So Many Links, So Little Time...

By John Ballard

Links to study as we wait for the end game to unfold in Libya.

?In search of an African revolution -- International media is following protests across the 'Arab world' but ignoring those in Africa.
Azad Essa's essay at the Al Jazeera website asks the obvious question, "Where is Anderson Cooper?"

?Immediate International Steps Needed to Stop Atrocities in Libya.
The International Crisis Group says it's time for the rest of the world to close ranks.

Crisis Group recommends the following urgent steps:

• Imposing targeted sanctions against Muammar Qaddafi and family members as well as others involved in the repression, including an immediate assets freeze;


• Offering safe haven to Libyan aircraft pilots and other security personnel who refuse to carry out illegal regime orders to attack civilians;


• Cancelling all ongoing contracts and cooperation for the supply of military equipment and training to Libyan security forces;


•  Imposing an international embargo to prevent the sale and delivery of any military equipment or support to Libyan security forces while refraining from any commercial sanctions that could harm civilians; 


• In light of the intensity of the violence and its likely regional effects, the United Nations Security Council should: 


• strongly condemn Libya's resort to state violence against civilians and call on the Libyan government and security forces to immediately halt all such attacks and restore access for humanitarian flights to Libyan air space;


• call on member states to take the above-mentioned actions;


• establish an international commission of inquiry into alleged crimes against humanity in Libya since 1 February 2011, tasking it to investigate the conduct of the Libyan government and all its varied security forces, as well as allegations concerning the involvement of foreign mercenaries. The body should provide recommendations on steps to be taken by national and international authorities to ensure accountability for any crime;


• plan the establishment of a no-fly zone under Chapter VII if aircraft attacks against civilians continue.

?An end to this soft bigotry against the Arab world by Issandr El Amrani
Does the name ring a bell? It should . This is The Arabist writing in The Guardian.

For several decades, there has been a soft bigotry of lowered expectations in the west and among Arab elites about the Arab world. The prevalent thinking about this region of over 300 million souls is that it offered no fertile ground for democracy, either because democracy risked bringing political forces hostile to western interests or because democracy is not a value that has much currency in the region. Many regimes understood this, and played a double game of decrying their societies' "immaturity" while encouraging anti-democratic tendencies such as populism and, at times, a reactionary social conservatism. After the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, no one will buy this any more � and nor should they about two more north African countries: Libya and Morocco.

Morocco? Huh? The young king there is thought to be less obdurate than the old-time royalty in the rest of the neighborhood. Amazing what a slick monarch can accomplish with good PR. Check out this essay.

?China International is a photo essay in the current issue of Foreign Policy.
Illustrating again that a picture is worth a thousand words, here are fourteen pictures of China's involvement all over the globe. One of the most telling captions sticks in my head.

In Africa, Chinese diplomats present themselves as an alternative foreign superpower, without the baggage of colonialism.

?Reuters -- Guest contribution:Report from an eye-witness in Tripoli
Lisa Goldman's skype interview with someone she knows living in a town near Tripoli. Very informative. Read it all.  (Tweet link) 
And yes, we know her, too.

Q: What is the situation with the army? Are Libyan soldiers attacking demonstrators, helping or staying neutral? Do you know if soldiers are defecting to the opposition? If yes, are they doing so in significant numbers?

A: The Libyan army is one of the poorest and most neglected security sector in the government. They are poorly fed , equipped, trained and paid. They are mostly ceremonial and Qaddafi does not trust them. So what we have here are private battalions with each of his sons owning the one named for him. So for example his son Khamees has a battalion belonging to him calling it �Kateebit Khamees.� Each is placed in private super huge barracks situated strategically around Tripoli for situations like these. These battalions are well-equipped, trained and paid and are extremely loyal not to the country but to the leader of their battalion.

So to answer your question the regular army is non-compliant and has mostly sided with the people. Remember they are poorly-equipped and so can be of only limited help. However, the battalions belonging to the regime itself are very much in the fight and are killing people wholesale. Still their numbers are not so great to cover this huge country so it seems they are complemented by mercenaries.

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Q: What can you tell us about the tribal rivalries in Libya, and how these are affecting reactions to Qaddafi during this crisis?

A: Libya is a tribal community and although it�s a dying notion, Qaddafi made sure to keep the people aware of their tribal divisions, winning the alliance of larger ones and hence keeping the population under control. Although the larger ones like the Werfalees and the Megrahees were privileged with power and money, his recent actions angered these tribes and for the first time in decades tribal barriers have withered away. People are uniting with other formerly rival tribes or even different ethnicities like the Amazeegh or Berbers.

?Cruel. Vainglorious. Steeped in blood. And now, surely, after more than four decades of terror and oppression, on his way out? 
Robert Fisk at his delightful best, a study in righteous indignation downright poetic in its naked rage, taking no prisoners.

And if what we are witnessing is a true revolution in Libya, then we shall soon be able � unless the Western embassy flunkies get there first for a spot of serious, desperate looting � to rifle through the Tripoli files and read the Libyan version of Lockerbie and the 1989 UTA Flight 722 plane bombing; and of the Berlin disco bombings, for which a host of Arab civilians and Gaddafi's own adopted daughter were killed in America's 1986 revenge raids; and of his IRA arms supplies and of his assassination of opponents at home and abroad, and of the murder of a British policewoman, and of his invasion of Chad and the deals with British oil magnates; and (woe betide us all at this point) of the truth behind the grotesque deportation of the soon-to-expire al-Megrahi, the supposed Lockerbie bomber too ill to die, who may, even now, reveal some secrets which the Fox of Libya � along with Gordon Brown and the Attorney General for Scotland, for all are equal on the Gaddafi world stage � would rather we didn't know about.

And who knows what the Green Book Archives � and please, O insurgents of Libya, do NOT in thy righteous anger burn these priceless documents � will tell us about Lord Blair's supine visit to this hideous old man; an addled figure whose "statesmanlike" gesture (the words, of course, come from that old Marxist fraud Jack Straw, when the author of Escape to Hell promised to hand over the nuclear nick-nacks which his scientists had signally failed to turn into a bomb) allowed our own faith-based Leader to claim that, had we not smitten the Saddamites with our justified anger because of their own non-existent weapons of mass destruction, Libya, too, would have joined the Axis of Evil.