Brendan

It's true that other threats dwarf the United States in the current geo political landscape but I don't think that's my actual line of argumentation when confronted with the ugly "Amerika Uber Alles" logic displayed on these boards periodically.  Brendan

Okay, that is a good start.  You seem to have taken my point to some extent, and I will add that I, too, am offended by jingoism coming from any quarter.  But, how much of that is real and how much of it is perceived?  Did the San Antonio Spurs really transform into a dirty bunch of cheaters, or was that just the way that people who wanted their own team to win began to see them?  Also, how much of that are you provoking by having a hostile attitude to America and Americans?  For instance, this really makes no sense to me:

(American ) Exceptional-ism is just another word for Fascism by the way...  Brendan

I don't know where the hell you get that from, and if you thought about it you could see that that is actually quite insulting to people who don't want anything to do with fascism, were proud to have fought against fascism, etc.  What kind of response do you expect to get from such a statement?

How about I just directly plagiarize Wikipedia?  You seem to think that my description was a slick Louisiana lawyer's closing argument, so how about a source that you might consider more impartial:

American exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation,"[1] and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire. This observation can be traced to Alexis de Tocqueville, the first writer to describe the United States as "exceptional" in 1831 and 1840.[2] Historian Gordon Wood has argued, "Our beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and the well-being of ordinary people came out of the Revolutionary era. So too did our idea that we Americans are a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy."[3]

American Idealism and American Exceptional-ism are opposite and not interchangeable as you seem to suggest.  Brendan

I really don't agree with you there.  For some reason I think you define the concept of American Exceptionalism as "National Hubris/Imperial Arrogance", and that this has become one of the catch phrases in certain quarters of the liberal West that people reflexively chafe against without even knowing what it means.  I attribute this to SASS, which is my acronym for the San Antonio Spurs Syndrome.

Thoughts on that?

Brendan,

I just need to make sure you understand that when I say "I would much rather see the spoils of war go to the people who tolerate Poutine, than the people who tolerate Putin", I am referring to the Canadians and the Russians.  If you did not catch that, then I am not even going to bother to be witty any longer when I speak to you.

Secondly, if our foreign service and intelligence is so out of touch with the rest of the planet, it might well be because the rest of the planet can't imagine the endgame in Libya, much less know who Vladimir Putin is.  I am trying to enlighten you here, but it is like I am a special ed teacher when I talk to foreigners, and I can only do so much with what I have to work with.

Happy New Year

I understood the joke Jay, it just wasn't that funny is all. Poutine is actually how they spell Putin in French so that joke maybe overdone for me. Please don't give up on trying to be funny though, it's about all you have going for you.

So, as an update on the outcome in Libya, we are clearly riding a knife edge where all the leadership involved have been making fast paced moves to placate the "revolutionaries" before things blow up into personal blood feuds. What I linked to was the worst clash to date, but note the way it ended and the "cooler heads" prevailing. This is it then. The spark has been loosed in the tinder box.

"I am not optimistic because blood has been spilled," he told The Associated Press. "I feel this looks like a civil war." [Misrata military council member, Mohammed al-Gressa]

If this incident doesn't escalate, then what will it take for your dystopian revolutionary implosion? I concede that the ingredients are all there as you describe, but so far protecting the "revolution" and it's lofty ideals has been just strong enough to keep the lid on power hungry gangsterism. Even the heads of the militia's claim to be holding the new central authority to protecting the revolution by trying to leverage their position into a pluralist outcome. They don't want a new junta in place of the old. They don't want US, French or British interests interfering.

Anyhow, all the best in the new year. I gotta go, so barring dramatic events i will leave this thread alone going forward. Let me know if you read anything interesting.

Brendan

Brendan,

If this incident doesn't escalate, then what will it take for your dystopian revolutionary implosion?

I am wondering the same about you, in a sense.  You persist with this wicked combination of naivete and obstinacy that seems quite adolescent for a man who is both a father and a business owner.  I don't mean that as an insult, as I am merely voicing my observations.

Libya is in a state of anarchy and lawlessness.  It is rife with extra-judicial arrests, imprisonment and torture.  There is a low intensity civil war happening between the perhaps thousands of militias that refuse to put down their weapons and are thus plaguing the country.  No one group has the power to take control, so the militias will start banding together soon and that is when the civil war will intensify.

