Obama celebrated the killing of Gaddafi. He did not talk about Gaddafi’s cozy relationship with the US and the west for the past 8 years including torturing people for the CIA**. On several occasions, the US administration said that revenge should not be practiced yet no western leader said a word about lynching happening daily in Libya. A Libyan rebel leader told Al-Jazeera that Gaddafi came out and greeted them but was shot anyway. I spent two months in Libya (studying its fauna) and know how bad the regime was and I am certainly happy that his rule ended. Congratulations to the Libyan people. But we must be cautious. The US government considers this its first victory in getting a government moved from an erratic despotic western stooge to a government that will be (at least they hope) more reliably dominated and subjugated. My inside information tells me that they hope Syria would be next so that it will be two for two: Egypt and Tunisia changing from pro-US/Israel to perhaps a democracy (which would mean against US and Israeli interests) vs. Libya and Syria changing from unpredictable western allies to more predictable western puppets (not democracies). Let us not forget that Bashar Assad (and before him his father) and Gaddafi were not bastions of support for Arab causes. After all, both had close CIA ties and were more than happy to receive and torture prisoners captured by US forces (a process known as rendering which was never stopped under the Obama administration). The Syrian regime was also an ally with the US in the destruction of Iraq (including the genocide of over 1 million civilians).

By US/Israeli calculations, if the Yemeni or Bahraini dictator is toppled first then the score will be 3:1 and they want Syria’s dictator first. In their chess game, they are also trying to turn the loss of Tunisia and Egypt into a gain. The US and Israeli governments are meddling in Egypt and Tunisia to stop them from having governments that reflect the will of the people (including the people’s will to boycott Israel and stop helping the US/Israeli designs). I think they underestimate the Arab people. In Libya, they believe that Abdul Jalil will stay in his self appointed seat and then open the country (like Iraq) for Western oil exploits, for the US military base (closed in 1969), and establish friendly diplomatic ties with Israel (which already met with the so called national transitional council or NTC). The NTC is talking about elections “maybe in two years” (in other words after they consolidate power and money and can manipulate the system). US lawmakers in congress (prostituting themselves for their AIPAC masters) are talking about Libya and Iraq paying (financially) for their “liberation” and that they expect these countries to have friendly relation with Israel! But there are already voices within Libya and Iraq who say “enough” BS. I think the Arab spring and Arab people will surprise the (Zionist) US foreign policy makers. Democracy is coming. Stay tuned.

PS: A note to my Kurdish friends and people with contacts in Kurdish areas of Iraq and Turkey: you do have a right to freedom and self determination but please do not (continue to) accept the recently offered support of the regimes in Damascus and Tel Aviv (both regimes have no future in the new democratic Middle East).

** For examples on Gaddafi’s CIA ties see this.
(Recall Saddam Hussain’s similar CIA ties)

A Living Movement: Toward a World of Peace, Solidarity, and Justice: Joint Conference of the Peace & Justice Studies Association (PJSA) and the Gandhi King Conference. Hosted by the Christian Brothers University, Memphis, TN, October 21-23, 2011

Secret CIA/FBI files of NUMEC nuclear diversions to Israel could aid $170 million toxic cleanup [see this]

The manhunt for Gadhafi started after Tripoli fell to the rebels, and now many consider the February 17 revolution complete. Video of Gadhafi’s final moments has emerged, although the exact circumstances of Gadhafi’s death are still uncertain. Gadhafi’s son Saif al Islam is reportedly still in Libya, although Libyan rebels are pursuing him eagerly. Saif al Islam is wanted by the International Criminal Court, and although his father was killed before being held accountable for his crimes against humanity, Libya will be able to truly put an end to Gadhafi’s legacy and bring legitimacy to its budding government when Gadhafi the son is tried and found guilty on behalf of the whole Gadhafi regime.

Libyans aren’t the only ones celebrating. Besieged protesters in Yemen, Syria and Bahrain all celebrated the dictators death, and Libyans themselves remembered their fellow protesters as they wished them the same happy conclusion to their struggles.

With Gadhafi finally out of the picture, the Libyan National Transitional Council now faces its hardest task yet: turning a people besieged by this man for decades into a thriving, strong, and proud democratic nation. May Libyans celebrate not his death, but their new lives that finally have an opportunity to flourish.

Follow the latest news out of Libya and Libyans’ reactions to Gadhafi’s death all around the world with CrowdVoice.

