Bloodthirsty Liberal

Hello? Hello?

Let it go to voicemail:

A Libyan “citizen journalist” in the city of Misrata made a desperate last plea for international help late Friday, saying large numbers of people were dying as forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi bombarded and fought their way into the city.

In a mainly Arabic-language message posted on YouTube — a rough translation was posted by the Libya Al Hurra website — the man said “families, people are dying, no one is protecting us … there is bloodshed on the street, all death.”

“Misrata is calling, calling for help. I swear the sky is black (with) random bombing, Misrata is calling. Large numbers of people are dying,” he said. “Where are you people?”

“I swear, my sister, yesterday, families, a whole family, two twin girls, girl, son, mother … all shattered by Grads (rockets), the father is critically injured in hospital,” he said.

“I am going to post this warning one last time … Misrata is calling you! Please help Misrata! Where is Sarkozy? Where is Obama? NATO is doing nothing!” the man added.

…

“Gadhafi is crazy, he is killing people.”

Misrata has learned, to its despair, what more and more Americans are oh so slow to learn: that Obama is full of merde. He has declared the thing won, so it’s won, and shut the [bleep] up.

I don’t know about Sarkozy, but don’t look to NATO.

Less than a month into the Libyan conflict, NATO is running short of precision bombs, highlighting the limitations of Britain, France and other European countries in sustaining even a relatively small military action over an extended period of time, according to senior NATO and U.S. officials.

The shortage of European munitions, along with the limited number of aircraft available, has raised doubts among some officials about whether the United States can continue to avoid returning to the air campaign if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hangs on to power for several more months.

Hey, aren’t we still “in the air”?

The U.S. military has continued to fly strike missions against Muammar Qaddafi’s air defense systems in Libya since the handover of operations to NATO on April 4th, Pentagon Spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told reporters Wednesday.

This stands in contrast to messages heard in press briefings and testimony on Capitol Hill from defense leaders, who have given the impression that when the mission was handed over to NATO U.S. strike sorties stopped and were only available upon request.

…

Col. Lapan stressed these strike missions only involve hitting air defenses and do not include the mission to protect civilians (i.e. bombing Qaddafi tanks, troops etc).

Oh-h-h, okay. We’re bombing radar towers, but not tanks. Well, there you go, then. That’s why civilians are being mowed down again like before. NATO’s out of ammo, and Baraka Hussein Abu oumama, Qaddafi’s “son”, is too embarrassed to declare “mission unaccomplished”.

Misrata loves company—but gets none.

In a comment on another post, Aggie ponders the meaning of all the names Barack Obama has carried throughout his life.

Which prompted a question: what about the name Qaddafi used for him?

Our dear son, Excellency, Baraka Hussein Abu oumama…

I can’t find any explanation of that. Is Obama just a Westernized version of Abu oumama? All the Palestinians carry Abu names, but they’re known as their noms de guerres. Is Abu oumama Obama’s nom de guerre? Is that why Qaddafi uses it? Or does he use it and call him “son” because he thinks he is a child of Africa and of Islam?

And what does Oumama mean? I found this in the Urban Dictionary:

Beautiful Moroccan woman, usually of the lycra cream colour. Known to love, support and be there for friends relatives and anyone who needs a hand. Oumama’s are usually attractive native african women.Usually found in the North Afican region of Moroco. Easily aggrevated and sometimes has trust issues…

Some parts don’t fit and some parts do.

To Jake and Elwood…

Add Moammar.

I’m on a mission from God.

When the US and NATO said Qaddafi must go, did they mean to shopping? For vintage clothes? Somewhere Don Johnson is standing around in just a t-shirt.

You put your air force in,
You take your air force out,
You put Cruise missiles in,
To shake Muamar about

…

But what is it all about?

Administration’s mixed messages on Libya

“It is U.S. policy that Gadhafi needs to go.”
– President Barack Obama

“There’s not a U.N. Security Council resolution mandating regime change in Libya that we’re acting to enforce.”
– Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser

“This is a limited-in-scope, -duration and -task operation.”
– Thomas Donilon, national security adviser

“There have been lots of options which have been discussed, but I think it’s very uncertain how this ends.”
– Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

“If we start adding additional objectives [beyond the Security Council mandate], then I think we create a problem in that respect. I also think it’s unwise to set as specific goals things that you may or may not be able to achieve.”
– Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Does the left hand know what the further left hand is doing?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview Tuesday that people in Qaddafi’s inner circle have been “reaching out” to contacts in the region asking, “how do we get out of this?”

…

“‘What are my options? Where could I go? What could I do?’ And we would encourage that,” Clinton said.

