Tripoli falls to Libyan rebels

[KurtFF8]

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/tripoli-falls-libyan-rebels-015336671.html)


TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled. The euphoric fighters celebrated with residents of the capital in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the fading regime.

Gadhafi's whereabouts were unknown, though state TV broadcast his bitter pleas for Libyans to defend his regime. Opposition fighters captured his son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, who along with his father faces charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands. Another son was in contact with rebels about surrendering, the opposition said.

"It's over, frizz-head," chanted hundreds of jubilant men and women massed in Green Square, using a mocking nickname of the curly-haired Gadhafi. The revelers fired shots in the air, clapped and waved the rebels' tricolor flag. Some set fire to the green flag of Gadhafi's regime and shot holes in a poster with the leader's image.

By the early hours of Monday, rebels controlled large parts of the capital. They set up checkpoints alongside residents — many of them secretly armed by rebel smugglers in recent weeks. But pockets of pro-Gadhafi fighters remained: In one area, Associated Press reporters with the rebels were stopped and told to take a different route because of regime snipers nearby.

"We were waiting for the signal and it happened," said Nour Eddin Shatouni, a 50-year-old engineer who was among the residents who flowed out of their homes to join the celebrations. "All mosques chanted 'God is great' all at once. We smelled a good scent, it is the smell of victory. We know it is the time."

The seizure of Green Square held profound symbolic value and marked a stunning turn in the tide of the 6-month-old Libyan civil war. The regime has held pro-Gadhafi rallies there nearly every night since the revolt began in February, and Gadhafi delivered speeches to his loyalists from the historic Red Fort that overlooks the square.

The sweep into the capital came after the rebel fighters advanced 20 miles from the west in a matter of hours. They took town after town and overwhelmed a major military base meant to defend Tripoli, 16 miles from the city. All the way, they met little resistance and residents poured out on the streets to welcome them.

In a series of angry and defiant audio messages broadcast on state television, Gadhafi called on his supporters to march in the streets of the capital and "purify it" of "the rats." He was not shown in the messages.

His defiance raised the possibility of a last-ditch fight over the capital, home to 2 million people. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed the regime has "thousands and thousands of fighters" and vowed: "We will fight. We have whole cities on our sides. They are coming en masse to protect Tripoli to join the fight."

But it appeared that Gadhafi's military was abandoning him quickly.

The rebels' way into Tripoli was opened when the military unit in charge of protecting Gadhafi and the capital surrendered, ordering his troops to drop their weapons, the rebel information minister Mahmoud Shammam said.

In a sign of the coordination among rebels, as the main force moved into the city from the west, a second force of 200 opposition fighters from the city of Misrata further east landed by boat in the capital. They brought weapons and ammunition for Tripoli residents who join the rebellion, said Munir Ramzi of the rebels' military council in Misrata.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Gadhafi's regime was "clearly crumbling" and that the time to create a new democratic Libya has arrived.

The sooner Gadhafi "realizes that he cannot win the battle against his own people, the better," he said in a statement, adding that NATO will continue to strike his troops if they make "any threatening moves toward the Libyan people."

It was a stunning reversal for Gadhafi, who earlier this month had seemed to have a firm grip on his stronghold in the western part of Libya, despite months of NATO airstrikes on his military. Rebels had been unable to make any advances for weeks, bogged down on the main fronts with regime troops in the east and center of the country.

Gadhafi is the Arab world's longest-ruling, most erratic, most grimly fascinating leader — presiding for 42 years over this North African desert republic with vast oil reserves and just 6 million people. For years, he was an international pariah blamed for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. After years of denial, Gadhafi's Libya acknowledged responsibility, agreed to pay up to $10 million to relatives of each victim, and declared he would dismantle all weapons of mass destruction.

That eased him back into the international community.

But on February 22, days after the uprising against him began, Gaddafi gave a televised speech amid violent social unrest against his autocratic rule. In the speech, he vowed to hunt down protesters "inch by inch, room by room, home by home, alleyway by alleyway." The speech caused a furor that fueled the armed rebellion against him and it has been since mocked in songs and spoofs across the Arab world.

As the rebel force advanced on Tripoli, taking town after town, thousands of jubilant civilians rushed out of their homes to cheer the long convoys of pickup trucks packed with fighters shooting in the air. One man grabbed a rebel flag that had been draped over the hood of a slow-moving car and kissed it, overcome with emotion.

Some of the fighters were hoarse, shouting: "We are coming for you, frizz-head." In villages, mosque loudspeakers blared "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great."

"We are going to sacrifice our lives for freedom," said Nabil al-Ghowail, a 30-year-old dentist holding a rifle in the streets of Janzour, a suburb just six miles west of Tripoli. Heavy gunfire erupted nearby.

As rebels moved in Tripoli, thousands celebrated in the streets of Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital hundreds of miles to the east. Firing guns into the air and shooting fireworks, they cheered and waved the rebel tricolor flags, dancing and singing in the city's main square.

Rebel chief Mustafa Abdel-Jalil in Benghazi confirmed to the AP that the rebels arrested Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam but refused to give the details of the capture.

"We have captured Seif al-Islam and he is in safe hands," he said.

In the Netherlands, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said his office would talk to the rebels on Monday about Seif al-Islam's transfer for trial. "It is time for justice, not revenge," Moreno-Ocampo told the AP.

Seif al-Islam, his father and Libya's intelligence chief were indicted earlier this year for allegedly ordering, planning and participating in illegal attacks on civilians in the early days of the violent crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

Another son, Mohammed, was in contact with the rebels and was asking for guarantees for his safety, said rebel spokesman Sadiq al-Kibir. Mohammed, who is in charge of Libyan telecommunications, appeared on the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera, saying his house was surrounded by armed rebels.

"They have guaranteed my safety. I have always wanted good for all Libyans and was always on the side of God," he said. Close to the end of the interview, there was the sound of heavy gunfire and Mohammed said rebels had entered his house before the phone line cut off.

The day's first breakthrough came when hundreds of rebels fought their way into a major symbol of the Gadhafi regime — the base of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Gadhafi's son, Khamis. Fighters said they met with little resistance. They were 16 miles from the big prize, Tripoli.

Hundreds of rebels cheered wildly and danced as they took over the compound filled with eucalyptus trees, raising their tricolor from the front gate and tearing down a large billboard of Gadhafi. From a huge warehouse, they loaded their trucks with hundreds of crates of rockets, artillery shells and large-caliber ammunition.

One group started up a tank, drove it out of the gate, crushing the median of the main highway and driving off toward Tripoli.

"This is the wealth of the Libyan people that he was using against us," said Ahmed al-Ajdal, 27, pointing to his haul. "Now we will use it against him and any other dictator who goes against the Libyan people."

At the base, the rebels also freed more than 300 prisoners from a regime lockup, most of them arrested during the heavy crackdown on the uprising in towns west of Tripoli. The fighters and the prisoners — many looking weak and dazed and showing scars and bruises from beatings — embraced and wept with joy.

"We were sitting in our cells when all of a sudden we heard lots of gunfire and people yelling 'God is great.' We didn't know what was happening, and then we saw rebels running in and saying 'We're on your side.' And they let us out," said 23-year-old Majid al-Hodeiri. He said he was captured four months ago by Gadhafi's forces crushing the uprising in his home city of Zawiya. He said he was beaten and tortured while under detention.

From the military base, the convoy sped toward the capital.

Mahmoud al-Ghwei, 20 and unarmed, said he had just came along with a friend for the ride .

"It's a great feeling. For all these years, we wanted freedom and Gadhafi kept it from us. Now we're going to get rid of Gadhafi and get our freedom," he said.

The uprising against Gadhafi broke out in mid-February, and anti-regime protests quickly spread. A brutal regime crackdown quickly transformed the protests into an armed rebellion. Rebels seized Libya's east, setting up an internationally recognized transitional government there, and two pockets in the west, the port city of Misrata and the Nafusa mountain range.

Gadhafi clung to the remaining territory, and for months neither side has been able to break the other.

In early August, however, rebels launched an offensive from the Nafusa mountains, intending to open a new, western front to break the deadlock. They fought their way down to the Mediterranean coastal plain, backed by NATO airstrikes, and captured the strategic city of Zawiya.

On Saturday, they consolidated control of Zawiya, then launched their furious rush on the capital.

At the same time, rebel "sleeper cells" inside Tripoli rose up and clashed with Gadhafi loyalists. Rebel fighters who spoke to relatives in Tripoli by phone said hundreds rushed into the streets in anti-regime protests in several neighborhoods on Sunday.

"We received weapons by sea from Benghazi. They sent us weapons in boats," said Ibrahim Turki, a rebel in the Tripoli neighborhood of Tajoura, which saw heavy fighting the past two days. "Without their weapons, we would not have been able to stand in the face of the mighty power of Gadhafi forces."

___

Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Cairo contributed to this report.

Thus I would argue, marks the end and defeat of the Arab Spring. Or at least a significant blow to it.

[Lynx]

This is neither the end nor a defeat. Assad is next.
In time the working class will grow disillusioned with the lack of economic reform. For now, the promise of democracy will delay development of a proper revolution.

[Martin Blank]

I have a feeling there will be a short honeymoon. Let's not forget that there was a large section of the rebels who never wanted assistance from NATO in the first place.


EDIT: Post 4,000! Woo-hoo!

[Os Cangaceiros]

Source (http://news.yahoo.com/tripoli-falls-libyan-rebels-015336671.html)



Thus I would argue, marks the end and defeat of the Arab Spring. Or at least a significant blow to it.

I don't think so...the good colonel was not a reformist, nor were his supporters (well, perhaps he was a reformist back in da day, but certainly not in today's era. In fact he was moving in the exact opposite direction). So I don't see how his defeat is a defeat for the reformist movement, which is what the "Arab Spring" is. It's certainly not a revolutionary movement, although the social forces involved have potential.

[A Marxist Historian]

I have a feeling there will be a short honeymoon. Let's not forget that there was a large section of the rebels who never wanted assistance from NATO in the first place.


EDIT: Post 4,000! Woo-hoo!

There were? They sure haven't exhibited much evidence of existence lately.

Let us not sugarcoat this. This is a huge victory for imperialism, and a huge defeat for the Arab peoples. You will now have a government utterly subordinate to the whims of the imperialists--and fairly popular to boot initially.

This will strengthen the position of imperialism all over the Middle East. It will especially have a strong effect in Syria, where the popular insurgency will also become more and more subordinate to the imperialists after the Libyan model. It will discourage popular mobilization vs. the US-supported military dictators in Egypt.

Arab rulers will now be licking US boots even more fervently.

-M.H.-

[Aspiring Humanist]

I really hope the new Libya is not another US puppet state

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

I honestly don't know how I feel about this. To me this seems like a victory for Western imperialism and the NATO club regardless of whether or not certain sections of the rebel factions didn't want foreign intervention. As to what will happen after this, I am curious to see.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Well as an anarchist and a communist I have to respect and support the peoples right to self determination and their desire to overthrow a dictator. Call Gaddafi whatever you want but there is no denying he is a repressive dictator.

This does not mean I support the NTC, I support the Libyan people only

[Geiseric]

The libyan rebels themselves had the same motivations as the egyptian protesters or syrian ones, libya is just more valuable than egypt which is why there was more of imperialist interference in that country. Ghadaffi was an imperialist puppet himself, he was just a 3rd world country's dictator. An incapible one at that, who tried unsuccessfully to give himself a big brother look. Why the fuck do stalinists think he's a representative of the proletariat though? It's like they think they NEED to pick between two assholes. What it comes down to in my opinion is opposing any interference by NATO but letting the libyan people decide what to do. And syrians hate the U.S. and NATO more than libyans do, so it'll be tougher there. i would have thought that Stalinists would back assad as well, since he's "anti imperialist," whatever the fuck that means. Cheuvanism of the working class is what i'm seeing from Stalinists during the Arab spring though. i think this is the begining of something better in the M.E. though.

[Ismail]

WSWS article on the subject: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/liby-a20.shtml


The regime with which NATO intends to replace Gaddafi has the most right-wing, reactionary character. The TNC has drawn up a 14-page “constitutional declaration” in Benghazi, which was shown to AFP. It lays out the foundation for a right-wing Islamist government in Libya. It states, “Libya is a democratic and independent state. The people are the source of authority, Tripoli is the capital, Islam is the religion, and Islamic sharia [traditional law] is the principal source of legislation.”

