Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Audactity of Hope, Muslim-style


--Moammer Qaddafi being sodomized upon capture
by Muslim man (Global Post)

36 comments:

  1. I guess I'm surprised they didn't use a bigger stick.

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  2. From the dictator's handbook:

    When mistreating and stealing $200 billion from the people of the country you rule, always ensure you have a viable means of exiting such country when circumstances change. You really don't want to stick around for the aftermath of a revolution. France is only one of the many nations that will always welcome you in your retirement, provided, that is, that you were smart enough to get that money into a safe haven.

    Oh, my, Mr. Dictator. You didn't plan ahead? Shame on you.

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  3. Andy, It's not a stick, It's a thingie called a Becker utility knife,quite the handyman's all around tool in Cyrenaica.

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  4. Qaddafi's end was predictable given that he refused to leave quietly and with his bags of gold while he still could. What was he thinking, holding out in Sirte and then deciding to escape by convoy . . . where? After all the blood he had spilled attempting to quash the rebellion . . . ?

    Captured by militia that had been fighting for weeks? He was lucky his suffering was so short.

    So, imo, the Libyan response is understandable. It's the US response I don't quite figure out . . .

    http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/22/a_remaining_realm_of_american_excellence/singleton/

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  5. To all,
    when we take allies like this then we are as lost as they are.
    this reminds me of pics from rvn, ie Gen Loan and the pic of RVN Rangers using knives on pow's.
    WE SURE HAVE COME A LONG WAY.
    jim

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  6. So I turn on the computer to get my somewhat daily dose of MilPub, and I catch a pic of someone's butt being prodded and risque comments:

    Andy: bigger stick

    Publius: stick around for the aftermath

    fasteddiez: thingie

    seydlitz: bags of gold

    :D

    Speaking of BOHICA and such:

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-17-2011/ellen-schultz

    The various voter ID laws that have sprout up in various states across the Great Exceptional Bastion of Democracy the US of A have run into multifarious unintended consequences, like this one where an 86-year old WW 2 vet gets the shaft:

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/26/353712/tennessee-veteran-voter-id-pay/

    As for the recently deceased dictator of Libya, Karma's a bitch, man.

    bb

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  7. Then, of course, some get it in the face.

    http://tinyurl.com/3tkcjyb


    bb

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  8. The first sentence in Hobbes' "Compleat Tyrant" reads "While the rewards of despotic power are multifarious and delightful they last only so long as the power does; when you find that you no longer have the power to reward or punish you will swiftly find that the loss is followed by a humiliating and often quite surprisingly painful demise.

    So is this vile? Certainly. Is it either surprising or unexpected?

    No.

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  9. Ah, Hobbes, the first of all who fled. But per his "when you find that you no longer have the power to reward or punish ..." -- did Qadhafi in fact no longer have the power to reward or punish? Certainly it was denied him by the drone strikes, but prior to the mob, he was still rewarding and punishing, no?

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  10. Chief,
    if this were expected and unsurprising then why would the US support such a
    game plan?
    All the chickens always come home to roost.That's not Hobbes.
    jim

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  11. To all,
    The best argument against political assasination is the old rule of thumb- the new guy might be worse than the old guy.
    i personally vote for dictatorship any day before an islamic fundamental secular govt, EVEN IF IT HAS THE WORD MODERATE stuck on it somewhere.
    jim

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  12. Lisa: His power was at that point reduced to a tiny handful of followers - when the Tsar and his entire family were murdered the Whites still had entire armies in the field. Sic transit gloria mundi.

    jim: Here's the thing - we ALWAYS supported this "game plan"; the nonsense about "protecting civilians" was never anything more than a way of keeping the rubes from seeing they were marks. This has ALWAYS been about giving the rebels an air force.

