Gadhafi's Death in Perspective

[웃 910]

Gadhafi's Death in Perspective

October 20, 2011

Rebel fighters killed former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi on Oct. 20 outside the town of Sirte. His body was then brought back to Misurata, where it was filmed being dragged through the streets. Several close aides, including family members, have been reported killed or captured as well.

Gadhafi’s death is symbolically important for the rebels, but the fall of Sirte is even more significant for the effect it will have on the future stability of Libya. With the final holdout of the pro-Gadhafi resistance overtaken, the National Transitional Council (NTC) can now move to form a transitional government. But multiple armed groups across the country will demand a significant stake in that government, which will have serious implications for the future unity of the people who heretofore were referred as the Libyan opposition.

Though the Benghazi-based NTC has been widely recognized in the international community as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people, this has long since ceased to be the case in the eyes of many Libyans. The NTC is one of several political forces in the country. Since the rebel forces entered Tripoli on Aug. 21, there has been a steady increase of armed groups hailing from places such as Misurata, Zentan, Tripoli and even eastern Libya itself that have questioned the authority of leading NTC members.

These groups have been occupying different parts of the capital for two months now, despite calls by the NTC (and some of the groups themselves) to vacate. They also have been participating in the sieges of cities in which pro-Gadhafi remnants continued to hold out after the fall of Tripoli. Throughout this period, the NTC has repeatedly delayed the formation of a transitional government, in recent weeks citing the ongoing fight against Gadhafi as the reason. NTC leaders said that once the war was finally over, the official “liberation” of Libya would be declared and a transitional government would be formed. The fall of Sirte means this moment is at hand.

With so many armed groups operating in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya, a peaceful resolution to the question of who should take power is unlikely. The main groupings come from Benghazi, Misurata, Zentan and Tripoli, but there are other, smaller militias as well that will want to ensure they are represented in the new Libya. The divide is not simply geographic but also exists between Islamists and secularists as well as between Berbers and Arabs.

The shape of the new Libya is highly uncertain, but what is clear is that the NTC is not going to simply take control where Gadhafi left off. Certain members of its leadership may play a key role in any transitional government, but not without serious compromises or, even more likely, violence occurring in the process. Pro-Gadhafi tribal elements in the last region to fall to rebel fighters also will be a potential source of violence in the coming months, as they will fight to make sure they are not left out of the future power structure.

http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/203619/analysis/20111020-libya-gadhafis-death-perspective

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Basically, a case of "out with the old, in with the old"--Libya will get another tyrant (either dictator or absolute monarch--possibly a descendant of Idris, whom MG deposed in 1969).

[slim 1,533]

Obama will sort them out.

[Danno 1,228]

Obama will sort them out.

He's better.

[scandal 951]

Basically, a case of "out with the old, in with the old"--Libya will get another tyrant (either dictator or absolute monarch--possibly a descendant of Idris, whom MG deposed in 1969).

A new tyrant? Perhaps, but as the OP article indicates much more likely they get a bunch of warring tribal leaders who all claim legitimacy in their city-states without any one supreme leader emerging. At least not for quite a while.

[MyLittlePony 340]

At the rate the bad guys are being killed we will have no one left to fight.

[Póg mo 1,749]

Robert Fisk: You can't blame Gaddafi for thinking he was one of the good guys

The West may be celebrating his death, but that's just an accident of timing

Friday, 21 October 2011

We loved him. We hated him. Then we loved him again. Blair slobbered over him. Then we hated him again. Then La Clinton slobbered over her BlackBerry and we really hated him even more again. Let us all pray that he wasn't murdered. "Died of wounds suffered during capture." What did that mean?

He was a crazy combination of Don Corleone and Donald Duck – Tom Friedman's only moment of truth about Saddam Hussein – and we who had to watch his ridiculous march-pasts and his speeches bit our lips and wrote about Libyan tanks and marines and missiles that were supposed to take this nonsense seriously. His frogmen flipped and flapped through Green Square in the heat and we had to take this rubbish at face value and pretend that it was a real threat to Israel; just as Blair tried to persuade us (not unsuccessfully) that Gaddafi's pathetic attempts to create "weapons of mass destruction" had been skewered. This, in a country that couldn't repair a public lavatory.

So he is gone, the colonel who was once beloved of the Foreign Office (after the coup against King Idris), then guarded as a "safe pair of hands", then loathed because he sent weapons to the IRA, then loved, etc, etc. Can you blame the man for thinking he was a good guy?

And did he perish so? Shot down while trying to resist? We lived with Ceausescu's death (and that of his wife), so why not Gaddafi's? And Gaddafi's wife is safe. Why shouldn't the dictator die thus? Interesting question. Did our friends in the National Transitional Council decree his demise? Or was this "natural", a death at the hands of his enemies, an honourable end to a bad man? I wonder. How the West must have been relieved that there would be no trials, no endless speeches from the Great Leader, no defence of his regime. No trials mean no accounts of rendition and torture and no cutting of sexual parts.

So let us not recall any grovelling to Gaddafi. More than 30 year ago, I went to Tripoli, and met the IRA man who sent the Semtex to Ireland and protected the Irish citizens in Libya, and the Libyans were quite happy that I should meet them. And why not? For this was a period in which Gaddafi was the leader of the Third World. We got used to the ways of his regime. We got used to his cruelty. We connived at it, once it became "normal". Thus it was important to finish the documentation of his viciousness on our behalf.

Indeed, the end of any juridical evidence of torture by Gaddafi's regime care of (of course) and on behalf of the UK government would be a good thing, wouldn't it? The UK woman who knew all about this torture – unnamed but I know her name, so make sure she does not misbehave again – will she be safe from prosecution (which she should not be)? And will we all make cosy with Muammar Gaddafi's mates in the aftermath of his demise?

Maybe. But let us not forget the past. Gaddafi remembered the Italian colonial rule in Libya, the repulsive Italian rule during which every Libyan had to walk in the gutter when confronted by an Italian, when Libya's heroes were hanged in public, when Libyan freedom was regarded as "terrorism". The oil men and the lads and lassies from the IMF are going to be treated no better with the same servitude. The Libyans are smart people. Gaddafi knew that; although, fatally, he thought himself smarter. The idea that these tribal people will suddenly "globalise" and become different is ridiculous.

Gaddafi was one of those Arab potentates for whom the moniker "crazy" was fitting, yet who spoke a kind of sanity. He did not believe in "Palestine" because he thought the Israelis had already stolen too much Arab land (correct) and he did not really believe in the Arab world – hence his tribal beliefs. He was, indeed, a very odd person.

We shall wait to find out how Gaddafi died. Was he murdered? Was he "resisting" (a good tribal thing to do)? Don't worry – La Clinton will be happy he was "killed".http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-you-cant-blame-gaddafi-for-thinking-he-was-one-of-the-good-guys-2373796.html?service=Print

[Darnell 8,479]

Dead is Dead. Pay attention to who's filling his shoes, either with cement or fresh feet

[Saddle Bronc 124]

A new tyrant? Perhaps, but as the OP article indicates much more likely they get a bunch of warring tribal leaders who all claim legitimacy in their city-states without any one supreme leader emerging. At least not for quite a while.

Eh, all you did was change it from "a new tyrant" to "new tyrants". Edited October 21, 2011 by Saddle Bronc