The Site that Asks: Is the "dictator" justifying intervention by killing innocents? Or is someone else doing it for him? (previously The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views)
Warning
Warning: This site contains images and graphic descriptions of extreme violence and/or its effects. It's not as bad as it could be, but is meant to be shocking. Readers should be 18+ or a mature 17 or so. There is also some foul language occasionally, and potential for general upsetting of comforting conventional wisdom. Please view with discretion.
Showing posts with label Gaddafi Muammar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaddafi Muammar. Show all posts
The late allegations that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had sexuallyassaulted his famous female bodyguards could, as far as I know, be true. But they do have a troubling whiff of the demonizing claims so often proven false in other areas.
I haven't studied it closely, but need a spot to let some of my readers/contributors to do much of the work for me.
Five women who formed part of Muammar Gaddafi’s select unit of female bodyguards are claiming they were raped and abused by the now hunted dictator.
The women have told Benghazi-based psychologist Seham Sergewa they were sexually abused by Col. Gaddafi and his sons before being discarded once they were “bored” with them.
A pattern emerged in the stories. The women would be first raped by the dictator and then passed on, like used objects, to one of his sons and eventually to high-ranking officials for more abuse before eventually being let go.
The disturbing claims form part of a dossier being collated by Dr Sergewa for the International Criminal Court and possible trials that Col. Gaddafi and members of his inner circle may face in Libya if and when they are captured alive.
However, her work does not stop with the bodyguards. The women only stepped forward after the psychologist started investigating claims of systematic rape, allegedly committed by loyalist troops during the conflict.
No trial, but plenty of bullshit ready to go just in case. On the "dossier" of this Dr. Sergawa's (also given as Sergewa) it's been mentioned before, by people from the ICC (Moreno-Ocampo) and US State Department, for example. But it hasn't panned out very well on evidence and logic grounds, and that doesn't bode well for the veracity of this new alleged class-action accusation. Even the New York Times managed to convey previous skepticism of her sexual violence work in Libya, claiming to have located back in March at least 259 victims of systematic regime-ordered rape. As the UN's esteemed - and none-too pro-Gaddafi - investigator M. Cherif Bassiouni explained about Sergawa, without naming her:
[Bassiouni] also cited the case of a woman who claimed to have sent out 70,000 questionnaires and received 60,000 responses, of which 259 reported sexual abuse.
However, when the investigators asked for these questionnaires, they never received them.
"But she's going around the world telling everybody about it ... so now she got that information to Ocampo and Ocampo is convinced that here we have a potential 259 women who have responded to the fact that they have been sexually abused," Mr Bassiouni said.
He also pointed out that it did not appear to be credible that the woman was able to send out 70,000 questionnaires in March when the postal service was not functioning.
This former five-year sex slave for col. Gaddafi, self-described, escaped and fled to France back in 2009. "She was able to return to Libya only when the Gaddafi regime collapsed."
When it was reported (but then denied) that Muammar Gaddafi's most militant son, Khamis, was captured alive recently, it seemed time to revisit the last time he was declared dead. Six months earlier almost to the day, in late August/early September of last year, he was reported killed in a rebel strike on his retreating convoy just after the fall of Tripoli.
Al-Fargi's Account
Allegedly, this strike came right after his father and Libya's onetime symbolic leader Muammar Gaddafi and parts of his core family met at Khamis' Yarmouk military base and fled from Tripoli. That was August 26, one week into the rebel assault on the capitol, four days after they claimed 90% of the city, three days after the alleged massacre of over 150 prisoners there, and about the same exact time rebels finally acknowledge holding the Yarmouk base itself (or, as the clues suggest, three days after the rebels violently took the base).
In his story, he was the youngest recruit to Khamis Gaddafi’s bodyguard, picked for his youth, innocence, possibly his big hair, and his origin in the Loyalist town of Sabha. His very recruitment handily proved the desperation of the dying regime. Al-Fargi was given three days’ training shooting a gun, then sent to Tripoli with big promises following victory. He survived days of fighting “around Green Square and in the Bosleem [Abu Salim] district.” Pendlebury continues:
Then, on Thursday last week [Aug.25], when it was clear that the regime was finished, he was summoned along with other hand-picked soldiers to Khamis’s compound in the Salahuddin district.
The soldiers stayed there overnight. Then, on Friday, things began to happen. A Hyundai saloon arrived through the front gate and out got the ‘King of Kings himself’ — the nation’s leader — in a flowing robe and desert headdress. With Gaddafi Snr was his daughter Aisha, said Abdul.
The father spoke to Khamis and then left with Aisha in a military vehicle.
Another brother, Saadi, was reported as also having been in their convoy.
Abdul and his comrades were given lunch, then Khamis told them to get ready to go to Bani Walid. They would be meeting another brother, Mutassim, there.
The 60-vehicle convoy left Tripoli at around 4.30pm, Abdul recalls. Khamis was travelling in a heavily-armoured Toyota Land Cruiser.
This base is apparently the Yarmouk one, the only base of the 32nd brigade in the Salaheddin district, and among their two largest in the Tripoli area. Khamis had reportedly been there three days before when he ordered that 150 prisoners in the shed out back should be killed.
4:30 on Friday the 26th is apparently just ahead of, or even just behind, the photographer Daniel Berehulak who followed the rebels into Yarmouk. His set of eight photos of the shed massacre site are dated August 26 and, by the angle of sunlight seen (this image is the best help), it was mid-late afternoon - anywhere from about 4:00 to as late as 6:00PM (time analysis, uncertain, discussed here).
Further, it's about four hours after the rebels finally conquered the base, according to the unnamed fighter who spoke to Human Rights Watch. He said they entered the base around noon on the 26th, and to prove it, said that's when they first smelled and then saw the burning remains in the shed. At the same time, we're to accept, the Gaddafi family themselves were enjoying lunch alongside that smell some feet away, and then casually departed four hours later, before it was too late!
Just past Tahouna, near Bani Walid, an ammunition truck in Khamis' convoy was hit by rebels, Pendlebury was told, leaving a smashed bed that looks to me like a NATO bomb hit it from above. Photo of ammunition truck
Pendlebury described the convoy's last mission so:
What would appear to be happening is a fighting retreat, to buy time for the Gaddafis to escape into the desert wastes. Some regime forces have already left Bani Walid and moved to Sofe Aljane, 50 miles further south. Gaddafi himself is also thought to have gone.
Abdul al-Farji was with them. He said:
‘We were told the road was clear, and my pick-up truck was sent forward to make sure it was,’ said Abdul, who was manning a heavy machine gun mounted on the back.
‘We ran straight into rebel vehicles. I opened fire first and they shot back.’
But as the driver of his own vehicle tried to turn away from the rebel positions, Abdul lost his footing, fell out and was captured.
The last time he saw Khamis’s vehicle it was on fire, but still moving slowly.
The jeep apparently was hit too, but the kid survived, because he fell off of it. He was captured and told his story like so. The witness seems quite confident, open, and eager to explain all he saw and knew. He said he had been misled about the kind rebels, but now wanted to help them, and he was. And they were kind, to him.
It is clear, though, that Abdul has become something of a pet for the rebels. As we talked, another colonel came in, ruffled his hair, pinched his cheek and kissed him.
‘We are all one country,’ he beamed. ‘And this is still a Libyan child.’
It was the convoy battle by Tahouna that proved the kid was right, Khamis was in that convoy, and he didn’t come out alive, so was presumed among the charred dead. Pendlebury added:
The rebel colonel describes the demise of the dictator’s son. ‘His vehicle was well protected, but we hit it with a 23mm gun and it burned,’ he said.
I viewed the charred and melted remains of the Toyota by the side of the empty road. The glass was almost an inch thick and the armour on the doors would not have disgraced a tank. The bodywork did not appear to have been penetrated.
