Just to add another dollop of seasoning to the heady and confusing brew that is Libya, this should not be a surprise I guess. Richard Engel of NBC has found 1 in 5 Libyan rebels think Col. Gaddafi is Jewish and that is good enough for them to fight to overthrow him.
Is Gaddafi Jewish? The evidence is simply not strong enough. There appears to be clues Gaddafi was born out of wedlock between an Italian soldier and a Jewish girl. And as an infant was placed into the adopted care of a Bedouin family by the Catholic Church. That Gaddafi himself has admitted to having Jewish cousins and then he has turned around to deny it. The issue is simply murky.
In matters of right and wrong, Qaddafi's lineage does not matter. He is a tyrant and should be thrown down. But the question every government who is supporting the rebels should be asking is who will follow? With reports of AQ in the rebel ranks. And add those who think Qaddafi is Jewish. It does pose an interesting question that should have been asked before the passage of the UN resolution. To only now to search for a decent successor shows how unprepared the international community has been. And this for a tyrant who has ruled brutally since 1969. Now why do we need to pass any kind of global test when such global collaboration results in something almost like the various factions of White Bolsheviks holed up in Murmansk with US, UK, Canadian, and French troops battling the Red Bolsheviks?
I have a bad feeling that Operation Odyssey Dawn will end badly. So badly that the continuing non-function of Somalia as a nation will seem mild in comparison.
3 comments:
As with all of Obummer's "projects", you can bet the farm that it will turn out badly. I don't think that this guy can tie his shoe laces without screwing up.
I'm not sure quite what you mean by 'badly' Anna, considering the region overall.
The odds for democracy are slim anywhere there and most likely the deranged islamists will seize power.
But we in the west must stick to our guns and support the guy who said "We just want to live like human beings".
Time is on our side if we do so. The young people of those lands see a far better world on the internet than what they live in.
AndyJ, he should have stayed in Chicago picking his brackets.
NZGarry, you pose a good question. The question is, can we even find that guy who wants to live like a human being again and let him try to form a government? There is no long term support from the likes of the Arab League, NATO, UN, or the US. Nor is their coherent set of objectives, the US Preisdent is so nuanced in his stand no one in Libya can trust his words.
Going back to the Bolsheviks, the Allies were fighting a global war and nascent democracy of Kerensky was struggling. On the other side was Lenin being propped up by secret German gold who used that gold to buy propaganda and thugs to intimedate democracy supporters. By the time the Allies finally decided to support democracy in Russia, Lenin and the Red Bolsheviks were in power while the Tsarists and White Bolsheviks were in retreat. So the tragedy of the Murmansk AEF played out. British, Canadian, French, and American forces fought the Reds but to no gain as all the 'powers' in Murmansk groped for a strategy in a world suddenly at peace and no one wanted to think of the struggle for Russia's future that was the last front of WWI. International support vanished, the AEF pulled out, and Russia became the USSR.
I hope history does not repeat itself.
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