Yes, they are still calling the opposition rebels. I wish they wouldn't. When I think of "rebels", I think of the gun-toting mercenaries of various nationalities that Qaddafi and his sons have actually brought into Libya to try and hold onto power. Not the people fighting for their lives and freedom against an oppressive regime.
Of course, there are two sides to every story. America's own Civil War still has at least two versions of what went down and who was on the side of right. The Confederates were wrong by the way. You don't get to live your life as you choose when your life is detriment to the lives of so many others. By that reasoning, no one should have bothered to jail the real life versions of Hannibal Lecter. but I digress.
In Libya, there is no shortage of comic, megalomaniac, downright crazy ass things coming out of this man's mouth. Unfortunately, he is still making decisions that are killing hundreds of people. Sure it's funny to compare the craziness out of his mouth to the Charlie Sheen, but that's not going to help the Libyan people. You know what will help them? A no fly zone, sanctions, courting military officials to abandon ship. I also like the idea of staying off of Libyan soil.
Qaddafi isn't as dumb as he's been acting because he got ahead of the narrative about foreign involvement. He made it impossible for troops from other countries (except his mercenaries) to deploy troops. He accused them of trying to colonize the country. America and other countries are smart to stay away in that case. Also, these Arab and Middle Eastern revolutions have been so much better than Iraq for the last decade. It was homegrown. The people who live there are invested with time, energy, blood, and sacrifice. It is in America's best interest to keep these revolutions in the hands of the people.
The first paragraph of the article says it all.
Residents here were awakened before dawn on Sunday by the sound of artillery and gunfire in the streets. When they tuned into state television broadcasts, they heard stunning news: the Libyan military had routed the rebels seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The gunfire, they were told, was in celebration.
Well, the part that made the Libyan people who support him happy. Too bad there's another side to that story.
But Sunday was just another day spent through the looking glass of the oil-financed and omnipresent cult of personality that Colonel Qaddafi has spent 41 years building in Libya. Few of the claims by the Libyan state media lined up with the facts — there was no decisive victory by his forces — and the heavy firing in Tripoli on Sunday morning was never persuasively explained.
But accuracy and logic have never been the tenets of Colonel Qaddafi’s governing philosophy, and their absence is especially conspicuous now, as rebels pose the greatest challenge to his four decades of enigmatic rule.
Qaddafi isn't going anywhere yet. Obfuscate is a word used quite often in news articles. The New York Times accuses this man of obfuscating as part of his strategy to hold onto control. The definition of obfuscate (as a verb) is:
1. to confuse, bewilder, or stupefy.
2. to make obscure or unclear: to obfuscate a problem with extraneous information.
That describes the reasoning behind all the lying too. Are they going to have to drag this man out of the country before he's forced to accept he's not the Libyan leader anymore? Probably. I just hope many more people don't have to die to make that happen.
Several of those at the rally insisted, as Colonel Qaddafi has, that the rebels were organized by Al Qaeda. One supporter, Adle el-Ageli, wanted to talk about the Libyan leader: “Muammar is a hawk. He is unique. There is no alternative to him.”Is she's right, then this police state can't last forever. I just hope that Libya stays on the list of possible revolutions of 2011. I don't want them to go back to the world that has been described. But if that's what the majority of Libyans want, that's what they'll have. Goodness, I hope that's not what they want.
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