http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2147759&spid=17424
Michael Scheuer, a CIA Chief of the Bin Ladan desk, says that the rebels really are al-Qaeda backed and says that the air strikes are the equivalent of providing air support to the Taliban. How true is this? He says it’s no secret. Will this completely ruin Obama for the general public? I personally hope so. The moment he decided that we should get involved should be the moment that he lost any chances of being reelected.
A lot of fellow libertarians were deluded by these ‘revolutions’ in the middle east, thinking of them as some kind of popular movement brought about by facebook and twitter. As soon as I noticed that only people in the pro-west middle east countries were revolting I knew something was up.
These revolts are results of the agitations promoted by terrorist groups, Al-Jazeera (not facebook or twitter) and now some support from countries in the west. Nothing more than that, unfortunately.
This is Gaddafi’s propaganda from the first week or so, trying to scare other countries into taking his side. He also blamed the revolts on drug-laden Nescafé…believe that, too?
Did you listen to the interview? This isn’t coming from Gaddafi, although he did say that.
What makes it propaganda?
Everyone that’s repeating it got it from Gadaffi, though…or just made it up. Gadaffi didn’t believe it, of course…a bit later on he said he’d join with al qaeda if he was attacked. These revolts are al qaeda’s worst nightmare – why would anything think they were supporting them?
Daniel Muffinburg: it’s (false) information “aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position” (Wikipedia’s definition).
How do you Gaddafi was lying?
The Turkish experience would seem to suggest that countries tend to oscilalte between militant Islamism and secular fascism. Even if the Libyan regime is done away with, one might expect the allies to be helping the next secular fascist rebellion within the decade.
Syria and Yemen don’t strike me as particularly friendly to the regime in DC. I would appreciate that people back up accusations with some facts as opposed to making blanket accusations.
The other issue is that if Al Qaeda is playing a role this does not mean that they are the sole actor, or even the driving actor.
Libya is a one party state so it stands to reason many groups and people with many different outlooks see their opportunity right now. It was the same when the Shah was being overthrown in Iran, or Mubarak in Egypt, all sorts of people came out. Probably the rebels are many things, given its apeal in the recent decades some are undoubtedly Islamists.
But I think there are indications that they are very varied, since from day one you had the rebels who had a very negative view of foreign intervention, who arrested those SAS troops and who flew that famous “NO INTERVENTION” banner, but then you also had the rebels that Al Jazeera was always able to find who always spoke in favour of intervention and who are now posing for the silly pictures of Libyans waving French flags and giving thumbs up for blown up tanks.
And it matters not for Obama’s political fortunes whichever faction emerges dominant there. Bush and Clinton both worked with some pretty extreme Islamists and it did not matter. If you didn’t see it on MSNBC it didn’t happen.
I heard that some of the leaders in the rebel movement are CIA operatives, it would not be the first time there was a CIA backed coup in another country. Most of the rebels are “freedom fighters” or citizens of the country that have had enough of the dictatorship. Western organisations have been against Gaddafi for decades.
As someone has said, western influence ensures that who ever the rebels are and whatever their motives or cause is, the situation or country is controlled and the outcome will be a western backed one. ie the fact that western military is there ensures that any revolution will result in the west being in control of the country.
A few days after claiming the rebels were al Qaeda, Gaddafi said he’d team up with al Qaeda to fight the “crusaders” (US/Europe/GCC/etc.) if they intervened to help the rebels. If he believed the first statement, the second would have made no sense; therefore he was lying in his first statement.
Have you seen the transitional national council’s “vision for the future” document? Ermm…here. “Denunciation of intolerance and violence”, “democracy” with “equality for women” (and freedom of religion isn’t mentioned here, but has been elsewhere), “recognition of the independence of sovereignty of other nations”, etc. Al Qaeda wrote that, you think?
So definitely Al Qaida then.
No mention of imprisoning and beating up black Africans as suspected Gaddafi mercenaries?
Yea, we can hope that a grand revolution will take place and the perfect democracy will be set up, but then there’s reality.
You suggesting they should put that in their constitution??
Well it certainly looks like one of their revolutionary principles.
Who Are the Rebels?
by Jon Lee Anderson, BENGHAZI, LIBYA
Three of the world’s great armies have suddenly conspired to support a group of people in the coastal cities and towns of Libya, known, vaguely, as “the rebels.” Last month, Muammar Qaddafi, who combines a phantasmagorical sense of reality with an unbounded capacity for terror, appeared on television to say that the rebels were nothing more than Al Qaeda extremists, addled by hallucinogens slipped into their milk and Nescafé. President Obama, who is torn between the imperatives of rescuing Libyan innocents from slaughter and not falling into yet another prolonged war, described the same rebels rather differently: “people who are seeking a better way of life.”
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers. The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.
al-Qaeda is a myth.
Rofl Al Quaeda is not a myth.