As Libya’s rebels increasingly reveal themselves to be anything but liberal democrats and the Western stomach for war sours, pressure on Gadhafi could be waning.
Bernard-Henri Lévy and others with no stake or chance of injury in the Libyan civil war continue to stoke the fires of conflict in op-eds, but the philosopher’s government, in the lead in cheerleading for war, is now negotiating with the Gadhafi regime. French and American officials now say it would be possible for Gadhafi to remain in Libya, as long as he is not in power. This comes after it was revealed the US has been in secret negotiations with the Libyan dictator, just days after recognizing the rebels as the legitimate government.
The rebels and the regime are currently locked in battle for the port town of Brega, with rebels alternately claiming control and being driven back to the outskirts. The “days not weeks” conflict has drawn out longer than originally thought.
And as the war drags on, the atrocities mount. A mass grave, filled with bodies dressed in the green uniform of Gadhafi’s regime, was recently discovered by the UK Telegraph at one of the conflict’s front lines. One was headless. The site has since been bulldozed and the rebel leadership is quashing the newspaper’s attempts to investigate further; tellingly, there was none of the typical call for the media to witness Gadhafi’s crimes.
Rights groups are documenting cases of extrajudicial killing by the rebels, and journalists are banned from certain areas. Last week it was reported some rebels are beating civilians and looting in recently overrun towns.
If the new boss is looking a lot like the old boss, it might be because many of the new bosses had been the old boss’ henchmen for the last four decades.
“This comes after it was revealed the US has been in secret negotiations with the “Libyan dictator“, just days after recognizing the rebels as the legitimate government“.
What I don’t understand is that all of the sudden Libyan government whom is not recognized by US is still the government of Libya and US is negotiating with it.., that government is called “Libyan dictators” whom still must be the legitimate government of Libya and therefore US is negotiating with.., if “Libyan dictator“ was not the legitimate government of Libya and US knew that Libyan council presenting over 60% of Libyan people then they wouldn’t negotiate with “Libyan dictatorial government.., or would they.., but why is that…, why the Libyan government is by western journalism named dictator…?
Why is it that western journalism can call any other government but their own a “dictatorial government” but calling their own militarism government a Liberals or democrats or for that matter Republicans.., the Libyan dictatorial government is not attacking US nor for that matter France or England and any other NATO countries.., Iraq didn’t attack US nor any NATO nations.., nor did any other nations which been bombed by US/NATO…, or those governments in northern Europe been harmed by “Libyan dictatorial government” in any ways.., yet they are helping US/NATO militarism agendas for Africa to be bombed .., why these governments are not called dictators nor for that matter their brutal, inhuman and history in crimes against humanity, their history in conducting wars, a history full of destructions toward mankind.., why is it that, why a single reporter would not dare to call the France president an idiot or dictator.., or for that matter a single reporter from NY times or even Anti War would call Barack Hussein Obama a “dictator in civilian clothing educated from Harvard“.
Yet all other government as Libyan government been named Libyan dictator. If you think even for a moment that what is called democracy is not brutal as any other government in EU or US that is because you haven’t seen anything yet.
Dictators are those whom their governing bases are based on their militarism.., those that are at war with other nations all the time destroying people life’s, dictators are those whom are in business making their own people poorer and homeless by an hour.., dictators are those who lie to their own people and rest of the world about how “democrats” they are, dictators are those that are helping tyrants dictatorial regimes to help them in Libya and rest of the world, dictators are those who are willing to sacrifice a nation for what is a falsified democracy.., in this case Palestinians, dictators are those who don’t understand nor they respect the basics in democracy yet they been forcing their own people to believe on a lie they tell about democracy.., that is the only truth about democracy that they ever been telling and it is enough evidence in historical and practical terms that they are dictators in civilian clothing.., otherwise they would have brought about justice and prosecuted those who killed more then a million Iraqis.
Jamal, even the title of this artice should be different and instead of "Worries Grow About Libya Rebels’ Brutality" it should be titled something like "Everybody wonders what are the goals of NATO-rebels coalition"
I read while ago an article in British "TheGuardian" about how much military air support rebels received from MATO in their battle for Brega. Since Brega is empty of civilians since the rebels tried to overrun Libya's defences the very first time NATO is not even using their magic formula "saving civilians lives" to explain this shameful military support of the rebel's side.