The NTC has no authority, not even in Benghazi.  There were riots recently as Benghazians demanded to know who the hell was even in the NTC.

This is all a far cry from your utopian presumption of a flowery revolution unleashing the amazing magic of people power, but I have been trying to tell you that that was all nonsense, and that you didn't have the faintest idea how the world worked, and that you just don't understand people and how they function in aggregate, for almost a year now.

This is exactly why we argue, Brendan.  Because you are too stubbornly idealistic to recognize that "Occupy Wall Street" is just childish.  You think that if America isn't involved in... whatever, then everything is just going to be so humane and non-profit, and that Libyans will immediately start shopping in organic farmers co-ops and voting for Labour and The Greens.

You don't understand how weak the mass of men are, and how desperately they need strong institutions and an enforcing central authority to curb their behavior.  You consider such notions to be patently "Fascist", don't you?  When are you going to grow up my friend?  Has living in a tiny, relatively rich country without any international responsibilities, surrounded by oceans on three sides and the world's most powerful country as your best friend on the other turned you into a complete geo-political imbecile?

The writing is on the wall.  When the militias start to join forces to finish one another off, you will see the warlords arise.  When the super-militia is eventually victorious, it will itself fracture and begin to fight.  We are talking about years of human agony here, and the Canadians and Europeans left no stabilization force in Libya to sort through it.  Tsk, Tsk.

Anarchy in Libya

Hey Brendan,

From the lead post on this thread:

Here is a sample of a future news article that the next generation of Eurotards will never allow us to forget:

"A ferry full of undocumented refugees fleeing the civil strife in Libya was intercepted off the coast of Sardinia this morning.  The humanitarian crisis in Libya continues to spiral out of control as the American-backed junta in Libya  persists in killing babies with impunity..."

...The intelligent strategy would be to pour all available energy and resources into developing democracy in Tunisia and Egypt, and leave Libya to Europe.

Thankfully I was wrong, and the US foreign policy experts DID leave Libya to Europe (and Canada, of course).  Now the news looks like this:

A mass airlift of Egyptian refugees from the Libyan-Tunisian border to Cairo involving British, French and Tunisian planes has begun as the international community moved to prevent a humanitarian disaster.

An urgent request from the UN to help 85,000 refugees, stranded in hastily organised camps in Tunisia after they fled from Libya, was answered by the three countries.

Two British chartered planes landed in Cairo last night with a total of 413 Egyptians as the shuttle began from Djerba on the Tunisian coast. There were seven babies on board...

When the press starts mentioning the "babies", that is when things start to get really hot.  I tried to warn all of you Euro-cons that doing the right thing was a thankless job, but you just wouldn't listen.

And now a few words from The Guardian:

An update to the Libyan situation:

I have been saying for a year now that people needed to be prepared for civil war/warlords in Libya, so just to make sure no one is surprised when it happens, I am reading between the lines of the Western press.

I was talking about "super militias" arising in last week's post, and it looks like that has already started.  In the east, there has emerged something called the "Barqa Front", which is a coalition of militias there.  In the west a new militia federation arose which might not have a name yet, but is probably going to be one of the most formidible forces in the country.  It is led by Colonel Mokhtar Fernana, who was a ferocious leader in the Nefusa Mountain rebellions in Tripolitania, and appears to comprise most of the Zintani forces, which have been the most competent to date.

This is going to trigger an arms race in Libya, as unallied militias that do not share values with those of the super militias in the east and west will scramble for strength in numbers.  If we see a federation arise in the Fezzan also then we might be witnessing the beginning stages of the eventual fracturing of Libya into historical provinces.  (Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica/Barqa)  Fezzan and Cyrenaica have the majority of the oil fields, but Tripolitania has the best fighters.  Who knows.

Western militias unite

Brendan,

And hello to you old friend... I almost forgot what to say next, but then I remembered our tried and true format: A brief exchange of pleasantries followed by a healthy degree of trash talk, and then political analysis.  Time to move to Phase 2 of the post I guess.

