the bravery of the Arab youth

As I said the other day, the Arab world has produced a miraculous generation of heroes. We are not yet offering them enough moral support. There are death squads of mercenaries in the streets of Tripoli, and people are still going out to organize protests. How many of us would be willing to do this? Our political complaints are quibbles by comparison.

Obama

Barack Obama, you are the world’s most gifted orator of your generation, and as far as I can tell you are saying nothing so far.

Guernica

I asked last night what was the most recent parallel of someone bombing one of their own cities. A reader comment in the NY TImes just mentioned Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, though of course that was the Nazi Luftwaffe acting as mercenaries for Franco. Also, that was in the midst of a civil war; Franco was the rebel, not yet the leader of Spain. But it’s a reasonably good parallel in other respects.

The reader also asks if even Hitler bombed any of his own cities, and I believe the answer is no, unless I’m forgetting an obvious example.

the defectors to Malta

The L.A. TIMES REPORTS that they were “senior colonels.”

Malta is extremely close to Libya, probably just minutes away at the speed of military planes.

call for army to remove the mad colonel

@ SultanAlQassemi : Breaking Al Jazeera: Statement by Libyan Military Officers asks all members of the Libyan army to head to Tripoli & remove Gaddafi #Libya

AUC’s President weighs in

Dr. Anderson happens to be a Libya specialist:

“An expert on Libya said she believed the regime was collapsing. ‘Unlike the fall of the regime in Tunisia and Egypt, this is going to be a collapse into a civil war,’ said Lisa Anderson, president of the American University in Cairo…”

The story also says this:

“Seif has often been put forward as the regime’s face of reform and is often cited as a likely successor.”

“Face of reform” was certainly the impression he gave when I saw him lecture last May 5 in Cairo. It was a pretty good talk, but I guess it was just a good act. Even before the recent events, it sounds as if he was not only tightly laced in with his father’s regime, but also a bit of a decadent playboy, hosting lavish yacht parties in St.-Tropez and Monaco.

the Qaddafi umbrella speech

This is the speech I wake up to:

“I’m not in France or Venezuela, I’m still here, all these dogs…” (from under an umbrella).

It’s now The Joker with a bit of Duchamp thrown in. Someone remove this man from office, whatever it takes, before we have A NEW RWANDA on our hands.