    Now...as for WHY we're doing this, well, you got me. Gaddafi was effectively neutered, a compliant poodle for the West. IMO we have no way of knowing what the hell comes next, but my guess, for what it's worth, is that we're likely to see something close to Somali after Barre'; a slow descent into factional conflict. If the West is lucky one of the NTC warlords will quickly do a whiff-of-grapeshot on the rest and will become the next Gaddafi. Libya has not a hope in hell of becoming a "liberal democracy" if Allah and all his angels shat blessings all over Sirte.

    In all honesty, I think that this entire business boiled down to:

    1. The Euros wanted in - they have a certain amount of skin in the game because of worries about Libyan chaos - and we were afraid that if we let them without U.S. "participation" that they'd get silly ideas about how they don't really need U.S. "leadership".

    2. We probably would have been quite happy to carry on with the Gaddafi dictatorship except the guy was obviously facing a significant uprising AND we'd seen what was happening in Egypt, where failing to be seen to side with "the people" has already strengthened the anti-U.S. factions there. Once the rebellion started our only options were to stay neutral and be seen as tacitly siding with Gaddafi or to jump in with some sort of indirect support for the rebellion.

    3. We DON'T really "support" the NTC in any significant sense, and they don't want us to; they had the opportunity to come to us with a treaty/alliance and didn't, and we had the opportunity to give them formal recognition and we didn't. We will now, obviously, but only because we can't avoid it.

    In short - I think we made a poor decision, but largely because the options were worse.

    As for ol' Daffy...well, he enjoyed his cakes, and ale, and shtupping his "Virgin Bodyguard" (nice!) twice a day and thrice on Sunday. But as Eddard Stark could have told him; when you play the Game of Thrones, to lose is to die.

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  13. Chief,
    in this case to lose is to get the long end of the stick.
    How much of this can be traced to Barry HUSSEIN obomba and his Cairo speech?
    Just wonderin'
    jim

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  14. This seems to be the 2nd time ( the 2008 campaign and now Cairo ) Obama has given very nice inspiring uplifting type of speeches, and then seems clueless that people actually believe what he says.

    His speeches seem to have the sole purpose of making him look good, but the follow-up, i.e. policy making and working to effect those in reality, gets a bye.

    bb

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  15. I think sometimes you go over the edge, FD Chief. Gaddahi was an imposter, a man of few talents who imposed himself upon his native country. We would feel the same way if Perry announced himself "dictator for life." There is a sort of pre-condition for leadership, never written down, but something we all can recognize. When a person lacks that quality, but assumes power anyway, the results can be distressing.

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  16. It is easy to see why the intervention in Libya happened. The need for a stable flow of oil.

    Even though Libya represents about 2% of world oil exports, a small swing in production capacity can make a big difference in price.

    Furthermore, during the Arab Spring, it wasn't at all clear that various other oil exporters would be stable. It therefore made great sense to stabilize Libya quickly, and that meant Qaddafi being removed (the other likely outcome being the rebels being smucked in Benghazi followed by years of civil unrest.)

    In order to safeguard their oil supply, the Europeans demanded intervention.

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  17. Paul: No sabe. Are you saying that I'm all weepy for ol' Daffy? Have I been saying anything other than "gee, if you set yourself up as a dictator, get overthrown, and then killed in some embarrassing way you probably shouldn't be surprised?" Because that's what I HAVE been saying.

    Ael: I tend to agree that the Euros were nervous because the anti-Daffy revolt threatened two things; petroleum (which they use WAY more than the U.S. does) and the possibility of Scary Brown Refugees washing up on the north shore of the Med. They wanted the entire thing quashed, and quickly, and guessed that the rebels would win rather than the government. They appear to have guessed right (and, admittedly, helped their guess along a bit...) other than the "quickly" part.

    But I also think they've probably overestimated the capabilities and cohesion of the NTC. Any bets on whether we'll get renewed civil war and, probably, another dictator within a decade?

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  18. But let me add that if you believe that "Gaddahi was an imposter, a man of few talents who imposed himself upon his native country" you'd have to explain how the untalented imposter managed to rule for forty-plus years.