Hope things are good with you. Welcome to the first year anniversary of the Libyan revolution. It reads like you are celebrating with beer and a healthy amount of concern.

Just how am I supposed to read that?  I will have you know that albeit I hail from Texas, I do not celebrate with beer: I celebrate with heroin.  If you frequently find me addled by a near-fatal dose of Lone Star--"The National Beer of Texas"--you should not consider that a character flaw.  I do this as a service to you before our discussions.  Being the good Canadian socialist that you are, you should respect me for freely submitting to this rather substantial "intelligence tax" for the cause of egalitarianism.  I am just trying to level the playing field here.

I am sure that you will have something to say about that, but before you over-allocate your precious resources to a cutting riposte, you should be warned that...

Texans have very thick skin.

And now we can get down to business.

Again I need to state that I only wish the best for the Libyan people.  I have been chiding you a little for being what I consider to be "naive", and even occasionally accusing you of being slightly hypocritical at times over your partisan enthusiasm over this particular intervention, but that does not mean that I am enjoying watching the situation in Libya devolve.  Unlike portions of the populations of some of America's supposed allies across the Atlantic, I am not cheering on the forces of darkness just to make some vindictive political point.  I really, really wish I were wrong here.

 The recent UN report on the abuses going on is quite damning, but not surprising either. What's important (to me) is whether or not such a report can impact the reality on the ground and affect the abuse and torture itself.

Don't even worry about that.  Any time you have a society arising out of a long period of deep repression, there are going to be reprisals against those seen as having been associated with the repressors.  This is completely normal and there is nothing that anyone can do about it, and it doesn't even merit discussion on this thread.  I am not saying that this is "healthy", much less that it is--to use that infinitely paternal favorite of Western democracies--"acceptable", but am only pointing out that this is not surprising in the least.

What I mean is if the militias are aware that they can (or may) be held accountable in the future there is a possibility that the abuses and retribution will no longer be worth that risk.

That is a rational assessment for potentially curbing criminal behavior, but if people actually thought like that then prisons wouldn't exist.

Regional power bases are not necessarily a prelude to conflict, it could just as easily be a movement toward political transition and preparation for the post revolution Geo-political reality in the country.

The gist of that statement has been predicated on a brittle supposition: Regional power bases are a response to conflict, and in this case if they are foreshadowing a transition to a new Geo-political reality, it is going to be exacerbated by the fact that one side has the natural resources and the other has the superior military capability.  That fact is we have the foundation for a long fight, which is what scares me here.  In the distillation process of Long Fights, the liberals and the democrats get left in the mash and eventually discarded, while the most toxic poison floats off to be concentrated and distributed to the public.  I am assuming that you know the terminology for making moonshine, but if you don't, I'll assume you caught my drift.

It goes without saying that there are factions and that some are quite large, armed and dangerous, but these factions have not yet gone beyond posturing, skirmishing and petty retribution as they jostle for position in post daffy Libya....

I'll be paying attention to the democratic process...

You are such a white person.  You told me once about your trip to North Africa.  I believe you were hitch-hiking in Tunisia, or some other ludicrously white-person thing to do.  I am going to assume that you are well traveled, and hope you have an answer to the question, have you ever noticed that white people are one of the few people on the planet that stand in line (queue up)?  Getting a passport stamp with a ferry full of unloading passengers in Tangiers, or getting a lamb kebap in a crowded deli in Tunis is a dauntingly Darwinian adventure, isn't it?

Well, democracy is a lot like trying to get a kebap in Tunis.  It seems to me that you are expecting a well-armed militia to wait their turn behind you, because that is simply the most fair and orderly way to do things.  Quite simply, I just don't have a lot of confidence that those militias who are the losers in the upcoming elections are quietly going to lay down their guns and hire James Carville to PR their next campaign.

Very interesting ride, also a very good day to be a French speaking non-American.

Probably the only day.

Brendan,

Misrata had the first civic election. I really think these smaller type events will continue and hopefully help to change the security situation when elected representatives of the people begin to organize police forces and other services.

I do appreciate your optimism, but if there isn't a little part of you expecting the worst then you are setting yourself up to get your heart broken.

