International Court Team Is Held in Libya

[alp227]

Source: AP

The International Criminal Court on Saturday demanded the release of four staff members it said were being detained in Libya, where they were meeting with the imprisoned son of the deposed dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

“We are very concerned about the safety of our staff in the absence of any contact with them,” the court president, Sang-hyun Song, said in a statement in The Hague. “These four international civil servants have immunity when on an official I.C.C. mission.”

The four include at least one lawyer the court has assigned to help defend the legal interests of the Qaddafi son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, who was detained by fighters in November.

Mr. Qaddafi is at the center of wrangling between the international court and the new government in Tripoli, both of which have drawn up plans to prosecute him on war crimes charges. He has also been caught in a power struggle between the national authorities in Tripoli and the local ones in Zintan, Libya, who arrested him and have ignored requests from the capital to hand him over.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/world/africa/libya-detains-international-criminal-court-team.html

[sabrina 1]

1. The country has been destroyed. The whole infrastructure has been collapsed, it is like

Road Warrior there now, a country that was viewed as the most developed and wealthy country in that area of the world. Now reduced to rubble and murderous gangs terrorizing civilians, especially dark skinned civilians. And wasn't that NATO's mission, to protect civilians? Seems not, but it sold the war to those who wanted to believe it. NATO fled, leaving civilians at the mercy of armed, terrorists as soon as the oil was secured.

What a joke, a very, tragic, sad joke.

I hope those four people are safe and that they are released and returned to their countries. But there is definitely reason to fear for them.

[joshcryer]

2. That is patently false in every way.

The ICC was trying to smuggle in a document to get Saif to sign it saying he was being mistreated so they could go back and claim that Libya couldn't give him a fair trial.

Libya is doing a lot better than the nay-sayers said it would. Indeed, for the first time a female is leading the Benghazi Council. A city which many people were claiming was oppressive to women. It is horrible how vilified the Libyan people continue to be.

It is shameful that you are effectively regurgitating an opinion shared by Henry Kissinger. A factually untrue, objectively wrong view, of course, but you are free to say what you want, and I am free to correct it.

Despite Airport Incident, Henry Kissinger is Wrong about Libya
Henry Kissinger, in his recent op-ed against intervention in Syria, listed the erasure of the Libyan state as an argument against such interventions. I read the allegation with disbelief. Libya is not like Somalia! It isn’t even like Yemen. (The Libyans I talked to about Yemen sympathized with the country’s problems but were astonished to hear that some Western observers looked a their situations as similar!)

So imagine my surprise on visits to Benghazi, Misrata and Tripoli, to find that there were no militiamen to be seen, that most things were functioning normally, that there were police at traffic intersections, that there were children’s carnivals open till late, families out, that jewelry shops were open till 8 pm, that Arabs and Africans were working side by side, and that people were proud in Benghazi of having demonstrated against calls for decentralizing the country.

As someone who has lived in conflict situations, I take as a very serious gauge of security whether shops are open and how late they stay open. Jewelry shops in particular are easily looted, and the loot is light and easy to fence. But in Tripoli there was loads of gold in rows of jewelry shops, along with clothing stores newly stocked with Italian fashions. Shopkeepers I interviewed were fully stocked, confident and glad to finally be rid of Qaddafi’s erratic governance, under which they were never sure if they would make a profit because policies changed frequently.

Libya still has a lot of work to do, but it is doing better than you or Kissinger characterize.

[may3rd]

4. Wasn't Libya in charge of some UN human rights watchdog committee a few years ago ?

Yes, I'm sure his dad had some friends in high places.

[Comrade Grumpy]

12. The New York Review of Books this week has a less sunny take.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/libya-cracking/

[joshcryer]

13. That doesn't say the country is "destroyed" or that its "infrastructure has collapsed."

It's saying that it will collapse, just as the lying naysayers with no evidence have said from the start. Of course, they actually want Libya to collapse.

[sabrina 1]

21. Your nasty implication that DUers want any country to collapse is why discussing anything

with you, is not worthwhile. I think you owe DUers an apology. It was for the exact opposite reasons that people withdrew their support for that war, and for you to falsely accuse people of such horrific motives is shameful, simply because they did not agree with you. Not to mention how it destroys credibility to pretend to be able to read minds like that. A very despicable accusation which requires an apology or proof to back it up.

