Libya – Slugger O'Toole

Foreign Policy row could favour Miliband

Turgon on April 24, 2015, 10:06 pm

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The developing spat over foreign policy between Ed Miliband and the Tories is interesting. It is very rare for specific parts of foreign policy to be debated in a partisan fashion during an election unless they relate to macro longterm issues such as Europe etc. From the BBC reporting Miliband: “David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya was a country whose institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own,” he said. “The tragedy is that this …

“Getting righteously offended has become something of a hobby over the last few decades…”

Pete Baker on September 24, 2012, 12:03 pm

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The ‘outraged supernaturalists‘ narrative may already be wearing a bit thin in Libya, and further afield. But, taking that narrative at face value, there may be some points being made that are applicable closer to home. From Saturday’s Irish Times Getting righteously offended has become something of a hobby over the last few decades. Nothing binds people together more securely than a perception that somebody else is saying something nasty about their faith, nationality or hair colour. Rushdie describes the …

Settlement for Gadaffi’s victims here at last?

Brian Walker on October 23, 2011, 8:27 pm

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Lawyer Jason McCue tells the Sunday Times that the IRA victims of Libyan supplied semtex explosive will now receive a total of £450 million. Justice is also promised for the relatives of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and other Britsh victims of Libyan sponsored terrorism. Let’s hope the enterprising campaigners aren’t counting their Libyan chickens too early. Since optimism is reigning, why not the full story of Lockerbie next? Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current …

Gaddafi dead

Turgon on October 20, 2011, 4:22 pm

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The BBC are reporting that Col Muammar Gaddafi has been killed in his home town of Sirte in Libya. Al-Jazeera TV has broadcast video apparently of Gaddafi’s body being dragged through the streets. It is unclear whether Col. Gaddafi was killed by forces of the National Transitional Council or in a NATO airstrike which apparently destroyed two vehicles earlier today. TurgonThis author has not written a biography and will not be writing one.

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday (Neil MacFarquhar)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on September 7, 2011, 9:15 am

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Bookcover of The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday by Neil MacFarquhar

With perhaps the longest title of any book I’ve read this year, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East gives an insight into the lives of people living in Middle East through the eyes of journalist Neil MacFarquhar. MacFarquhar’s father was a chemical engineer who supervised an Esso refinery and a water desalination plant. His family lived on the Libyan coast in Marsa Brega alongside a community of other …

Libya and postcolonial karma

John Ó Néill on September 2, 2011, 4:48 pm

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As the EU has signalled the lifting of sanctions on Libya, quite a lot of that $110 billion of Libyan assets will presumably get unfrozen in the very near future. As part of that, expect much backslapping over the removal of Gaddafi (when it has actually been confirmed). At this point, it is worth noting Laura Seay’s interview with Zachariah Cherian Mampilly about his book Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War. Based on his own experiences, Mampilly notes that the exisitng literatures didn’t conform to the …

Breaking news and the infantalisation of audiences…

Mick Fealty on August 24, 2011, 4:24 pm

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When you strip it all back, much of the bad blood generated on Twitter towards the BBC during Sunday’s lightening rebel ‘intrusion’ into Tripoli, was primarily for not giving good entertainment in the time frame required. On Dale and Co David Prever observes: Waving tablets instead of toys we’ve reverted, without realising, to our inner child. We demand to know what’s going on right now, or sooner. None of this is new. The historian Christopher Lasch made a similar observation, …

Libya begins a long walk to an uncertain destination

Mick Fealty on August 24, 2011, 3:58 pm

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It is easy to forget that despite its sprawling landmass, the population of Libya is not much different from that of the island of Ireland, or Scotland. Ninety percent of the people live in less than 10% of the area of the country and the majority of those live in just two cities. Much of the rest is desert, including much of the landscape between the two main cities, Benghazi and Tripoli. So protecting the people of Benghazi by air offensive …

Yer man’s name

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 24, 2011, 10:00 am

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Alternative spellings for each part of Gaddafi's name

In the world of 24 hour rolling news, it sometimes feels like there’s an expected outcome to many stories and a timeline for reaching the end point and moving onto the next thing. Accordingly, developments in Libya’s capital Tripoli aren’t moving fast enough towards the (western) narrative’s inevitable resolution. While I’ve been waiting, for months I’ve been noticing the diversity of spelling of the Libyan leader’s name. The BBC use Gaddafi, the Irish Times stick to Gadafy, while other outlets …