The Capture, The Killings, and Those Who Don't Know Right From Wrong
October 21, 2011 last edits, Oct. 28
So it's more than 24 hours later and still no retraction, and a pretty convincing video exists. It seems Muammar Gaddafi himself was captured, roughed up and bloodied pretty bad, and then shot dead by a hyped-up teenager. Sounds about right for how the rebels work. Celebrations worldwide have greeted the images. What a splendid little war that finally gave us this rush of fulfilling a long-programmed desire. All it took was a lot of scheming, lying, stealing, manipulating, and the often brutal deaths of several tens of thousands of people, and... I could go on.
I have created this space for comments in case someone else finds anything interesting on the reported murder of Muammar. I have nothing to add, aside from the image at left. Thanks to Petri Krohn for the tip on this from al Jazeera of a black man taken captive, strapped to the barrel of anti-aircraft gun as greatly-amused "government forces" drive through Sirte displaying him to general cheers. One doubts they'll be able to resist the temptation to fire off some celebratory rounds with this baby, perhaps until the prisoner dies of shock as his back is seared through to the spine.
Allahu Akbar!
Update October 25: Pleasesee the comments below for full video cataloguing, additional links and thoughts, and so on. In addition to other revelations and questions I haven't included here yet, yesterday news was broken of a video analysis by Global Post's brilliant Tracey Shelton. I caught it via CBS News, but the original video stills and explanation are here at Global Post. From two different camera views, it looks like the former Libyan leader was casually sodomized with a knife, by a playful captor, before his untimely execution.
More, October 28: Among Muammar Gaddafi's last recorded lines is apparently this "laughable" but truly apt line, which I've adopted partially as the site's new by-line: "Do you know right from wrong? What you are doing is wrong." There is also Mutassim Gaddafi's execution and odd wounds to consider, the story told by a self-described South African security man who tried to help the Gaddafis escape, how the leader came to be inside that storm drain, and so on. Again, see below.
Update Feb. 23, 2012: Long ago, I starter another post to discuss Muammar's torture and murder, which got many comments but few updates from me. Reader Stan Winer has also written a short PDF report on the episode and its implications. This report, Lies Killed the Colonel, is currently available (the link downloads the PDF) at his site Truth-Herz.net.
"We only want the head of Muammar Gaddafi. We don't want any death, any blood.We are fighting our brothers. But they are defending him. I don't know what's happened. We want him and they said no. So what's our choice? Kill them."
This post will examine the fate of many people accompanying Muammar Gaddafion his last voyage, some hundred or so of whom wound up dead on the battlefield, with some of those clearly executed. How many, where, under what circumstances? How many were taken alive at that time and killed later anyways (aside from Col. Gaddafi himself, his son Mutassim, and defense minister Jabr)?
These are some of the people young Mr. Babor spoke of, their fellow Libyans who couldn't be reasoned with, who were actually defending the nation's leader against a foreign-created insurgency, who would only fight to the death. Their hands were forced into this fratricide. But here we see that in many cases, the despised loyalists were taken alive, rendered harmless, perhaps preached to a bit, and then killed without mercy.
@jfoleyjourno: 95 bodies on field from Gaddafi's last battle #sirte, most killed by nato or in battle, 6 or so clearly executed
The NATO presumption is from the bodies being burnt, but there are some questions about that. Others say the number of clear executions is a bit higher. As passed on by Human Rights Investigations:
Human Rights Watch visited the site where Muammar Gaddafi was captured, and found the remains of at least 95 people who had apparently died that day. The vast majority had apparently died in the fighting and NATO strikes prior to Gaddafi’s capture, but between six and ten of the dead appear to have been executed at the site with gunshot wounds to the head and body.
Dan Rivers for CNN said HRW had found "at least ten" captives, three of them shown, "shot at point blank range."
Fallen electricity cables partially covered the entrance to the drainage pipes and the bodies of three men, apparently Gaddafi bodyguards lay at the entrance to one end, one in shorts probably due to a bandaged wound on his leg.
Four more bodies lay at the other end of the pipes. All black men, one had his brains blown out, another man had been decapitated, his dreadlocked head lying beside his torso.
[...]
Joyous government fighters fired their weapons in the air, shouted "Allahu Akbar" and posed for pictures.
Update December 5:
In the comments below, details start to emerge about more captives, taken alive on the 20th (that is, NOT part of the few initial executions) who were later killed and then dumped, along with hundreds of other "unidentified" dead in the Sirte mass grave. Libya S.O.S. passed on a posting on Facebook of many of the decaying faces photographed before burial. Among the early internees, number 113 has been identified as Haj Faraj al Husona, seen alive in this video. That's an undeniable match, if I can't vouch for the ID (top image below). In a rare update at Libya S.O.S., another captive from the video was linked, by an e-mail, to victim #81 and given as Abdullah Hasnawi, born 1993 (lower image).
One other idea worth exploring here, perhaps, is the possibility that the strike that burnt this convoy was something other than a NATO missile attack. That will kill many people in cruel ways, but it's not really avoidable once the firing starts. But the possibility has been mentioned that they were massacred by hand, then the scene simply burned to make it seem an air strike happened. Until I examine the scene closer, I have no solid opinion, but it is odd that these cars struck as they tried to drive away seem to have all been parked in a field when they were burned. Maybe I just missed the explanation for that.
Updates Dec. 8/9:
Captor: The English-Speaker
Some fascinating developments in comments. Thanks to readers Tawergha and Felix, another video shows these same captives being ordered onto a flatbed truck prior to the execution of some (or all?) of them. A possible American tells them in English to "go, go, go," "move, move," and "come on, get back."
Another (or the same) person, light-skinned and bearded, is trying to smoke a Greek-made "American Legend" cigarette. It's not clear what these clues mean, but there's some speculation below, perhaps linking back to the Gaddafi convoy and an odd figure with a unique story of his involvement in the doomed ("betrayed") extraction operation.
One important question raised by contributor Petri Krohn - were the captives even really part of the convoy, or just random locals misattributed? Either way, they were apparently slaughtered after their capture.
Captive: The Guy in the Cast
And reader Tawergha brings an original video (youtube link) for another execution proven by video, which I hadn't mentioned in the post body yet. This the man with the "bandaged wound,"actually a full cast, and he was alive, harmless, little flight risk, then dead in the same spot:
Notes, by myself and others, for now in comments. It's getting to be an amazing discussion,far better than this post is now.
Showing the purported first moments after the NATO strike on this parked arrangement of vehicles, as rebels first walked in and assessed the scene. This video will offer new details, though I'm not versed enough in those available to say what's new here. There are a lot of horrible types of dead on display here, but one pattern strikes me. We hear that the vehicles were hit, but many of the charred and sometimes limbless, headless, etc. bodies are laying several feet away from the vehicles we're to presume they were killed in. Burning people will sometimes get out and run, further away than these. Theones who couldn't have gotten out... The semi-random piling of many of the bodies could be the effect of rebels having pulled them out for processing. It does also resemble how they arrange people they've executed on site.
To the extent I can read the numbers, which is total, they offer guesses I haven't verified for victims #85, 87 (in the video still frame above), 99 (an old-ish man), and 81 (mentioned above, 19-year-old Abdullah Hasnawi). The faces are blurred in the video, but that's why I have my own copies. I'll make graphics to compare and let others do the same. The numerical lumping is a good clue - captured together, killed together, numbered and buried together. That's the zone to look for more matches in.
Here will eventually be gathered the best information on this pivotal episode, the capture and killing of 42-year "dictator" of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. He was captured alive on the outskierts of Sirte October 20, subjected to certain treatment, and then executed under murky circumstances the same day.
For the time being, the information will be in the comments section below, submitted by readers/contributors and myself as we see fit. The leader's last action's, his capture, abuse, killing, bodily display, and secret burial are all fair game for discussion below.
I invite here especially new contributors.
Dec. 28: Some excellent comments by recent-appearing contributor, anonymous, Tawergha, Felix, Petri, and others. Some fascinating theories are being discussed.