[joshcryer]

24. I did not mention DUers there. I was speaking of people who write negative articles about Libya.

Those people would get more clicks on their websites and more money to view the death and destruction, they don't get paid as well when things go well. The whole media infrastructure is only interested in negative articles. Look at Occupy, it was around and it is still around yet the media does not report on it, instead they wait for some negative story to come out and everyone is there with their microphones.

Yes, the MSM does want Libya to fail. But guess what? The MSM has been foretelling the collapse of Libya for quite awhile now.

To the point where some uninformed individuals actually regurgitate the talking points.

It just shows a total lack of perspective.

[riderinthestorm]

14. Or there's this report that directly contradicts Juan Cole. Who to believe?

Libya still ruled by the gun...

Six months after the death of Col Muammar Gaddafi, we were on the edge of a Libyan battlefield. Around us were armed men, tanks, bombed-out vehicles. The sound of gunfire was constant as artillery rounds and bullets whistled over our heads. This skirmish was not significant enough to be reported in the British press. But the dead were piling up: the militia we were with had lost 12 men with more than 100 wounded.

The battle was between two northern towns, Zuwara and Rigdalen. The population of neither can be more than 20,000. Yet, with both places teeming with arms, no functioning court system and a pathetically weak central government, even the smallest dispute can escalate into warfare.

The militias of both towns informed us that the other side were 'Gaddafi loyalists’ holding out against the revolution. This was an almost meaningless refrain that we were to hear many times. It was clear that other tensions were at work. Zuwara is a largely Berber town, while Rigdalen is Arab, and tensions go back centuries. There were disputes over land. The conflict, we were later told by a Western diplomat, may have been sparked by a battle for control of the local smuggling rackets.

snip

Though Gaddafi is dead, Libya is far from at peace. It is controlled by an intricate network of armed militias, some opportunistic or purely criminal but most representing powerful regions or tribes. The weakness of central government means they can and do operate with impunity.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9265441/Libya-still-ruled-by-the-gun.html

[joshcryer]

20. I believe the Libyan's, not MSM reporters.

And it was a top post in Juan Cole's blog, and I read it.

For what it's worth that article ends on a positive note.

But the Libyans who post on the various Libyan sites that have cropped up have a much more positive view of their country and the path it is on.

The country is not destroyed.

[sabrina 1]

22. How clever of you, not to address the actual issues, but to invoke Kissenger.

Not! I don't care what Kissenger has to say about anything. Nor do I understand why anyone would invoke a war criminal and a liar's words here to attack another DUer with. But it sure lost you all credibility to try to conflate a war criminal with a fellow DUer.

[joshcryer]

23. I have already addressed the issue, that it is false that Libya is "destroyed."

I think it's informative to point out when certain positions are being held by vastly corrupt individuals. I'm sorry if you feel that I am "conflating a war criminal with a fellow DUer," as that could not be further from the truth. Certainly sharing a corrupt position with someone does not automatically make a DUer fused with all ideas and positions said corrupt person holds.

It could be, in fact, that Kissenger is correct, but I do not believe he is by virtue of the fact that I do not believe he has ever been correct about anything of import, therefore there is simply no scenario where I would share an opinion with him of anything of significance.

[sabrina 1]

25. Sure, and I have dozens of quotes from vastly corrupt individuals who supported the invasion of

Libya, but in no way would I even think of using them to create an impression that any DUer, no matter how much I disagreed with them, was in some way connected to them.

Your intention was clear to me, and I'm sure to others. There were lots of credible people who opposed the Libyan invasion. You ignored them and chose a war criminal to make whatever point you were trying to make.

[joshcryer]

27. We're talking about whether Libya is destroyed, not whether or not it was right to "invade."

We're talking about objective facts, not moral dilemmas.

Some vastly corrupt people said we should invade Libya (and they actually meant an invasion with ground forces which the Libyan people rejected), but those same people did not like how Obama went about it, etc. These are distinct situations.

[joshcryer]

3. They're calling this #ICCBra and #BraGate in Libyan circles.

One of the ICC females had smuggled in papers for Saif to sign in her bra, and was caught pulling it out. I'm sure these people will be treated fairly and they just got caught trying to be sneaky. It was admittedly a nice move.

Get Saif to sign a paper saying he was being mistreated (he's a chronic liar and would do so even if he was being treated as a prince), ICC can then claim that Saif can't get a legitimate trial in Libya.

[EFerrari]

5. According to Juan Cole, Ms. Taylor's detention is proof women are more fully included in

The New Libya. Only a free woman could be detained, right? And only Qaddafi lovers like the ICC could claim otherwise.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. That blog by Cole has really gotten under your skin, hasn't it?

