After months of trying, rebel forces finally and quickly entered the capital city of Tripoli—busting through 42-year dictator Muammar Qaddafi's "ring of steel defense." Ecstatic Libyans are celebrating in the streets, honking their horns, jumping up and down, and chanting "down with Qaddafi! or Khaddafi! or however the fuck you spell it ... Gah!"
The Libyan government under Muammar Qaddafi sent some feelers out last month to New York and London p.r. firms who might help to "present our just and fair case to the world." The pitch, emailed around by Tripoli's Peoples Media Center, is "very unorthodox" according to the world's most morally-sound superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian of 5WPR, who spoke with the Post. In fact, it's so bad that Torossian wouldn't even touch this pitch with your firm: "I highly doubt any p.r. firm will positively respond to this request."
The House of Representatives will actually hold two votes today on war funding. This is quite something: One vote to defund military action in Libya, another to authorize it for a year. Finally, many months after the Obama administration went into another MENA country with little-to-no strategy, we're having something akin to a congressional authorization process. This is healthy.
Several reporters have returned from Libya with tales of young gun-toting, hash-smoking rebels and really, can you blame these guys? By all accounts, the fighting in Libya is nasty and the alternative to victory over Qaddafi is death for most of them. But some rebels aren't feeling the front lines party vibe:
Here's an awkward scenario: Muammar Qaddafi's eldest son, Muhammad, throwing London 2012 Olympic Games ragers in Britain, attending high profile events, and maybe even scalping some tickets for a little extra cash. It could happen! The Telegraph reports that the Libyan Olympic Committee, which is headed by Muhammad, has been granted nearly 1,000 tickets to the Games, and they are free to sell them "at a 20 per cent mark-up."
Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi took some time out of his busy schedule hiding from NATO bombs, fighting a war against his own people, and getting so high to play a game of chess with the president of the World Chess Federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov yesterday in Tripoli. Russian news agency Interfax reports that Qaddafi and one of his sons went with the Sicilian Defense — a chess opening that is described as "combative." How fitting. He also said there's no way he's leaving Libya.
Say you're in charge of a bloodthirsty dictator's stolen $1.3 billion sovereign-wealth fund. You make some risky investments with that money in the early days of the global financial meltdown, and end up losing 98% (!) of it. Then imagine you're Goldman Sachs dealing with Muammar Qaddafi's money!
Remember the "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse described in a Wikileaks cable about Colonel Muammar Qaddafi? Well, he had a bunch of them, most of whom fled Libya as the rebellion grew stronger. And luckily for us, Newsweek tracked one of them down. According to 24-year-old Oksana Balinskaya, Colonel Qaddafi:
Seif al-Islam Qaddafi has reportedly been floating the idea that he will kick his father to the curb and personally lead a "transition to constitutional democracy" in Libya, which no one in their right mind believes would actually happen. That includes rebels from Libya's east who, according to the Telegraph, said through a spokesman today: "Gaddafi and his sons have to leave before any diplomatic negotiations can take place." He added that, "People thought [Seif] was a reformer but since the revolution began, he has shown his true colours. He is a carbon copy of his father." Nice try, Seif.
Every once in a while, President Obama has to explain to the nation why he's doing stuff. He doesn't want to do it, because you guys annoy him, and you don't want to listen to it, because Dancing With the Stars is on. But this is how democracy works! And we are currently dropping bombs on Libya, a country (?) in Africa (?), and it is important that you know why we are doing such a thing, because otherwise George Will or someone will whine forever and ever, and also, your tax dollars something something.
President Obama will finally deliver an address tonight on the current bomb-everything campaign being waged in Libya. It may just be vague rhetoric about the moral need to prevent a massacre without addressing the more granular elements of day-to-day strategy and on which one of those specific days it will end. But if you start bombing a country, you should give a single address of any sort to the folks who pay for those bombs.