Even as Tripoli has apparently fallen for good and is suddenly racked with horrific "Gaddafi" atrocities, the green side fights on. The cities of Sirte, Bani Walad, and Sabha, at least, are still in the hands of Gaddafi loyalists, including tribal militias. They are still being bombed by NATO's warplanes and attacked by their helicopters, as they prepare for a September 10 surrender deadline or a September 11 assault by al Qaeda-linked rebel lynch mobs.
I have nothing much to add. News on the "fighting" is scarce, with most reportage being about the search for a negotiated settlement and analyses of how long this last mop-up will take before Libya is purged and purified for the forces of neo-Liberal freedom. The world is not likely to allow them to just stay there like an Indian reservation. They'd surely attack "civilians" (Libya's new government and army) all over again if left alone, even if they swore not to. Everyone knows you can't trust Gaddafi. So they must go if they don't abjectly surrender (and they probably won't).
My heart goes out to all those caught in the crossfire, as well as to those still holding to their oaths and prepared to die for what they feel is right. Once you are dead or locked up to die of sadness or torture, future Libya will be deprived of your input and guidance. But that was probably going to be the case anyway. This is not an exercise in sharing by NATO and its preferred leadership of "free-market" crusaders.
Sept 7: A video from a hospital in Sirte:
Euronews on Bani Walid, Moussa Ibrahim states refusal of negotiations:
---
Update Sept. 12
No Adequate Surrender, Perhaps None Possible
The Telegraph reported:
Negotiations for Sirte have so far failed because residents insisted the former rebels could only enter if they came without weapons and they wanted an amnesty for anyone guilty of crimes committed under Gaddafi's regime. Many there fear a wave of revenge and looting [and rightly so - ed] on a city that is closely associated with Gaddafi and his inner circle.
On Saturday, the head of the transitional government, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, tried to convince them, along with residents of Bani Walid, that they had nothing to fear. "We try to extend our hands to show peace to our brothers there to let our troops enter these cities peacefully without fighting," he said. [they were unconvinced - ed] At the same, however, he added that the deadline for surrender had expired and an attack was imminent. "Now the situation is in the hands of our revolutionary fighters," he said.
Hold on - they agreed to surrender to NTC rule so long as no one is prosecuted, and no one is shot? They agreed to stop fighting and allow a peaceful transition, if I'm reading that right, but the rebels rejected it? They want only blood (via some kangaroo "trial," perhaps), and want to keep their wildly-brandished weapons for drawing blood, while promising to be peaceful for the first time once inside Sirte of all places? And the world is okay that the attacks is coming? I'll have to look into that...
One option open to someone presented with such an offer would be to take them up on it, have a peaceful transfer and play the good guys for once, and then deal with the alleged crimes Gaddafi and son were to stand trial for in one or another of ways. They could find a way to realize it was largely crap and noise, even apologize for their part in that, and agree to move on. They could try to coax Gaddafi to stand trial with promises of a fairness, made credible and eventually delivered on, and start a national healing process. Or they could just renege after the peace and try to arrest him, even at the risk of briefly opening the war again if necessary. At least there could be a breather in there and a cooling-down period, some time to catch up on sleep, get well-fed again, bury the dead, and grieve a bit.
But they've opted to say "no dice. If we're not forced to concede anything, we won't." While they've got the momentum and the bombers there, all loose ends will be tied up at once, in a totalitarian sense. Every demand must be met, and now.
Chaotic Attacks on Bani Walid
So, the promised deadline and promised date of attack has come and passed without adequate concessions from the Libyan government. Bani Walid, where Seif al-Islam and Saadi Gaddafi were thought to be holding out was attacked. The offensive there began a day ahead of schedule on September 9, after taking fire from loyalist Grads, it's said. Bloomberg reports some details:
The rebel Halbus brigade from Misrata entered the suburbs of Bani Walid along the Maldoon Valley, getting to within six miles from the town center, according to Khalid Abdula Salem, commander of the rebel Western Front, in an interview from his headquarters in the oasis Abdul Rauf.
They found some homes displaying the rebel tricolor and others the green flag of the Qaddafi regime, Salem said.
Bani Walid’s garrison is composed of the elite 32nd Brigade commanded by Qaddafi’s son Khamis, members of the Legion Thoria secret police, and units of mercenaries from Darfur, Salem said.
Khamis? Hasn't he been killed now like five times? As for the "African mercenaries," you know, by mid-September it might finally be true. Back in February, and through most of the war, however, it definitely was not true.
The assault was called "chaotic" by fighters there and by the Global Post, lacking in co-ordination. That means it failed. Where it's a chaotic winning fight, and they can slaughter freely, they don't complain. Indeed, a rebel fighter told the Post:
Monem said 10 revolutionaries died Sunday and 15 were injured, with most being hit from well-concealed or elevated positions. “There’s no clear target,” Monem said. “There’s no close snipers. They’re not shooting us with Kalashnikovs. The distance [they’re shooting from] is about a kilometer and a half, maybe two. With my gun [AK-47] I cannot shoot them. I did not fire one shot today because there is no clear target.” He said some rebels answer was to shoot randomly in the air.
I recall seeing the Libyan government do about the same, with anti-aircraft guns, when under the abuse of god-like NATO forces. But these guys are the aggressors here, not the defenders. The Global Post also has Rebel leaders reiterate their intentions to aggress further:
[The] National Transitional Council say they won't consider Libya fully "liberated" until these loyalist centers fall."
[...]
On Sunday, they went into the fringes of Bani Walid and were bloodied by long distance guns and locals shooting at them from house to house.
What the hell! Why don't these human shields want to be liberated? Are they shooting only out of fear? Their dang heads will come off soon either way! They just stuffed Abu Salim trauma hospital with some hundred examples of their handiwork. It's nothing new really, after dozens of taken cities and similar atrocities blamed on the crumbling regime. And now freedom and "sanity" are coming to the last few holdouts.
NATO War Crimes Alleged
NATO's air support for this surge of freedom of course continues. How on Earth could it turn back now? I can't confirm the following, but Leonore in Libya (good with rumors, not so much with details), a site called Ozyism, and something called Alrai TV (Syrian?), all report that, however they're delivering them, NATO's using cluster bombs and mustard gas. As Leonore put it (translated):
Bani Walid: NATO used cluster bombs and mustard gas against Bani Walid [...] during the heavy bombing of NATO. This is a crime against humanity and against international law and standards.
Ozyism reported it once (unconfirmed), then again, (confirmed). The last was partly because Alrai TV in an on-line osting, has what it says is a photograph of one of the victims' face, dead, burnt and ravished. I'm skeptical of this, but no expert either.
Towards a Bloodbath in Sirte
Saadi has slipped out of Bani Walid into Niger, it's been reported, and Seif, is he's there or ever was, is safe for the moment. They stopped that attack and now the rebels are advancing on Sirte, where their father is "hiding," as the Tripoli post recently said, "like some rat." They halted the Bani Walid offensive not because it was too tough, but because that was their clever plan. As Bloomberg reported:
“Our mission is not to capture Bani Walid, it is to block the town and attack Sirte,” said [rebel intelligence officer Noraldien] Elmaiel, who is based in the rebel-held town of Misrata.
[...]
The rebels pushed through the front line west of Sirte and were 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the town yesterday.
Protecting their flank was a large screening force of jeep- mounted infantry that moved from forward positions near Bani Walid to push eastward, south of the coastal highway, capturing the towns of Zem Zem and Wadi Bay against light resistance, said Elmaiel.
At Kilometer Sixty, 110 miles west of Sirte and the furthest point rebel forces allowed journalists to travel, columns of black pickup trucks mounting machine guns streamed to and from the front, stirring up clouds of dust that blew across the highway.
“They are hitting us with artillery, with mortars, with Grad rockets,” said sweat-soaked 20-year-old rebel fighter Ismail Katika. “We can’t hit the guns, we can’t see them.”
Same problem they had at Bani Walid. Try dealing with NATO bombers some day, you punk.
Human shields are feared again, the Telegraph reports, of the held-hostage in the face of rebel onslaught variant.
Fathi Baja, head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council (NTC), told McClatchy Newspapers that on Thursday as many as 300 hostages had been moved to the village – a stronghold of Gaddafi's Gaddafa tribe – to be used as "human shields" to prevent any advance on the city.
Decoded: Their "chaotic" forces are expected to kill about this many civilians they'll need to blame on Gaddafi. It was predicted for Tripoli, and it happened - the regime killed hundreds of men women and children, freedom-loving Libyans who nearly all, in photos, look like regime loyalists or rotting "African mercenaries." Photos from Sirte or Bani Walid: less likely.
My hunch is they know some majority of the country still supported Gaddafi openly up until armed rebel kids with awkward beards were on their streets. They know the tribes are solid and might resist the NTC takeover, and the hardcore loyalists - hundreds of thousands of them - will require too much de-programming. The free market future would greatly benefit from what the rebels are pushing here - head-on battles, after more massive air-power softening by NATO, with all the crimes buried silently inside, and every last scrap of Human flesh admitted to pinned on Gaddafi's account. He killed the whole town in a fit of madness the FFs were just too late to prevent, as usual.
It's hoped by some this will be the final and climactic demonization of the war, again justifying the war in spades, and will along the way kill as many problem people as possible (Islamists against loyalists?) and really humble those remaining into abject silence and possibly quiet self-implosions from grief.
It's time to ask world leaders an important question: "Hey, how's that operation to prevent a bloodbath in Benghazi coming along?"
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — NATO says its warplanes have pounded targets in a number of key strongholds of support for fugitive dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The alliance said Tuesday that airstrikes struck one radar system, eight surface-to-air missile systems, five surface-to-air missile trailers, one armed vehicle and two command vehicles a day earlier near Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte.
NATO also says it struck six tanks and two armored fighting vehicles in Sabha in the southern desert.
The Independent reports on "Schisms" in the rebel ranks on the latest assaults. The local Warfalla tribe members working with the rebellion have let them down a couple times, and are becoming suspected of being "traitors," of putting tribal loyalties (and hence Gaddafi loyalties) over loyalties to NATO's one Libya. This may not go well for the Warfalla in the long run, true or not.
Okay, so the rebels did NOT capture Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son and hier apparent to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The invasion of Tripoli, the claims to hold at least 4/5 of it, and the other triumphalist "we took Tripoli in a day, it's over in a week tops" pronouncements. It was reported as fact worldwide, and I was willing to go along, and dismiss the truth journalists there who denied the majority of it, even claiming victory, that the rebels had in fact been lured into a trap in Tripoli. Kooky Gaddafi useful idiot conpiracy theory, many would simply proclaim.
I'd have said probably so, and call it the "Trapoli" theory.
Countering it is of course the certainty that good-guys-win moment had emerged from rebel reports. The most solid resounding victory among these signs of the end, aside from unfurling a rebel flag at Green Square with surprising ease, was the capture of the younger Gaddafi, while his father was somewhere unknown, only speaking via an audio tape, in which he sounded "desperate." People were calling it - Dewey defeats Truman, finally.
I wondered just how they caught Seif so easily, or quickly, but the rebels swore it was so. Then the International Criminlal Court's clown of a chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, confirmed it. He asked that Seif be handed over for trial on human rights abuse charges, rather than killed or mutilated, as some rebels have openly promised to do, in understandable but improper revenge. I was waiting for him to appear at the hague, fingerless and railroaded and dead of some mystery ailment halfway through trial six years down the road.
Just a last hurrah? Perhaps. But it's a good one.
But then the BBC met face-to-face with Mr. Gaddafi - as he drove up suddenly in a government armored truck to the still government-held Rixos hotel, which still housed and protected the international press corps there.
Matthew Price says Saif al-Islam arrived in an armoured vehicle looking buoyed up and confident, and when asked if his father was safe and in Tripoli, he shrugged off the question, saying: "Of course".
He said in fact the rebels had walked into a trap, and had their backbone broken. elsewhere, it's said he "seemed confident and full of adrenalin."
Lizzie Phelan, one of those truth journalists, speaks with Russia Today over footage from the Rixos, where many Libyans are cheering with him that "freedom" isn't final yet.
Tough talk, perhaps not all true, but clearly true enough to have spun the world around a bit and cheered me the **** back up! There's still hope for something other than total victory for the dark side. Please, don't squander it on more senseless defiance with nothing else. Many fronts, including the compromise and dialog one, can be managed by Libya's brilliant people (temporary partition anyone?). Wisdom still exists in there somewhere.
Also, people of Tripoli, to the extent what the government is saying is true, and you're all part of a trap to surround and swallow the rebels:
1) Can you make it a bit more obvious this is what you're doing?
2) Please respect international human rights standards, and humanely detain the rats, rather than slaughtering them in vengeance or disgust. This will help the world start to see things differently, to justify backing down "with honor", on the off-chance they still can be forced to back off.
A Double?
So, if Seif al-Islam was never captured, what happened with the claim he was arrested? Did the rebels just make it up? The motive is clear, but it seems dangerously short-sighted idea under normal circumstances. All he'd have to do is appear and say "uh, no, you must have me mixed up with someone else."
Perhaps they did. Here's what I imagine happened. They received a friendly tip, just as they rolled in almost, from a very high level defector or an easily taken captive. He told them just where Seif was hiding. They chase off the few wimpy guards, or they just surrender, or get killed, who knows. The man in the room passes the commander's visual ID, mannerisms and voice check, and cases it "that's him."
Webcam video to Moreno-Ocampo scores a confirmation, from what he knows of these things. The world hoots with triumph because it wants to, lets itself start envisioning the bright new future, oil prices finally fall, etc. Then, sometime before the re-appearance, the captive speaks up.
I need to tell you guys a great secret about my father. Okay, you listening close? You'll want to know this now. My father - his name is Farooq Iqbal. I'm his son, Ahmed. * I work for Saif Gaddafi, who is about to re-appear and laugh in your face.
You can do whatever you like with me - try and pass me off, show me to the world and admit you were fooled, kill me for fooling you and pretend you just made the story up, whatever. I'm prepared to die for the revolution, the Jamahiriya, just like the rest of Tripoli and many of those behind you that you think you conquered.
But we won't die. You will. I'm not the only tricky booby-trapped thing you've already run into in Tripoli. You shouldn't have done that.
* made-up, any similarity, disclaimer, yadda yadda
Or...
As a member of a forum I infrequent (and several media reports) suggested, he might've managed to escape from a real custody, and noted in part that "your decoy theory sounds fine for a film," but yadda yadda. As I mused in response:
He was in custody but then escaped. Hmmm.
It's certainly in the realm of possibility. He could trick the one guard he's left with into bending down so he can elbow him, knock the wind out of him, and knee him in the head unconscious. Then, cuffed to the chair, he could still twist around and grab the key to undo the cuffs, take the rebel's "uniform" (a lack of one is how you know which guys in tanks to NOT bomb), and his AK. By now he's got his own beard, can leave that.
Sunglasses, casual victory signs, shouting "Allahu Akbar!", shooting his gun in the air, he'd blend right in. Kick a negro for effect, and he's not just walking out but getting high-fives. Then hightail it for some government safehouse and go get yourself seen.
I could see this too, in another movie, competing with mine for viewers!
I don't write so much here on the nature of the fighting in the Libyan Civil War, geeking out instead on the underlying moral justifications and the reality of the rebellion in February (and before), and only highlights of later, broader developments. But this shocking new turn is one those, and warrants special mention.
It's been seriously alleged, though details are still coming out (see below), that NATO's warplanes have started targeting Libya's civilian water system, the epic "Great Man-Made River." At right, the horse-shaped system as shown on the Libyan 20 dinar bill, from Wikipedia's entry on the "GMR". This government project provides most of Libya's people and crops with fresh water piped in from a vast aquifer beneath the southern deserts.
