Libya: The Dictator Has Fallen! Long Live [Fill in the Blank]!
As NATO jets bombed the military positions of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the watching rebels cheered, “Allah Akhbar!” Now that is a common Muslim expression, not just used by Islamists, and yet there is something symbolic about it. Allah did not bring the rebels victory, the United States and Europe did. Nevertheless, Allah will get the credit.
And that means the triumph will be attributed to the rebels’ piety rather than the West’s warplanes. In political terms, Islamism is likely to be more attractive than a pro-Western stance. But that doesn’t mean Libya will be an Islamist state; it merely means it won’t be a democratic, pro-Western one.
Of course, the key factor here is that nobody, including the Libyans, knows what’s going to happen there. There are multiple factors: regional (eastern versus western Libya); ethnic (Berbers and Arabs); ideological; factional; personal; and recent defectors from Gaddafi’s regime versus rebels. The stakes in loot and oil money are high.
There has been no change in Libya’s social make-up. The rebels have looted, burned, and killed civilians, with a special animus toward black Africans, a group identified with Gaddafi’s regime by the rebels.
Thus, the prospects for violence and internal disorder are tremendous.
Of course, Gaddafi is one of the world’s worst dictators. The same, albeit with somewhat less justice, was said of the shah of Iran and President Mubarak of Egypt. With equal justice it was said of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. The determinant of how things will work out, however, does not depend on the evilness of the dictator but the goodness — in competence, unity, tolerance, and moderation — of those who overthrew him.
Certainly, I’d like to see Libya as a happy, democratic, prospering country. But one has to analyze the facts. There is no reason to believe in a great outcome. At best, a regime might come into existence that maintains stability, reduces repression, and spends some of the oil income for the benefit of its people.
A draft of the new Libyan constition:
http://www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/libya/Libya-Draft-Constitutional-Charter-for-the-Transitional-Stage.pdf
A wise man in the Middle East wrote some 3000 years ago:
There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. So I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.
Certainly, I’d like to see Libya as a happy, democratic, prospering country.
So long as islam is in the way of a country, all roads will ultimately lead it to the one “perfect” model of what a 100% muslim country full of rival clans and tribes can be like: Somalia. Just wait until Libya, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich muslim countries run out of oil to see if any of them will not meet such a fate.
‘that doesn’t mean Libya will be an Islamist state’
Just as the blunderer, President Bush assumed when he pushed for the democratic vote in Gaza against the wishes of many in Israel.
Now we have Hamastan,Gaza thanks to the naive dreamers who fail to see what is happening under their nose.
An ill east wind blows from Iran and the dreamers in the West along with NATO assist in pushing it along.
The one good restraint mechanism against Iran,Iraqi strong man,dictator Saddam was removed by the Republican President Bush.
Remove the strong men like Mubarak from power and the extremist,radical Muslim Brotherhood fills in the void or as we saw in Lebanon and Gaza ,the greatly cherished value of the West,the democratic vote leads to hell,Hezbollah and Hamas.
Iran continues to expand their vision of the widening Crescent with the help of U.S. policy especially in weakening and restraining Israel.
In the past Israel used to defeat her Arab enemies quickly before the U.S. kept Israel from defeating Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009 and again this past week weakening Israel even more with restrained response to Hamas major attacks on Israels southern cities.
A thinking person has to ask himself in all honesty why the U.S. is always restraining Israel and not the Islamist’s ?
Who can deny what Iraq has become and why Syria has little to fear from the West because Iran has been preparing and itching for a showdown ?
There is no doubt that the blinded West is assisting in it’s own suicide.
The Libyan ‘freedom fighter’ will turn their western supplied weapons on their benefactors just as the U.S. supplied weapons to Fatah in Gaza fell into the hands of Hamas.
America’s march over the cliff continues unabated.
Well said, sir.
America march over cliff do continues unabated but not because it supports rebels in Libya, not because Democratic Jimmi Carter helped to make Iran into Islamic Republic of Iran, and not because it sells weapons to Saudi Arabia. It marches over cliff because of her enormous debt and the economic policies of White House.
So called “shia crescent” or wahabi states have nothing to do with it. Economy does.