But on the same day, President Obama said Qaddafi could just be digging in his heels.

“Qaddafi may try to hunker down and wait it out, even in the face of a no-fly zone, even though his forces have been degraded,” Obama said in an interview with CNN en Espanol. The president reiterated that the coalition does not “have military tools at our disposal in terms of accomplishing Qaddafi’s leaving,” though he has said it is U.S. policy that Qaddafi should go.

Who’s National Security Director, Yogi Berra?

Obama administration officials say the mission is clear — that they are engaged in a multilateral humanitarian intervention to stop Qaddafi from slaughtering his own people. Obama went a step further Tuesday, saying the intervention in Libya is also “in America’s national interest.”

Though the United States is at the helm now, Obama said the country “will not be in the lead” once the initial missile strikes are over and other forces step up to maintain the no-fly zone.

…

Though the Constitution vests Congress with the authority to declare war, White House officials reportedly told congressional aides from both parties Tuesday that the conflict does not count as a war. Aides told Politico that the briefing did not shed much light on the situation and did not provide a timetable.

“You learn more by having read the paper,” one source told Politico.

And you learn most of all by reading BTL.

On the matter of intervention in oil-rich Middle East dictatorships, I’m enjoying the hypocrisy of Barack Obama and the Left as much as anyone. But mixed in with the schadenfreude, I do have a few practical concerns.

George Bush had the “moral authority” of 17 (or was it 18?) United Nations resolutions (and no one realizes the inherent incompatibility of “moral” and “United Nations” in the same breath). Obama barely had one.

And he doesn’t even have that:

China escalated its opposition to American-led airstrikes on Libya on Tuesday, joining Russia and India in calls for an immediate cease-fire and suggesting that coalition forces were imperiling civilians by exceeding the United Nations-mandated no-fly zone.

The rising criticism among the so-called BRIC group of emerging powers — Brazil, Russia, India and China — came amid allegations by the Libyan government that allied bombings have killed or wounded scores of civilians, a claim refuted by American military officials and foreign journalists on the ground.

On Monday, hours after the departure of President Barack Obama, Brazil’s government issued a statement condemning the assault and urging “the start of dialogue.”

…

On Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin was unsparing in his criticism, comparing the allied campaign against Libya to the invasion of Iraq and likening it to a “medieval call for a crusade.”

…

An editorial in Global Times, a tabloid owned by People’s Daily, went a step further, saying that Western nations should be penalized for “abusing” the United Nations’ Security Council resolution that paved the way for the attack.

There’s your precious “consensus” of the “international community”, Prez. Don’t choke on it!

It would take a more cynical mind than mine to wonder if Boy Wonder wasn’t conned by the inscrutable Chinese and Russians.

Let him have his resolution, they schemed; then, when US boys are in the skies over Libya, let’s do as Jesse Jackson suggested and cut his nuts off.

How stupid are you to be outmaneuvered in the liberation racket by two of the most repressive, genocidal regimes in history? About as stupid as Obama.

Obama may yet be saved by the even greater madness of Qaddafi. If he just pulled back and defended his turf, he could easily wait this thing out. I said the other day that if we went in, Qaddafi had to be a dead man. There was no point in doing anything otherwise. But Obama has said, contradictorily, that while Qaddafi has to go, we’re not going to be active players in this thing for long.

Not to raise an unpleasant subject, but how does Obama see this playing out if Qaddafi lives to fight another day? A split country? Persistent civil war? What if the USAF F-15 had crashed in hostile territory, or, God forbid, the fliers had died? Bush accepted the responsibility of being a wartime president, but Obama can’t get far enough away from scenes of battle fast enough.

If George Bush was a chicken hawk, Obama is a capon hawk.

Do my eyes deceive me?

The U.N. Security Council voted Thursday evening to impose a no-fly zone and other measures to try to halt Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s rapid advances against rebel positions in his country.

Diplomats warned that action was needed before Gadhafi reached the opposition stronghold of Benghazi and crush the movement.

“We should not arrive too late,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

Sounds like Britain won’t be:

UK forces could be in action over Libya as early as Friday, after the UN backed a no-fly zone and “all necessary measures” to protect civilians.

A senior UK government source has told the BBC action could take longer, but would be within days of the vote.

And Qaddafi is pi**ed:

10:41pm Gaddafi did an interview with RTP, a Portuguese television station, this evening. In it, he said:

“The Security Council has not got the right to interfere in the internal affairs of any state. It would be a flagrant colonisation, without any justification. A serious and grave [inaudible]. This is craziness, madness, arrogance. If the world gets crazy with us, we will get crazy too…”

Asked what he means by ‘get crazy’, Gaddafi said:

“We will respond. We will make their lives hell, because they are making our lives hell. They will never have peace.”