The portion reportedly attacked is that ending at the government-held but rebel-coveted city of Brega - approximately the horse's behind in the network above, just past the furthest reach rebel country in the east, or the horse's tail. Brega is also a major oil terminal and host to repeated NATO assaults in recent weeks, including an unprecedented July 6 taking out of fuel supplies used by the government of Libya. It's also hosted repeated rebel assaults and claims to have taken it. It's past the reasonable dividing line between east and west Libya.
Now, it's alleged, NATO's trying to turn off the water to this town. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, as quoted in an AP report carried by USA Today:
"Most Libyans drink from the Great Manmade River, most Libyan land is farmed from the water, so any harm against this vital project is a harm aginst all Libyans. We believe this a very dangerous development in NATO'S attacks."
I'm not sure what he said in his full remarks (will report back if interesting), but this doesn't specify the physical system was being targeted. My first tip-off to that effect was via the interesting Libya S.O.S. blogspot site, and picked up by many, including by Uruknet.com. "RAPE of LIBYA : GREAT MAN MADE RIVER reason for NATO attack."
July 22 2011. A date for humanity to remember. NATO hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. It will take months to repair. Then on Saturday they hit the pipeline factory producing pipes to repair it.
Sine [sic] when is the water supply pipeline itself a legitimate target?
I don't know ... like with the oil facilities hit, again in Brega - it could be that "Gaddafi's forces" were using it to hydrate themselves during their attacks on "civilians." Who apparently don't require water?
Was it only the Brega part hit? If so, NATO isn't trying to deprive all Libya of water to pressure them against Gaddafi. That would only say all loyalists in Brega should move out and leave the plum of a prize to rot in Benghazi's orbit. This is a rebel town now, they'd be saying, and only our contractors (French water privatizers no doubt) will be allowed to build and run the replacement system. "Illegitimate" governments don't get to do that.
Those are some first thoughts I had, anyway. On first blush, it's simply alarming. But I needed to learn more, of course.
What (it seems) Happened
The widest-run article was by AP (it's what USA Today used, and also Canadian Business.com. While relating this war crime alleged against NATO, the article focuses on rebel demands that Gaddafi leave Libya and stand trial for his own alleged war crimes. If I felt the slightest confident the trial would be fair, by the way, I'd be urging him to go and get his name cleared of the charges.
The rumors these were based on have brought on the third and fourth foci of the AP report, yet another bombardment of Tripoli to pressure the people into revolt, and an attack in Tripoli on some high officials by pressured people, which the government denies happened ("cooking gas," says Ibrahim, an "accident.")
On the GMR attack, besides quoting Mr. Ibrahim, this report says only:
NATO planes struck a factory near the embattled oil city of Brega on Friday [July 22] killing six guards, Libyan officials said.
The plant, located six miles (10 kilometers) south of the strategic oil installation, builds the huge pipes that carry water from underground aquifers deep in the south to the coast as part of the Great Man Made River irrigation project.
"Major parts of the plant have been damaged," said Abdel-Hakim el-Shwehdy, head of the company running the project. "There could be major setback for the future projects."
At least 70 percent of Libyans survive on the water carried through the pipes to the coast in the project, according to government figures.
As for the earlier attack that had required these replacements: I can't find anything yet aside from the implication by Libya S.O.S. that the pipeline factory was hit Saturday (the 23rd), following a strike on the "water supply pipeline" itself on Friday.
Until I learn better, I'm considering this one-two punch interpretation a mistake. And that would narrow the possible crime to weakening the government's ability to repair the pipeline, should it be attacked, by rebel/al Qaeda elements or NATO, in the future. And of course, they'll insist the factory was making or doing something else besides pipe work, something horrible they can't explain, related to "attacking civilians."
It looks like the expansive grounds of a factory, not a section of pipeline spewing water. A sign above the door says, in English:
"We try to continuously
Safety First , Quality Best
Save Cost , Delivery Just"
Another large building in the complex is demolished - its frame is mostly intact, but its walls and contents are blown out across the grounds. Then the factory's purpose is shown, a huge lot of 10-foot pipe sections, row after row, hundreds at least, filmed I think after the attack, and still available. It's only if they need more than this - and in a time of war, it's possible - that their downturn in production will matter much.
So as I see it, this facility is, technically, a part of the pipeline system - its management and maintenance parts. But it's not a part that starts bleeding life-water when blown up.
For the six guards killed, if true, and for their families, the matter is more immediate.
NATO jets destroyed key water infrastructure near the Libyan city of Brega on Friday. The plant is located six miles outside of the city of Brega, and was specifically targeted. Six plant workers were killed during the attack.
The plant is part of the Great Man Made River Project
[...]
It is an unfortunate strategy designed to create human suffering. NATO is desperate to spark unrest against the Gaddafi regime by any means.
The irony is that this war began under the auspices of helping the Libyan people. Now they are made to suffer as part of a NATO strategy. The policy reinforces the reality that the Libyan war has as little to do with humanitarianism as the Iraq war had to do with weapons of mass destruction.
Mathaba, a Libyan-centric but independent media outfit ran a piece that added Muammar Gaddafi's own personal reaction to the new strike(s):
Mathaba has learnt that the Leader of the Revolution sent a message on Friday to members of the UN Security Council who are not taking part in the aggression against Libya, notably Russia and China, regarding the NATO European terrorists targeting of the pipe factory of the great man made river in the city of Brega, where pipes are manufactured to compensate for damaged pipes of the river, the only source of drinking waters and irrigation for the people of Libya.
(bolding mine - actual damaged sections or hypothetical ones?)
A NATO terrorist attack has hit a water pipes factory in al-Brega, murdering six guards, this being the factory which makes pipes for the great man-made irrigation system across the desert which brings water to seventy per cent of Libyan homes, according to sources in Libya. The factory was hit after the water supply network was destroyed on Friday.
The source is the same Libya SOS report, so it's not a support. But Pravda added:
NATO has committed another war crime, targeting a civilian water supply network which brings water to 70% of Libya's population, according to Pravda.Ru sources in Libya. The general manager of the Man Made River Corporation which controls the pipeline reports it was hit in a NATO strike on Friday. In another clear violation of the law, a consignment from Italy of 19 000 AK-47's was caught in Ajdabiyah by the Libyan authorities, according to Libyan military sources.
[...]
If NATO's contribution to protecting civilians is bombing their water supply then the international community will respond to this heinous war crime, whether or not the politicians do. Will anyone please do something about this horrendous war crime? Or will we all sit back while NATO destroys water supply lines, a civilian structure? Is this protecting civilians or is this an act of revenge because NATO is losing?
Tripoli - One of the jokes heard at this week’s massive pro-government Friday post prayer rally at Green Square (in most of the other Arab countries Friday’s are days of rage against the government du jour but in Libya Friday prayers are followed by massive pro-Qadaffi rallies attended two weeks ago by close to 65% of Tripoli’s population) is about how each morning Libya’s leader, following early morning Fajr prayers dons his formal uniform, complete with those huge epaulets, and salutes the small NATO flag he tapes to his bathroom mirror as he moves from place to place dodging NATO drones and assassins.
“Our leader does this”, one young lady informed me first with a wide smile and then growing serious, “because the NATO bombing of Libyan civilians, which the US/NATO axis claims Qaddafi is doing, has caused his popularity to skyrocket among our proud and nationalist tribal people. I am one example of this.
Yes, of course we can use some new blood and long overdue reform in our government. Which country cannot? But first we must defeat the NATO invaders and then we can sort out our problems among our tribes including the so-called “NATO Rebels.”
The main point, which I've missed as I'm still not following the news closely, a rather surprising turn from the onetime gung-ho leader of all this:
The Russian and Chinese leadership has grown increasingly critical of NATO’s actions in Libya and are now firmly demanding an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
[...]
