Logic: Who's doing the takeover? NATO Pilot Jean-Pierre? Or NATO Commando Gustav?

I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. Pilots taking over? Sorry if I'm missing some obvious reference or whatever.

Why the hell should they abandon an ecconomic model that seems to have worked, for the most part, for the good of the masses?

Coz that was the idea. Free-market obsessed leaders of the TNC, among the few whose names have even been revealed. Or haven't been "dissolved" by Libya's new strongman ...
Predictions: IMF loans for re-building with foreign contractors, central bank privatized, oil companies privatized, GMMR privatized, previous public services just maintained in weak and diminishing form to prevent a total revolt. The people of Libya won't be allowed to vote on any of these, just the two or three pro-all-this NTC leaders they can pick from. Monthly checks can be made out to Texaco and Vivendi.

There shouild be no occupation. There is no way it could be justified to the people of any of the NATO allies. The people already has HAD a framework in place to form their own government without outside assistance.

ftfy. And how are we going to prevent the uprisings of the people those pesky loyalists if we don't stay?

 

[Caustic Logic]

Massacres in Tripoli

Some of us, that've been paying attention, aren't the slightest surprised.
Hadeel al-Shalchi, AP, Aug 26:
Fight 'the rats,' Gadhafi urges as rebels push on

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The streets where rebel fighters bombarded snipers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi were strewn with bullet-ridden corpses from both sides Thursday. Streams of blood ran down the gutters and turned sewers red.

By sundown the rebels appeared to have won the battle for the Abu Salim neighborhood, next to Gadhafi's captured Tripoli compound [...] Outside his Bab al-Aziziya compound, which rebels captured Tuesday, there was another grim scene — one that suggested mass, execution-style killings of civilians.

About two dozen bodies — some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head — lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months.

The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.

Five or six bodies were in a tent erected on a roundabout that had served as a field clinic. One of the dead still had an IV in his arm, and another body was completely charred, its legs missing. The body of a doctor, in his green hospital gown, was found dumped in the canal.

In Abu Salim, the hours-long barrage ended at sunset. Rebel fighters went door to door through largely deserted apartment buildings, occasionally dragging out suspected regime loyalists.

Some were dark-skinned men wearing cut-off camouflage and T-shirts. Their hands were tied behind their backs before they were driven away. The rebels have long claimed Gadhafi had been hiring mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa to bolster his army.

(the claim wasn't true, by the way, at least until recently)

Haven't watched it yet, but I hear via comments

CNN has a HQ video with Dan Rivers reporting from the spot: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkpvor_bodies-litter-gadhafi-compound_news#from=embed Take attention how he looks around and speaks quietly when he says it was probably done by rebels.

And finally, "Rebels say one of their key targets now is Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte," where stiff tribal resistance - that is, loyalist civilians, just as armed and civilian as the rebels but without an air force, are expected to put up a stiff fight. "I am appealing to the areas not yet liberated to join the revolution," an official told reporters in Benghazi. "There is no excuse for them not to join."

And, judging by the way things have gone in Misrata, Tawergha, Brega, Qawalish, Qawalish again, most of the Nafusah, az Zawiyah, Sabratha, etc., and now finally Tripoli, there's plenty at risk, as well as no damn excuse, for those people of Libya to refuse to surrender to this popular revolution

The good news - NATO's campaign to "avert a bloodbath in Benghazi" is finally bearing fruit.

 

[Pardalis]

No matter how much you cry, your little dictator is no more.

 

[Alt+F4]

No matter how much you cry, your little dictator is no more.

And as it turned out, it appears his daughter wasn't killed in the 1986 attack.

In an odd development, a reporter for the Irish Times came up with documents at Colonel Qaddafi’s compound, Bab al-Aziziya, that seemed to show that the Libyan leader’s adopted daughter Hana, who was supposedly killed at the age of four in the United States strike on the compound in 1986, is actually alive and well and had been working as a doctor. The paper said it found a medical school examination of hers along with a certificate from an English language course in which she received an A.
Others have reported seeing a spacious and well appointed office at Tripoli Central Hospital that workers there claimed was Hana Qaddafi’s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/africa/27libya.html

 

[Caustic Logic]

No matter how much you cry, your little dictator is no more.

And that totally shuts down all my arguments. See, I wasn't aware that things were going badly for the regime. Now that they're losing, this must not be a takeover thinly veiled in "humanitarian" lies. I see how it works.

Might makes right, we got the might, and it's easier to presume we must be right. Perhaps if I work at it, I can get better after all.

 

[LukeB]

Perhaps if I work at it, I can get better after all.

Not without the right medication I fear. Weren't you the guy that thought Matt Damon was sending him sooper sekrit troother messages in his films?

 

[Alt+F4]

See, I wasn't aware that things were going badly for the regime.

You're right, things weren't going bad for the regime, things were going bad for the Libyan people.

 

[theprestige]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry. Pilots taking over? Sorry if I'm missing some obvious reference or whatever.

Pilots taking over. NATO pilots.

Your OP alludes to a "thinly-veiled takeover", and links it to the presence of of NATO forces in Libya. You seem to think that not only was the takeover supposed to be some sort of secret (it wasn't), but that it's going to be the NATO troops that do it.

So I'm asking: Which NATO troops are going to be taking over Libya? The pilots? Or the commandos?

 

[Loss Leader]

Several Libya threads merged.

Posted By: Loss Leader

 

[Caustic Logic]

Not without the right medication I fear. Weren't you the guy that thought Matt Damon was sending him sooper sekrit troother messages in his films?

nevermind, gotta run

 

[Caustic Logic]

Pilots taking over. NATO pilots.

Your OP alludes to a "thinly-veiled takeover", and links it to the presence of of NATO forces in Libya. You seem to think that not only was the takeover supposed to be some sort of secret (it wasn't), but that it's going to be the NATO troops that do it.

So I'm asking: Which NATO troops are going to be taking over Libya? The pilots? Or the commandos?

Right, I was in fact proposing that certain Pilots cut secret deals to go beyond protection and to take over, hoping to personally scrape up the profits later.

Edited by Loss Leader: 

Edited for rule 0.

 

[Caustic Logic]

No matter how much you cry, your little dictator is no more.

By the way, I'm not crying. I have no attachment to Gaddafi, personally.

Would you like me to pass your message along to any of my few loyalist Libyan friends? Maybe they can pass it on in turn to someone whose family was killed for refusing to join the rebels?

 

[trustbutverify]

And as it turned out, it appears his daughter wasn't killed in the 1986 attack.



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/27/world/africa/27libya.html

If this is true: wow!

 

[Pardalis]

By the way, I'm not crying. I have no attachment to Gaddafi, personally.

Would you like me to pass your message along to any of my few loyalist Libyan friends? Maybe they can pass it on in turn to someone whose family was killed for refusing to join the rebels?

A message that their beloved dictator is gone? They're going to have to face reality some day.