Libyan Revolution Day 58 - Democratic Underground

joshcryer

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Fri Apr-15-11 08:00 PM
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Libyan Revolution Day 58

Links to sites with updates: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-april-16">AJE Live Blog April 16 (today) http://blogs.aljazeera.net/twitter-dashboard">AJE Twitter Dashboard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya">The Guardian http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/">Telegraph http://feb17.info/">feb17.info http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks">Libya Alhurra (live video webcast from Benghazi) http://www.libyafeb17.com/">libyafeb17.com

Twitter links: http://twitter.com/#!/aymanm">Ayman Mohyeldin, with AJE http://twitter.com/#!/bencnn">Ben Wedeman, with CNN http://twitter.com/#!/tripolitanian">tripolitanian, a Libyan from Tripoli http://twitter.com/#!/BaghdadBrian">Brian Conley, reporter in Libya http://twitter.com/#!/freelibyanyouth">FreeLibyanYouth, Libyan advocate http://twitter.com/#!/LibyaFeb17_com">LibyaFeb17.com twitter account http://twitter.com/#!/ChangeInLibya">ChangeInLibya, Libyan advocate

Useful links: http://audioboo.fm/feb17voices">feb17voices http://www.google.com/search?q=time+in+libya">Current time in Libya http://www.islamicfinder.org/cityPrayerNew.php?country=libya">Prayer times in Libya

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x894185">Day 57 here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixwx_B38678">Marching On in Libya, for the revolutionaries!

A protester holds a sign asking for more NATO intervention

Photograph: Twitpic

http://www.economist.com/node/18530535">Early days, early rivalries
The rebels have virtually no institutions to hold their eastern zone together. But the vacuum is steadily being filled. Courts have started to function again. The rebels have even set up an embryonic intelligence service. The nights have become quieter since the police, back in action, started to question people wielding unlicensed weapons. After dusk volunteers man checkpoints inside Benghazi and outside its main hotels. Businessmen say that mobile telephones and the internet will be reconnected to the outside world within a week or two. Despite the no-fly zone, aircraft and even military helicopters fly in and out of Benghazi’s rebel-held airport.

...

As people begin to suspect that a military stalemate may last months, some are worrying that the self-appointed council may entrench itself with no accountability. It presents itself as the new Libya’s legislature, with a “crisis-management committee” as its government, alongside a plethora of lesser committees. But it is not always clear who is in charge or where lines of command are being drawn.

The council has yet to begin untangling the legal and legislative knots that have snarled up the economy for so many years. For instance, Colonel Qaddafi’s Law Number Four, which empowers the state to confiscate private property and resell it, has yet to be repealed. But doing so would set off a string of compensation claims, which the courts are not yet equipped to assess. “We want our houses back,” says Maha al-Shahumi, who helps to run a fledgling prosecution service in the council’s courthouse. “We won’t rest till we do.”

Some of the new order’s more liberal backers say the council should set up mechanisms forthwith to ensure openness. It should schedule provincial elections, start drafting a new school syllabus and promise a rapid reform of the army and security service, once the colonel has been toppled. In particular, the new council, based as it is in the east, must widen its composition and strive to persuade Tripolitanians in the west that a decent new order is being built. It must also reassure foreign governments that it can be a worthy interlocutor.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/15/libya.war/index.html">Rights group: Gadhafi forces firing cluster munitions
Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have fired cluster munitions into residential areas in the besieged western city of Misrata, Human Rights Watch said Friday.

A spokesman for the Libyan government denied the charge.

The organization said in a statement that it had seen three cluster munitions explode over the el-Shawahda neighborhood of Misrata on Thursday night. Researchers inspected debris from a cluster submunition and interviewed witnesses to two other apparent cluster munitions strikes, the statement said.

HRW inspected the submunition, which it said had been discovered by a New York Times reporter, and determined that it was a Spanish-produced MAT-120 120mm mortar projectile, which opens in the air and releases 21 submunitions across a wide area.

http://www.minesactioncanada.org/media-centre#READ%20MORE%3E%3E">Cluster Munition Coalition condemns use of cluster munitions by Libyan armed forces
Cluster Munition Coalition member Human Rights Watch has revealed today that Gaddafi’s forces have used cluster munitions in Misrata, Libya. Cluster munitions have been outlawed by the majority of the world’s nations under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions because of their indiscriminate nature and the harm they cause to civilians both during and after a conflict ends.

“Libya should immediately stop all use of cluster munitions. These banned weapons have horrific effects and the unexploded ordnance that will result will prolong civilian suffering even after the conflict has ended,” said Laura Cheeseman, director of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC).

Human Rights Watch has reported eyewitness accounts of cluster munition use in recent days. The full extent of cluster munition use and resulting civilian casualties is unknown. Urgent steps must now be taken to ensure that unexploded cluster submunitions are cleared to prevent further deaths or injuries from cluster munitions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/apr/15/libya-middle-east-uprising-live#block-13">Libyan opposition supporters are holding up Zawahri's comments as proof that the rebels are not al-Qaida fighters

http://twitter.com/Ssirgany/statuses/58835114687348736">Ssirgany:

Zawahri says Muslims should fight NATO in Libya (Reuters)... Zawahri just dispelled the Qaddafi lie about rebels being Qaeda

http://twitter.com/Libyan4life">Libyan4life:

FINALLY PROOF WE AREN"T WITH ALQAEDA!!! Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman AlZawahri has urged Muslims in #Libya to fight NATO forces. ½

We ASKED #Nato and the international community to intervene, why would we attack them?! 2/2 #YaRight #Dreamon #Libya #Feb17

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13092908">Misrata hospital to 'treat patients on floor' as beds full - video
David Cameron, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy have declared that the military action in Libya will continue for as long as Colonel Gaddafi remains in power.

