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As usual, Farrakhan tells it like it truly is!
The Zionists (ADL) are controlling this Libya insurgence, and even went so far as to contaminate the $5M loan Gaddaffi extended to the the Nation Of Islam while Threatening the Chicago black bank; The Liberty Bank, and Black business, Johnson Products.
These Zionists are like a cross between Roaches and leaches.
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The point is Gaddafi has been President of Libya too long. That's not good--even though so-called democratic political powers stay in power through machinations for more 50 years sometimes.
Point too is that It's up to Libyans to determine how long the Gaddafi regime and system of government should continue.
The people of South Africa and Zimbabwe overthrew the white settler regimes(partially) without devils like France, Britain and the U.S. putting boots on the ground in their defence.
Whenever you hear France, Britain and the U.S. wanting to liberate any people it would be like a Catholic priest adopting a young boy. Just say no!
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Are we talking about now philosophical questions or Qhadifi's crimes against his people? I do not mind to change the topic, but if the question is, freedom is a state of mind or the human flesh can never be "free", then what you are saying could be translated, that the slavery revorlt in Haiti was vain, because humans can never be "free".
What you had in Libya in the last 40 years, was a man who totally requested obedience from his people, for a exchange for a welfare state from cradle to grave. And he was also preparing for his people, that his sons to take over after he was gone. The state might had the highest incomst pr. person in Africa, but you would hardly find strong institutions (judiciary, academical, press, unions, even military!)- any institut that would challenge the power, and he did nothing in the last 40 years, where he had plenty of time to do it. He only knew how to survive -and he was a master of this game- that is why he sought reconciliation from the West after 9/11. Now the West want him out - not that they could not find agreement (Qhadafi would be more than happy to serve the West, if only the West let him alone), but the burning point was how to stop the Arab nationalism reaching across North Africa and the Middle East, and most importantly, the survival of House of Saud.
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The survival of House of Saud is a central point in Libya. If Qadhafi stays in power, that would worry the Saudis. And also, Qadhafi could arm Algerians to revolt against Bouteflika, and Algeria being the life line of France (remember when the Islamists won the election in 92? French military tanks were rolling in Algier few days after), France could not take any chances. The Arab nationalism had to be stopped, before it reached in Algeria and Chad (another very hot place!!).
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That you would compare Haiti under the French to Libya under Qhadafi shows how much of a simpleton you are. Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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Qadhafi does not have wide support of his people, but he has oil, oil that can buy him survival, which he used in the last 40 years, and unlike Mubareek and Bin Ali. That is also one reason what makes him dangerous in the eyes of the West.
And the comparison of Haiti and Libya. Neither the Libyan people under Qadhafi or the slaves were free.
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quote:Originally posted by anguishofbeing: That you would compare Haiti under the French to Libya under Qhadafi shows how much of a simpleton you are.
Are you kidding? This is about as interesting as this thread has ever gotten. At least it's progressed from calling everyone "girls" and quarrelling over "kick ass" this that and the other. I don't know who this Arwa dude is but he (or she) sure knows how to put forward a compelling, reasoned argument.
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BTW, I would never ever compare the suffering of the slaves with the Qadhafi's crimes against his people, but bottom line is, neither these people were free.
I do not understand why you bring the question whether I am "free"? You always have a habit to poison a debat.
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I really do not understand why the left (Chavez) has such a heroic status of Qadhafi. The man did not even protected his state, and repeated the same mistakes Sadam did! The West tells him to give up his weapons, and he did. The West tells him to pay compensation of Lockerbie disaster, when there are no concrete evidances that Qadhafi was behind, but he bend down like a true servant and paid an astronomical figure! Is he really good for Libya? At least North Korea did not give up their weapons. Arabs could learn something from Kim.
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That is why it is difficult to talk about race issues in Libya.
quote:Vol. 33 No. 9 · 28 April 2011 pages 19-20 | 2947 words Is there a Libya? Issandr El Amrani
At the time of writing, there is a stalemate in Libya. Towns such as Misurata and al-Baida, waypoints between Cyrenaica in the east and Tripolitania in the west, have been alternately in rebel and loyalist hands. The international community rushed to the rebels’ support, then discovered that they were less militarily proficient than it thought, with the result that the Gaddafi regime appears to be regaining its footing. No one seems to know what Nato’s mission is exactly: is it to establish a no-fly zone, a no-drive zone, or bring about regime change? Multiple diplomatic efforts are underway to achieve a negotiated ceasefire, although none is having much success, and the Libyan Transitional National Council – the rebel body recognised by France, Italy, Qatar and the Maldives as the legitimate government – has begun to show signs of internal division. A military standoff is a real possibility and even if Nato were to settle on an alternative strategy, such as arming and training the rebels, this would hardly guarantee their success; loyalist forces have considerable reserves of cash and gold with which to acquire weapons, and the country is used to a black economy that would alleviate the impact of sanctions.
In February, when the uprising began, the situation looked very different. One town after another fell to the rebels and the regime’s reaction was slow and clumsy. In the context of the toppling of Tunisia’s Ben-Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak just weeks before, the success of the rebellion seemed a safe bet, particularly when France unexpectedly recognised the Transitional National Council after Bernard-Henri Lévy persuaded Sarkozy to act quickly. Only a few years before, Sarkozy had given Gaddafi a warm welcome in Paris and, when criticised for it, pointed in his defence to Libya’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons programme, and, more obliquely, to the lucrative market the country offered French industry. But now Sarkozy needs to drum up some support in France.
