


Rising from the ruins

Amid lingering violence, a modern state is struggling to take shape

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Risk Manager

Libyans seem to be doing rather well given the totalitarian regime they have just emerged from by popular will and force of arms. I find it rather repulsive that so many free westerners have and continue to argue that less than perfect outcomes in some way make the Libyan peoples sacrifices and political emancipation less valid. One has to wonder at the morals and motivation of such people. You can hear them now dismissing Syrians for the inevitable mess that their freedom will be. Dictators must love them!

Curate's Egg in reply to guest-inonjma

Any sources for your accusations? How do you even know for sure that 'arbitrary arrests are common nowadays throughout the entire country', when there are probably little to no statistics available on that given the confusion? And the darker your skin is, the more likely it is for you to get arrested? I am sorry, is that even something empirically verifiable? Do the new Libyan authorities measure the skin tone of the people that they arrest?

The more likely explanation for all of your wild accusations is that you are pulling them out of your ass, driven by your pathological antipathy against anything even remotely supported by the West.


Use of GPS in Libya under Gaddafi was not at all restricted. Misrata militia's "battle" of Bani Walid, was more a siege of the town, resulting in numerous civilian deaths caused by artilery shelling, and the imprisonment of dozends of "Gaddafi" supporters, once the town was captured. Those guys are suffering know, because torture is at least as widespread as it used to be under the old regime. In general, arbitrary arrests are common nowadays throughout the entire country. Disturbingly the more dark the colour of the skin, the more likely it is to end up in prison and getting beaten up if not worse.

The fall of the former regime is not at all regretable, but that sort of an misleading article, trying to hide the dire situation of this wonderfull country - that's simply poor journalism.


As JFK pointed out, in Chinese the character for 'crisis' combines the characters for 'danger' and 'opportunity'.

This is that.

Pausanias in reply to Curate&#039;s Egg

LOL! I live in Malta the little rock that had to help evacuate and hosted all the other nations (including yours) from there during the conflict ... and we still do.

Its very safe to come to Malta mate. If you like come over whenever you want and go to the open centers and meet all the hundred's of somalis, ethiopians, malians and nigerians that came from over from there. Then you yourself can confirm who the real fool is.

Again, please do not pull any more comments out of your arse.


The Libyans rid themselves of Ghaddafy the same way the Swiss rid themselves of the Habsburgs.

Their local councils are analogous to the beginnings of the cantons.

They have the opportunity to build democracy from scratch, keeping power in the hands of their citizens.

That power has made Switzerland one of the richest and most peaceful countries on earth.

Very few countries on earth have had the chance that the Libyans have to adopt that same kind of citizen-sovereignty based government. They should seize the opportunity with both hands.

Pausanias in reply to Curate&#039;s Egg

I think you are the one commenting out of your arse as you put it. Unless you know what you are talking about please do not comment.

guest-inonjma has given a more accurate feel of the situation on the ground than this article thinks it can broadly convey to those that are sitting comfortably and safe in their "civilsed" worlds judging the rest of the world from the window of TV.

Melissia in reply to Curate&#039;s Egg

There is a small grain of truth in that dark skinned Africans are victims of hate crimes, due to the hatred of the oft-dark skinned mercenaries that fought for Ghadaffi.

But this isn't actually condoned by the government and is considered a crime, so... I don't think that's waht he was referring to.

Space Pope in reply to guest-inonjma

This same argument has many forms. Claiming Libya is somehow more dangerous, poses more of a threat to the West, is a burgeoning Islamic state. This is all nonsense. When the one man who owned Libya decided that a dissenter had offended him, the man disappeared into a network of prisons which tortured and killed for torturing and killing's sake. Libya is very unstable, but far more stable than if the West had sat it out.

This same argument is now being deployed to justify letting Assad kill off those 'crazy jihadists bent on a new caliphate'. It's sickening to hear people equivocate and assert the do-nothing option is in any way preferable.

And it does make him an expert on Libya.

Also I have noticed a distinct lack of mention of the Libyan town of Tawergha, as I really wanted to get an update on how well that town was doing. Oh well, I guess a small town with a population of (as of this year) 0 people is hardly notable. It would just be tedious for an article to list off how well every single (extinct) minority group is doing, especially when one counts how proportional their population are to the rest of Misrata's county.

Space Pope in reply to Swiss Army Cheese

My reply was leveled against 'inonjma', but fine. Here goes:
1) What can be more dangerous than a police state that executes the tyrant's (often borderline insane) whims? Are some homegrown militias and jihadis really worse than such a state?
2) You seem to skirt the fact that you're endorsing mass murder in the name of 'stability'. This past year has shown dictatorship to be a false stability, hard but brittle. Let's admit the 'stability' you idealize means tens of thousands dead and a renewal of Gaddafi's terrorist policies.
3) Gaddafi, the dead piece of sh*t, was a scourge for those who disagreed with him. He was unelected and tolerated no dissent from his 'children'. He had no legitimacy aside from being able to buy silence or enforce it at gunpoint. Also, Gaddafi was a hypocrite on human rights (he even tortured people for the evil West). The creator of dynamite has a peace prize named for him as well (he bought it), does that change the fact that dynamite made wholesale slaughter easier?
4) First, you cannot topple a govt via airpower alone. The rebel army took Tripoli, not NATO. Second, most, if not all, rebellions and insurgencies rely on outside help; your claim, while a great sound-byte, doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Often, especially in today's age of technological progress, the government will possess an ENORMOUS edge in both tech and weaponry. This makes rebellions exceedingly difficult to undertake, as the state has superiority in capacity for violence. Thus, rebels are at a great disadvantage. Imagine, hypothetically, a popular rebellion in the US. However farcical, do you honestly believe it could succeed without outside help? The answer is no.

Swiss Army Cheese in reply to Space Pope

I never claimed that this new Libya poses more of a threat to the west (Although I do think that it is more dangerous).
And if the West had stayed out of Libya the country would of been far more stable because it wouldn't of suffered through a civil war that is lasting to this day. Up till the West intervened the rebellion was on its last legs in the city of Bengzhai.
Gaddafi, god rest his soul, was a blessing for the continent of Africa for reasons unfit for this max 5,000 characters comment (amongst these reasons: setting a standard for human rights (he had a peace prize named after him); buying the continent's first sattelite, making Africa less dependant on the west; and constructing the world's largest irrigation system)

Space Pope, the argument you have described is not the argument I use to justify non-interventionism. The argument I use to justify such policy goes like this: If a government is truly unpopular then it does not need a foriegn army to topple it.


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