Free Libya from Gaddafi – and Malta too, while we're at it
FREE LIBYA FROM GADDAFI – DEMONSTRATION IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF LIBYA, TOMORROW AT 10.30AM IN VALLETTA, STARTING AT THE GATE TO THE CITY.
I’m going to be there, and not only in solidarity with the people of Libya, because quite frankly, Malta needs to be free of Gaddafi too.
When you look at our politicians on both sides of the house, too frightened to say or do anything because this human rights violator and mass-murdering madman on our doorstep still has them by the short-and-curlies, it’s damned obvious that we’re all going to breathe easier when he’s gone.
Gaddafi has plagued our lives and our foreign and domestic policy for four decades. If those brave Libyans get rid of him and we see him swinging by the ankles sooner rather than later, they’ll do us all a favour.
And it’s about time we all woke up to the fact, instead of cringing in fear. Nothing that comes after Gaddafi could possibly be worse than Gaddafi. Nothing.
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See you tomorrow, Daph.
If you have satellite access tune in to the Libya state TV (it is free-to-air) and watch scenes which are oddly reminiscent of MLP mass meetings. Very, very scary.
“Nothing that comes after Gaddafi could possibly be worse than Gaddafi. Nothing”.
Don’t be too sure about that, don’t be too sure.
[Daphne – How can you be serious. Do you actually know what Gaddafi’s track record is? Go on, tell me – what could be worse?]
A Liberal.
Rachel and I will be there too.
Kos, x”falliment il-politika barranija tal-occident. Dawn it-tiranni werwruna bl-Islamismu imma holqu ghadu biex il-punent jibqghu izommuhom f’posthom lid-dittaturi.
Madankollu Gaddafi hu kaz sui generis.
Here’s one more from the conspiracy theory brigade on timesofmalta.com
Bill Khan
Ladies and gentlmen, you and i simply do not know what the h..l is going on inside Libya. All we get is that so many hundred of people have been killed and the mercenaries are being brought in etc etc. A mass hysteria is being created by the media. We also do not know what are the issues of the masses of people there. Libya has a per capita income of just under £15000. It is not short of bread either and neither of shelter, education or health. Could it be that what is going on in Libya is an attempt by the quartet (US/UK/France /Israel) to get rid of ghadafi? Just a thought. It is not difficult for french commandos to enter through chad with well armed operatives. In top the eastern part fo Libya. neitrher too difficult for the british to move theirs in to Benghazi and re-juvenate their old ties with some tribes. In such a scenario a head of state has no alternative to use all force necessary to quell such an sedition albeit by the use of outside forces when you are faced with state of the art equipped foreign operatives out to topple you.
There are several keyboard operatives and chairborne commandos on this blog. I know this because I had a summer job as teaboy for the CIA.
Where are George Vella, AST, Joe Grima and all the other Gaddafi toads and boot-lickers, who did their best (luckily their best is always lousy) to thwart our progress towards the EU and make us slaves of Gaddafi?
Shame on them forever. They don’t have the decency to resign from the PL and Joseph does not have the guts to sack them.
Send them to Gaddafi where they belong, along with KMB and Mintoff.
The subordination of our interests to those of the Libyan dictator culminated in MLP’s continuous opposition to EU membership (Mintoff, KMB and Sant / George Vella / Joseph Muscat).
The MLP’s extremely close relationship with Gaddafi was a key stumbling block out of fear of offending the Libyan regime.
It’s official. He’s barking mad.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110225/local/defiant-gaddafi-addresses-supporters-in-green-square
heroes, https://twitter.com/AliTweel/feb17libya
I will be there too and I won’t be going alone.
Daphne you are so right we will be breathing easier once he’s gone. I hope his departure will herald a new era where Libyans will be proud to say ‘I am Libyan’.
As a Libyan, savouring her new found freedom of expression, I would like to thank in advance all those who will be attending tomorrow.
Everybody is glued to the internet and TV and I’m sure many wish they can do something to help.
Now is the time for us to mean what we say and at least show solidarity with all the people who are suffering.
So yes, the least I can do is show solidarity and I will be there.
Paola local council should immediately rename Gaddafi Gardens, which is near the prisons and the mosque.
Nope, I think it should be left so as a symbol of our shame, from those days when our elected representatives wanted us to be brothers to the Tyrant of Tripoli. Lest we forget.
Totally agree. Is there anywhere in these islands a street named after Gaddafi?
He is a monster, agreed. I hope that whatever comes after him will not be worse.
The redeeming factor of most regimes is that they provided stability – even more than any democratic system. The price is of course always too high in terms of human suffering and the individual freedoms that we see as sacred.
[Daphne – Dictatorships do NOT provide more stability than democracy, and you are seeing a spectacular illustration of that right now. Dictatorships are inherently vulnerable to total collapse.]
Not a ‘good’ stability. Don’t misunderstand me. There was constancy for 40 years, horrible as it was.
This constancy was enough to lure investors to pour money into this country. I’m thinking of Maltese companies that developed ‘villages’ for high end buyers right outside of Tripoli. I wonder what that investment’s value is now or what it will be in the near future.
Compare all this with the political stability in Italy. We all know what we’d prefer of course.
“We all know what we’d prefer of course.”
I do. And it isn’t Gaddafi.
“Nothing that comes after Gaddafi could possibly be worse than Gaddafi. Nothing.”
No matter how terrible Gaddafi’s record is, that’s a clearly incorrect statement. To suggest that Gaddafi is the very peak of human malevolence, beyond which no human has ever or will ever go, is naive. History already furnishes us with examples of a few scoundrels who could be described as ‘worse’. Perhaps I am misinterpreting you?
[Daphne – Name one. And please don’t tell me Adolf Hitler.]
Why not?
[Daphne – Because the situation does not lend itself to another Hitler, and especially not in Africa, where there are few Jews. The world organised itself differently post-World War II, hence the European Union.]
Textbook strawman. I’m not suggesting that an anti-Semitic Aryan supremacist is about to take power in Libya. I simply point out that saying ‘nothing could be worse than Gaddafi’ is incorrect.
Saying that nothing is ‘likely’ to be worse is much more accurate. Granted, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but that shouldn’t be an issue.
[Daphne – No, Charles, nothing could be worse. Gaddafi ticks all the boxes. You think that somebody or something could be worse because you don’t yet know the full story (I don’t either, but I have plenty of information) and perhaps you are not picking up on the random personal anecdotes that are emerging now. I asked you to describe activities that could be worse than what Gaddafi has done, so please do so. Weapons of mass destruction? Sponsoring and organising international terrorism? Mass disappearances and state-sponsored murder of his own people over 42 years? People being whisked out of their own homes and never being seen again because they are suspected of having criticised him? Torture and public hangings of opponents? A total ban on opposition? Leaving the country mired in poverty while he and his sons and daughter sequester billions? Turning the economy into a personal playground for his family and a few favoured henchmen? Threatening the west with terrorism and seizure of assets and an oil crisis if he is not accommodated? Importing mercenaries to shoot at his opponents? And – where we are concerned – using threats, fear, intimidation and money to shape our foreign policy against our interests and in line with his? Come on, list some things that could be worse.]
I see no point tediously in comparing and contrasting the villains that have blighted human history, like kids comparing attributes in a Pokemon card game. It seems to me obvious there are no limits to the evil that man is able to do, and no matter how terrible Gaddafi was, there is always the possibility that someone will ‘outdo’ him.
In any case, I wish I could share your optimism in human nature and convince myself that Gaddafi is the biggest monster the world has, and will ever, see. I hope you are right.