There is no cause to doubt that, for whatever reason, the support of the people of Sirte for Gadaffi is genuine. That this means they deserve to be pounded into submission is less obvious to me. The disconnect between the UN mandate to protect civilians while facilitating negotiation, and NATO’s actual actions as the anti-Gadaffi forces’ air force and special forces, is startling.
There is something so shocking in the Orwellian doublespeak of NATO on this point that I am severely dismayed. I suffer from that old springing eternal of hope, and am therefore always in a state of disappointment. I had hoped that the general population in Europe is so educated now that obvious outright lies would be rejected. I even hoped some journalists would seek to expose lies.
I was wrong, wrong, wrong.
The “rebels” are actively hitting Sirte with heavy artillery and Stalin’s organs; they are transporting tanks openly to attack Sirte. Yet any movement of tanks or artillery by the population of Sirte brings immediate death from NATO air strike.
What exactly is the reason that Sirte’s defenders are threatening civilians but the artillery of their attackers – and the bombings themselves – are not? Plainly this is a nonsense. People in foreign ministries, NATO, the BBC and other media are well aware that it is the starkest lie and propaganda, to say the assault on Sirte is protecting civilians. But does knowledge of the truth prevent them from peddling a lie? No.
It is worth reminding everyone something never mentioned, that UNSCR 1973 which established the no fly zone and mandate to protect civilians had
“the aim of facilitating dialogue to lead to the political reforms necessary to find a peaceful and sustainable solution;”
That is in Operative Para 2 of the Resolution
Plainly the people of Sirte hold a different view to the “rebels” as to who should run the country. NATO have in effect declared being in Gadaffi’s political camp a capital offence. There is no way the massive assault on Sirte is “facilitating dialogue”. it is rather killing those who do not hold the NATO approved opinion. That is the actual truth. It is extremely plain.
I have no time for Gadaffi. I have actually met him, and he really is nuts, and dangerous. There were aspects of his rule in terms of social development which were good, but much more that was bad and tyrannical. But if NATO is attacking him because he is a dictator, why is it not attacking Dubai, Bahrain, Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, or Uzbekistan, to name a random selection of badly governed countries?
“Liberal intervention” does not exist. What we have is the opposite; highly selective neo-imperial wars aimed at ensuring politically client control of key physical resources.
Wars kill people. Women and children are dying now in Libya, whatever the sanitised media tells you. The BBC have reported it will take a decade to repair Libya’s infrastructure from the damage of war. That in an underestimate. Iraq is still decades away from returning its utilities to their condition in 2000.
I strongly support the revolutions of the Arab Spring. But NATO intervention does not bring freedom, it brings destruction, degradation and permanent enslavement to the neo-colonial yoke. From now on, Libyans like us will be toiling to enrich western bankers. That, apparently, is worth to NATO the reduction of Sirte to rubble.
Interesting article by an Indian professor on excellent site, Wikispooks.
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https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:NATO_destroys_yet_another_country
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Oh please.
We lie to ourselves to reconcile our conscious.
There were many, seemingly, well reasoned arguments to justify the enslavement of fellow human beings and every other atrocity committed through out history.
We are committing armed robbery and using mass murder to do it.
End of.
“You are either with us or agin us”
God will judge our silence and self denial, as surely God he will judge those that orchestrate these nefarious and deadly wars that wreck havoc, devastation, death and bereavement against fellow men, women and children.
The really stupid thing is that the cowardly mases that sell their souls by indulging in the lie, will reap no material benefit from these atrocities only the material costs and who knows, maybe even the wrath of revenge.
I wonder, is the western/nato grand strategy, not so much incompetent, wrong-headed, and counter-productive, in other words – mistaken, but something far, far, worse?
That the mass destruction, collosal loss of life, and apparent chaos, are, in fact, the aim of the strategy, to destroy as much as possible, kill as many as possible, and effectively ‘Balkanize’ the countries and engtire regions we are attacking, undermining, and occupying?
Are the Americans and their allies really as stupid as they seem, or are they much worse, deliberately smashing that which they desire to control? Look at Pakistan, for example, here the Americans are adopting a policy which is seemingly designed to tear the coutnry apart or lead to a war with India, which might involve China, and destroy all of them. Is this just a coincidence, or part of a truly vile and criminally insane longterm strategy?