Democracy is definitely not working or it is abused in some cases and this looks like one of them. Why is it not working? I have a theory – that weight of voting rights should be correlated to something measurable – like IQ. Higher IQ somebody has, more independent thinking and abstraction powers he/she has. Higher IQ someone has more responsible choices he/she does.
This should not come as a shock to anyone. It's been well documented since this rebellion began that this was not a group of citizens who had decided they weren't taking it anymore. Out of all the uprisings, this is the only one that used weapons and from the first, films have been taken that show CIA working with the rebels and some very gruesome footage. Here are 3 links to some very graphic footage — some won't be overly bothered, but some might so please dont watch, just read, if you done' t want to see what man is capable of doing to his brothers — ; we know that neither side is 100 percent right here, and of course neither side is a white hat army, but lust for oil put us and NATO here. No way we should be mixed up in this war crime festival, we're already stained with enough innocent blood. Any humanitarian gestures – which were BS anyway – for this group is pathetic. http://www.obamaslibya.com/ http://www.federaljack.com/?page_id=37933 http://thesantosrepublic.com/2011/06/the-fugly-tr…
As the warning goes – beware what you wish for less you get it – Libya and the world just might be better off with Gadhafi remaining in power?
When I saw tens of videos in February and March of abuse, torture and killing of suspected pro-Gaddafi Libyans and black workers who had been for years working peacefully in Gaddafi's Libya I was not proud that my government also supports these "revolutionaries". Videos were posted by proud "revolutionaries" themselves – as you could see a big crowd of them on central square in Benghazi obscenely taking video shots of killing their enemies with their cell phones. Then there was always question in my mind if West suddenly believes that an old dog can learn new tricks – and yes old dogs were not only former henchmen of Gaddafi like former minister of interior to be one of leading figures of "revolution", but also members of Libya Islamic Fighting (actually I learned that the original in their language means killing) Group. Since their goal of getting the power over Libyans was seemingly so close they learnt to speak Orwellian language very well. Suddenly even most fanatical hatred of Islamic Jihadists changed to love for the West and abusers of Libyans from their ministerial seats were suddenly talking about human rights. If West asked them to say anything they probably would since it was in support of their goals. The western attackers has had also their own goals in Libya or it definitely looks like they had, since they were willing to close both of their eyes not to see obvious things which were so wrong on these thugs.
Will governments of countries who recognized them as the real government accept also responsibility for what will happen if this chosen government with mighty NATO support overrun Tripoli and river of blood of pro-Gaddafi civilians will run down to Mediterean Sea?
Yet another cock-up by the 'international community'.
Uh, huh. Well, let NATO fix that one too. Impose a no-fly zone over the revels and get to the killing. The more, the merrier.
Why do our nation's "leaders" consitently choose to support thugs?
(You'll never lose money betting against America's "leaders.")
The last result for US and NATO governments is to use barbarians.., the illegitimate sons of Saudi Arabia and Arab Emirates.., for their agendas.., their new agenda is Africa.., now that they have lost in Middle east and Central Asia by going nowhere.., they needed to start a new war showing the world how they operate.., in the other hand this is been the nature of US and NATO governments despite their shape or color.., the social democrats in Europe were for the Balkan wars backing Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright so as Hashim Taci the Balkan Mafia leader.., now you have “liberals” in Europe and a “democrat” from US doing the same thing helping the barbarians for their interests.
I hope the above posters realize that executions and revenge killings are standard fare during uprisings.
Look back at the anti-colonial campaigns of the 1960s and 70s. Brutal crimes were committed by revolutionaries against soldiers and civilians alike – and on a far greater scale than what we've seen in Libya.
But no one would DARE suggest that the massacres by the VC and NVA invalidated the communist struggle in Vietnam, or that the FLN did not have a good cause in Algeria. Amazing what a difference it makes when the US is on-side with the rebels!
The best way to avoid this sort of ethical mess is for us to not take sides at all. If that means Ghadaffi wins then I'm fine with that.