The current de facto division of Libya into east and west, roughly along the boundaries of the old Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, reflects the absence of any strong historical links between the two regions, which are separated by a 300-mile stretch of desert where the Gulf of Sirte swoops down to brush the 30th Parallel. Indeed, Libya had no history of political unity before its creation by the UN on 24 December 1951. At the beginning of the 20th century, the provinces of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fazzan, in the south-west, had been under the nominal control of the Sublime Porte for about 400 years. Their population of around a million, two-thirds of whom lived in Tripolitania, consisted mostly of nomadic pastoralists. Disease and famine ensured that the number remained stable for more than a century. Europeans had romantic notions of the provinces’ ancient history – the coast had been controlled at various points by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines – and the ruined temples these civilisations had left behind. (America’s connection with what is now Libya is even more superficial, for all that the US Marine Corps hymn begins with the lines: ‘From the halls of Montezuma/To the shores of Tripoli’.) They were the last area of North Africa to attract the attention of European colonisers, although during the 19th century the Banco di Roma established branches along the coast. In 1911, Italy, a latecomer to empire, decided to annex Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and turn them into what the proto-Fascist Gabriele d’Annunzio called its ‘Fourth Shore’. After formally notifying the Ottoman Empire, the Italians launched an invasion, starting with the major coastal cities. It was not until 1913 that it got Tripolitania under control; Cyrenaica proved more difficult still. They managed to hold onto the coastal towns and turn them into garrisons, but they met fierce resistance from the Senussi, a religious order founded in Mecca in 1837 which combined Cyrenaica’s traditional Sufi teachings with Salafist ruminations on the need for an Islamic renewal. The Senussi had fought against French encroachments into southern Cyrenaica and Fazzan in 1902, and now turned their energies on the Italians. Interrupted during the First World War, when Italian troops were needed elsewhere, this ‘pacification’ would continue until 1943, when the Allies finally pushed out the Italians and Germans after the battle of al-Alamein.
In a brief section on the Italian period in A History of Modern Libya (2006), Dirk Vandewalle writes:
quote: It was, by any standard, a brutal and unsparing campaign of subjugation. Estimates of overall deaths among the Libyan population as a whole vary considerably, but one reliable source estimates that the number of deaths, from all causes except natural ones, from 1912 to 1943, was between 250,000 and 300,000, from a population that stood at between 800,000 and one million at the time. Most of these occurred during the Fascist period, when, by execution alone, an estimated 12,000 Cyrenaicans died in 1930 and in 1931.
By killing more than a quarter of the total population, the Italians substantially weakened the power and social structure of the Cyrenaican tribes and the Senussi order. They made a pretence of acting in the best interests of the locals: Mussolini, foreshadowing Gaddafi in his deadly buffoonery, even proclaimed himself Protector of Islam in Tripoli in 1937. Il Duce’s policies did provide a rare and lasting national icon, however, with the martyrdom of Omar al-Mukhtar, a Cyrenaican tribal sheikh who led the guerrilla efforts against the Italians. Al-Mukhtar was captured in September 1931, and Rodolfo Graziani, Italy’s commander-in-chief in Libya, hurried from Rome to give him a perfunctory trial. Some 20,000 tribesmen and notables were forced to attend his public hanging. His name is now used by the rebels as a rallying call, his portrait adorns walls throughout the east, and his war cry – ‘We will never surrender, we will win or die’ – has become the unofficial slogan of the uprising.
The Italian colonial era left behind a traumatised population, and a tradition, in some coastal towns, of excellent coffee. The Italians sent 110,000 settlers to what they now called Libya, building infrastructure such as ports and a two-lane coastal road that linked Tunisia to Egypt for the first time. (In 2009, on the occasion of the celebrations of Gaddafi’s 40th year in power, Berlusconi opened a new coastal highway that Italy had financed. The Italian air force flew overhead, its jets releasing green vapour trails in honour of the Gaddafi-era Libyan flag. The highway was the price Italy paid to get a share of Libya’s lucrative oil and arms contracts, along with a treaty of mutual friendship that prohibited war between the two countries. The treaty has now been suspended by Italy’s parliament.) Italy saw Libya as a solution to its own surplus population – most of the settlers were landless peasants lured by the prospect of eventually owning the farms set up by the colonial government’s land reclamation projects – and it never showed much interest in recruiting natives into the administration it had created. At most, they would be hired as menial wage labourers. As Vandewalle notes, Libyans’ early encounters with the modern state made the relative egalitarianism of the tribal way of life all the more appealing – which goes some way towards explaining Gaddafi’s stubborn suspicion of centralised authority, captured in the first sentence of his Green Book: ‘The instrument of government is the primary political problem facing human communities.’
After the Second World War political life of a sort emerged in the more cosmopolitan Tripolitania, which favoured unification of the provinces, while Cyrenaica continued to support the heir of the Senussi, Sayyid Idris al-Senussi, and refused to be part of any state not ruled by him. The inhabitants of Fazzan preferred to go on being ruled by the French. The Great Powers initially favoured the idea of three trusteeships: Italian in Tripolitania (where some 40,000 Italian settlers remained), British in Cyrenaica and French in Fazzan. The intensification of the Cold War in the late 1940s changed that view, with the US and Britain now seeing an independent Libya as more to their advantage: the trusteeship system did not allow for the establishment of military bases. As the American ambassador noted at the time, ‘a glance at the map shows the strategic value of Libya … without which there might have been little interest in the emergence of an Arab kingdom in North Africa … If Libya had passed under any form of United Nations trusteeship, it would have been impossible for the territory to play a part in the defence arrangements of the free world.’ Thus was created the United Kingdom of Libya, a portmanteau state born out of compromise, whose new ruler, the Senussi chief King Idris, now had to unite it. It was one of the poorest countries in the world, with an annual income per capita of about $25, a 94 per cent illiteracy rate and not a single doctor – to this day, Libya imports much of its medical know-how, while Libyan visitors ensure rich pickings for doctors in Malta and Tunisia. Its three component parts insisted on a strongly federal system, and in its first version, from 1951 to 1963, the kingdom maintained three distinct capitals. Its chief source of income until oil revenues began to flow in the late 1950s derived from the rental of two military bases to the Americans and the British; by the end of the 1950s, Libya received the highest volume of US aid per capita in the world.
