Libya: where from and to?

I just happen to stumble on this excellent piece giving good and level-headed background to Libya under Gaddafi and the possible (nightmare) scenarios that the country, the region and the world may face if current disturbances exacerbate into the civil war Gaddafi himself warned of.

Gadhafi is seen as an unusual leader, capricious and prone to bizarre behavior even compared to other dictators in Africa and the Arab world. He likes to wear colorful robes and eye-catching hats, and has a bevy of female bodyguards.

He was born in 1942 to a Bedouin family in northern Libya. At 21 he entered a military academy in Benghazi, and at 24 became a signals officer in the Libyan army. Three years later, at the ripe old age of 27, he led a group of officers in a military coup that led to the ouster of King Idris. The self-styled Revolutionary Command Council took power, headed by Capt. Gadhafi, who promoted himself to the rank of colonel.

According to Prof. Yehudit Ronen, an expert on Libya, the young captain led the revolt imbued with the feeling that he was capable of fomenting change.

"I tend not to belittle Gadhafi," she says. "Libya now has 10 civilian airfields, a respectable network of roads, hotels and a developed petroleum industry. He created an artificial waterway, and moved water from subterranean reservoirs from the Kufra region to the north of the country, where 80 percent of the country's population is concentrated. Libya has the highest rate of literacy in this region. Higher education is widely available, and more than 50 percent of university students are women."

Gadhafi has effectively forged national cohesion in a place where there was none, Prof. Ronen explains. "Before his rise to power, the country was administered based on tribal groups, which managed their economic and political affairs independently. Gadhafi arrived and started to break apart those frameworks in an effort to shift loyalty to the government and the regime. He bestowed prestige and money upon all the tribal chiefs.

"At the same time, he prevented various figures in the Libyan governmental system from consolidating power and rotated them between positions. Nor did he hesitate to use all the means at his disposal to strike at the opposition."

The system worked well, Ronen notes - until the first cracks appeared in the 1980s.

Initially, Gadhafi was considered an ardent supporter of pan-Arab ideology; he made many attempts to develop ties with other countries. In certain senses, he probably saw himself as the heir to his hero, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In 1976, he published "The Green Book," a compendium of rules in which he ostensibly set forth his worldview. He called the method of government in Libya "sultat a-sha'ab" ("the people's authority "), introducing a kind of Islamic socialism that fused religious principles (banning the sale of alcohol and gambling ) with social-welfare concepts. For example, Libyans are entitled to free education and health services; public transportation and homes are subsidized, but trade unions and strikes are banned.

Still, the private sector is very weak compared to the public sector, resulting in unemployment once estimated at 30 percent. The state rakes in vast profits of nearly $50 billion a year from the petroleum industry. But one of Gadhafi's mistakes was to focus exclusively on oil.

Governing institutions in Libya were largely symbolic, Ronen points out, citing as examples the cabinet, known as the General People's Committee, and the parliament, which lacks any powers.

"The bottom line was that he advised and they consented," she notes. "In practice, Libya was run by revolutionary committees made up of fanatic young people who supported the ideas of the revolution."

But beyond this, she adds, Gadhafi possessed enormous charisma, overweening self-confidence and great tenacity: "It is not fair to judge him at the nadir of his life. He was able to make people feel that they had something to look forward to, that their lives had a purpose. He had quite a few good periods in which he was able to set forth goals and present them as the Libyan people's aims."

After years of assisting terrorist organizations, Gadhafi decided to transform his image and that of his country. The change began with his fight against radical Islam in Libya, which he won in the 1990s. He later condemned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

In 2003, after Iraq's conquest by the United States, he announced that he was abandoning his project to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and was ready for tight United Nations supervision. That decision led to the lifting of the economic sanctions on Libya and improved Gadhafi's status in the international community. In March 2004, British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Libya and met with him, and other Western leaders followed suit.

In 2006, Tripoli marked the 20th anniversary of the American bombing of Gadhafi's quarters, in which his adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed. (The singer Lionel Ritchie dedicated a song to her. ) In 2006, the British ambassador to Libya said Gadhafi had changed his policy because he and his aides had decided to do something about the fact that years of centralized economy had left many educated young people jobless. However, the change may have been too little and too late; those unemployed young people launched the demonstrations in Cyrenaica on February 17.

