Libyan Revolution Day 62 - Democratic Underground

joshcryer

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Tue Apr-19-11 08:59 PM
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Libyan Revolution Day 62

Links to sites with updates: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-april-20">AJE Live Blog April 20 (today) http://blogs.aljazeera.net/twitter-dashboard">AJE Twitter Dashboard http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/libya">The Guardian http://uk.reuters.com/places/libya">Reuters 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=439x918800">Day 61 here.

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

Libyan rebels took a breather on the median of the main road to the front line at the outskirts of Ajdabiya

Photograph: Ben Cirtus, Associated Press

http://abcnews.go.com/International/libya-war-month-fight/story?id=13412343">Libya War: One Month Into the Fight
...

Despite Gadhafi's tough talk there are real signs his military, comprised of some 15,000 highly trained troops and perhaps another 50,000 mercenaries, are beginning to feel the strain of the ongoing campaign.

Gadhafi has yet to pacify any area where protests have broken out and instead the armed rebellion only appears to be gathering strength. Even in the western city of Zawiya, where Gadhafi mounted a brutal campaign to control the city, most rebels retreated to wait for the opportunity to return to the fight.

Rather than smother the rebellion, Gadhafi's forces have had to react to an ever-growing uprising encouraged and backed by NATO airstrikes. In addition to Misurata and Ajdabiya in the east, Gadhafi's forces are now trying to put down a rebellion in the far western town of Zintan and throughout the Nafusah Mountains that stretch to the Tunisian border.

...

A NATO spokesman said Gadhafi's forces were splintered and with NATO now targeting his fuel depots and supply lines he can no longer take and hold ground.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8461802/Libya-RAF-Tornados-carry-out-deliberate-multiple-strikes.html">Libya: RAF Tornados carry out 'deliberate, multiple strikes'
...

"We have been watching the situation in Misurata, and over the past 10 days fighting has been intense," he said.

"Our forces have conducted numerous strikes in and around Misurata, and we have destroyed over 40 tanks and several armoured fighting vehicles there."

...

"What we are doing is attacking the regime's ability to supply and sustain these attacks not just in the area of Misurata but across the country," said Gen. van Uhm.

...

"Whenever Gaddafi tries to advance we destroy his supply lines and he has to fall back," said the official. "We suspect he has had to force his troops to advance and we are whacking them. Now we're taking out his communications."

They think they're forced conscripts, too. It's a goddamn travesty.

http://www.andymorganwrites.com/gaddafi-and-the-touareg-love-hate-and-petro-dollars/">GADDAFI AND THE TOUAREG: Love, hate and petro-dollars
Gaddafi has been buying the affections and fighting skills of the nomadic tribes of the Sahara for a long time. His vision of a borderless desert, an Islamic republic of the Sahara, has often found favour with the Touareg, who have been fighting their own struggle for political self-determination and cultural recognition against the governments of Mali and Niger since independence back in 1960. Gaddafi invited young Touareg immigrants in Libya to join his Islamic Legion in the early 1980s before sending them off to fight wars in Chad, the Sudan and the Lebanon. The same Touareg soldiers then unleashed their own rebellions against Mali and Niger in the 1990s. Despite widespread suspicion that Gaddafi only ever helped the Touareg to further his own territorial schemes, many Touareg fear the consequences of his fall from power. After all, for the past half century, he is the only head of state in the world who has ever supported their cause with arms and cash.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/world/africa/18misurata.html?_r=2&hp">In a Medical Tent in Libya, a Grim Procession
MISURATA, Libya — Jinan Hussein Jweil rested on her back on a gurney inside the triage tent. Either a bullet or a piece of whizzing shrapnel had struck the 5-year-old high on the right side of her head.

A Libyan and Italian medical team worked to save her. It was not certain they could. “Her brain is out,” said Dr. Abdullah Juwid, a surgeon.

As the ugly math of a midsize city suffering a siege would have it, Dr. Juwid was both a doctor in an overcrowded triage tent and an uncle of this wounded child. He had no time to dwell on her case.

A pickup truck skidded to a stop outside. Several rebel fighters carried their bullet-riddled friend through the entrance flap. The man appeared to have been in his 20s. He had been shot through both legs and squarely in his chest and mouth. His pupils were fixed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/19/gaddafi-violence-exaggerated-british-group">Gaddafi violence against Libya civilians exaggerated, says British group
The group had not visited Misrata, the rebel-held enclave under siege by Gaddafi forces, nor had it investigated the issue of detainees. It had not asked to visit any prisons, and had chosen not to examine the case of Iman al-Obeidi, the Libyan woman who claimed she had been raped multiple times by Gaddafi troops.

...

Members of the delegation queued at the microphone to attack the British media, saying it was partisan towards the Nato military action. "Some of the reports from Benghazi and Misrata are totally one-sided," said one. "There is a very high degree of distortion," an Italian film-maker who accompanied the delegation said.

They expressed sympathy for the Libyan regime's restrictions placed on foreign media, which is not allowed to leave the Rixos without a government official and whose movements, even with minders, are highly circumscribed.

...

The press conference became heated as members of the group wrestled the microphone from their colleagues. Eventually the group departed, copies of the conclusions of their "fact-finding mission" tucked under arms and in briefcases. It would use them as a launch pad for a campaign in the UK, Roberts said. And it intended to mount a similar mission to eastern Libya next month.

"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.