The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Deconstructing resistance: Saif Qaddafi

    By Desider on Sun, 04/17/2011 - 11:36pm |

    Good interview re: Saif Qaddafi, his part in encouraging reform over the years and sudden switch to family loyalty, plus lots of small insights on what's happening in Libya:

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/07/understanding_libyas_michael_corleone

    Comments about over-optimism over revolutions parallel my own thoughts. The ambivalence towards the rebels and civilian deaths and military action are all really ambivalent - not condemnation in the guise of balanced thinking.

    [I was captivated by the line noting the Bulgarian nurses were kidnapped in Benghazi on trumped-up AIDS charges as a way of embarrassing Qaddafi - an angle I'd never even considered.

    I also keep turning over the condemnation of Mariah Carey and others for singing for Qaddafi, but not the condemnation of say Tony Blair and Nicholas Sarkozy going to Qaddafi for oil money, or our general use of Qaddafi for killing off Al Qaeda in North Africa - why should entertainers be so much more responsible for politics than politicians?]

    I start to think that if Obama and Hillary invoking Moammar as the need to go, to be replaced by Saif as the "reformer", could possibly work, but as a longshot due to the name.

    Still, as someone pointed out that we have our Fifth Fleet staying in Bahrain, very few of these Mideast uprisings are likely to go very far - as an end result, i.e. what we see in 2-3 years.

    So we're back to the (son of the) devil you know is better than the devil you don't know policy, which has been condemned quite a bit, but unfortunately we often don't have a lot of palatable alternatives.

    Splitting the country could be a possibility, but that brings up all the oil questions again, will retain the bad blood, and (tongue-in-cheek) give us 2 countries with hard-to-pronounce names.

    So the real-politik comes in - what are the real options to break the impasse, where east Libya has a popular uprising in the streets, the capital still holds the military and the power, and trust in everyone and everything has been broken. Is there a real way to go forward?

    Comments

    This is my fourth attempt at a comment here; it's starting to try my patience.  Grrr.

    I read a lot this morning to refres my memory on Saif quotes; plenty of people are incredulous at Barber's attempts to buff up his Reformist Credentials (here's one), even with his Manifesto writing and committees and panels. 

    In this morning's Deccan Herald, he says this and more about Gadaffi not harming Libyans:

    "Dismissing accusations against the Gaddafi government, Saif said the army was fighting terrorists, "just as the Russian army did in the Chechen capital, Grozny, just as Americans did in Fallujah in Iraq". "It's exactly the same thing," he said. "I am not going to accept it, that the Libyan army killed civilians. This didn't happen. It will never happen."

    Instead of attacking Libya, he said, the United States should be helping it fight al-Qaeda. Then, once the "terrorists" are removed from Misurata and Benghazi, he said, it will be time to talk of national reconciliation and democracy, under a new constitution that would reduce Gaddafi's role to a "symbolic" one.

    "The biggest issue is the terrorists and the armed militia... Once we get rid of them, everything will be solved," Saif said."

    (I'm gonna add more in Reply so I don't lose it all again...)

     


    by we are stardust on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 10:07am

    On the other hand, not a few people still do wonder at the veracity of early reports of violence, and the Russians especially say that Gadaffi forces bombing anything are bogus (but then again, it's the Ruskies...)  ;o)

    But here's a compilation of videos of Saif; you can just roll your mouse over them...the 'there will be blood in the streets' debunking by Benjamen Barber...uh...I don't think so.  His 'oh, the poor tortured son' stuff: ain't buyin' it, myself, but the point is: will the rebel forces buy it?  There may be pragmatic reasons at some point to want to, but I bet not from earlier statements they've made.

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=videos+saif+gadaffi&qpvt=videos+saif...

    Cynics (LOL!) will get a boot outta this piece, "I Smell a Rat' by Wm. Bowles (don't know him).

    And I read one piece that pointed out (Tada!) that the next-gen Libya will have no way to defend itself militarily.  Which might point to why some powers are in favor of dividing the country east-west; it seems a recipe for constant war to me.

    Anyhoo.


    by we are stardust on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 10:23am

    Couldn't find the "blood in the streets" video. Of course Barber is comparing Saif to Michael Corleone, not exactly a compliment by modern progressive standards (but fair if you're a Scorcese fan).


    by Desider on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 11:38am

    Sorry; I thought it was in that mess I posted.  Can't find it again, and I suppose the interpreter could be bogus, but it was widely reported, like this.

    But LOL! to the low bar of a Corleone Progressive!   ;o)


    by we are stardust on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 12:00pm