Libya: Benghazi unrest, to Civil War, to a new government and Gaddafi's death.

[afleitch]

BBC reporting that Gadaffi has 'fled' Tripoli

[afleitch]

BBC reporting that Gadaffi has 'fled' Tripoli

For real this time?

It's saying it's from 'confirmed sources'; the BBC are less trigger-happy when it comes to making such announcments than other news sources so I hope it's legitimate.

Good to see a handmade new versions of the Red Black Green flag being waved. It's missing the Islamic crescent so 'OMFG I5LAMIZTS!' should take note. Of course maybe they couldn't be arsed stitching one on.

[afleitch]

'East of the country now out of government hands' - BBC

[afleitch]

William Hague has suggested Gaddafi may be on his way to Venezuela (?)

If so the Grauniad comments will go into melt down

[afleitch]

Al Jazeera says they're using fighter jets to bomb protesters in Tripoli. Holy shiat. This has never been used to crust anti-government protests anywhere. The guy's going down hard.

What a fycking crazy regime.

Which the U.S. has mostly left alone.......

Just to be fair.

Senator Richard Lugar - May 2006

    "Libya is a success story for American foreign policy that is the result of years of careful diplomacy aimed at bringing Libya into the mainstream.

    Although we still have areas of disagreement with the Libyan government, it has repeatedly renounced terrorism, substantially improved its human rights record, and initiated steps to encourage more foreign investment. It has opened up its weapons of mass destruction programs and is cooperating with the destruction of its chemical weapons facilities. In addition, it is providing substantial cooperation in the areas of counter-terrorism and regional security. The intensive U.S. diplomatic effort to convince Libya of the strategic benefits of this course can serve as a model for future successes with other countries of similar circumstance.

    As one of the authors of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which has worked in cooperation with the states of the former Soviet Union to safeguard and destroy WMD arsenals, I am particularly hopeful about the opportunity to work with Libya to safely dismantle its chemical weapons programs. Since its renunciation of WMD in December 2003, Libya has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and agreed to spot inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Libya has committed to eliminate all of its ballistic missiles beyond a 300-kilomater range with a payload of 500 kilograms and agreed to abide by Missile Technology Control Regime guidelines in the future. Libya played a major role in the exposure of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear black market and continues to provide information on the Khan network. In early 2004, Libya worked closely with the United States on the dismantlement and transfer of the infrastructure of its nuclear weapons program, including their missile delivery system...

    The Bush Administration and Congress will continue to foster this transformation. In particular, we need to ensure that more Americans are able to travel to Libya to do business. In Tripoli, I encountered business people from China, India, Europe, and elsewhere, who were there to negotiate energy deals and other commercial arrangements. American companies should take similar steps to explore the possibilities of the Libyan market."

[afleitch]

While I doubt Megrahi will go back to prison where he belongs for his role in Pan-Am 103 as a result of this, with the Gadaffis gone, it looks like the decision to send Megrahi back to Libya won't have gained BP much after all.  Heck, if BP's facilities in Libya take damage, it might even cost them.

The decision had nothing to do with BP. It was a decision made on compassionate grounds made by the Scottish Government. In retrospect the Labour government favoured it (though they seem to have fogetten to tell their leader in Scotland...) but the British government had no jurisdiction over devolved matters pertaining to Scots Law.

[afleitch]

Well it has Sinn Fein in their parliament. Maybe they'll argue for granting him asylum.

By that definition maybe Northern Ireland will too

[afleitch]

Maltese government officials say the two Libyan pilots (who landed bombers in Malta) defected having been ordered to bomb protesters. One of them has requested political asylum, Reuters reports.

[afleitch]

Looks like Libya's delegation to the UN(!) is calling for Qaddafi's ouster.

Has this ever happened before?  The closest thing I can think of is Thailand's UN delegation, hearing in the middle of a meeting that Thaksin had been overthrown.

http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFN2122551120110221

It seems his diplomats aren't the most loyal bunch out there. Which is rather good of course.

The old Libyan flag is flying from the Embassy in London.

[afleitch]

BBC Monitoring: "'Libyan military source confirms orders were issued for the aerial bombardment of Benghazi within two hours,'" reported Al-Arabiya TV in an urgent screen caption at 1947 GMT."

[afleitch]

Labour's Douglas Alexander woeful on Newsnight infact borderline disgusting in refusing to call on Ghadaffi to stop killing civilians, or condemning the sale of £200 million of crowd control equipment to Libya last year.

[afleitch]

So bloody situation indeed will help to excite all passions, apparently a big preacher is calling for the army to kill Gaddafi.

That may be that chap that Ken Livingstone is buddies with, I forget his name.

[afleitch]

So bloody situation indeed will help to excite all passions, apparently a big preacher is calling for the army to kill Gaddafi.

That may be that chap that Ken Livingstone is buddies with, I forget his name.

I don't know if that matches, but his name is Cheikh Youssef Al-Qardawi (85 years), and is presented as a very influential Arab preacher, and he made his call on Al Jazeera.

That's him! Ken was supposed to host him in London when he was mayor but unfortunately for Ken it's not really acceptable to officially host a man who calls for gays to be killed and who praises Hitler's anti-semitism.