In for a penny, in for a pound: Qaddafi is a dead man. Has to be.

How will they show their faces in Whole Foods?

It reads like Libyan government propaganda, extolling the importance of Moammar Khadafy, his theories on democracy, and his “core ideas on individual freedom.’’

But the 22-page proposal for a book on Khadafy was written by Monitor Group, a Cambridge-based consultant firm founded by Harvard professors. The management consulting firm received $250,000 a month from the Libyan government from 2006 to 2008 for a wide range of services, including writing the book proposal, bringing prominent academics to Libya to meet Khadafy “to enhance international appreciation of Libya’’ and trying to generate positive news coverage of the country.

As the crisis in Libya deepens, Monitor’s role in Libya has come under increasing scrutiny.

“The really nefarious aspect of this is that it reinforced in Khadafy’s mind that he truly was an international intellectual world figure, and that his ideas of democracy were to be taken seriously,’’ said Dirk Vandewalle, associate professor at Dartmouth College and author of “A History of Modern Libya.’’ “It reinforced his reluctance to come to terms with the reality around him, which was that Libya is in many ways an inconsequential country and his ideas are half-baked.’’

Yesterday, Monitor Group acknowledged in a statement that its paid work included helping Khadafy’s son Saif with his doctoral dissertation at the London School of Economics.

The firm said that assistance and the book proposal were mistakes. But its statement stressed that the firm’s main effort was designed to help Khadafy’s dictatorship bring about change. Many of the firm’s internal memos had been revealed on a Libyan opposition group website in 2009.

Cambridge?! Harvard??!!! Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No ROTC at Harvard (until today, coincidentally), but they can burnish a butcher’s image. Cambridge may be a “Domestic Violence Free Zone”, but that doesn’t stop it from profiting from firms that cover up for airplane violence. And protester violence.

What will the Cambridge Peace Commission make of this?

So bad, even blaming the Jews doesn’t work:

Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon which aired on the Libyan Al-Jamahiriya TV on February 18, 2011:

“Oh Muslims, may Allah preserve the safety of your country. May Allah preserve your own safety, and the safety of your women and your children. Beware that they not be led astray, like our fellow Arabs, who share the same language with us. They were drawn by the deceiving media, and they took to the streets to sow corruption, thus assuming the character of the Jews, who spread corruption upon the land.

[...]
“We call upon all noble Arabs and all free Muslims to remove the evil Al-Jazeera TV channel from the Arab satellites, because it does not want any good to happen to the Arabs. We call to remove Qatar, which sponsors Al-Jazeera TV, from the Arab League.
[...]
“In conclusion, oh Muslims, may Allah protect our country, Libya, which is too great to be left prey to the hateful Zionists and tyrannical Americans.”[...]

That was last Friday, six days ago.

Apparently, it didn’t work:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Thursday alleged that al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden is behind the uprising in his country. Gaddafi made the comments in a phone call to Libyan state TV.

“People were getting all their daily needs … why did you have to get involved with the Bin Laden ideology,” Gaddafi asked.

…

“People with any brains wouldn’t take part in these protests,” said Gaddafi, adding that demonstrators were kids who obtained “illegal” pills.

Gaddafi repeatedly compared himself to England’s Queen Elizabeth II, saying he was a merely symbolic leader.

He rather dresses like QEII, too:

I just don’t think he’s going to die like her.

The self-styled Lion of Africa may soon be lyin’ in state:

Members of Libya’s mission to the United Nations renounced Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Monday, calling him a genocidal war criminal responsible for mass shootings of demonstrators protesting against his four decades in power.

Tell us something we don’t know.

Figures even Libya’s UN delegation is full of back-stabbers and double-crossers.

And they’re not the only ones bailing:

Libya’s justice minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has resigned to protest the “bloody situation and use of excessive force” against protesters by security forces, a Libyan newspaper reported. Meanwhile, two Libyan fighter jets have landed in Malta, according to journalists at the airport.

My house is your house, Mo.

Old goat, Muammar Qaddafi, shows that he ain’t no punk-a** b*tch, like Hosni Mubarak:

Details have emerged of huge casualty figures in the Libyan city of Benghazi, where troops have launched a brutal crackdown on protesters.

More than 200 people are known to have died, doctors say, with 900 injured.

The most bloody attacks were reported over the weekend, when a funeral procession is said to have come under machine-gun and heavy weapons fire.

One doctor, saying that fresh gunfire had broken out, told the BBC that what had happened was “a real massacre”.