Did I mention that this analysis comes from Israel? Yes, a country which was at the receving end of many of Gaddafi's threats. This appeared in Israel's influential Haaretz newspaper. Considering the situation and past animosity, this would be a perfect time for some gloating vengefulness on Israel's part. However, Prof. Ronen has shown that levelheadedness does prevail among Israel's long history and proud tradition in academia, an area subject to sanction by likewise organisations worldwide.

Ad-hoc opposition militia in Derna, eastern Libya

But I digress. The report then goes on to focus on what comes next for Libya:

The civil war raging in Libya poses no immediate cause for concern. However, the long-term effects that the country's possible dismantlement will have on the struggle against global terrorism remain unclear. The opposition (as in Tunisia and Egypt ) does not have a formal, recognized leadership, and it is hard to imagine who or what will succeed Gadhafi. Libya might be swept by a series of tribal wars, which would make the country a haven for Global Jihad activists.

Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote this week that since the war in Iraq in 2003, Libya has been second only to Saudi Arabia in exporting terrorists to Iraq. Many of them came from the Cyrenaica city of Darnah. A Global Jihad infrastructure already exists in Libya; indeed, just a few days ago residents of Abayda, near Darnah, declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate there.

On the other hand, Prof. Ronen maintains that although post-Gadhafi Libya will be different, the population, the infrastructure and the economic indicators will be the same. An alternative to the current regime will eventually appear, she says: "The establishment has quite a few talented people, technocrats, security officials and diplomats who were at the center of the decision-making process and will constitute the leadership reserve when Gadhafi goes."

Henderson's analysis with emphasis on the suspected extremist Islamist sympathies of Libyans from the east of the country - the centre of the current opposition to the Gaddafi regime, is in tune with the concern many US officials have. This is evident from US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks about the subject of Islamic fundamentalism in Libya and the large number of fighters in places like Iraq from Cyrenaica (eastern Libya).

Ronen, on the other hand, has continued with her optimistic tone and has presented a future for Libya with solid foundations for a more equitable and functional society. We can only hope for the sake of Libyans that Ronen's view of the country's future prevails.

Flowers handed out by a pro-democracy demonstrator in Iraq

p.s. Did you know that there was a 'Day of Rage' in Iraq today? Most likely not. The BBC dismissed it as 'so-called', but still there were 7 dead! And they supposedly already have 'freedom and democracy'. Plus, a day of rage has been called for 11th March in Saudi Arabia! Let's hope that the biggest domino of them all falls like Egypt and Tunisia.

Libya: Fact or Wild Rumour?

Romania or Libya? Doesn't seem to be much difference

The first casualty in any war zone or scene of chaos is the truth. And that is definitely the case with Libya. With journalists having to rely on hearsay, we are falling in the trap of accepting as fact what essentially are embellished and often untrue rumours. The similarities with the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and Libya 2011 are uncanny. To help you sort the shit from clay, here are a list of rumours that were accepted as fact, and even reported by the media, at the time of the 1989 Romanian Revolution which were later found to be either exaggerated or untrue:
- Wounded being put to death through headshots in hospitals
- Imminent use of an nuclear weapon in order to raise Timisoara to the ground
- Timisoara having been raised to the ground
- Genocide in Timisoara with 60,000 dead
- Slaughter of pregnant women and their fetuses
- Arab and North Korean terrorists/mercenaries fighting for Ceausescu
- Brainwashed orphan terrorists who worshipped Ceausescu were the ones firing on demonstrators
Now, with Libya 2011, we have (unconfirmed) reports being passed off as fact stating:
- A Libyan air force plane crashed near Benghazi after its crew bailed out because they refused to carry out orders to bomb the city
- Al Arabiya reporting 10,000 dead, labelling it a 'genocide', while the figure in other sources, such as the Guardian's Martin Chulov in Benghazi, saying it is more like around 250
- African 'mercenaries'
The mercenary rumour is a very serious issue. The rumour of 'Arab mercenaries' in Romania played on the near-universal hate Romanians had of the 'rich' Arab students in pre-1989. By implicating Arabs as the ones responsible for shooting the Romanian demonstrators was just an excuse to allow racist animosities to come to the fore. Once this rumour gained ground in revolutionary Romania, self-appointed police officers started arresting anyone who 'looked Arab' under the suspicion of being a 'mercenary' and ordinary Romanians, within the uncontrolled chaos, were able attack and harass Arabs in the country at will. The same is happening in Libya whereby alleging 'African mercenaries' are the ones committing atrocities allows Libyans to have free range to arrest and take out crude justice on anyone black, regardless of whether they are involved somehow in the military or not. This is hardly the foundations for a properly functioning democracy and civil society.