The king and his entourage were able to accrue considerable personal power, particularly after oil extraction began, but authority was also devolved to the provincial and local level, blocking the creation of an effective national administration. The king maintained two Praetorian guards, the Cyrenaican Defence Force and Tripolitanian Defence Force, each composed of tribesmen loyal to the Senussis. Since the monarchy banned political parties, the parties that had emerged after the war – in Tripolitania the National Congress Party, in Cyrenaica the Omar al-Mukhtar Club – could not operate, and the idea of a unified Libya gained little traction. Idris himself was much more interested in the future of Cyrenaica, where he spent most of his time, than he was in being the ruler of Tripolitania. Even when the federal system was abolished in 1963 and the country became the Kingdom of Libya, much informal power remained in the hands of Idris’s entourage – Tripolitanian technocrats and the Senussi family itself, which was plotting to ensure the succession. In this it was not unlike the Libya of the last decade, when the only people with real power were the Gaddafi family, its extended tribe, and a few loyalist technocrats.
In 1969 Gaddafi and his Free Officers mounted their coup and easily overthrew a monarchy now increasingly perceived as corrupt, scheming and responsible for rising inflation. The income from foreign military bases was no longer needed now that petrodollars were gushing in and Idris’s conservative, pro-Western stance was resented. The monarchy’s chief enemy had been Radio Cairo, with its message of pan-Arab revolution, and Gaddafi idolised Nasser. The Free Officers wanted to be part of an Arab and Muslim nation rather than a Libyan one. Later on, after repeated clashes with other Arab leaders (notably King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whom it is alleged he tried to have assassinated in 2002 when he was still crown prince), Gaddafi gave up on his attempts to unify the Arab world. He played down his early Islamist, pan-Muslim ideology and looked south instead, appointing himself King of Africa through generous chequebook diplomacy.
The Gaddafi we know – the ‘mad dog’ of Libya, prone to rambling speeches, fancy dress and fits of megalomania, the object of ridicule in ‘Zenga Zenga’ videos on You Tube who takes his tent with him when he travels – was not always like that. On 1 September 1969, when he announced the overthrow of King Idris, Gaddafi was a handsome 27-year-old army officer who hoped to reverse the humiliation of the Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967. But he was also a member of a minor tribe that had settled in the Tripolitanian town of Sirte – where most of the key officers in the Libyan army still come from – and his politics were primarily regional.
It took eight years for him to turn Libya into a Jamahiriya, or republic of the masses, and another two to publish the Green Book, his semi-literate philosophy of governance. It was not until 1989 that he relinquished his own position in government and anointed himself, simply, as the revolution’s Guide. Each of these steps was accompanied by changes in Libya’s political system designed to alter the relationship between citizens and the central authority, to deflect criticism of Gaddafi himself by making it easy to blame underlings for their poor implementation of his ideas. He has made it a feature of his reign to deliver long speeches criticising the structures he himself set up and the men he appointed to run them, always with the ultimate aim of concentrating real power in his family, his tribe and a few trusted individuals. In The Libyan Paradox, Luis Martinez speaks of four eras: in the first, from 1969 to 1973, control is held by the Revolutionary Command Council and a single party modelled on Egypt’s Arab Socialist Union; the second, from 1973 to 1977, sees the introduction of the Popular Committees, a disastrous attempt at decentralisation and ‘people’s power’; the third, from 1977 to 1992, witnessed the introduction of the Revolutionary Committees, the despised militia-cum-vanguard modelled on the Chinese Red Guards, tasked with the ‘absolute revolutionary supervision of people’s power’ and a foreign policy based on the support of international terrorism; the fourth covers the sanctions era and Libya’s rehabilitation in the West, when Gaddafi’s revolution ran out of steam and his regime shrank largely to its tribal base.
The uprising that began in February was unexpected, but so were the other Arab rebellions, even though there had been indications that a rough patch lay ahead as the question of who would succeed the elderly rulers loomed. These succession crises were only part of the picture, however. Mubarak and Ben-Ali were plainly corrupt; in Libya, Gaddafi’s sons controlled vast chunks of the economy. All three countries were mafia states. Over the last decade, the Libyan regime had held the country together through a combination of sticks and carrots: on the one hand, repression; on the other, the promise of rising oil and gas income as international oil companies returned after the lifting of sanctions and invested in new fields Libya did not possess the technology to tap, as well as the façade of a reform process whereby Saif Gaddafi, the Guide’s second son, promised partial liberalisation in return for an acceptance that he would inherit power. What was in effect being promised was a Libyan adaptation of the market-friendly, pro-Western dynastic authoritarianism evident until now in Egypt and Tunisia. In the end, what undid Gaddafi’s revolution was a wider pan-Arab revolution with which young Arabs across the region instantly identified. This is why diplomatic attempts to guarantee the succession for Saif, as advocated by the African Union and Curt Weldon, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who conducted ‘private diplomacy’ financed by oil lobbyists, have been rejected out of hand by the rebels.
Throughout his 42-year reign, Gaddafi used Libya as a test-case for his ideal of statelessness, based on a mishmash of Marxist ideology, his own peculiar distillation of Islamic history and idealised bedouin values (egalitarianism, self-reliance). Despite his tribal background, there is now, thanks to him, a greater sense of a united Libya than ever existed before. What brought this about was the redistribution of oil income, which in the 1970s and 1980s dramatically increased the living standards of Libyans and made them more dependent on the state, particularly after Gaddafi banned private businesses for more than a decade, a measure that led to the exile of the country’s entrepreneurs and created a deep well of resentment, notably in Benghazi’s merchant class, now strong supporters of the uprising. The growing urbanisation of the country has resulted in the slow decline of tribal and regional identity, while standardised education and globalisation have made the old debate about whether Libya should exist at all obsolete. And yet, as Vandewalle’s history shows, Gaddafi’s fixation on statelessness and the haphazard administration of the country means that state-building has been ‘lopsided and incomplete’.