The document was reportedly written by Islamic activist Mohammed Busidra, who granted an interview to Canada’s Globe and Mail daily on August 5. The paper reported that Busidra is “organizing Libya’s mosques into a political machine. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise.”

Busidra presented his vision for an Islamic fundamentalist and pro-imperialist puppet state in Libya. He assured the Globe and Mail that he would “remain favorable toward the West and its governments and oil companies.” The inescapable conclusion is that Libya’s 42 billion barrels of oil will be de-nationalized and seized by Western oil firms.

Busidra also insisted that alcohol and homosexuality should become strictly illegal in Libya, as well as “the praise of any religion other than Islam.”

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Moved to Ongoing Struggles: The Arab World Protests.

[Geiseric]

This islamist state isn't gonna last long, there Has to be too many libyans who actually want democracy. Still, this is terrible.

[jake williams]

I really hope the new Libya is not another US puppet state
lol.

Hope Obama still has Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner. If not I guess they may as well make a new one, in French, for Mr. Sarkozy. If not that, this might do:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4158/p1000820q.jpg

[Jose Gracchus]

Where's the massive "progressive" "people's" (dare we say working-class?) spontaneous mass resistance to the rebels? I suppose they cower in fear of the imperialists, whilest previously they bravely rallied to the Brother Guide of the Revolution.

Still, I am sure Libya's descent into failed statism and total burglary by more formidable bourgeoisies and their states, will continue unabated, catalyzed in fact, by this event. No cause for celebration, rather, a bitter lesson for what real historical prospects for political and social change are outside of the working class for itself.

[La Comédie Noire]

I can't wait to see all the freedoms NATO bestows on the people of Libya and all their oil fields.

[jake williams]

Where's the massive "progressive" "people's" (dare we say working-class?) spontaneous mass resistance to the rebels? I suppose they cower in fear of the imperialists, whilest previously they bravely rallied to the Brother Guide of the Revolution.
What are you talking about?

If you're suggesting the "rebels" have been allowed to take Libya without any popular resistance - have you heard anything about this country in northern Africa called "Libya", where a ragtag bunch of ex-Gaddafi officials, ex-pat businesspeople and Islamic fundamentalists backed with money, guns, airstrikes, diplomatic, training and strategic support by the most powerful military alliance in human history, ever, hasn't been able to displace an allegedly hated monarch, after 6 months of fighting, in a small country with a heavily armed population?

[Jose Gracchus]

Give me a fucking break.

You know exactly what I am saying. I am saying that the Gaddhafi regime has no popular, much less "national liberation" or whatever class-collaborationist ideological recipe the Western armchair left has invented to give itself purpose since its abandonment of the workers' movement in its opportunistic collusion with non-Anglo-Euro-American petty bourgeois and insurgent (quite honestly Third Positionist) movements throughout the world. If it was a political machine erected in support of something other than the Libyan bourgeoisie's exploitation of labor power and natural resources, then one would have expected that social basis to emerge. Rather, one reactionary club of bourgeois forces revolted and overthrew the regime where it was weak, and then outlasted the rump regime in the West.

You're trying to portray it like it was the Last Stand of the Spartans or some shit, which is absurd. Let's be honest: NATO did not commit itself fully to this campaign and there was a mixed support for interventionism within the Western elite. Nevertheless, one cannot use NATO's support as proof positive that the regime has progressive political character due to the fact that Gaddhafi held-on until outlasted for six months.

[punisa]

Interesting when Churchill said "We shall never surrender" it was hailed as one of the best speeches in history and when Colonel Gaddafi said basically the same thing late last night he was called a lunatic by media.

Screw NTC, there is nothing democratic about them.
NATO created another colony and some of you are cheering for it - this makes me actually physically sick :(

[Jose Gracchus]

And here comes the delusional accusations that anyone is "cheering" anything. A necessary device, when the progress of history presents itself to your tendency as a brand-spanking-new excuse of the day to try to call out others for insufficient fictitious support for foreign bourgeois forces bleeding the working-class white with their wars.

[punisa]

Let's be honest: NATO did not commit itself fully to this campaign and there was a mixed support for interventionism within the Western elite.

You sir are a delusional man... and also suffer from the subconscious NATO fetish. Sad.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Give me a fucking break.

here comes the delusional accusations

You sir are a delusional man... and also suffer from the subconscious NATO fetish. Sad.

ITT: The state of the modern left

[pax et aequalitas]

Mixed feelings here as well.

On the one hand, Gaddafi was an oppressive dictator and we can not deny that this was not what the people wanted or else there be so many who would risk their lives by fighting him.

On the other hand, the NATO and especially the USA were quick to get their hands in it and I am confident that the end result won't be perfect either, probably far from.

I guess we should just hope that the people of Libya will decide for themselves and not let other nations make them their puppet.

[Rocky Rococo]

I thought Richard at Lenin's Tomb summed it up well, "No tears for Qaddafi, no cheers for NATO".

[black magick hustla]

there aren't any "mixed" feelings to have. the working class was bled by third positionists, "democratists", and islamist reaction, and the state that will emerge out of this mess will be unstable and subject to world economic crisis as every other corner in the world today.

[CynicalIdealist]

The slightly possibly maybe perhaps less progressive bourgeoisie beat the slightly possibly maybe perhaps slightly more progressive bourgeoisie in this case. Fuck NATO and fuck the TNC, but let's not do the typical Stalinist romanticizing of Gaddafi.

[Hiero]

You have two factions, both factions are class collaborators. The Gaddafi faction at least allocated funds towards health and education of the Libyans, and money to international causes like the Palestinian, Irish, Basque and African causes. And then ofcourse the regime degenerated or it was never build correctly. I wonder what the next faction will offer.

[Sasha]

WSWS article on the subject:

The regime with which NATO intends to replace Gaddafi has the most right-wing, reactionary character. The TNC has drawn up a 14-page “constitutional declaration” in Benghazi, which was shown to AFP. It lays out the foundation for a right-wing Islamist government in Libya. It states, “Libya is a democratic and independent state. The people are the source of authority, Tripoli is the capital, Islam is the religion, and Islamic sharia [traditional law] is the principal source of legislation.”


The document was reportedly written by Islamic activist Mohammed Busidra, who granted an interview to Canada’s Globe and Mail daily on August 5. The paper reported that Busidra is “organizing Libya’s mosques into a political machine. This has made him, in the view of many people here, the figure who will wield the most political power, and likely control the country’s leadership, in the event of the dictator’s demise.”


Busidra presented his vision for an Islamic fundamentalist and pro-imperialist puppet state in Libya. He assured the Globe and Mail that he would “remain favorable toward the West and its governments and oil companies.” The inescapable conclusion is that Libya’s 42 billion barrels of oil will be de-nationalized and seized by Western oil firms.


Busidra also insisted that alcohol and homosexuality should become strictly illegal in Libya, as well as “the praise of any religion other than Islam.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/liby-a20.shtml

Lol at the premises of that article, did they even bother to have a look what's now in the gadaffi imposed constitution? I'll give you a clue; its everything exactly the same including the bits about sharia law. And obviously gadaffi wiped his arse with the democratic bit for 40 years.
But I guess this is another case of don't confuse me with the facts when my mind is made up.

[Hiero]

The slightly possibly maybe perhaps less progressive bourgeoisie beat the slightly possibly maybe perhaps slightly more progressive bourgeoisie in this case. Fuck NATO and fuck the TNC, but let's not do the typical Stalinist romanticizing of Gaddafi.

I don't see a Stalinist romanticizing of Gaddafi. A true Stalinist couldn't romanticise Gadaffi as Gaddafi is a revisionist, Gaddafi is not even comparable to Krushchev. It is a modernist anti-imperialist romanticising that we are seeing. It's context is the late cold war era where regimes could play between US, USSR and China.

[black magick hustla]

You have two factions, both factions are class collaborators. The Gaddafi faction at least allocated funds towards health and education of the Libyans, and money to international causes like the Palestinian, Irish, Basque and African causes. And then ofcourse the regime degenerated or it was never build correctly. I wonder what the next faction will offer.
plenty bourgeois factions do "charity work" to strenghten their geopolitical hold. (see marshall plan)/

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Lol at the premises of that article, did they even bother to have a look what's now in the gadaffi imposed constitution? I'll give you a clue; its everything exactly the same including the bits about sharia law. And obviously gadaffi wiped his arse with the democratic bit for 40 years.
But I guess this is another case of don't confuse me with the facts when my mind is made up.

Or worse, since the SEP's old fraternal group in the UK (Healy's WRP) collaborated with Gaddafi, issuing joint statements with his regime and receiving funding for their newspaper.

[Susurrus]

Death to oppression and exploitation! Long live the freedom of the Libyan people! (and for that matter, all people everywhere) We have only our chains to lose!

[00000000000]

Good that Gaddafi is being removed, bad that the replacement gov'ment may be just another Islamist state with 'the West' waiting eagerly to invest in Libya's 'future'.

I know some of us wish that these kinds of uprisings would lead to the kind of communist / anarchist revolutions that would inspire the various movements and struggles around the world...but in a region where reactionary thought and Islam is so deeply imbedded in the culture, it's no more likely than wishing the recent English riots would have amounted to something more than blurry youtube clips of 'yoofs' running around with looted swag from a shoe store.

Anyway, I'm choosing to see these events in a slightly more positive light just for the moment; any day that a viscous dictator gets toppled is a good day.

[Rusty Shackleford]

watching aljaz now. its funny, there is a Qatari flag in the crowd, and i noticed a few days ago that a few rebels were wearing "Free Libya" T-shirts in english i still havent seen one in arabic.

[Kamos]

Anyway, I'm choosing to see these events in a slightly more positive light just for the moment; any day that a viscous dictator gets toppled is a good day.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/viscous

Eh... it's good to see Gaddafi gone, and yet Libya is still going to be worse off.

[Martin Blank]

There were? They sure haven't exhibited much evidence of existence lately.

Yes, there were.

http://www.ucpa.us/images/libya-rebels3.jpg

Some of them ended up accepting the deal with imperialism out of desperation, while others took their guns and went home when it was clear the TNC (the "ex"-Gaddafists) had taken control of the rebellion.


Let us not sugarcoat this. This is a huge victory for imperialism, and a huge defeat for the Arab peoples. You will now have a government utterly subordinate to the whims of the imperialists--and fairly popular to boot initially.

And the Gaddafi government wasn't "utterly subordinate to the whims of the imperialists"? What utter nonsense! This was a change in bourgeois management (Gaddafi out, TNC in), not a world-historic defeat.


This will strengthen the position of imperialism all over the Middle East.

Agreed. By placing more loyal bourgeois elements in charge in Tripoli, the Great Powers have succeeded in reinforcing their control over the region. That's why the fall of the Gaddafi regime is nothing to cheer about and nothing to mourn. The only possible gain the working class could get out of this is a momentary breathing space, due to the relative chaos that comes from such "regime change", that could be used to reorganize and regroup their forces. But that depends on how well organized the police forces of the TNC are.


It will especially have a strong effect in Syria, where the popular insurgency will also become more and more subordinate to the imperialists after the Libyan model. It will discourage popular mobilization vs. the US-supported military dictators in Egypt.

This remains to be seen. What I do know is that Egyptians were in the streets tonight, celebrating the de facto collapse of Gaddafi's regime. Apparently, they don't quite see it as a defeat.


Arab rulers will now be licking US boots even more fervently.

Is this even humanly possible?

[Susurrus]

May this only be a February Revolution, and may the October one turn out better this time.

[Martin Blank]

Or worse, since the SEP's old fraternal group in the UK (Healy's WRP) collaborated with Gaddafi, issuing joint statements with his regime and receiving funding for their newspaper.

It was more than that. The WRP's printing press produced thousands of copies of Gaddafi's Green Book, and WRP photographers took pictures of anti-Gaddafi protesters, which were later given to Libyan officials (you can imagine what followed).