I’ve seen how gradually things escalated to civil war in Libya as Gaddafi hired more and more mercenaries with the rebels increasing in numbers and moving against him.

I remember how Gaddafi’s forces had superior advantage of military training and organization to the Libyan rebels and how they had managed to almost break into Benghazi if the NATO had not moved to aid the Libyan rebels there, and how it was finally able to give the Libyan freedom fighters the edge to push back Gaddafi’s forces to the West.

I remember how at times I thought that Libya would become a stalemate for quite a while and that victory wouldn’t come so soon, but now I see them celebrating all over Libya.  The freedom fighters had managed to get into Bab al-Aziziya, break down his golden statue and step on his ‘golden’ head, take his military cap and gold necklace, his gold-coated rifles and even his ‘tuk-tuk’ which he was held famous for in the Arab World.

The Green Square of Tripoli is now the Martyrs’ Square of Libya. The liberation flag has been raised on top of Bab al-Aziziya. The Libyans tore off the largest record-breaking poster of Gaddafi in the Martyrs’ Square in Tripoli. With the remaining pockets of remnants of Gaddafi’s regime, it should be too long before Libya is completely liberated from Gaddafi and his filth.

Many may wonder why Libya’s revolution had such a violent turn, but its no surprise,

Those who make a peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable – JFK

For many years, the Libyans have lived in Gaddafi’s miserable rule, watching opposition activists being executed on a yearly basis, on the day of April 7th in the Universities of al-Fateh and Garyounis in Tripoli and Benghazi respectively. They watched the Abu Saleem prison massacre in 1996 that killed almost 1,200 political prisoners. They watched assassinations done by Gaddafi and his intelligence on opposition figures living abroad.

For many years, Gaddafi has plagued Libya with his crazy policies and ideas, his flawed definition of a democracy and plundering of Libyan wealth. And ever since the Libyans rose up against Gaddafi and his oppression on February 17th and we have seen his atrocities and genocide of Libyans.

We all saw how he used anti-aircraft guns, 14.5 mm machine guns with incendiary bullets, tanks, bombers and even warships to kill the peaceful Libyan protesters, we saw how he hired mercenaries from Africa to kill Libyan men, rape their women and break into their homes.

And now he has fallen, and Libyans are celebrating Worldwide, particularly in Libya. I can certainly say that Libya’s revolution might be the most complete of all in the Arab World, for they have entirely took down the regime, and will start rebuilding their country under a new democratic regime.

But what lies next for Libya? The difficulty that Libya now faces is taking down the very last pockets of Gaddafi’s forces, and also clearing out NATO’s involvement in their policy remaking. Libya is tribal by nature and does not have civil society organizations like Egypt and Tunisia, something for the National Transitional Council to consider in the process of rebuilding the nation.

The NATO will not cease to keep its hands out of Libya, the oil investments are too lucrative for them to leave it alone. The Libyans will have to be aware of this, there’s no wrong in keeping friendly ties, but to the limit of not allowing the NATO, specifically the US to take control of things there.

The bravery and perseverance of the lions of the Sahara Desert has been an inspiration to many, they are the freedom fighters of Libya, the youth of #Feb17, the grandchildren of al-Mukhtar.

The independence flag was seen flown in the premises of Shohada (Martyrs) Square, formerly Green Square, after the rebels have liberated Tripoli and captured Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi’s son and ex-apparent heir.

We’ve been following the Libyan Revolt closely on CrowdVoice since the very first beginning on our Libyan voices in English and Arabic, and we are still in the process. Stay updated with the situation in Libya through news, social networks updates, photos and videos on the Libyan voice as the events unfold. Also, you can grab the voice widget from the top of the page, by copying and pasting it on your personal website/blog, in order to stay tuned to the revolution.

Mideast Youth congratulates the Libyans for their revolution, mourns their martyrs, and wishes that this political revolution could be followed by a social change too.

Follow CrowdVoice, that was recently relaunched after a big redesign, on Twitter and Facebook.

Follow our posts on Libya on Mideast Youth here, and read our Arabic posts on the Libyan Revolution on MEYArabic.

