Libya.

[Andy Bowden]

Libya was at one point, one of the states the US hated the most - and reserved special venom for Colonel Gaddaffi, for his support of groups like the IRA, PLO etc.

Gaddaffi claims to have "peoples congresses" which involve all people in the management of the state.

Do people think that Libya is a state to be supported, and is a unique democracy or is it simply an autocratic state led by a despotic Gaddaffi?

[Colombia]

Well while some of the groups are legit such as the IRA, Libya is also very well known to support Islamic Fundamentalists. I really doubt that Libya is even close to a democracy. So I would say it is an autocratic state.

[bcbm]

Here's what wikipedia has to say:

Libya's political system is theoretically based on the political philosophy in Moammar Al Qadhafi's Green Book, which combines socialist and Islamic theories and rejects parliamentary democracy and political parties. In reality, Qadhafi exercises near total control over the government.

For the first 7 years following the revolution, Colonel Qadhafi and 12 fellow army officers, the Revolutionary Command Council, began a complete overhaul of Libya's political system, society, and economy. On 3 March 1977, Qadhafi convened a General People's Congress (GPC) to proclaim the establishment of "people's power," change the country's name to the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and to vest, theoretically, primary authority in the GPC. Qadhafi remained the de facto chief of state and secretary general of the GPC until 1980, when he gave up his office. He continues to control all aspects of the Libyan Government through direct appeals to the masses, a pervasive security apparatus, and powerful revolutionary committees. Although he holds no formal office, Qadhafi exercises absolute power with the assistance of a small group of trusted advisers, who include relatives from his home base in the Surt region, which lies between the rival provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

The Libyan court system consists of four levels: summary courts, which try petty offenses, the courts of first instance, which try more serious crimes; the courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court, which is the final appellate level. The GPC appoints justices to the Supreme Court. Special "revolutionary courts" and military courts operate outside the court system to try political offenses and crimes against the state. Libya's justice system is nominally based on Sharia law.

After the revolution, Qadhafi took increasing control of the government, but he also attempted to achieve greater popular participation in local government. In 1973, he announced the start of a "cultural revolution" in schools, businesses, industries, and public institutions to oversee administration of those organizations in the public interest. The March 1977 establishment of "people's power"--with mandatory popular participation in the selection of representatives to the GPC--was the culmination of this process.

The GPC is the legislative forum that interacts with the General People's Committee, whose members are secretaries of Libyan ministries. It serves as the intermediary between the masses and the leadership and is composed of the secretariats of some 600 local "basic popular congresses."

The GPC secretariat and the cabinet secretaries are appointed by the GPC secretary general and confirmed by the annual GPC congress. These cabinet secretaries are responsible for the routine operation of their ministries, but Qadhafi exercises real authority directly or through manipulation of the peoples and revolutionary committees.

In the 1980s, competition grew between the official Libyan Government and military hierarchies and the revolutionary committees. An abortive coup attempt in May 1984, apparently mounted by Libyan exiles with internal support, led to a short-lived reign of terror in which thousands were imprisoned and interrogated. An unknown number were executed. Qadhafi used the revolutionary committees to search out alleged internal opponents following the coup attempt, thereby accelerating the rise of more radical elements inside the Libyan power hierarchy.

In 1988, faced with rising public dissatisfaction with shortages in consumer goods and setbacks in Libya's war with Chad, Qadhafi began to curb the power of the revolutionary committees and to institute some domestic reforms. The regime released many political prisoners and eased restrictions on foreign travel by Libyans. Private businesses were again permitted to operate.

In the late 1980s, Qadhafi began to pursue an anti-Islamic fundamentalist policy domestically, viewing fundamentalism as a potential rallying point for opponents of the regime. Ministerial positions and military commanders are frequently shuffled or placed under temporary house arrest to diffuse potential threats to Qadhafi's authority.

Despite these measures, internal dissent continues. Qadhafi's security forces launched a preemptive strike at alleged coup plotters in the military and among the Warfallah tribe in October 1993. Widespread arrests and government reshufflings followed, accompanied by public "confessions" from regime opponents and allegations of torture and executions. The military, once Qadhafi's strongest supporters, became a potential threat in the 1990s. In 1993, following a failed coup attempt that implicated senior military officers, Qadhafi began to purge the military periodically, eliminating potential rivals and inserting his own loyal followers in their place.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

If you want to understand Libya, you have to first read the document on which it is supposedly based:

The Green Book by Khadaffi

Libya should be defended against imperialism, but clearly shouldn't be upheld by communists.

