In comments today, Libya’s acting Prime Minister Mahmoud Jabril claimed former dictator Moammar Gadhafi was hiding in the southern deserts, while also being active in several neighboring countries recruiting mercenaries for some sort of extremely improbable comeback campaign.
The comments aren’t just random fear-mongering for its own sake, but rather a very concerted effort by the National Transitional Council leadership to keep their followers from expressing their discontent with the new regime too openly, by claiming that the old regime is still lurking out there, somewhere in the desert, with enormous numbers of black mercenaries waiting to reconquer the nation. The strategy is similar to the one used by Iraq’s assorted political rulers, which constantly raise the specter of a Ba’athist regime returning when questioned.
And the questioning is growing louder lately, with growing numbers of wounded fighters dying in overcrowded hospitals of easily treated injuries. The hospitals are increasingly staffed with volunteers and medical students, and supplies are growing short.
This is in spite of reports that massive amounts of the old regime’s assets have been made available to the NTC, and while the NTC denies the charge there is growing speculation that they are sitting on the money rather than spending it on medical care for the various rebel fighters who are increasingly unnecessary in the wake of the last civil war, and which might be potential enemies when the next civil war flares up.
You are not paying attention, Gadhafi has already been declared the Sultan of the Turag's. The Turags have 12,000 fighters and are an extremely violent insurgency in four countries particularly Mali. Their ethnic tribal homelands go to within 50 miles of Tripoli. Algeria has been threatened with a Libyan style overthrow so they will be funding a Turag revolt in Central Africa. The most likely place to fall first will be Mali but Niger is also going to have problems. Gadhafi was not a Saddam Hussein although he was a violent thugish dictator. So we will see if a prolongued insurgency takles root or not. The differences between Iraq and Libya is Algeria which has every reason in the world to see Libya stay in turmoil and revolt.
One assumes NATO will put the worst crooks in charge. The only disqualifying characteristic for an indigenous leader under these circumstance (ie, leaders living in resource rich countries that are under the domination of the US/NATO Nazis ) is integrity. People who sell out their countries will steal everything in sight. They will commit human rights crimes at least as bad as Ghaddafi's. As in Iraq, Western rule through local worms will make the vast majority of the people nostalgic for the old dictatorship.