So be wary when reading reports about Libya. Just like in 1989 Romania, we will not really know what has happened in Libya, though going on past experience, we should not expect things to have been as idealistic or extreme as portrayed now.

Keeping up with the Gaddafis... or Gadhafis... or Qadhafis (take your pick out of 32 spelling options!)

Africa's 'King of Kings' Muammar Gaddafi with a virgin from the Amazonian Guards protecting him behind

The next to go? The Middle East has seen a wave of people's revolutions which has forced out two Western-supported dictators with a taste for black hair dye and outlandish, 'caring' wives with subliminal political ambitions and sticky fingers when it comes to their fiefdom's wealth - Tunisia and Egypt, while other Arab countries, in particular Bahrain, have been rocked by huge protests whose outcome only should result in a well-needed change to their country's political environment. The latest country to gain the most media coverage for its public protests against the ruling clique is Libya.

Since 1969 Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has ruled Libya with an iron fist and a varied wardrobe, though curiously he holds no posts (neither did China's Deng Xiaoping in the later years of his life, but he was the one pulling the strings). Nevertheless, in Libya you are left with no doubt who is in charge as Gaddafi has an all-pervasive cult of personality, with his face peering down from billboards, posters and other tacky merchandise throughout the country. Much has been written about his often eccentric rule of this large north African country of 6 million people, ranging from 'the Green Book' (the Gaddafi-penned ideology that 'guides' Libyan politics, providing a 'third way' between capitalism and communism), his bevvy of female bodyguards and his bizarre behaviour on overseas trips, such as the lecture he held for a group of Italian models (who were all tested for HIV prior to attending) urging them to convert to Islam. Gaddafi has been to Americans their caricature of a goofball dictator. So much so was he the pariah de jeur of the 1980s that even in the 1985 film 'Back To The Future' there is reference to 'Libyan terrorists', something that sounds a bit out-of-tune these days.

Gaddafi, in a daring outfit, with the gals from the guard

Here on this blog, we like to focus on the more juicy, gossipy and, ultimately, more 'human' side to these dictators. 'Human' here is not referring to the initial, positive images most people have for the term. Oh no, these dictators are human in that they are delusional, wanting attention and crave to be loved - all very human traits. They also use their positions of power to their own and family's gain, much like any human would in such circumstances. What brings them down though is that they hypocritically portray themselves at one with the masses that in practice they show such disdain for.

Mama! Sadiya, matriach to a bunch of misfits

So what are the Gaddafis like? Well, Muammar does have an extensive family and its pretty hard keeping up with his mini-mes. In all, he acknowledges to have fathered eight children - seven sons and a daughter. And if you are familiar with any of the other desperate dictators featured in this blog, then it will come as no heart-breaking shock that the kids have done remarkably well for themselves, to varying degrees. Naturally, it's this sense of over-entitlement which forms the basis for some resentment towards them from the Libyan masses and wider. As one US State Department official stated in a cable, "[Gaddafi's offspring's] repeated falls from grace highlight the broad gulf between average Libyans, who view the al-Qadhafi family as unsophisticated upstarts from a historically inconsequential part of the country (Sirte - southern Libya) who routinely embarrass Libya, and senior regime officials, who view the state as an extension of the al-Qadhafi family empire". So let's go through the kid list and their 'achievements'.

The eldest son, Muhammad, was born to a wife of Muammar's who is no longer in favour. That rules him out of taking over the mantle any time. In any case, he has been given a cushy alternative job - head of the Libyan Olympic Committee (hmmm... just like Mubarak's brother-in-law in Egypt). And we all know how above the board those IOC members are... Anyway, he has his hands in some murky businesses too.

Muhammed Gaddafi (left) with the wacko prez of Kalmykia, chess nut Ilyumzhinov

The next in line (literally) is Saif al-Islam, a 39 year old architect by trade, but very much a public political figure in Libya. He has recently shot to even greater prominence with his defiant but rambling speech he gave against the Libyan anti-government demonstrators, where he blamed the disturbances on everyone from foreign infiltrators (well, the US have used that line with Iraq and Afghanistan for ages, so why not?) to Israel (of course, perhaps the sharks were sent there too) to 'drunkards' (alcohol being strictly forbidden in Libya) and warned of impending civil war. Saif al-Islam has in the past voiced his criticisms of the shortcomings of the Libyan system. As a US State Department cable published by WikiLeaks shows, in 2008 Saif made a big song and dance about how he was frustrated with his father's system, called for reforms much in line with those now demanded by demonstrators throughout the country, and that he was considering withdrawing from public office. A very public (and a little too well organised) response to this threat came from the masses appealing Saif al-Islam to reconsider. Alas, he reluctantly, probably weepingly, returned to continue his revolutionary work - oh, isn't he so selfless and humble!

