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| Gaddafi with two of his "Amazons" in Italy |
Gaddafi's female bodyguards replaced his East German guards in the 1990's. They were celebrated as “The Amazonians;” they were also called “Revolutionary Nuns,” and it was said that they had to take a vow of chastity before they could guard Brother Leader Gaddafi. Also known as "The Guide," Gaddafi required all of his female guards to be virgins, and he named them all after his only daughter, Aisha. They travelled with him everywhere, and they were generally tall, always immaculately groomed, dressed in high heels, with their long hair flowing freely. They also received training in martial arts and firearms at the Women's Police Academy in Tripoli. US fanboy Zack Parsons put it simply: Gaddafi "has a huge entourage of sexy female bodyguards that dress up in awesome uniforms and follow him wherever he travels."
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| President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko and Muammar Gaddafi listen to national anthems during a ceremony of the meeting at the Presidential office in Kiev on November 4, 2008. (AFP Photo) |
The Young Turks posted this video on 24 February 2011, three days after Democracy Now did its first piece on Libya, 7 days after the official 17th February start of the uprising, and 39 days after Linux Beach started covering the then developing uprising on 18 January 2011. Most of the US Left didn't wake up to the Libyan Revolution until late March when NATO started enforcing a no-fly zone. The first thing they knew was NATO was on one side and the leader of the other side claimed he opposed Israel. Apparently that was all they needed to know, because most never bothered to investigate the real conditions in Libya and the 42 years of utter madness the people were revolting against.
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| Muammar Gaddafi's female bodyguards are seen during his visit to the Louvre museum. (AFP Photo) |
ambitious documentary takes a fascinating look inside one of the Mid-East's most unusual military units, Libya's elite female military corps assigned to guard the country's supreme leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
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| Female bodyguards of Gaddafi present arms in a five-hour military parade to mark the 30th anniversary of the Libyan coup d'etat that brought him to power. (AFP Photo) |
Libya's "Brotherly Leader" Muammar Gaddafi will be invading midtown Manhattan this week surrounded by a gang of fetching "gun girls."But by then it appears that Gaddafi was using his Amazonians less. After his New York visit, US State Department cable 09TRIPOLI771 reported:
His recent travel may also suggest a diminished dependence on his legendary female guard force, as only one woman bodyguard accompanied him to New York.But it added:
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| Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska with Gaddafi |
Qadhafi relies heavily on his long-time Ukrainian nurse, Galyna Kolotnytska, who has been described as a "voluptuous blonde." Of the rumored staff of four Ukrainian nurses that cater to the Leader's health and well-being, Libyan protocol staff emphasized to multiple Emboffs that Qadhafi cannot travel without Kolotnytska, as she alone "knows his routine." When Kolotnytska's late visa application resulted in her Security Advisory Opinion being received on the day Gadhafi's party planned to travel to the U.S., the Libyan Government sent a private jet to ferry her from Libya to Portugal to meet up with the Leader during his rest-stop. Some embassy contacts have claimed that Qadhafi and the 38 year-old Kolotnytska have a romantic relationship. While he did not comment on such rumors, a Ukrainian political officer recently confirmed that the Ukrainian nurses "travel everywhere with the Leader."
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| Oksana Balinskaya, another of Gaddafi's Ukrainian nurses |
Being a fellow sexual predator wasn't the only thing that attracted Trump to Gaddafi. Gaddafi controlled the Libyan Investment Authority, and its $60 billion in oil revenues. As usual, Trump was on the outs with the banks and looking for a cash infusion from any available source, no matter how shady, and it was hard to get any shadier than Colonel Gaddafi. According to Buzzfeed:
A former U.S. official with knowledge of Trump’s efforts to raise Libyan cash said that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement “absolutely” knew what Trump was up to, and “we were disappointed.”So are we all. Clearly Trump is corrupt, and the sooner he is caught, the better. Had he been caught making illegal deals with Gaddafi in 2009, things would be quite different now. Later, as a 2016 candidate, Donald Trump told John Dickerson on Face the Nation, "I made lot of money with Gaddafi," but that may just be Trump bragging again.
