The Libyan uprising

Min

Time for Muammar Gaddafi to be brought to justice for his multiple crimes against humanity.
It is beyond belief what he is doing to his own people, basically a mad man, a crazed dictator has gone to war with the people he brutally rules.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the brave people of Libya who are showing great courage in their bid for freedom.
Just so sad and evil that so many have to die and be injured because a mad man cares more about himself than his own people.
John Simpson of the BBC was right when he said Gaddafi had a fascination with blowing up people. The man should rot in prison.

Nodin

He's purportedly making an 'address' to the nation in the next hour or so....

Min

Nodin wrote: »

He's purportedly making an 'address' to the nation in the next hour or so....

Probably reinforcing his son's declaration of war against the people.

gandalf

By the sounds of it Civil War has already broken out in Libya. I hope for the Libyan peoples sake it is short and Muammar Gaddafi is ousted quickly and decisively.

Interesting blog from within Libya that is giving an idea on what is going on there at the moment.

http://roosterteeth.com/members/journal/?uid=81745

Overheal

**** is going down in Libya. the Libyan government ordered 2 of it's Jet Fighters to fire on a crowd of civilian protesters in Benghazi...

...the pilots responded by defecting. They landed in Malta and are now in police custody along with their F1 Mirage's. Similarly a few Helicopters have also appeared in Malta, carrying French oil rig workers from Libya without clearance to take-off from Libya.

http://gizmodo.com/#!5766477/libyan-mirage-f1-fighter-jets-escape-to-malta-refusing-to-bomb-protesters



2 conflicting sources on this: the first says there were 4 crew in the 2 planes and the other notes these were single-seaters. However many people they have in Malta now, they've requested Asylum.

In other news, this warning from the government:

"Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms …. rivers of blood will run through Libya.

We will take up arms… we will fight to the last bullet.

We will destroy seditious elements.

If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other.

Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia" – Saif al-Islam Kadhafi, 38 (Moamer's son)


Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/11/02/875622/monday-market-movement-%E2%80%93-equities-rising-on-rivers-of-blood#ixzz1EeBuDtcQ

RandolphEsq

From following the coverage it seems that if there is a war it will be extremely brutal. Countrymen taking arms against their brothers is heartbreaking

Wolfe Tone

Isnt libya a bunch of tribes? Hope they dont turn on themselves when/if he is overthrown.

Hannibal

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country. Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people. This could be WW3 people

RandolphEsq

Dotsey wrote: »

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country. Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people. This could be WW3 people

Obviously

COUCH WARRIOR

Dotsey wrote: »

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country. Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people. This could be WW3 people

pheff - the Arabs and whose army. I mean WW3 give us a break.

Anyway this isn't even a remote possibility. The army is in charge in Egypt and is not going to turn its back on its paymaster. Who'd bet on Saudi Arabia falling? The others are small fry.

I mean if the Jordanians kickedup a fuss all it would result in is further Isreali Liberstrum

opinion guy

Dotsey wrote: »

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country. Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people. This could be WW3 people

Yeah this is a crazy statement. No way egypt will be associating themselves with Libya for example. Libya's own diplomats in the UN, America and other places are denouncing the government actions and defecting.

This really is something I've never seen happen before. Crazy nutter turning his jets on his own people, pilots and diplomats defecting. Good job these people don't have nukes. Jesus forget Saudi - the place to really worry about is Iran.

COUCH WARRIOR

opinion guy wrote: »

Yeah this is a crazy statement. No way egypt will be associating themselves with Libya for example. Libya's own diplomats in the UN, America and other places are denouncing the government actions and defecting...

I think you've kinda missed the point.

hinault

I hope that talk of WW3 is just conjecture.
However the past has shown that wars can start over relatively minor issues compared to what is happening in our world right now.

What we are seeing happening across North Africa and the Middle East will make regimes jittery throughout the entire region and seemingly inconsequential things can end up in terrible destruction.

Dr Strange

Is there a reason why the Irish Times misspells Gaddafi's name? They are quite consistent and after googling I just can't find a reason for it:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0222/breaking3.html

JustinDee

Dotsey wrote: »

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country. Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people. This could be WW3 people

You could actually take a pause and look at each case individually. Are they the same with the same outcome? Nope.

Stop reading comics.

JustinDee

Preusse wrote: »

Is there a reason why the Irish Times misspells Gaddafi's name? They are quite consistent and after googling I just can't find a reason for it:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0222/breaking3.html

Why do you spell it 'wrongly'?
Its a phonetic translation of an Arabic word. There actually is no correct English version of it.

The Saint

JustinDee wrote: »

Why do you spell it 'wrongly'?
Its a phonetic translation of an Arabic word. There actually is no correct English version of it.

Same with place names. Can be a bit of a pain in the ass when the same place night have three or four different spellings and they are all used on different road signs for the same place.

wes

The events in Libya are really shocking. Gaddafi's has clearly lost his mind, with how he has handled things.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Dotsey wrote: »

Uprisings is every country across North Africa and spreading into the Middle East could effectively bring about an Arab Emirate style mega country.

Ironically Qadhafi tried to make this happen in the past. He was big into Pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism.

Appears there's some stuff going on in Morrocco too. Would love to see the north African states become secular democracies.

wes

Libyan diplomats seem to be defecting as well:

Libyan diplomats defect en masse

Looks like Gaddafi's brutality has lost him the few friends that he had.

the_syco

Dotsey wrote: »

Which in turn could turn on the Israelis for the genocidal acts committed on the Palestinian people.

As opposed to what? Israel have been fighting a multi-front war at one time or other.

Cannibal Ox

Italian stockmarket was closed today after Unicredit's, Italy's largest banks and one of the biggest in Europe, 7% owned by Libya, fell by 5% yesterday. Gas supplies to Italy from Libya are also starting to dry up. All those shots of Berlusconi with Gaddafi are going to come back to haunt him (while he's on trial for having sex with a minor). I read some reports that there are Eastern European mercenaries as well as African involved in Libya, presumably securing pipelines. Oil is also going up. This is definitely going to have serious consequences for Italy, and by extension, I'd guess us.

Either way, Gaddafi is pretty ****ed if his own army is turning on him, and Gaddafi being Gaddafi, christ only knows what he'll do.

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote:

Ironically Qadhafi tried to make this happen in the past. He was big into Pan-Arabism and Arab Socialism.

Then he was big into Pan-Africanism and had himself declared the King of Kings. He was involved in Sudan, Uganda, Chad, Egypt, Central African Republic, Tunisia and just about every other country on the continent. On the one hand, he helped put al-Bashir in power in Sudan, on the other, he paid the last official visit to Nelson Mandela when he was president. He is Machiavelli, he has supported states, tried to bring them down, and tried to bring them together. If he goes, there's going to be a pretty big vacuum.

DoesNotCompute

COUCH WARRIOR wrote: »

pheff - the Arabs and whose army. I mean WW3 give us a break.

Anyway this isn't even a remote possibility. The army is in charge in Egypt and is not going to turn its back on its paymaster. Who'd bet on Saudi Arabia falling? The others are small fry.

I mean if the Jordanians kickedup a fuss all it would result in is further Isreali Liberstrum

The CIA/Americans would never allow Saudi to fall. It's too oil-rich.

Wolfe Tone

Alex from Coolum, Australia, has forwarded us the latest email from his wife, who is a teacher in Tripoli: "Things deteriorating. Still in hiding, going for the airport tomorrow early, hopefully road blocks will be down, things are always quieter in the morning. The British Embassy is doing nothing for us, the Irish in Malta and Ireland are trying to get us on a military flight evac., as there are no tickets to be had. We will try for any flight out no matter where. There are gunships firing on the people, 1000's are marching on Tripoli from all small cities."

Thats an example of the excellent work our diplomats try to do, and why people like John Simpson have taken Irish passports.

Hopefully everyone gets out ok.

JustinDee

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Thats an example of the excellent work our diplomats try to do, and why people like John Simpson have taken Irish passports

John Simpson is an author. He gets tax breaks as an Irish resident for being just that.
That is why he is a dual Irish and British citizen.

Wolfe Tone

JustinDee wrote: »

John Simpson is an author. He gets tax breaks as an Irish resident for being just that.
That is why he is a dual Irish and British citizen.

No, he was/is a foreign corrispondant and states multiple times in his books that he has great disdain for British diplomats, they do feck all, and he says he got a Irish passport as our people would work harder to get him freed if he was captured, or got stuck or anything.

Dyr

Remember in the 80s all the talk about the imminent downfall of communism in china after tiannamen square? Wouldn't get too excited about this yet.

JustinDee

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

No, he was/is a foreign corrispondant and states multiple times in his books that he has great disdain for British diplomats, they do feck all, and he says he got a Irish passport as our people would work harder to get him freed if he was captured, or got stuck or anything.

Hey, I'm being as presumptuous or gullible as you here.
You'll believe what he says. I happen to read a little more into it and no, I don't really believe it either just because its on the internet.

Its irrelevant though. Your faith in Irish diplomats abroad and in the reputation of the Irish passport is a little too naive for me, I'm afraid based on my own experiences.

Wolfe Tone

JustinDee wrote: »

Hey, I'm being as presumptuous or gullible as you here.
You'll believe what he says. I happen to read a little more into it and no, I don't really believe it either just because its on the internet.

Its irrelevant though. Your faith in Irish diplomats abroad and in the reputation of the Irish passport is a little too naive for me, I'm afraid based on my own experiences.

Fair enough, but tbf he lavishes praise on Irish diplomats as they assisted in getting asylum for an afghan gyno while the British ignored him, difference of opinion so.

the_syco

Cannibal Ox wrote: »

All those shots of Berlusconi with Gaddafi are going to come back to haunt him

Well, you can add some Irish politicians to the mix, as they have gone over there, one as recently as May last year, to get beef contracts. Back in 2009, there was "contracts for a weekly shipment of 10ton of beef and 100ton of milk powder for the Libyan market".

Overheal

DoesNotCompute wrote: »

The CIA/Americans would never allow Saudi to fall. It's too oil-rich.

You over-estimate the 'greeted as liberators' CIA.

opinion guy

Sweet holy mother of jesus. Gadaffi is making some insane ranting speech on the tv at the moment. Its live on BBC news if anyone has it.

The dude is properly insane. As in BatmanBond villain crazy


Holy crap: the Brits are sending a Frigate down to the area in case they are needed to help evacuate British citizens

Einhard

Is anyone watching Gadaffi's speech? The man is seriously deranged. Is this really the man in charge of Libya? He doesn't look as if he could manage his own affairs let alone that of an oil rich nation. Bloody lunatic.

Jonny7

Berlusconi must be frantically hitting the 'remove friend' button on his facebook account over the last few weeks

JustinDee

Jonny7 wrote: »

Berlusconi must be frantically hitting the 'remove friend' button on his facebook account over the last few weeks

Gerry Adams too.

opinion guy

Einhard wrote: »

Is anyone watching Gadaffi's speech? The man is seriously deranged. Is this really the man in charge of Libya? He doesn't look as if he could manage his own affairs let alone that of an oil rich nation. Bloody lunatic.

Christ it really is shocking how crazy he is. He's like a cross between an insane bond villain and a geriatrics patient (with shades of Charleston Heston and his cold dead hands). I don't understand how he has any allies - can't they see he is completely crazy.

MrPoker

What a nutjob!!! Scarily it seems Qaddafi will fight to the death and continue the massacre of his own people. They were the ramblings of a complete lunatic. It seemed was also a direct challenge put to America by showing the American warplane being crushed by a giant hand which appeared on quite a few occasions.

GSF

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

Fair enough, but tbf he lavishes praise on Irish diplomats as they assisted in getting asylum for an afghan gyno while the British ignored him, difference of opinion so.

Not really a time for scoring points. The UK are organising flights out

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12545147

wes

For those who can't watch the speech, there is a summary on the BBC web site:

Defiant Gaddafi refuses to quit amid Libya protests

From the description given there, he seems to be off his rocker. The guy has lost it. He has his own army and diplomats defecting, and he still thinks he can ride this one out. The man is living in his parralel universe.

Highly Salami

MrPoker wrote: »

It seemed was also a direct challenge put to America by showing the American warplane being crushed by a giant hand which appeared on quite a few occasions.

What makes it necessarily an American warplane?

Einhard

Highly Salami wrote: »

What makes it necessarily an American warplane?

"USA" eblazoned on the side kinda gave it away for me.:D

MrPoker

Highly Salami wrote: »

What makes it necessarily an American warplane?

USA on the side and US flag on the tail.

Absurdum

Two Irish Air Corps aircraft are to depart EIME within the next hour to evacuate Irish citizens from Tripoli

Nodin

Leaving the scene of your defiant 'victory or death' speech in a golf cart.....hmmmm.

Manic Moran

Absurdum wrote: »

Two Irish Air Corps aircraft are to depart EIME within the next hour to evacuate Irish citizens from Tripoli

So who gets to ride in the CASA vs the BizJet?

NTM

Cannibal Ox

Its been reported that Gaddafi is offering Ghanaians $2,500 per day to fight in Libya, apparently it's the same in Nigeria and Guinea. The best number I could find for average income in Ghana is $2000 per year, and even that sounds a little high.

the_syco

opinion guy wrote: »

Holy crap: the Brits are sending a Frigate down to the area in case they are needed to help evacuate British citizens

Someone say "regime change"? :pac:

Nodin

As regards the earlier mention of irish nationals being evacuated...

We are continuing to receive emails and telephone calls from British people angry that the UK government is not moving at a faster pace to evacuate relatives from Libya.
By contrast, a group of Irish citizens are getting ready to leave Libya overnight. My colleague Henry McDonald reports from Dublin:

Forty Irish citizens are ready to be airlifted from Libya over night.
The Republic's Defence Forces have been tasked with whisking them out of Libya in military aircraft over the next few hours.
An Irish military spokesman said an Irish Air Corps Learjet flew out of Casement Aerodrome, Baldonnel outside Dublin at 8.40pm tonight and a larger Air Corps CASA aircraft was due to have departed at 10pm.
Both Aircraft will fly to Valletta, Malta from where they will remain on stand by to fly to Tripoli to conduct the evacuation operation if required. Both aircraft are expected in Valletta by 06.00am (Irish Time) tomorrow morning.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/22/libya-gaddafi-speech-reaction-live-updates

wildswan

Woah the UN have condemned the attacks on civilians. Gadaffi and his bandits will be shaking... have seen tweets from libyans in benghazi asking for NATO help.

I hope the libyans manage to arm themselves quickly against these scumbags they've bussed in from chad and sudan

Soldie

Ban Ki-moon must have a sore wrist from all of the strongly-worded letters he's been writing over the years. Then again, if he had any sense he'd be using a template at this stage: I'm deeply troubled by what's going on in country X, and I condemn leader Y for doing what he's doing right now. That'll be all.

OS119

Nodin wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/feb/22/libya-gaddafi-speech-reaction-live-updates

if those 'angry British Citizens' think that sitting in a 200ft alluminum tube filled with aviation fuel in the middle of a two-way range is safer than hiding behind the sofa in their appartments then they need their heads examined.

there are no 'safe' locations in Libya where a) there's a nice long runway, and b) the EU citizens can get to without travelling through the aforesaid two-way range. at the moment they are far safer where they are - not safe perhaps, but far safer than driving across Libya towards critical peices of infrastructure that will inevitably be fought over by the two sides.

the situation would have to get much, much worse before before anything more muscular (EU/NATO forces seizing a major airport or maritime port and using it as a bridgehead to evacuate EU/Foreign nationals) would become a better/less worse option than just telling these muppets to keep their heads down.