Like father, like son. Saif Al-Islam is one to shine in traditional couture

But Saif al-Islam has a weakness - hunting, and travelling to far-flung places to take a shot at game. He saw in 2010 in a small town in rural New Zealand, only for a couple of weeks later to be in western Algeria, on both occasions for hunting trips. However, his public image up to now has been quite staid and boring compared to the behaviour of his younger siblings. Some, including US diplomats, have concluded that this could be a way of presenting the heir-apparent as more educated and cultured... by comparison.

Saif Al-Islam: Let me put you to sleep with one of my speeches

And so who are the wild kids... you know the type - the ones likely to drive off cliffs in their pink Lamborghinis. Well, known to those into football (soccer) is third eldest son Saadi. He is a tiptop soccer star no less, married to the daughter of a military commander, was once captain of the Libyan national team, runs the Libyan Football Federation (yes, neither is FIFA corrupt... hehe) and has been signed for various professional teams including Italian Serie A team U.C. Sampdoria, although without appearing in first team games. Rumour has it that Saadi was only signed up to curry up Gaddafi senior in providing generous concessions to Italian companies to invest in Libya and the like (extensive arms sales, in particular). He has been caught for doping and last year was ordered by an Italian court to pay 392,000 euros to a luxurious hotel for doing a runner after a month long stay in summer 2007. Saadi also had ambitious but rather crazy plans to create Libya's very own Hong Kong on the country's border with Tunisia, and has his hands in the Libya's oil wealth. All this and he's not even 40 years old!

Any guesses which one is Saadi?

Next in line for disgrace is Gaddafi's fourth son and 'National Security Advisor' (the same role Lukashenka in Belarus has for his son) - Mutassim. He spent a few years in Egypt following an internal leadership dispute, where he cultivated close links with the ruling elite there, including Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's intelligence chief and current prime minister. Mutassim is not shy of making the bold fashion statement and is one for a big booze up. While older bro was in NZ on the hunt, Mutassim held a 'quiet soiree' on St Bart's in the Caribbean to bring the new year, as he customarily does every year as of late. At the 2009 bash, no less than Beyoncé and Usher were called in to provide the music, and copious amounts of alcohol was on hand. La Beyoncé went home that night 1.2 million dollars richer. Mere pocket change! Mutassim was surprised that his festivities garnered the attention it did, with photos of the event splashed across tabloid papers worldwide, including the UK's Daily Mail which you can check out here. That placed yet another nail into his supposed rival bid for the throne from his elder, hunting brother. Actually, Mutassim's new year's bash at the Nikki Beach club on St Bart's is has been a hot ticket now for years! Enrique Iglesias performed in 2005 after his squeeze Anna Kournikova befriended the Gaddafi crew, so she convinced the Spanish heart throb to sing for a six-figure sum! Parteeee! I'm sure that Mutassim was thinking about Libya's security the whole time though...

Mutassim (with cigarette) partying like its... erm ... 2010 in St Bart's

But these guys are lightweights compared to son number 5 - Hannibal (yes, really!) He's the type of guy any parent has warned their daughter from. He is spoilt and lives life to the maxxtreme with a significant degree of impunity. According to one US State Department cable, one of his 'hobbies' (OK, more of the wife's hobby) is terrorising the hired help, so a pair up with Naomi Campbell would a match made in hell. Actually, just have a read through this cable and be sure to lift your jaw back into your mouth afterwards. Juicy details are given of his arrest in Switzerland in 2008. Hannibal's lurid past, and the consequence of his actions have caused him to supposedly be 'living in fear from his father' ever since include: assaulting Italian police officers in Rome 2001 with a fire extinguisher; attacking police in Paris after being stopped for speeding on the wrong side of the Champs-Élysées and going through a series of red lights while pissed as a newt in 2004; and receiving a four-year suspended prison sentence from a French court after beating his pregnant girlfriend, the model Aline Skaf, who refused to let him into their hotel room in 2005. Hannibal was banned from traveling to the European Schengen zone between 2005 and 2008, however he successfully obtained a visa from the Swiss Embassy in Tripoli in February 2008. Of course, after being arrested by the Swiss authorities after two of his staff complained of being physically beaten, Hannibal complained of having been treated terribly; though as a chain smoker, he was allowed to smoke in his secured room when Swiss law explicitly bans any smoking inside public buildings. Hannibal's arrest provoked a giant diplomatic spat between the land of cuckoo clocks and the land of the cuckoo leader. Gaddafi senior even called for Switzerland to be conquered and carved up by its neighbours! Eventually, Libya's oil spoke louder and Hannibal and wife were freed and all restored to normal.