On Sunday, July 10, France seemingly allied itself with Russia and China in calling on NATO to immediately stop its counterproductive and counterintuitive bombing, as more countries witness public demonstrations against NATO’s actions in Libya. French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said in Paris that it was time for Qaddafi loyalists—which France acknowledges have been rapidly increasing in number—and Libyan rebels “to sit around a table to reach a political compromise” because, he said, “there was no solution with force.”
Wow. I mean, wasn't that the only solution considered up until now? And isn't France the country that hosted the plotter who helped them deal with the uprising, four months before it began? Aren't they the first to call the rebel's Libya's new government, and the first and fiercest to bomb the old one? Didn't they just admit they'd been long breaking the UN arms embargo by air-dropping weapons to rebels in the Nafusah mountains? And they only said they could stop now as those rebels proved they were armed enough to overwhelm Libyan military sites, kill their defenders, and seize heavier weapons yet?
Further, Mr. Lamb speaks of France's trans-Atlantic partner:
NATO, Diplomatic, and Congressional sources confirm that the Obama Administration erred badly in thinking that Libya’s regime would collapse “in a few days, not weeks” as Obama assured the American public who has to pony up the estimated $5 billion in costs through July 31, 2011. Obama’s egregious miscalculation may cost him his presidency if the economy does not.
This refers to his stance first outlined on March 3, after about a week of hazy rumors and disinformation, that "Colonel Gaddafi needs to step down from power and leave." The guy has been there long enough, and I for one wouldn't mind seeing that happen. But now I hope he'll be able to stay in office long enough to first see Obomber out.
As Russia the other day boldly shifted course on Libya, to a track parallel to NATO's, president Dmitri Mdevedev announced the dispatch of an envoy to tell Muammar Gaddafi that, really and truly, he had to "go."
According to the Russian leader, if the colonel steps down voluntarily, “then we can discuss how to go about it, what country might take him in, on what terms, what he can keep and what he must lose.” Medvedev said that Russia would not be the country that takes Qaddafi. According to the president, the global community no longer sees Qaddafi as the recognized leader of Libya.
What he can keep? Recent statements, especially the G8 agreement that came along with Moscow's decision, stipulate that the government, the whole system, is just as illegitimate as HE is. HE will have to leave, and what? Keep the system, take it with him? What do the people get to keep, IN LIBYA? Free health care? Universal education, even abroad? Almost ridiculous subsidies, high literacy, free houses, almost free gas, and so on? A sense that the revolution they've struggled on for decades against massive outside frustration was worth it? Was ever respected in the slightest? Highest living standards in Africa? Zero IMF debt? No foreign military bases?
Supporting nationalist-separatist-terrorist causes abroad that, right or wrong, usually lost, only making enemies of the winners? Getting framed for planes they never blew up and lady cops they never shot? Smothered under sanctions and an air embargo, vilified worldwide, misunderstood and marginalized? Occasionally bombed? Yes, all that too could stop if the regime changes in the "right" direction. Who controls the switch?
And if that happens, the best and most unusual things achieved by Gaddafi's Green Book revolution will be destroyed, irreplaceably - the good along with the bad, the baby with the bathwater. It's quite a bit like loss of biodiversity, and in an age of failures enough all around, we should not rush to stamp out anything prematurely. But that's just what the world is being panicked into doing. It was supposed to be a blitzkrieg, a fait accompli, and done weeks ago, too late now, sorry. But it has been delayed. Libya had some life in it still. The colonel still survives assassination attempts (what's he on now, number 30? all denied?) And now we have some time we weren't supposed to have, to reflect on these things a bit. Let's do that, huh?
And for Libya, as Libyans have known it, this is to be destroyed now, all of a sudden (and possibly replaced but no guarantees) in exchange for what? They can have "free market" reforms, and free elections, to vote at intervals for people like Sarkozy or, if they want "change," an Obama. They'll have innovative synergies with foreign oil companies. They can form political parties, like the two we have in America, both sitting mute and co-opted and willfully blind as Wall Street rapes another nation with its Big White House and that machine's attached weaponry.
The Libyan people, post-Gaddafi, will have no more internationally recognized right to protest their way to regime change. It's a one-time thing, if it works right. Once the option of voting is there (and they'll become disappointed, eventually), that removes the whole premise why they chose to support this revolt. Democracy instead of dictatorship is the formula, and it's simple to test if you qualify - are there elections for the top leader in your country? Once you have that, and it's hijacked by shadowy entities that control both/all parties, it's back to lock-down mode. No matter how repressive things get, how little each election changes it, you're expected to wait again 'til election day.
Here in the US, in case the people in Benghazi don't know it, we get arrested and sent away a long time for mobbing police stations to seize weapons to overthrow the government. It's just not something you do.
All the groups that got even close to what the "protesters" of Libya did in February have often suffered "crimes against humanity" type fates - women and children burned alive in a bunker, a mother shot by a sniper holding her baby, protesters gunned down "on accident," group HQs firebombed by helicopter, assassinations, car bombs, disappearances ... True stories, if debated on all sides down the line, and that's only north of the Rio Grande. Get to Latin America, and your blood will chill at the depths of abuse carried out in the name of capitalist control such as that coming to Arab (colored) Libya. It's consistent enough to trouble anyone, and truer at least than the parade of slurs against Gaddafi's Libya down the years.
There is no United States to our Libya, no superpower capable of framing us, of stealing our money, of bombing us into submission. But you, Libya as Libyans know it, will submit, or be destroyed. Or maybe, if you're lucky and smart, you will find a third way. NATO ain't handing it to you.
And finally, "Free Libya" might even get to host the US-created Africom forces used for the next national rescue in Africa. There are a few scattered holdouts left. Eritrea? Zimbabwe? North Sudan? Tunisia if they get screwy again? "But I was not a Libyan, so I did nothing..."
Sounds like a neat trade to me. Too bad no one's asking the Libyan people if they want it. This clumsy dance of wills between the NATO pirate gang and the rigid regime is to blame. NATO initiated it without consent by taking sides in a civil war they helped set up (collective defense equates with collective offense, and all are guilty, by post facto support, of France's criminal machinations against Libya). They know the steps and the music to be played, and they always lead. The colonel, or whoever is in charge of the trailing, reeling nation of Libya, could only benefit the nation now by ending the dance, one way or another. As long as it stays mechanical and destruction oriented like it is, NATO wins. That's their turf.
It appears now that the Libyan government has lost its most powerful, if rather half-hearted, defender on the world stage: the mighty Russian Federation. It was at the G8 summit in France, of all places, where turnaround seems to have happened.
US President Obama used the event to, as Jonathan Steele put it in The Guardian, "abandon his public caution and make it clear that regime change is now the western objective in Libya." Russia started out by heightening their opposition to that into the following unprecedented, but still muted, criticism:
Russia’s ambassador to France, Alexander Orlov, told The Associated Press that the NATO campaign has gone too far. As a result, he said, Russia feels "burned" and doesn’t want to support a U.N. resolution warning Syria about its crackdown on anti-government protesters. "We will be very careful," he said in an interview at Deauville. [source]
By the end of the conference, they agreed with the other leaders that, however it happened, Gaddafi had in fact "lost legitimacy" and must step down. And they're taking the lead in talks to makeit happen, if possible. I'm still parsing this, but I'd venture that the Russians' thinking to that end seems more mechanistic and based on cold reality than the pseudo-moralistic and free-floating proclamations of their belligerent counterparts in the NATO bloc. There's room for something interesting here, as well as for more predictable failure.
As a result of the G8 summit in Deauville, it has fallen on Russia to resolve the problem of Muammar Qaddafi. Dmitry Medvedev said he supported the desire of Western countries to remove the Libyan leader and has sent his special envoy to Benghazi for negotiations.
In French Deauville, one of the busiest G8 summits in terms of agreements has come to an end. The final statement took up 25 pages. But the key agreement turned out to be one on Libya. The Kremlin, which spoke skeptically at first about the operation in that country, has finally agreed with the West that the Jamahiriya political regime must be changed.