The question that must now be asked is whether there will be enough centripetal force to keep Libya together. Today, the rebels protest that they have no intention of dividing the country and insist that tribal and provincial considerations are largely irrelevant. But the reality is that their movement is mostly a Cyrenaican one, and that recruitment has taken place largely through tribal affiliation. Beyond a rejection of the Gaddafi regime, the Transitional National Council has given little indication of what its version of a post-Gaddafi Libya might look like. For his part, Gaddafi has rallied loyal tribes around him, and now relies on them for support more publicly than ever. With time, the historical Tripolitanian-Cyrenaican divide could gain new permanence.
quote:Originally posted by anguishofbeing: That you would compare Haiti under the French to Libya under Qhadafi shows how much of a simpleton you are.
Are you kidding? This is about as interesting as this thread has ever gotten. At least it's progressed from calling everyone "girls" and quarrelling over "kick ass" this that and the other. I don't know who this Arwa dude is but he (or she) sure knows how to put forward a compelling, reasoned argument.
Shouldn't you be wiring money to the girls or something? They need all the help they can get. LOL!
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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Arwa, You are reading the wrong stuff. Looks like sine you moved to to Turkey you are being overcome by paleness.What's happening over there? If too intimate to talk about then just be coy about it.
Now with Gaddafi. Just name an African country in which the people are better off economically and politically. You say that Gaddafi abused his people--more than Saudis who have enslaved more than 50% of the population--in the name of the the weird cult called Wahabbism. On the issue of politics: how free are you when you can insult the President or Prime Minister but you have no way of changing a society of corruption and nepotism.
Again, name an African country or some Muslim country where the people are better off economically and politically than Libya.
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In terms of the control of the Libyan economy let me ask this question: which families control the bulk of the wealth in the U.S., France and Britain? How much wealth does the lazy, idle and corrupt Royal Family in Britain control? Some say that the Queen of the Brits is the world's richest woman. True?
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quote:Originally posted by anguishofbeing: That you would compare Haiti under the French to Libya under Qhadafi shows how much of a simpleton you are.
Are you kidding? This is about as interesting as this thread has ever gotten. At least it's progressed from calling everyone "girls" and quarrelling over "kick ass" this that and the other. I don't know who this Arwa dude is but he (or she) sure knows how to put forward a compelling, reasoned argument.
Shouldn't you be wiring money to the girls or something? They need all the help they can get. LOL!
No need to be wiring, they just take it straight out of my taxes Yours too probably, LOL.
Posts: 1678 | From: New Egypt Forum - http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Dec 2009
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yes, historically the dumb goyim has spent alot for the protection of the joos. Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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"McCain's trip comes as Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday that President Barack Obama has authorized armed Predator drones against forces loyal to Gadhafi."
Posts: 30135 | From: The owner of this website killed ES....... | Registered: Feb 2004
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"Here's an article on Libya re the imperialist war it is now undergoing".
Apparently, the imperialist West(NATO) believes that there is much at stake in Libya and it Gaddafi stays in power then their plans for control would be threatened. From their geopolitical point of view they also see China as a rival that should be stopped in its tracks re Africa.
Unfortunately, potentially strong African states like Nigeria and South Africa behave as if they are dazed and drugged out concerning these matters.
The control that Euro-America had over Tunisia and Egypt is now being threatened so the Libyan conflict is a chance to win one back.
Now with fascist right-winger McCain now being welcomed in Benghazi again reveals the true colours of the fascist right-wing Benghazi mobs. Note too that one of their leaders is a known CIA agent who lived very close to CIA headquarters during a long stay in the U.S.
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And Obama and his drones over Libya. What else do you expect from such weakminded and unprincipled nonentity catapulted into power deliberately to carry out America's dirty imperialist deeds in Africa and elsewhere.
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100 Libyans waving U.S. flags. Frankly amazing. McCain wouldn't even get that kind of welcome in Arizona today. Wow!
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Russian Official Tells Press NATO Going into Libya
By Kenneth Rapoza
April 30, 2011 "Forbes" -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Russian press on Saturday that they were aware of a ground campaign being prepared within NATO and some European nations.
“The information we have from our channels shows that both NATO and the EU are working on similar plans,” Lavrov saind on Russian TV. Translated from the Russian, Lavrov said that the he understands the idea is for the EU to develop plans for humanitarian convoys, and that nothing would be done with NATO on the ground unless the United Nations Security Council said a ground invasion to oust Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was within their authority.
“If anybody wants to ask for this idea for carrying out ground campaign to the UN Security Council, then we will discuss it there and try to understand what is being planned on the ground,” Lavrov said.
A NATO campaign against Libya was launched on March 17 after a late night UN Security Council resolution condemned Gadhafi’s government and military for ordering strikes against anti-government protests.
Over the weekend, the Libyan leader declared war on Italy.
Last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he still didn’t understand the modus operandi behind the NATO Libya operation. According to Ria Novosti newswire in Moscow, Putin said NATO went beyond the UN’s March 16th mandate when it dropped guided missiles on Gadhafi’s government offices in Tripoli.
“What kind of no-fly zone is this if they are striking palaces every night?” Putin said in Ria Novosti. “What do they need to bomb palaces for? To drive out the mice?” Putin even went as far as suggesting that Libya’s oil resources were a main object for NATO’s interest in Libya.
Libya is not a major oil exporter to the US. Russia is a larger oil and gas exporter to Europe and the US than is Libya.
"We'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way!"
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quote: As usual, Farrakhan tells it like it truly is!
The Zionists (ADL) are controlling this Libya insurgence, and even went so far as to contaminate the $5M loan Gaddaffi extended to the the Nation Of Islam while Threatening the Chicago black bank; The Liberty Bank, and Black business, Johnson Products.
That is unfortunate about the $5M but maybe the Nation of Islam shouldn’t challenge powerful political forces when it not in a position to do so.
quote:These Zionists are like a cross between Roaches and leaches.
