Libyan Revolution Day 71 - Democratic Underground

joshcryer

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Thu Apr-28-11 09:53 PM
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Libyan Revolution Day 71

Links to sites with updates: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-april-29">AJE Live Blog April 29 (today) http://blogs.aljazeera.net/twitter-dashboard">AJE Twitter Dashboard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya">The Guardian http://uk.reuters.com/places/libya">Reuters http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/">Telegraph http://feb17.info/">feb17.info http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks">Libya Alhurra (live video webcast from Benghazi) http://www.ustream.tv/channel/benghaziradio">Benghazi Free Radio, in Arabic (may have translators present at times) http://www.libyafeb17.com/">libyafeb17.com

Twitter links: http://twitter.com/#!/aymanm">Ayman Mohyeldin, with AJE http://twitter.com/#!/bencnn">Ben Wedeman, with CNN http://twitter.com/#!/tripolitanian">tripolitanian, a Libyan from Tripoli http://twitter.com/#!/BaghdadBrian">Brian Conley, reporter in Libya http://twitter.com/#!/freelibyanyouth">FreeLibyanYouth, Libyan advocate http://twitter.com/#!/LibyaFeb17_com">LibyaFeb17.com twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/ChangeInLibya">ChangeInLibya, Libyan advocate

Useful links: http://audioboo.fm/feb17voices">feb17voices http://www.google.com/search?q=time+in+libya">Current time in Libya http://www.islamicfinder.org/cityPrayerNew.php?country=libya">Prayer times in Libya

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x974800">Day 70 here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixwx_B38678">Marching On in Libya, for the revolutionaries!

A rebel prays next to his weapon with a Free Libya Flag painted on it

Photograph: EPA

http://www.economist.com/node/18621779?story_id=18621779&fsrc=rss">Pressure points
IN A war where the balance of advantage appears to shift from one side to the other almost every day, identifying a turning point is bound to be risky. But developments in the besieged city of Misrata in the past few days could be one of them.

On April 23rd and 24th there was something close to euphoria on the rebel side when forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Qaddafi began to pull out of the devastated central parts of the city, where they had murdered and terrorised the town’s people for the best part of two months. The increasing effectiveness of rebel fighters, some armed with Western anti-tank weapons smuggled in from Benghazi by sea, was one factor behind the withdrawal of the government snipers and mortar teams. Another was the steadily mounting toll of NATO air strikes on loyalist supply lines. A recent announcement by the Pentagon that it was throwing two armed Predator drones into the fray may also have had a psychological impact.

...

Nor is Misrata the only point of pressure on Colonel Qaddafi. In the past few days, NATO’s targeting strategy has evolved. Recognising that air power could only have limited effects against dispersed forces engaged in small-scale tactical engagements that have little effect on the overall strategic position, NATO is stepping up its attacks on the palaces, military headquarters and communications centres that are critical to the regime’s ability both to sustain its campaign of violence and to convince wavering supporters that it will survive. On April 25th Norwegian F-16s hit Colonel Qaddafi’s residential compound in the middle of Tripoli, destroying administrative offices and a command centre. After a separate attack, state television was briefly forced off the air.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20110429-333555/Libyan-rebels-recapture-border-post">Libyan rebels recapture border post
TUNIS—Rebels and forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi battled Thursday over control of a key border post, fighting on both sides of the Libya-Tunisia frontier, sources said.

Rebels recaptured the Dehiba border post after heavy fighting killed eight soldiers of forces loyal to Gadhafi, just hours after the strongman's troops took control of the crossing.

On the Libyan side of the border, the rival camps exchanged artillery fire in the early evening, causing panic among civilians, a witness told AFP.

Several ambulances came from Tunisia into Libya to evacuate the wounded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/opinion/29iht-edcohen29.html?_r=1">The Price of Delusion
BENGHAZI, LIBYA — Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is a vain man. Like the other Arab dinosaurs he has his dyed hair, his designer shades, his spoiled children and his compound full of sycophants. He doesn’t want, one day, to be dragged from a rat hole like Saddam Hussein or hauled from a bunker like the Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo.

So what’s his calculation? Does he have one at all? Here in liberated eastern Libya, where the tricolor Qaddafi banished now flies over hundreds of miles of Mediterranean coastline, I had dinner with an official who’s met with the colonel several times and described him as coherent and articulate. Qaddafi is not mad.

...