UkyiVids - Published on Nov 6, 2008A Reappraisal
Narrator: While the leader is sleeping, the bodyguards are on full alert, and it's these women who do the fighting. When it comes to security, Gaddafi relies on ladies only. The head of the Libyan Jamahiriya has a total of 300-400 girls on his security detail. According to official accounts, all of them are virgins. Selection is done by Gaddafi himself.
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| Shweyga Mullah, a nanny for Hannibal and Aline Gadhafi, says Aline burned her with boiling water. |
A reappraisal is also necessary because many on the Left still promote Gaddafi's Libya as "the good old days," and blame an American woman, Hillary Clinton, for destroying it. The truth is he was overthrown by the sweat and blood of the Libyan people because they finally got tired of living under a regime of unimaginable brutality and madness. The way Gaddafi treated women, from the time he seized power as a brash 27 year old lieutenant in 1969 until his death at the hands of his own people in October of 2011, makes Alabama's Judge Roy Moore look like a boy scout.
Gaddafi's Harem
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Fully fitted gynecological suite where young girls would be checked for STDs before being taken to the dictator. (Fresh One Productions/BBC) |
There was also a specially designed suite of rooms at Tripoli University that Gaddafi could use to abuse and rape his victims. This even included a fully equipped gynaecological suite, where victims would be tested for STDs before being sexually assaulted. Nor were these the only specially built sex dungeons Gaddafi maintained in Libya. He even held young girls captive in the basement of his residence.
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| Gaddafi with Nuri Mesmari |
Gaddafi was also constantly on the lookout for new girls for his harem and he liked them as young as fourteen. For this reason his ceremonial visits to Libyan high schools and colleges were greatly feared. He treated all the women of Libya as his property and he used these public events to make his selection. A simple pat on the head by The Guide could change a young girl's life forever. That was the signal to his government "procurers" that he wanted this one.
French journalist Annick Cojean recounted the tale of one such girl in her book Gaddafi’s Harem. She hid her real name with the pseudonym Soraya. This excerpt is from a report by Matthew Campbell in The Australian:
For the dictator, schools were not centres of learning but hotbeds of carnal possibility. Soraya's fate was sealed that morning in April 2004 when Gaddafi beamed at her as she handed him flowers. Putting his hand on her head, she came to learn, was a signal to his henchmen: "I want that one."In an interview with EuroNews, Annick Cojean talked about Mabrouka's role, and the complicity of Western diplomats in hiding Gaddafi's crimes:
The next day, women in uniform appeared at the hair salon run by Soraya's mother in the town of Sirte. The Guide, they explained, wanted to see Soraya for another "bouquet ceremony". Refusal was not an option. They drove her for hours through the desert.
Soraya was perplexed when someone asked: "Is she the new one?" She was even more perplexed when a woman took a blood sample from her arm. Another woman asked for her bra measurement then stripped and shaved her.
They dressed her in a thong and a low-cut white satin dress. She remembers thinking when they put on the lip gloss: "Mama wouldn't approve of that." She was told: "The master is waiting." Escorted to Gaddafi's bedroom, she was shocked and embarrassed to see that he was lying on the bed, naked: "I hid my eyes and thought, 'It's a horrible mistake'."
She went on: "He grabbed my hand and forced me to sit next to him on the bed. I didn't dare to look at him.
"He said, 'Don't be afraid. I'm your papa. That's what you call me, isn't it? But I'm also your brother and your lover. I'm going to be all that for you. Because you are going to stay and live with me forever'."
Then he tried to force himself on her but she managed to fight him off. He summoned Mabrouka Shérif, Gaddafi’s leading procurer of girls, a sour-faced woman in charge of his "harem", and told her: "Teach her. Educate her. And bring her back."
Reported to be Mabrouka Shérif
Mabrouka slapped Soraya: "Obey, or Papa Muammar will make you pay dearly." A nurse showed some sympathy, taking Soraya in her arms and murmuring to herself: "How can they do that to a little girl?"
The next day, when Gaddafi promised her diamonds, "a beautiful villa" and a car, she replied: "I want to go home to Mummy."