Human Rights Watch says at least 173 people have been killed in Libya since demonstrations began on Wednesday.

…

The Benghazi doctor, known as Brayka, described to the BBC how casualties had been brought to Jala hospital – most of them with gunshot wounds.

“Ninety per cent of these gunshot wounds [were] mainly in the head, the neck, the chest, mainly in the heart,” she said.

Qaddafi salutes some mighty fine shooting in an appropriate manner, I’d say:

Can’t all the aggrieved parties sit down and talk to each other?

Eww. Perhaps not. I’m reminded of Weekend at Bernie’s.

At the brilliant suggestion of reader Carol, I will no longer publish pictures of such Medusas as Moammar Qaddafi or Helen Thomas—there’s too much ugliness in the world already, don’t you think—but instead a more pleasing stand-in for their horrible visages.

Following are excerpts from Libyan Leader Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on October 10, 2010:

On behalf of the Arabs, I’d like to condemn, apologize, and express deep sorrow for the conduct of some Arabs – especially the wealthy among them – towards their African brothers. The wealthy Arabs treated their African brothers in a disgraceful way in the past. They bought children and took them to North Africa, to the Arabian Peninsula, and to the other Arab regions. They subjugated them and traded in them. They engaged in slavery and human trafficking in a most abominable fashion, to tell you the truth. We are ashamed, along with our African brothers, when we recall this.

We are ashamed of those who behaved in this manner, and especially the wealthy Arabs, who viewed their African brothers as inferior slaves. This is no different from the way the West – America and Europe – behaved towards the Africans. They would hunt them like animals, treat them like slaves, and act like colonialists. They engaged in colonialism and exploited them, and this continues to this day. We extend our apology and express our sorrow for these acts.

About the only one who does not appear to have been guilty of subjugating African brothers and sisters is Israel. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mo!

I guess that would be another reason why Africans risk their lives for economic opportunity in Israel, bypassing Libya, Egypt, etc. on their way. They know they won’t be sold into slavery.

Thank God somebody tells off the United Nations:

Libyan Dissident Asks UN:
“Why is Qaddafi on the Human Rights Council?”

UN Human Rights Council, 15th Session
Statement by Freedom House, Sponsored by UN Watch
Delivered by Mohamed Eljahmi
Geneva, 20 September 2010

Mr. President,

This Council was created with the promise to elect countries that promote and protect human rights.

We ask: Does the UN’s election of Libya live up to this promise?

For me, this question is not academic. My late brother, Fathi Eljahmi, was a heroic dissident in Libya.

Under the rule of Mr. Qadhafi, membership in political parties or independent labor unions are crimes punishable by death. The fulfillment of citizens’ needs is tied to their absolute loyalty to Mr. Qadhafi.

Ordinary Libyans are accountable to a vast security apparatus. Their actions are scrutinized by Orwellian institutions, punishable by ruthless death squads.

Despite the danger, my brother Fathi chose to speak out for free speech and human rights. He was a courageous man. He was also my mentor and a father figure. He was an unconditionally loving and generous husband, son, and brother. Fathi was blessed with a great mind and a passion for equality and justice.

In 2002, he publicly set out his vision for a constitution, free speech, free enterprise, and an investigation into the massacre of 1200 prisoners at Abu Slim.

As a result, the government imprisoned Fathi for 17 months, until then-Senator Biden, who is now the US Vice President, interceded on his behalf. As soon as he was released, Fathi again spoke out for freedom and human rights. Two weeks later, he was sent back to prison, and subjected to five years of intense torture and isolation, leading to his death on May 21, 2009.

My family asks: When will this council establish an international investigation into my brother’s imprisonment, torture and death?

Why is the government of Mr. Qadhafi, which tortured and killed my brother—and which is one of the world’s worst violators of human rights—now an elected member of the UN Human Rights Council?

When will this council do the right thing, and stand with the Libyan people, to defend their human rights?

Thank you, Mr. President.

And how was this j’accuse met?

Libya (Ambassador Ibrahim Aldredi): Thank you, Mr. President. I am making this statement to respond to the statements by certain irresponsible and imperious-type NGOs which are trying to put the work of the Council and to immobilize people using allegations which are really groundless and contentious. Mr. President, we would like the interventions by such NGOs to be deleted from the record — last Thursday’s intervention, and some this afternoon. These should be deleted because they are interventions which are incompatible with our procedures.

When the truth rears its ugly head, delete it. White it out. Never happened. Kind of like Libya did to Fathi Eljahmi.

What a ridiculous get-up!
You, too, Colonel Qaddafi.