[Rusty Shackleford]

May this only be a February Revolution, and may the October one turn out better this time.
only time will tell what will happen politically.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This isn't the end of anything, if the imperialists are able to regain control in the whole region, then it will more likely be their decision to co-opt and support the rebellion that is retroactively seen as the turning-point towards counter-revolution in the "Arab Spring". There will be a lot of triumphalism in the media for a while but the new regime is not going to really be able to do anything that different than Gaddafi so if people protest food prices or the continuing undemocratic state of affairs in Libya, then the US, France and Italy will once again be supporting a regime using massive repression against the population. I mean, I don't think the west can pump in money to help alleviate any problems there and so the regime will have to try and buy-off some sections of the rebels while repressing any that aren't willing to go along with the new staus-quo.

[Hiero]

Yes, there were.

http://www.ucpa.us/images/libya-rebels3.jpg



That is three people...

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

lol.

Hope Obama still has Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner. If not I guess they may as well make a new one, in French, for Mr. Sarkozy. If not that, this might do:

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4158/p1000820q.jpg

Why is the sign in English? LOL.

[Thirsty Crow]

Screw NTC, there is nothing democratic about them.
NATO created another colony and some of you are cheering for it - this makes me actually physically sick :(
All of this talk of how Libya was supposedly "independent" (the folly of the rhetorics of "national independence" with respect to contemporary imperialism) is pure wishful thinking in retrospect. Gaddafi's regime was definitely entangled with iimperialist interest, and I think I recall something about it as a "valuable ally in the war on terror", as well as a border patrol for European states (can't let those immigrants ruin good ol' Europe, can we?).

[TheGeekySocialist]

I don't support either side in this conflict.

Gaddafi is a nut job dictator.

the Rebels are highly secterian and have no clear objectives beyond "let's get Gaddafi"

NATO are, as always looking out for the interests of the elites in member nations and that alone.

I will be nothing short of amazed if the result of all this remotley resembles democracy, most likely outcomes are either a new dictator backed by the strongest faction in the rebel movement or a new regime that acts as a NATO backed puppet, either way it's highly unlikley to make a huge difference to the quality of life for most Libyans, believe me I wish it were, but the reality suggests otherwise.

[Azula]

No matter what, this is a defeat for Pan-africanism and the progressive forces of the world. Gaddafi's regime worked hard to integrate Africa into a bloc which could assert it's autonomy from the West.

In short, this will weaken all of Africa.

Libya itself under Gaddafi developed from one of the most underdeveloped countries of the world into a welfare state with interesting social experiments. While Gaddafi's government certainly had some bad sides, it will still be indefinetly better than what is replacing it.

In ten years, most Libyans will surely miss Gaddafi.

The civil war has not ended. It is now that it will begin.

The rebels were only united by their hate of Gaddafi. Now when he is gone(?) they will start to fight amongst themselves.

The islamists and the pro-western quislings will also fight one another.

The infrastructure will be destroyed. The welfare system dismantled.

Hundreds of thousands of Libyans will flee to Europe or other Arab countries, including scientists, teachers, doctors and the most well-educated ones.

Libya will become a new Somalia.

This will mean more suffering than a Gaddafi victory would have meant.

Thank you, Obama.

You have destroyed an African nation.

[agnixie]

Thank you, Obama.

You have destroyed an African nation.

Gaddafi did, too.

[Sasha]

No matter what, this is a defeat for Pan-africanism and the progressive forces of the world. Gaddafi's regime worked hard to integrate Africa into a bloc which could assert it's autonomy from the West.

Yeah, he wanted a Africa united under arab islamists rule with a fascist economy and in which those "barbaric blacks" would be secondary citizens with him as supreme ruling king.
What a loss...

[Azula]

Yeah, he wanted a Africa united under arab islamists rule with a fascist economy and in which those "barbaric blacks" would be secondary citizens with him as supreme ruling king.
What a loss...

That is slander.

[agnixie]

That is slander.

No, that was showed in one of your troll threads even. This is a man who calls himself the king of Africa and who financed the Janjaweed. As I said - he already destroyed another african country, Sudan. Admittedly Sudan is, like most african countries, a hapahazard collection of colonies with borders based on european imperialist frontlines and nothing else.

[Azula]

No, that was showed in one of your troll threads even. This is a man who calls himself the king of Africa and who financed the Janjaweed. As I said - he already destroyed another african country, Sudan. Admittedly Sudan is, like most african countries, a hapahazard collection of colonies with borders based on european imperialist frontlines and nothing else.


Your position on Sudan is very racist. Also, the Janjaweed have committed many crimes, but they have not teared Sudan apart.

And I am not starting "troll threads".

[Hiero]

Libya will become a new Somalia.


I don't think it will come that bad. Someone made the comparison earlier to Serbia/Yugaslavia. Here is Parenti's insght:

“In fact, the same thing happened in Yugoslavia and in Eastern Europe,” he said, “There will be a massive privatization taking place, the public economy that the Gaddafi government had built over 40 years, which included public subsidies for housing, for education, for healthcare – all those things will be privatized. The oil fields will be handed over to private companies for private profit.”
Michael Parenti

http://rt.com/news/tripoli-fights-rebels-shooting-546/


This is a man who calls himself the king of Africa and who financed the Janjaweed.


I read that claim, and I don't buy it. Libya funded a group in another war, who may have been a preliminary step tot he Janjaweed. The modern Janjaweed is financed and support by the Sudanese government to dampen the civil war in Darfur. Is there any prove that Gaddafi financed the modern Janjaweed and supported their role against Africans of Darfur?It is like saying the US created the Taliban, it is not entirely true and simplifies complexites and disrupts continuity of history.

[agnixie]

Your position on Sudan is very racist. Also, the Janjaweed have committed many crimes, but they have not teared Sudan apart.

And I am not starting "troll threads".

My position on Sudan is what someone who has an inkling of knowledge of african history should be aware of. Sudan was originally three states, one was conquered by the ottoman empire directly before Egypt became a semi-independent state of it, the second was invaded and conquered by Egypt itself, the third one was conquered during the scramble for Africa by Anglo-Egyptian troops. A fourth part had been part of Mameluke egypt on and off before the Ottoman conquest.

Also my mistake - you don't start troll threads, you're a walking troll thread. Everything you touch turns into a troll thread.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

No matter what, this is a defeat for Pan-africanism and the progressive forces of the world. Gaddafi's regime worked hard to integrate Africa into a bloc which could assert it's autonomy from the West.


Right, a fascist leader trying to find a bigger kingdom


Libya itself under Gaddafi developed from one of the most underdeveloped countries of the world into a welfare state with interesting social experiments. While Gaddafi's government certainly had some bad sides, it will still be indefinetly better than what is replacing it.
What good things? Hospitals so unhygienic that 400 children were given AIDS? A 20% youth unemployment rate? Mass use of torture and arbitrary execution?



In ten years, most Libyans will surely miss Gaddafi.

The civil war has not ended. It is now that it will begin.

The rebels were only united by their hate of Gaddafi. Now when he is gone(?) they will start to fight amongst themselves.

The islamists and the pro-western quislings will also fight one another.

The infrastructure will be destroyed. The welfare system dismantled. You really don't think the Libyan people have any autonomy outside of their "glorious leader" it seems.

Why are so many Libyans celebrating in the streets right now? Where are the people of Tripoli that Gaddafi armed to stop the rebels? Why are so many of the rebels from the urban and rural poor if this rebellion is entirely made up of Islamists and "pro-Western quislings"

Yes a civil war could well start now but all this is the fault of Gaddafi and his decades of misrule as well as his bloody and brutal assault on unarmed protesters on February 17th


Your position on Sudan is very racist. Also, the Janjaweed have committed many crimes, but they have not teared Sudan apart.


You dont know what "Racism" is do you? Every African country is a haphazard collection of ethnic groups lumped together by European Imperialists, excluding the Arabic North African states and Ethiopia (which was lumped together by an African Imperial dynasty).

[manic expression]

Right, a fascist leader trying to find a bigger kingdom
You mean the boys from NATO?

But no, keep blaming African leaders when their countries are bombed by imperialism....


What good things? Hospitals so unhygienic that 400 children were given AIDS? A 20% youth unemployment rate? Mass use of torture and arbitrary execution?
How about not being conquered by imperialist forces?


You really don't think the Libyan people have any autonomy outside of their "glorious leader" it seems.
Libya did have sovereignty. It no longer does.


Why are so many Libyans celebrating in the streets right now? Where are the people of Tripoli that Gaddafi armed to stop the rebels? Why are so many of the rebels from the urban and rural poor if this rebellion is entirely made up of Islamists and "pro-Western quislings"
Wow, you really are blind. The rebels were about to be crushed a few months back, and would have been if it wasn't for the NATO invasion. And now you have the gall to mock Libya and say there wasn't any opposition? Sad.


Yes a civil war could well start now but all this is the fault of Gaddafi and his decades of misrule as well as his bloody and brutal assault on unarmed protesters on February 17th
Yep, all the fault of Gaddafi. Don't worry about Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama bombing the crap out of Libya and the rest of the world...it's all Gaddafi's fault!

:rolleyes:


You dont know what "Racism" is do you?
Reflexively blaming African leaders for the crimes of imperialism? Does that have something to do with it?

[Ocean Seal]

Yep, all the fault of Gaddafi. Don't worry about Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama bombing the crap out of Libya and the rest of the world...it's all Gaddafi's fault!

Manic, its okay, leave them to their idealism. In a couple of months when Libyan living standards fall tremendously, the oil deals that the capitalist countries plotted in Qatar go into effect, and a bunch of Qaddafi's ruling cronies are in power, let's see if they spout the same opportunistic rhetoric.

[Lynx]

Qaddafi - beacon of hope for some - is gone. Time to get the eulogy over and done with, and move on.

[RadioRaheem84]

This notion of Gaddafi being a fascist is fucking ridiculous and childish. He was no such thing.

Being corrupt and a somewhat autocratic does not equal being fascist.

The guy was comparable to a Ceasecu of Romania; a guy that needed to go but not by the hands of the West.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

You mean the boys from NATO?

But no, keep blaming African leaders when their countries are bombed by imperialism....


Um, what? I was responding to Azula's suggestion that Gaddafi's attempt to create a United States of Africa was a good thing. You're not reading what you're responding to.



How about not being conquered by imperialist forces?
The rebels are clearly a domestic force with large-scale domestic support, despite the support of NATO. Also, again, nice RED HERRING that has nothing to do with what I was responding to. Azula was making a claim about Libyan welfare, and I was disagreeing with that.



Libya did have sovereignty. It no longer does.
Your country doesn't have real sovereignty when it's being dominated by a narcissistic autocrat who refuses to listen to his people, nay who shoots his people. Also, again, red herring, I was not talking about national sovereignty I was talking about popular autonomy.



Wow, you really are blind. The rebels were about to be crushed a few months back, and would have been if it wasn't for the NATO invasion. And now you have the gall to mock Libya and say there wasn't any opposition? Sad.
Wow, you do like these red herrings. Nobody is talking about Gaddafi's ability to stay in power or use his armed forces to do that. After all there is a huge difference between Gaddafi having a massive, well-armed army and Gaddafi having massive popular support. He spent the past 40 years buying thousands of arms with the oil money. This might have had some impact on the fact that the rebels would have been crushed without NATO. His ability to defeat that rebellion without airstrikes against his forces says very little about the popular support behind the government. Also, you almost seem to speak of Gaddafi crushing the rebellion as a good thing.
in other words:
Gaddafi's military support=/=Gaddafi's popular support

And how on earth am I "mocking" Libya? on the contrary, I am responding to Azula making categorical negative statements about the rebels.



Yep, all the fault of Gaddafi. Don't worry about Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama bombing the crap out of Libya and the rest of the world...it's all Gaddafi's fault!
How about you actually respond to my reasoning instead of just ranting? All the problems in Libya come from well before the NATO powers bombing the country. NATO acted in an opportunistic fashion, probably because they want a government which they think they can influence, but the opportunity itself came out of a large-scale popular revolt against a tyrant. This revolt occurred because people were angry at Gaddafi's misrule, but he refused to listen to their protests and instead sent the army and police to put it down.



Reflexively blaming African leaders for the crimes of imperialism? Does that have something to do with it?What? Again, I don't think you're bothering to read the quote you're responding to.


Raheem-perhaps you are right, and fascist is an overused term, however Gaddafi does have some interesting parallels with historical fascist governments. Third-positionism, a strong emphasis on the narrative of Libyan nationalism, a strong sense of traditionalism, militarism and an attempt to create class collaboration on top of his autocracy. His is also a government which also seems to mostly be backed by petit-bourgeois within the country.

