Jeffrey Rudolph writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Saudi Arabia, an Islamic absolute monarchy, has enjoyed extremely close relations with the United States, a constitutional republic. This relationship highlights the gross hypocrisy of US foreign policy: fundamentalism and dictatorship in the Arab world is only condemned when it comes garbed in anti-Americanism. In […]
Top Pieces of Unfinished Business in the Mideast
1. Some 6000 protesters marched in Jordan on Friday. They said they wanted to transform the Jordanian monarchy into a European-style, constitutional monarchy and to return to an unamended 1952 constitution. 2. Some 100,000 Tunisians came out into the streets of Tunis on Friday to demand the resignation of caretaker prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi. The […]
Popular Army to March on Tripoli, as Qaddafi Massacres Protesters
Aljazeeera Arabic is reporting that Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi has lost control of much of Tripoli and really only dominates the area of the capital immediately around his palace. Certainly, his security forces are having to fight for control. Time reports that 10,000 Libyan soldiers in the east who have joined the popular forces are […]
Qaddafi invokes Phony Al-Qaeda Threat as he Massacres Protesters
Muammar Qaddafi continued to be little more on Thursday than the mayor of Tripoli, but he bared his fangs with murderous attacks on protesters in the vicinity of the capital.. And, note to Col. Qaddafi: Al-Qaeda is not a mass movement and cannot put people in the streets. Think about it. Al-Qaeda has a handful […]
Clueless in the District of Columbia (Engelhardt)
I was thinking that in light of the labor and youth revolutions of 2011, Washington’s focus on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past two decades seems increasingly odd, like a set of fixations. They originated in the Cold War and in a frantic attempt to keep petroleum inexpensive so that alternative energy did […]
90% of Libya in Rebel Hands
The LAT reports that the rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi’s 41-year dictatorship in Libya headed toward an end-game on Wednesday, as Misurata, the country’s third-largest city (pop. 600,000), fell to the opposition. Significantly, Misurata is in the west of the country, where support for Qaddafi had been stronger. It is only 100 miles east of the […]
30% of Libya in Hands of Youth Movement
If we begin at the eastern border of Libya with Egypt this morning and move west, we find the country is now divided in two, with the east largely in the hands of dissidents and the West still under the thumb of Qaddafi’s security forces. The border with Egypt is in the hands of the […]
Qaddafi’s Bombardments Recall Mussolini’s
The strafing and bombardment in Tripoli of civilian demonstrators by Muammar Qaddafi’s fighter jets on Monday powerfully recalled the tactics of some decades ago of Benito Mussolini, who spoke of imposing a ‘Roman Peace’ on Libya. In 1930, under Mussolini’s governor of Libya, Rodolfo Graziani, some 80,000 Libyans were removed to concentration camps, where 55% […]
The Gates of Hell Have Opened in Tripoli
I am watching Aljazeera Arabic, which is calling people in Tripoli on the telephone and asking them what is going on in the capital. The replies are poignant in their raw emotion, bordering on hysteria. The residents are alleging that the Qaddafi regime has scrambled fighter jets to strafe civilian crowds, has deployed heavy artillery […]
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