The more powerful Muslims in the Islamic world have no problem with supporting Zionism (secretly of course)
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"The status of the besieged Libyan city of Misrata was in question Thursday, with representatives of the opposition Transitional National Council and rebels in the city giving different accounts of who controls the strategic town."
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Special from Libya: Misrata gravediggers ensure religious rites for Qadhafi's fallen
Misrata – A few hundred meters from the sea, over ramshackle huts, course shrubbery, and rocky desert terrain, the bodies of Qadhafi’s slain combatants lie in a jagged column, shrouded in bloodied white cloth. A man garbed in a beige robe and skullcap sprinkles perfume on each while murmuring Islamic recitations.
The ten bodies, sheltered under a makeshift tent, will soon find their way to the adjacent cemetery where others are buried. In the small plot of land outside Libya’s besieged western port of Misrata, nearly 550 bodies are entombed in wooden boxes paved over with cement.
The majority of the graves have a number associated with them that corresponds with a picture and the possessions found on each soldier. The nearly 200 graves that do not display the identities of the fallen contain bodies ravaged beyond recognition.
As clashes continue to rage on Misrata’s two primary battlefronts – those to the east and west – the death toll continues to rise, with volunteer gravediggers taking on the ghastly work of interring the many bodies.
“Some say: ‘This is our enemy. They’ve killed and done such tragic things. Why are you doing this?’” says Abdel Hafiz Bou Qurain, the cleric charged with overseeing the burial operations. “But the Prophet obligated us to do this.”
Despite widespread reports – from Libya’s rebels and independent observers alike – suggesting that Qadhafi forces have defiled the rebel dead, military and religious authorities in Misrata are making sure each loyalist soldier killed in the conflict receives a burial in accordance with Islamic tradition.
Trucks bring in the bodies from the battlefield. The clothes are stripped and the bodies are washed. The crimson-stained bulletproof vests, boots and other articles of clothing lie in a menacing pile that emits a putrid stench. After the religious rituals, they are carried one by one on stretchers over to the boxes. The six non-Muslims collected from the battlefield occupy a non-descript graveyard outside the concrete perimeter wall, a structure built to fend off blistering coastal winds.
“We put the [Muslim] bodies tilted towards Mecca,” says volunteer Mahmoud Mofta. “This is the Islamic way.”
Although violence in urban Misrata raged unabated for nearly three months, and now has merely shifted to the port city’s outskirts, those administering the burial process here are working under the impression that lasting peace will one day return.
“In case the relatives come to ask for the missing people, then we will have the documentation and photo and they can collect the belongings. Everyone has a family,” says volunteer gravedigger and chemical engineer Mohamed Jannet.
Misrata’s rebels say many of Qadhafi’s troops are coerced into fighting or are force-fed alcohol and drugs before being sent into combat. And many in Qadhafi’s legions, the rebels say, are just children.
“They’ve been brainwashed but they are still our kids,” says Jannet. “I’m obligated [to do this work] first by religion then by nationalism.”
Soldiers on the front echo those claims. They say they’ve witnessed Qadhafi forces kill soldiers who refused to fight or who attempted to surrender. According to rebel fighter Faraj al-Misteiry, some of those who managed to surrender evidenced a lack of conviction in Qadhafi’s army.
“Some kids surrendered with full magazines,” says Misteiry. “They were crying.”
Vague and unsubstantiated reports have surfaced in recent weeks indicating that some rebels have disposed of Qadhafi’s dead in un-Islamic ways, such as simply throwing the bodies into the sea. Misteiry unequivocally dismisses such claims.
“Perhaps the reason behind such reports is to make disagreement and divide us,” says Misteiry. “In the end, all bodies must be treated with respect, like we treat our dead. We’re all human beings.”
As of Monday, there are said to be 546 bodies buried at the coastal cemetery. The number is likely a very poor reflection of Qadhafi’s total losses in Misrata, the primary rebel stronghold in Libya’s west. Aside from the hundreds of Qadhafi soldiers that have been captured, Qadhafi’s losses probably include significantly more deaths. According to international law, prisoners of war may not be interviewed by the media.
“There are thousands of bodies not buried here,” says Hisham Mohamed, a former government notary who now is responsible for handling the personal belongings of dead and captured soldiers. “According to eyewitnesses, Qadhafi’s forces have taken a lot of their dead back.”
Jannet says it was impossible for the rebels to collect all of Qadhafi’s dead due to the intensity and the indiscriminate nature of the urban assault.
“In the early days, some were not buried because we were running from the clashes and people were unable to collect the bodies,” says Jannet. “We’re still trying to look for all the bodies.”
Restrictions on access to the burial ground were earlier imposed and, according to the volunteers there, are being implemented again. Jannet says he wants coverage limited because the volunteer gravediggers fear their work will be misunderstood.
“We bury them like this, not to send a message or to impress anyone, but strictly to treat them with respect,” he says. “This is a tragedy. We don’t want to publicize it.”
posted
When all is said and done, Libya's once reasonably tended to infrastructure will look like that of war torn Somalia.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by lamin: In terms of the control of the Libyan economy let me ask this question: which families control the bulk of the wealth in the U.S., France and Britain? How much wealth does the lazy, idle and corrupt Royal Family in Britain control? Some say that the Queen of the Brits is the world's richest woman. True?
Answer: The Rothschilds and Rockefellers, Trillionaires NEVER listed on any of the "Wealthiest" lists.
and why are they still bombing the G's compound? Like he is still there They should be looking at local hospitals, a great hideout and one that is sure not to be on the Nato Hit List.
Posts: 3291 | From: I DO believe in Karma! | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: When all is said and done, Libya's once reasonably tended to infrastructure will look like that of war torn Somalia.
It's okay. Libya had ugly socialist architecture anyway. They have more than 80 Billion to rebuild their country. And countless cash flow thanks to their oil. Quite the envy.