Russia has been the most powerful (if not the most incisive) critic of NATO's deceptive regime change campaign in Libya. But here, even Russia's elites have finally joined the pod people it seems, in the apparent global consensus (among white, northern elites) that can turn any twisted notion into the accepted truth.
This is, however, the first time I'm aware of where it was openly specified that the whole governmental and economic system ("the Jamahiriya political regime") must be changed, beyond the simple "departure" of Gaddafi and his sons that has been demanded. That's potentially interesting. I've suspected from the outset that was the real target, and the relevant gripes against the Jamahiriya pre-date by far any 2011 atrocities. Surnacheva continues to the summit's final, bold, and rather philosophical conclusions:
The unified position on Libya was recorded in the final declaration. The leaders of Group of Eight stated that Muammar Qaddafi has lost his right to govern.
The document notes that the Libyan government was unable to fulfill its duty to protect the population of its country, and has lost its legitimacy. "Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," says the document. Russia backed the statement and at the request of its partners, has sent its envoy.
The government has lost its ability "to protect the Libyan population." Indeed, something about not being allowed to shoot its own guns, spend its own money, or do anything, really, has hampered Libya's ability to protect its people from the rebel uprising and its racist, terrorist actions. Nor by a mile can they prevent the relentless bombs of the rebellion's NATO benefactors. Now that these things are fact, obviously, he can't govern the country he sort-of built, and he must ... I dunno, go somewhere else.
The president announced at the conclusion of the summit that he was sending Mikhail Margelov to Benghazi. Medvedev said, “I have decided to dispatch my special envoy to Africa, Mr. Margelov. He is flying out to Libya immediately.” According to the Russian leader, if the colonel steps down voluntarily, “then we can discuss how to go about it, what country might take him in, on what terms, what he can keep and what he must lose.” Medvedev said that Russia would not be the country that takes Qaddafi. According to the president, the global community no longer sees Qaddafi as the recognized leader of Libya.
Keep? The government, the whole system, just as illegitimate as HE is? HE will have to leave, and what? Keep the system, take it with him? What do the people get to keep, IN LIBYA? (more on the trade-offs here)
Russia said May 27 it’s seeking to negotiate Qaddafi’s departure, for the first time supporting the goals of the military campaign led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Qaddafi has forfeited his right to govern and Russia is using its contacts with the Libyan regime to persuade him to step down, President Dmitry Medvedev said in Deauville, France, after a Group of Eight summit.
Fact is, right or wrong, it's happening. May as well cash in, right? Might score a few brownie points with the new management, which NATO member France selected late last year. And they can use the brownie points; the upstarts have been less than favorable to Moscow in the past. For even abstaining from the vote on a "no-fly zone" (no govern zone, really) at the UNSC, they were told they'd get no oil contracts in Libya, ever.
AFP - A former top minister in Moamer Kadhafi's regime who has fled to Europe in a fishing trawler told AFP in an interview that he believes China and Russia have "lost" the race for oil in Libya. "Kadhafi has no future now," said Fathi Ben Shatwan, a former Kadhafi ally whose last government post was as energy minister and who made a dramatic escape from the besieged city of Misrata under fire from government troops.
[...]
"The new democracy will deal very well with the people who helped us" including with oil sector rewards for Italy and France, which have officially recognised the opposition interim national council in Benghazi. "Russia and China lost. They shouldn't have done this," he said, referring to the abstention of Moscow and Beijing from a UN Security Council vote that authorised military intervention by international powers in Libya.
He dismissed Kadhafi's threats to grant oil contracts to Russia and China as "a sort of game" by a desperate man.
A game perhaps, but Gaddafi's team has been outplayed here by mr. Shatwan's. Now that Russia has turned around some to their own number one sticking point, the rebel attitude has followed. Surnacheva continues:
In Benghazi, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council, welcomed the Russian offer. “Free Libya is looking forward to building and strengthening its relations with the Russian Federation,” he said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
He also expressed interest in discussing a cease-fire under anyone's leadership, so long as the Gaddafis first just went away somewhere. It's hoped the whole government would then collapse, which it might, having failed to create a strong enough identity of its own (despite some trying).
All this said, agreeing against Gaddafi does give the Russians something they haven't had yet - a currency, if token, with the NATO bloc and "the world community." And their recent forays into a negotiated solution do, to me, show at least glimmers of the basic world sanity entirely lacking in NATO's our-way-by-all-means approach.
Ahead of the G8 summit in France on May 26-27, Russia has stepped up diplomatic activity in the Arab world in an effort to recapture the initiative it lost to the West in the recent turmoil in the region.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov earlier this week met in Moscow with a delegation of the Libyan opposition led by former Libyan Foreign Minister Abdurraham Muhamed Shalgham. The meeting took place less than a week after representatives of the Libyan government and the special UN Secretary General's envoy for Libya Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib visited Moscow.
Mr. Lavrov said Moscow's main goal in engaging the two warring sides was “to promote an immediate end to the bloodshed, to the military activities.”
“It is important at this stage to help define the participants in future talks… that would represent the interests of all political forces [and] all tribes in Libya,” Mr. Lavrov said adding that a concrete list should be the result of an “all-Libya consensus.”
The bolded parts are those NATO and the rebels are dead-set against. A peaceful, non-pressured, democratic approach in Libya will not produce the desired outcome. And that, in turn, would deflate their illusions about what the people of Libya really want. But this is the right place to look and the right way to do it, whether Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron like it or not. What this means next to the announcement Medvedev signed just after is unclear at the moment, but hopefully something positive can come of this turn as far as saving the best of the revolution, rather than the none of it currently planned.
Sorry, Col. Gaddafi, Libyans who love him ... there are no ways forward, barring miracles, that will be easy. Something big must give. Even the Russians, and even I, can see this. It's not right, but it's real. Think on that long and hard. If there's one thing you seem really bad at, it's being realistic. Get better quick, my advice.
A message from Libyan women, in quite good English:
The one makes a good point that echoes something I nearly wrote up once:
The funny thing, you are say for our leader Muammar Gaddafi to go out. Where out? Muammar Gaddafi in every heart, in Libyan people. If you want him to go out, you should go for every heart and take Muammar Gaddafi from them.
This of course echoes his own pronouncement to that effect a few weeks back. Countering rumors he was killed in the same raid where NATO hit a Gaddafi family home and killed three of his infant grandchildren, he said May 13:
“You could kill my body but could not kill my soul which lives in the hearts of millions.”
http://www.thenewstribe.com/2011/05/14/western-countries-are-“cowards”-gaddafi/
But the NATO are determined to destroy him wherever he lives. They don't want to target these millions of hearts with bombs, directly. But between general pressure, grief, anxiety, a bit of hunger, fear, and deep depression, start the process of targeting those hearts.
It's hoped there will be a total conquest by "pro-democracy forces," who already have a full slate of free-market, pro-West reforms and candidate in mind to chose from. Following this, the recalcitrant sentiments of the old-school masses, there will have to be extensive re-education and de-programming. When we find a majority of the country is unhappy to be liberated for their own benefit, well, they must be thinking wrong.
The "real" Libyan people, the rebels - outnumbered as they are within Libya - can see clearly. These are the Libyans with radical imams and al Qaeda recruiters so prominent in their cities, piles of Gulf Cash and al Jazeera propaganda greasing along their civil war disguuised as protest, French plotting months in advance and recognition after, American bombers and drones, and all the imperialists of Europe seizing money and slapping sanctions against the legitimate government on their behalf. Only with all this, plus their native hate of Gaddafi (he's in their hearts, all right - the hate section), is this minority finally able to think clearly and show the future - what NATO hopes it will "prove" is the real Libya beneath the green muck.
Some further reactions to the strike that killed Saif (or Seif) al-Arab al Gaddafi and his three young kids, while apparently aiming for their grandpa, Muammar Gaddafi.