[KurtFF8]

For folks who don't know what to think about this development, I think this article may shed some light:


Markets rally back on hopes of end to Libya conflict (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14610908)



Stock markets in Europe have rebounded, led by shares in energy firms, on hopes that fighting in Libya may soon end.
At close on Monday London's FTSE 100 was up 1.08% and the Cac 40 in Paris by 1.14%.
The rally follows a 5% to 10% slump on most markets on Thursday and Friday on recession fears in the US and Europe.
Oil prices initially fell on hopes that Libyan crude would soon come back on tap, before rising again on greater optimism about the global economy.
Business opportunities During Asian trading hours, news from Libya combined with lingering anxiety over the economy to push the price of Brent crude futures down 3.2% to $105.15 a barrel.
By late afternoon in London, Brent was down at $1.51 a barrel to $107.11, while US sweet, light crude was up $0.74 at $83.15.

Leading the rebound in stocks were the European energy firms best placed to exploit future Libyan business opportunities.

Italian oil firm ENI - the most active foreign company in Libya before the conflict began - jumped 6.33%, while France's Total rose 2.25%, and Shell climbed 2.41%.
Exploration firms Cairn Energy and Afren - both active in Africa - rose 2.95% and 4.28% respectively.
Oil industry engineering and servicing firms also received a boost from strong financial results announced by Petrofac. The UK firm rose 3.68%, while oil rigs installer Lamprell jumped 3.77%.
In Milan, other non-energy businesses did well, reflecting the close business links between Italy and Libya.
The FTSE MIB index of 40 leading stocks rose 1.7%, outstripping other European bourses.
Transport and communications firm Ansaldo - which has many contracts with Libya - jumped 5%.
US markets also joined in, with the Dow Jones starting the day more than 1% higher, before slipping back slightly.
Increased supplies? Markets are hoping that an end to the conflict in Libya will see the country's oil exports restored, increasing global supplies.
Libya is the world's 12th-largest oil exporter.
Analysts said oil prices were likely to fall further as the political situation in the country unfolds.
Before the start of the conflict, Libya produced 1.6 million barrels a day of crude oil, or about 2% of the world's output.

In the long run macroeconomic issues will play a huge role in determining which way the oil prices are headed”

But as the political unrest in the country intensified, the majority of that production was hit, taking a toll on global oil supply.
"Once they get back to recovery mode, a million barrels per day are expected to enter the global supply," Jonathan Barratt of Commodity Broking told the BBC.
"This will add weight to the decline in oil prices that we have seen recently," he added.
Macroeconomic factors However, some analysts said that even though the Libyan conflict seemed to be heading towards an end, there was still uncertainty about how fast the country's oil production could be restored to the pre-conflict levels.
"It will take a long time for them to repair the production facilities and get back on track," Avtar Sandhu of Phillip Futures told the BBC.
"What we are seeing today is more of a psychological selling."
Oil prices have also been hit by concerns in the past month that demand may be hurt by a slowdown in the global economy.
On Monday, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) confirmed that growth in the world's main industrialised economies had slowed for the fourth quarter in a row during the three months to June.
The trend was most marked in the eurozone, where growth fell to 0.2% versus a year earlier, compared with 0.8% in the previous quarter.
"We can count on slower economic growth in US and Europe, and that is going to impact demand for oil," Victor Shum of Purvin and Gertz told the BBC.
Analysts said that, with two of the world's biggest economic zones struggling to boost growth, oil prices are likely to slide.
"In the long run, macroeconomic issues will play a huge role in determining which way the oil prices are headed," Phillip Futures' Mr Sandhu said.
Japan threat Markets saw heavy falls on Thursday and Friday last week on recession fears, and the negative sentiment carried over into Asian trading hours on Monday.
In Japan, the Nikkei ended the day 1% lower, although Hong Kong's Hang Seng index ended up 0.45% after a late rally.



Haven investments also did well during Asian trading, but then fell back as European shares rallied.
The price of gold had risen 2.3% prior to the Europe open, to hit yet another record high, of $1,894.5 per troy ounce - before sliding sharply.
The Japanese yen held steady half-a-yen above the record level of 76.1 yen to the dollar it set on Friday.
Japan's finance minister Yoshihiko Noda reiterated the government's readiness to intervene if the currency strengthened further.
"We will watch markets even more closely than before to see whether there is any speculative activity," he said.
"We won't rule out any measures and will take decisive action when necessary."
Meanwhile, the Swiss franc - another popular haven currency - weakened against the euro. The Swiss authorities intervened last week to curtail the strength of their currency.
Currency movements are also being driven by speculation that the US Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, will hint at further monetary stimulus measures in a major speech at Jackson Hole in Wyoming on Friday - something that is likely to weaken the dollar.

(Sorry for the awkward formatting of the quote, but the quoting on this site seems to be problematic for me for some reason)

[BIG BROTHER]

So regardless the feelings and the nature of the Gadaffi regime, we all of course can agree that at least now the Imperialist are ready to cash in on this victory, regardless the plans the rebels may have, although the leadership is completely sold to NATO.

Anyways what I was wondering, is were are all those people who:

Said oh! the assault on Tripolli and the advance of rebel troops is all imperialist propaganda :laugh::laugh::laugh:

I hope those people learn better to stop being delusional

[Wanted Man]

It seems pretty clear that the rebel win has everything to do with the NATO intervention. In the end, there were two armies and the one with supplies and materiel won, while the one that didn't have that and was being bombed and isolated lost. And even then it took them almost half a year. Pretty strange if we are to really believe that this situation came about because of a mass rising by "the people" (a new class in some kind of new Marxist analysis, I'm sure).

The reason that almost nobody is rising up for Gadhafi in Tripoli at the moment is the same reason that almost nobody in Tripoli rose up for the rebels when Gadhafi was still firmly in the saddle (for months after the NATO decision to intervene, in fact): because that's not a very smart thing to do when you've just been conquered by the other side.

If there's anything obvious it's that people are very adaptive in a war situation. If you're poor and oppressed, you've got to survive, and you don't do that by fanatically charging into a hopeless fight. At the end of the German occupations in Western Europe in WWII, all the collaborators also quickly turned into hardened members of the resistance.

People who thought that the Tripolitans were massively going to fight for Gadhafi in the endgame were obviously wrong, but then again I think only Gadhafi really believed that. As long as Gadhafi was still in the saddle, he could mobilise large amounts of people in the Green Square. If there had been no NATO intervention and Gadhafi had somehow been able to beat the rebellion and take Benghazi, then I'm sure he could have found plenty of people to dress up in green and celebrate in the streets even there. Because that's just what you do when you're poor, oppressed and at war.

So with that established, you don't have to be a die-hard Gadhafi fanboy (which seems to be a strawman character on Revleft anyway, bar a few exceptions; there are plenty of members who had some kind of "support the rebels but oppose NATO" shtick going on though, even though the two have been indistinguishable for months now) to realise that the fall of Gadhafi is due to a straight-up military defeat by one military force against another. Working-class people throwing themselves into the meat grinder to disenfranchise themselves regardless of the outcome, some with enthusiasm and some with bayonets pointed at their backs, same business as usual.

So yeah, I think you can say that the many people here who are partying it up across 4 different threads should probably check themselves just as much as those few actual unconditional "Gadhafi supporters", rather than coming in here to take the moral high ground just because "their" guys happen to have won this particular civil war after NATO intervention. It's not going to help anyone; you're not going to get invited to meetings between David Cameron and the National Council to give a rousing speech about how they need to "complete the revolution against Gadhafi by giving the means of production to the workers". The rebellion has been brought under control a long time ago, and it's not going to change for any group of "lefties" with high-and-mighty statements.

[Martin Blank]

That is three people...

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Seriously? That's the best you've got?!

[agnixie]

This notion of Gaddafi being a fascist is fucking ridiculous and childish. He was no such thing.

Being corrupt and a somewhat autocratic does not equal being fascist.

The guy was comparable to a Ceasecu of Romania; a guy that needed to go but not by the hands of the West.

The green book is a palingenetic tract calling for a conservative, tribal, militarist and autocratic society.

[manic expression]

Um, what? I was responding to Azula's suggestion that Gaddafi's attempt to create a United States of Africa was a good thing. You're not reading what you're responding to.
And I pointed out how absurd it is to oppose that unless you oppose the wanna-be kings of NATO and their plans to rape Africa.


The rebels are clearly a domestic force with large-scale domestic support, despite the support of NATO.
Uh, yeah, the rebels wouldn't exist today if it weren't for NATO bombs. Try again.


Your country doesn't have real sovereignty when it's being dominated by a narcissistic autocrat
You obviously don't know what sovereignty means. Libya's problems are not to be solved by imperialism...that's "might means right". They're to be solved by Libya. That's sovereignty.


Wow, you do like these red herrings. Nobody is talking about Gaddafi's ability to stay in power or use his armed forces to do that.
Yeah, keep believing Gaddafi didn't have any popular support. It'll fit right in with the rest of the NATO cheerleaders.


And how on earth am I "mocking" Libya?
By insinuating that no one stood up against imperialism.


How about you actually respond to my reasoning instead of just ranting? All the problems in Libya come from well before the NATO powers bombing the country.
Those problems aren't to be solved by NATO. How hard is that to understand?

But most importantly, Libya's current problem IS NATO.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

And I pointed out how absurd it is to oppose that unless you oppose the wanna-be kings of NATO and their plans to rape Africa.


Wait, are you saying I have to chose between Gaddafi as the king of Africa and NATO? How about the people of Africa ruling themselves without parasitic overlords of any kind?



Uh, yeah, the rebels wouldn't exist today if it weren't for NATO bombs. Try again.
How is that relevant? That doesn't mean they don't have domestic support. Plenty of rebellions which were crushed by force had widespread popular backing.



You obviously don't know what sovereignty means. Libya's problems are not to be solved by imperialism...that's "might means right". They're to be solved by Libya. That's sovereignty.
Um, what? Again, I didn't bring up sovereignty, you did. I was talking about autonomy, as in the right for everyday people to express their disapproval with the government. But it should also be pointed out that national sovereignty is a social construct, and doesn't make a difference when the machinery political power and the means of production are monopolized by a single tyrant.

Also, Gaddafi remaining in power thanks to his massive army is an issue of "might makes right" just as much as foreign imperialism.



Yeah, keep believing Gaddafi didn't have any popular support. It'll fit right in with the rest of the NATO cheerleaders.
(1) I'm not cheerleading NATO at all, as I've said before they are clearly opportunistic.

(2) Gaddafi had supporters, but there's no evidence that he had a plurality of popular support.

(3) I see the issue of his support to be quite irrelevant. 3 supporters with a tank are more valuable than 30 with kalashnikovs. Gaddafi's army had grad rockets, tanks, bmps, heavy weapons and numerous fighting vehicles that the motley and disorganized rebel militias had.



By insinuating that no one stood up against imperialism.
Um, what? I was insinuating that the Libyan people felt like they had a more pressing issue than imperialism, and that was their violently parasitic dictator. I'm not going to second-guess their judgement, I would rather now work on preventing NATO from having excessive influence over the new government rather than crying over spilled milk (especially when said "spilled milk" was the regime of a violent and possibly delusional autocrat).



Those problems aren't to be solved by NATO. How hard is that to understand?

But most importantly, Libya's current problem IS NATO.Those problems aren't solved by NATO, sure, but the opportunistic air assault only occurred when the internal contradictions of Gaddafi's government revealed themselves in protests which he violently repressed. None of this would have happened if it was not for the level of discontent in Libya which had gotten so bad that Gaddafi had to order his army to kill his own people to stay in power.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I read that claim, and I don't buy it. Libya funded a group in another war, who may have been a preliminary step tot he Janjaweed. The modern Janjaweed is financed and support by the Sudanese government to dampen the civil war in Darfur. Is there any prove that Gaddafi financed the modern Janjaweed and supported their role against Africans of Darfur?It is like saying the US created the Taliban, it is not entirely true and simplifies complexites and disrupts continuity of history.

Libya has been involved in some pretty sketchy conduct in Africa, though, regardless. For example, it's conduct in neighboring Chad.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Such wonderful journalism by western media & Al Jaz. looks like Al Jaz scrubbed all earlier videos reporting he was captured.