Does it offend you so much that Libya is largely functioning normally?

[EFerrari]

7. Are you in the right thread?

This is the OP where ICC personnel are being detained in the New Libya.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. I could have asked the same of you

In a thread about the detention of ICC personnel for apparently smuggling documents to or from Said Gaddafi, you bring up the blog post by Juan Cole that was nothing to do with the ICC. It's not that unusual for someone to be detained if they are suspected of smuggling items to or from a person in jail. It happens in developed, stable countries. But, for you, it's a chance to sarcastically refer back to Cole's piece.

It still rankles with you, doesn't it?

[EFerrari]

9. In fact, no, it's not "normal" for ICC teams to be arrested.

That's exactly the kind of gymnastics that apologists for Libya (like Cole) have to engage in to normalize what is going on there right now. Thanks for the illustration.

[joshcryer]

11. Juan Cole: Libya Should Turn Saif over to the Int'l Criminal Court

Saif was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. At one time the most reform-minded of Qaddafi’s sons, Saif faced a moral test from February 17 when the protest movement took off. He failed it miserably, shouting “let’s go, let’s go!” as he directed airplanes, tanks and artillery units to shell the demonstrating urban crowds. It is ironic that many in the Western Left, who now are rightly outraged about college students being pepper-sprayed by police at UC Davis while peacefully demonstrating, continue to defend the criminal Qaddafis, who attacked their own protesters with munitions rather more potent than pepper spray.

Although the International Criminal Court would very much like to see Saif Qaddafi brought to the Hague, ICC principles of complementarity do allow for a trial in Libya.

The interim Justice Minister on the Transitional National Council, Mohamed al-Alaqi, is insisting that Saif be tried in Libya. Though al-Alaqi maintains that Libya has the judicial infrastructure to ensure a fair trial, a post-revolutionary society in turmoil might be challenged in this regard. Al-Alaqi also is warning that Saif Qaddafi could receive the death penalty.

Libya’s new government should stop to consider that after the horror show of Muammar Qaddafi’s death and the exhibition of his mangled body, it has a lot of critics who need to be convinced that it is capable of instituting a rule of law. Delivering Saif to the ICC would go a long way in that direction. Moreover, having him tried abroad would be better for social peace in places like Sirte, where some still idolize the former ruling family. The ICC has the resources fully to establish Saif’s guilt and that of his father and brothers, which would be good for the new Libya. I understand post-colonial sensitivities about forwarding such a matter to an outside court, but the ICC is international, and Libya is a signatory to it.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/11/libya-should-turn-saif-over-to-the-intl-criminal-court.html

There are many reasons that Saif isn't being turned over. For one, the US likely doesn't want Saif's trial to be terribly public (indeed, the US backed Libya's desire not to turn him over). But there's probably also some Libyan elements there that don't want Saif to speak either, because he's a chronic liar, in any event.

Anyway, Juan Cole has yet to comment on the situation, and the poster is just being sarcastic (in a totally misleading and dishonest way).

[riderinthestorm]

16. EFerrari did not bring up the Juan Cole piece, joshcryer did.

Even as it has no bearing on the topic in the OP.

FWIW, the Juan Cole blog is brought imho every time there's bad news out of Libya. Nobody is allowed to discuss the episodes without getting hit with that blog post to make sure we all remember how great Libya REALLY is... (when lots of signs indicate its pretty troubled still)

Edited because my damn laptop keeps sending posts before I finish typing them!

[joshcryer]

17. Oh please. The bad episodes are highly exaggerated by the MSM.

And people are highly misinformed about the current state of Libya's stability. Every time bad news comes out some people try to use it to slander the entire revolution, in fact, we have people here claiming that the country is in shambles which is just factually untrue. It's far more stable than anyone could expect.

edit: I saw your edit. No one is saying Libya is great. But my initial response here was, in fact, to respond to blatant falsehoods about Libya. It's one thing to say "they have a lot of work to do," and "it's not perfect yet." If anyone's post didn't "have bearing on the OP" it is that post I was responding to.

It's another thing entirely to say, "Their country is destroyed! All is lost!"

[EFerrari]

19. Actually, I did bring up Cole because

when I read the OP, I could hear him spinning it in my head. lol

[sabrina 1]

26. Juan Cole supported the Iraq War also, after he was against it. As many have said of Juan Cole,

he is inconsistent and for that reason not someone to turn to try to make a case on any of our wars. He speaks out against Colonial invasion of the ME, then turns around and supports Iraq and Libya. Not credible on this issues at all. I don't know why he is linked to make a case for 'a good war', as if there is such a thing.