It's been noted Saif survived an earlier attack on a family compound, again by the US, in 1986, when he was a young boy. Less luck these days.
The Mirror seems to think Saif deserved it - he was a spoiled thug. He allegedly hired someone to kill someone once over being famously kicked out of a bar. There's a Gaddafi - always attach your darkest plots to the highhest-profile hitch you can and be sure to be seen ... involved in a weapons-smuggling probe, they say. Had a way of charges of being dropped.
No one has provided evidence he or his three children were involved in attacks on innocent civilians. Or even against the NATO-backed insurgents trying to topple the regime in a civil war. Except by cheering up Grampa Gaddafi in his murderous campaign. So score one for the protection of innocents after all.
If the morale loss angle is working, it's not evident. They're putting on strong and defiant faces in Tripoli. Washington Post on the funeral, May 2:
About 2,000 Gaddafi supporters gathered for the funeral, chanting slogans in support of the regime. There was no sign of Gaddafi, who has appeared in public infrequently since NATO warplanes took over Libya’s skies in mid-March.
Saif al-Arab’s coffin, covered in a wreath of flowers and draped in the green flag adopted by the regime since Gaddafi took over in a military coup in 1969, was carried through a throng of supporters, who chanted, “The people want revenge for the martyr” and “Revenge, revenge for you, Libya.”
[...]
The most recognizable figure at the graveside was the bespectacled Saif al-Islam, dressed in a black round hat, a white shirt and black waistcoast. He reached down to touch his younger brother’s chest for the last time and then fought back tears as the body, covered in a white shroud, was taken from a simple wooden coffin and lowered into the ground.
Swiftly regaining his composure, Saif al-Islam then left the graveside, flashing V-for-victory signs, waving at faces he recognized and shaking his fist in defiance, his every step jostled by a surging and poorly controlled crowd.
Benjamin Barber: Libya: This is Nato's dirty war
The Guardian, May 2 2011
A scathing (but not probing enough)piece by the author of Jihad vs. McWorld.
In Syria, where the government is also "killing its own people", prudent strategists urge restraint, cautioning that regime change can lead to unknown and pernicious consequences.
Here, the (intended) consequences are known, hoped for, planned for. Nothing's 100% sure, but the top people all seem ready to bet on it.
But it is the plain stupidity of the Nato commitment to assassination and violent regime change that is most disconcerting. What on earth is the endgame?
And end to the Green revolution. The expansion of McWorld. Privatizations and re-structuring.
Want to be sure that [Gaddafi] will fight to the finish at maximum cost to others? Corner him, try to kill him and his family, and warn him that he has no way out but abject surrender, certain arrest and probable execution.
Self-fulfilling prophecy. Provoke that which will "require" the desired end-game.
Al-Ameri offers no legal reasoning to support the title, only rhetorical ones. He cartoonish bad guy. It okay to kill him.
Gaddafi is not a head of state. He is a warlord in control of a personal army that he has tasked with the mass killing and terrorising of Libyans for the crime of wishing to live as free human beings.
It's easier to pick out the few correct words in there than to address the wrong ones. Newspeak in action here.
George Jonas, National Post:
Fancy that. Three generations of Gaddafis arriving at a known control and command centre just as NATO begins an air strike. Isn't it a small world? What a coincidence. It has to be, because the commander of NATO operations in Libya tells us we don't target individuals. As the UN's air force, we're 21st-century knights: Our quest is to rescue princesses without slaying dragons.
Or maybe NATO is lying and General Bouchard doesn't know it. Maybe NATO commanders aren't in the loop. After all, do commanders need to know? Targeted assassination is a policy matter; it's sufficient if the commander-in-chief knows about it, and judging by his speech [on the killing of Osama bin Laden], he does. He knows what targeted assassination are and why they may be necessary.
Arab Times on-line passes on details of the victims and the plea of Libya's top Catholic.
ROME, May 1, (AFP): The most senior Catholic official in Tripoli on Sunday confirmed on Italian television that Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Arab had been killed and appealed for a ceasefire.
“I confirm the death of the son of the leader,” Giovanni Martinelli, the bishop of Tripoli, told the Sky TG24 channel.
Television pictures showed him standing with other religious dignitaries in front of three bodies covered in shrouds and flags.
He said he was taken to the morgue by officials of various local churches and added that they then all said a prayer.
Martinelli said he felt the anger of all those present but added that the dignitaries thanked him for his “gesture of solidarity”.
An early critic of the Western military campaign in Libya, he appealed to NATO, the United Nations and the international community to end the bombing of Libya.
“I ask, please, out of respect for the pain due to the loss of a son, a gesture of humanity towards the leader (Gaddafi),” he said.
[...]
Al Arabiya on Sunday broadcast footage taken from Libyan Jamahiriyah TV which it said were the bodies of Saif al-Arab and the three children — two 2-year-olds and a five-month-old. They were wrapped in green cloth with their faces covered in white.
"Statements by participants in the coalition that the strikes on Libya are not aimed at the physical destruction of … Gadhafi and members of his family raise serious doubts," a ministry statement said Sunday.
A State Duma deputy who often serves as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin's views on foreign affairs was less diplomatic.
"More and more facts indicate that the aim of the anti-Libyan coalition is the physical destruction of Gadhafi," said Konstantin Kosachev, who heads the Duma's International Affairs Committee.
Kosachev called on Western leaders to make their position on the airstrikes clear.
"I am totally perplexed by the total silence from the presidents of the United States, France, the leaders of other Western countries," Kosachev said in an interview, according to Interfax. "We have the right to expect their immediate, comprehensive and objective assessment of the coalition's actions."
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on Thursday that he would soon stand before the United Nations and report on alleged Libyan war crimes. We can only hope that his brief will include the latest war crime, the murder of Qaddafi’s family, his son and three grandchildren, and the assassination attempt on the life of the Libyan leader on May Day, 2011. Cameron, Sarkozy, the NATO field commanders and the Danish air crew should all be indicted for this crime.
Or whomever, exactly. I heard the jets were Norwegian-flown ... But the following is highly interesting:
The date of the operation was known well beforehand, and had already been openly discussed in late April by the Russian Secret Service SVR (External Intelligence Service). On April 29th, a Russian netzine published an article by Kirill Svetitsky who quoted an anonymous source within SVR:
“There will be an attempt to kill Muammar Qaddafi on or before May 2. The governments of France, Britain and the US decided on it, for the warfare in Libya does not proceed well for the anti-Libyan alliance: the regular army has substantial gains; Bedouin tribes entered the fight on the government’s side; in Benghazi, a “second front” was opened by the armed local militias who are tired of rebels’ presence, their incessant fights and robberies.
“But the main reason for the timing is that the Italian parliament plans to discuss Italy’s involvement in Libyan campaign on May 3. Until now, decisions were taken by Berlusconi, but there are strong differences of opinion within the government coalition regarding the Libyan war, and they will probably bring the government down on May 3, and Italy will effectively leave the anti-Libyan alliance. It is likely to have a domino effect. For this reason leaders of the UK, the US and France decided to eliminate Qaddafi not later than May 2d, before the session of the Italian parliament on May 3d.”
Unlike many Internet predictions, this one turned out to be timely and exact. On May 1, the US, France and the UK made a failed attempt on the life of Muammar Qaddafi, although they did succeed in killing his son and three grandchildren. Such unusual operative foreknowledge implies that Western leaders had advised the Russians of the planned attack, and that the SVR had then leaked the plans.
Actually, as we've seen, the attack occurred about 8:30 pm the night of April 30, but obviously reports didn't really emerge as to the effects, even within Libya, until the first hours of May 1. Same difference, mostly. Either way it's not exactly "well before," but the previous day - April 29 - it had been reported based on a probably fresh leak or good guess that NATO would try to assassinate Gaddafi. That's gotta mean something - at the very least that their moves are getting more predictable.
