Libya, another Iraq another lie

6.5m people.

Et Cetera doesn't make sense in that context, Benghazi provided 21 fighters and it's the second largest city in Libya. It's historically been home to quiet opposition to Gaddafi by its inhabitants and this sentiment has attracted militant recruiters but as previously mentioned only 21 people actually joined.

Source? LIFG only has 100 members in total. If any of them were caught by Gaddafi they wouldn't be alive, he would notoriously kill and torture those who opposed him by simply speaking out against him (just take a look at the scores of missing persons from previous protests) so it's inconceivable that he'd let members of LIFG go who'd actively seek to destroy his regime. Remember, under Gaddafi anyone who opposed him was a terrorist and sent to prison. In 2008, according to Gaddafi's mouthpiece the "reformed members" of the group were released but there were hundreds still left in prison. Odd when you consider the LIFG is simply not that big, it's clear they were simply people who opposed Gaddafi but had "reformed" as a result of their experiences in prison - something very common under his regime.

No-one's denying the involvement of radicals? I even said they were involved but play an extremely minor role in the current revolution, previously they played a bigger part but that's because everyone in Libya was too scared to oppose Gaddafi so they made up a bigger proportion of those actively working against his regime.

What? This revolution isn't about LIFG, it's about freedom and democracy, unless you've been under a rock the past few months you'll know that this has been the case for hundreds of millions of people in the Arab world, in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen etc. The LIFG don't own/start this revolution, it's been sparked by the other countries in the region - namely Tunisia and Egypt.

Clearly this is someone who doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of Afghanistan but this argument only works if the resistance was coming from a few tribal areas in isolation rather than the whole country and in fact international region. To say that a few tribes would be able to seize control of the revolution and the country is severely underestimating the magnitude of this uprising. There'd have to be a huge number of said militants/tribal members in order to do such a thing, we're talking a significant portion of the overall population such as in Afghanistan. This is simply not the case in Libya.

Care to back up your genocide claims? How many people have died thus far?

[Does the Libyan army have the capacity to kill every person in Libya? Heck their air capacity got taken out in seconds, some power they have.

Also, love how the house to house thing is quoted to death by every one who believes that Gaddafi is the big bad wolf and the Imperialistic powers are the saviours, much akin to the endlessly quoted line attributed to Ahmedinjad of wiping the jews of the face of the planet.

Libya should try for democracy, and use peaceful protesters. In drowning down the garbage provided by mainstream news stations of the heinous creature that Gadaffi is, coincidently that picture only painted the past few weeks, we often forget the rebels turned violent too and so the situation is not as simple as the army going around killing harmless protesters.

And this is called misinterpreting a statistic to fit your point.

As far as terrorism is concerned those numbers are very telling. Just to put it into perspective, coming second to Darnah (with a population of just 80,000) was a Saudi city with a population of 4,000,000.

Benghazi provided 21 (23%) whilst Darna provided an alarming 52 (60%) in addition to Ajdabiya, all of these places are in close proximity. We're not just talking about Benghazi here, we're talking about the east and more specifically the north east.

I misread. It was 110 militants "most of which" were LIFG members.

Extremely minor? Considering how little we know about the actual rebels that's a bit of a stretch. A lot of the prominent members of the "rebel council" are from the Harabi tribe especially Abdel Mustafa Jalil and Abdel Fatah Younis who appeared to take on key roles. There's a distinct and practical overlapping of the backed rebels and extremists here.

I didn't say it was about LIFG. I'm saying that we know little about the rebels were backing and what we do know suggests that they hail from an extremist breeding ground. Again I ask, once democracy and freedom is established will the new Libyan government turn on LIFG and co or will they embrace them?

The point of the cable was to highlight the views held in the east and north east. Even disregarding the actual terrorists bred in the north east the amount of support for them is worrying, especially amongst young people.

As the article also points out the east is in a tribal, theological and political conflict with Gaddafi. Take from that what you will.

I'm not denying that the revolution is about democracy and that ordinary Libyans instigated it. What I'm worried about is the little we know about the rebels, the nature of the north east (the epicenter of it all), the history of the prominent rebels, distinct links to extremism and the direction that Libya is going to take post-revolution with all things considered.

No that's what you've been doing.



Percentages only have value if you're looking at them in terms of the entire population, not the population of a city or village. This is because this a national revolt, Western Libya simply has a bigger government presence because that's where Gaddafi's HQ is located and where he brings in his merceneries (from South/West countries in that region).

There's an overlap between those who actively oppose Gaddafi and those who are taking active roles in the revolution correct. To say that a significant proportion of the rebellion are terrorists or Al Qaeda is complete nonsense, we're looking at dozens of people at best (most of them have died since the organisation came to exist in 1995) out of millions.

As I said, LIFG have very little power over an entire country, even if they were ten times bigger it'd be extremely unlikely they'd be able to tell the millions of Libyans what to do after the overthrow of the regime.

The entire country is against Gaddafi but he only has the resources to control some areas in the West which are the most important for him. Consider that huge swathes of the army and Libyan government officials worldwide defected as soon as this revolution started, clearly he has little national support aside from his some of his tribe (some have defected and joined the rebellion) and of course his hired henchmen.

Uh by your logic no country has a significant terrorist problem because in any case they make up an absolute minuscule amount of the total population. It doesn't work like that, as far as terrorism is concerned those numbers are worrying.

Missed the point here. Let's assume the rebels march on to victory, hold elections and a new government is elected. What will be the fate of LIFG and the north eastern tribes if not becoming part of the government itself? Surely one would expect them to fight terrorism/extremism in their own country but I can't see that happening so what will be the fate of LIFG and the theological/tribal views which exist in their respective region?

Well yeah but that doesn't change the fact that the north east areas appear to be more islamist & militant etc as the cable highlights. This isn't Egypt or Tunisia... I mean are those countries even remotely as tribal as Libya if at all? I don't think we're lending enough credence to just how tribal Libya is.

Another thing that worries me (especially if we supply arms (there's talk of it)) is what's going to happen when rebel forces reach key Gaddafi towns. We have to remember that regardless of their support for him they are civilians too and there will come a time when they say enough is enough, take up arms and defend their man. And finally a few years down the line what if the tribes who come off worse start protesting against the new government? What if they take the extremist route in response?

I mean try to see it from the view of those loyal to Gaddafi... They don't see a pro-democracy uprising, they see their long standing tribal enemies waging war upon them backed by outsiders.

With that said I know Gaddafi has to go one way or another and I'm glad we did intervene I just hope the general nature of the north easterners never takes center stage, I mean surely in any election people will be voting for the polar opposite of Gaddafi?

Care to back up your genocide claims? How many people have died thus far? Does the Libyan army have the capacity to kill every person in Libya? Heck their air capacity got taken out in seconds, some power they have.

Also, love how the house to house thing is quoted to death by every one who believes that Gaddafi is the big bad wolf and the Imperialistic powers are the saviours, much akin to the endlessly quoted line attributed to Ahmedinjad of wiping the jews of the face of the planet. Oh look Israel still stands. And will not be going anyway any time soon, especially at the hands of Iran.

And think beyond what BBC has told you thus far. Get rid of Gaddafi leads to what? Civil war? Stability like democracy has brought Afghanistan and Iraq? Libya should try for democracy, and use peaceful protesters. In drowning down the garbage provided by mainstream news stations of the heinous creature that Gadaffi is, coincidently that picture only painted the past few weeks, we often forget the rebels turned violent too and so the situation is not as simple as the army going around killing harmless protesters.

The majority of those loyal to Gaddafi are loyal because he's paying them to be loyal to him. Some of his tribe have defected indicating that they were only with him because of fear but now they feel empowered enough to join the rebellion. The only advantage Gaddafi has is equipment which the no fly zone aims to counterbalance.

Regardless of their motives, their actions are saving the lives of innocent people.

You have to agree they are really trying their best not to screw this one up after all the bad press from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Seriously anything they could come up with would be infinitely better than the evil, appalling, terrible and disgusting gaddafi regime - 42 years without progressing the country one bit! Only leaving it to decay with collapsed health and education systems... The fascist Nazi Italian colonisers developed the country better than gaddafi rule...

the western colonisers always improve countries, look what happened to zimbabwe/rhodesia when we lost authority.

but trying to save lives by bombing is a sticky subject.

unjustified.

the "house to house" quote was also a mis-quote.

unjustified.

Not when the targets being bombs are ammunitions dumps, SAM sites, missile launchers, tanks, turrets etc. etc. that are being used in full force and aggression against innocent civilians blowing up hospitals, homes and committing crimes against humanity.

I love how every kid on TSR is suddenly an expert in recent Libyan history, most people on here couldn't even point it out on a map a few weeks ago and now they're lecturing each other on what is right and wrong or what's really going on in Libya

Leave the decision making to the real experts and stop passing hateful judgements on the freedom fighters in Libya based off of your ill informed sources - I'm sure you can find other ways to earn some rep or make yourself look a little more intelligent without trivialising the deaths of innocents and insulting Libyans such as myself.

actually this is thoroughly justified, clearly you have absolutely no idea whatsoever of the situation in Libya for the past 42 years - gaddafi has ALWAYS and I repeat ALWAYS used paid crowds to cheer for him in all the rallys ever to take place in Libya especially Tripoli, I am a Libyan and I know this to be 100% fact.

The latest crowds seen where paid $1000 US Dollars each and every day to appear in support for Gaddafi, look at the aerial view of tripoli they show a totally empty city expect less than 50 people cheering at the green square, these same group of people were also each given brand new cars (all with a white paint coating) and were instructed to drive around the city centre for the day to earn their pay, SKY news exposed this to be true as well as Al-Jazeera Arabic. If you don't believe me ask any Libyan and they will know very well what the truth of the matter is.

I love how every kid on TSR is suddenly an expert in recent Libyan history, most people on here couldn't even point it out on a map a few weeks ago and now they're lecturing each other on what is right and wrong or what's really going on in Libya

Leave the decision making to the real experts and stop passing hateful judgements on the freedom fighters in Libya based off of your ill informed sources - I'm sure you can find other ways to earn some rep or make yourself look a little more intelligent without trivialising the deaths of innocents and insulting Libyans such as myself.

Im pretty sure many people on here could point out Libya on a globe half way through primary school, its not exactly difficult, is it?

well that is interesting, gadaffi must have lots of monies.

but it still stands that the majority of his supporters are not being bribed.

so you support the ira then, and all those other "freedom fighters".