[joshcryer]

28. This is factually untrue. You cannot prove that, it is a bullshit smear against Juan Cole.

Unlike Glenn Greenwald Juan Cole never supported the Iraq War.

[sabrina 1]

30. And not surprisingly, you are wrong again.

Juan Cole was ambivalent, much like Glenn Greenwald, about his support for the war, only for different reasons. But he definitely supported it, in a, as I guess he believed, more intellectual way.

In his own words, after a comment he made about not being able to bring himself to 'march to keep Saddam in power', taken to have been a slur against the anti-protesters by Helena Cobban, he responded to her reaction to his comment:


Taking Umbrage

Helena Cobban took umbrage at my saying originally "march to keep Saddam in power" because she felt it was a slur against anti-war protesters, implying that that was their goal. I wasn't, however, talking about other people; I was talking about my own ethical stance. I knew for a fact that Saddam was not going to be overthrown by internal forces and that he was committing virtual genocide against people like the Marsh Arabs. For me, marching against the war would have been done in knowledge that it would result in Saddam staying in power. She wants me to apologize. I'm always glad to apologize. I don't see what it costs you to say you are sorry about hurting someone's feelings inadvertently. But I didn't mean, in my own mind, what she read me to mean, in the first place. I think an anti-war position was ethically defensible; it just wasn't the position I was comfortable with. I think it mattered, too, whether you actually knew and interacted with Iraqi Shiites and Kurds very much.

Rather than use the lie of WMDs, because he's smarter than the Bush gang, he used Saddam's brutality as his excuse for his willingness to go along with it. Too bad the US created Saddam Hussein in the first place.

Lots of examples of his eventual support for the war, he just thought it could have been done better after seeing the carnage and the collapse of Iraqi society, although when asked how, I do not recall his answers.

My mind and heart are, like those of so many Americans

*My mind and heart are, like those of so many Americans, focused on the Gulf and Iraq tonight. I am thinking about all those brave young men and women in the US and British armed forces whose lives are on the line, and send them my warm support. And I am thinking about all the innocent Iraqis in the line of fire, who fear what awaits them. I remain convinced that, for all the concerns one might have about the aftermath, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides.

He was just nicer about it, but I remember well when he took this position and was not at all surprised by his position Libya. Nor will I be when the next war comes along and he manages to find a reason to support it after being against it.

He's one of those intellectuals who doesn't want to appear to be a warmonger, nor does he want to appear to be anti-war, so he thinks he is different when he supports Imperial wars because he claims to do it reluctantly, for humanitarian reasons'.And that is so much worse, because he knew full well the slaughter that was going to occur on that very first night.

Frankly I prefer people who are not so seemingly 'reasonable'. Cole persuaded others, who could not have been persuaded by Bush/Cheney because his wars, he claims, are 'principled'.

He has earned himself the reputation of being a 'Liberal Interventionist'. Not any different that a 'Neo-Con Interventionist' not to the victims of our humanitarian bombs.

And of course when the Iraq War went so wrong, with so many, many victims, he then claimed it 'should have been done differently'. And then he recaptured his disappointed Liberal readership by slamming it. Way, way too late. See, it wasn't his fault, he didn't think it could be so bad. Well, WE DID, and we are no intellectuals as he supposedly is.

Oh, and btw, Juan Cole has, as he said, 'enormous respect for Glenn Greenwald' to whom he tried to explain his support for the next war he got behind because he obviously cares what Greenwald thinks of him. It wasn't very convincing, no more than his excuses for supporting the Iraq War were. He'd like us to forget that support though. But I remember it well.

I'm trying to think of any war he hasn't supported, in between being 'thoughtfully' against it at first. Amazing you are so unaware of Juan Cole's history. What I said is common knowledge, he lost credibility on our foreign policy a long time ago.

Next time, do some research, before insinuating that people are liars, or accusing them of smearing others.

[joshcryer]

31. That is not "support" for the Iraq War, as he maintained it was illegal throughout.

Philosophy is so lost on you, I think. One can be for the ouster of Saddam, for example, but against a war.