Angry, unemployed, and oppressed youth finally broke the long silence and fear and burst into the streets calling for Mubarak to step down. As more and more people poured into the streets calling for “Mubarak, leave, leave, leave,” Mubarak finally decided to agree to “not run for presidency in the next election” and pledged political reform. The protesters took no heed to it and continued to protests. Day by day, the Tahrir Square of Cairo was being filled with determined and ambitious people calling for Mubarak to leave. Mubarak, on the 17th day of protest, transferred some of his power to a newly appointed vice-president, Omar Sulaiman, but that did nothing to encourage the protesters, now in millions, to go back to their homes. During an interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour, Mubarak said that “he’s fed up with being president and would like to leave office now, but cannot; for fear that the country would sink into chaos”.

Dictators and autocrats like to think of themselves as the sole protector of the nation. They like the population to think that without them, there will be chaos and violence and that the country will shatter. Thus, they began to make such comments. This is in fact their illusions speaking, thinking that the mass would listen to them and stop with protesting and go back to their lives. The lives that were ruled with an iron fist, with violence and suppression by the government; the life that there exists no equal opportunities in employment, education, social services. If these leaders are so sincere in reformation, why do they speak of reform after the people take the streets? Why do they not speak of them and take actions sooner? Why after 20, 30, 40 years?

This is precisely what the Yemeni President Ali Saleh said on March 22nd: “Those who want to climb up to power through coups should know that this is out of the question. The homeland will not be stable, there will be a civil war, a bloody war. They should carefully consider this”. And this he said 30 days after the Yemenis started to protest and after mass defections by top generals, soldiers, government ministers, his son-in-law Yehia Mohammed Ahmed Ismail, as well as his own tribe taking stance against him. In other words, he said this while he is weakest and trying to use the card to defuse the protests, but he failed. On March 25th, the soon-to-be-ousted President Saleh announced that he does not want power but wants to put the power into safe hands. And it is very clear how the protesters responded to that.

Seif al Islam Qaddafi, the son of Muammar Qaddafi, did not wanted to be left out of this trend so he warned on February 20th that because of the demographic of Libya, civil war will peril. The warning however fell on deaf ears and the rebels and the people continued with their demands for Muammar Qaddafi to leave. Muammar Qaddafi also blamed the problem on Al-Qaeda telling Christiane Amanpour “my people love me, they would die for me.”

The Bahraini government on February 26th dismissed several of its ministers. The government also announced to cancel 25% housing loans that have already been given. But these concessions failed to appease the protesters and they defiantly continued to protest. The protesters are mainly Shia sect of Islam, a majority in Bahrain, being ruled by the Sunni minority. The Shias have long complained about poor treatment in employment, housings, education, infrastructure, while the Sunnis benefit higher status. The Shias are also prohibited from important political and military posts. The Bahraini government security forces have very brutally cracked down on the protesters killing at least 21 and injuring over 600. The government has gone as far as keeping the access to the hospitals blocked.

The brutalities seen by these governments against their own people, these oppressed people, is mind boggling; and it only shows that these governments and leaders are not sincere to their leadership and to the vanguard of their nation and its citizens, it is only to accumulate more wealth and to maintain the control of power.

The world was waiting for Syria to join in the mass Middle East protests, and it finally did. The story of the Syrian government in treating its people is like the rest of these governments: oppressive, abusive, unequal, dictatorial; and the faith of the Syrians are like the same faith of other nations. So then on March 24th, the Syrian city of Daraa finally erupted drawing thousands of people calling “Freedom, freedom.” And, as expected, Bashar al Assad, Syrian president, vowed to increase public worker’s salaries, greater freedom of press, and may lift the 48-years old Emergency Law. The opposition groups and protesters, as imagined, have refused the concessions and are continuing with the protests. Syrian forces have responded as abusively as did their counterparts in other countries with more than 61 killed so far with Syrian army opening fire on the protesters.

Kurdistan region of North Iraq is also not immune to these protests. Although the situation in the Kurdistan region is much different and better than most of the Middle East, the region has also been plagued with corruption, nepotism, high unemployment, and rotten social services. There have also been increased attacks, assaults, and murder on journalists and members of the opposition groups. Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) must take great notice of these mass protests in the Middle East and do what these governments have not done by creating better institutions that is based on justice, equality, liberty; and to stop doing what these governments are doing, in repressing their citizens and curtailing basic freedoms. Kurdistan Regional Government, too, used the same excuse; excuse of pointing their fingers for their problems on somewhere else: Iran.