LXUSwT62goo

[Hiero]

Libya has been involved in some pretty sketchy conduct in Africa, though, regardless. For example, it's conduct in neighboring Chad.


Yeah no doubt, I am not a Gaddafi supporter. I am just saying I didn't buy the claim "He sponsored the Janjaweed".

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Seriously? That's the best you've got?!

The claim was that the anti-NATO rebels had not made themselves vocal within the rebelion, you challenged that with a photo of three people on top of a building holding a sign. What did it actually prove?

It is interesting the media's role in creating the rebelion in a acceptable light. We are constantly shown images of rebels runing around incars and chanting and waving guns with tittles "they control the capitol". Yet from the Libyan state media they were saying that there was relentless bombing of Tripoli on Monday and over the weekend. Why aren't we shown images of NATO bombings? The media has done a wonderfull job at removing the "war" from the civil war. Al Jezza has been a leader in this light:



The Saudis entered Bahrain (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/bahrain) where the population is being tyrannised and large-scale arrests are taking place. Not much of this is being reported on al-Jazeera. I wonder why? The station seems to have been curbed somewhat and brought into line with the politics of its funders
- Tariq Ali (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/tariqali) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/libya-west-tripoli-arab-world-gaddafi

We often forgot how much the media shapes our perspective on war. Reminds me of Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulf_War_Did_Not_Take_Place)

[Homo Songun]

I thought Richard at Lenin's Tomb summed it up well, "No tears for Qaddafi, no cheers for NATO".


Fuck NATO and fuck the TNC


This does not mean I support the NTC, I support the Libyan people only

There are no unpredicated "people" in Libya. There some "people" supporting imperialism and others who do not.

Positing a reified hypothetical ("the Libyan people") in opposition to the concrete alternatives of the situation is a mark of political cowardice. It is also blatantly opportunistic because it avoids the costs of making a choice while expecting the benefits of taking an actual stand.

For communists in particular though, it is nothing less than a disgraceful abdication. To not pick a side is to tacitly support the status quo. Communists should never do this: we are for the overthrow of all existing social conditions. And they hang on the principal contradiction of our era, the era of imperialism.

Finally it is particularly disgusting to see communists in the imperialist countries swapping revolutionary defeatism for dumb-ass national chauvinism. Your own bosses are the problem! Fight them first!


are you saying I have to chose between Gaddafi as the king of Africa and NATO? How about the people of Africa ruling themselves without parasitic overlords of any kind?

There is no "people of Africa" apart from those people supporting imperialism, and those people that do not. When are you going to get it into your thick skull that communists pick sides in the struggle as such?


The libyan rebels themselves had the same motivations as the egyptian protesters or syrian ones, libya is just more valuable than egypt which is why there was more of imperialist interference in that country.

This is not a complete analysis. It doesn't do much to talk of the relative value of resources or whatever of various countries. On one view, Egypt is more valuable, since she controls the Suez canal and is crucial to the Zionist project, plenty of states will sell as much oil to Imperialist countries as they can pump out[1] and so on. Both of us could come up with various ratings systems for calculating the "value" of Egypt versus Libya versus Syria and it would be a waste of time. The point is that imperialists don't just want to extract resources, they want CONTROL of resources, because they are COMPETING with each other. That is why Obama's response to the protesters was muted in Egypt and nonexistent in Bahrain, but met with an immediate response in Libya. In other words, the yanqui already owns Egypt and Bahrain already but they do not own Libya. Expecting him to upset his own apple cart is like expecting the scorpion to not sting the frog.

----
[1] Including Venezuela and Libya itself. The irrelevant babblings of the Left Coms in threads like this about various countries' degree of "integration" into the Imperialist "system" are doubly beside the point. In the first place, because nobody denies this and in the second place because integration is only the means, not the ends of Imperialism.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Looks like Mohammad Qadhaffi has escaped the custody of the rebels on top of Saif Al Islam Qadhaffi not even being captured which was reported 24 hrs ago.

either this was a massive media failure trying to cover itself
a sinister plot
or the rebels are fucking weak:lol:

[Imposter Marxist]

I'd wager that Gaddafi was never captured, nor were his sons. The media frenzy was fucking crazy last night and this morning, and more and more its turning out to be all lies, just like my sources from Libya have been saying all along. :D

[JoeySteel]

Hells yeah Saif Gaddafi

http://af.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=AFTRE76Q30I20110823&channelName=#a=1

giving props to da ppl on his way to kick some lying NATO ass.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

There is no "people of Africa" apart from those people supporting imperialism, and those people that do not. When are you going to get it into your thick skull that communists pick sides in the struggle as such?


Um, what? You're saying people are either for Imperialism, and therefore I'm guessing you mean NATO, or are for Gaddafi's quest to build a bourgeois continentalist "united states of Africa"? :confused: What kind of great "communist theory" is that? At least give an explanation instead of just letting off some pretentious aggressive rant which doesn't address an actual argument. Supporting Gaddafi's "united states of Africa" has nothing to do with opposing capitalism or supporting communism.

[Martin Blank]

The claim was that the anti-NATO rebels had not made themselves vocal within the rebellion, you challenged that with a photo of three people on top of a building holding a sign. What did it actually prove?

It proved that not all rebels were pro-NATO and pro-intervention, and they did make their voices head (well, seen, in this case, but you get the idea), which was the whole point. Banners like that were much more common in the first weeks of the rebellion. But as desperation set in and Gaddafi's forces successfully pushed back, they progressively began to disappear, either because of desperation and a willingness to make a deal with imperialism, or because of disgust and a conscious decision to go home and let the two sides have at each other.


It is interesting the media's role in creating the rebellion in a acceptable light. We are constantly shown images of rebels running around in cars and chanting and waving guns with titles "they control the capitol". Yet from the Libyan state media they were saying that there was relentless bombing of Tripoli on Monday and over the weekend. Why aren't we shown images of NATO bombings? The media has done a wonderful job at removing the "war" from the civil war.

Of course they have! They've been sanitizing the images of war since 1991. If you're looking for the facts, don't turn on the TV.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It proved that not all rebels were pro-NATO and pro-intervention, and they did make their voices head (well, seen, in this case, but you get the idea), which was the whole point. Banners like that were much more common in the first weeks of the rebellion. But as desperation set in and Gaddafi's forces successfully pushed back, they progressively began to disappear, either because of desperation and a willingness to make a deal with imperialism, or because of disgust and a conscious decision to go home and let the two sides have at each other.

...

Of course they have! They've been sanitizing the images of war since 1991. If you're looking for the facts, don't turn on the TV.

Right, the fact that the US or other countries try to spin coverage in their favor is nothing new; the fact that they conflate "the people" with the toadies in the official council is also nothing new. But neither of these things says much about their popular mandate among the rebels as many have made it known that they don't support the TNC and even many who did support them in the armed effort do not support them in leading a new government.

In fact, read US news stories being published now that aren't just crude celebration but the ones with the "what will the new Libya look like" type headlines pretty clearly show the US ruling class trying to figure out how to support and create a "friendly" regime while maneuvering per-emtivly to justify the NATO supported repression that will be necessary for that new "friendly" regime to rule.

CBS:
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/23/501364/main20095808.shtml)Will Libya's rebels remain united? (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/23/501364/main20095808.shtml)



Uniting to confront Qaddafi militarily is one thing, former diplomat Nicholas Burns told "The Early Show," (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/22/501364/main20095421.shtml) but "it's much more difficult to organize effective government operation throughout a very vast country."


"The rebels have to unite the country politically, provide government services to a country that hasn't had it. That's a tall order. We can expect this to be chaotic, uneven and unfortunately violent as remaining Qaddafi supporters struggle against this rebel government," said Burns, who served as undersecretary of state during the George W. Bush administration and is now a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

NY Times: After Uprising, Rebels Face a Struggle for Unity (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/world/africa/23rebels.html?ref=world)


With rebels on the verge of ending Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s long reign, the character of their movement is facing its first real test: Can they build a new government of unity and reconciliation, or will their own internal rivalries mean divisions in the new Libya?

IMO the chances of a popular counterweight to whoever the big powers tap to be their toadies of choice are slim since the original rebellion was more or less raw and unorganized (also the reason the ex-regime pro-imperialists were able to jump to the front of the rebellion). But depending on region-wide developments, a re-heating of rebellion in Egypt as people protest the military rule and lack of fundamental change could also help people in Libya to find and organize an alternative.

[manic expression]

Wait, are you saying I have to chose between Gaddafi as the king of Africa and NATO? How about the people of Africa ruling themselves without parasitic overlords of any kind?
How about standing in solidarity with the people of Libya against the attacks of imperialism? How about that?


How is that relevant? That doesn't mean they don't have domestic support. Plenty of rebellions which were crushed by force had widespread popular backing.Plenty of governments have been crushed by imperialist force had popular backing as well.


Um, what? Again, I didn't bring up sovereignty, you did.I know. That's the problem right there.


Also, Gaddafi remaining in power thanks to his massive army is an issue of "might makes right" just as much as foreign imperialism."Massive army"? Good one.


(1) I'm not cheerleading NATO at all, as I've said before they are clearly opportunistic.

(2) Gaddafi had supporters, but there's no evidence that he had a plurality of popular support.

(3) I see the issue of his support to be quite irrelevant. 3 supporters with a tank are more valuable than 30 with kalashnikovs. Gaddafi's army had grad rockets, tanks, bmps, heavy weapons and numerous fighting vehicles that the motley and disorganized rebel militias had.1.) Then why are you skipping happy that Gaddafi fell to imperialism?

2.) Did you not see the pro-Gaddafi demonstrations in Tripoli? And there's no evidence the rebels had a "plurality of popular support", either, so you're back to square one.

3.) "3 supporters with a tank"? Well, I can think of 3 supporters with an imperialist army: Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama. So good of you to forget about them.


Um, what? I was insinuating that the Libyan people felt like they had a more pressing issue than imperialism, and that was their violently parasitic dictator. I'm not going to second-guess their judgement, I would rather now work on preventing NATO from having excessive influence over the new government rather than crying over spilled milk (especially when said "spilled milk" was the regime of a violent and possibly delusional autocrat).NATO already has excessive influence over anything that moves in the country. The rebels are their puppets and the puppets will be in power.

The Libyan people were fighting a civil war, and one side called for the aid of imperialism, the same forces that are slaughtering entire communities in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan right now. THAT IS THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE IN LIBYA TODAY. Your rhetoric about Gaddafi being mean is complete BS when we look at the monster that is imperialism...

But of course Gaddafi is delusional...he doesn't wear a suit and tie! :rolleyes:


Those problems aren't solved by NATO, sure, but the opportunistic air assault only occurred when the internal contradictions of Gaddafi's government revealed themselves in protests which he violently repressed. None of this would have happened if it was not for the level of discontent in Libya which had gotten so bad that Gaddafi had to order his army to kill his own people to stay in power.NATO was invited to bomb the country by the true opportunistic slugs, the rebels. Now the entire sovereignty of Libya has been violently repressed under the weight of NATO ordinance. This is not the fault of Gaddafi, but the fault of imperialism...spurred on by a rebellion that sold itself to the most horrific and murderous force in the world today.

[JoeySteel]

For people with the bizarre idea that the country is being destroyed because of Gaddafi, not NATO, I am curious: if someone is threatened at gunpoint to do something, and they refuse, have they shot themselves?

[Invader Zim]

How about standing in solidarity with the people of Libya against the attacks of imperialism? How about that?

Are you still banging on about NATOs perfunctory and half-hearted involvement in this civil war and making it out to be far more extensive than it is or ever was?

[Sasha]

For people with the bizarre idea that the country is being destroyed because of Gaddafi, not NATO, I am curious: if someone is threatened at gunpoint to do something, and they refuse, have they shot themselves?


If a madman is shooting innocent bystanders and a gunho selfstyled vigilante shoots him instead would you (only) blame the vigilante for the bloodshed?

[ModelHomeInvasion]

Good thing the rebels aren't racist, terrorist, Al Qaeda motherfuckers or anything...

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/04/22/libyan-rebels-terrorize-black-africans/ (http://www.theb9.com/link/1314001067U8JkTw77eraFxclpxivG9sjV)

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/connections-between-al-qaeda-and-libyan-rebels-run-deep/ (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/connections-between-al-qaeda-and-libyan-rebels-run-deep/)

As for Qaddafi, I am almost certain that he is a bastard, and it appears that he has made quite a few concessions with the imperialists in recent years, but what matters most right now is that he is against Them, and anybody who meets this single criterion constitutes a value of Us (even if it is a short-lived alliance).