The Al-Qaeda linked rebels who murder our soldiers in Iraq have won the war. They have won only because US/NATO waged war for months for the Al-Qaeda rebels.
World Net Daily, August 6, 2011:
He got bin Laden, so why can’t Obama take out this clown?
The Warfalla tribe – one of the largest in Libya – is being joined by other tribes to fight the rebels because of what is described as indiscriminate killing of civilians by Western alliance-backed troops.
The sources said that Qatari troops, tanks and helicopters “are openly killing these unarmed tribal members. They have their Qatari tanks in the streets of Benghazi. They are actively shooting on unarmed civilians.”
NATO bombing was being extended without authorization to attack non-military targets.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=330341
US/NATO leaders who waged ruthless war for the rebels for months winning victory for CRUEL MONSTERS IN HUMAN FORM-rebels; are responsible for rescuing every single one of these horribly abused kidnapped children. G-D help the children!
World Net Daily, August 13, 2011 Missing: Where are the children now?
Rebel takeover prompts questions about kidnappings, slavery, torture
There are persistent reports that children from government-run homes for orphans and abused children are missing and feared kidnapped, possibly tortured and sold, by rebels who recently took the town of Misrata in the western part of Libya near its capital of Tripoli.
Sources in Tripoli say that these children are some of more than 1,000 who have disappeared over the past six months since rebels entered Misrata and “went on a killing spree.”
There also are reports of rebels torturing children.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=331973
The religion of peace torturing children? I cannot imagine that, they are such good and peaceful people.
RACIST CRUEL MONSTERS-rebels are perpetrating genocide against Blacks and committing horrific atrocities against innocent children. US/NATO leaders who waged war for months for the rebel monsters are responsible for every evil act of the rebels. In the terrifying New World Order, which defenseless innocents are targeted next by US/NATO/UN?
Benghazi “Rebels” Lynching Blacks In Libya
Black Star News
July 23, 2011
Watch this linked video of an anti-Black lynch mob and you will understand why The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, the BBC and other major news organizations have never followed up on The Wall Street Journal’s June 21 article about ethnic cleansing of Black Libyans in Misurata by the “Brigade for the purging of slaves, Black Skin.”
That Brigade, of Libya’s so-called rebels, backed by NATO and the White House, eliminated the Black population of Misurata and promised to do the same to Black Libyans once they seized control of the city of Tawergha, 25 miles away.
Major news outlets are deliberately ignoring or downplaying the racialist-motivated atrocities against Black people being committed by the terroristic “rebels.” blackstarnews.com/news/122/ARTICLE/7536/2011-07-23.html
Congratulations to Hillary and Hussein, you have deposed a dictator who has posed no threat to US interests in decades with islamofacists who kill our children daily in Afghanistan. I’m sure both of you are proud to help bring down the “great satan”.
Always remember that the only law that is always is force is “The Law of Unintended Consequences.” I don’t kknow what will happen in Libya but it won’t be pretty.
Revolution for the Hell of it!
Where’s Abbie when you need him?
It is a monumental blunder to ever get involved with a muslim-based action. That is, for a westerner to ever get involved. Invariably, the westerner will be excoriated by both the loser and the victor in the muslim-based event.
As far a Libya is concerned, let it burn. The heyday of Libya ended in 1969. From the end of WWII to 1969, just over 20 years, Libya enjoyed prosperity, civility, education and Western style democracy. The prince was banished and Kadaffi had a “better idea”. Well, We have all lived long enough to see the end result of that.
However, as with all of these nations that cannot get their act together, it will end up a divided nation rife with more crime, more tribal conflict, less wealth than it already struggles to have and other nations willing to subjugate themselves for a chance at the oil. China comes to mind. But China doesn’t play like the US does.
Much has been said about China becoming a mega superpower much like the Soviet Union, only they used Western cash to do it. How ironic. But, I suspect they, themselves are blissfully ignorant of their own dependency. Or is it that we are blissfully ignorant of our own? Either way, expect to see China stick its nose into the oil business in Libya.
“…As NATO jets bombed…
That’s NATO as in North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The northern most part of that “organization” is–you guessed it. Norway. Norge. Former dogs of the Danes. Newly rich and full of their own virtue. NATO’s spearhead, far from the frozen north, come to rain death from above in the African heat.
