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[Puzzlemaker]

They actually specifically asked for NO military action by foreign powers in Libya.

"Without any direct military action on Libyan soil."

[Sheb]

Which still allow for a no-fly zone and/or airstrike on some of Qaddafi's base. It's not like anyone wanted to send troops on the ground anyway.

[olemars]

Al-Jazeera just published a communique from the Libyan Transitional National Council, as the Benghazi government is calling itself. Between that and the British diplomatic moves, it looks more and more as if the Council is on its way to become the legitimate government of Libya. I'm going to phone my MPs tomorrow to ask them to start lobbying for the Belgian government to recognize Libya.

Don't you need a government to recognize another government? Maybe you should call Albert instead

[Sheb]

Thanks, but we still got 5 governments around, plus the one doing "current affair". :p

[Urist is dead tome]

They actually specifically asked for NO military action by foreign powers in Libya.

"Without any direct military action on Libyan soil."

And yet there are still 1200 Marines on the way. Saying "We don't want help." is kinda worthless when you don't have any authority.

[DJ]

As I understood it their job will be guarding the oil field, they won't attack anything. Still would be better IMO to just Tomahawk the hell out of Gadaffi and bring this to an end rather than put American soldiers in needles danger.

[Urist is dead tome]

As I understood it their job will be guarding the oil field, they won't attack anything. Still would be better IMO to just Tomahawk the hell out of Gadaffi and bring this to an end rather than put American soldiers in needles danger.

Since it's the Marines most likely they will be evacuating civilians and noncombatants.

[Bohandas]

Al-Jazeera just published a communique from the Libyan Transitional National Council, as the Benghazi government is calling itself. Between that and the British diplomatic moves, it looks more and more as if the Council is on its way to become the legitimate government of Libya. I'm going to phone my MPs tomorrow to ask them to start lobbying for the Belgian government to recognize Libya.

Don't you need a government to recognize another government? Maybe you should call Albert instead

No. You only need a monopoly on violence.

[olemars]

According to Al-Jaz, Gaddafists are using Grad launchers (old soviet rocket launcher trucks, pretty inaccurate) on Ras Lanuf. This is the site of a large oil refinery. Sounds like a great recipe for environmental disaster.

[ed boy]

This may be of interest

[RedKing]

Looks like Bin Jawad continues to be the front line. The back-and-forth battles over the town have settled down, and now the main fight is going to be to keep Qaddafi's forces from pushing the rebels out of Ra's Lanuf.

There were some clashes around the outskirts of Tobruk (in the far east, near the Egyptian border) but it's still not clear against whom or how significant. Tobruk itself remains solidly in rebel hands at this point.

Also some fighting around Az Zintan, to the southwest of Tripoli. Nothing major, but the local loyalist brigade commander was captured while in the hospital for treatment of wounds. Any kind of rebel offensive from the south would be welcome news, as it opens up a third front and takes some of the heat off Az Zawiyah and the main front near Bin Jawad.


There's also a fascinating (but clumsy) information war taking place on the message boards for sites like al-Jazeera English, where a steady flow of "reporters" or "concerned Libyans" are posting pro-Qaddafi messages and supposed "eyewitness accounts". The interesting bit is that AJ English has you sign in with a Twitter or FB account (or a few other identity options), and creates a linkback. And when you check their profiles, they totally don't match up with the story. Like a supposed "reporter" who writes in strangely stilted English with lots of unnecessary capitalization, when her FB account indicates a middle-aged American woman with an Amherst education who worked for the UN and lives in Paris.

Guess the Libyan Information Ministry and/or Libyan intel either created a batch of badly-constructed fake FB and Twitter accounts, or (more likely) hijacked a bunch and are just using them boilerplate without even looking at or understanding, the profiles they've hijacked. I'm very interested to see if you'll see this sort of disinformation campaign in other conflicts, and/or if a group like Anonymous would consider counter-hacking the hijacked profiles.

[olemars]

There's also a fascinating (but clumsy) information war taking place on the message boards for sites like al-Jazeera English, where a steady flow of "reporters" or "concerned Libyans" are posting pro-Qaddafi messages and supposed "eyewitness accounts". The interesting bit is that AJ English has you sign in with a Twitter or FB account (or a few other identity options), and creates a linkback. And when you check their profiles, they totally don't match up with the story. Like a supposed "reporter" who writes in strangely stilted English with lots of unnecessary capitalization, when her FB account indicates a middle-aged American woman with an Amherst education who worked for the UN and lives in Paris.

Guess the Libyan Information Ministry and/or Libyan intel either created a batch of badly-constructed fake FB and Twitter accounts, or (more likely) hijacked a bunch and are just using them boilerplate without even looking at or understanding, the profiles they've hijacked. I'm very interested to see if you'll see this sort of disinformation campaign in other conflicts, and/or if a group like Anonymous would consider counter-hacking the hijacked profiles.

Somewhat tangential: when the egyptian protesters raided the secret police offices this weekend, they found lists of stolen usernames and passwords for people's email, FB, twitter and skype, as well as an invoice for intrusion software made by a German firm.

[RedKing]

Huh. Didn't know about that. Tactic de jour, then. I'm impressed that the general attitude (even among the mostly Arabic audience) is "Link, or it didn't happen". I guess between decades of being lied to, and growing up with the Internet, the youth audience there is justifiably skeptical of everything they hear.


Also, FWIW, South Africa's Jacob Zuma has apparently sided with Chavez and Qaddafi in calling this all one big conspiracy by the US and UK to get their hands on Libyan oil, and unseat a premier African statesman. I'd expect Mugabe's crazy ass to sign on to that, except he thinks he's the only premier African statesman, and Qaddafi is always a rival for the prized "Craziest African Dictator of the Year" award.

[ChairmanPoo]

Qaddafi is always a rival for the prized "Craziest African Dictator of the Year" award.

Rival? ever since Idi Amin's death he has been the uncontested champion.

I was going to say that in the world stage he pales in front of the likes of Kim Jong Il, but I daresay that having his own capital city bombed (on the grounds of "anyone who doesn't love me deserves to die!"), and the other little jewels he has been spouting the last day have catapulted him right into world class lunacy.

I'm almost hoping that he wins in order to find out if he can keep up this level of crazy, or was an one-time event.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Qaddafi has always been crazy. Take a look at his foreign visits to other nations.

Kim Jong Il is evil, but he knows his propaganda is what it is. Qaddafi actually believes what he says.