Many government-controlled media outlets blame Iran and its influence behind the protests. Do they mean Iran is behind the corruption, nepotism, high unemployment, attacks on those who criticize, and all the other problems in Kurdistan? Do they mean that those tens of thousands of people in the street are being influenced by Iran and not protesting because of frustration and they no longer will tolerate the injustice by the government? While it does not take rocket science to know that Turkey, whose prime minister Reccep Erdogan, is scheduled to be in Kurdistan region in a day or two, and Iran, whom just received Nechirvan Barzani, the former prime minister of Kurdistan region, would love to see Kurdistan region destabilized and would even help in its destabilization, neither does it take rocket science to know that those people in the streets are sick and tired of government taking them as fools by making empty promises of tackling corruption and providing better services such as clean water and electricity and yet nothing ever gets done. The Kurdish people endured much in the hands of Saddam Hussein and continually are being suppressed today in Syria, Iran, and Turkey; the people do not need to suffer any more under the rule of their own government.

The people must not stop until their legitimate rights are respected and responded; this is an opportunity that was long missing and must not be passed on easily. The liberty and equality of the people must in all ways be attained, and this battle must be won by the determined and revolutionary people of the Middle East. The world must condemn these nations and governments who suppress their citizens; and those who are responsible for assaulting peaceful protesters and journalists must be put behind bars. They must be brought to the Hague and face their crimes.

Morocco, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, we are waiting for your bravery and courageous steps to be taken in this fight of liberation, of dignity, of honor.

(1) R. Clemente Holder (1994-08). “Egyptian Lawyer’s Death Triggers Cairo Protests”. Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

If you ask me for opinion, I would definitely have a negative opinion. No public row is expected, no violent protests against the current regime, no guillotine will be invented to behead the corrupt, the fraudulent and looters, no social reforms are expected, no new leadership is expected to rise and no mob led rallies are expected to over throw government.

The life in Pakistan will be same as ever. The corrupts are likely to reign turn by turn, haves of the society will keep having more, have-nots will keep have nothing, tax evaders will have something more to evade, everyone including the President and cheap justices of this unfortunate land of pure will honoring their friends, politicians will keep on acquire more (fake) degrees.

It will never have an impact on Pakistan in any sort except one. The nomenclature of Gaddafi Stadium Lahore will be changed to “Mohtarma Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Stadium” and that too ironically in the name of (sham) democracy and that is all going to happen in Pakistan if Gaddafi leaves.

Originally Posted @ I’m No Superman!

So it was that right after the ouster of neighboring Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, with the risk of a revolt in Libya rising, Gaddafi last month issued a call on Palestinian refugees to mass at Israel’s borders holding olive branches in their hands.”In this context of Arab popular revolutionary movement, Palestinian refugees must walk on Palestine with women and children.” he said ”This is not a call to war,” he added. If Israel were to refuse admitting them, they should camp at the border, he said. ”We must create a problem for the world to move.”

He added that fleets of boats should take Palestinians and wait by the Palestinian shores ”until the problem is resolved.”
Indeed, over the years many of the world’s most notorious colonel’s pronouncements on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute have sounded almost as bizaare as his recent claims that al-Qaida is drugging Libya’s youth into rebelling. But they have also been calculated to project himself as a leading Arab nationalist worthy of support within and beyond Libya’s borders.
Libya, in Gaddafi’s view, remained true to Arab nationalism while other Arab regimes betrayed it. ”All Arab states which have relations with Israel are cowardly regimes,” he said in the same February 13 speech.

After leading a coup in 1969, Gaddafi, styling himself as a disciple of Egyptian pan-Arabist leader Gamal Abdul-Nasser, made it a point to be the most uncompromising of leaders vis-a-vis Israel. He did not call the Jewish state by name, but rather the ”Zionist enemy” Rhetorically at least, he espoused mobilisation of the entire Arab world to destroy Israel.
”When Nasser died in 1970, Gaddafi saw himself as his successor,” said Yehudit Ronen, a Libya specialist at the Dayan Center for Middle East Studies at Tel Aviv University and political scientist at Bar Ilan University.” He raised the flag of the destruction of Israel. He understood the potential to coalesce the masses under his flag. Israel became a means for him to break down tribal loyalties in Libya and channel them to strengthen the legitimacy of the regime.”

When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided to make peace with Israel and traveled to Jerusalem in 1977, Gaddafi considered him a traitor and encouraged the idea of assassinating him, Ronen says.

