As expected, the Swiss will hold onto the Libyan dictator’s buried acorns for a while.
Meanwhile, he still has a sizable army but it’s backed into the Tripoli area and he’s hemorrhaging friends at an unsustainable rate. Qaddafi’s regime is tracing an obvious death spiral. It is all the more tragic that so many decent Libyans had to die first.
Mark S.
Good riddance. Qaddafi is a terrible dictator and will deserve his bloody end.
jk
Interesting story from Global Post
Is Libya using Italian equipment to strafe protesters?
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/italy/110223/libya-protests-weapons
Roger Moore
This brings up an unrelated topic. If, as the neocons say, we need to throw some small country against the wall once a decade to show we mean business, could we pretty please make the next country we invade an off-shore tax haven/money laundering center? That way we’d actually get some real benefit from our military adventurism, not just a big bill.
General Stuck
Though I bet the families of the Lockerbie tragedy are delighting in the what goes around comes around department of poetic justice.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
I’ve only been able to barely keep up, and it’s felt like every time I check in, there’s some fresh horror.
I know a lot of folks have been enjoying how CRAZY Gaddafi is and his OUTFITS and his MEANDERING SPEECHES and what not, and I all I can think is: Not funny. Dude’s a psychopath, killing as many people as he can as his final act to 4 decades of horror and misery.
Not funny….
Jim, Once
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I couldn’t agree more. Did you or anybody else listen to the NPR phone interview with a 58-year-old Libyan businessman sitting in the main square of ??? with protesters who were being fired on. It was absolutely chilling. I’ll see if I can find a link.
jl
Is it the Libyan army, or Qaddafi’s praetorian guard and mercenaries that are around Tripoli?
The military seems to be neutral or for revolt.
Jim, Once
@Jim, Once: Here’s the NPR link:
Jim, Once
@Jim, Once:
Or … not. What’s going on with the edit, anyway?
http://pd.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/atc/2011/02/20110224_atc_13.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1126&surl=http%3A//www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npratc.html&f=module-2
PeakVT
@Jim, Once: That was incredible. Talk about the fog of war…
4tehlulz
@jl: Regardless of whether the army backs the regime, Gaddafi obviously doesn’t trust them.
You would think someone that’s managed to last this long would know that’s when you pack your bags, but whatever.
Little Boots
@4tehlulz:
from what I’ve read there’s no “army” but a series of divisions loyal to different officers for one reason or another, purposely kept from having any kind of real leadership except the King of Culture himself. (not that I’ve read much, really.)
Elisabeth
Britain’s keeping the billions Gaddafi had there, as well.
joe from Lowell
Man, that guy must be sorry he ever ran for Governor of Wisconsin.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Jim, Once: I heard some parts of it, and just… oy.
The most telling piece of information I heard (yesterday morning) on NPR though was when they interviewed a foreigner who was still there, in Tripoli, teaching (English, I think). He said that most of the shops had closed and so on, but parts of life were limping along as usual, and that the oddest thing he’d ever experienced was standing in a classroom, nine hours day, teaching, and not ONE person mentioned what was going on outside. Not one.
That’s real fear, and it’s deep.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
He’s become the Ned Beatty of American Politics.
Anybody know a good banjo tune?
El Cid
Unfortunately, it appears just as impossible as ever that small meetings, much less mass protests, would go on in Zimbabwe.
More hideous repression from independence-leader-turned-absolute-freak-tyrant Robet Mugabe:
Another report in the Irish Times holds that the meeting was held by the International Soshullist Organization, and this is also stated by the independent Harare-based Newsday, which goes on to say that the general coordinator has been tortured for the meeting to get a confession of treason.
There’s also speculation in Zimbabwe (SWradioafrica dot com) that some of the mercenaries sent to Libya to attack protesters were from the Zimbabwean army. The defense minister hedged on the question when asked in Parliament.
Gossip there that Zimbabwe might be the destination of Qaddafi if he skips out is pretty realistic. A number of deposed tyrants and assorted slaughterers have found safety there.
Though just gossip, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s one of the nations whose government would welcome him and of course would in no way care about complaints of war crimes or extradition or whatever.
General Stuck
@jl:
From what I can understand, the army has split and half the country, including the capitol has been liberated. Qadaffi and his mercs and loyalists are holed up in Tripoli that is mostly cut off from supplies like food and water, and are likely becoming more desperate and bloody thirsty by the minute for a last hurrah. Tripoli is becoming the asshole of the earth and god help anyone trapped there.
Mental Lint
Qaddafi is trying hard to become Lanny Davis’s newest client
Hypnos
Lybia’s 25% of Italian oil consumption, 10% of Spain’s, 10% of France’s. And said oil has just been completely shut off, said Italy’s oil company ENI CEO.
No one is making any noises – besides some talks of no-fly zones – but I really don’t think half of the EU’s GDP is just going to sit there and take it. Especially when two of those three countries have such wonderful deficit situations and could reignite the euro-debt crisis in a spectacular way.
We haven’t seen the half of it.
And if Algeria goes under as well, ’79 will look like a party in comparison.