He told her: "All that is finished, you're with me now."
She fought him again and he sent for Mabrouka again.
On their third encounter he beat her into submission, raped her then told her to "get out". She was summoned the next morning as he ate a breakfast of garlic cloves. He told her to dance, then raped her. Taking her into his bathroom, he urinated on her.
A grim routine was established. Mabrouka would appear at Soraya's door, saying: "The master is waiting." Sometimes he gave her whisky and cocaine. He would rape her, then read for a few minutes or check his emails before resuming the assault.
Sometimes other girls would join them. When a girl performed oral sex on him, Gaddafi told Soraya: "Watch and learn."
Mabrouka gave her pornographic films to watch, saying: "It's your homework."
Yes, I think a lot of diplomats knew. It’s highly unlikely they knew how far the system went, or perhaps how seriously, or how barbaric Gaddafi was. But it was known he was a predator. Someone in the French foreign ministry told me, “Yes, of course.” When the Madame in charge, who was always behind Gaddafi, and who was received in diplomatic meetings of the highest level… she was always there. Her name was Mabrouka Chérif. She is actually still in Libya. Her house is under surveillance but she is relatively free to move around. When this woman came, she was followed by the French secret services, and a very important French diplomat told me: “We knew very well she was doing her shopping.” I wasn’t sure I had understood correctly. ‘Shopping’ meant she came to recruit young girls who would then systematically leave for Tripoli, for the bedroom of the Guide of Libya.
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| Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi in Italy 2010 |
Gaddafi is said to be the originator of the bunga-bunga orgy that Berlusconi made famous in his Milanese villa basement. There, young women hoping to become showgirls or parliamentarians stripped and lap danced for the elder statesman and his cronies for decades.17 September 2011 Colin Freeman reported:
The letters and emails, found by The Sunday Telegraph, show Mr Blair held secret talks with Gaddafi in the months before Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was freed from a British jail.
He was flown to Libya twice at Gaddafi's expense on one of the former dictator's private jets - visiting the him in June 2008 and April 2009...
Mr Blair even brought an American billionaire [Tim Collins] to one of the meetings. Sources say the financier was asked by Gaddafi for help in building beach resorts on the Libyan coast.
In the correspondence, Mr Blair's private office refers to Gaddafi deferentially as "The Leader."
Annick Cojean also wrote about Tony Blairs contacts with Gaddafi and his female bodyguards:
Martin Chulov told us of another of Gaddafi's victims in a The Guardian report from Tripoli, 7 September 2011. He spoke to her as they toured the abandoned harem barracks after Gaddafi left:
Muammar Gaddafi wrote his little Green Book in 1975 and he meant it to be a guide to the new "revolutionary" society he was building in Libya. Although he claimed it to be the ultimate in women's liberation, it is easy to see how it was used to justify the appalling way women were abused under his regime. Here are a few select passages:
In Libya, these Green Book passages were much more influential and permanent than Donald Trump's tweets. This was a totalitarian society. From Wikipedia:
But, Oh did he have his fans on the Left
Cynthia McKinney, former Georgia congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, has long been a Gaddafi supporter who had traveled to Libya many times while he was in power. She has been known for promoting his Green Book around the globe. In October 2009 Cynthia McKinney led a delegation of eleven US Gaddafi supporters to Libya for a World Conference of Green Book Supporters, and an audience with Gaddafi. She was the 2009 honoree. Bob Fitrakis, Green Party's 2006 Ohio gubernatorial candidate, and conspiracy theorist Wayne Madsen were also in the delegation.Soraya’s position gave her a view of the rich and powerful. Among them was Cecilia Sarkozy, the wife of the French president, and also Tony Blair, who visited Gaddafi in 2004.
Tony Blair with Gaddafi
“In Sirte, I saw Tony Blair come out of the Guide’s camper [van]. ‘Hello girls!’ he tossed out to us with an amicable gesture and a cheerful smile,” says Soraya.
