The End of Gaddafi
In case you were in a blackout all weekend, it's say to say that Gaddafi's regime officially toppled over the weekend… probably. (No one's quite ready to say it.) The pictures and video are amazing! Still everyone (everyone being "all the people who are not skirmishing in the streets of Tripoli") keeps hedging, because no one's been sure all night where Gaddafi himself is. (I know where he is: in an extremely long and entirely gold-lined emergency escape tunnel. The other end is surely either in Malta or Crete.)
My favorite update from the awesome Al-Jazeera? "Police have surrounded the Libyan embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, after a number of people entered the building and threw pictures of Muammar Gaddafi out the window." You know stuff is bad when the Bosnians are harshing on you. Another favorite update is that the "National Transitional Council," which is a terrible name for the "rebel governing body," announced a free Libya via mass text. What a time we live in! In any event, Gaddafi's sons are in jail and this is an incredible day and there's a party all over the world and you should be glued to the TV, unless you're busy routing armed Gaddafi loyalists.
Admittedly, this is pretty badass: "An uprising in Tripoli on Saturday night also laid the groundwork. At the 'zero hour,' as the rebels called it, residents took to the streets and held demonstrations that were met with deadly force by Qaddafi soldiers — who also further exposed their heavy artillery to NATO surveillance, one rebel leader said." Like, how to get the army to bring their materiel out into the open so the NATO planes can destroy it? Go out into the streets and let them shoot at you with it.
I wonder what will happen to those bloodthirsty African mercenaries who tied their lot to the tyrant. Poor life choices, no?
Also — you see how small Obama's Osama bin Ladin capture bounce was? I'll bet Obama gets zero point zero buzz for his hand in getting NATO to help the rebels oust Quadaffi.
@RonMwangaguhunga Too bad, as my nephew has been flying jet fuel back and forth to the NATO fighters for the last 5 months. The Americans were there, just not out front.
@RonMwangaguhunga Cameron will get a bump, the son of a bitch.
About the incident in Sarajevo: as I suspected (and this
link confirms, for those who speak Croatian) the people who entered the Libyan embassy in Sarajevo are Libyan citizens living in Sarajevo. There is also a video.
Mass text, eh? Prescient acquisition, Skype.
I certainly look forward to the suit that this guy will be wearing at his Hague trial.
@jfruh He really seems to have embarced a wealthy, overweight middle aged lady aesthtic, huh?
@Ham_Snadwich Sartorial sense courtesy of some 1980s soap opera matriarch.
It's say say say to say.
Nice to see America toppling governments and begin nation-building the old-fashioned way, behind closed doors.
@johnpseudonym The rebels just might have to "invite" NATO advisors to help them keep order. Likely right before the privatization of the petroleum industry.
@johnpseudonym: You have to admit, drugging the young Lybians'
Nescafé was a pretty brilliant move on our part.
@Mr. B I'm just glad we were able to bury our differences with Al Qaeda to unite in a common cause.
Thoughts about this, Choire? We're all curious!
@Mr. B You are aware that Choire did not write the article you link to?
@Kevin Knox I did read it, yes.
Man, all this freedom is ruining the nonstop coverage of the wedding of America's sweetheart, Kim Kardashian.
@Ham_Snadwich Something something false flag operation…
Many people are asking: what if the new rulers are as bad as Gaddafi? The answer to that is: they will end up just like him, much sooner than he did. While more war certainly is terrifying, the light at the end of the tunnel is that people will eventually come to terms with the fact that the era of iron-fist rulers on this planet has ended. Thanks to cell phones and internet.
And, you know, guns.
@LondonLee When small guns win against big guns, it's as good as you can hope for. You can't revolt with just blog posts and comments.
@Niko Bellic Bashar al-Assad has an iPad.
Call me an unreconstructed Constructivist but I think National Transitional Council is a great name. Up there with State Law and Order Restoration Committee (the famous original Burmese one, not the one that constantly writes letters to NBC and the New York Film Board). Although personally I would have gone with Central Directorate for Change in Governance.
Qadaffi was Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya, like he was some sort of hippie helping you through a bad acid trip.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/world/africa/23mystery.html
"Colonel Qaddafi’s last public appearance was on June 12, when he was photographed playing chess in Tripoli with the visiting president of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan N. Ilyumzhinov, an equally eccentric if less powerful personality from Russia who claims to communicate with aliens from outer space."
!!!