I am not reading the Misrata election the same way that you are.  In my eyes, this is the equivalent of your wife informing you that she has a boyfriend.  It is not working in the best interests of the union.

I do see this as a sort of progress, as Misrata did indeed have an election.  However, this is a direct challenge to the central government.  I use that term loosely, as I don't consider the NTC to be all that central nor all that governing, either de facto or de jure.  I see this as the beginning of a tide of confederacy, and the nation breaking up into city states.  That might be a good thing in a more stable environment, but it does seem to be more fodder for a civil war in the current atmosphere.  Their own independent government is but a step away from their own independent defense forces.  Again, I have a very vivid imagination, and I see Misratan checkpoints taxing commercial traffic headed from Tripoli to Benghazi for the use of Misratan roads.  You have to think about crap like this when you are imagining the tensions that drive people to fight.

Here is some advice from page 1 of this thread:

jayfromtexas

5 March 2011 - 10:04pm

I would advise you to harden your heart.  The score is 9-6 for the rebels, but this is a basketball game that just started.  The fall of Gadaffi will only mark the end of the first quarter.

It is almost time to start hearing about the rapes.  If the militias are kidnapping, torturing and killing people they suspect of being former loyalists, or even just tough on people from other towns, you can bet that there is an epidemic of raping happening in Libya also.  People always seem to think that revolutions are going to resemble the lyrics to a Beatles song, and they never seem to be able to grasp the true nature of anarchy.

When things calm down a bit and some Western journalists can actually get into Libya and talk to people, or when someone interviews people in the refugee camps, we are going to start hearing about how "women's bodies were used as an extension of the battlefield".  I hope I don't sound like I am being insensitive, but I have seen and heard it all a thousand times before, and resignation has already set in.  Revolution generally means mass rape.  So anyway, white people are particularly abhorred by rape.  When these stories break there is intense pressure on the governments to do something, to perhaps even intervene.  Obama will soon be on television sternly warning the Libyan teenagers with guns that rape is "unacceptable", etc, etc.  Horrible things like this are going to go on for years, but they will calm down eventually.  In about 2025, there will be a Libyan government that decides not to prosecute the crimes of the revolution, because attempting to punish those responsible will only open up the wounds that are still rather raw.

Brendan,

I would hope that those who fought for something will understand how fragile that something is and not become what they opposed.

I really like that statement.  Normally, we only highlight the things that we disagree with, which is why internet discussions are uniformly negative and usually suck.  You are a good guy and you have a good heart.  I do admire that about you, and do I enjoy discussions with you.  You are also highly intelligent and articulate.  I do believe that you are as intelligent as a liberal could be before he reaches the intellectual critical mass which causes him to turn to conservatism.  That could happen at any moment now, so try not to let it trigger an identity crisis when it does.  It is all part of growing up, and when you finally do reach your intellectual puberty, remember that it is all completely healthy and normal.  Then again, you are a bit of a late bloomer, so maybe you won't be taken by surprise.  You are like a 17 year-old girl who still doesn't need a bra, so maybe you are impatiently waiting for nature to endow you with natural gifts that until now are apparently only commonplace in others.  Be patient, my friend.

I understand what you mean about Syria.  That is the most troubling place on the planet at the moment, and I have been watching it closely too.  I would encourage you to start a thread on it, but I have to ask you a question first: Do you have any tattoos?

I know that sounds completely irrelevant, but bear with me.  Visible tattoos are a permanent personal bumper sticker, and invariably betray a weakness in long-term thinking.  I live in Austin, and anytime I go out to catch a Rock-a-billy band I always see the crowd that is fully-inked up both arms with sleeve tattoos.  This is the fashion of that social scene, and most devoted participants are obviously unable to envision the future.  There will come a day when Rock-a-billy just doesn't sound as good as it used to.  There will come a day when a maturing person no longer considers the proletarian-cowboy dive bars around Austin to be the only choice as a social outlet.  There will come a day when those Betty Page look-alike Rock-a-billy girls that are so much fun eventually turn into the Rock-a-billy version of soccer moms.  There will come a day when you wish to have the type of career that can support a family, and there are few things that act as more of a job-stopper than sleeve tattoos.  Everything is going to change, so never do anything that anchors you firmly in the present.

