The new Libya: various aspects

[davidbfpo]

Now you may ask who is this man, who is the commander of the Tripoli Brigade?

Mr Belhaj was a leader in the now dissolved Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sent fighters to Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he was detained in 2004 in Malaysia and sent to a secret prison in Thailand, where CIA agents tortured him. Then he was sent by the United States to Libya and sentenced to death by Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi's regime, before his release last year.

Libya is a moderate Muslim country. We call and hope for a civil country that is ruled by the law, which we were not allowed to enjoy under Gaddafi. The religious identity of the country will be left up to the people to choose. The February 17th revolution is the Libyan people's revolution, and no-one can claim it, neither secularists nor Islamists. No-one can make Libya suffer any more under any one ideology, or any one regime.

Link:http://www.scotsman.com/news/Rebel-l...?articlepage=1

The story is on the web, with many similar versions; Wikipedia has a very slim entry.

[Bob's World]

This is what I have been telling people on this forum for years. Not the details of our furtive actions in our threat-centric, intel-driven, CT-focused approach to the attacks of 9-11; as I have no real interest or much knowledge of such actions. But rather in the nature of who these men are that we lump under broad labels, such as "AQ" or "Terrorist" and why it is they challenge governance at home, and why it is they travel to engage Western powers in ways that they hope will ultimately facilitate the changes they seek at home.

The Intel community and the ideological fear mongers, as well as the COINdinistas and Nation builders, do not grasp the fundamental, nature of this diverse, though common in many ways, problem across the Middle East. This problem is neither complex nor wicked. it is a fundamental quest for good governance and the very universal and unalienable rights we proclaim so boldly in our own Declaration of Independence.

This is a transition to be guided and mentored, but not one to resist and suppress. To take a leadership role on the former validates our professed principles and makes us stronger and more influential. To take a leadership role in the latter places a stain on our heritage, burns our influence faster than Wall Street burns our investments, and leaves us weaker.

We must evolve our own understanding and decide what kind of nation we want to be. Then we must act to be that nation. I understand our approaches to date and the rationale behind them, but I do not agree with them.