[Led Zeppelin]

Qaddhafi is an idiot, don't even bother reading his book.

Bourgeois dictators are bourgeois dictators.

[slim]

Hmm... I wouldnt call him an idiot. Misled perhaps but I would not dicredit his people so much as to call him an idiot. After all, what kind of nation would be overtaken by an idiot by force of arms.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by Marxism-Leninism@Sep 16 2005, 11:49 AM
Qaddhafi is an idiot, don't even bother reading his book.

Bourgeois dictators are bourgeois dictators.

Wasn't that guy in your avatar bourgeois?

[Led Zeppelin]

Wasn't that guy in your avatar bourgeois?

No.

[bcbm]

Originally posted by Marxism-Leninism@Sep 16 2005, 03:14 PM

Wasn't that guy in your avatar bourgeois?

No.

Civil service officials are working class?

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

After all, what kind of nation would be overtaken by an idiot by force of arms.

How does leading a military coup prove you to be intellegent?

[slim]

The fact that he could have fooled his people to coerce power is something we should be wary of and we should not be so quick to judge.

I would say that his apparant idiocy can be confused for his lack of vision and his single minded will to gain power for himself and his lieutenants.

I salute the people of Libya for surviving his regime and I wish that their will be done when his death comes. The fall of the bourgoise will come and I hope that it will also come to Libya with the least amount of violence.

Do chara,

Slim. HRA. Sil Anmachadhra.

[refuse_resist]

Here's a good article about him...

Qaddafi vs. New World Order
by Husayn Al-Kurdi
Toward Freedom magazine, February 1997