Hannibal lists his interests as beating his wife, smoking and reckless driving

Not that Hannibal learnt much from the experience except that he gets it his way. His fetish for terrorising again was focused on his wife, according to another US state department cable. Hannibal had physically abused his wife, Aline, in a London hotel room over Christmas 2009. The US Embassy in Tripoli was told that Aline had threatened to leave Hannibal a few weeks before the incident and had fled to London. When Safiya, Hannibal's mother, heard the news, she pleaded with Aline by phone to return to Tripoli, promising to give her "whatever she desired," in exchange. Hannibal pursued Aline in London, and the encounter ended in assault. When mama Safiya and Hannibal's sister, Ayesha al-Qadhafi (at that time many months' pregnant - more to come about her), heard the news, Ayesha traveled to London to intervene. Both Qadhafi women - Safiya by phone and Ayesha in person - advised Aline to report to the police that she had been hurt in an "accident," and not to mention anything about abuse. London press reported that Hannibal was allowed to leave the UK discreetly, on diplomatic immunity. So are you wondering what Aline looks like? Well, look no further...

Those eyebrows are trés naturelle

Something to wear when meeting the parents

There are two more, younger Gaddafi sons (yes, Muammar's cylinders are really firing), Saif al-Arab and Khamis, the latter being a police officer. Now, anyone can tell you that being a police officer in such a society is a pretty good job to have, especially when daddy is running the joint. Khamis is being reported to have led the forces cracking down on opposition rallies in eastern Libya. Not much is known about Saif al-Arab though the diplomatic gossip in Tripoli has it that he lives in Munich, Germany, is involved in murky business and loves to party like his brothers.

Khamis (middle). But check out the Russian guy in the white leather jacket on the right!

The only (known) daughter of Gaddafi is Ayesha, who happens to be a lawyer no less, which comes in handy for Hannibal in particular as she always seems to be called in to smooth over the cracks for his shenanigans. She was also on Saddam Hussein's defence team for his trial - well, he ended up in the gallows, so that can't be added as one of her brighter elements of her career. In true Bedouin style, she married a cousin of her father's in 2006. Now, for yet another shock of Ricky Martin proportions (we knew you were gay), Ayesha has her own .... charity, just like the desperate dictator housewives! As this US State Department cable details, she and her brothers are extensively involved in the most profitable sectors of the Libyan economy, and serve on the boards of these companies. Also in true desperate dictator housewife/daughter style, Ayesha is quite glamorous. Check out the pics...

