“The unfreezing of £100bn in Libyan assets by the UN this weekend has fired the starting gun for a fierce battle for influence being waged by the country’s militias, in which the frontline is set to be Tripoli’s international airport. The glittering prize immediately in prospect is a consignment of several billion dinars, printed in Germany, which is due to be flown into Libya on board five cargo planes. Whoever controls the airport when the cash arrives will be able to levy a hefty security fee for delivering it to the country’s central bank. But the fight to control the airport is part of a far wider battle for political and economic dominance in the new Libya; one that pits the various factions who united to overthrow the Gaddafi regime against each other, as well as remnants of thedictator’s defeated military………….” Libyans have just been liberated by NATO warplanes and special forces: just as Iraqis were liberated by the West a few years ago, just as the Syrians might be soon. Instead of getting on with the job of rebuilding the country, the militias are fighting, essentially, over the carrion left by the dictator. There have been more of these violent rivalries in the past weeks, with casualties. It is possible that soon every Libyan militia will be identified by the Arab regime that supports and finances and arms it. There will be a Saudi militia, a Qatari militia, a UAE militia, and possibly even an Iranian militia. An Egyptian as well. It will be like Lebanon in the old days, like Lebanon these days. Except that the Lebanese militias kept within certain bounds and followed certain rules, especially when they were not massacring helpless Palestinian refugees (Sabra & Shatila) and other Lebanese. The Libyans have their own money, but some will have much more of it than others, hence the foreign financing. But then, the Libyan may surprise me and put their house in order. Cheers
mhg
BFF “Najwa Alazabi has another first name, Tiarina, but under Muammar Qaddafi’s rule she could never use it. Tiarina is a traditional name of Amazighs, a North African ethnic minority also known as Berber, and expressions of the Amazigh culture and script were forbidden in Qaddafi’s Libya……… The Amazigh are the original inhabitants of North Africa. Generations of conquerors have slowly eroded the Berber culture and language, while conversion to Islam and the promotion of Arabic as the language of God encouraged assimilation. Qaddafi’s policy of strict Arabization struck a final blow to their identity. Under his rule, Amazigh names, cultural symbols, and their written language were all forbidden. Amazigh activists were routinely harassed and, often, imprisoned. The Amazigh make up approximately eight or nine percent of Libya’s 5.7 million, according to Berber scholars, although after centuries of mixing between Arabs and Amazigh, no one can be sure……….Today, their conception of the own identity can carry some contradictions. Many view their culture as both different and not so different from that of Arabs. Defining themselves in opposition to the dominant Arab identity of Libya could bring them trouble in a country known for strident Arab nationalism…………”
Don’t expect any real improvement of the lot of the Amazigh. Not unless they force the issue. The new leaders were fed from the breasts of Muammar Qaddafi and his regime. Cheers
mhg
In the new liberated Libya there is a struggle between rival factions of the new regime. The main struggle is between “moderate” Islamists and “radical ”Islamists. The former are represented by some regime figures, such as NTC leader Mustafa Abduljaleel who says that the new Libya will remove the Qaddafi restrictions on polygamy (I expect the US Congress to invite him to address a joint session just for that, and to honor him with rousing standing ovations). He also says that Libyan law will be Islamic Shari’a law, although he has not bothered to ask the Libyan people yet.
The less moderate Islamists are the Salafis who want an even stricter Islamic society like Saudi Arabia or the Taliban. They have been clamoring to imitate the Saudi Wahhabis in tearing down ancient mosques and monuments as “haram” or taboo. In Mecca, some of the most ancient Islamic monuments from the days of the Prophet have been erased and replaced with five star hotels and shopping malls. Homes of the Prophet and his early sahaba supporters lost to the greed of princes and potentates. I have written here in the past about the transformation of Mecca as the new Las Vegas without the legal “diversions” of the one in Nevada. An unforgivable and irreversible crime.
Arab media reports
tell us the Libyan Salafis are already eying some mosques and shrines that are centuries old, with plans to tear them down and erase all traces o them. In their place, they might want to erect murals of the king of Saudi Arabia and all the senior princes.