    The guy was a nutjob and a ruthless bastard, just another rapacious thug...but he reigned for four decades. That's a pretty damn good run, as rapacious bastard nutjob thugs go. I don't like him and I don't miss him but I also don't misrate the man - he had a gift for autocracy as good as any Tsar's, and I think we will find that ruling Libya isn't as easy as he made it seem (see; Maliki, Karzai, et al)

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  19. ael,
    there's no proof that Libya has been stabilized except in our dreams.
    jim

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  20. jim: I'd add that Gaddafi gave Libya "stability" - the stability of a well-run prison. We've now helped the former inmates sodomize and kill the former warden and bust down the cellblock walls. We'll see whether the newly-free prisoners want to settle down and build a civil society - or go all "Thunderdome" one each other.

    Wanna bet on which one we'll see?

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  21. You're right, Chief. My statement that you "go over the edge" was uncalled for and I apologize.

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  22. You're right, Chief. I apologize for my statement that you "go over the edge."

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  23. chief,
    i've written 1 more essay on this topic on RAW.
    We edited it today.
    jim

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  24. Nobody deserves that treatment. IF the story is true than it appears the new guys are as bad or worse than the old ones.

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  25. mike: The "new guys" are the same as the "old guys"; that is, the sort of people who would dod this sort of thing to a helpless prisoner - even a despicable old tyrant - are the same sort of people who get involved in gunfights and wars everywhere, who become secret police and torturers when the rebels become the regime.

    If you are saying that we should spurn the NTC because their footsoldiers tortured their former dictator, then you might as well suggest that we should have refused to recognize the French Republic because its revolutionary mobs killed the Princesse de Lamballe, stripped her corpse and threw it in a gutter after hacking off her head and impaling it on a pike. Or the new government of Romania because of its murder of the deposed tyrant and his innocent wife.

    Many eventually-distinguished "statesmen" and diplomats began as bloody-handed murderers. The vile part of governance and diplomacy is smiling and shaking hands with these monsters.

    Did we refuse to cooperate with Stalin to win WW2?

    And he may have been the greatest monster in history.

    No question that these guys were vile. But that does that have to do with the question of what the U.S. should do with the "new guys"?

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  26. And I go over the edge all the time, Paul. Just didn't think I had on this thread. But give me something that really gets me going, and...

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  27. FD Chief,
    i'll bet a fat topless dancer at the Circus lounge sets you over the edge.
    jim

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  28. Where is the Circus Lounge? Fayette Nam? I must have missed it.

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  29. Publius,
    You never found the CL because it was off limits and strictly not MI country.
    My friend Valentine and myself went there every chance we got.Val is long gone but the mamaries remain.
    jim

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  30. FDChief-

    "Or the new government of Romania because of its murder of the deposed tyrant and his innocent wife."

    Innocent wife? Are you talking about Elena Ceaușescu? She was the Vice-President of the country up till 1989 . . . and as guilty as the creep she was married to. Not that Romania in 1989 wasn't more the nature of a coup than a revolution, but that's another story.

    A friend of mine finally heard something from friends in Libya. Working for a Quango with people all over the place ya hear stuff . . .

    Two stories, one from each side: The first, father was denounced for anti-MQ behavior. Arrested, jailed, MQ troops came into the home and smashed everything (including sinks and toilet), took all the peoples cloths with them. Might have done more, but nothing said. Father was in jail for three months, now free.

    Second, woman from a pro-MQ village fears that she may lose her government job.

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  31. sedlitz,
    Does the woman fear losing her job b/c of anti- MQ reaction or the fact that she's female?
    jim

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  32. jim-

    No, because of the politics associated with her village/clan who were pro-MQ. She's anticipating a backlash . . .

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  33. Lose her job? I suspect that former regime types are getting a 7.62 caliber pink slip already.

    The aftermaths of revolutions are seldom pleasant for the losing side.

    And, what, seydlitz, you didn't believe little Elena when she claimed she thought that Nicu was just filling in for the leadership until the next election? Aren't we the cynical boy, then...

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