Tension mounts
While the situation in Libya worsens, it is extraordinary how some have carried on with the discussion of matters which have now been rendered petty and irrelevant, at least for the time being, like divorce and the price of fuel.
The price of fuel is not the main issue.
That main issue is the cause of the price rise: the growing unrest in the Middle East and the total cessation of oil production in Libya following the exodus of expatriate workers.
Even as the crisis increases in magnitude, there are still comments on the internet to the effect that it has nothing to do with us, that we should stay out of other people’s problems. Others say that we are hypocritical to show concern about Libya when we don’t bother about Sudan.
Both are wrong, and for the exact same reason.
Tripoli is roughly 250 miles away from Malta, which would make it a comfortable three to four hours’ drive if there were no sea in between. It is in our immediate neighbourhood.
But beyond that –Tunisia is in our immediate neighbourhood, too, and Tunis is even closer – we are embroiled with Libya in every possible respect. It is because of the constant contact and the geographical proximity that Libya’s problems are Malta’s too, and this is also why we are involved in a way that we could never be with Sudan.
This is not a Playstation game or a film on television. We cannot control the outcome and we don’t know how it will end. It was obvious from the outset that Muammar Gaddafi was not going to step down.
Those who imagined he would play by their rules were idiotic to do so because this is a man who has always played by his own rules, abiding by those of others only as a chess-move to enable him to achieve his own ends.
With everything to lose and nothing to gain by stepping down – and I’m speaking here in terms of him personally, and not Libya – he is going to stick to what his anointed son described as Plan A, Plan B and Plan C: to live and die in Libya, even if that means wholesale slaughter and violence and the descent of his country into anarchy.
Meanwhile, international leaders continue to emerge from their offices to announce that Gaddafi must go at once. Really? In the language of the school playground: “And who’s going to make him? You and whose army?”
Muammar Gaddafi has never cared what international leaders think of him, and he is not about to start bothering now.
Yesterday morning, he spoke to an audience of ashen-faced men and slogan-chanting women, while out in the east of the country his forces began the aerial bombing of rebel towns. Even the journalists and cameramen there to record his speech looked frozen with unease and trepidation.
Gone was the relaxed and smiling man who spoke to the BBC and Christiane Amanpour only the day before, with his right foot up on the table before him in a calculated insult that the journalists, coming from a culture different to our own, would neither have registered nor known how to handle if they did.
I think that rather a lot of people need to look up the definition of psychopath, and then work out at last that they are dealing with one.
It isn’t because he is delusional, as the US delegate to the UN said a couple of days ago, that Gaddafi laughed in denial while Libyans were being shot in the streets. She was wrong. It is because he is psychopathic. People like that feel no emotion but are capable of simulating any emotion at will, switching from brutality to merriment in seconds, where they think it appropriate to their purposes.
Muammar Gaddafi is in the mould of Saddam Hussein and Josef Stalin – not of Mubarak and Ben Ali. So one day he sits and smiles at the man from the BBC, just as Stalin sat with Churchill and Roosevelt in that famous Yalta photograph while murdering millions back home, and the very next day he speaks to an audience of people who were trucked in for the television cameras and talks about sticking his fingers in David Cameron’s eyes.
Can we please stop pretending now? I know it’s embarrassing to admit that this is the very same man to whom prime ministers and presidents, and certainly not just our own, kowtowed and smarmed. But we have to come to terms with it instead of manifesting a very curious form of loss aversion.
Gaddafi did not suffer a psychotic incident and suddenly become a bloodthirsty, power-hungry maniac. He was one from the beginning. That is how he was able to seize power of all of Libya at the age of just 28, yes 28. Nobody with normal focus or emotions could have done that.
Yesterday he declared it high treason to say that Libya needs food, medicines or other forms of humanitarian aid. He said it was a way of opening the door to colonialism. You can see what’s coming next: high treason is punishable by death without trial under his regime and the Green Book he wrote.
So now anybody – possibly even expatriates – who cooperates in the humanitarian aid effort is at immediate risk of death. And Libyans are going to be far too fearful to ask for help. They are going to find themselves reduced to even worse misery than before.
Perhaps now people in Malta (and elsewhere) will understand why they never heard any Libyans complain about Gaddafi. They didn’t want to disappear into the night and die.
Hilary Clinton has said that the United States of America must lead the international response to the Libyan crisis. Two US Navy amphibious assault ships have come through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean and are making their way towards Libya. The idea, one imagines, is that Gaddafi will be intimidated – but it’s gone beyond that now.
US defence strategists have said that a no-fly zone over Libya – which will stop the aerial bombing of rebel towns – will be difficult to organise. It will mean first destroying, in airborne attacks, Gaddafi’s military planes and fighter jets. Then the no-fly zone has to be enforced by US jets and those of its allies, flying across Libya. It can’t all be done from the Mediterranean, because Libya’s hinterland is too vast.
Meanwhile, Gaddafi’s forces have taken Sabratha already and have launched an attack on Az-Zawiya. The nightmare isn’t ending. It’s only just begun.
And far from Gaddafi’s end being just a matter of days away, as the analysts suggested on the international news networks last week, it is now clear that unless there is external intervention, it is not going to be Gaddafi who is wiped out, but those who opposed him and who cannot take Tripoli alone.
Gaddafi is finished, yes, but only as an international player. As the Tyrant of Tripoli, he will survive until somebody can get close enough to get rid of him.
This article was published in The Malta Independent today.
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Never mind Britain’s failure to react effectively to the wave of uprisings spreading across North Africa – egregious although it has been. The real failure of response has been the EU’s.
Adrian Hamilton – The Independent (UK)
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/adrian-hamilton/adrian-hamilton-bravery-on-one-side-shame-on-the-other-2230517.html
An example of what is being posted on the internet:
“Joseph Calleja
Jesuit Refugee Service, Alternattiva and Graffitti. I wonder if any of these sympathisers have any room in their own homes to accommodate these refugees?
We all feel for the sick, the poor the oppressed and so on but we all know that life is not fair and we have to accept that fact.
Malta cannot afford to take anymore people.
First of all Malta is already over populated with it’s own citizens and most of our citizens are having a hard time making ends meet. The JRS are getting well compensated for the work they do with the illegal immigrants, Alternativa fighting for recognition and as we all know Graffity will protest at anything that will get attention and put their name in the media. Malta should put up a sign saying ” FULL UP “.
And unless the bleeding hearts et al can sponsor and accommodate these people in their own homes please stop encouraging illegal immigrants to come to Malta. These protesters should be thankful that Malta and the Maltese people were kind enough to feed them and clothe them and put a roof over their heads.”
Actually Tunis is NOT closer to Malta than Tripoli, and Tripoli is NOT 250 miles away but 218 miles (350 km). Tunis is 240 miles away (385 km). I measured the distances from Bidnija, so it must be precise.
[Daphne – Thank you, Kevin. Much obliged.]
How far is Moscow?
2,250km as the crow flies from Brussels to Moscow
U tghid li m’intiex iffisat.
Fruit (sic) for thought – some tasteless commenters on timesofmalta.com believe they are amusing.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110303/local/anti-gaddafi-signatures-collected-in-valletta
Christopher Pecorella
haha I believe the whole incident in libya is orchestrated by the anti-divorce movement in Malta, because the topic seems to have been forgotten haha
Some fruit for thought
Hopefully this will be the excuse to attack Gaddafi:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12633415
http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=lcSa4RSrUyw
The Eritrea community in Malta has appealed for help for relatives and friends stranded in Libya.
From the BBC’s continuous updates:
“Sir Christopher Meyer, the former UK ambassador to Washington, has told BBC News that a no-fly zone over Libya is not practical “politically or militarily”. “Cold water has been poured on the idea by Russia, who have a veto in the UN Security Council, and where the Russians go the Chinese tend to follow. We’ve also heard dampening noises from Washington. So right now it doesn’t look like a no-fly zone would be practical politically, leaving aside the military difficulties.”
And. then there is this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/01/libya-revolution-no-fly-zone
“So as the calls for foreign intervention grow, I’d like to send a message to western leaders: Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy. This is a priceless opportunity that has fallen into your laps, it’s a chance for you to improve your image in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims. Don’t mess it up.”
So, really, the cries for a Western military intervention are far from unanimous. There must be other means. The lesson of Iraq, especially, is too strong to simply ignore.
While I cannot but agree with this post, it really is being aired to the wrong audience. There is no way that we can bring to bear upon anyone the need for urgent military intervention in Libya.
Now, Daph, perhaps you can begin to understand (though this is no justification) our politician’s hedging and procrastination in denouncing Gaddafi. They probably weren’t convinced that the rebellion, for one reason or another, would succeed and hence their recalcitrance.
My God! I hope they’ll be proven wrong!
[Daphne – Whether the rebellion succeeds or not, they have no choice but to press on. The United States and Britain have denounced him publicly. Every leader that has ever been photographed with him, including our own and Hugo Chavez excepted, has now been very publicly embarrassed and humiliated and will need to prove the opposite stance. There is simply no going back, not only for Gaddafi but for Europe and the United States. They ‘forgave’ his many acts of state-sponsored terrorism, but now they have been pushed over the edge.]
Daph, the massacre that is happening now (and he’s just geting started) will pale in comparison to the one that will FOLLOW a failed rebellion.
[Daphne – Yes, that’s what I’m saying. And that’s why the west will have to intervene.]
Victor Laiviera has a flea in his pants. One hopes it won’t be flattened by Anglu Farrugia’s elephant.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110303/local/don-t-take-sides-in-a-civil-war
Victor Laiviera
When all the brouhaha has died down and everyone has gone home, Malta will still be in the same place – a flea next to an elephant. And we simply cannot afford to have the elephant look upon us as an enemy. Those are the harsh realities of life and realpolitik. And those who fondly imagine that out EU partners will come rushing to our aid have only to look at how they have treated us, up to now, in the matter of irregular immigration.
So all the brave keyboard warriors should realise that we have to tread very, very carefully.
Insomma….issoltu….vicky laviera….
In an interview with Sky News, Saif said: “First of all the bombs (were) just to frighten them to go away. Not to kill them.”
Well, what do you know, Daphne? The poor bastard made a mistake, that’s all. The next thing we’ll be hearing is that he regrets not ”consulting” Joey in the first place.
“It will mean first destroying, in airborne attacks, Gaddafi’s military planes and fighter jets. ”
It is not the planes that need to be destroyed before starting the enforcement but the anti aircraft missile and radar systems.
Once those are out the planes can be destroyed only in the air, to avoid furthering the perception of Libya being attacked rather than Gaddafi’s military assets.
The vast area of Libya is not such a big issue as some are saying. Most of the population is concentrated on the coast making it very easy to reach from an aircraft carrier. Most of the patrols would be flown there.
The inner regions would be handled by longer range land based planes and airborne refuelling tankers.
The way I see it, the only real issue is the political consequences of attacking targets on the ground – the missile batteries and radars. The rest is just a technical matter that the US Navy and Air Force are very good at tackling.
The Kingdom of Id come true – but without the humour.
http://www.johnhartstudios.com/wizardofid/
I find it disgusting how the western world is just condemning Gaddafi’s actions but doing absolutely nothing about it.
The ICC is saying that it will investigate him for crimes against humanity while he is actually out there killing his own people.
As if he gives a damn about the investigation.
The uprising in Libya was orchestrated by GonziPN to steer away discussion from divorce and the cost of living.
Obama has just addressed the press during a exchange with Mexican President Calderon. I have never seen President Obama being so decisively undecisive!
Its just rhetoric and nothing else.
Why do I keep thinking that the weakest reponse comes from the UN?
This organization has become a social club for paper-pushers, wishful thinkers and posers. Joey would fit right in.
Ordering sanctions (ineffective) and freezing Gaddafi’s assets need only the stroke of a pen and nothing else and fall woefully short of impoverishing him.
As long as a handful of nations have veto powers, whether a small minority of UN membership or not, they create a stalemate which suits types the likes of Gaddafi quite well, thank you. The longer these state of affairs remain, the stronger Gaddafi becomes since the importation of mercenaries goes on unabated.
Then, when a river of blood becomes real, then the USA will probably do the inevitable with or without UN’s approval. Why not do it now and save thousands of lives before it becomes by far too late?
An underestimation of he power of these sanctions is permitted only to the uninitiated and the unwise. Think before you speak…and then think again.
Secondly, don’t get on your high horse too much about the US, because I’m not expecting much from the US this time round. I was, however, pleased to hear the African Union saying that they were ready to impose a no-fly zone themselves.
I agree with Baxxter that this is probably a strategy that is being used by the US.
The way they’re going on about it, they’re making it way too obvious.
Explain to me how sanctions will prevent Gaddafi from slaughtering his own people. Sanctions are in place now. Have they prevented Gaddafi from bombing rebel held cities? Nooo.
Sanctions usually hit the victims far worse than the criminal, will take too much time to be implemented and in the meantime thousands will become victims of this maniac.
Think about it, willywonka.
‘Lawmakers in the 736-member European Parliament voted to give themselves an extra 1,500 euros each per month for staff and office expenses”.. Yep, they didn’t think it’s irrelevant to help themselves! Possibly because in their case the amount involved is not petty and irrelevant.
You know what? Many of us may be peasants but some Africans are savages. What chances are there of democracy as we know it establishing itself in a country with no history of democracy?
I remember Prof Kenneth Wain once said that democracy needs a nation with a culture that allows the seeds of the system to flourish.
There is the chance that what comes after Gaddafi may be worse than him.
[Daphne – I don’t know about that, dery. We made a pretty good job of it here in Malta, didn’t we. We manage to keep a parliamentary democracy going even though so many people don’t understand what true democracy is and actually rebel against it. And we can keep a government up and running far better than Italy does. Then look at us women – who would have thought we would manage to vote when men were kind enough to allow us to do so after much fighting and protest and quite a few deaths?]
Nick Kristof had something to say about that:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27kristof.html?_r=3&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Unfit for democracy?
Thanks, Corinne. Good read. I think that when we say a ‘culture for democracy’ we mean that the people without a functioning democracy have to be exposed to the workings of a democracy before they can adopt the system.
And after all considering all of human history, democracy as we know it (the ancient Greek version would have been unrecognisable), is a very recent phenomenon and only practised by a small part of the world’s population.
We had a European culture for centuries and the British helped us in establishing a functioning democratic system (though it was almost wrecked by Dom).
Didn’t understand how voting rights for women came into the equation.
[Daphne – Well, if we did it with help then others can do so too. That was my point. We did not have a European culture for centuries. We had a quintessentially North African culture, and I don’t mean in terms of religion so set that aside. European culture was located behind the city walls; the rest was North African, and remained so well into the 20th century. Gozo, for instance, is still very North African. As for votes for women, you should know why that’s a relevant counter-argument to yours. Women were not allowed to vote because it was argued that we would not know how to use our vote responsibly: the exact same argument you use for North Africans. Turns out some of us are better at it than some men.]
You keep making this point of us having had or still having a North African culture. I’ve been to North Africa and to Southern Europe. We are definitely closer to Italians of the south then Libyans! Where do you feel more comfortable: in a Sicilian village or a Tunisian village?
[Daphne – Neither. I hate villages of all stripes. I was brought up in a seaside town and now I live in a tiny hamlet. Villages are the pits. You can live in one only if you have grown up in one. If you think Tunisian villages are in any way different to Sicilian villages, then you haven’t been to the remoter parts of Sicily.
I feel most comfortable in Anglo-Saxon culture, which means a pretty wide spread across northern Europe and north America. I am totally alienated anywhere in Italy, but we’ve already established that. I just can’t relate to it at all, can’t understand the culture, can’t bear the conversational style, and would never be able to live there. I love what they make, though. Except for Sicily, I don’t even find it recognisable. The towns and cities of Libya and Tunisia, on the other hand, are entirely recognisable to people from Malta, and so are the people.
The mistake you make is to define Maltese people as those you know of the 8% of the population who are ‘Europeanised’. The rest are very much North African, even in the way they speak. The dialect round where I live, for instance, might as well be Arabic. The only reason there isn’t more interraction and marriage is because of religion. It is screamingly obvious that the differences between Maltese and Scandinavians are vaster than the differences between Maltese and North Africans, and I’m not speaking about physical appearance.
You have to compare like with like in terms of socio-educational background. There is absolutely no difference between me and somebody from the same kind of family in Tripoli. I know this through direct experience. The trouble is that you judge North Africa on the basis of the men you see shouting on television and the women in headscarves. This is like judging all Maltese on the basis of a Labour Party mass meeting.]
“This is like judging all Maltese on the basis of a Labour Party mass meeting”.
Good one, Daph! You really made my day.
says it all.
I still don’t agree on this point. I felt much more comfortable n a northern European town than I did in Tripoli or Tunis. I am sure many Maltese feel the same – even the lower social classes.
What I find disgusting with some Maltese from the lower social classes is that they go to North Africa and feel superior to the ‘natives’. I have seen disgusting scenes played out in front of me.
[Daphne – I’m sorry not to agree, but there is no way on earth that anybody at a Labour mass meeting (in the crowd, that is) is ever going to feel more comfortable in Stockholm than in Tunis.]
I wouldn’t be too sure. Some of the thickest hamalli in Malta are always going on about x’nejka hadu in central and northern Europe.