Yes, the country’s current split reflects old tribal division, the Tripolitania of the west and Cyrenaica of the east. No, a breakup cannot be imagined, the east-west web of relationships and loyalties and family ties is dense. Libya is not Yugoslavia. The lawyer-leaders of an uprising that rose in fury at a lawyer’s detention and takes the courthouse as its symbol believe that the rule of law can come to all of Libya and its wealth be distributed among more than a favored coterie.

...

I cannot see a road back for Qaddafi whatever the current stalemate. What “victory” can he imagine now, despised by most of his people, isolated in the awakening Arab world? The pressure will mount. Those he suppressed in Tripoli will be emboldened again.

http://enoughgaddafi.com/?p=606">Benghazi or Bust, part 1
Spring came early to Egypt. Well at least it felt early for a Chicagoan. It was 75 degrees and sunny in Alexandria. Yet less than day ago I was in the Midwest and coping miserably with the below freezing temperatures. I embraced the joy that the warm weather and new environment brought me, but I knew I wasn’t on vacation. I was on a journey to my war torn motherland, Libya. Benghazi’s airport was out of commission and the no fly zone underway. The only route into opposition-held Libya was through the Egyptian border, which was controlled by the “shabab.”

The few days I spent in Alexandria blurred by until I met a young Libyan engineer now freedom fighter named Faisel. He had come with a caravan transporting the wounded to a local hospital because every hospital in the eastern Libya was overwhelmed and understaffed. Faisel was doing more than serving his country on this particular mission: His childhood best friend, Omar, was among the wounded, in a coma in the ICU. A Russian rocket, in Ras Lanuf, had critically wounded Faisel’s comrade, his face unrecognizable from the shrapnel. We were waiting in the hospital lobby for the visiting hours. Faisel pointed at his head and showed me the bald spot the size of a baseball.

"One month ago (Western countries) were sooo nice, so nice like pussycats," Saif says in a contemptuous sing-song tone."Now they want to be really aggressive like tigers. (But) soon they will come back, and cut oil deals, contracts. We know this game." - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058389,00.html">Saif Gaddafi

(Yeah, Saif, as if you weren't "cutting oil deals, contracts" with western states. Who are the 'tigers' now? Bombing your own people.)

http://english.libya.tv/2011/04/25/eastern-libyans-believe-in-national-unity-distrust-au-and-turkish-mediation-survey-reveals/">The first free public opinion poll ever conducted in Libya reveals clues to Eastern Libyan sentiments
* 98 percent of the respondents do not support the division of Libya as a part of the political solution for the current conflict with the Gaddafi regime. Around 95 percent also don’t see any role for Gaddafi or his sons in a transitional period, and think it is impossible to implement any political reform in Libya if Gaddafi or one of his sons stays in power

* Around 96 percent of those polled, believe that the 17th of February revolution can consolidate the national unity of Libya and support the model of a democratic Libya based on a constitution which respects human rights

* Al-Qaeda has not played any role in the 17th of February revolution, say 94 percent of the Eastern Libyans, and 91 percent thinks it’s impossible for Al-Qaeda to play any political role in the new Libya

* The National Transitional Council is seen by 92 percent of those surveyed as “expressing the views and wishes of Libyans for change”

This is equivalent to 17% the entire population of Libya, doing the numbers very conservatively.

http://jenkinsear.com/2011/03/19/a-legal-war-the-united-nations-participation-act-and-libya/">A Legal War: The United Nations Participation Act and Libya
The above link is to an overview of why Obama's implementation of the NFZ and R2P is perfectly legal under the law. I will not post it entirely here, however, all objections come down to the misinformed position that Obama, by using forces in Libya, was invoking Article 43 of the United Nations. This is wrong. Obama invoked Article 42, which does not require congressional approval to implement. Proof of this is that Article 43 has http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/actions.shtml#rel5">never been used.

It goes like this: The US law (Title 22, Chap. 7, Subchap. XIV § 287d) grants the President the right to invoke UN Article 42 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00000287---d000-.html">without authorization, the War Powers Act (Title 50, Chap. 33 § 1541) grants the President permission to act without authorization under http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1541–1548.html">"specific statutory authorization" which, by definition, is what 287d does. § 1543 of the War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama_explains_libya_mission_to_congress/2011/03/03/ABU9377_blog.html">which he did. One can argue all day and night about the legality of the War Powers Act, doesn't change the fact that under the law as it is written, the President acted within the law.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-10-0">March 10 7:28pm Saif al Islam Gaddafi says "the time has come for full-scale military action" against Libyan rebels. He goes on to say that Libyan forces loyal to his family "will never surrender, even if western powers intervene".

