The journalist Marc de Chalvron was in Libya ten days ago. He accompanied rebel forces as they advanced to the oil-producing town of Ras Lanuf and then were turned back by Libyan government forces. On a broadcast today on the French news channel i-Télé, de Chalvron showed footage from his trip. The footage includes interviews with rebels on the back of a pick-up truck on the road to Ras Lanuf. The full report can be viewed here. The relevant portion is between 3:45 and 4:20 of the clip.
One rebel says: “We were at Benghazi with many other volunteers. From there, we are at Ajdabiya, the center of the Jihad.”
A second rebel, alluding to the rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi, adds: “Forty-two years of a nightmare… Now the time of Jihad has arrived!”
A third yells “Allahu Akbar!” as other rebels fire their guns into the air.
What to do ? Save Islamist rebels who want to kill us or stay out and see if the dictator who hates us regains control ? The enemy of my enemy is..my enemy.
Huh…how about that?
Muslim irregulars yelling “Allahu Akbar” and citing “Jihad”…and none of it aimed at us, but rather one of their own despots.
And some of us freaking out simply through force of habit.
Y’see…it ain’t all ALWAYS about us.
Agreed. I bet ANY Arab fighter — jihadist or not — would yell “Allahu akbar.”
I do not expect that the rebels will thank us should they ultimately get rid of Ghaddafi,They will as usual thank Allah
before anyone else, this is not liberation as much as it is Jihad.
We will be used once again, by Allah’s will, as tools to aid in
the re- establishment of the Caliph. Once again, the only people
organized enough to lead, once, Ghaddafi is gone,is the muslim Brotherhood or Hamas. And once again the only way we can slow down
their ultimate triumph,is an appeal to the Libyan military, or what military remains,to keep the lid on till elections. And you know who the people
will elect. Once again we will be played the fool, with the help of a president trying to pull his popularity out of the dirt.
See, no, actually it IS always about the West, and the U.S. in particular.
Ghaddafi is a very typical Soviet-style progressive socialist. Remember that Soviet socialism was an _export_ to Russia from Western intellectuals. The radical revolutionaries are pissed at the Col. because he is too Western. Remember Ghaddafi was a darling of the Western liberal intelligentsia, who were completely willing to believe the best of him and accept his cash donations – right up until it became politically expedient to take him to the woodshed. This is a man who not even two years ago was invited to address the UN General Assembly. In most of the world, the UN = America. After all, they have their meetings in New York City.
Seriously?
First, they aren’t mad at Ghaddafi for being “too western”, they’re mad at him because they are poor, broke and oppressed. My lord, the man had a hanging room like Saddam and I suspect we’ll get some details out of the place once he’s gone.
Second, even the Iranian “Green” opposition yells “allahu akbar”. I have to agree with another above commenter that this is not actually unusual for Arab Muslim fighters of any ilk. Nor the idea that fighting is “jihad”, the struggle. My lord, even our allies in Iraq and Afghanistan had a tendency to yell that out during the heat of battle or in victory. They also tended to claim that they’re struggle was “jihad” against the takfiri. We asked them to change that to arhabi (?) or criminal to change the tone, but it didn’t mean they didn’t see it in the other terms.
I know everybody here wants us to not be involved and would prefer to have Ghaddafi the strong man in place at least nominally crushing potential jihadis in place, but we need to be somewhat circumspect in assigning terrorist status to every Arab Muslim that cries out to Allah.
Saying that, yeah, there are likely some characters involved here we would rather not see make it off the battle field considering there were a number of arhabi coming out of Darneh, but let’s not condemn the whole country for some part of it. Now, if this guy had a video of the same guys yelling “allahu akbar” and saying that the US was the great Satan or would be next, or anything of the sort, then I’d be yelling with the rest of you that we need to call this off. I don’t see it, so I’m going with “wait and see”.
The internal war in libya is not between good and evil. It’s between evil men fighting for the triumph of their evil dreams.
Click my name and learn more.
It is just as difficult for the American mind to think in terms of all these tribal factions in the Middle East as it was for our American predecessors to regard how the various American Indian tribes conducted “business.” The best historial accounts have Muslims – sanctioned by Muhammed – raiding the caravans of other tribes traveling through the vast desert. They did not have, so they overpowered and took from others. The first Muslim jihad was purported to be circa 622, which seems to be a good enough number for my purposes. Was this the first time that caravans or other groups were victimized. By no means! But the term in tandem with it’s roots in a particular religious sect yielded the polite term for terrestial piracy. As this became successful in terms of valuable booty that could be exchanged for whatever a Muslim might desire i.e., to be foundering in the most renowned wealth of the age, The push then began to broaden their horizons in the name of the will of Allah. It would seem to me that nothing has changed a great deal over the years allahu akbar! is still simply a religious justification to plunder, rape, murder and take land and yes take slaves into captivity. As mentioned above any arab fighter would probably shout out allahu akbar if he – in his mind – triumped in some manner. And as mentioned above in other remarks the poor are tired of being poor and oppressed. They have been settling their tribal and other differences long before we as Americans, the UN – sidenote: Tough ithas been said many times; I see no reason for the US to be in the UN or Vice versa. I vote with whomever said “let’s stay out of this and see what happens. I’m not enamored with the idea of our spending a coupla’ hundred million dollars per day not to mention the possible loss of valuable jet fighters, etc. and the invaluable pilots of those multi- million dollar machines. They and their pilots need to be safely on the ground ready for a valuable mission.