Götterdämmerung in #Tripoli

John Ó Néill on August 21, 2011, 11:27 pm

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Expect a fairly fevered rumour mill over the next few hours and days as the curtain falls on the #Gaddafi regime in #Libya. Reports by @MalikAlAbdeh of Muamar #Gaddafi’s death in #Tripoli have been recanted, having been rapidly and widely retweeted. Various live #Gaddafi speeches have also been broadcast although his exact location and status are far from certain. Various sources, including @AJELive, have two or three of #Gaddafi’s sons in rebel hands (as of 11pm or so) with little resistance …

“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics…”

Pete Baker on May 2, 2011, 10:30 pm

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Over a month after US President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to authorize US forces to use missile strikes “kinetic military action” against Libya without the approval of Congress, and the UN withdraws from Tripoli as its offices, and other foreign missions, are attacked in the aftermath of a NATO air strike on one of Muammar Gadafy’s homes. In addition, “world leaders and security experts have urged renewed vigilance against retaliatory attacks” after President Obama authorised a targeted killing, of Osama bin Laden, on Pakistani soil – …

Not Magical Unicorn Fairyland.

Pete Baker on March 26, 2011, 8:42 pm

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US President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to authorize US forces to use missile strikes “kinetic military action” against Libya without the approval of Congress prompted a number of House Representatives within the Democratic Party to express their concerns. It also prompted something of a debate about the constitutionality of his decision – with some arguing that “the Obama administration [was] breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency”. There is, however, a reasonable case in support of the President’s position, …

The domestic problem with Obama’s multilateral approach to wars…

Mick Fealty on March 21, 2011, 9:55 am

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Clive Crooks in today’s FT on Obama’s Libyan tightrope: One imponderable, oddly neglected up to now, is the view of US voters. The mood has been against US involvement. If all goes well, voters will come round and be proud. If not, they will care not a jot about international legitimacy and will ask instead about legitimacy at home. If this is another war, where was Congress? Whose decisions, exactly, are putting US forces at risk? And why was the …

US dithering over Libya suggests the moment of overstretch has arrived

Brian Walker on March 16, 2011, 2:16 pm

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Just to lift sights out of the island for a bit, a pre-Paddy’s Day reflection on America that has nothing to do with Ireland. This it will be noted, is in accord with Ireland’s new found modesty about its own importance across the pond. To Europeans, not to mention pro-democracy Arabs, Obama’s silence over Libya is deafening. And yet Americans seem content with that, relieved perhaps that coverage of Gadaffi’s threatened roll-over of the Libyan revolution has been virtually wiped out …

Is it time to arm the rebels?

vanhelsing on March 14, 2011, 7:06 pm

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Writing in ‘The Times’ today the former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind called for arms to be provided to the rebels fighting the regime in Libya. Of course treading carefully in this area is important as the well cited example of getting it wrong is the US support for the then Mujahedeen resistance in the war with the Soviets at the start of the 1980’s. At that time Bin Laden was part of Maktab al-Khadamat [a group fighting the Soviet …

Conservatives struggle to find a coherent foreign policy?

Mick Fealty on March 8, 2011, 4:55 pm

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British Conservative governments generally don’t really do ‘Foreign Policy’. With the exception of the Suez Crisis and the Falklands war, they have tended to err on the side of caution. This government in particular seems to have been almost rigidly focused on domestic issues of rolling back the debt, so that when a genuine international crisis like the Arab Spring uprising comes along they seem have been even less unprepared than their western neighbours. James Forsyth worries that it’s leading …

Ireland and Libya Update

Pádraig Belton on February 23, 2011, 11:59 pm

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An Irish Aer Corps aircraft landed in Tripoli today at 4.50 pm to pick up Irish nationals, but was prevented from doing so by Libyan security. It remained on the ground four hours, and was afterwards obliged to return to Malta, according to an e-mail from Department of Foreign Affairs sources. They say efforts will resume tomorrow, and attempts also are underway to have Irish nationals accommodated on other EU flights endeavouring to leave from Tripoli. (This is a strangely …