[afleitch]

I like the Guardian; it's a good paper. It's columnists are on a different planet but the commenting public are nuts

So some light relief. While the rest of the world is gripped by the Arab revolutions let's take a look at the reactions of the Guardian's loyal readership;

-------------------------

"Muhamed GHadaffi is one of the last real African Leaders. He is not a puppet like most of the rest. Thats why people are being incited. Foreigners are trying to colonise us! AFRICA, LetS not celebrate the fall of one of our LAST TRUE KINGS! ALUTA CONTINUA GHADAFFI ! WE AWAIT THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA !"

"Solar cycle starting right now is due to be a big one, ANOTHER earthquake in Chile, one in NZ, the ring of fire appears to be waking up. The only one who has got away so far is the west coast of the USA, are they ready? does printed money rebuild cities? Shaky bum time!
looks like question time for our species, shall we continue to ignore the hemp plant or get more shovels to dig faster into hell?"

"and Trotsky was but a disciple of Vlad Ilych even if he turned on him eventually"

"Then through the Governments and their spies they took our money and gold that families from across the world donated to build the Temple Of Understanding to save this Earth and our Species. We held on to faith and recollected enough for Seven Temples On Seven Hills."

"I think Gaddafi's car is for a disabled person. (No offence to genuine physically disabled people of course)."

"And Trotsky never 'turned' on Lenin. I presume you have plucked that bit of nonsense from the same dark, smelly place as the rest of the sh**te."

"And what is David Cameron, the NON-ELECTED prime minister of this island doing in Egypt? ? ? ? ?  ? ?  ? ? ? ? ? ? He wants to be another Lawrence of Arabia ? ? ? ? ? ? What is going one here? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?"

"What about that stupid wedding coming in April? Was not Gadaffi and other Arab "kings" invited to the show? Now the lists have changed slightly eh? like the "british" diplomacy?

WAHT IS THE POSITION OF THIS NON-ELECTED GOVERNMENT WITH REOSECT TO ALL THIS?"

[afleitch]

An epic speech. It easily surpasses Ceausescu in it's vapidness. He's going to die like Ceausescu too; it's what he wants. I think there are enough who will oblige.

[afleitch]

Best Quote;

"It's impossible for the youth to follow anyone else. If not Gaddafi, who else would they follow? Somebody with a beard?"

[afleitch]

Iam offended by that.

So am I Even if it is beginning to itch somewhat.

[afleitch]

Ceausescu's last speech with English subtitles. Notice the 'pasted on' crowd doesn't match the genuine shots

"Hallo, Hallo, Hallo?"

It all goes wrong at 2:45

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWIbCtz_Xwk&feature=related

[afleitch]

In light of this bizarre statement, I'm wondering if there is a  weapon in the Libyan arsenal that hasn't been used yet against the protesters? The navy? Long range missiles?

Perhaps he's just pissed off with himself for abandoning his WMD programme? Or maybe he was lying when he told the world that he had done so.

Maybe we should ask this guy;



Where is our glorious Middle East Peace Envoy anyway?

[afleitch]

The guy who is a French ambassador for a while now still had this pic on the profile of a kind of French facebook. New philosophy all the way!

Hot

[afleitch]

And what should "the West" be doing exactly, gentlemen?

Exactly what we didn't do during the Rwandan civil war.

[afleitch]

I think the international community Cameron and Sarkozy have handled this situation the best they feasibly could.

Corrected.

And to think they mocked Cameron's suggestion a few weeks ago.

[afleitch]

"the Cameron and Sarkozy"?

Quiet you

[afleitch]

Opebo, any post from now on that I catch where you go into hyperbole and basically satire your own views will be deleted on sight.

k.

[afleitch]

Opebo, any post from now on that I catch where you go into hyperbole and basically satire your own views will be deleted on sight.

k.

I ask that you please clarify for me, afleitch.  I have never engaged in any hyperbole, but merely an honest, direct, and succinct explanation of my views on the civil war and the intervention by outside powers.  Am I not then allowed to express the opinion that the intervention is imperialist,  or any support for the Gaddafi government? 

There are numerous posts engaging in hyperbole in support of the other side of the civil war, and you have not objected to them.  Your stance seems to be to disallow any criticism of the intervention or any approbation of Gaddafi's government.

Your assessment of the conflict has never been anything but hyperbolic; words like 'imperialism', 'empire building', 'cultural imperalism'  bear absolutely no relation to a genuine assessment of why there was UN approval for such action. Your arguments, for the most part, have been lazy word for word repetitions of talking points put out by pampered armchair Trots and Marxists. Each time they are repeated they are more and more irrelevant.

And of course, you forget yourself;

I wonder if one would be allowed to venture the opinion that it would more more advisable to intervene on the side of Gaddafi or if that would be considered a 'trolling' opinion - or perhaps hateful or something of that nature.

If I were to venture such an observation, it would be based on the many years of reliable oil-delivery the gentleman has to his credit, and the fact that however wonderful the bearded 'democracy activists' or rebel-freedom-fighters may be, they are a complete unknown regarding the oils.

And again

Are you serious? Once Gaddafi defeats the rebellion he'll knock things into shape and the oil will flow out.  If we intervene we'll have endless war, dead americans, destabiliation, bearded men, and blocked oil.  I just find it astounding that people are suddenly pro-intervention.

Your opposition to intervention is, it appears, motivated by whatever you can think of (I need my oil!) Or you're just being contrary. And it's probably the former. So it very difficult to determine when you stop being your self and start being a parody.

You should consider yourself lucky that they are only being deleted or edited. If they were reported, they would rack up infraction points.