If Qaddafi Isn’t Safe, No One Is Safe

[Valin]

Commentary/Contentions:

I was almost certain we wouldn’t see much, if any, upheaval in Libya, and even wrote less than a week ago that only the very brave or the very stupid would dare stand up to Muammar Qaddafi’s totalitarian system. As Michael Rubin has pointed out, no country on earth aside from North Korea (and I’d add the possible exception of Turkmenistan) is more oppressive than the vast Libyan dungeon. Even Bashar al-Assad’s Arab Socialist Baath Party state is lax by comparison.

So it’s rather extraordinary that the Arab revolt has broken out in

. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

(Snip)

Some in the foreign-policy “realist” camp are concerned that the Arab revolt is only targeting the nominally “pro-American” states, but that’s not true anymore. The anti-American states are considerably more vicious and more likely to survive for that reason, but all the Arab rulers outside Lebanon and Iraq are despotic. (The real power in Lebanon — Hezbollah — is also despotic.)
(Snip)

[Rokke]

He's looking a little rough lately. Competing for the Keith Richards living mummy look.

[pollyannaish]

He's looking a little rough lately. Competing for the Keith Richards living mummy look.

 

 

Maybe we should start a website called "Aging 60s Rocker or Deposed Middle East Dictator" (along the lines of "Dead or Canadian" from the old MTV Show Remote Control)

[nickydog]

Now that is just plain scarey

[Valin]

Reuters: Libyan forces fight Benghazi protesters, 100 dead

2/20/11 7:20am EST

 

TRIPOLI, Feb 20 (Reuters) - At least 20 protesters were killed overnight in the Libyan city of Benghazi, a rights watchdog said on Sunday, after witnesses said security forces fired heavy weapons at civilians from a fortified compound.

 

(Snip)

 

A picture pieced together from witness accounts suggested that the city is in a cycle of violence, where people are killed and then, after funeral processions to bury the dead the next day, security forces shoot more protesters.

 

Conflicting accounts were given over poor phone lines but it appeared the streets were under the control of protesters while security forces had pulled back to a high-walled compound, known as the Command Centre, from where they shot at people.

 

CBC/AP: 200 dead in Libya protests: doctor

Feb 20, 2011 7:20 AM ET

 

A doctor in the Libyan city of Benghazi says his hospital has seen the bodies of at least 200 protesters killed by Moammar Gadhafi's forces over the last few days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears reprisal.

 

Witnesses told The Associated Press a mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and Gadhafi loyalists went after demonstrators on Saturday with knives, assault rifles and heavy-calibre weapons. That followed days of protests in Benghazi, a focal point of the uprising aimed at toppling Gadhafi after more than 40 years of rule.

 

Libyan security forces killed at least 15 mourners and injured dozens of others at a Saturday funeral, according to hospital officials.

(Snip)

[Sabre86]

Qaddafi will put them down and put them down hard.

 

Unlike Egypt, the US and Europe have very little leverage with Libya.