But all is not well between the siblings. There is plenty of rivalry - so much that it could have been lifted from the script of Falcon Crest or a Mexican telenovela. As US diplomats noted: controversy over the Coca Cola plant in Tripoli also highlighted Qadhafi family involvement in commercial enterprise. While three different sons Saadi, Mohammed and Mutassim, were all rumored to be fighting at different points over who had the right to the representative licence, the dispute was supposedly argued before the courts and resolved through mediation. The very twisted tale of the Coke franchise, continues to confound the local business and diplomatic community attempts to ascertain exactly what interests are in play. Mutassim was involved in setting-up the Coca-Cola franchise held by the Egyptian Ka'ur group during the late 1990s. Mutassim lost control of many of his personal Libyan business interests during the period of 2001 to 2005 when his brothers took advantage of his absence to put in place their own partnerships. Mutassim was then spotted arriving on a British Airways flight at Tripoli International Airport, greeted by a small group of well wishers and protocol assistants with bouquets of flowers (how nice!), then whisked off to the VIP arrivals lounge and into his vehicles without passing through customs or immigration. Mohammed, the head of the Libyan Olympic Committee, now owns 40% of the Libyan Beverage Company, currently the Libyan joint venture Coca-Cola franchisee. The British Ambassador to Libya reported his sources attributed the resolution to a deal whereby Mohammed Al-Qadhafi was prevailed upon to relinquish his Libyan Olympic Committee's share of the joint venture and sign it over to the Libyan Pensions Fund. Another Ambassador chimed in that he heard it was sister Aisha Al-Qadhafi who mediated the dispute between the two brothers and got Mohammed out of the soda business. If Libyan government officials are asked about the Coca Cola case, the standard response is that the government was making sure that all the proper licences and registrations were in place. Phew!
So are the Gaddafis now facing the axe with the scripts for their final episode being written by the Libyan people, especially those of the country's eastern region of Cyrenaica? Well, the reports broadcast by Western media sources are based on widespread speculation and rumour. What the media is doing is falling yet again into the trap oft repeated when passions are high on revolution. People involved in the heat of these emotional events tend to exaggerate everything, whether it be death tolls, numbers at demonstrations or levels of brutality. Have people died in Benghazi and are there demonstrators in Tripoli - probably yes. Have over 300 died in Benghazi and the numbers at the Tripoli demo reach over a hundred thousand? Probably not. Let's remember how events were reported when Romania's Ceauşescu was toppled in 1989. When he was tried by kangaroo court on Christmas day 1989, he was accused of genocide, of having killed 64,000 Romanians in the period from the 17th to 25th December 1989. During that period, the numbers of the people dead that were being mentioned had consistently grew as the Chinese whispers spread. With no better source to verify such information, these huge death tolls were taken to be fact. Once all was settled and better sense could be made of what had happened in that period, the final death toll only came to 108! So how did 108 become 64,000 then?

There is also another parallel between the Romanian 1989 revolution and current events in Libya - the rumour of 'foreign mercenary' participation. When the Hungarian nationalist pastor Laszló Tökes and his parishoners openly protested against Ceauşescu's system in Timişoara on 17 December 1989, the death toll from the subsequent massacre began to grow and grow (thousands rumoured to be dead when the toll actually was no more than 20). Word also had it that North Korean and not Romanian soldiers were responsible for mauling the unarmed demonstrators. Fast forward 20 years and now in Libya we hear of 'news' that those firing on the demonstrators are 'mercenaries' from a variety of countries (usually sub-Saharan African), while the Libyan government is too laying blame on 'foreign insurgents' for instigating the demonstrations. Blaming foreigners for atrocities is a simple way of getting people to believe the worst possible scenario, and no one in a country would want to believe that an armed force would fire on its own people.

Ceausescu and Gaddafi sharing a couch in 1974. Will they share the same fate?

Both of these cases show that in media-poor societies like Ceauşescu's Romania or Gaddafi's Libya, rumours take on a greater sense, at the cost of reliability and accuracy. What we need to do is be aware of this. Some news sites such as the BBC have provide some excellent background information though it's often buried amid loads of print (much like this post). Points made include that eastern Libya has never been a stronghold for Gaddafi rule, that violent demonstrations have happened in the past and that they have likewise been violently put down. The difference this time is that word is getting out and getting top billing. The cynic in me is noticing that the hearsay from Libya, a country of staunch anti-Western rhetoric (though Gaddafi now has been quite willing to engage with the evil West) is diverting attention from the unrest in pro-Western Bahrain, home to the US Fifth Fleet. Could this be because a change of government in Bahrain that would accurately reflect the will of its majority Shia population (added with the Western misconception that this Shiite element automatically means a win for Iran and the mullahs) would be more detrimental to Western interests? Despite Bahrain's small size, change has the potential to galvanise the peoples of Saudi Arabia, especially the adjacent Shia populated areas on the Arabian/Persian Gulf coast (where Saudi Arabia's extensive oil supplies are located) to topple their hypocritical and corrupt sheikhs. Now that would upset the world's apple cart, especially the price of oil.

Don't forget that protests are also happening in Bahrain, and the villains are just as bad

Back to Gaddafis. As much as Gaddafi senior tried to promote himself with a self-believeing but self-delusional altruistic aim of fighting for the liberation of oppressed peoples worldwide and to improve the lot for his own people, it is time for him to realise that he failed miserably and it's time to step down. Time for Libya to be a true country of its people rather than the façade portrayed of such Gaddafi's jamahiriya (state of the masses). The behaviour displayed by his family is proof enough of a failed system. Out of all the Arab revolutions of the past 2 months, Libya is following in Romania's footsteps the closest. I just hope though that the same patterns from the so-called Romanian 'revolution' in 1989 (which saw most of the old ruling clique and structure remain in place, just sans the Ceauşescus) are not repeated.