Besides the phenomenon of militarism associated with successive political engineering efforts (regime change), there are also strong parallels with events that led not only to the great depression but more significantly to the last world war. A global economic crisis, significant military build-ups, the expansion and militarisation of opposing (now nuclear armed) alliances, aggressive militarism and gradually globally expanding conflicts. Despite the fact that history seems to be largely repeating, there is little recognition of this situation. The militarism of a different military power is now globally expanding as is the parallel military encirclement of Russia and China with military bases, multi-layered missile architecture, naval forces, militarisation of strategic alliances and the concurrent escalation of tensions over global energy resources and strategic pipeline routes. The dangerous pursuit of nuclear primacy ( the ability to launch a first strike in the event of war and destroy any surviving retaliatory missiles) risks triggering a conflict as Russia and China have stated they will not allow other powers to attain nuclear primacy capabilities.
“They tell us their missile shield is not aimed against us, but we tell them our calculations show it is aimed against us.” (Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov)
“This is a decision that has been made. We will not change it.” (NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the alliance’s decision to build multi-layered missile architecture)
“If they (NATO) do not by the end of the year tell us exactly what they’re planning … we will respond.” (Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin)
“We are starting to build a deterrent construct that will be better than mutual assured destruction” (U.S. General James E. Cartwright)
“We will never give any one control over our red button, never……. a NATO decision to go ahead with the missile defence system in its present form, without consulting Moscow, would have serious consequences” (Russia’s ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin)
With the parallel expanding efforts to achieve numerous regime changes, targeting successive strategic opponents through military interventions, the expansion of U.S./NATO military bases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the significant U.S. armament of Taiwan, escalating tension in the South China Sea, the impending conflict with Iran (and possibly a regional Middle Eastern war), the probability of eventual conflict with North Korea, the militarisation of energy resource conflicts, and the military encirclement of Russia and China with military bases and multi-layered missile architecture, there is a bigger picture many people do not see yet. If we do not recognise the likely result of current developments, it is unfortunate that within a few years, we probably will.
Funkeymonkey, the concept of history repeating itself, most likely, is true, the same decisions are made, the same inflexible people are in the decision making loop. Yet, i would look further back when the land between the Tigris an Euphrates was in strife, due to it’s soil. i could be wrong, yet the papyrus headlines, (joke), would have been extremely similar to today’s. This seems like a, “no brainer”, to me.
Today i ran into a concrete wall, it hurt, i will not do it again. This somewhat simplistic, yet running into that wall until some magical new reaction from said wall would be considered…what, courageous, or insane?
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
please excuse the commas i think i am addicted to them.
me again, i left out an is, must have been knocked out of me when i hit the wall.
Funkeymonkey, the concept of history repeating itself, most likely, is true, the same decisions are made, the same inflexible people are in the decision making loop. Yet, i would look further back when the land between the Tigris an Euphrates was in strife, due to it’s soil. i could be wrong, yet the papyrus headlines, (joke), would have been extremely similar to today’s. This seems like a, “no brainer”, to me.
Today i ran into a concrete wall, it hurt, i will not do it again. This (IS) somewhat simplistic, yet running into that wall until some magical new reaction from said wall would be considered…what, courageous, or insane?
Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?
please excuse the commas i think i am addicted to them.
Kingfelix,
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I assume you were replying to my earlier post…
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It’s not good enough to say being a liberal is not easy, etc.
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I know it isn’t – problem is, I don’t know what would be good enough. If anyone can tell me the good enough liberal position, I’d be delighted to hear it.
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For those who supported humanitarian intervention by NATO to prevent a massacre of his own citizens by Gaddafi, we now have an endgame that looks like
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a) collective punishment via aerial bombardment by NATO forces to be followed by b) ‘rebels’ massacring fellow Libyans
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In other words, rather similar, or worse, than what the original intervention was supposed to prevent.
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I’m not going to oppose your counter-factual assertions with some of my own – I don’t know what would have happened if there had been no intervention, other than it’s pretty certain Gaddafi would still be there.
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I, and many like me, didn’t support NATO intervention, and don’t support much of what has been done, but if you turn the debate on its head and ask me if I think Gaddafi should have been left to do his worst, then the answer is still no….
Suhayl Saadi, “same dynamic in Pakistan and Algeria wrt attacks on civilians. It is usually the work of the security forces.”
Indeed, see here for details of Algerian state infiltration/utilisation of the GIA ‘terrorist’ group
You say, “I have met Gaddafi. He really is nuts and dangerous.” What evidence do you have for this diagnosis? I have run into a number of similar allegations on the Web in regard to Gaddafi’s “psychosis” but no one is able to back up these claims. Where is your evidence?
@Writeon, Cheebacow,
It was posted:-
“I have been very disappointed with the limited range of views he allows in his comments section. The lack of free discussion has caused me to lose a lot of respect for his work”
Juan Cole posted ten points against Gadaffi and this prompted me to respond to him. The first post was accepted. He gave a riposte and thereafter I set out to identify his errors in what he posted. I tried some 4 or 5 times to post but was blocked.
I then published my views elsewhere and a US Professor picked up on what I said, posted elsewhere and gave my post a little mileage.
So far as Cole and his blog and ideas are concerned, I can safely say this:-
1. He does not permit fair and honest exchanges ( as does Craig Murray).
2. He seems to fit within the camp of “liberal interventionists” – and in that camp there is no compunction about breach of sovereignty – – and like many on the right the “humanitarian”, “democracy” and “freedom” arguments are relied on to justify the illegality under international law violations. I believe I am fair and accurate in saying that Cole is within this camp.
My views on him have changed and I must now question his political ( if not academic) bona fides.
After Iraq, I’ll admit it, I’m extremely unwilling to believe a word from the mouths of our politicians about foreign affairs, and that goes double for our supposedly independent and free media. So, my mode is sceptism from the very beginning. I’m not prepared to believe anything without some kind of independent, neutral, evidence, especially connected with regime change.
If one looks at the language surrounding the attack on Libya, it stinks of classic war hysteria and propaganda, rumours, accusations, bias, exaggerations, and hypocracy.
Knowing, as Gaddafi did, that the west wanted to overturn his regime, and almost any excuse was enough, the idea that he’d commit ‘genocide’ in Benghazi, giving his enemies precisely the ammunition they needed to topple him from power, is highly unlikely. Gaddafi may have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid, he didn’t survive for so long by being a fool.
The hard evidence that Gaddafi was contemplating genocide in Benghazi is virtually non-existant, though their is a lot of wild speculation about what he might have done at some point in the future, exactly like Iraq and their WMDs.
As far as I can assertain the stories about; mass rape, massacres, bombing civilians, exections, genocide… are all sourced from either the rebels or those nations directly involved in the plan to change the regime in Libya. That is the belligerents themselves, would that alone cause one to pause and reflect and wonder about their veracity, especially after Iraq?
What also disturbs me, and I do consider myself a conservative, is that so many on what is termed the ‘left’ and ‘liberals’ don’t seem to mind that we’ve been led to war on raft of lies, as long as the result is right. The end justifying the means. How moral is that?
And what about our democratic institutions? They’ve failed yet again to hold our political leaders up to robust scrutiny and accountability. Aren’t these seemingly endless wars undermining our democracy from within?
As a conservative I also no longer recognise the party my family helped to build. It seems like a cult, a war cult, is inside it. Brutal, jovial brownshirts, who normally have no time for foreigners and overseas aide, yet suddenly they are roaring democrats, willing to use hundreds of millions fighting wars for Arabs, and sending our soldiers into harms way. It seems profoundly contradictory, confused, and frankly non-sensical. But war, any war, seems to get them off. Narrow-minded Tories, nationalists, suddenly become champions of internationalism and radical opponents of foreign tyrants.
But their oppositon to tyranny is so selective. What about the foreign tyrannies we are allied with?
And it isn’t just these very perculiar Tories, it’s vast swathes of ‘liberal’ opinion as well, and even sections of the mainsstream ‘left’ supports these wars, trashing international law in the process, and they don’t seem to mind, as long as the result is right, never mind the means employed. It’s disturbing.
It’s as if one is watching the evolution of a new variant of fascism that everyone can support, or at least some part of it, but where does it all end?
I hope people will take an active interest in the current plight of independent journalists, still stranded in Tripoli. They have been incarcerated in a rebel-controlled Hotel in Tripoli since leaving the Hotel Rixos with other (mainstream) journalists a few days ago. Their version of events in Libya is markedly different from the mainstream consensus. Before incarceration, they reported on death threats from some of the mainstream journos.
Public pressure might get them out – and their voice is bad needed now. Needless to say, it’s not a cause that’s been taken up by mainstream media.