In Palestinian politics, Gaddafi supported the most radical factions and splinter groups including Sabri al-Banna, the terrorist known as Abu Nidal, according to Atiyeh Jawabra, a political scientist at the West Bank’s al-Quds University. Abu Nidal waged assassinations against leaders of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement who espoused a political accomodation with Israel.

”He did not support our people, he was a supporter of Abu Nidal for a long time,” Jawabra said.”Everyone opposed to Arafat he supported.”

The sense that Gaddafi was not a true friend of the Palestinian cause was accentuated in 1982 when he did not lift a finger to help PLO fighters besieged by the Israeli military in Beirut. Instead, he advocated that they all become martyrs by committing suicide, Jawabra recalled.

At times, Gaddafi found it expedient to tone down his rhetoric, especially when he sought to bring to an end sanctions imposed on Libya for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland in which 270 people were killed.
And he eventually came up with his own solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict more palatable to western ears than simply calling for Israel’s destruction. The only way to end the strife, he says, is that Israel and Palestine merge into one state, Isratine.

”The region which lies between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is too small to accommodate two states,”he said in 2002.”It is like trying to put two bodies into one item of clothing or two men wearing the same pair of trousers. This is impossible.”

In 2003, to better his relations with the West he gave up Libya’s programs for weapons of mass destruction, earning a renewal of relations with the United States.

In recent years, Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam had tried to project a more moderate foreign policy image for Libya. As part of that he has stressed that he recognizes the Holocaust as a historical fact, in contrast to widespread Holocaust denial in the Arab world. Saif al-Islam has said if the Arab world recognizes the Holocaust, perhaps Israel will recognize the nakba, or Palestinain catastrophe that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948.

But if and when Gaddafi falls, no tears will be shed for him by Palestinians or Israelis.”I hope he will go down,” Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said in a recent CNN interview.

Jawabra, the Palestinian analyst, said: ”His history is full of positions against the Arab nation and human rights. The Libyan people are our brothers. We support the people, not Gaddafi, a dictator. From my point of view he must go.”

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie said “the world needs to address this moment. We have to give people safe passage, evacuation if needed, and ensure they have asylum. We don’t want to look back and find their deaths are on our hands.” Please help provide refugees with emergency aid by donating to the UNHCR here .

Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans yearning for freedom and democracy used Facebook and Twitter to spark nation-wide uprisings and netizens around the world supported their struggle for justice. WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran is on the Tunisian Libyan border and calling on the facebook community to help save the refugees’ lives. Please watch this video from her to see how you can help, donate to the WFP here and share this post. Every contribution counts!

Thank you!

It’s a flag which many had not been familiar with, and few would have recognised, before the start of these protests. Before these protests, when I would say “I’m Libyan,” I always knew the response would be either a) Where’s that? b) Lebanon? Or c) Ah! Gaddafi! The last would always be accompanied by a sympathetic grimace. Libya was a country ruled and stifled by a megalomaniac madman so jealous of his power that he had kept all others out of any kind of spot-light. At one point in time, even football players in Libya were known only by their numbers, and the only cultural figures given room to flourish were the “poets” who lauded the “King of Kings” of Africa. Everyone who had any kind of power was a threat.

The independence flag has become more than a symbolic way of erasing and de-legitimising the Gaddafi era, it has become a symbol of the re-invention of Libyans, and with it has come a renewed sense of pride. In the liberated east of Libya, from Benghazi to Tobrok, people raised the flag as they rallied to celebrate their freedom, to support the western region and to reaffirm the unity of Libya. On Friday, the belief that Libya would be freed from the tyranny it had suffered for decades was tangible. The cost was proving to be very high, but the continued struggle of the Libyan people bring a reminder of Omar Al Mukhtar’s words: “we don’t surrender, we are victorious or we die.”

On Friday, I found my mother listening to the old national anthem of Libya and singing it under her breath. Gaddafi had long ago replaced the Libyan anthem with an Egyptian marching song, but my mother still remembered the words. She was 10 years old when Gaddafi came to power in 1969, and she remembered not only the words to the anthem, but her mother teaching her the lines when she entered first grade, and the mispronunciations which her siblings had teased her for.

At six, she had mispronounced the line “May God cast off any hand that would harm you.” Singing the same lines all these years later, it was that same line which she stopped at, praying that God would cast off Gaddafi’s hand soon.