Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s grip on power dissolved with astonishing speed on Monday...

[myhui]

A historic moment indeed!

NY Times : Jubilant Rebels Control Much of Tripoli

 

[curtsr]

Here's an interesting spin on it:

"These French arms (delivered to the rebels) powerfully contributed to the victory, as did the French pilots. But it was the Libyans themselves, young Libyans who were mocked and insulted for their so-called indiscipline, it was they who took Tripoli last night.<O</O
"The National Transitional Council is capable of managing what it has promised to do, that is to say the transition. These men have always said they had no personal ambition and did not wish to run the country in the long term. They are there to organize the transition ... to help install a new government in a few months, which they want to be a democratic government.<O</O
"Libya will go down in history as the anti-Iraq. Iraq was democracy parachuted into a country by a foreign power in a country which hadn't asked for it. Libya was a rebellion which demanded help from an international coalition led by France, and which will continue now in the reconstruction of the country."

Another French military victory!

 

[myhui]

Maybe that's because the U.S.A. has the world's biggest ego and the military might to back that up, and France has the world's best philosophers but no military might to indulge in their ego?

 

[Miner]

France has the world's best philosophers but no military might to indulge in their ego?

That is funny.

Miner

 

[gdae]

I hearby nominate France to be the world's policeman from here on out.

 

[clarknm]

I hearby nominate France to be the world's policeman from here on out.

Seconded.

 

[docjohn]

The French have a tremendous weapon of mass destruction..........BO......:tongue:

 

[myhui]

Here's Maureen Dowd's review of Dick Cheney's second book:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/opinion/sunday/dowd-darth-vader-vents.html

Cheney says that in 2007, he told President Bush, who had already been pulled into diplomacy by Condi Rice: “I believed that an important first step would be to destroy the reactor in the Syrian desert.”

At a session with most of the National Security Council, he made his case for a strike on the reactor. It would enhance America’s tarnished credibility in the Arab world, he argued, (not bothering to mention who tarnished it), and demonstrate the country’s “seriousness.”

“After I finished,” he writes, “the president asked, ‘Does anyone here agree with the vice president?’ Not a single hand went up around the room.”

By that time, W. had belatedly realized that Cheney was a crank whose bad advice and disdainful rants against “the diplomatic path” and “multilateral action” had pretty much ruined his presidency.

There were few times before the bitter end that W. was willing to stand up to Vice. But the president did make a bold stand on not letting his little dog be gobbled up by Cheney’s big dog.

When Vice’s hundred-pound yellow Lab, Dave, went after W.’s beloved Scottish terrier, Barney, at Camp David’s Laurel Lodge, that was a bridge too far.

When Cheney and Dave got back to their cabin, there was a knock at the door. “It was the camp commander,” Cheney writes. “ ‘Mr. Vice President,’ he said, ‘your dog has been banned from Laurel.’ ”

W. had a lot of flaws, but those could have been overcome if he only surrounded himself with capable people. Sadly, he didn't.

 

[myhui]

The end finally came today.

Quoting www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/world/africa/brutalized-libyan-city-rejoices-with-gruesome-trophies-of-war.html

A small group of fighters from Misurata, the vanguard of the force attacking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s former hometown and final hide-out, Surt, said they had stumbled upon him hiding in a drainage pipe. He was bleeding from his head and chest, but he was well enough to speak, with his trademark indignation. “When he saw us, he said, ‘What’s happening?’ Those were the words that he spoke,” said Omran Shaaban, a 21-year-old Misurata fighter who said he and a friend were the first men in their unit to find the colonel. Misurata suffered grievously under a long siege by Colonel Qaddafi’s troops in the spring. It responded with rage, sending out its battle-hardened fighters, first to capture Tripoli and, on Thursday, Surt. As the bodies of the colonel and his son Muatassim were displayed for onlookers here in private homes on Thursday night, it struck many Misuratans as a fitting end, providing a measure of comfort to a brutalized city — and a bargaining chip for its place in a post-Qaddafi Libyan government.​

Image credit: Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

 

[myhui]

Graphic video of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's capture:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/the-casbah/gaddafi-dead-video-initial-capture-exclusive

 

[Cairo94507]

One less evil piece of shit on the planet; may he burn in hell for eternity.

 

[passline]

The French have a tremendous weapon of mass destruction..........BO......:tongue:

Hey! ...................... I just showered!