Libyan Opposition Spurns Calls for Foreign ‘Help’

Top Figures Say Protesters Will Oust Gadhafi on Their Own

Though it seems clear that the international community in general and the United States in particular are bound and determined to do “something” about the massive uprising in Libya, the protesters’ leadership is openly spurning those calls and insists it doesn’t need their sort of help.

Hafiz Ghoga, a spokesman for the protesters’ new National Libyan Council, insisted that calls for foreign intervention were entirely unwelcome, adding that the protesters have taken most of the nation and “the rest of Libya will be liberated by the people.”

Indeed, despite people raising the prospect of international intervention against the Gadhafi regime, the newly formed pro-protester military say that they haven’t even deployed in Gadhafi’s last city of Tripoli because the protesters there insist they don’t need help.

Gadhafi only really holds the central part of Tripoli at this point, and that is only on the basis of his mercenary forces. It seems the people are preparing for their last push in this last bastion of regime power, and one hopes that by the time the Obama Administration et al have decided to move against Gadhafi he’ll already be gone.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.