See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sinhOEkOB84
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26164
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26205
http://www.voltairenet.org/Voltaire-Network-denounces-attempt
@Clark (26 August 2011)
Remember the 2009 disturbances in Iran when the BBC used footage from a pro-Ahmadinejad rally claiming the participants were pro-Mousavi supporters?
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It did later admit to the error, but after others pointed it out – see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/what_really_happened.html
SJB, thanks for the link. Any idea when the video from India was made? If they’ve shown archive footage instead of the latest video from Libya, that’s harder to pass off as a mistake.
Came across this
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2011/08/21/cops-in-china-trained-in-scotland-86908-23360859/
Sir:
‘There is no cause to doubt that, for whatever reason, the support of the people of Sirte for Gadaffi is genuine.’
‘No cause’ at all?
For how long did Tripolitanians tell telephone callers that ‘everything is fine, the situation is normal’?
Would it not be reasonable at this stage for Sirte loyalists to surrender?
Booneavenueboy: “I have run into a number of similar allegations on the Web in regard to Gaddafi’s “psychosis” but no one is able to back up these claims. Where is your evidence?”
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From what I gather, it seems to be a very common impression amongst people who’ve met him. In the absence of an independent psychiatric report, anecdotes are all we have (e.g., this from John Simpson – http://tinyurl.com/46sx6bd ). There are numerous reports that Ghaddafi cycles between moments of lucidity and periods of schizophrenic irrationality, sometimes drug-assisted.
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The impression seems virtually unanimous, even amongst people who worked for him. Of course it’s all anecdotal. Ghadaffi apologists can rationalise any example away as a product of concerted propaganda, or catching him on an off-day, or it all being a clever ruse, or whatever. Fair enough. But you demand only absolute proof will do, don’t forget it cuts both ways. Arguing that Ghadaffi must be sane because his government did some sensible things amongst the brutality doesn’t clear the evidence bar either: many alternative explanations are just as plausible. In the end your opinion will probably be derived from your wider political sympathies. The matter is well worth debating, as long as we don’t spit contempt at people with a different personal view (that cuts both ways, too!).
To balance that up: the flipside of ‘Ghaddafi apologist’ is ‘NATO apologist’. Most people are neither, just sceptical of reports that don’t fit their world-view.
@Writeon:
Why would Gaddafi have refrained from razing Benghazi after having done precisely that to Az-Zawiyah?
First of all, Nextus, just about every enemy of the UK and USA at one time or another has been called ‘insane’. Most of the time, they were unlikely to have been clinically insane. Secondly, even if we accept for a moment the claims about Gaddafi, even the ex-senior CIA psychologist interviewed recently on BBC Radio 4 said he thought that Gaddafi was not psychotic but that he had bordeline personality disorder, something which many people in society have, including some in high positions in the UK. Thirdly, your use of the term “schizophrenic” is not clinically accurate. Schizophrenia has a very specific set of diagnostic criteria. It would be extremely difficult, in my experience, to see how a person with the disease, schizophrenia (a very disabling illness) would be capable of leading a country outside of, say, a hereditary monarchy (sort of Caligula-style, or Ottoman Emperor-style) – and Gaddafi did not inherit his power or his regime. It may well be that some of our senior politiians – Tony Blair, for example – have ‘borderline personality disorder’. I’d say it’s likely that Blair is a psychopath. Many in senior positions are clever psychopaths – that is how they get there.
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Gaddafi was a dictator and was clearly very clever and ruthless and also somewhat eccentric. The eccentricity may have been possibly partly an aspect of his personality, partly for performative reasons, partly because absolute power corrupts absolutely and partly because that was how he developed his cult of personality.
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Of course, if organisations can be said to have psychologies (a dubious proposition), then NATO is a ranking psychopath. Id NATO were a person, it would be in Broadmoor or Carstairs, sharing a cell with Ian Brady.
It is a tragedy of many on the so-called liberal left that so preoccupied are they with their stuggle against the evils of the capitalist west / globalisation / bourgeois democracy, that they cannot bring themselves to care in the slightest for the basic human rights of the Libyan people.
@ Nick,
You say:-
“It is a tragedy of many on the so-called liberal left that so preoccupied are they with their stuggle against the evils of the capitalist west / globalisation / bourgeois democracy, that they cannot bring themselves to care in the slightest for the basic human rights of the Libyan people.”
So, with Gadaffi, there was peace , prosperity, a considerable measure of progress from the coup in 1969 when King Idris was overthrown, and the accomplishment of the highest standard of living on the African continent and in the Arab world ( check the CIA factbook and UN stats on this). All this I state as fact, and would not seek to deny any similarly facts stated about Gadaffi’s failings. However, the operative word is “fact” and not “fabrications”.
So – “It is a tragedy of many on the so-called liberal left that so preoccupied are they with their stuggle against the evils of the capitalist west / globalisation / bourgeois democracy,…”
And where does the support for regime change come from to access the oil, water resources and gold bullion and banked money of Libya?
Surely – by focusing on the prime movers of the US and NATO staged “rebellion” and “humanitarian bombing” it is a very short step to viewing the consequences of the consequential human tragedy that is unfolding and will continue to unfold.
@Nick Reeves.
The intervention in Libya has very little to do with human rights. If this was the case why are Saudi Arabia and Bahrain not subject to military intervention to achieve regime change? The intervention in Libya is and was always about regime change to remove yet another political opponent of western powers and pursue strategic objectives and commercial interests in Libya. This military interventionism will not stop with Libya. Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Libya are only parts of a far larger picture. Unfortunately, many do not recognise the implications of regime change efforts particularly targeting Iran, Syria, Lebanon and North Korea or the parallel military encirclement of Russia and China and preparations for war with these nations……
“US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks have unveiled secret NATO plans for a US-led war against Russia over the Baltic states.” (WikiLeaks Cable Exposes NATO War Plan Against Russia, by Bill Van Auken, December 9, 2010) [and]
“Attempts to expand the military infrastructure of NATO near the borders of our country are continuing.” (Russia orders large-scale rearmament, ABC News, 17/03/2009) [and]
“Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.” [Vladimir Putin]
(US- NATO Missile Deployments directed against Russia: Putin Prepares For War, by Mike Whitney, January 5, 2011) [and]
“According to the defense trade press, Pentagon officials are seeking ways to adapt a concept known as AirSea Battle specifically for China, debunking rote claims from Washington that it has no plans to thwart its emerging Asian rival. A recent article in Inside the Pentagon reported that a small group of U.S. Navy officers known as the China Integration Team is hard at work applying the lessons of [AirSea Battle] to a potential conflict with China.” (The Pentagon’s new China war plan
Despite budget woes, the military is preparing for a conflict with our biggest rival — and we should be worried, By Stephen Glain, Saturday, Aug 13, 2011)…..
The pursuit of global strategic enhancement, nuclear primacy and hegemony through aggressive and expanding militarism has a largely predictable outcome. Do you know what it is? As Albert Einstein ominously warned, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”
@ FunkyMonkey,
You say:-
“Unfortunately, many do not recognise the implications of regime change efforts particularly targeting Iran, Syria, Lebanon and North Korea or the parallel military encirclement of Russia and China and preparations for war with these nations……”
I agree, and this man seems to connect some dots from the domestic US political landscape, which one can see leads into the global landscape as you have correctly stated.
http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/196100.html
What is interesing here is that those who like to label and disregard by resort to the phrase ” conspiracy theory” will forever have difficulty with accurate facts and logically presented analysis.
@FunkyMonkeyAC
You say:
“If this was the case why are Saudi Arabia and Bahrain not subject to military intervention to achieve regime change?”
Your obvious preoccupation with conspiracy theories leads you to ignore history.
In Saudi Arabia and Bahrain the Arab League has not requested UN intervention. This was the final pre-requisite for the UN/NATO intervention in Libya. Without it – no intervention was ever going to happen. Don’t make the common mistake that Libya is Iraq is Afghanistan. Not true when you look at it even a little closely.
@Courtenay
You make the mistake of comparing the Gaddafi economy of Libya to the pitiful economies of African states when you should be comparing it to other Arab states. When you do that you’ll quickly see that the Gaddafis have stolen the birthright of the Libyan people and used it to foment terrorism and revolt in Africa Europe and the World and to buy the African Union for his megalomaniacal desire to be Africa’s “King of Kings”
The standard of living in Libya could easily be equal to that of other oil-rich Arab states. Ask yourself why there are billions in frozen assets stashed all over the world when education is limited to the basics of the Green Book – please read it if you can – and where if the prisons are filled with political protesters they are massacred to make way for more as in 1997 in Abu Salim.
By taking this stance you also make the delightful Mathaba your bedfellow. Enjoy !! :
http://mathaba.net/
Nick Reeves, absolutely agreed. Not once have these “liberals” thought about the people themselves…
It’s interesting to read all these “anti-imperialist” vs “neo-imperialist” comments, all this spin about “liberal intervention” and whatnot…when I seriously doubt that any of you have ever actually spoken to a significant enough number of Libyans, nor have lived in Libya long enough to make a sound, reliable judgement on what life is really like there.
Yes, NATO– or some other Satanic force in the background, whom we are probably subconsciously very aware of– have ulterior motives behind this intervention. What they’re after, I’m not quite sure to be honest– because if it’s oil, they already had a significant number of deals in Libya from before, many of which were very successful deals too.
Yet, despite whatever dark forces may be pulling the strings on this intervention, you cannot deny the fact that the Libyan people NEEDED it, and ASKED for it. Without any outside help, the population of Libya would probably exist no more. Gaddafi is a ruthless, bloodthirsty despot; once the people turned against him, there was no turning back at all.
Hmmm I also completely disagree about the suggestion that Gaddafi brought good things to Libya in the form of education and healthcare etc. The education system is a shambles– changes are made to the curriculum literally every 6 months, and never bearing successful results! Healthcare is also poorly managed and of dubious quality, with relatively decent healthcare provided at ridiculously high costs. As a result, many Libyans prefer to travel abroad to Tunisia or Jordan for a lot of their health-related issues, evidence of the lack of reliability in the Libyan system and the lack of trust in it.
Yes these services were provided by him– but all these values provided by WHO/WDB about Libya having high levels of this and that are merely statistics. Not once do they mention the actual quality of such services provided. It’s one thing to say that healthcare is free– but another thing to say that it’s decent and doesn’t pose a risk to your own welfare!
I feel like I’ve already rambled on too much, but I’d like to go back to the first point: about what Libyans feel. For 42 years Libyans have had their human rights suppressed, their political freedom strangled, and the expression of their liberal thoughts denied.
Under the Gaddafi rule, only one thing goes: and that’s Gaddafi himself.
These “rebels” which a lot of people speak ill of are not terrorists or “NATO mercenaries”. They’re normal, educated civilians…your average Joe; men and women, young and old, who are desperately fighting for their freedom.
The rebels are not idiots– they know who they’re dealing with. They know how much they’ll have to owe NATO, and that this “contract” is a long-binding one. All these “services” are not being provided for free– the money spent on sorties and other various missions will be repaid. Although Sirte is primarily pro-Gaddafi, it is an essential political goal– yet you cannot claim that NATO is bombing the city indiscriminately, as pro-G forces are retaliating with both Grad and SCUD missiles. Furthermore, the majority of the city is composed of Gaddafi’s lackeys, without find of a better word; people who are financially motivated by his existence. How the normal citizens feel, we don’t know– under his presence, they’ve not been able to freely express their own thoughts without influence.
Thus the liberation of Sirte from the Gaddafi regime is absolutely pivotal. Otherwise, the entire revolution will be invalidated, and the seeds of Gaddafi will spread once again.
Despite, whatever misgivings you may have about NATO, globalisation, neo-imperialism etc, and the ominous undertones that they give this revolution, I implore on you: could you not think, at least for a moment, about the people themselves? About how they truly feel?
Because for the people of Libya, it is not simply a matter of protesting or not. It is truly a matter of life and death. And if they do not fight, they WILL die.
On a quick note about the media:
Though I may be classed as biased, I can assure you, that despite the media washing over the news with their own tones of prejudice, the majority of the information being conveyed out of Libya are verified facts…there are a few discrepancies here and there, but that’s only natural in an environment of war.
Events conveyed by Western media so far have matched the witness reports of reliable sources from within the country. Remember: what the people see, is what is actually happening to them! Not what the media wants you to believe is happening…
I’m getting to the point where I suspect Craig of being torn with undoubted sympathy for the oppressed against a yearning for things to be different….and confidence it won’t happen.
But we do seem to have escaped the worst of ‘echo chamber’ responses with a varied number of citations which seem worth exploring….which is what a political blog is about.
My latest foray : http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2011/08/26-august-reviewing-narrative.html
@OzNeil
You have little understanding of geo-strategic realities but please feel free to dismiss this assessment as you almost certainly will. Time will tell who is right and who is wrong and it is likely that we won’t have to wait too long. In the meantime, feel free to believe whatever makes you feel better.