Ah, those gallant Norwegians in their flying machines. Once Herr Hitler’s creme de la Arian Creme, only a dollop or two shy of their gorgeously tall, blue-eyed and blond Danish overlords. Proudly wearing Wermacht and even SS uniforms the noble Danes shunned. Greasing Gadaffi’s niggers as the noble Danes who resisted Herr Hitler and were true Christian saviors of their Jewish citizens never would.
Full of swaggering progressive modernity in their slicker than slick fighter-bombers, the latest in the NATO inventory. Burning Gadaffi’s backward chuckleheads by the hundreds and thousands in their ancient tanks and trucks.
What a thoroughly shitty folk are the Norwegians. (Deepest apologies and regrets to VDH, an American Norwegian of genuine and unimpeachable virtue.)
If the slaughter in Tripoli goes wholesale as Obama once once predicted would happen in Benghazi if we didn’t intervene, Obama’s goose is cooked.
What a horrible post, David. Good heavens, man.
Let me amend that, Grantman. “…What a thoroughly shitty folk are the Norwegians.” is a touch harsh. Make it, “What a thoroughly shitty folk are the rump Norwegians absent curiosity and ambition who never went pillaging and looting and settling all over Europe before some even crossed to America to enrich our great nation. The amoral hypocrites looking down on the rest of us loftily from their offshore oil-rich northern moral high-ground. The lazy, over-priviledged socialist skunks who imagine their shit don’t stink.
Did you really expect your post to be taken seriously?
Some interesting questions regarding what is happening in Libya.
The “sudden appearance” of the “rebels” just outside Tripoli has a very simple explanation. They where dropped there by NATO ships and helicopters on the Tripoli coast. And then they advanced in three columns into the heart of the capital.
Some intriguing questions remain:
1. Where are the six government special divisions whose loyalty to the Libyan ruler and his sons was never in question? None of the 15,000 trained government troops were to be seen in the way of the rebel advance into the capital. The mystery might be accounted for by several scenarios: Either these units broke up and scattered or Qaddafi pulled them back into southern Libya to secure the main oil fields. Or, perhaps, government units are staying out of sight and biding their time in order to turn the tables on the triumphant rebels and trap them in a siege. The Libyan army has used this stratagem before.
2. How did the ragtag, squabbling Libyan rebels who were unable to build a coherent army in six months suddenly turn up in Tripoli Sunday looking like an organized military force and using weapons for which they were not known to have received proper training? Did they secretly harbor a non-Libyan hard core of professional soldiers?
Remember that Gen. Abdel Fatah Younis, the commander of the Libyan rebel forces, was killed on the orders of Mustapha Abdul Jalil, head of the rebel Transitional National Council.
His execution was set up by TNC officers who first abducted him and the two colonels who never left his side. After they were removed to a point 20 kilometers east of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, all three were shot in the head. The killers brought the bodies back to Benghazi to prove the TNC chief’s orders had been carried out and collect their payment.
Mustapha Abdul Jalil is a weak figure who enjoys scant respect – even among the Libyan tribes supporting the insurgency.
With “friends” like this who need enemies? And these guy are now in “charge” of Libya? Good work NATO and USA
3. What happened to the tribes loyal to Qaddafi? Up until last week, they numbered the three largest tribal grouping in the country. Did they suddenly melt away without warning?
4. Does Qaddafi’s fall in Tripoli mean he has lost control of all other parts of Libya, including his strongholds in the center and south?
5. Can the rebels and NATO claim an undisputed victory? Or might not the Libyan ruler, forewarned of NATO’s plan to topple him by Sept. 1, have decided to dodge a crushing blow, cede Tripoli and retire to the Libyan Desert from which to wage war on the new rulers?
6. Can the heavily divided rebels, consisting of at least three militias, put their differences aside and establish a reasonable administration for governing a city of many millions? Their performance in running the rebel stronghold of Benghazi is not reassuring.