Here's what Cole had to say, and he is 100% consistent:

By the way, it has been alleged by some of my detractors that I supported the Iraq War. My position on the war was in fact very complex. I thought it was a terrible idea, but declined to come out against it because I believed that if Saddam’s genocidal regime could be removed by the international community in a legal way, that some good would have been accomplished. But the bottom line is that I thought a war would be legal only if the United Nations Security Council authorized it. I can produce witnesses to my having said that if the UNSC did not authorize the war, I would protest it. When Bush threw aside the UNSC, I became a critic. I still resist the notion that US and UK troops have died in vain, but my conviction that they wouldn’t did not actually suggest support for the war on a political plane, as some have alleged.

http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/cole-on-iraq-2002-2003-by-way-it-has.html

For instance, I am against NATO, but I am against Gaddafi, as well. Therefore I am not going to cry and bemoan when Gaddafi gets taken out. Simple, consistent, moral view.

BTW, I knew you would quote that, but it is not proof that he supported the war, it is only proof that he supported being rid of a tyrant, which is perfectly consistent with his beliefs in Libya. Proper liberals are actually against totalitarians, not for them. Which is why so many Gaddafi supporters have been banned here. Totalitarians are simply not welcome.

[sabrina 1]

32. Nice try, he supported the war and it is and has been well known. The fact that it was illegal

should have prevented him, but it didn't. I am not going to waste any more time on your games. Juan Cole has supported every one of the past several wars this country has been engaged in. And his excuses have not been accepted by honest people.

Edited for more of his rationalizations for his support for the war in Iraq:

*Helena Cobban has more comments today on my posting about the build up to the Iraq war. As far as I can tell, the difference between us is that I am not a complete pacifist. I prefer peace, and think every effort should be made to maintain it. But I also do believe in collective security (remember that I am an idiosyncratic Baha’i). So I think the UN Security Council has the authority to authorize military intervention in places like Bosnia and Afghanistan. The UNSC has a clear duty to authorize such intervention where a state has committed aggression on another. I personally think it also ought to intervene to stop ongoing or incipient genocides of the sort Saddam was waging against the Marsh Arabs. Saddam was a serial aggressor on a mass scale inside and outside his country, and probably responsible for hundreds of thousands murdered. He was in material breach of large numbers of UNSC resolutions. I think the Iraq war could have been justified on grounds of international law, and if the US had gotten a Security Council Resolution I would have actively supported the endeavor. I don’t think the war was essentially wrong; I think it was procedurally wrong.

He 'passively' not 'actively' supported it, he claimed. But it wasn't wrong, he says. YES IT WAS! He's clever and he knows people like you will fall for his 'philosophical' ramblings while he gives his support and argues against those who oppose it.

[joshcryer]

33. Nope. Juan Cole has been perfectly consistent. So have the supporters of totalitarians, though.

So it works out.

[sabrina 1]

34. Juan Cole is what is known as 'liberal hawk'.

He has supported every war in recent times.

He is supposed to get the Liberal support for our 'humanitarian' bombs. He talks to liberals 'philosophically' assuming we are all gullible enough to buy into Imperial wars.

His latest war-mongering though, pretty much erased any credibility he had after his support for the Iraq war.

I see you agree with him, that the only thing wrong with the Iraq War was that Bush didn't wait for the Security Council's vote. I guess that would have made the slaughtered Iraqis less dead. He didn't fool us then and he isn't fooling anyone now.


And then there is the fact that he has been a consultant for the CIA, revealed by him and CIA Agent Glenn Carle on the Amy Goodman Show recently. I certainly wasn't surprised. But what is a Liberal 'Philosopher' doing consulting with the CIA? He sure did a good job of swaying Liberals to support the latest Imperial War, well some of them anyhow.

Face it your hero is a war supporter. He supported Kosovo, Iraq and Libya and he will get on board for Iran if that time comes. If it's a Republican, he will do it 'reluctantly' and find some reason to not 'actively' support it in order to try to keep his liberal creds. If it is a Democrat, he will write us Liberals another letter telling us why we should support it and support it 'actively'.

I don't support Imperial wars, I did not support Iraq, and unlike Cole, would not have supported it with the Security Council's vote either. What a weasel way to try to claim that that brutal war would have been any less destructive with that vote.

One thing you are right about, he is consistent, consistently pro-war.

As for your nonsensical interpretation of his own words, that he supported getting rid of Saddam but not the war?? I guess you skipping over what he himself said. He supported the war because he did not believer there was any other way. His ONLY OBJECTION was, he claims, that it wasn't rubber stamped 'LEGAL' by the SC. As if that would have excused anyone supporting it. I remember that and was devasted by his words at the time. Rightwingers used them on people like me, pointing to him to say 'even your own liberal writers support this war, so get on board'. Yes, thanks Juan, for making arguing with rightwing war-mongers a lot harder.