#Libya #Gaddafi’s former chief of protocol, Mabrouka Cherif, who led his female bodyguards, is looking for a country to grant her asylum.— noman benotman (@nbenotman) May 22, 2012
Martin Chulov told us of another of Gaddafi's victims in a The Guardian report from Tripoli, 7 September 2011. He spoke to her as they toured the abandoned harem barracks after Gaddafi left:
"That is where I was raped," said Nisrine Gheriyanih, 19... "They would come and take us by the hand and walk us down the corridor. We knew what would happen."She had been forcibly taken away from her mother - who was battling cancer - by the head of the unit, a family friend. "My brother came and tried to get me out," she says, but he was threatened and told to leave. CNN also reported on Nisreen:
When the uprising began in February, she says her female leader summoned her to see the 77th Brigade commander. He raped her.She was also forced to contribute to Gaddafi's carnage directly:
"I screamed," she tells us. It made no difference. She was summoned twice again and raped by two other commanders. Her leader told her she had to bear it.
She says all the women in her unit were raped, but they were forbidden to speak about it.
Nisreen became an executioner for Moammar Gadhafi's forces. She admits she murdered 11 rebels, all prisoners of the Gadhafi regime. (CNN is not identifying Nisreen with her full name because of her experiences in Gadhafi's all-female brigade.)What maybe most frightening about these stories is just how ordinary they were in Gaddafi's Libya. In some respects, Soraya may have been among the lucky ones. Truthdig reported in 2014:
"They brought one person in at a time and they said shoot him," she tells us, her voice quiet, her words chilling. "There was someone on either side of me and one behind and they said if you don't shoot we will shoot you."
She pauses, sliding back into that horrific moment.
"I would turn my head away and shoot. I saw the blood dripping, it just kept flowing."
"Some were only 14," recalled one teacher at a Tripoli school. "They would simply take the girl they wanted. They had no conscience, no morals, not an iota of mercy, even though she was a mere child."Tom Porter wrote in IB Times, 26 January 2014, that Gaddafi's banalities weren't limited to girls:
"Some of the girls were held for years, while others were dumped with appalling injuries."
"One just disappeared and they never found her again, despite her father and brothers searching for her. Another was found three months later, cut, raped and lying in the middle of a park. She had been left for dead."
Boys were also forced to serve in Gadhafi's harem. "He was terribly sexually deviant," recalled former chief of protocol Nuri Al Mismari. "Young boys and so on. He had his own boys. They used to be called the 'services group'. All of them were boys and bodyguards . . . a harem for his pleasure."Porter reported that they were also forced to witness the execution of regime opponents:
One former member recalled: "Early one morning, at 2am, we were taken to a closed hall. We were to witness the murder of 17 students. We were not allowed to scream. We were made to cheer and shout. To act as though delighted by this display. Inside I was crying. They shot them all, one by one."Benghazi-based psychologist Seham Sergewa interviewed victims for the International Criminal Court, she said:
"A pattern emerged in their stories. The women would first be raped by the dictator then passed on, like used objects, to one of his sons and eventually to high-ranking officials for more abuse.Gaddafi would also send girls to trap or compensate other high officials in the government. He also used them as spies. Sexual abuse was integral to how Harvey Weinstein ran his business, for Muammar Gaddafi, it was integral to how he ran "his" country. Guy Walters wrote in The terrible truth about Gaddafi’s harem, 24 October 2013:
"In one case a girl of 18 said she was raped in front of her father. She kept begging her distraught father to look away. Many of the victims say they contemplated suicide many times. Doubtless there were some who took their own lives."
Fuelled by cocaine, alcohol, cigarettes and Viagra, Gaddafi used sex not only as a physical weapon, but as a political tool through which he could exert his power.
Rape subjugates women - and at the same time subjugates the men who are close to them, such as their husbands and fathers.
Gaddafi was all too aware of this. The wives and daughters of senior figures were blackmailed, bribed, cajoled and forced into having sex.
Gaddafi not only enjoyed the act of degrading these girls and women, but relished the power it gave him over other men.
Some women were even abducted during their wedding ceremonies, as the ultimate show of omnipotence.
