Libya

[Ludwig]

Gaddafi on Facebook
http://www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/upl ... sation.jpg

Are you sure that isn't Bono hiding behind those specs?

No, they're totally different. One is a pompous, megalomaniacal twat, the other is the president of Libya.

[JohnB]

Are you sure that isn't Bono hiding behind those specs?

No idea. One of the great things about not having a telly is that you don't get to see famous people's ugly mugs. I have no idea what most people in the news look like . I wouldn't even recognise most of our government!

[Aurora]

Are you sure that isn't Bono hiding behind those specs?

No, they're totally different. One is a pompous, megalomaniacal twat, the other is the president of Libya.

[biffvernon]

[Aurora]

Voldemort? Had to look that one up on Google I'm afraid.

I might have known! Another ridiculous character from one of the books of shite featuring Harry Potter.

Rowling has got a lot to answer for; what a load of old bollocks!

[biffvernon]

Aurora, you are clearly more than twelve years old and therefore completely out of touch with the zeitgeist.

Anyway I thought it a good picture.

[Aurora]

Aurora, you are clearly more than twelve years old and therefore completely out of touch with the zeitgeist.

Thank god for that.

[Aurora]

BBC News - 26/02/11

People in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, are braced for further battles after the country's leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi, said he would open weapons depots to arm his supporters.

Article continues ...

The last despotic act of a doomed tyrant.

[snow hope]

Somebody needs to assasinate the bugger before hundreds more are killed.

Separately, Gadafi armed the IRA many years back and was the cause of hundreds of deaths in N Ireland.

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/feb20 ... -f25.shtml

Good quality Marxist analysis on the events in Libya and the prospects of imperialist military intervention.

The situation of foreign citizens stranded in Libya, notably in isolated oil exploration camps, is certainly difficult. In some cases looters have taken their supplies and vehicles, making it impossible for them to leave. Oil companies that employed these workers had ten days to organise transport over the border into Egypt, or into Benghazi and onto a boat, but did not.

Using evacuations as a pretext to plan or carry out a military intervention in Libya, however, would be utterly reactionary. The task of defeating Gaddafi belongs to the Libyan working class and oppressed masses, not to foreign imperialism or its local proxies.

The main aims driving a Western intervention would be to protect the major oil firms’ holdings in Libya, create a compliant regime to replace Gaddafi, and try to break the wave of revolutionary struggles in North Africa—most notably in Libya’s neighbors, Egypt and Tunisia. Any such deployment must be opposed by workers around the world.

Interventions are being actively discussed by major European media outlets. In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, “The time for indecision has passed. In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi is waging war against his own people… Europe must issue a credible threat. The best thing would be a coalition with the Arab League, Egypt and the African Union—a coalition which, outfitted with a United Nations mandate, could militarily re-establish peace in Libya.”

Already, the prospects of direct NATO control over Libya's black gold is making some imperialists excited.

The conservative Die Welt wrote with undisguised anticipation that “what is happening on the far shore of the Mediterranean is the opportunity of a century.”

How would a NATO neo-colonial war in Libya work?

The US or European powers would hesitate to intervene in Libya without backing from the Arab League, and perhaps direct military support from one or more Arab states, for fear that the imperialist character of the intervention would be too evident. Egypt appears to be a likely candidate, especially due to its military’s close ties with Washington.

Al Arab, a Qatari newspaper, quoted official Egyptian sources, stating that the military government in Egypt might intervene to protect its citizens in Libya. Egypt considered the remarks of Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, accusing Egyptians of conspiring in the uprising in Libya—an explicit incitement against Egypt, he added.

Writing in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, Ian Birrell—who has been tipped to take over as Cameron’s director of communications—suggested that “it is possible the only solution is a rapid intervention led by perhaps Egypt or Tunisia, whose armies have won respect in recent weeks, to winkle Gaddafi out of his air base and end his appalling regime. It would have to be endorsed by the Arab League and such events are highly dangerous and unpredictable. The alternative, however, may be worse.”

Birrell’s proposal is equally reactionary. It would drag Egypt and Tunisia into a bloody conflict, as proxies for the imperialist powers, and allow their governments—as they face a revolutionary challenge by the masses—to demand emergency powers, citing the exigencies of war.

[biffvernon]

[2 As and a B]

Can't the UN do a leaflet drop, organise a telethon, sponsor a Libyan orphan or something, anything to stop this carnage of war on an unarmed population?

[madibe]

unarmed?

[jonny2mad]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing ... 58a235970d

obama sanctions on libya yup

[biffvernon]