[joshcryer]

35. Just more false statements. And I never said I agreed with the Iraq War.

Again, it's philosophical. The difference between Cole and I is that I protested against the Iraq war, because I saw it as an illegal invasion, and he just turned a blind eye.

Then again, I disagree with NATO's presence, but I turned a blind eye in Libya (hoping it would actually lead to the destruction of NATO, which is appears to have done).

It's about supporting the oppressed more than the oppressors. Some people cannot make that distinction, they don't have the philosophical capacity to make it, so they go on and make the world black and white and slander good, progressive liberals for supporting people who want freedom and justice.

Juan Cole is not a "war supporter." What you say is just misleading bullshit to slander a good progressive.

[sabrina 1]

36. He supported Kosovo, Iraq and Libya, the man is a recognized 'liberal hawk'. He does not deny his

support for Iraq, he tries to rationalize it. I have no idea why you are contradicting the man himself. Those of us who were devastated on the night that horror began, were stunned by his support and never forgot it. To say he is not a war supporter is simply false. He supported all three wars since the Clinton years, he's just more subtle on Republican wars.

He doesn't think too much of Chomsky either, calls him naive. For a liberal, he's got some strange views. He's got you fooled with his nonsensical 'philosophical' support of war. What a load of crap. You either support wrong wars or you do not, there is nothing 'philosophical' or 'nuanced' about it. It is either right or wrong, and you don't get to say it's wrong, but only because some entity didn't put a rubber stamp on it.

It would still have been wrong, still as deadly for the Iraqi people and the troops. He has been questioned over and over about this, but now with his enthusiasm for the Libyan invasion, as I said, he is not just a war supporter, he is a hypocrite. Finding Libya legal but Iraq not? What business, legally, did NATO have in Libya? Libya is not a member of NATO nor was it threatening a NATO member. Funny how that didn't bother him. But he's smart, I'll give him that, enough to still fool a few liberals I suppose.

He's still worth reading on some subjects but not someone I would use as a source when it comes to Imperial wars. He believes in them. He sees no other way of resolving issues. He is a true Imperialist, war is the answer.

You were wrong, it happens. And next time you want to play 'gotcha' play it with someone else. Your innuendos, being careful here as you are to avoid being alerted on, don't escape me.

[joshcryer]

37. There is no contridition, you're simply misrepresenting, typically, his position.

I am not wrong, I simply am capable of recognizing philosophical gray areas.

Some people are just so caught up in black and white views of the world they cannot accept that some thing are not gray. That's OK, they buy into MSM propaganda, they buy into basically a poor view of the world as it exists. That's fine. People are allowed to be ignorant.

Juan Cole is not the person you characterize him as being someone who "believes in war." But I expect if you repeat it enough you can believe it, so that's OK.

PS the chance that my posts here weren't alerted on are small, imo. I'm sure a few of my posts were alerted on.

[sabrina 1]

39. Someone who supports three wars in a row, believes in war.

He didn't protest Iraq and insinuated, as the right did at the time, that to do so would be 'marching to keep Saddam in power'.

I trust his own words.

[joshcryer]

10. Juan Cole has yet to comment on the ICC situation. The poster here is being sarcastic.

They do not see my post where I posted a link to Juan Cole's blog where he talks about visiting Libya because I am on their ignore.

The ICC situation will be resolved very briefly, I am sure. The poster in question has no qualms dissing Juan Cole whenever they get an opportunity, despite that it's based on blatant falsehoods the entire way.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Oh, I knew they were being sarcastic

It just shows how much they're invested in Juan Cole being wrong - they have to drag his description of Libya into anything to do with the country.

[joshcryer]

18. It just shows how diabolical they are by saying Juan Cole would be for the detention of a woman.

Truly twisted sense of "sarcasm."

[sofa king]

29. Quick! Someone reprogram the GPS in W's fishing boat!

I hear the snook is in season all year just off the coast of Tripoli.

[Eugene]

38. ICC staff 'moved to Libya jail'

Source: BBC

11 June 2012 Last updated at 12:44 GMT

ICC staff 'moved to Libya jail'

Four people from an International Criminal Court (ICC) delegation to Libya have been moved to jail, a militia brigade chief has told the BBC.

The four were detained on Thursday and will be held for 45 days pending investigation, Ajami al-Ateri said.

One of the delegation, lawyer Melinda Taylor, is accused of trying to pass documents to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Saif al-Islam, son of deposed leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, has been held by the Zintan brigade since November.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18394191