How can a country of less than five million people, located on Africa's northern shores and harboring much of the inhospitable Sahara desert, become the object of an aggressive US-CIA campaign of destabilization, subversion, and attack for almost three decades? And why is its revolutionary leader, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, so relentlessly vilified and scorned in the media and by policy makers in Washington?
Let's begin with the basics. Libya is seven times as large as Britain but sparsely populated. Over half of its citizens are under 15 years old, and most of the young firmly support the revolution and its charismatic leader. They and others have enjoyed the benefits of Libya's vast reserves of top-grade oil. However, the use of these oil-generated revenues has angered the corporate-dominated New World Order and motivated much of US hostility.
From 1911 to 1932, the country underwent a harrowing and unsuccessful war of national liberation against its Italian colonizers in which over a million Libyans lost their lives. After World War Il, the country was held "in trusteeship" by massive US and British military presence. Wheehus Air Base, near the ancient capital of Tripoli, became one of the largest US military installations in the world. The Semlssi royal family was kept in power, its readiness to serve imperial interests guaranteeing its position. But the Senussis lost whatever prestige they gained from their support of the struggle against the occupation by cynically presiding over the destitution of their people, half of whom lived in makeshift housing. The discovery of oil and development of that lucrative industry in the l960s failed to change the situation.
The coup staged by Qaddafi and his comrades on September 1, 1969, may have preempted a similar CIA-approved initiative. Old King Idris and his entourage were sent to Saudi Arabia, and a new era began. Qaddafi espoused a new "third universal" theory for oppressed people's liberation, enunciating three interconnected concepts of freedom: emancipation from want, ignorance, and injustice; Libya's liberation from imperialists and neo-colonialism; and emancipation of the entire Arab world.
Qaddafi is clearly an internationalist and universalist. He calls for a "New World Order" in which "the house is for its occupant, the land is for everyone, and workers are partners and not wage earners." This contrasts sharply with the NWO ushered in by George Bush as he presided over Iraq's destruction in 1991.
Qaddafi has supported liberation movements worldwide without regard to national, religious, racial, or even ideological criteria. These include the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, AIM and other militant Indian movements, the IRA, the Sandinistas in their revolutionary phase, and the Palestinian struggle. He is the only world leader to proclaim his support for Kurdistan self-determination, a decision which has assured his position as preferred villain for the US government and its allies. Only Fidel Castro has survived as many CIA-related murder plots. In the most well known example, Qaddafi's home was bombed by US planes in an April 1986 raid on Tripoli and Benghazi which left hundreds dead or wounded. He lost his infant step daughter.
Libya has also committed the unforgivable sin of avoiding the IMF/World Bank debt trap, making it the only Maghribi (Arab North African) country without huge obligations. In fact, it's created a socialist system that actually works. Once largely illiterate, Libyans now get free education through college and beyond. Against traditionalist opposition, Qaddafi has promoted equality for women, and rejected patriarchal and oppressive notions espoused by some Islamists. Internally, most of his opposition is generated by reactionary clerics, elements openly serving the West, and large landowners whose holdings were expropriated. Outsiders like Saudi Arabia and Egypt have long targeted him for overthrow.
Today, virtually every Libyan lives in her own home and the average person makes more in a week than she did in a year before 1960. No other African country has improved the well-being of its people more.
Nevertheless, Qaddafi and Libya are perennial targets of abuse in the discourse of world domination, blamed for many "terrorist" acts around the world. Most of the accusations have proved false, but only a careful observer could glean this fact, going beyond the propaganda transmitted by most media outlets. Many Leftists have joined the Right in pillorying Libya's leader, some even developing labels such as ''Neo-Islamic Bonapartist adventurer." Activists such as Robert Blake and David Brower express horror at the prospect of Libyans entering the US with nukes in their backpacks. On December 15, 1996, 60 Minutes ran a segment on the most recent, sustained action undertaken against Libya-UN sanctions and an embargo that took effect in 1992. The sole focus was Libya's status as "suspect" in the Lockerbie case. Embittered relatives of crash victims repeated the usual descriptions of Qaddafi as the "mad outlaw terrorist." The 60 Minutes punch line was simple: "They can't get away with killing Americans."
In the past, the US has falsely accused Libya of a variety of "terrorist" acts that were later revealed to be the work of other states' agents or associates. The new accusation, certain to horrify a largely unsuspecting US population, was that Libya blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. The evidence? A micro chip which US investigators claimed could only have come from Libya.
Using this pretext, the US imposed a total international ban on air travel to and from the country, until and unless Libya turns over two "suspects"-both Libyan Airline workers- for trial. The would-be defendants have agreed to be tried in a neutral third country, understandably skeptical about US or British justice. Meanwhile, the embargo has produced a dramatic increase in both road and airline accidents within the country. At least 10,000 lives have been cut short due to the sanctions, and Libya has lost over $1 billion in agricultural and livestock production.
All this is par for the course. The current "New World Order" must suppress those who get the radical notion that a country s resources belong to its own people. Whether that idea emerges in Chiapas or Kurdistan, Palestine or East Timor, it must be thwarted at any cost. Thus, US officials have announced their readiness to use nuclear weapons on selected Libyan targets. Rumors about chemical weapons development could provide the pretext for a devastating attack, nuclear or not. In short, the formula used for Iraq's destruction is being repeated. Disinformation, defamation, demonization, and dehumanization are all tools in the campaign to destroy Libya and its revolution. The discourse of domination continues. Yet Libya, along with Cuba, 190 wars of liberation worldwide, and countless movements that confront the "New World Order," continue to answer with their own thrusts toward freedom.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_S...addafi_NWO.html

[CubaSocialista]

Originally posted by refuse_resist@Sep 18 2005, 09:34 AM
Here's a good article about him...

Qaddafi vs. New World Order
by Husayn Al-Kurdi
Toward Freedom magazine, February 1997

