"...a deep and spreading frenzy, particularly among
some of the youth militia and the Islamists..."
some of the youth militia and the Islamists..."
Vengeance hangs thick in the air of post-Gaddafi Libya, where just about anybody can be cornered and accused by roving bands of witch-huntin' rebels of being a 'former regime loyalist'. This includes much of the nominal NTC leadership, adding to their own individual fears of rebel militias they have little or no control over. chaos,
Besides 'justice' of the sort spontaneously administered to Muammar Gaddafi, they've shipped-off over 7000 folks they didn't like the looks of to concentration camps and old regime prisons. With no working justice system in place whatsoever, it's difficult to ascertain just what awaits these hapless individuals.
But the real problem is infighting amongst Libya's six hunded (!) armed-to-the-teeth tribes, some of whom have been going at it since Roman times, and who are now itching to try out their cool new toys on each other.
Anyone who expected this hyper-factionalized society to get along now that they're no longer being forced to by Gaddafi
-and with newly acquired weapons- and should consider the eye-for-an-eye, zero sum mentality that permeates this archaic region of the world.
In tribal Arab lands such as Libya (where kindness means weakness), many of these clans -often from neighboring towns- will be locked in a continuous cycle of hatred and vengeance (like a dog chasing it's own tail) 'til the Sun goes supernova.
Now thanks to NATO, it's like if you gave both the Hatfields and McCoys an infantry division and told them to 'play nice'. The only thing holding the rebels together previously was opposition to Gaddafi. With him gone/heir apparent Saif al-Islam Gaddafi now captured (video below), that unity is sure to dissolve- and we're seeing a bit of that already.
Anyone who expected this hyper-factionalized society to get along now that they're no longer being forced to by Gaddafi
-and with newly acquired weapons- and should consider the eye-for-an-eye, zero sum mentality that permeates this archaic region of the world.
In tribal Arab lands such as Libya (where kindness means weakness), many of these clans -often from neighboring towns- will be locked in a continuous cycle of hatred and vengeance (like a dog chasing it's own tail) 'til the Sun goes supernova.
Now thanks to NATO, it's like if you gave both the Hatfields and McCoys an infantry division and told them to 'play nice'. The only thing holding the rebels together previously was opposition to Gaddafi. With him gone/heir apparent Saif al-Islam Gaddafi now captured (video below), that unity is sure to dissolve- and we're seeing a bit of that already.
I am sorry to say it, but Libya, Egypt, and likely Syria will be unmitigated disasters by the time it's all said and done, as the only stable scenarios now look to involve Islamic dictatorships, ala Iran. This ghastly situation in the ME will be the direct result of an incompetent, aloof, and clueless 'lead from behind' Obama foreign policy. chaos,
If the media in the US would have fulfilled their (unwritten) Constitutional duty (implicit in the right to a free press) to keep the president on his toes, perhaps Dear Leader would have had to explain some while back why we're borrowing money just to turn countries into scenes from Mad Max- and for no benefit to the US whatsoever.
So take the ball and run with it, GOP: the United States is about to enter a new, Republican-ruled era where our own country's commercial and security interests should take precedent over all other considerations in foreign policy- exactly same as you'd expect from the Chinese, Russians, or pretty much anybody else (except us, to this point).
Barack Obama -who never had any idea who he was helping in Libya- now owns this mess, yet the case for war was philosophically contrary to almost everything he's ever said in the past, particularly when bloviating on Bush/Iraq in 2006-2008.
Thus, the issue provides a golden opportunity: imho, today's GOP should now go all-out with a new "America First" policy, not isolationist in the Ron Paul or Pat Buchanan vein -nor the nation-building Freedom Agenda of the Bush era- but actually as characterized in that quote by Donald Trump a few months back: 'I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil'.
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| alshahid |
Just ask yourself for a minute if the Chinese or Russians would lift a finger anywhere without expecting major military basing, oil, or mineral concessions... please.
And us? Broke-as-a-joke, while facing soaring international competition for resources, trade, and strategic assets: time to focus on securing this country's future peace through strength on all these fronts, we don't have time nor money for anything else at this point- that's just the reality.
There is zero need to try and 'spread democracy' to countries with the Islamists waiting in the wings to grab the power levers (and that means in the imaginary nation of 'Palestine', too).
Meanwhile, the United States of America teeters on the edge of default while we waste valuable resources giving Al Qaeda and the Islamic Brotherhood their own countries.
Yet, those in the West unaware or willfully ignorant of how only dictators have any real staying power in the Middle East are about to receive an abject lesson in just why that is. Whether Libya shatters into tribal factions or consolidates into an unpalatable Islamic caliphate, it can always get worse than the devil-you-know: this country now possesses all the ingredients necessary for a number of unwelcome scenarios for the West.
Here recently captured Saif al-Islam Gaddafi warns the rebels who captured him of the 'untrustworthy' Islamist leaders they're empowering in Libya today:
For all Gaddafi's crimes and atrocities of the 1980s and 90s, by the mid-2000s he was about the only ME dictator who was working to appease the West: you can laugh at the outfits and theatrics, but the Libyan despot turned over the Locherbie bombers/paid compensation to victims, was doing deals with BP, winding down weapons programs, co-ordinating in the global war on terror, etc.
This Reaganite did not change on the issue of Gaddafi: rather, it was he who had changed, and pretty much everything we have been asking him for.
Col Gaddafi also did not allow Islamist terrorists in Libya.
This was mostly out of self-interest... but why should that matter?
How grateful do you think the new regime
will be in -say- five years, btw?
And how many terrorists do you think
are in the country now...?
are in the country now...?