So, do you have any tattoos?  I am not judging you if you do, as an inherent inability to intuit the long-term consequences of their actions is basically what defines a person as a liberal, and I have accepted that.  This is also why far more liberals have tattoos than do conservatives, but I digress.

 My point here is that when you are watching the Arab Spring, you need to be able to spread out the next two decades in front of you like a road map.  In my previous post, I made a prediction for an event that I guessed would happen in the year 2025.  If you are passionate about the human condition--which I know you are--then you should be thinking with an expanded timeline or else you will be driven mad.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.  (Lou Holtz, ESPN)  Getting rid of Bashar is the interesting and sexy part, but what truly matters is what happens afterwards.  That is what determines the degree to which the Syrians will able to enjoy their lives with liberty, justice, and prosperity for all.  We are at the beginning of the determining stage for Libya, and as you may have noticed you and I are the last two that care enough to even comment on it.  I can tell that you are also losing interest, and soon you will move on to greener and sexier pastures, leaving me to update this thread for no one but myself, like a drunk, redneck psychopath muttering to himself in his shit-smeared cell.

I fully encourage you to start a Syria thread, but you should be forewarned that I am going to be just as antagonistic to your reflexive concerns for the humanitarian situation over there as I am here.  It will sound a lot like this thread, with an extra dose of explanations about why Syria will have a more difficult process of ridding itself of Assad than Libya did Gaddafi, and will also have a more wrenching post-revolutionary future.

The point that I am not doing a good job of expressing, is that when the common cause has been realized and Gadaffi is gone, the "resistance" is going to fracture and start fighting amongst themselves for control.  That is going to be even more horrible to watch, but we have to let the Libyans decide their own fate.

jayfromtexas

3 March 2011 - 8:33pm

We are bringing our Western democratic biases into the paradigm of Libyan tribal warfare.  If you are going to intervene, what is your exit strategy?  Do you help one faction until they prove themselves to be just as barbaric as the ones you thought you were protecting them from?  Do you switch sides at that point?  Do you abandon the mission in failure and disgrace?

jayfromtexas

4 March 2011 - 9:56pm

There are two options for the West.  Fold, or go "all in".  A limited intervention to remove Gadaffi is naive and myopic, and will accomplish basically nothing aside from establishing that the British and the French are still not above meddling in their former colonial playground of North Africa.

jayfromtexas

8 March 2011 - 9:01pm

We need to move away from this Western pre-occupation with micro-managing global affairs.  In terms of political development, "we" are often a century or two ahead of much of the world.  There are going to be wars, uprisings, riots and revolts, and while there is tremendous political pressure for our leaders to "stop the killing", this is just a fact of life in developing nations and we have to learn to let nature takes its course.

jayfromtexas

10 March 2011 - 12:22am

Oh, hey, here is a good one.  I am looking for a particularly nasty statement I made, but in the meantime I may as well mock Chris:

I don't know which story I like better, Eric's one about how Gadaffi and his family are leaving the country with bags full of money, or Jay's one of how the insurgency will ultimately prevail.

chris923

11 March 2011 - 3:21pm

That sounds a little clueless for an official statement.  I might be wrong about a lot of things on this thread, but one thing I know is that the future Libya will not be ruled by a dentist.

jayfromtexas

11 March 2011 - 10:21pm

And here it is, one of the nastiest things I said on the entire thread:

I recently mentioned that this is going to get worse before it gets better.  We need to start thinking about what we really want in Libya.  Just as many people insisted that Iraq "was a relatively peaceful place with a weak, isolated leader who was relatively harmless" before America invaded and turned the state into a bloodbath of anarchy, we should consider the Libyan future.  Are the Libyans better off under the relative stability of Gadaffi?

In the Lebanese Civil War, the factions were the Christians, the Sunnis, the Shi'ites, the PLO, and the Druze.  The indiscriminate fratricide was mind-blowing, and went on for 15 years.  If Gadaffi falls, there really isn't an alternative.  The Warfallah tribe is the largest in Libya--with something like a million out of a total Libyan population of 7 million, and they have remained on the sidelines so far.  That is the only large group in the nation that could possibly muster the power to influence events or enforce a peace, but that is many years of civil war away.

Libya is not like Tunisia or Egypt, with highly institutionalized militaries capable of stepping in and taking civil society under their wings during the (hopeful) transistion to democracy.  All we are thinking about today is getting rid of Gadaffi, but what happens then?  Will we be looking back to the "good ole days of Moammar" 18 months from now?

jayfromtexas

16 March 2011 - 10:01pm

I am giving you this recap because you didn't appear on this thread until March 20, and missed the earliest part of the discussion.

So, are you sure you really want this?  Nixing Gadaffi was like lancing a boil, but Assad is going to be like brain surgery.  That is not a job that you should attempt to do at your bathroom sink.  If you are convinced that Assad has to go, then you had better be prepared to accept the consequences.

For decades America has opted for stability in the Middle East over the cause of democracy, and you are about to find out why.  We Westerners think we control the world, but that is far from true.  There is all kinds of bullshit happening beyond the headlines that would fog your brain.  Arab politics is not for the timid or the rational.

You should start by paying closer attention to the Saudis.  Unique among nations, Saudi Arabia on any given day has the power to move the price of oil by $50 in either direction.  They have enormous global power.  What do they want to happen?  Who are they funding?  What are they saying to Clinton?  They have already pressured America to attack Iran, so what sort of talks are they holding with Israel?  We want Egypt to rise as a democratic bulwark against extremism in the region, but what are the Saudis doing in Egypt?  In Syria?

I used to like this guy, before he became a paid partisan hack for the New York Times.  I am specifically thinking of Chapter 4 at the moment: "Hama Rules".  Commonly referred to as "the single deadliest (act) by any Arab government against its own people in the modern Middle East".[8]

Be extremely careful with what you push for in Syria.  People who believe in the myth of Western omnipotence will hold you responsible for the aftermath.

Brendan,

On a lighter note, I got a laugh that I wanted to share.  I have been trying to find information on how the tribal situation is faring in Libya, and that has taken me to some unlikely sources.  I was trying to get more information on the heavy fighting between the Toubu and Zwai tribes in the southeast, when I stumbled across "The Libyan Free Press", which is apparently a loyalist site written in English by an Italian (Arab).  Not a very illuminating place, but hilarious as hell.  I did find:

This rather amusing headline...

Brendan,

Bon jour and shit.  I bet you didn't know that I could speak French and all.  Watch this: Quest-que tu a fait aujord hui avec le poubelle savoir faire detente pamplemousse d'accord.  Found a news tidbit last night that I thought you might be interested in.

I mentioned heavy fighting in the Libyan southeast yesterday.  It turns out the fighting was bad enough to merit intervention.  The NTC actually sent troops in to attempt to stop the melee.  The troops have apparently been ineffective so far, but the point is that the NTC is at least occasionally acting as a governing authority.  I wasn't even sure if they actually had any troops that they could command.

On the Syrian front, Hamas has publicly broken with the Assad regime.  I personally feel like this is a sign that al-Assad is going down in flames and those in the know are sure of it, but the article I read seemed convinced that Hamas is now more closely alligning itself with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and that the split has been coming for months.

Brendan,

I said a little while ago that "Arab politics is not for the timid or the rational".  I found an article that expresses that quite succinctly:

Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger.

Bedouin Proverb

It looks like there are the beginnings of an autonomy movement in the east of Libya.  No telling how much support the movement has, and for all I can tell from my chair in Texas this thing is headed by a bunch of lunatics without any following in Libya, but it is still a troubling consideration.  The east attempting to control the majority of the country's oil reserves will almost certainly lead to a war.

Al-Rahel, a former army officer, leads a movement to declare semiautonomy in eastern Libya, where most of the country's oil fields are located. The region's top tribal leaders meet Tuesday in the east's main city Benghazi to consider unilaterally announcing an eastern state, linked to the west only by a tenuous "federal union."

...Easterners have already formed their army, the Barqa Supreme Military Council, made up of revolutionary fighters who battled Gadhafi last year. A top commander and spokesman, Col. Hamid al-Hassi, said his forces are willing to fight if the efforts is rejected.

"Even if we had to take over the oil fields by deploying our forces there or risk another war, we will not hesitate for the sake of Barqa," he told AP.

Freed of Gadhafi, Libya's instability only deepens

That last sentence is particularly unnerving.  That sounds exactly like the pretext for a power grab.  I am not sure who Col. Hamid al-Hassi is, but he has obviously already considered using his forces to take control of some of Libya's oilfields.

With a population of less than 10 million, there is plenty of oil wealth to go around in Libya.  However, trying to get Arab tribes to share wealth is like trying to convince two pit bulls to share the same bowl of food.  I do believe this is going to get ugly.

Here is an "on the ground" update from a terrific news outlet.

http://www.vice.com/vice-news/waiting-for-al-qaeda-part-1#ooid=p4aW5lNDrEutvF6ElwW3jKuU2yE_UklT

Brendan,

I went to eat at an "upscale hot dog restaurant" called Frank's last night, and was surprised to see that they had Poutine on the menu.  Not only did I order some, but it also made me think of you for some reason.  I checked in here to see if you had left any word, and oddly enough you have.

Well, thankfully that is not the result of international interference in Libya we can now safely say.  Brendan

You can't safely say squat at this point, so don't jinx it.  Until the Libyan Democratic Experiment has enough national power to disarm the Zintani militia, that country is hanging by a thread.  Amnesty International just released a rather damning report criticizing the central authority for allowing militias to operate in the country with impunity.

While I am tempted to say that things are going far better than I ever could have expected at this point, I won't because I am still holding my breath.  Nothing has been settled yet, and there is presently no foundation of stability and security.  The Transitional Council has done a good job of not pressing the issue of the militias so far, and that has allowed them to exist until now.  Soon, we will see how the Libyan State addresses the militias and the threats they pose, and if they manage a solution to that short of civil war then I will bend over backwards admitting that I was wrong all along, and kiss your frozen Canadian ass.

Here is the Amnesty International Report, since I know you would listen them those clowns before you would a Texan.

Brendan,

"Poutine is rarely reproduced as it should be outside of Quebec."

For heavens sake, please be careful with that kind of talk lest you wake the sleeping jackass.  He will show up and claim that Poutine was invented in Toronto during a kitchen accident, and the only acceptable way to serve it would be the traditional Ontarian presentation of a waiter slipping on a banana peel tableside and spilling the contents of a gravy boat over an order of cheese fries.

I have never had Poutine in Quebec, but I have had it in Vancouver.  In this modern age where we are all foodies, where everything has to be artisanal, and all of our libations must be unique concoctions devised by a ingenious mixologist, I was actually somewhat embarrassed when a Van waiter plopped a bowl of that sludge down in front of me at a chic downtown bar.  Apparently Poutine is the chicken nuggets of Canada, as it is an obligatory component of any menu no matter the prevailing ambiance.  So there I was in Van, elbows on a black granite bartop, under the dimly lit trapeze lights in my best Banana Republic button-down, drinking a glass of chateau d'something, and trying to figure out whether Poutine was a finger or a fork thing.

   You might take this for granted, but everything sounds fancy when you say it in French.  Would you rather be a man of "Know-How", or "Savoir Faire"?  Same goddamn thing, but we all want to be un homme de savoir faire.  So I order this Poutine crap thinking that I am getting something elegant and elaborate, with foie gras in it maybe, and some goddamn smartass Canadian waiter brings me chili cheese fries.  To abbreviate the experience in modern parlance, "at first I was like, yuk, but then I was all, damn!"  One bite of that stuff and I pushed my $14 (Canadian) glass of wine back across the bar and told the bartender to dump that swill out and bring me a bottle of cheap local lager.  Poutine brought me back to my roots.

   So anyway, I have had Canadian Poutine.  Not the Montrealese variety, but the Vancouverinian.  I had some the other night at Frank's, and it was just as good as in Vancouver, which is a relief because I was expecting to be chasing that first Poutine high for the rest of my life.  So, if you are ever in Austin and you are looking for a little taste of Canada, head on over to Frank's and get yourself some "Canadian Waffle Poutine".  Yes, they make it with waffle fries, but the potato is just the vehicle to get the gravy and cheese curd into your face.

   But really Brendan, who gives a shit?  Lets get back to the Libya thing.  You have heard it all before, but as it still has not sunk in I will make another attempt to say it again:  Following the rule of law requires a great deal of discipline and restraint on the macro-societal level.  We currently have a situation in Libya where sectarian/tribal gangs have armed themselves to protect their people and their territory.  At some point in the near future the interests of those gangs will cross with the interests of Libyan society.  Any government that does not have a de jure and de facto internal monopoly on the ability to wage organized violence is a government that faces an immediate existential threat.  It does not matter how peaceful the elections were, how many people went out to vote, what sort of flawless example the Libyans set for the Arab world, or even who won the damn elections.  Libya is effectively ruled by the Zintanis.  They have the strongest army in the country, and any other tribal militia in the west with half a brain is going to ally themselves with Zintan.

   The new leaders in Tripoli are going to have to pay some tribute money to the powers that be, or they are going to have to build an army that can knock out the warlords and unify the state under one authority.  Do you actually believe that the leaders in Zintan, who have all the power at this stage are going to lay down their guns and submit to authority from Tripoli because it is the civilized thing to do?  Do you think they are even going to allow Tripoli to build a strong national army that they know will eventually be used against them?

   Nothing has been settled yet my friend.  With what is going down in Libya and Syria, this might be a good time to buy some stock in Haliburton.

Brendan,

Thank you for the link to the Foreign Policy article.  I was wondering what you meant by DDR (demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration of former fighters) and that cleared it up.  I am not sure why you offered it though, as it only seems to support what I have been saying on this thread for the past 72 weeks.

I will say that if things continue to stand as they do today, then you are 100% correct on this thread and I have been dead wrong.  I am very surprised that the Libyans are doing as well as they are to date.  I have been arguing that toppling the regimes in Egypt and Libya was the fun and easy part, but that these are the days where the passionate fall away, and the calculatingly ruthless take charge.  Before, we were watching a massive uprising of national pride and hope.  Now, we are fighting for money and power, and that is when things get really ugly in the Arab world.

This quote from the FP article is quite telling, and ominous:

" I recently asked an Amazigh (Berber) writer if he thought his mother tongue, Tamazight, would become an official national language in the new constitution. "Of course it will," he insisted. "Now that we have guns, they have to listen to us.""

   In most parts of the world might makes right, and I am getting the sense that the man quoted above does not have the patience or the tolerance for the democratic process.  In North America, when we lose a vote we reorganize our forces and rebrand the message.  In the Middle East, you just go out and kill the victor.

I was surprised at how smoothly the elections went, and by the fact that the Islamists did not have a better showing.  Looks like Gadaffi did a better job of providing his citizens with a good education than most other Arab leaders did.  Hopefully, the Libyans will continue to defy the odds, and for the relief of humanity not having to witness another Arab civil war I will gladly kiss that tundra-colored Canadian ass of yours.

We shall see...

Jay,

Peace, you know and all that.Nice thread. Sorry for the interruption. I don't want this post to hijack the thread. Things aren't going so well with Mike over there. I'm not sure I'll hang around for it for much longer. I don't like the delay in what looks like to be one of those kinds of conversations. Before it gets even stranger than it is now, and threatens to usurp my good cheer,  I would like to make sure my message to you doesn't get covered.

In the interest of not being a hypocrite with respect for some forum memories and any current community health to be preserved or created..  I doubt you need for me to say this so bare with me for a few..  Regardless of what I said to you and about you before the last time you were here,  the reasoning behind it, and shoot most of everything else I've ever said to you: when we happen to be around here the same time I hope you feel welcome and enjoy yourself.  No need for eggshells, you shouldn't be in my line of fire. I don't feel so threatened by the rare occurrence of getting a crush on someone invisible anymore. Baby steps, dontcha know.
Take care for reals,

Candace

Ok, so everything has been going really well with the transition of power... And then this just happened, which, as you will no doubt know know, is very serious:

@borzou: Breaking: #Libya Commander of ammunition & armament of army Brig-Gen Muhammad Hadiyah al-Fayturi assassinated in Benghazi, Ahrar TV reports

If this doesn't cause instability, I will think about vacationing in Libya in the spring.