As one of Gaddafi’s close collaborators admitted after the tyrant’s death, sex was “all he seriously thought about” and “he governed, humiliated, subjugated and sanctioned through sex”.
In public, Gaddafi claimed to have women’s rights at his heart. In 1981, he said that he had decided “to wholly liberate the women of Libya in order to rescue them from a world of oppression and subjugation”.
As “evidence” of this most hollow of promises, Gaddafi surrounded himself with female bodyguards.
Muammar Gaddafi wrote his little Green Book in 1975 and he meant it to be a guide to the new "revolutionary" society he was building in Libya. Although he claimed it to be the ultimate in women's liberation, it is easy to see how it was used to justify the appalling way women were abused under his regime. Here are a few select passages:[A]lmost everywhere in the world todayHe taught that the biological differences between men and women made women the weaker sex:asthey confuse the roles of men and women and endeavour to transform women into men. In harmony with nature and its subsequent purpose, men and women must be creative within their respective roles. To resist is retrogressive; it is directed against nature and destroys the basis of freedom, for it is hostile to both life and survival. Men and women must perform, not abandon, the roles for which they are created.
Physical structure, which is naturally different in men and women, leads to differences in the functions of the organs, which in turn leads to differences in the psyche, mood, emotions, as well as in physical appearance. A woman is tender; a woman is pretty; a woman weeps easily and is easily frightened. In general, women are gentle and men are aggressive by virtue of their inbred nature.And he believed these roles should be enforced:
To ignore natural differences between men and women and to mix their roles is an absolutely uncivilized attitude, hostile to the laws of nature, destructive to human life, and a genuine cause for the wretchedness of human social life.
The woman who rejects pregnancy, marriage, beautification and femininity for reasons of health abandons her natural role in life under these coercive conditions of ill health. The woman who rejects marriage, pregnancy or motherhood because of work abandons her natural role under similar coercive conditions. The woman who rejects marriage, pregnancy or maternity without any concrete cause abandons her natural role as a result of a coercive and morally deviant circumstances. Thus, abandoning the natural roles of female and male in life can only occur under unnatural conditions which are contrary to freedom and are a threat to survival. Consequently, there must be a world revolution which puts an end to all materialistic conditions hindering women from performing their natural role in life, and so drives them to carry out men's duties in order to attain equal rights.
According to British author and former Greater London Council member George Tremlett, Libyan children spent two hours a week studying the book as part of their curriculum. Extracts were broadcast every day on television and radio. Its slogans were also found on billboards and painted on buildings in Libya.Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book was the law of the land and this sexual pervert its supreme ruler.
But, Oh did he have his fans on the Left
"We shall remember Gaddafi our whole lives as a great fighter, a revolutionary and a martyr." --- Hugo Chavez
Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro broke my heart when they came down on the side of the brutal dictator and against the Libyan people in this struggle. It caused me to wonder if they would be willing to treat their own people as Gaddafi was treating his? It caused me to wonder what they meant by "socialism," because to me the bottom line is: Do you care about the people or not?
@zappamel— cosmo topper (@Psyche1310) November 1, 2017
Americans have no idea what Libya and WE lost when Obama/Clinton/NATO killed Gaddafi. https://t.co/n9ROrqM0Ey
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U.S. delegation to the 2009 Society of Supporters of the Green Book conference. McKinney is at the center, Fitrakis is on the left of the second row, Madsen is second from the left in the front row. (From The Free Press) |
McKinney spoke as the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate when she told the gathering, 25 October 2009:
We are here to listen and observe, then to support and carry forth the ideas of equality and democracy, universal principles embodied in the Green Book -- the goal of our effort being to empower black and indigenous and depressed peoples worldwide for the betterment of the Earth and all its inhabitants.
...
The universal principles of the Green Book, although widely associated with the challenges facing developing nations, are equally applicable to the needs of people of the United States at this period of profound crisis for finance capital.
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| Cynthia McKinney in Libya |
McKinney was back in Libya in the Spring of 2011 to support Gaddafi in his time of trouble. As the uprising against the Gaddafi regime was rapidly expanding, she talked about the Green Book on Libyan TV 21 May 2011:
On a previous visit to Libya, I was able to learn about the Green Book, and the form of direct democracy that is advocated in the Green Book.Cynthia McKinney was all for "democracy" directed by Gaddafi, but she came back to Libya to oppose the people taking power into their own hands.
Continuing this ignoble Green Party tradition, Jill Stein, its 2012 and 2016 presidential candidate, was also nostalgic for the fascist dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, and when he was about to use his air force to do to Benghazi what Bashar al-Assad has done to so many Syrian cities, in Gaddafi's words, slaughter them "like rats," she opposed the no-fly zone requested by the 22-nation Arab League and approved by the UN.
The pro-Trump Brietbart website was happy to give her coverage in a front page article titled Jill Stein Slams Hillary Clinton’s ‘Disturbing’ Laughter at Lynching of African Ruler. There is a lot of unity between the Alt-Right and the white Left when it comes to supporting brutal dictators like Putin, Assad and Gaddafi. It began:
Women all over the world, in fact, people all over the globe, had good reason to cheer at the death of Gaddafi. Why was Jill Stein so sad?Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein blasted Hillary Clinton’s “laughter at the lynching of an African ruler” as “disturbing,” referring to a 2011 CBS video clip of Clinton laughing about the death of Muammar Gaddafi.
Clinton “left Libya in bloody chaos,” Stein wrote.
When Gaddafi was finally defeated and killed, Jill Stein refused to credit the Libyan revolutionaries who had shed so much blood in the struggle, instead she blames Hillary Clinton, and she mourns the loss of Gaddafi. Of the estimated 30,000 Libyan lives it cost to overthrow Gaddafi, no Libyan is mourned by the US Left like Gaddafi. There isn't even a close second.
In February 2014, three years after the start of the revolution, the Libyan cabinet decreed that women raped during Libya's 2011 uprising should be recognized as war victims. This would put the women on the same level as wounded ex-fighters and entitle them to compensation. While this decreed was still awaiting congressional approval, BBC News reported:
Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani told the BBC that the decree offers 12 measures, including financial assistance and physical and psychological health care.The Nobel Women's Initiative welcomed it, saying:
Money would also be available for things "like sending the parents of victims to Hajj - this is to elevate the status of victims, so they are not looked at as a burden", he said.
The justice ministry says it will not wait for the national congress to pass the decree in order to avoid further delays
A new unprecedented constitutional decree in Libya is recognizing the use of rape as a weapon in the 2011 uprising that ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The decree deems rape survivors as “official war victims” and offers women rape survivors compensation that is the same entitlement offered to former soldiers.The attempt at creating a unified Libyan government with the General National Congress failed in 2014 and with it went its plans to compensate rape victims. In November 2017 the ICC investigation of rape war crimes in Libya continues and has had to be expanded to include revenge rape, especially of male Gaddafi supporters accused of participation in his use of rape as an instrument of war.
In 2011 the International Criminal Court collected evidence that Gaddafi ordered military forces to use sexual violence against women during the uprisings. There are also separate allegations that Gaddafi and his sons raped their female bodyguards. While the exact number of sexual violence cases remains unknown, estimates indicate that hundreds of women were raped during the uprisings.
This documentation of Gaddafi's sexual abuse of women is also a window into just how depraved the dictatorship that ruled Libya for 42 years was.
Is it any wonder that a society throwing off such a yoke should find itself in an extended period of disruption and reorganization? Thanks to Gaddafi's "Green Book" rule and other deviate policies, few living Libyans have ever known regular state organizations or political parties as they are ordinarily found throughout the world. After Gaddafi's overthrow, Libya had to start building state structures, open political organizations, and a free press all from scratch. Even when revolutions take place in countries with a much richer recent history of state and political structures, as with the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, the overthrow of the old authority is followed by a decade of disruption. What the people overthrew in Libya was very much the gangster rule of one man and his family, and they did it without the benefit of a unified political leadership, in part due to the historic betrayal of the Left. This is the cause of Libya's current problems. The solution is not to be found by looking backwards but by moving forward.
Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!
What an amazing blog post. Well done and thank you.
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