How can a country of less than five million people, located on Africa's northern shores and harboring much of the inhospitable Sahara desert, become the object of an aggressive US-CIA campaign of destabilization, subversion, and attack for almost three decades? And why is its revolutionary leader, Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, so relentlessly vilified and scorned in the media and by policy makers in Washington?
Let's begin with the basics. Libya is seven times as large as Britain but sparsely populated. Over half of its citizens are under 15 years old, and most of the young firmly support the revolution and its charismatic leader. They and others have enjoyed the benefits of Libya's vast reserves of top-grade oil. However, the use of these oil-generated revenues has angered the corporate-dominated New World Order and motivated much of US hostility.
From 1911 to 1932, the country underwent a harrowing and unsuccessful war of national liberation against its Italian colonizers in which over a million Libyans lost their lives. After World War Il, the country was held "in trusteeship" by massive US and British military presence. Wheehus Air Base, near the ancient capital of Tripoli, became one of the largest US military installations in the world. The Semlssi royal family was kept in power, its readiness to serve imperial interests guaranteeing its position. But the Senussis lost whatever prestige they gained from their support of the struggle against the occupation by cynically presiding over the destitution of their people, half of whom lived in makeshift housing. The discovery of oil and development of that lucrative industry in the l960s failed to change the situation.
The coup staged by Qaddafi and his comrades on September 1, 1969, may have preempted a similar CIA-approved initiative. Old King Idris and his entourage were sent to Saudi Arabia, and a new era began. Qaddafi espoused a new "third universal" theory for oppressed people's liberation, enunciating three interconnected concepts of freedom: emancipation from want, ignorance, and injustice; Libya's liberation from imperialists and neo-colonialism; and emancipation of the entire Arab world.
Qaddafi is clearly an internationalist and universalist. He calls for a "New World Order" in which "the house is for its occupant, the land is for everyone, and workers are partners and not wage earners." This contrasts sharply with the NWO ushered in by George Bush as he presided over Iraq's destruction in 1991.
Qaddafi has supported liberation movements worldwide without regard to national, religious, racial, or even ideological criteria. These include the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa, AIM and other militant Indian movements, the IRA, the Sandinistas in their revolutionary phase, and the Palestinian struggle. He is the only world leader to proclaim his support for Kurdistan self-determination, a decision which has assured his position as preferred villain for the US government and its allies. Only Fidel Castro has survived as many CIA-related murder plots. In the most well known example, Qaddafi's home was bombed by US planes in an April 1986 raid on Tripoli and Benghazi which left hundreds dead or wounded. He lost his infant step daughter.
Libya has also committed the unforgivable sin of avoiding the IMF/World Bank debt trap, making it the only Maghribi (Arab North African) country without huge obligations. In fact, it's created a socialist system that actually works. Once largely illiterate, Libyans now get free education through college and beyond. Against traditionalist opposition, Qaddafi has promoted equality for women, and rejected patriarchal and oppressive notions espoused by some Islamists. Internally, most of his opposition is generated by reactionary clerics, elements openly serving the West, and large landowners whose holdings were expropriated. Outsiders like Saudi Arabia and Egypt have long targeted him for overthrow.
Today, virtually every Libyan lives in her own home and the average person makes more in a week than she did in a year before 1960. No other African country has improved the well-being of its people more.
Nevertheless, Qaddafi and Libya are perennial targets of abuse in the discourse of world domination, blamed for many "terrorist" acts around the world. Most of the accusations have proved false, but only a careful observer could glean this fact, going beyond the propaganda transmitted by most media outlets. Many Leftists have joined the Right in pillorying Libya's leader, some even developing labels such as ''Neo-Islamic Bonapartist adventurer." Activists such as Robert Blake and David Brower express horror at the prospect of Libyans entering the US with nukes in their backpacks. On December 15, 1996, 60 Minutes ran a segment on the most recent, sustained action undertaken against Libya-UN sanctions and an embargo that took effect in 1992. The sole focus was Libya's status as "suspect" in the Lockerbie case. Embittered relatives of crash victims repeated the usual descriptions of Qaddafi as the "mad outlaw terrorist." The 60 Minutes punch line was simple: "They can't get away with killing Americans."
In the past, the US has falsely accused Libya of a variety of "terrorist" acts that were later revealed to be the work of other states' agents or associates. The new accusation, certain to horrify a largely unsuspecting US population, was that Libya blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988. The evidence? A micro chip which US investigators claimed could only have come from Libya.
Using this pretext, the US imposed a total international ban on air travel to and from the country, until and unless Libya turns over two "suspects"-both Libyan Airline workers- for trial. The would-be defendants have agreed to be tried in a neutral third country, understandably skeptical about US or British justice. Meanwhile, the embargo has produced a dramatic increase in both road and airline accidents within the country. At least 10,000 lives have been cut short due to the sanctions, and Libya has lost over $1 billion in agricultural and livestock production.
All this is par for the course. The current "New World Order" must suppress those who get the radical notion that a country s resources belong to its own people. Whether that idea emerges in Chiapas or Kurdistan, Palestine or East Timor, it must be thwarted at any cost. Thus, US officials have announced their readiness to use nuclear weapons on selected Libyan targets. Rumors about chemical weapons development could provide the pretext for a devastating attack, nuclear or not. In short, the formula used for Iraq's destruction is being repeated. Disinformation, defamation, demonization, and dehumanization are all tools in the campaign to destroy Libya and its revolution. The discourse of domination continues. Yet Libya, along with Cuba, 190 wars of liberation worldwide, and countless movements that confront the "New World Order," continue to answer with their own thrusts toward freedom.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Global_S...addafi_NWO.html

Once again the sane voice triumphs.

Impressed as usual, refuse resist.