Rebels in the central city of Misrata are still holding out but the stand-off between Gaddafi's forces and the opposition is costing civilians their lives.

The BBC's Orla Guerin has been inside one of the hospitals which is overflowing with patients.

VIDEO AT LINK

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/04/201141591544963774.html">Gaddafi forces pound Misurata again - video
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi fired a hail of rockets into the besieged city of Misurata for the second day in a row, killing at least eight people, a local doctor told Al Jazeera.

He said seven other civilians, including children and older people, were wounded in the attacks on Friday. Residents told Al Jazeera around 120 rockets pounded the city.

Gaddafi's forces also opened fire on rebels on the western edge of Ajdabiyah, killing one, rebel fighters said.

A rebel manning an anti-aircraft gun was shot dead and two others were wounded in the attack one kilometre from the western gate of Ajdabiyah, the last major town before the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

VIDEO AT LINK

"One month ago (Western countries) were sooo nice, so nice like pussycats," Saif says in a contemptuous sing-song tone."Now they want to be really aggressive like tigers. (But) soon they will come back, and cut oil deals, contracts. We know this game." - http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058389,00.html">Saif Gaddafi

(Yeah, Saif, as if you weren't "cutting oil deals, contracts" with western states. Who are the 'tigers' now? Bombing your own people.)

http://jenkinsear.com/2011/03/19/a-legal-war-the-united-nations-participation-act-and-libya/">A Legal War: The United Nations Participation Act and Libya
The above link is to an overview of why Obama's implementation of the NFZ and R2P is perfectly legal under the law. I will not post it entirely here, however, all objections come down to the misinformed position that Obama, by using forces in Libya, was invoking Article 43 of the United Nations. This is wrong. Obama invoked Article 42, which does not require congressional approval to implement. Proof of this is that Article 43 has http://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/actions.shtml#rel5">never been used.

It goes like this: The US law (Title 22, Chap. 7, Subchap. XIV § 287d) grants the President the right to invoke UN Article 42 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode22/usc_sec_22_00000287---d000-.html">without authorization, the War Powers Act (Title 50, Chap. 33 § 1541) grants the President permission to act without authorization under http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/1541–1548.html">"specific statutory authorization" which, by definition, is what 287d does. § 1543 of the War Powers Act requires the President to report to Congress, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama_explains_libya_mission_to_congress/2011/03/03/ABU9377_blog.html">which he did. One can argue all day and night about the legality of the War Powers Act, doesn't change the fact that under the law as it is written, the President acted within the law.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-10-0">March 10 7:28pm Saif al Islam Gaddafi says "the time has come for full-scale military action" against Libyan rebels. He goes on to say that Libyan forces loyal to his family "will never surrender, even if western powers intervene".

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/2011/03/2011328194855872276.html">Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it
Fortunately, the Council wasn't made-in-the-USA or manufactured by another foreign power. Rather it came into existence, a month ago, at Libyans' own initiative, soon after the winds of revolutionary change blew Libya's way, and after its people rose to the occasion with pride and courage.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/31/getting_libyas_rebels_wrong">Getting Libya's Rebels Wrong
Don't buy Qaddafi's line: The rebels aren't al Qaeda.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson#ixzz1HvS7iW22">Who Are the Rebels?
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/vision-democratic-libya-interim-national-council">A vision of a democratic Libya
The interim national council, formed by opposition groups in Libya, has said it will hold free and fair elections and draft a national constitution. Here is its eight-point plan in full.

Mohammed Nabbous, killed by Gaddafi's forces while trying to report on the massacre in Benghazi

"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to lose the battle" -Mohammed Nabbous, a month ago when all this began

I'm struggling to come up with something to say about this man. I was not aware of the Libyan uprising until I saw Mo's first report, begging for help, posted here on DU. I was stricken. Here was a man giving everything he had to explain a situation that clearly terrified him, I would not call him a coward in that moment, but you could see the fear in his eyes, and desperation in his voice. For 30 days Nabbous would spend many hours covering the uprising in Benghazi. For many nights I would go to sleep with the webcast of Benghazi live on my computer screen, looking to it occasionally to be sure it was still 'there.' Mo treated the chat room as if we were his friends, and in some way, we were. I never signed up to LiveStream to thank him for all his work and it seems somewhat shallow to do so now, given that I was a lurker for so long. Ever since I took over posting these threads "Libya Alhurra" has been linked as a source of information. It wasn't until last night, when I posted, and twitter posted on Mo's adventures out into Benghazi to try to determine the truth of the situation, that Mo's webchannel became a hit, over 2000 people were watching him stream live. This was curious to him because he'd done many reports like this in the past but he appeared somewhat bemused that the view count exploded as it did. Last night Mo became a star. This is a man who first started out with a webcast replete with fear and desperation finally overcoming that aspect of himself and losing that fear, to become someone who was a fighter for the resistance just as much as those who held the guns. Reporting on the front lines of Benghazi became his final act, and for that he should never, ever be forgotten. I'm so sorry Mo that I never got to know you better.

Mo's first report, which many of you may remember, begging for help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg

Mo's last report, a fallen hero trying to spread the word to the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu_iWLn-rg

Mo leaves behind a wife who is with child, she had http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/23/a_bright_voice_from_libyas_darkness">this to say about the No Fly Zone and R2P UN resolution:

We started this in a pure way, but he turned it bloody. Thousands of our men, women, and children have died. We just wanted our freedom, that's all we wanted, we didn't want power. Before, we could not do a single thing if it was not the way he wanted it. All we wanted was freedom. All we wanted was to be free. We have paid with our blood, with our families, with our men, and we're not going to give up. We are still going to do that no matter what it takes, but we need help. We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore.