Gaddafi Just Did The Bin Laden Thing: He Threatened America

Image by KarlMarx via Flickr

Business Insider: Qaddafi Says He Will Join Al Qaeda If The West Invades: Qaddafi is switching scare tactics. ....... For weeks he warned that any ouster of himself would let Al Qaeda take control of Libya...... Now he warns that in an invasion he would join forces with Al Qaeda. Qaddafi told Il Giornale: "We will ally ourselves with al-Qaida and declare holy war."

Used to be about do gooderism. Used to be about helping the Libyan people out. Maybe they can't do it themselves in the face of bottomless brutality. Maybe they can't stand in the face of aerial strikes. Not any more.

Now this has become about America. Here is a guy with billions at his disposal now daring America to an Al Qaeda style Holy War.

Look, I am no American stooge. For me democracy is not about America. I have strong views on race relations in America. I have strong views on campaign finance reform. During the apartheid era Gaddafi was one of the few friends Nelson Mandela's African National Congress had. Gaddafi has been at the forefront of the idea of a United States Of Africa. But you have to be elected to be a country's leader. You have to contest elections. You have to respect human rights. You have to respect free speech. You have to respect a people's right to peaceful assembly. And this guy has not been doing it.

For me this is not about doing America'd bidding. I want Iran to become a modern democracy and I want that Iran to ask as to why America has nuclear weapons. We have to complain about the global drug trade, but we also have to complain about the global gun trade where America is the largest supplier. Guns are deadlier than drugs.

For me this is about the people of Libya, for me this is about the people across the Arab world.

And now this guy just crossed a line whereby it is no longer about Libya, this is now about America. What will you do to a guy who sits on billions of dollars and tens of thousands of armed men with a global network who is threatening terrorist strikes upon the US?

You conduct surgical strikes and you take him out, that's what. This is no longer about democracy and Libya and air strikes and no fly zones. We are in the War On Terror territory now.

Democracy's Despair
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

Related articles

• Sarkozy has gone mad, says Gaddafi (omaymen.wordpress.com)
• Gaddafi says shocked by former European friends (reuters.com)
• Al Qaeda Operatives Say They Really Are Trying To Co-Opt The Libyan Revolution (businessinsider.com)
• Gaddafi blames Qaeda, says conspiracy over Libya oil (reuters.com)
• Gaddafi shells city, threatens rebel stronghold (reuters.com)
• Al Qaeda vs Qaddafi (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)
• Militant contradicts Libya's version of revolt (reuters.com)
• Qaddafi Says He Will Join Al Qaeda If The West Invades (businessinsider.com)
• Obama's Last Chance on Libya (thedailybeast.com)
• Gaddafi Points Finger at Bin Laden (thepage.time.com)

Democracy's Despair

If Gaddafi can treat half of Libya like Saddam Hussein treated Kuwait, if the Saudi king can send his army into a neighboring country to pull a Gaddafi on a people peacefully demonstrating for democracy, if we are requesting Chinese and Russian cooperation for the necessary work for democracy - I mean, we might as well seek Gaddafi's cooperation on human rights then - I am at a loss for words.

For the first time I have begun to have my doubts about Barack Obama. I am not seeing much audacity. I am not seeing much hope.

The fire of democracy is being snuffed out by two mad dogs in the Middle East through brute force.

This is how the Burmese Generals did it a few years back. This is how they did it in Iran in 2009. They decided there was no limit to how much brute force they were willing to unleash upon a peacefully demonstrating people.

I am not feeling too good right now.

The thing to do was to get a NATO mandate to make surgical strikes to take the mad dog out early on when the rebels were looking to march on Tripoli. Instead you have a scenario where Gaddafi is about to bulldoze Benghazi. This is sad.

If Gaddafi and the Saudi king get away with what they are doing, forget the idea of democracy demonstrations in China. It is not happening. The momentum will have been broken. A democracy movement is all about momentum.

North Korea In Sight
Secretary Hillary
John Kerry Has The Solution
No Fly Zone Or Massacre
Saudi Arabi Next
Talk to Jazeera: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

North Korea In Sight

Image via WikipediaThe winds of democracy have to blow into North Korea too.

The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy
Nicaragua, Ortega On The Radar
The Fuck With Mugabe
China: 2 PM, Sunday

The Atlantic : North Korea’s Digital Underground: the very archetype of a “closed society.” It ranks dead last—196th out of 196 countries—in Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press index. Unlike the citizens of, say, Tunisia or Egypt, to name two countries whose populations recently tapped the power of social media to help upend the existing political order, few North Koreans have access to Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. In fact, except for a tiny elite, the DPRK’s 25 million inhabitants are not connected to the Internet. Televisions are set to receive only government stations. International radio signals are routinely jammed, and electricity is unreliable. Freestanding radios are illegal. But every North Korean household and business is outfitted with a government-controlled radio hardwired to a central station. The speaker comes with a volume control, but no off switch. ........ media insurgents have a two-pronged strategy, integrating Cold War methods (Voice of America–like shortwave broadcasts in; samizdat-like info out) and 21st-century hardware: SD chips, thumb drives, CDs, e-books, miniature recording devices, and cell phones. ....... these new media organizations are helping to create something remarkable: a corps of North Korean citizen-journalists practicing real journalism inside the country. ....... This past December, Open Radio North Korea, a broadcast-news organization, broke the story that a train headed for Pyongyang with gifts from China for Kim Jong Un, the heir apparent, was reportedly sabotaged and derailed, in one of several sporadic and mostly unreported acts of resistance that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. ....... in January 2010, a North Korean factory worker was publicly executed by firing squad for phoning news about the price of rice to someone in South Korea ...... Like most of the other independent news organizations, it receives funds from the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as other NGOs and private donors. ...... The footage Ahn brought out was shocking: filthy, barefoot children scavenging for food, picking kernels of corn from cow manure. Glassy-eyed, the children told the interviewer that their parents had died and they were homeless and alone. ...... Once these North Korean defectors made it across the Yalu or Tumen River, they were startled to discover that even the poorest Chinese had higher living standards than they did ....... (A 2009 survey found that 58 percent of North Koreans had regular access to a cassette recorder with radio, and 21 percent watched videos on video-compact-disc players.) The confluence of these developments created a remarkable journalistic opening: just as defectors in unprecedented numbers were bringing more information out of North Korea, the spread of markets and secondhand technology was creating a conduit for getting more information in. ....... Until the late 1990s, all international phone calls were routed through Beijing or Moscow. ..... Cell phones, both legal and illegal, have become a fact of life only during the past five years. ..... NK Reform Radio interviews defectors now living in South Korea. Some are unable to fit into South Korean society ...... The subject that most interests North Koreans is the country’s ruling dynasty: founder Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il, and his presumed heir, Kim Jong Un. Most of their subjects know little more than the idealized history of the Kims churned out by the state’s propaganda mill. They are shocked to learn that Kim Jong Il was born in Russia, and not on the mythic Mount Paektu; Koreans are quite socially conservative and are aghast that he has fathered several children with women other than his wives. ...... d a clear correlation between the “consumption of foreign media” and “more negative assessments of the regime and its intentions.” ....... One night he heard a South Korean program that contradicted a number of the myths surrounding the Kim family. After a little research, he discovered that the broadcasts were true. Was everything he’d been taught a lie, he wondered? It wasn’t long before he defected. ..... had several e-books, which I got from China. The national security force arrested me for possessing them,” he tells me. The books were pretty innocuous fare, mostly motivational titles like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

Related articles

• You: N. Korea tells S. Korea to produce defectors (france24.com)
• Trouble In North Korea ?? (themoderatevoice.com)
• South Korea will make second attempt to send North Koreans home (cnn.com)
• North Korea Blocks Citizens' Return Over Four Staying in South (businessweek.com)
• N. Korea Pressures Would-Be Defectors (online.wsj.com)
• Calls for democracy fly into North Korea (cnn.com)
• North Korea pressures South to repatriate defectors (ctv.ca)
• More surprises likely in North's transition, defector warns (search.japantimes.co.jp)
• North Korea Demands South Return Nationals Wishing to Stay (businessweek.com)
• US and South Korea Choose to Ignore Warnings from Kim Jong Il and Son (blogcritics.org)

Secretary Hillary

Image via WikipediaNovember 17, 2008: The Madonna Of Global Politics

Appointing Hillary to the State was one of the better early decisions Barack Obama made as president-elect back in 2008. It was hard for me to have to choose between the idea of the first black president and the first woman president. But I did throw my lot behind Obama. I was hoping they might end up a ticket.

I don't see any woman figure on either side waiting to be president. I wish it were otherwise. It would be great if this country got itself a woman president. I watched parades of women heads of state in South Asia growing up, so it is not a novelty issue for me. I really do think a woman in the Oval Office would mark a major milestone for progress on gender.

But then Barack showed up on the scene in 2004, and it took him only four years to go get the top job. I hope there are women ready to surprise us like that, women I have not heard of but are serving in some state legislature somewhere who will spring forth fast.

Being Secretary of State is a tough position to be in when revolutions rage. Your heart might want to ride the wave of those revolutions, but you have a job to do. You have to constantly pay attention to the ground realities on all sides.

All said, I think this is a good Newsweek article on Hillary Clinton.

The Hillary Doctrine: She was in energetic discussion on the Egyptian news site Masrawy.com, where her presence excited a stream of questions—more than 6,500 in three days—from young people across Egypt. “We hope,” she said, “that as Egypt looks at its own future, it takes advantage of all of the people’s talents”—Clinton shorthand for including women. She had an immediate answer when a number of questioners suggested that her persistent references to women’s rights constituted American meddling in Egyptian affairs: “If a country doesn’t recognize minority rights and human rights, including women’s rights, you will not have the kind of stability and prosperity that is possible.” ....... At every step, she has worked to connect the Middle East’s hunger for a new way forward with her categorical imperative: the empowerment of women. ...... “We see women and girls across the world who are oppressed and violated and demeaned and degraded and denied so much of what they are entitled to as our fellow human beings.” ...... Two years into her tenure as America’s 67th secretary of state, she has out-traveled every one of her predecessors, with 465,000 air miles and 79 countries already behind her. Her Boeing 757’s cabin, stocked with a roll-out bed, newspapers, and a corner humidifier, now serves as another home as she flies between diplomatic hot spots, tackling the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, tensions with Iran and North Korea, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and, now, the serial Middle East upheavals. She is, it seems, everywhere at once, crossing time zones and defying jet lag, though signs of exhaustion—a hoarse voice, bleary eyes—slip through. (A recent 19-hour “day trip” to Mexico landed her at Maryland’s Andrews Air Force Base well after 2 a.m., which left approximately six hours to get home, sleep, and make her first meeting of the day that would culminate in President Obama’s State of the Union address.) ....... Clinton has turned the job into what may well be the role of her lifetime: advocate in chief for women worldwide. ..... “We are watching and waiting,” she said. “People jockey for power, and often the most conservative elements once again use the opportunity to crack down on women and women’s roles.” ....... “This is a big deal for American values and for American foreign policy and our interests, but it is also a big deal for our security,” she told NEWSWEEK. “Because where women are disempowered and dehumanized, you are more likely to see not just antidemocratic forces, but extremism that leads to security challenges for us.” ....... n 1974, the blazing young intellect who won national attention with an unscripted response to Sen. Edward Brooke, boldly arguing for the end of the Vietnam War in her Wellesley commencement speech (a speech that landed her on the cover of Life magazine), disappointed her feminist friends by spurning New York and Washington in favor of Fayetteville, Ark., to become the young Bill Clinton’s wife. ....... clad in a striking pink suit, she ascended the Beijing stage and delivered what The New York Times called “an unflinching speech that may have been her finest moment in public life.” ....... “As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace everywhere in the world, as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled, subjected to violence in and outside their homes—the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.” ....... Those who have worked closely with Clinton on women’s issues view that speech as a turning point for an embattled first lady. ...... Mu Sochua met Clinton in Beijing and credits Clinton’s speech with changing her career path. “That was the day I decided to enter politics,” says Sochua, now a prominent Cambodian opposition leader. ...... the issues that first inspired her to seek a life of public service more than four decades ago, a time when America’s schools remained segregated and no woman had ever served on the Supreme Court, been elected mayor of a major city, or entered the country’s military academies. ....... Today, she exudes not just the confidence that her White House–era trials are behind her but the conviction that they are beside the point. In crafting her role as secretary of state, she has shown remarkable political dexterity and a marked absence of inner conflict, crystallized by the moral clarity of addressing injustices faced by young girls sold into slavery or mothers raped in front of their children. ........ She toured the narrow streets of the capital’s old city to the great dismay of her security detail; through the windows of her heavily armored SUV she caught sight of men in traditional clothes, knives dangling from their belts, and children yelling “welcome” in Arabic. Missing from the scene: virtually any sign of the country’s women. ........ Clinton had cited the story of Nujood Ali, a Yemeni girl in the audience that day whose very public fight for a divorce at age 11 has become a global cause célèbre—one that Clinton herself follows closely. ....... “Politics is seen in most societies, including our own, I would add, as a largely male sport—unarmed combat—and women are very often ignored or pushed aside in an effort to gain or consolidate power,” she says. ....... During Clinton’s daylong stop in Papua New Guinea last November, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare sought to dismiss concerns about domestic violence. “Sometimes there are fights, arguments do take place, but it’s nothing very brutal,” Somare said, before asserting that “a person … cannot control [himself] when he’s under the influence of liquor.” Clinton noted pointedly that one of her highest priorities was “enabling more women to have access to their rights, to take their position in society” ....... she is the second-most-admired woman in America (after Oprah Winfrey) ....... “The secretary remembers things, she takes notes, she asks questions weeks or months” after the fact ...... “She checks on the issues she cares about, deeply and specifically,” keeping track of it all with her famous to-do lists. ..... “I honestly think Hillary Clinton wakes up every day thinking about how to improve the lives of women and girls,” says Theresa Loar. “And I don’t know another world leader who is doing that.” ...... in a borderless world with instant communication, sexual slavery has exploded into an epidemic; the State Department estimates there are now 12.3 million adults and children worldwide in “forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution.” ....... “I recently was in Cambodia, and it is just so overwhelmingly heartbreaking and inspiring to see these young girls. One girl lost her eyes—to punish her, the owner of the brothel had stabbed her in the eye with a nail,” Clinton continued ...... many of the shelter’s children now keep photos of her on their walls ..... “It is like any challenge,” she goes on, her tone brightening. “You just keep at it, take it piece by piece, seize the ground you can, hang onto it, and then move forward a little bit more.” She pauses. “And we are heading for higher ground.”

This Is Also About Women's Rights

Related articles

• The Hillary Doctrine (thedailybeast.com)
• The Hillary Doctrine (newsweek.com)
• Hillary Clinton's War for Women's Rights (thedailybeast.com)
• Philip Seib: Secretary Clinton and the Information War (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hillary: Warmonger (skydancingblog.com)
• Newsweek Survey: Oprah, Clinton Most Admired Women in America (thedailybeast.com)
• Hillary Clinton and Al-Jazeera | Michael Tomasky (guardian.co.uk)
• Hillary Clinton Stars in Tina Brown's First Cover (themoderatevoice.com)
• Revealed! Tina Brown Has Put Hillary Clinton On The First Cover Of Redesigned Newsweek (businessinsider.com)
• Hillary Clinton Loves RT? (tipggita32.wordpress.com)

John Kerry Has The Solution

Image via Wikipedia

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the U.S., in conjunction with its allies, could put into place all the trappings of a no-fly zone and then wait to see whether Qaddafi tries to massacre his people or the global community decides it needs to intervene. "The last thing we want to think about is any kind of military intervention. And I don't consider the fly-zone stepping over that line. We don't want troops on the ground," Kerry said. But, he added, "One could crater the airports and the runways and leave them incapable of using them for a period of time. I don't think this is going to be a long-term kind of thing, frankly. That's just my judgment. ... It's not a very big air force. We're not talking about, you know, this gargantuan kind of force that we face."

No Fly Zone Or Massacre
No Fly Zone Or Surgical Strikes
Sound Military Options
Make Surgical Strikes, Take The Guy Out
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?

Related articles

• Kerry: No-fly zone doesn't 'step over the line' into military intervention (thehill.com)
• Kerry denies Libyan no-fly zone would be 'military intervention' (crooksandliars.com)
• Kerry: Prepare but don't yet implement no-fly zone (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Kerry: A Libyan no-fly zone is not intervention (cbsnews.com)
• Rising Chorus in U.S. for No-Flight Zone Over Libya (nytimes.com)
• Kerry: Prepare but don't yet implement no-fly zone - Ocala (news.google.com)
• John Kerry scheduled to be in Pakistan (cnn.com)
• International community should ready Libya no-fly zone: Kerry (reuters.com)
• Pressure mounts for no-fly zone in Libya - Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
• McConnell: Gadhafi overthrow not necessarily crucial to U.S. interests (thehill.com)

No Fly Zone Or Massacre

Image via WikipediaThose are the two options we are looking at in Libya. And the world can not simply wait and watch.

This guy, from day one, made up his mind to use total brute force to quell the democracy movement. He will not stop at anything. He will bomb his own people from the air. He will send in troops to recapture lost cities. He will kill. In the thousands.

The world does not have the option to wait and watch. Sending in troops would be a mistake. But not enforcing a no fly zone is to offer the Libyan people to the butcher on a plate. To stand by and do nothing is wrong.

If Gaddafi succeeds that is going to cost us in terms of momentum. Then we might not see uprisings in other countries that deserve them. But if Gaddafi is defeated in Libya, the momentum will go all the way to China, to Russia. And let's face it, Russia is no democracy either.

Summer could see action in China, in Russia. But not if we let the momentum break now in Libya. Democracy has to see victory in Libya.

Saudi Arabi Next
The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

Related articles

Image via Wikipedia

• McCain Reiterates Call For No-Fly Zone in Libya (blogs.abcnews.com)
• Kerry: Prepare but don't yet implement no-fly zone - Ocala (news.google.com)
• Kerry: No-fly zone doesn't 'step over the line' into military intervention (thehill.com)
• Pressure mounts for no-fly zone in Libya - Christian Science Monitor (news.google.com)
• You: Libya opposition urges international-enforced no-fly zone - Summary (earthtimes.org)
• Kerry: Prepare but don't yet implement no-fly zone (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Kerry: US should plan for possible no-fly zone over Libya - Boston Globe (news.google.com)
• Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett: Libya, the United States, and Iran: Just Who Is "Meddling"? (huffingtonpost.com)
• John McCain: Gadhafi Is 'Insane' (abcnews.go.com)
• Some progress is being made in Libya against Gaddafi (iflizwerequeen.com)

Saudi Arabi Next

Image via WikipediaThere is absolutely nothing special about the Saudi king. The monarchy is a feudal institution. Monarchies everywhere are feudal institutions. Monarchies everywhere, in small countries and big, need to go.

The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too

And Friday is the best possible day to plan protests. You say your prayers. And then you come out into the streets in force.

The Independent: Saudi Arabia bans all marches as mass protest is planned for Friday: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and the regional domino whose fall the West fears most, yesterday announced that it would ban all protests and marches. The move – the stick to match the carrot of benefits worth $37bn (£23bn) recently offered citizens in an effort to stave off the unrest that has overtaken nearby states – comes before a "day of rage" threatened for this Friday by opponents of the regime....... The Saudi Interior Ministry said the kingdom has banned all demonstrations because they contradict Islamic laws and social values...... a statement broadcast on Saudi television said the authorities would "use all measures" to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order .... the ruling House of Saud had drafted security forces, possibly numbering up to 10,000, into the north-eastern provinces. These areas, home to most of the country's Shia Muslim minority ..... Not only are the Shia areas close to Bahrain, scene of some potent unrest in recent weeks, but they are also where most of the Saudi oil fields lie. More than two million Shias are thought to live there ..... the day of protest called for this Friday was – perhaps still is – likely to attract more than restive Shias in the east. There have been growing murmurs of discontent in recent weeks; protesters have not only been much emboldened by the success of popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, but online channels of communication by those contemplating rebellion have been established. Some estimates indicate that as many as 20,000 were planning to protest in Riyadh, as well as in the east, on Friday

For the longest time the royals in Saudi Arabia have been Marxists. Karl Marx said religion was "the opium of the masses." And so the Saudi royals have used religion as the reason they should rule. Get religion?

Now is the time to turn the table upside down. You use the prayer day as the day of protests. You use your religion against the king.
Image via Wikipedia
The Saudi king has the option to become a constitutional monarch, but only if he does not end up doing something stupid like unleash animal brutality upon a peacefully protesting people.

Los Angeles Times: Saudi Arabia activists warned that ban on protests will be enforced: Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry warns that public demonstrations are a violation of Sharia law. ..... fresh evidence of the government's growing nervousness over political unrest among its neighbors and calls for change at home. ...... discontent is lapping at its borders, most notably in Bahrain and Yemen ..... groups of intellectuals, liberals and Islamists around the country have signed various petitions asking King Abdullah and the ruling family to implement reforms, including ending religious and gender discrimination and moving toward a constitutional monarchy. ..... A week ago, the Shiite cleric Sheik Tawfiq Amer was arrested after giving a sermon in Hofuf calling for fundamental reforms, including adopting a constitutional monarchy. Amnesty International says the cleric is being held incommunicado and may be at "risk of torture or other ill-treatment."

Early signs are that Saudi Arabia is on its way to becoming a republic.

The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy
Friday Prayer: Let A Million Libyans March In Tripoli
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Related articles

• Saudi Arabia warns against protests after Shiite rally (ctv.ca)
• Saudi Arabia bans all marches as mass protest is planned for Friday (independent.co.uk)
• Saudi Arabia: Demonstrations won't be tolerated (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Saudi Arabia bans all marches as mass protest is planned for Friday - Independent (news.google.com)
• Saudi Arabia: The Next Capital of Islamic Feminism? (newsrealblog.com)
• Saudi Arabia: Demonstrations Won't Be Tolerated (abcnews.go.com)
• Saudi Arabia: Demonstrations won't be tolerated - The Associated Press (news.google.com)
• Demonstrators in Saudi Arabia demand prisoners' release (cnn.com)
• Saudi security forces to crack down on any unlawful protesters (cnn.com)
• Shaky Saudi Arabia (lewrockwell.com)

Talk to Jazeera: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

The Anatomy Of Revolutions For Democracy

Image via WikipediaThe roadmap is as follows. You get people out into the streets in the largest numbers possible to shut down the country completely. You keep it shut down until the regime makes way for an interim government. That interim government has a year to hold elections to a constituent assembly. That constituent assembly then elects a new majoritarian government. And the assembly gets two years to write a new constitution. That is the roadmap.

As long the elected constituent assembly is part and parcel of the roadmap, I would not worry about Islamists coming to power after the fall of Arab dictators. But if there is no constituent assembly part of the roadmap, then the outcome is more iffy, and the transitions more treacherous.

Many non westerns probably think the Republican Party in America is pretty much a Christian party and America has had more than 200 years to polish up its democracy. Islam is a social, religious reality across the Arab world. All that is good on earth and in heaven, a lot of Arabs think, is due to the Allah. That reality of Islam is not necessarily a good or bad thing. The important thing is to put democratic processes in place and let the churns happen.

Democracy is good news. Not to worry.

America's role is to stay deeply engaged and to aid the process as much as possible, through the revolutions, and through the transitions, and through Arab country after Arab country turning into modern democracies.

A democracy movement is science. It can be made to work every single time.

Friday Prayer: Let A Million Libyans March In Tripoli
Democracy With Lowest Possible Losses Of Human Lives
Gaddafi Is No Simon Bolivar
No Fly Zone Or Surgical Strikes
If Gaddafi Is Not President, It Should Be Easier For Him To Leave
Sound Military Options
Nicaragua, Ortega On The Radar
Make Surgical Strikes, Take The Guy Out
Kick Ortega Out
The Fuck With Mugabe
The Chinese Communist Party Can Keep The Power If They Agree To Pluralism, Federalism
This Is Also About Women's Rights
The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too
Democracy: An Israeli Plot?
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
Et Tu, China?
When They Open Fire
Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Related articles

• Your Comments on my Arab Democracy Column (kristof.blogs.nytimes.com)
• We are witnessing a slide into civil war in Libya - Russian lawmaker (rt.com)
• Kick Ortega Out (democracyforum.blogspot.com)
• Gaddafi cruelly resists, but this Arab democratic revolution is far from over | David Hirst (guardian.co.uk)
• Gaddafi cruelly resists, but this Arab democratic revolution is far from over - The Guardian (news.google.com)
• Winners and losers in the Middle East chess game | Simon Tisdall (guardian.co.uk)
• 2011 Year of Democracy (mikesmusicdreams.wordpress.com)
• Hypocrisy the new policy in West's dance with Gaddafi - ABC Online (news.google.com)
• You: Tunisia, site of the first Arab revolt, seeks a way forward (washingtonpost.com)
• Egypt on the edge: democracy last hope to fight poverty (rt.com)

Friday Prayer: Let A Million Libyans March In Tripoli

The best possible outcome would be for a million Libyans to take to the streets in Tripoli after they say their Friday prayers. That would be way better than any surgical strikes, any no fly zone.

People power.

Such a massive show of strength and solidarity might bring about further defections. It might finally engineer the fall of Tripoli, Gaddafi's final bastion.

This guy needs to go.

Rumor is it is not just Muslims in Tripoli, but Muslims across the region, across the Arab world who plan on taking to the streets after their Friday prayer. The moment we all have been waiting for.

Say your prayers, and take to the streets. Insa-allah, victory will be yours.

A big chunk of people in oil rich Libya live on two dollars a day. Can you believe?

Democracy With Lowest Possible Losses Of Human Lives
Gaddafi Is No Simon Bolivar
No Fly Zone Or Surgical Strikes
If Gaddafi Is Not President, It Should Be Easier For Him To Leave
Sound Military Options
Nicaragua, Ortega On The Radar
Make Surgical Strikes, Take The Guy Out
Kick Ortega Out
The Fuck With Mugabe
The Chinese Communist Party Can Keep The Power If They Agree To Pluralism, Federalism
This Is Also About Women's Rights
The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too
Democracy: An Israeli Plot?
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
Et Tu, China?
When They Open Fire
Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Related articles

• Libya: secret police arrest hundreds in sweep of Tripoli (telegraph.co.uk)
• You: Obama signals willingness to intervene militarily in Libya if crisis worsens (washingtonpost.com)
• Libya revolt as it happened: Thursday - BBC News (news.google.com)
• Obama signals willingness to intervene militarily in Libya if crisis worsens - Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Protesters shot dead as unrest erupts in Tripoli (reuters.com)
• Libyans reject tribal power as Gaddafi grip weakens (reuters.com)
• Fist-waving Tripoli residents vow to oust Gaddafi (reuters.com)
• Gaddafi Loyalists Shoot Protesters in Tripoli as They Leave Prayers (firedoglake.com)
• Benghazi celebrates as reports emerge of battles in central Tripoli (guardian.co.uk)
• As Libya uprising reaches Tripoli Gaddafi vows to 'open up the arsenals' - The Guardian (news.google.com)

Democracy With Lowest Possible Losses Of Human Lives

Image by Abode of Chaos via FlickrThat is the goal. We want democracy. Everywhere. Because that is what people everywhere want. It comes from deep inside. Liberation is the lofty goal.

But there are mechanics involved. There are logistics involved. There are tactics involved.

Democracy can not come through US military invasions. That is the wrong kind. Democracy has to come because a people decided enough was enough, and took to the streets in large numbers.

Getting a people to come out into the streets is the hardest part of a democracy movement. But once that happens to let that go to waste is nothing less than criminal. Once a people come take to the streets, the entire world has to then pitch in.

I am okay with the idea of a constitutional monarchy, if that means a low loss of lives, and a peaceful, smooth transition. I am okay with that. I am not okay with that as a matter of principle. But I am okay with that as a matter of tactics.

When an autocratic regime sees seas of people out in the streets, its first reaction is to send the police out, send the army out. You throw tear gas at them. You shoot at them. You baton charge them. You round them up. You imprison them. You interrogate, you torture. And all that is wrong enough. But Gaddafi has gone way past that. He has gone after his own people like an invading army, fighter jets and all, and he has continued to reign like an occupying force. There a peacefully protesting people are no longer a match. You could not have expected those in the concentration camps to have fasted their way to life and freedom. Hitler needed a military response and he got one. The response to a Gaddafi is not a peacefully protesting people. It would be inhuman to expect that.

An exile for Gaddafi is an option. It would not be just. But it can be a sound tactical move to make. To bring the violence to an end, to bring an autocratic regime to an end. But that is not an option that can be suggested from outside. I said days ago this guy will commit suicide. He will not go into exile. It is a mindset thing.

The question for the rest of us is will we let this guy kill a few thousand people before he commits suicide? Or will we step in before he kills those people.

We have to step in.

Democracy is on the march worldwide. China itself is in sight. But the momentum could be broken in Libya. If this guy gets his way, the momentum might get broken. The momentum can not be allowed to be broken. This is not about Libya any more, if it ever was.

A victory for democracy in Libya has repurcussions for the entire region, and the world at large.

Any military action has to be sanctioned either by the UN or NATO. And it should not be about sending troops in. The rebel forces have plenty of boots on the ground. Decisive surgical strikes to decapitate the regime and disable the forces still loyal to Gaddafi might be enough to tilt the victory away from the mad man. Enforcing a no fly zone could help.

But the victory has to be swift, and all credit has to be given to the Libyan people. And we have to help them with the subsequent transition.

And then we have to focus on the next Libya, the next Egypt, the next Tunisia, for dictators and kings need to fall everywhere.

Washington Post: Obama signals willingness to intervene militarily in Libya if crisis worsens: "The region will be watching carefully to make sure we're on the right side of history," Obama said ...... As with Egypt and Tunisia, he said, U.S. interests were best served if the United States was not seen as engineering or imposing a particular outcome. ...... Having raised the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya and after moving warships into the Mediterranean, the United States and its allies appeared Thursday to step back from military intervention, even as opposition forces in Libya continued to call for assistance from foreign air power. ...... After their unexpected victory Wednesday over well-armed Gaddafi forces in the oil port of Brega, rebel fighters regrouped to bury their dead and to lay plans to carry the fight toward Tripoli, Libya's embattled capital. ..... Brega was hit Thursday by at least three powerful airstrikes, while rebels clashed with Gaddafi loyalists in the nearby Mediterranean town of Bishra. In Tripoli, there were signs of a government crackdown in an attempt to head off planned street protests after Friday prayers. ....... Activists in Benghazi, the eastern city that serves as the rebel capital, were calling for a million people to protest ....... the United States, Britain, France, Canada and others have indicated they would participate ...... The Obama administration and its European allies have indicated they would not act without authorization from the U.N. Security Council. ...... Arab and African governments have expressed serious reservations about granting the authority to use force, as has Russia. China's U.N. envoy, Li Baodong, told reporters Wednesday that Beijing wants the dispute to be resolved through dialogue. ...... "A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya." ...... On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch reported a missile strike, apparently aimed at rebels in a main square in Brega ...... In Rome, the World Food Program said that a ship carrying more than 1,000 metric tons of wheat flour to Benghazi had returned to port in Malta without unloading, after reports of aerial bombardments near the Libyan city.

Miami Herald: International court opens war-crimes probe of Gadhafi: a worrisome pattern of arrests and disappearances of suspected opponents of the regime, and there were reports that Egyptian and Tunisian migrants in Libya were being attacked by Gadhafi loyalists angry that the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had inspired anti-Gadhafi protests there...... With Gadhafi's forces unable to recover key rebellious cities and towns, and with the ragtag rebel force of civilians and military defectors too weak and disorganized to advance on Gadhafi's Tripoli stronghold, the two-week conflict appeared to be devolving into a violent impasse...... Governments across the Middle East, meanwhile, braced for what were expected to be massive pro-reform protests after mosques empty on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer

Gaddafi Is No Simon Bolivar
No Fly Zone Or Surgical Strikes
If Gaddafi Is Not President, It Should Be Easier For Him To Leave
Sound Military Options
Nicaragua, Ortega On The Radar
Make Surgical Strikes, Take The Guy Out
Kick Ortega Out
The Fuck With Mugabe
The Chinese Communist Party Can Keep The Power If They Agree To Pluralism, Federalism
This Is Also About Women's Rights
The Saudi King Is No Exception, He Has To Go Too
Democracy: An Israeli Plot?
China: 2 PM, Sunday
Bomb Gaddafi's Tent
Khameini, Gaddafi, Caecescu
Et Tu, China?
When They Open Fire
Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Related articles

• Gaddafi's land, air offensive repelled (vanguardngr.com)
• Making Light Of Libya: Comedians Take On Gaddafi (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hypocrisy the new policy in West's dance with Gaddafi - ABC Online (news.google.com)
• Guerilla warfare in Libya guaranteed in case of occupation - former Russian envoy (rt.com)
• The President on Libya: "The Violence Must Stop; Muammar Gaddafi Has Lost the Legitimacy to Lead and He Must Leave" (whitehouse.gov)
• Libya: Peter Mandelson defends Gaddafi saying Tony Blair was right to make friends (dailymail.co.uk)
• You: Gaddafi forces launch new airstrikes; Obama mulls 'no-fly zone' request (washingtonpost.com)
• Democracy or Dictatorship ... plagiarism has no boundaries (wazaghun.blogspot.com)
• Libya revolt as it happened: Thursday - BBC News (news.google.com)
• We are witnessing a slide into civil war in Libya - Russian lawmaker (rt.com)