Charles Glass in the London Review of Books: The Libyans are lucky that Muammar Gaddafi did not hold out longer. If he had, there might not be much of the country left. Nato long since ran out of military targets, and it had to hit something to get the ragtag rebels into the royal palace…
Showing all posts tagged Libya
When Gaddafi danced romantically with head of “rebels”
Bernard Avishai reminds us: There are reports that Qaddafi and his sons are surrounded. I confess that I feel a certain sadness for Saif-al-Islam’s tragic fate. During the early 2000s he tried to lead his father, hence, his country, into something like a liberal and globalist reform, studying classical liberal texts at LSE, and hiring…
Concern for Tamils in Sri Lanka isn’t a new worry
A newly released Wikileaks cable from early 2007 shows how the US was allegedly worried about Colombo’s attitude towards Tamils from years ago and yet during its brutal civil war against the minority tacitly backed the bogus “war on terror” that saw tens of thousands of Tamils murdered. If only Sri Lanka had oil, like…
The tangled web of so-called freedom in Libya
So here’s how it works. Find a dictator, love him then hate him, bomb him to smithereens and look for unique business opportunities. Asia Times: Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P (“responsibility to protect”). Instead of neo-conservatives,…
Jeremy Scahill urges caution on Libya and warns of blow-back
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Just which privatised forces are helping Libya feel “liberated”?
Very few media outlets are reporting this but I’ve been hearing rumours for months that a privatised force – paid by the US, British and NATO? – are operating with very few if any rules of engagement. Welcome to the future of conflict. The London Independent reports: The Berber rebels in the Nafusa Mountains to…
Screw the media hacks who only follow elections to get high
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on what elections are really about; the corporate press and business with the general populace mere bystanders: Obviously, at least in theory, presidential campaigns are newsworthy.… But consider the impact from the fact that they dominate media coverage for so long, drowning out most everything else.… A presidential term is 48 months;…
Of course the war against Libya is about securing oil
And yet most in the corporate press prattle about human rights and “humanitarian intervention”. Yes, Gaddafi is a brute but that’s nothing new. “Saving civilians” is the catch-cry of those backing NATO action. But a close examination of Wikileaks documents and more honest reporting shows that Libyan oil nationalism was deeply worrying Western governments and…