All sides of the new Libya are fully armed and ready. I expect the secular exiles who rushed home when the dictator seemed about to fall to be thinking of their plans B and C. Cheers
mhg
“Al-Asaad told us that despite being grossly under-resourced, he is getting more and more recruits every day. The latest reports put the size of the armed opposition force at anywhere between 1,000 and 25,000. In his interview, the colonel told us that he unequivocally is not seeking a coup and supports the Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative of the people. He also stressed that the force he is assembling is inclusive and non-sectarian. Finally, he makes a plea to U.S. President Barack Obama to offer quick and decisive support for the resistance and underscores that the establishment of a buffer zone, as proposed by Turkey and France, could accelerate defections and change the course of the conflict……….”
The Syrians who did not like American intervention in Iraq are now eager for American and French and British (and possibly Israeli) intervention in Syria. That is after the NATO intervention in Libya, which was aided and abetted by the Arabs. The hypocrisy some Arab leaders, and some opinion-makers of the Wahhabi faux-liberal stripe, especially in the Gulf GCC, is breath-taking (I like this last word more and more these days). These Arabs cheered and helped and participated in the invasion (or liberation) of Iraq, only to turn around and bitterly criticize it when things did not go their way. They even pushed for a second American liberation of Iraq, a retake, just to set things right from the Wahhabi point of view. They practically pushed (an eager) NATO to intervene and liberate Libya from its ruling dynasty even as they helped chain the people of Bahrain to their repressive and corrupt dynasty of thieves. Now they want to the USA and NATO to liberate Syria from its ‘current’ despotic rulers. Some claim they want the West to liberate Syria from the Assad regime, others that they want NATO to liberate Syria (politically) from Iran, some say they want it liberated from both. Some of them also want to liberate Syria fully by aligning it with the royal theocracy of the People’s Democratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I wonder if they also want to liberate the Golan, and from whom. Cheers
mhg
BFF “Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country’s new government. The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”, “disappeared” in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law. The report will come as uncomfortable reading for the Western governments, including Britain, which backed the campaign to oust Gaddafi……..”
Some of the news out of “liberated” Libya doesn’t sound good for the future. Most of the current leaders of the “new” Libya were either men who served under Qaddafi for many years, or fundamentalists who were in prison or exile. None of the above have any experience with nor any attachment to things like democracy, freedom of religion, or freedom of expression. There are a few who were in exile in Western academic institution, and have aspirations for democracy and freedoms but they are a few who don’t have the political base that the others, the darker forces, have. Cheers
mhg
BFF “Huneish Nasr last saw the boss he served for 30 years standing in the ruins of Sirte looking confused as all hell broke loose around them. “Everything was exploding,” said Nasr, Muammar Gaddafi’s personal driver, recalling the moments before the deposed dictator was caught last week. “The revolutionaries were coming for us. He wasn’t scared, but he didn’t seem to know what to do. It was the only time I ever saw him like that.” Minutes later, euphoric rebels had ended Gaddafi’s last stand, over-running the ruined quarter of his birthplace that had served as his final, ignominious refuge. Nasr said he threw his hands up in surrender as gun-toting rebels approached. He was knocked to the ground with a rifle butt, which blackened his left eye. Gaddafi was being pulled from a drainpipe just before Nasr fell …………..”
Why only interview Qaddafi’s old driver? There are scores of Qaddafi’s former minions in power now in the new Libya, why not interview them? They certainly can tell more ‘juicy’ tales than this man. Maybe they don’t want to embarrass folks like Mustafa Abdul Jalil and others of the NTC by asking them about their years working with and for Qaddafi. Cheers
mhg
BFF “Worried they might return with provocative tales of a populist uprising that just toppled another Middle East dictator, strongman Kim Jong Il has issued a decree to North Koreans in Libya –- don’t bother coming home. The ban was an effort to prevent word of the often-violent Arab uprisings from reaching the isolated regime, illustrating Kim’s concern about potential social unrest at home inspired by the Arab Spring revolutions, according to stories published in the South Korean press. The move has left an estimated 200 North Koreans stranded as country-less orphans. They include doctors, nurses and construction workers sent to Libya to bring hard currency back to their impoverished country, which many say is experiencing food shortages..……..”