7. Military and counter-terror sources suggest a hidden meaning in Qaddafi’s comment that Tripoli is now like Baghdad. Is he preparing to collect his family, escape Tripoli and launch a long and bloody guerrilla war like the one Saddam Hussein’s followers waged after the US invasion of 2003 which opened the door of Iraq to al Qaeda?
If that is Qaddafi’s plan, the rebels and their NATO backers, especially Britain and France, will soon find their victory wiped out by violence similar to – or worse than – the troubles the US-led forces have suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And who, exactly, is going to pay to rebuild this new “secular” arab paradise? Libya is a disaster right now and is going to need to be rebuilt even before a lot of oil can be exported again. So, who is going to do it? Do the “rebels” know how to run a government and how to rebuild a fractured nation? And who is going to maintain this order until a government is up and running? Just wait until Congress is asked for billions of dollars in foreign “aid” for Libya to help rebuild the country. Then, after we’re dumb enough to give them this money, a new Libyan dictator will probably throw us out of Libya and put all of the oil wealth in his brand new Swiss bank account. Some things never seem to change, either here or in the Middle East.
otoh, the Islamic version of The Reformation may have only just begun. There’s a lot of political, economic and social …volatilty… involved in that process.
Keep an eye open for their version of Martin Luther and his followers.
Muhammed was the Martin Luther of the Eastern Orthodox Church; he just had the cojones to admit that his reforms required a new religion.
Islam died when the Sultan-Caliph was deposed by Atatürk. What we’re seeing is the eruption of pockets of putrescence.in the corpse.
The Reformation was the first, faltering, step in a move away from visiting death and destruction on others over merely religous differences. It was only the beginning, of course. The struggle for power and control became more internalized within the faith than focused upon upon religious enemies external to the faith. The several Great Awakenings since that time have moved that faith even farther away from its then normalized violence, particularly during the last century.
It appears, to me, at least, that the Islamic religion is making a similar transition during a much shorter time frame.
Please be aware that I’m all for killing the other guy before he kills you. My response to things like 9-11 is to find out who was responsible and which nation supported and trained them…and to go into that nation with the full force our our military machine, kill people until they don’t want to fight anymore, turn the entire country into rubble, make the rubble bounce…and then come home.
when WWII ended many americans said “thank god.” does that mean they gave no credit to the american military?
All for European oil, we are not importing Libyan oil. No lives lost and only a billion spent so far; will have to wait and see if it develops into a democracy of sorts. Hard to imagine a Muslim democracy, Iraq, is teetering. Maybe we can collect revenue from the oil sale to Europe and sell aircraft as well.
Dr. Rubin, I’m curious what perspective you’re coming from to declare absolutely that Allah (Arabic for “God”) didn’t aid the rebels? Are you atheist? Muslims, and Jews/Christians alike, believe God can act indirectly. By comparison I’m sure there are plenty of Jews that feel Yehwa saved the Jewish people by proxy through the allied forces. It just seems like a very morally presumptious position. I certainly agree with you that it’s anybody’s game as far as the long-term outcome in Libya. However, what I know for sure is that if I were Libyan I would have wanted to see Qadaffi go. I don’t agree with NATOs involvement, but I wish the Libyans well, they are not my enemy. Qaddafi was just a first step, they have a long road.
How is attribution of this victory to God any different than the same behavior by Christians in the U.S. when just about anything good — a close call, a political victory, a touchdown — happens?
I think there is a difference.
An American quietly saying, ‘Thank God’ is expressing his gratitude. “I am grateful (to God) for granting us this victory”.
An Arab shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ is proclaming his Islamic virtue. “God has granted me this victory because of my piety”.
An Arab shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ is proclaming his Islamic virtue. “God has granted me this victory because of my piety”.
Regardless of whether this is true, the author’s original point — “Allah will get the credit” — is still idiotic.
In a socialist manner, Khaddafi HAS distributed oil money to his people, as government hand outs.
The “grand” socialist idea of “social security” has been more extensive in Libya than in any other Mediterrenean Arab country.
People have been impotent, oppressed, but they have gotten their welfare money they haven’t been able to spend on anything worthwhile.
I do trust all of the concepts you’ve introduced in your post. They are very convincing and can certainly work. Still, the posts are too short for beginners. May you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time? Thank you for the post.
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