In other news - Russia is on board with ousting Qadaffi. Kind of ironic, that Qadaffi asked from Russia's help and their official reply is "you must step down"
posted
It is okay for you, since you didn't put years upon years of labor and money into building the infrastructure that war jets are reducing into rubble in just a few days. However, it is not okay for those whose protracted hard work and resources went into it, to see their work go up in smoke virtually over night. Nor is it okay, that it has cost the lives of their loved ones, which "countless cash flow" will not bring back.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: It is okay for you, since you didn't put years upon years of labor and money into building the infrastructure that war jets are reducing into rubble in just a few days. However, it is not okay for those whose protracted hard work and resources went into it, to see their work go up in smoke virtually over night. Nor is it okay, that it has cost the lives of their loved ones, which "countless cash flow" will not bring back.
Unfortunately freedom comes with a price. My point was a simple - they will prevail.
Posts: 2275 | Registered: Dec 2009
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posted
A bunch of thugs cannot be role models of freedom. Freedom, if it were the initiative of the people and undertaken by them alone, then yes, they would have prepared to handle the "price" for it, and that would have been the price worth paying for. This bloodshed in Libya is nothing like the peoples' rise against despots in either Tunisia or Egypt. This bloodshed and destruction was made in France.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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posted
Egyptian Christians: "We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists"
CAIRO (Reuters) - Last January, Nazih Moussa Gerges locked up his downtown Cairo law office and joined hundreds of thousands of fellow Egyptians to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down. The 33-year-old Christian lawyer was back on the streets this month to press military rulers who took over after Mubarak stepped down to end a spate of sectarian attacks that have killed at least 28 people and left many afraid.
Those who camped out in Tahrir Square side by side with Muslims to call for national renewal now fear their struggle is being hijacked by ultra-conservative Salafist Islamists with no one to stop them.
[For Reuters, an "ultra-conservative" is someone who wants to impose Sharia on a society, and simultaneously an "ultra-conservative" is someone who opposes the imposition of Sharia on a society. Hence a politician like Geert Wilders is routinely described as "far right," even though he opposes these "ultra-conservatives."]
"We did not risk our lives to bring Mubarak down in order to have him replaced by Salafists," Gerges said. "We want an Egypt that will be an example of democracy and freedom for the whole world." [...] Egypt's military rulers have vowed to punish those behind sectarian clashes, banned demonstrations outside places of worship and promised to give Christians equal rights.
But Christians say no one has been tried yet for the burning of a church in Helwan, south of Cairo, in March or for violence in the Cairo suburb of Imbaba on May 7 that left 15 people dead. At least 13 died in clashes after the Helwan incident.
The army has said 190 people will face trial over the Imbaba clashes, which began when a group of Salafists demanded to look inside a church where they suspected a female convert to Islam was being held against her will.
IRON FIST?
When Christians gathered to worship in the eastern Cairo district of Ain Shams last week, they said Salafists and other local Muslims blocked access to the church and pelted them with cinder blocks.
The Christians said they had to abandon their attempt after security forces arrested eight of them.
"The General has said he will strike with an iron fist. Where is the iron fist?" said Marcelino Youssef, a spokesman for a Christian youth group that has been leading protests against sectarian attacks. He was referring to Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads Egypt's ruling military council. [...]
Some blame leaders of Egypt's Coptic church for cultivating fear of Muslims, in turn stoking sectarian tension by making the Christian community more defensive.
"The Church has promoted a fear of Muslims, arguing that the Egyptian people lack awareness and that democracy will not work in our context," Muslim political scientist Amr Shobaki wrote in a column in newspaper al-Masry al-Youm on May 14. [...]
Gerges recalls bitterly the time when he applied to join the prosecutor's office in southern Cairo soon after graduating from Ain Shams University with distinction.
He said he was told by the recruiting official that his qualifications made him the ideal candidate.
"Then he looked at my family name and shook his head."
For Gerges, the message was clear: a Muslim gets priority over a Christian when it comes to government jobs.
Egyptian Christians say discrimination against them starts in school.
"Coptic history has been removed" from textbooks, said Imbaba priest Sarabamon Abdo Rizeq. "How is a Muslim going to love me if he doesn't know anything about my Christianity?"
At a sit-in outside state TV headquarters by the Nile in central Cairo, protesters posted a list of what they called "The Copts' Demands."
They included giving Christians equal access to government jobs, recognizing Egypt's Coptic history by making it part of the school curriculum, and easing restrictions on the construction of churches.
Christians complain that under laws inherited from Ottoman rule, Copts are required to obtain special permits from the head of state to build or repair a church.
"Our demands are actually basic rights," said Malak Maher, 33, one of the protesters. "We want equality."
Actually it was made by an Arab who goes by the name of Muammar Muhammed al-Qadaffi.
To say that Gaddafi "made this Libyan conflict", one would have to go back to day 1 of his presidency so as to say that this was the day he started it, because from that point on, he was the target of a series of assassination attempts by 'western' governments, which he has survived; the current destruction of Libya is nothing more than the latest rounds of assassination attempt by the usual 'western' suspects, aka France, UK and USA. This comes after Gaddafi had recently given economic and military concessions to these same suspects, but France still felt like a player in the Libyan economy--but not a primary player. The USA and UK were not to be outdone by the French, in the French military interference thereof. This affair is captured as follows...
"French firms are determined to climb higher in the ranks of Libya’s trading partners. Italy is currently in number one position, with China second and France a distant sixth." - Maghreb Confidential, France, December, 2010.
Try reading Italian reporter, Franco Bechis of the Italian news outlet, "Libero"; citing certain French websites, particularly "Maghreb Confidential", as a primary source in a number of occasions, he essentially spells out in his article, ‘Sarko’ manipulated the Libyan revolt -- dated to March 23, 2011, how France is implicated in the engineering of the anti-Gaddafi demonstrations in Benghazi, that paved way for the current destruction of Libya by NATO war jets. Courtesy of wsws.org, the following excerpts give a pretty good indication of a series of events in the lead up to French involvement in engineering anti-Gaddafi rebellion in Benghazi:
"On November 2, 2010, France and Great Britain signed an unprecedented agreement on defence and security. The Franco-British exercise Southern Mistral falls within the scope of this treaty. It is scheduled to take place from 21 to 25 March 2011 on several French air bases. On this occasion, the French and British forces will perform Composite Air Operations and a specific air raid (Southern Storm), delivering a very long range conventional strike." - courtesy of Southern Mistral website, c/o French Airforce.