This odd story is just a reminder that even the worst of Arab despots (there are about 20 of them) are mild pussycats compared to the Kims of the People’s Republic of Korea. Maybe some of our Gulf regimes can use these stranded North Koreans. The UAE now has a mercenary force led by Blackwater veterans and composed of Colombians, Australians, White South Africans and others. They can always add some Asian flavor to the mix. The regime in Bahrain has been in the foreign mercenary business even longer, they can now add a few dazed North Koreans to their current mirthless mix of Pakistanis and Jordanians.
Back in May 2006, when the West (USA) and the Great Libyan Socialist Jamahiriya were becoming fast friends. Americans were asked a question: “Libya says it will work with the United States to spread democracy. What do you think?…..”
The answers were “interesting” if not necessarily brilliant:
“If we really want Libya to help spread democracy, we’d better give them their (WMD) weapons back.”
“Libya might seem like an unlikely partner, but, given our current international standing, every partner is an unlikely partner.”
A favorite: “The same thing happened with my boyfriend and me, sort of. As soon as I agreed to give up my virginity, he agreed to remove me from his personal list of state-sponsors of terrorism.”
Warning: people in certain places in our region may find this posting offensive. In fact they may not find it even humorous. This includes people in: Jordan, Palestinian Territories, Central Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi, among other places. Cheers
mhg
BFF Al-Quds al-Arabi from London quotes Iranian president Ahmadinejad that Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was killed in order to keep many secrets he could have exposed, secret. He said among the secrets were the amounts of money Qaddafi paid to European leaders especially for their election campaigns. He also said the Western powers seek to appoint their own ‘friends’ in power inn Libya. Now, I am not usually a believer in conspiracies, and I am not sure I buy the idea that NATO somehow got the GCC and other Arabs to ask it for intervention. But when I saw Qaddafi wounded but quite alive and then I saw him dead, I suspected something. Qaddafi, like every leader, carries many secrets. Some of them are secrets about Western leaders. I would have loved to hear of the role of the British government, British businesses, and American banks and Tony Blair, in the release of al-Migrahi (Clinton now claims she wants him re-arrested). His take on the “non raunchy” photos of Condi Rice would have been interesting. I would also be interested in what he had to say about some leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC). Many of them were his minions. Mustafa AbdulJalil was his minister of “justice”. Some of them are as responsible for the excesses of the regime as Qaddafi’s sons were.
It would have been a positive point for the “new” Libya if he had been tried, with lawyers, just as Saddam was tried for three years. Before being hanged. Then maybe some of these hypocritical Arab media would have slammed his executioners, just as they did the executioners of Saddam. Cheers
mhg
“The book recounts her signature diplomatic ventures, including a landmark nuclear accord with India salvaged in a last-minute negotiation and a Middle East peace initiative that came achingly close to bringing Israelis and Palestinians together. She also bluntly assesses foreign leaders. Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, “looked as though he was on drugs.” After shaking hands with President Émile Lahoud of Lebanon, she writes, she felt as if she needed a shower. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt rejected reform, saying, “Egyptians need a strong hand, and they don’t like foreign interference.” As for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, who was killed Thursday after a revolution, Ms. Rice adds details about his well-known “eerie fascination with me.” She writes that he made a video showing pictures of her while a song called “Black Flower in the White House” played. “It was weird,” she writes, “but at least it wasn’t raunchy.”……….” “Raunchy” is like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. Old Colonel Qaddafi was quite a raunchy old man. What innocent poor Condoleezza Rice
was not aware of is that what is not “raunchy” in America is most
likely very raunchy in Libya. It’ll get even raunchier when the Islamists dominate the new “free” Libya. Also, Condi shook hands with the Lebanese
president and apparently he gave her the creeps: she had to rake a
shower afterwards. Maybe he came across as some kind of sleaze bag. I wonder if she ever shook hands with the prime
minister of Bahrain or the President of Yemen or….. . She would need a cocktail of “Raid” and “Clorox”
afterwards.
Rattlesnake Ridge 
BFF 