[Sasha]

Strasserists (neo-nazis) are against "them" (imperialists/imperialism), are they allies too?

[bcbm]

what matters most right now is that he is against them, and anybody who meets this single criterion constitutes a value of us

al qaeda motherfuckers

.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

How about standing in solidarity with the people of Libya against the attacks of imperialism? How about that?


What does that have to do with Azula's claim that Gaddafi's United States of Africa is a good anti-Imperialist concept? :confused:



Plenty of governments have been crushed by imperialist force had popular backing as well.


No popular government has ever been crushed by airpower alone.



I know. That's the problem right there.


I happen to value popular autonomy more than the sovereignty of socially-constructed nation states, especially if the "sovereigns" of said nation states are unelected parasites.



"Massive army"? Good one.


For a nation of 5 million? Yes. Certainly enough to have survived if Gaddafi were willing to fight a defensive war only.



1.) Then why are you skipping happy that Gaddafi fell to imperialism?

2.) Did you not see the pro-Gaddafi demonstrations in Tripoli? And there's no evidence the rebels had a "plurality of popular support", either, so you're back to square one.

3.) "3 supporters with a tank"? Well, I can think of 3 supporters with an imperialist army: Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama. So good of you to forget about them.


(1) I'm happy that a tyrant is losing power, but unlike you I give agency to the rebels on the ground in this.
(2) I don't think the rebels could have made it as far as they did without a plurality of popular support, considering the rebellion began independently in several different areas.
(3) Yeah point taken but again the NATO intervention has only taken place in the air, and airpower alone cannot win urban battles especially if you have popular support and a large enough army in a group of cities. Had Gaddafi kept his tanks and armor in defensive positions in cities he controlled, NATO would have been less decisive.



NATO already has excessive influence over anything that moves in the country. The rebels are their puppets and the puppets will be in power.

The Libyan people were fighting a civil war, and one side called for the aid of imperialism, the same forces that are slaughtering entire communities in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan right now. THAT IS THE MOST PRESSING ISSUE IN LIBYA TODAY. Your rhetoric about Gaddafi being mean is complete BS when we look at the monster that is imperialism...

But of course Gaddafi is delusional...he doesn't wear a suit and tie! :rolleyes:

NATO was invited to bomb the country by the true opportunistic slugs, the rebels. Now the entire sovereignty of Libya has been violently repressed under the weight of NATO ordinance. This is not the fault of Gaddafi, but the fault of imperialism...spurred on by a rebellion that sold itself to the most horrific and murderous force in the world today.

Gaddafi isn't delusional because of what he wears. If someone wants to dress in a certain way, then more power to them (and actually Gaddafi has worn suits before :P). He is delusional because of the things he has said before and after this rebellion has begun. Things like the rebels being on hallucinogens which al Qaeda put in their coffee, that the whole country really loves him and his government, and that he has "no real political power".

I disagree with you about the rebels. They are not all "NATO puppets" the rebellion started well before the NATO intervention in fact NATO's opportunistic attacks only occurred after Gaddafi's armies were trying to violently crush those who disapproved of his regime.

Do you really think these young men are fighting and dying to bring American, British and French oil companies in to buy up oil rights? I'm not saying that this isn't what NATO wants, but I think you're mistaken if you think these young men risking their lives to topple Gaddafi are doing this as a favor for Western elites. I don't see it as necessarily true that upon taking Tripoli, the Rebels will hand over the keys to NATO. I'm not saying there are not those in the NTC who want this, but the people who are fighting or dying, and the people on the streets supporting the rebels, are trying to topple a dictator not invite foreign control over resources.

The rebels are also heterogeneous. Berbers are fighting because Gaddafi used the state to repress their language, people from Misratah are rebelling after Gaddafi used heavy artillery to level their city, and the people of Benghazi and the east are rebelling after 40 years of horrid socioeconomic mismanagement. And there are numerous other rebel groups too. None of these factions are rebelling for foreigners, on the contrary their interests are parochial and even contradictory with other groups of rebels. Not all of the groups are coordinating closely with the NTC either.

Instead of slandering all the rebels as foreign stooges and giving up, I would instead try to fight any attempt by NATO to gain undue influence over whatever government will follow. And also try to understand why the people rebelled in the first place.


For people with the bizarre idea that the country is being destroyed because of Gaddafi, not NATO, I am curious: if someone is threatened at gunpoint to do something, and they refuse, have they shot themselves?

The rebellion started several weeks before the NATO intervention, and the NATO intervention only occurred due do this rebellion which was an expression of the internal contradictions of Libyan state and society. That is why Gaddafi is to blame. It is like saying Mubarak is in no way at fault for Egypt currently being ruled by a military council.

[Homo Songun]

Gaddafi isn't delusional because of what he wears. If someone wants to dress in a certain way, then more power to them (and actually Gaddafi has worn suits before :P). He is delusional because of the things he has said before and after this rebellion has begun. Things like the rebels being on hallucinogens which al Qaeda put in their coffee, that the whole country really loves him and his government, and that he has "no real political power".

I disagree with you about the rebels. They are not all "NATO puppets" the rebellion started well before the NATO intervention in fact NATO's opportunistic attacks only occurred after Gaddafi's armies were trying to violently crush those who disapproved of his regime.

Do you really think these young men are fighting and dying to bring American, British and French oil companies in to buy up oil rights? I'm not saying that this isn't what NATO wants, but I think you're mistaken if you think these young men risking their lives to topple Gaddafi are doing this as a favor for Western elites. I don't see it as necessarily true that upon taking Tripoli, the Rebels will hand over the keys to NATO. I'm not saying there are not those in the NTC who want this, but the people who are fighting or dying, and the people on the streets supporting the rebels, are trying to topple a dictator not invite foreign control over resources.

The rebels are also heterogeneous. Berbers are fighting because Gaddafi used the state to repress their language, people from Misratah are rebelling after Gaddafi used heavy artillery to level their city, and the people of Benghazi and the east are rebelling after 40 years of horrid socioeconomic mismanagement. And there are numerous other rebel groups too. None of these factions are rebelling for foreigners, on the contrary their interests are parochial and even contradictory with other groups of rebels. Not all of the groups are coordinating closely with the NTC either.

Instead of slandering all the rebels as foreign stooges and giving up, I would instead try to fight any attempt by NATO to gain undue influence over whatever government will follow. And also try to understand why the people rebelled in the first place.

You can indulge in as much maudlin sentimentality about whats really in the hearts of these poor misrepresented rebels, it won't change a damn thing about what really matters: the fact that they are tools of imperialism. This kind of willful naivete is really a political sin in the context of what has been going on in the last decade, to say nothing of the track record of NATO in general. Would you like to make a little wager? Shall we revisit this say, one year hence? If you are right, and Libya is not a bloody imperialist mess one year from now (let alone having an October moment), I will film myself eating my hat and upload it to Youtube. However, if I am right, you must do it. I suggest you start practicing.

[Threetune]

For the pro-imperialist ‘left’ cheerleaders here, this Wilde East film is over. The ‘bad renegade chief’ has been defeated by the ‘good savages’ with help from the clean shaven cavalry.
All that’s left for them is to watch the credits role content in the belief that assimilation into a better liberal, if imperfect democratic future will follow. But the world wide hurricane of capitalist economic collapse is about to bring them out of their 'left' dream.

[brigadista]

still dont believe the news coming out of Libya.....something weird about it....

[Bostana]

Gaddafi would first have to secure his base in and around Tripoli, and then turn east. And this is pretty much what he’s done.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the world has issued statements, made lots of telephone calls to each other, and performed a maypole dance around the idea of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya. Perhaps at the outset, they thought that the rag-tag army of Libyan rebels that had sprung up everywhere really could oust Gaddafi all on its own. It certainly looked that way for a few days. So they hung back from imposing a no-fly zone, because they hoped one wouldn’t be needed.

Probably the Gaddafi regime was caught off balance at the outset, and didn’t know what was happening, or what to do about it. During this period of paralysis, numerous soldiers deserted, and quite few high-ranking members from Gaddafi’s inner circle.

But this didn’t last long. Gaddafi never lost his nerve. And pretty soon the military machine he controlled started working properly. The demonstrations on the streets of Tripoli were stopped. And now Az Zawiyah (and maybe Misurata) have been recaptured from the rebels. They were always going to be defeated in pretty short order by a well-equipped, professional army.

And now the race is on for Gaddafi’s superior forces to recapture the Libyan eastern seaboard from the disorganised rabble which currently hold it. He has to try to do this as rapidly as possible, by land and by sea and by air, before the lumbering UN and NATO and the terminally indecisive Obama finally get round to calling for a vote on a no-fly zone, and for China or Russia to veto it.

That’s why Libyan delegations flew yesterday to Cairo and Lisbon and Brussels, to try and stall the momentum towards a no-fly zone in any way they can, and delay it as long as possible. It’s not a diplomatic imperative: it’s a military imperative.

After that we’ll quite likely be seeing a complete collapse in morale among the rebels in eastern Libya, as Gaddafi seizes control of the coastal road, and bottles up the rebels in the cities. He might even be at the gates of Benghazi early next week, if he’s sufficiently decisive and daring (which he probably is). After all, it’s only about 100 miles from Ajdabiyah to Benghazi – a 2 hour drive -.

With that, a flood of Libyan refugees will start pouring across the border into Egypt, and sailing across the Mediterranean to Italy and anywhere that will take them. By the time NATO finally imposes a no-fly zone, Gaddafi will have all the eastern towns surrounded and cut off from each other, and will be able to reduce them one by one without any need of air power, because his army will have the tanks and artillery and troops to accomplish this alone, one city at a time. And furthermore, he’ll be gaining Libyan volunteers who want to be on the winning side.

Then the NATO planes will circle uselessly overhead, as one town after another is recaptured by Gaddafi’s army, and the rebels captured inside them are butchered.

And then of course there will be calls to supply food and weapons to the remaining rebels besieged inside their various towns and cities. By the time this has been agreed by NATO and the UN and the WWF and World Bank and the American Mothers Union, only Benghazi will remain. The food and weapons will arrive too late to do much more than slow the retreat of the embattled defenders towards the port.

So then there’ll be calls to land an expeditionary force to re-enforce the defenders, and this will be agreed after a week or two of tea and biscuits and banana trifles, and the expeditionary force will arrive inside Benghazi harbour just as the last rebels are sailing out of it, and Gaddafi’s troops have seized control of the port.

And then all concerned will have to deal with a newly invigorated and extremely angry Gaddafi regime, with all internal dissent inside Libya brutally suppressed.

And the various other tottering regimes in the region will take a leaf out of Gaddafi’s handbook on How To Suppress A Revolt, and demonstrators everywhere will be bombed and mortared back into terrified submission. And any prospect of democracy in the region will have been set back a decade or more.

All of which could have been avoided if just one Western power had decided to side immediately with the fledgling rebels, and had provided them with air support and food and ammunition as rapidly as possible. It’ll be an object lesson on how a decisive military leader can seize the initiative and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by a far more powerful but terminally indecisive opponent.

Gaddafi is going to win because he can think more quickly, and act more decisively, than the whole of the rest of the world put together.

[Os Cangaceiros]

If even half of what is being reported on the news is true, Gaddafi doesn't have a snowflake's chance in hell of retaining power.

[RadioRaheem84]

Gaddafi is a goner, good riddance, but the people taking over will be much much worse.

The cheering in here though is utterly foolish.

[Hiero]

It proved that not all rebels were pro-NATO and pro-intervention, and they did make their voices head (well, seen, in this case, but you get the idea), which was the whole point. Banners like that were much more common in the first weeks of the rebellion. But as desperation set in and Gaddafi's forces successfully pushed back, they progressively began to disappear, either because of desperation and a willingness to make a deal with imperialism, or because of disgust and a conscious decision to go home and let the two sides have at each other.


Why should I believe this? What is your source? The picture is not adequate evidence. This sounds like wishful thinking, it reminds myself of comments that I made about Iraq back in 2006 that the Iraqis were going to defeat US imperialism and then the Communist and secular leftists were going to wipe out the Islamists. It was all wishfull thinking, as much as what people are saying about the Rebels is wishfull thinking. It is probable that the Rebels are a united front of various groups, but the politicians within are going to want to want international support and aid post-Gaddafi to get the country runing and repair the oil infrastructure. They immediatly will invite NATO or UN security and IMF advisors. The TNC will be ringing Shell and BP for contracts sometime this week.

I hope I am wrong, but usually this is what happens in todays world.



Are you still banging on about NATOs perfunctory and half-hearted involvement in this civil war and making it out to be far more extensive than it is or ever was?


It is the media that has soften the NATO presence. NATO had been bombing Tripoli all weekend and somehow the rebels were brought by boat to nearby Tripoli, they were probably NATO boats or individual NATO countries support (France, Italy, Britian). Without NATO Gaddafi forces would have crushed Benghazi, there tanks were rolling in but they were bombed by NATO air focres. The attempt to remove Gaddafi is organic, but it was never strong enough to do it on it's own. They got to Tripoli on Sunday and couldn't even secure Gaddafi's compound untill today, and they apparently had arrested his two sons. Either they lied, they are so incomptent they let them escape or corrupt they accepted bribes to release them.

The media and especially Al Jezza created the image of masses overuning Tripoli to make it look organic because anything resembling war like in Iraq or Afghanistan would be highly unpopular.

[khad]

couldn't even secure Gaddafi's compound untill today,
After 64 NATO strikes on the compound in the span of a night.

All hail the rebel alliance!

[Hiero]

After 64 NATO strikes on the compound in the span of a night.

All hail the rebel alliance!

They were wearing sandals while attacking the city, they grabbed weapons but not boots? The other section that they are also incompetent in is political administration. Which is why they will ask for the aid of the world banks.

I read in the The Australian NATO air force ran around 20 000 "sorties", I assume a sortie means mission. But it basically confirms what I said, that Gaddafi's tanks were lined outside Benghazi 5 months ago and NATO destroyed them. It has been a very succesfully campaign of NATO, the only criticism they are facing is that they over extended the UN mandate (a criticism South Africa made) and the US is annoyed on the reliance of it's technology.

So in reality, not Invader Zim fantasy world, the criticism that NATO going to face is it's extended involvement in Libya and the reliance of the US technlogy a crticism coming from the USA.

[Martin Blank]

Why should I believe this? What is your source? The picture is not adequate evidence. This sounds like wishful thinking, it reminds myself of comments that I made about Iraq back in 2006 that the Iraqis were going to defeat US imperialism and then the Communist and secular leftists were going to wipe out the Islamists. It was all wishful thinking, as much as what people are saying about the Rebels is wishful thinking. It is probable that the Rebels are a united front of various groups, but the politicians within are going to want to want international support and aid post-Gaddafi to get the country running and repair the oil infrastructure. They immediately will invite NATO or UN security and IMF advisers. The TNC will be ringing Shell and BP for contracts sometime this week.

I hope I am wrong, but usually this is what happens in today's world.

My sources (plural -- I always, at a minimum, second-source facts and information before going public with it) came from a variety of outlets, from news articles and reports (AJE/AJM, CNNI, wire reports), from discussions on social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), from comrades we have in Egypt who were in touch with different groups within the pre-TNC rebel forces, and so on.

It is not wishful thinking to speak of these facts from months ago. It is simply stating what was.

The closest to wishful thinking I got was speculating about whether these anti-NATO elements that abandoned the rebellion after the rise of the TNC might gain traction after the rebels finally succeed in toppling Gaddafi's regime, as the "crisis of expectations" leads to disillusionment in the ex-Gaddafists. That all remains to be seen, and I have no illusions it will actually go in this direction.


It is the media that has soften the NATO presence. NATO had been bombing Tripoli all weekend and somehow the rebels were brought by boat to nearby Tripoli, they were probably NATO boats or individual NATO countries support (France, Italy, Britian). Without NATO Gaddafi forces would have crushed Benghazi, their tanks were rolling in but they were bombed by NATO air focres. The attempt to remove Gaddafi is organic, but it was never strong enough to do it on it's own. They got to Tripoli on Sunday and couldn't even secure Gaddafi's compound untill today, and they apparently had arrested his two sons. Either they lied, they are so incomptent they let them escape or corrupt they accepted bribes to release them.

Given that the TNC is staffed with ex-Gaddafists, there is no question that they can be bribed. Moreover, there was some incentive to look the other way when both Saif al-Islam and Muhammad escaped; there seemed to be a lot of popular pressure for the Gaddafis to be tried in Libya, not The Hague. I would speculate that this is why the two of them are not still in custody (if they even were in the first place).

[Hiero]

Gaddafi would first have to secure his base in and around Tripoli, and then turn east. And this is pretty much what he’s done.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the world has issued statements, made lots of telephone calls to each other, and performed a maypole dance around the idea of imposing a no-fly zone on Libya. Perhaps at the outset, they thought that the rag-tag army of Libyan rebels that had sprung up everywhere really could oust Gaddafi all on its own. It certainly looked that way for a few days. So they hung back from imposing a no-fly zone, because they hoped one wouldn’t be needed.

Probably the Gaddafi regime was caught off balance at the outset, and didn’t know what was happening, or what to do about it. During this period of paralysis, numerous soldiers deserted, and quite few high-ranking members from Gaddafi’s inner circle.

But this didn’t last long. Gaddafi never lost his nerve. And pretty soon the military machine he controlled started working properly. The demonstrations on the streets of Tripoli were stopped. And now Az Zawiyah (and maybe Misurata) have been recaptured from the rebels. They were always going to be defeated in pretty short order by a well-equipped, professional army.

And now the race is on for Gaddafi’s superior forces to recapture the Libyan eastern seaboard from the disorganised rabble which currently hold it. He has to try to do this as rapidly as possible, by land and by sea and by air, before the lumbering UN and NATO and the terminally indecisive Obama finally get round to calling for a vote on a no-fly zone, and for China or Russia to veto it.

That’s why Libyan delegations flew yesterday to Cairo and Lisbon and Brussels, to try and stall the momentum towards a no-fly zone in any way they can, and delay it as long as possible. It’s not a diplomatic imperative: it’s a military imperative.

After that we’ll quite likely be seeing a complete collapse in morale among the rebels in eastern Libya, as Gaddafi seizes control of the coastal road, and bottles up the rebels in the cities. He might even be at the gates of Benghazi early next week, if he’s sufficiently decisive and daring (which he probably is). After all, it’s only about 100 miles from Ajdabiyah to Benghazi – a 2 hour drive -.

With that, a flood of Libyan refugees will start pouring across the border into Egypt, and sailing across the Mediterranean to Italy and anywhere that will take them. By the time NATO finally imposes a no-fly zone, Gaddafi will have all the eastern towns surrounded and cut off from each other, and will be able to reduce them one by one without any need of air power, because his army will have the tanks and artillery and troops to accomplish this alone, one city at a time. And furthermore, he’ll be gaining Libyan volunteers who want to be on the winning side.

Then the NATO planes will circle uselessly overhead, as one town after another is recaptured by Gaddafi’s army, and the rebels captured inside them are butchered.

And then of course there will be calls to supply food and weapons to the remaining rebels besieged inside their various towns and cities. By the time this has been agreed by NATO and the UN and the WWF and World Bank and the American Mothers Union, only Benghazi will remain. The food and weapons will arrive too late to do much more than slow the retreat of the embattled defenders towards the port.

So then there’ll be calls to land an expeditionary force to re-enforce the defenders, and this will be agreed after a week or two of tea and biscuits and banana trifles, and the expeditionary force will arrive inside Benghazi harbour just as the last rebels are sailing out of it, and Gaddafi’s troops have seized control of the port.

And then all concerned will have to deal with a newly invigorated and extremely angry Gaddafi regime, with all internal dissent inside Libya brutally suppressed.

And the various other tottering regimes in the region will take a leaf out of Gaddafi’s handbook on How To Suppress A Revolt, and demonstrators everywhere will be bombed and mortared back into terrified submission. And any prospect of democracy in the region will have been set back a decade or more.

All of which could have been avoided if just one Western power had decided to side immediately with the fledgling rebels, and had provided them with air support and food and ammunition as rapidly as possible. It’ll be an object lesson on how a decisive military leader can seize the initiative and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by a far more powerful but terminally indecisive opponent.

Gaddafi is going to win because he can think more quickly, and act more decisively, than the whole of the rest of the world put together.

WHat are you talking about? The no-fly zone already exists, Gaddafi has not had an air force for months.

I don't know if your being sarcastic.

[A Marxist Historian]

The libyan rebels themselves had the same motivations as the egyptian protesters or syrian ones, libya is just more valuable than egypt which is why there was more of imperialist interference in that country. Ghadaffi was an imperialist puppet himself, he was just a 3rd world country's dictator. An incapible one at that, who tried unsuccessfully to give himself a big brother look. Why the fuck do stalinists think he's a representative of the proletariat though? It's like they think they NEED to pick between two assholes. What it comes down to in my opinion is opposing any interference by NATO but letting the libyan people decide what to do. And syrians hate the U.S. and NATO more than libyans do, so it'll be tougher there. i would have thought that Stalinists would back assad as well, since he's "anti imperialist," whatever the fuck that means. Cheuvanism of the working class is what i'm seeing from Stalinists during the Arab spring though. i think this is the begining of something better in the M.E. though.

Syria I dunno. Syria could go the Libyan route, hope not.

But Egypt was very, very different from Libya. The motive force of the mass mobilization vs. Mubaraq was the working class, not the petty bourgeois "facebook generation," who may have sparked it all, but they weren't what was really happening.

In Libya, the working class was mostly non-Libyan and mostly fled the country. If they were Arabs they were being persecuted by Qaddafi and murdered if they didn't leave, if African by the rebels. So the "Libyan Revolution" was very different from Egypt or Tunisia.

Both sides were equally reactionary from the getgo. But the imperialists picked their side very quickly, so revolutionaries needed to be on the opposite side as soon as the bombs started falling and the cruise missiles flying.

-M.H.-

[Sasha]

i dont know about you ppl but even if this is a islamo-imperialist-racist-beheader-kiddy-bomber it sure as hell puts a smile on my face seeing him strutting around being fabulous in gaddaffi's silly golden regalia:

1fZhEJwWD4s

[Invader Zim]

It is the media that has soften the NATO presence. NATO had been bombing Tripoli all weekend and somehow the rebels were brought by boat to nearby Tripoli, they were probably NATO boats or individual NATO countries support (France, Italy, Britian). Without NATO Gaddafi forces would have crushed Benghazi, there tanks were rolling in but they were bombed by NATO air focres. The attempt to remove Gaddafi is organic, but it was never strong enough to do it on it's own. They got to Tripoli on Sunday and couldn't even secure Gaddafi's compound untill today, and they apparently had arrested his two sons. Either they lied, they are so incomptent they let them escape or corrupt they accepted bribes to release them.

The US has spent about $900 million over six months. In Iraq the US spent on average five billion every six months. The figures speak for them selves.

[Dulce et Decorum est]

This is not a victory for the people of Libya; this is a victory for US Imperialism.

Just watch as the "Democratic Libya" becomes a satellite state for the Fat Cats at Wall Street and the warmongerers in the White House.

[manic expression]

What does that have to do with Azula's claim that Gaddafi's United States of Africa is a good anti-Imperialist concept? :confused:
The important point is what progressives should do in this situation.


No popular government has ever been crushed by airpower alone.
It certainly helps. Just ask Pinochet.


I happen to value popular autonomy more than the sovereignty of socially-constructed nation states, especially if the "sovereigns" of said nation states are unelected parasites.
Why don't you care about national sovereignty? The people of Iraq are not better off than they were before the invasion...imperialism has ill-designs, and its presence is a step back for the workers. The sovereignty of a country represents a step forward from the days of colonialism...now Libya has been dragged backwards.


For a nation of 5 million? Yes. Certainly enough to have survived if Gaddafi were willing to fight a defensive war only.
Quantify that, if you please.