This exercise was subsequently cancelled due to the French and British military interference in Libya, but Libya was to serve as a practical theater for these long range air strikes.
"on paper a commercial expedition to get juicy contracts in Benghazi. But there were also French military men in the group, disguised as businessmen. In Benghazi they met a Libyan air force colonel, Abdallah Gehani. He was above all suspicion, but Gaddafi’s ex-protocol chief had revealed that he was ready to desert and that he had excellent contacts in Tunisian dissident circles. The operation was carried out in great secrecy, but news reached the people closest to Kadhafi. The colonel got suspicious." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
Under French custody...
"Fearing for his life, Mesmari has asked for political asylum. Officially, Libya claims he embezzled money. Formerly close to Muammer Kadhafi, he has been described as a ‘Libyan Wikileak’ because of everything he knows about the regime. Anticipating that others might defect, Tripoli is confiscating the passports of several officials, including foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who is also being investigated for fraud." - Maghreb Confidential, France, December 9, 2010.
The following individuals, both pro-Gaddafi and Gaddafi defectors, were implicated in trying to get Nuri Mesmari to return to Libya...
"On December 16 it was Abdallah Mansour, the head of Libyan television, who tried. French authorities arrested him in the entrance of the [Concorde Lafayette] hotel. On December 23 more Libyans arrived in Paris: Farj Charrani, Fathi Boukhris, and All Ounes Mansouri." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
"Moatassim Kadhafi, left Paris alone on February 5. The son of Muammar Kadhafi, who had been staying at the luxury Bristol hotel since late January, failed to persuade Nuri Mesmari to return home. Kadhafi’s former chief of protocol, Mesmari was officially in Paris for medical reasons but was briefly held by the French authorities after Libya issued an arrest warrant against him. While claiming ‘everything has now been resolved’ with Libya, Mesmari seems reluctant to return without iron-clad ‘guarantees.’" - Franco Bechis, March 23.
"General Aoudh Saaiti, head of military intelligence in eastern Libya (Benghazi), a historically rebellious region, has been ordered to crack down on any demonstration of sympathy for the Tunisian revolution. The central government reproaches some officers of spending too much time on social networks on the Internet which tend to fan protests. Several officers have been arrested, including air force colonel Abdallah Gehani." - Maghreb Confidential, France, January 27, 2011.
"Benghazi has long been a thorn in Colonel Kadhafi ‘s side. Libya’s second-largest ‘Egyptian’ city has historically been a hotbed of rebellion, and it is living up to its reputation. Of eight activists arrested in recent days, six belong to the February 17 Movement, named after the bloody crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in Benghazi on February 17, 2006. They are Farj Charrani, Fathi Boukhris, Ali Ounes Mansouri, Safiddin Hilal Sahrif, Jalal Kouafi, and, of course, [Jamal] Al Hajji." - Maghreb Confidential, France, February 17, 2011.
"But it was too late: Gehani had already prepared a revolt in Benghazi with the French." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Exiiled: It's okay. Libya had ugly socialist architecture anyway. They have more than 80 Billion to rebuild their country.
Ideologues tend to be dogmatic about ends, casual about means. You are just as ideological (and blood thirty) as Bin Laden.
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
^If your end is to stay healthily alive and therefor to stave off a rabid zombified Dick Cheney are you all that conservative and formal about your means or more casual?
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Your analogy is still wack, like your sexual orientation queer. To stave someone or something off (in this case your Zombie) when that thing threatens your life is not "ideological". Its just basic self defense for self preservation. Fuk off.
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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Actually it was made by an Arab who goes by the name of Muammar Muhammed al-Qadaffi.
To say that Gaddafi "made this Libyan conflict", one would have to go back to day 1 of his presidency so as to say that this was the day he started it, because from that point on, he was the target of a series of assassination attempts by 'western' governments, which he has survived; the current destruction of Libya is nothing more than the latest rounds of assassination attempt by the usual 'western' suspects, aka France, UK and USA. This comes after Gaddafi had recently given economic and military concessions to these same suspects, but France still felt like a player in the Libyan economy--but not a primary player. The USA and UK were not to be outdone by the French, in the French military interference thereof. This affair is captured as follows...
"French firms are determined to climb higher in the ranks of Libya’s trading partners. Italy is currently in number one position, with China second and France a distant sixth." - Maghreb Confidential, France, December, 2010.
Try reading Italian reporter, Franco Bechis of the Italian news outlet, "Libero"; citing certain French websites, particularly "Maghreb Confidential", as a primary source in a number of occasions, he essentially spells out in his article, ‘Sarko’ manipulated the Libyan revolt -- dated to March 23, 2011, how France is implicated in the engineering of the anti-Gaddafi demonstrations in Benghazi, that paved way for the current destruction of Libya by NATO war jets. Courtesy of wsws.org, the following excerpts give a pretty good indication of a series of events in the lead up to French involvement in engineering anti-Gaddafi rebellion in Benghazi:
"On November 2, 2010, France and Great Britain signed an unprecedented agreement on defence and security. The Franco-British exercise Southern Mistral falls within the scope of this treaty. It is scheduled to take place from 21 to 25 March 2011 on several French air bases. On this occasion, the French and British forces will perform Composite Air Operations and a specific air raid (Southern Storm), delivering a very long range conventional strike." - courtesy of Southern Mistral website, c/o French Airforce.
This exercise was subsequently cancelled due to the French and British military interference in Libya, but Libya was to serve as a practical theater for these long range air strikes.
"on paper a commercial expedition to get juicy contracts in Benghazi. But there were also French military men in the group, disguised as businessmen. In Benghazi they met a Libyan air force colonel, Abdallah Gehani. He was above all suspicion, but Gaddafi’s ex-protocol chief had revealed that he was ready to desert and that he had excellent contacts in Tunisian dissident circles. The operation was carried out in great secrecy, but news reached the people closest to Kadhafi. The colonel got suspicious." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
Under French custody...
"Fearing for his life, Mesmari has asked for political asylum. Officially, Libya claims he embezzled money. Formerly close to Muammer Kadhafi, he has been described as a ‘Libyan Wikileak’ because of everything he knows about the regime. Anticipating that others might defect, Tripoli is confiscating the passports of several officials, including foreign minister Mussa Kussa, who is also being investigated for fraud." - Maghreb Confidential, France, December 9, 2010.
The following individuals, both pro-Gaddafi and Gaddafi defectors, were implicated in trying to get Nuri Mesmari to return to Libya...
"On December 16 it was Abdallah Mansour, the head of Libyan television, who tried. French authorities arrested him in the entrance of the [Concorde Lafayette] hotel. On December 23 more Libyans arrived in Paris: Farj Charrani, Fathi Boukhris, and All Ounes Mansouri." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
"Moatassim Kadhafi, left Paris alone on February 5. The son of Muammar Kadhafi, who had been staying at the luxury Bristol hotel since late January, failed to persuade Nuri Mesmari to return home. Kadhafi’s former chief of protocol, Mesmari was officially in Paris for medical reasons but was briefly held by the French authorities after Libya issued an arrest warrant against him. While claiming ‘everything has now been resolved’ with Libya, Mesmari seems reluctant to return without iron-clad ‘guarantees.’" - Franco Bechis, March 23.
"General Aoudh Saaiti, head of military intelligence in eastern Libya (Benghazi), a historically rebellious region, has been ordered to crack down on any demonstration of sympathy for the Tunisian revolution. The central government reproaches some officers of spending too much time on social networks on the Internet which tend to fan protests. Several officers have been arrested, including air force colonel Abdallah Gehani." - Maghreb Confidential, France, January 27, 2011.
"Benghazi has long been a thorn in Colonel Kadhafi ‘s side. Libya’s second-largest ‘Egyptian’ city has historically been a hotbed of rebellion, and it is living up to its reputation. Of eight activists arrested in recent days, six belong to the February 17 Movement, named after the bloody crackdown on anti-government demonstrators in Benghazi on February 17, 2006. They are Farj Charrani, Fathi Boukhris, Ali Ounes Mansouri, Safiddin Hilal Sahrif, Jalal Kouafi, and, of course, [Jamal] Al Hajji." - Maghreb Confidential, France, February 17, 2011.
"But it was too late: Gehani had already prepared a revolt in Benghazi with the French." - Franco Bechis, March 23, 2011.
Sarkozy is an opportunist but the chaos we're seeing now was fermented by non other than Muammar Qadaffi. Had he ruled with some level of civility then France/NATO would not have been a factor. But he didn't and the uprising gave mutual opportunities to France and the Libyan people. It is a win-win situation. All this nonsense about the revolutionaries being “thugs” is just that - nonsense. Unless you believe Libya is a nation of Millions of thugs, because the red black and green Libyan flag is raised in Benhgazi, Misarata, Tabruk, Adjabeya, Baida, Zentan, etc, etc, and numerous clan areas. It's apparent nothing is for free and France wants it's lucrative contracts and oil deals, then so be it. This wouldn't be a precedent, it happen before (Korea, etc) and it will happen again. Dealing with a western European power is endlessly better than dealing with a wretched madman who has committed numerous atrocities throughout his 42 year reign of hell. What's great about this war it was done in accordance with international law. There is protection for all involved. Libya will be rebuilt and it will become more prosperous than ever. There are too many fallacies going around about Libya being totally devastated. Misarat is, but who's fault is that? All of East Libya is practically unscathed. The targets that NATO are selecting are mostly Qadaffi targets. They destroyed the navy the other day but left the port in tripoli intact. There is too much exaggeration and this is also common as people have biases. Sure I get it, he did some good things for black African states (e.g. helped ANC), but heck even Bush initiated a multi billion dollar ongoing AIDS relief program for Africa. This doesn't change the fact that Muammar Qadaffi is a murderous tyrant, and getting rid of him is what millions of Libyans want. After all it is about Libya.
Posts: 2275 | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Exiiled: It's okay. Libya had ugly socialist architecture anyway. They have more than 80 Billion to rebuild their country.
Ideologues tend to be dogmatic about ends, casual about means. You are just as ideological (and blood thirty) as Bin Laden.
Funny you should mention “blood thirsty”, anguishina, because you have no qualms with Qadaffi's goons bombarding civilians in Misarata for months on end with grad artillery. Reports are no building is left untouched. But when genuine elation is expressed at NATO giving Qadaffi and his goons a taste of their own medicine, you get all dramatic and hissy.
Posts: 2275 | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Exiiled: Funny you should mention “blood thirsty”, anguishina, because you have no qualms with Qadaffi's goons bombarding civilians in Misarata for months on end with grad artillery.
You conveniently omit the fact that there has been a terrorist onslaught for months on end. Unless you are an anarchist, which I doubt your dumb pro-Obama ass is, the state has a right to maintain law and order. Armed uprisings, especially when there is no peoples support, is backward but in line with al queda. How does the actions of your thugs further progress in that country? Those thugs have hijacked a genuine reform movement which is why they have virtually no support inside Libya. How long has it been now? Why no broad "peoples" uprising against evil regime? Libyans clearly dont want another Iraq. The destruction and chaos now is result of al queda crazies and you know it.
quote:But when genuine elation is expressed
You are genuinely elated at the destruction of Libya? You must have came all over yourself during Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Posts: 4254 | From: dasein | Registered: Jun 2009
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