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2011/03/2011328194855872276.html">Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it
Fortunately, the Council wasn't made-in-the-USA or manufactured by another foreign power. Rather it came into existence, a month ago, at Libyans' own initiative, soon after the winds of revolutionary change blew Libya's way, and after its people rose to the occasion with pride and courage.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/31/getting_libyas_rebels_wrong">Getting Libya's Rebels Wrong
Don't buy Qaddafi's line: The rebels aren't al Qaeda.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson#ixzz1HvS7iW22">Who Are the Rebels?
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/vision-democratic-libya-interim-national-council">A vision of a democratic Libya
The interim national council, formed by opposition groups in Libya, has said it will hold free and fair elections and draft a national constitution. Here is its eight-point plan in full.

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/04/20/left-slipping-towards-qaddafi">The left: slipping towards Qaddafi?
When the revolt against Qaddafi started in Libya, hardly anyone on the left — however broadly defined — could say anything in defence of Qaddafi.

With the start of the "no-fly zone", many on the left started to sideline the issues within Libya and focus their efforts on denouncing NATO.

Now the denunciation of NATO, in turn, is acting as a lever to introduce defence of Qaddafi and denunciation of the rebels into broad-left discourse.

...

Everything is done by insinuation and sarcasm, just as old-style Stalinists used to deflect criticism of the USSR by studied wondering whether the regime was quite as bad as extreme Western right-wingers used to say, or whether the right-wingers' motives for criticism might be suspect.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/is-qaddafi-an-anti-racist/">Is Qaddafi an anti-racist?

...

One of the signs that you are dealing with a cruder form of propaganda is if the author does not bother to address evidence that contradicts his or her own. To be taken seriously on the question of Qaddafi’s commitment to pan-African values, you have to take a close look at his overall record, something that does not interest Forte who is so anxious to tilt the scales in favor of Qaddafi that he does not bother to conceal the fact that his hand rests upon the scale.

...

Mohammed Nabbous, killed by Gaddafi's forces while trying to report on the massacre in Benghazi

"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to lose the battle" -Mohammed Nabbous, a month ago when all this began

I'm struggling to come up with something to say about this man. I was not aware of the Libyan uprising until I saw Mo's first report, begging for help, posted here on DU. I was stricken. Here was a man giving everything he had to explain a situation that clearly terrified him, I would not call him a coward in that moment, but you could see the fear in his eyes, and desperation in his voice. For 30 days Nabbous would spend many hours covering the uprising in Benghazi. For many nights I would go to sleep with the webcast of Benghazi live on my computer screen, looking to it occasionally to be sure it was still 'there.' Mo treated the chat room as if we were his friends, and in some way, we were. I never signed up to LiveStream to thank him for all his work and it seems somewhat shallow to do so now, given that I was a lurker for so long. Ever since I took over posting these threads "Libya Alhurra" has been linked as a source of information. It wasn't until last night, when I posted, and twitter posted on Mo's adventures out into Benghazi to try to determine the truth of the situation, that Mo's webchannel became a hit, over 2000 people were watching him stream live. This was curious to him because he'd done many reports like this in the past but he appeared somewhat bemused that the view count exploded as it did. Last night Mo became a star. This is a man who first started out with a webcast replete with fear and desperation finally overcoming that aspect of himself and losing that fear, to become someone who was a fighter for the resistance just as much as those who held the guns. Reporting on the front lines of Benghazi became his final act, and for that he should never, ever be forgotten. I'm so sorry Mo that I never got to know you better.

Mo's first report, which many of you may remember, begging for help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg

Mo's last report, a fallen hero trying to spread the word to the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu_iWLn-rg

Mo leaves behind a wife who is with child, she had http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/23/a_bright_voice_from_libyas_darkness">this to say about the No Fly Zone and R2P UN resolution:

We started this in a pure way, but he turned it bloody. Thousands of our men, women, and children have died. We just wanted our freedom, that's all we wanted, we didn't want power. Before, we could not do a single thing if it was not the way he wanted it. All we wanted was freedom. All we wanted was to be free. We have paid with our blood, with our families, with our men, and we're not going to give up. We are still going to do that no matter what it takes, but we need help. We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore.