Inside Libya’s militias

Published: April 2, 2014 at 10:39am




14 Comments Comment

  1. Jozef says:

    Love that website.

  2. Rumplestiltskin says:

    This video reminded me of a saying told to me by an Arab friend: “Me against my brothers; my brothers and I against our cousins; our cousins, my brothers and I against the world.”

    It also explains why there have been so many strong-arm dictators in the Arab world and why, when they are deposed, chaos results. Western democracy appears to be a foreign concept that cannot be imported/exported.

  3. Wilson says:

    History repeats itself ad infinitum. Tito was another example. Power vacuums can be exploited by others with differing interests.

  4. Jozef says:

    The mother of all betrayals.

    To all those who crucified Lawrence Gonzi, those who lusted for even more TV appearances and couldn’t get enough citizen’s protest marches demanding legality now; UP YOURS.

    I didn’t vote this scam, you did. I took the only plausible action to prevent it, you didn’t. You utter idiots.

    And if you ‘voted’ AD you’re even more moronic.

    http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/37586/odz_no_longer_odz_under_proposed_mepa_rule

    Just a note to Maltatoday, ‘ODZ is ODZ’ was coined by Gonzi himself.

    • D. Borg says:

      As a proud ‘even more moronic’ (at least in your book), I ask you to revisit the various decisions of the infamous ‘MEPA Review Boards’ – those that were allowed to go scotch free by a simply resignation after the 2008 election – and after the harm stamped by them was done.

      The current and past abuses prove that the problem stems from the fact of one party government.

      Do you sincerely think that any coalition government with AD, would even attempt similar abuses and/or arrogance?

      [Daphne – Problems do not stem from parties. They stem from the people in them. And any party that started out with Toni Abela, Wenzu Mintoff and Saviour Balzan is decidedly unattractive to grown-ups.]

      • Jozef says:

        How does this satisfy your green credentials?

        I ask because I need to understand whether your agenda is to elect one of your marxists to power, tipping the balance, or maintain a modicum of coherence in your arguments.

        Truth is you’re speechless at the clientelism about to be inflicted on us. The lowest common denominator party and one of yours would last what, a couple of months?

        You mention the ‘infamous MEPA review boards’, I believe Gonzi had cut those short with the reform. Selective memory there on your part as well.

      • Jozef says:

        Be proud D.Borg, be very proud.

        When was it ever conceivable with the previous administration that the minister can regularise abuse in this manner? Any autonomous powers the authority now a political expedient.

        Legality now darlings, in the person of the minister. Where’s that lawyer who wouldn’t speak to Beppe?

        http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/37593/new_mepa_rules_give_minister_power_to_regularise_illegal_development

        And there’s nothing you can ever do about it. You’ve been had.

      • D. Borg says:

        What a very flawed attempt to discredit the local Green Party. I wonder why?

        [Daphne – Because I know most of them as men and my contemporaries, D. Borg, and not as ‘politicians and public figures’ and so have no illusions. ‘Local’ – now there’s the ultimate condemnation.]

        Whilst it is obvious that parties are as good as the people within (and around them – donors anyone?) – it also follows that the same people are as good as what they strive for and cause to achieve.

        Thus it would be fair to mention that AD of the late 80s was championing various causes including transparent party financing, civil rights, radical environmental standards & safeguards, curbing of corruption, which successive PNPL governments only started to feebly tackle decades after, when they had their backsides kicked by the EC.

        [Daphne – ‘PNPL governments’: oh, did we have a coalition? I must have been asleep for the duration.]

        Likewise, the Toni Abela & Wenzu Mintoff of that period had the guts to openly challenge & speak out against the filth the MLP was infested with, and they were thanked by being manhandled & kicked out.

        [Daphne – Do stop repeating myths, D. Borg. If Toni Abela and Wenzu Mintoff really were uncomfortable with the ‘filth’ of the Labour Party of teh 1980s, they wouldn’t be working with them now. Some of the worst filth is now the Labour appointee as envoy to the World Trade Organisation and another piece of consummate Labour 1980s filth has been named envoy to the World Tourism Organisation, and yet another chunk of it has been named as Malta’s next EU Commissioner. To say nothing, of course, about the fact that the secretary-general of the Labour Party, at the time Wenzu and Toni were supposedly objecting to it, was Merilweez Coleiro, now the president of the republic.]

        Whereas Saviour along with the dearly missed Julian Manduca & other idealists (tree huggers if you wish), believed that environmentalists should themselves enter the political fray rather than limit themselves to pressure groups, to expedite the overdue changes.

        Finally should one discredit the PN for having embraced JPO, Mugliett, Franco and the likes….or should we only acclaim the PN for having had Carmel Cacopardo actively militating within the PN against the MLP regime, and enduring vindictive acts under the MLP (and eventually also GonziPN), because of his stands in favour of accountability & integrity?

        [Daphne – Re JPO, Mugliett and Franco – no, because they are not symptomatic of manifest evil in the party. It was different with Labour in the 1980s: the entire party was corrupt and evil.]

      • D. Borg says:

        We’re conveniently off at a tangent and digressing here…

        The point to consider is whether our environment would be better off, by a coalition government with AD, or a single party government which is at best prone to succumb to unholy influences and/or grow arrogant in the weeks, months, years after being voted in.

      • Jozef says:

        Tangents?

        Now that rules have been turned into opinion you’re back to square one.

        You are, to all intents and purposes, well and truly oblivious of what having Green credentials is about.

        Here you are defending a party, make that a newspaper which sets your agenda, MEPA has just been transformed into a reception desk for the OPM and all you do is relate GonziPN’s supposed evil.

        When will you grow out of Briguglio’s strain of marxist equidistant posturing and tackle the real issues this country faces?

        You’ll condemn developers in toto, reducing them to speculators and haven’t ever come up with a state art direction employing their knowhow, manpower, technology and work.

        The real ones, those who invested money, diversified, and actually created a conflict between their investment and the hotch potch concrete jungle being promoted.

        Sandro Chetcuti himself actually stated some of the proposals are preposterous, (not that I consider him as pertaining to the ones mentioned above), he ridiculed the carte blanche to add as many floors as one fancies as useless, structural issues won’t allow it.

        Fancy that as a measure of this lot’s intellect, they’re not even up to Chetcuti.

        You’re lost for words, all of you. Get a grip and walk the talk, before all village cores are destroyed. But then, that’s ‘sinjuri’ territory, so there.

        Imagine scheduling becoming a thing of the past. Your silence is utterly hilarious.

        And don’t tell me that isn’t what poisoned you lately, Harry Vassallo at least maintaned a minimum of balance, even though he lived the very opposite.

        So you’ve never forgiven Fenech Adami for what he did to ‘you’ in 2004. Thank goodness he did what he had to do.

        Dream on with the coalition, it’s the only thing on your minds. Votes.

  5. Peritocracy says:

    While Mintoff was chumming up to Ceausescu: How the secret police tracked my childhood

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26838177

  6. Beingpressed says:

    The Arab spring was manufactured by the Arabs and not by the West.

    It was inevitable that Libya was going to be split up and no control or order would exist for decades to come.

    If Malta miraculously finds oil after all this time I would seriously start to worry.

  7. girbi says:

    This is really a good video. In Libya there is a big power vacuum, which will not be easy for any Libyan leader to remove.

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