Libya's demographic spread across the country is an odd pattern. On the west there is a concentration of population, in the center of the nation's Mediterranean Sea coastline there is a dipping down of the land, as the the coastline pushes further south, and here the population's presence is much sparser. In the east, the concentration picks up. In the Benghazi province, there are concentrations of cities, Al Bayda, Benghazi (Libya's second-largest city), and Tobruq (or Tobruk). This eastern province has broken away, as the national government has lost control of the land. The foreign minister of Italy's Berlusconi government has tried to assert that there is a nascent Benghazi Emirate developing in the eastern province. But as a simple Google search will indicate, there is no rationale for that claim.
As a representative with Human Rights Watch said Tuesday night on PBS' News Hour, the Muammar Gaddafi regime has shown, the government is showing tremendous brutality upon its civilian population. The army is firing on peaceful protesters; then, it is firing on the funeral mourners. The desperate government, realizing that the commitment of the army to aggressively its nation's own people, is resorting to importing mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa.
Some of the latest: "Tripoli a ghost town as Libyan mercenaries roam" --Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the evening of February 23, 2011; Libyan mercenaries using ambulances to murder ..." --Building.co.uk, February 23, 2011.
This is truly barbaric. As the people of the area say, it is a travesty for the government to kill its own people. The HRW representative argued that it is a strong likelihood that the government will slaughter people by the thousands, lining people along walls and shooting them, when it tries to retake control of the east.
RATIONALE FOR INTERNATIONAL ARMED ACTION
For the protection of innocent civilians, international armed forces should take action to halt the actions by the government against the populace. No oil or any other products should be allowed to leave western Libyan ports. No incoming boats of mercenaries should be allowed to enter Libya. International forces should prevent, even at the risk of attack, the entry of planes into the interior of the country, so as to block the entry of any more sub-Saharan mercenaries. The Swiss government should freeze Libyan assets in Swiss banks.
ON THE BAFFLING SPELLING OF HIS NAME:
Gadhafi Says He Won't Resign Unless Rebels Figure Out Correct Spelling of His Name
Huffington Post (blog) (satire) - 10 hours ago
Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi tightened his grip on power today, saying he would step down only if protesters guessed the correct spelling of his name. "Oh man, we're doomed," one rebel said. "Is it Moammar or Muamar? Kadafi or Qaddafi? ...
IRONY IN GADDAFI SON'S DISSERTATION
Gaddafi's second son, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, completed a PhD from the London School of Economics. It calls for international authority over nations. I'd have to read more, but it might advocate positions for international authority over regimes in the way that I have in this blog. Pertinent aspects from the "Financial Times" article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37c54914-3fa2-11e0-a1ba-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1EriI2tfv
The thesis makes a case for “a more democratic, morally justified system of global governance”. He seeks “to realise a practical system of international governance”.
He calls for a global “collective management” system, involving successive tiers of elected officials. This is, in large part, to restrain the damage caused by the “New Leviathan” US, which “perpetuates many of the problems as it asserts its power, such as the oppression of the small and weak nations by the stronger”.
See the Financial Times article for the full article. At the very least, I would say that the authority that Gaddafi the younger advocates would thwart the military adventures in Chad that his father took in the 1980s.
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