(1) I'm happy that a tyrant is losing power, but unlike you I give agency to the rebels on the ground in this.
(2) I don't think the rebels could have made it as far as they did without a plurality of popular support, considering the rebellion began independently in several different areas.
(3) Yeah point taken but again the NATO intervention has only taken place in the air, and airpower alone cannot win urban battles especially if you have popular support and a large enough army in a group of cities. Had Gaddafi kept his tanks and armor in defensive positions in cities he controlled, NATO would have been less decisive.
1.) You give agency to a rebellion that was dead in the water a few months back, one that was only saved by the boys over at NATO. After that point, they had no ounce of leverage to dictate terms to imperialism, so they're puppets.

2.) Everyone knows the rebels would never have made it halfway across the country if not for imperialist bombs.

4.) Airpower can turn the tide. IIRC, FMLN wasn't able to take San Salvador largely because the government was willing to bomb residential areas indiscriminately. NATO knows it can bomb Tripoli without the media asking any questions, so they pounded the crap out of the place. Also, Libyan forces were hit outside of Tripoli which sapped the government's ability to continue fighting effectively. Lastly, if Gaddafi had just sat back, Libya would be effectively partitioned into two countries, and that is an unacceptable outcome.


Gaddafi isn't delusional because of what he wears. If someone wants to dress in a certain way, then more power to them (and actually Gaddafi has worn suits before :P). He is delusional because of the things he has said before and after this rebellion has begun. Things like the rebels being on hallucinogens which al Qaeda put in their coffee, that the whole country really loves him and his government, and that he has "no real political power".
Honestly, the last 48 hours should have taught us to not trust the imperialist media. They routinely mis-translate leaders to the point of slander. For crying out loud, they're still repeating year-old lies that Ahmadinejad said stuff he never came close to saying.

The whole "he's a crazy person" thing is a tired excuse for imperialism to do whatever it wants. I'm not buying it.


I disagree with you about the rebels. They are not all "NATO puppets" the rebellion started well before the NATO intervention in fact NATO's opportunistic attacks only occurred after Gaddafi's armies were trying to violently crush those who disapproved of his regime.
How long did it take them to start pleading with NATO to intervene?


Do you really think these young men are fighting and dying to bring American, British and French oil companies in to buy up oil rights? I'm not saying that this isn't what NATO wants, but I think you're mistaken if you think these young men risking their lives to topple Gaddafi are doing this as a favor for Western elites. I don't see it as necessarily true that upon taking Tripoli, the Rebels will hand over the keys to NATO. I'm not saying there are not those in the NTC who want this, but the people who are fighting or dying, and the people on the streets supporting the rebels, are trying to topple a dictator not invite foreign control over resources.

The rebels are also heterogeneous. Berbers are fighting because Gaddafi used the state to repress their language, people from Misratah are rebelling after Gaddafi used heavy artillery to level their city, and the people of Benghazi and the east are rebelling after 40 years of horrid socioeconomic mismanagement. And there are numerous other rebel groups too. None of these factions are rebelling for foreigners, on the contrary their interests are parochial and even contradictory with other groups of rebels. Not all of the groups are coordinating closely with the NTC either.
As I said a few months back, whatever reasons the rebellion started for have now been eclipsed by the entry of NATO into the conflict. We all know why the Kurds were opposed to Saddam, but was that why the US invaded? The rebellion started over opposition to Gaddafi, and turned into US/UK/French-backed opposition to Gaddafi.

The disunity of the rebels strengthens my argument. If they're not all coordinating with the NTC, they're weak and easy to marginalize or destroy. Divide and rule is the name of the game, and the imperialists know it well.


Instead of slandering all the rebels as foreign stooges and giving up, I would instead try to fight any attempt by NATO to gain undue influence over whatever government will follow. And also try to understand why the people rebelled in the first place.
NATO already has undue influence. It had undue influence months ago.

[Hiero]

The US has spent about $900 million over six months. In Iraq the US spent on average five billion every six months. The figures speak for them selves.

No they don't. That is just naive. I said and everyone in the world knew it, Gaddafi forces were going to crush Benghazi, NATO Stoped that. Libya lost it's airforce within a month, and NATO shipped in the rebels while bombing Tripoli last weekend.

This is a perfect victory for NATO, they won a war without having to commit land troops. If Iraq had the same conditions they would have done the same thing. Who knows, if NATO had not have gone to war in 2003 with Iraq and waited, maybe in 2011 in the "Arab Spring" there would have been enough momentum to produce a similar affect in Iraq. In Libya no doubt there was enough momentum against Gadaffi pushed by certian powerful factions and of course they knew some in government would defect, it was a good time for NATO to finally remove Gadaffi.

I don't know what you get by denying NATO was not instrumental in removing Gaddafi. This isn't your battle or victory, it is just a change in power. Gaddafi's regime was decadent and out of fashion, it could not resist change.

[agnixie]

No they don't. That is just naive. I said and everyone in the world knew it, Gaddafi forces were going to crush Benghazi, NATO Stoped that. Libya lost it's airforce within a month, and NATO shipped in the rebels while bombing Tripoli last weekend.

This is a perfect victory for NATO, they won a war without having to commit land troops. If Iraq had the same conditions they would have done the same thing. Who knows, if NATO had not have gone to war in 2003 with Iraq and waited, maybe in 2011 in the "Arab Spring" there would have been enough momentum to produce a similar affect in Iraq. In Libya no doubt there was enough momentum against Gadaffi pushed by certian powerful factions and of course they knew some in government would defect, it was a good time for NATO to finally remove Gadaffi.

I don't know what you get by denying NATO was not instrumental in removing Gaddafi. This isn't your battle or victory, it is just a change in power. Gaddafi's regime was decadent and out of fashion, it could not resist change.

The rebels that did most of the work in Tripoli came from the west and had no contact with the TNC and seemed to have little with NATO; a few rebels were shipped in a hurry with NATO equipment but that came relatively late and it's a separate group from the TNC (they were also far more active than TNC militias, the problem though is how much factionalism this can lead to; admittedly the tribalist clusterfuck of a system encouraged by Gaddafi was not above this sort of thing).

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The important point is what progressives should do in this situation.


OK but you're responding to a response to a response to Azula's belief that Gaddafi's United States of Africa is anti-Imperialist. I agree that the important point is what to do in this situation.



It certainly helps. Just ask Pinochet.
The coup in Chile was of a completely different nature. That was not a people's uprising with opportunistic foreign support it was a foreign-inspired domestic military coup.



Why don't you care about national sovereignty? The people of Iraq are not better off than they were before the invasion...imperialism has ill-designs, and its presence is a step back for the workers. The sovereignty of a country represents a step forward from the days of colonialism...now Libya has been dragged backwards.
Because all nation-states are either aristocratic or bourgeois social constructs which are designed to profit certain elites. The Iraqi people certainly didn't have any ownership over the sovereignty of their country during Saddam Hussein, what the Iraqi people lost wasn't sovereignty which they never had to begin with (especially for Shiites and Kurds who were as "sovereign" under Saddam as they were under the Ottomans) it was Saddam's welfare bureaucracy which was dismantled by the American invaders during "De-Baathification" (a process which the Libyan rebels said they will not repeat).



Quantify that, if you please.
Well, one could look at their military equipment-the government had 1500 tanks before the uprising, which puts it up with large or militarized countries like Iran and Israel.



1.) You give agency to a rebellion that was dead in the water a few months back, one that was only saved by the boys over at NATO. After that point, they had no ounce of leverage to dictate terms to imperialism, so they're puppets.

2.) Everyone knows the rebels would never have made it halfway across the country if not for imperialist bombs.

4.) Airpower can turn the tide. IIRC, FMLN wasn't able to take San Salvador largely because the government was willing to bomb residential areas indiscriminately. NATO knows it can bomb Tripoli without the media asking any questions, so they pounded the crap out of the place. Also, Libyan forces were hit outside of Tripoli which sapped the government's ability to continue fighting effectively. Lastly, if Gaddafi had just sat back, Libya would be effectively partitioned into two countries, and that is an unacceptable outcome.
I see no problem in giving agency to the rebels. Tito's rebellion benefited from Imperialist allies during WWII, as did the USSR for that matter. I don't agree with everything Stalin or Tito did but I would certainly say that they had agency despite the fact that they took help which may have well been decisive from Imperialists.

The kind of indiscriminate bombing campaign which you would need to crush a leader with an army like Libya's would require an air campaign so destructive it would simply be impossible to hide. Even the bourgeois media would report on it because their main objective is profit, not loyalty to their state.

It is is true that Gaddafi merely sitting back would have led to the partition of the country but that is besides the point-he should have negotiated with the rebels to begin with not tried to crush them by military means. The rebels clearly had legitimate demands for him to try to crush them by force delegitimizes his leadership. He was clearly more concerned with keeping power for himself than anything else.



Honestly, the last 48 hours should have taught us to not trust the imperialist media. They routinely mis-translate leaders to the point of slander. For crying out loud, they're still repeating year-old lies that Ahmadinejad said stuff he never came close to saying.

The whole "he's a crazy person" thing is a tired excuse for imperialism to do whatever it wants. I'm not buying it.
Until I see evidence that Gaddafi's statements are actually mistranslated, I don't buy it. Yeah, the bourgeois media exaggerated some things which Ahmadinejad said, but he's also said truly crazy things independently of translation too (like inviting David Duke to have a conference on whether the holocaust ever really happened). Gaddafi seems to be the same way.



How long did it take them to start pleading with NATO to intervene?
Not all rebels did, and I'm not going to second-guess the desperation of those willing to accept NATO intervention any more than I am going to second-guess the USSR for asking the Americans and British to invade Italy and France to open a "Western front".

It should also be remembered that Western Imperialists have intervened on behalf of various movements which either ignored the demands of Western Imperialists or outright moved against them.



As I said a few months back, whatever reasons the rebellion started for have now been eclipsed by the entry of NATO into the conflict. We all know why the Kurds were opposed to Saddam, but was that why the US invaded? The rebellion started over opposition to Gaddafi, and turned into US/UK/French-backed opposition to Gaddafi.

The disunity of the rebels strengthens my argument. If they're not all coordinating with the NTC, they're weak and easy to marginalize or destroy. Divide and rule is the name of the game, and the imperialists know it well.

...

NATO already has undue influence. It had undue influence months agoI disagree with this analysis. As for the comparison with Iraq, the difference is that the invasion occurred independently of whether or not the Kurds were uprising. The Peshmerga and Iraqi government were more or less in the same place-stalemate-that they were in at the end of the first Gulf War. The Libyan intervention would not have occurred if it were not for the severe civil unrest gripping Libya.

As for NATO's influence over the rebels, I don't dispute the fact that NATO has undue influence over the rebels, it would be naive to think otherwise, but the answer isn't to sit in judgement of the Libyans but to fight that influence. It's also naive to say that the influence which NATO holds over the rebels is complete. The rebels only accepted NATO under the assumption that there was no quid pro quo, which from our perspective and from what we know is obviously naive but it doesn't mean that they are then puppets.

As for internal disunity, one thing which unites all of these groups is a common interest in evenly distributing the oil wealth and gaining a say in the government, so any decision by a top-down council against the Libyan people is liable to cause unrest and divisions among the rebels. On the contrary, it will make it only more difficult to unite the armed groups under a single cause for the NTC or whoever else takes over Libya.

[brigadista]

lybia is sadly rapidly descending into barbarism with thanks to NATO and the rebel poster boys of the western press -

[Rusty Shackleford]

spent on war in libya.
$664Bln USA
$440Bln GBR
$231Bln Fr

US did 75% reconnaisanse and 27% of all sorties.
Qatar sent 6 Mirage fighter planes to Libya
Qatar sold oil for the rebels and then sold the rebels refined oil products like gasoline to keep their economy going.


All from Al Jazeera just now.

now they are talking about how the NTC is in a damn good position because Libya HAS NO DEBTS and there are no real institutions that need to be dismantled.

[TheGeekySocialist]

spent on war in libya.
$664Bln USA
$440Bln GBR
$231Bln Fr

US did 75% reconnaisanse and 27% of all sorties.
Qatar sent 6 Mirage fighter planes to Libya
Qatar sold oil for the rebels and then sold the rebels refined oil products like gasoline to keep their economy going.


All from Al Jazeera just now.

now they are talking about how the NTC is in a damn good position because Libya HAS NO DEBTS and there are no real institutions that need to be dismantled.

$440bln???? really???? wtf???? thats like £250bn right???? that can't be accurate surely???? if it is please forward me a link to the figures????