Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Where's Muammar?



[48-hour update: Muammar is in his home town of Sirte, dead. He died like a warrior, surrounded by his loyal followers, who fought on against insurmountable odds until the very end. He is survived by his enemies, who, if they are lucky, will die the death of cowards—in a hospital bed, fussed over by money-grubbing physicians. And if they are not so lucky—imagination runs wild. Being the scum of the earth is not illegal, but there is most likely a limit to how long people will be willing to go on believing that. I raise my glass of tea to Muammar, a unique and colorful dictator who made other bloodthirsty tyrants look like mice.]

It's been over seven months ago that I commented on the fact that not all is going according to plan in Libya. The Langley, Virginia chapter of Al Qaeda had decided to overthrow Muammar, for all the obvious reasons. The British jumped on board, mostly because they are British. The French jumped on board because Muammar had put up some communications satellites that were undercutting France Telecom's ability to gouge and fleece poor Africans. Everyone else was  disgusted.

They've been overthrowing him continually for seven months now. At this point, he appears to be close to 90% overthrown, but the remaining 10% are proving to be slow going. It remains to be seen whether “Operation Suck 'Em Dry” will go according to plan, or whether it will result in pipelines and installations being blown up sporadically for years on end, as it has in every other oil-producing place that's been bombed into submission, invaded and ransacked.

Also, nobody seems to know where Muammar is. Now, some other overthrown dictator might be feeling low around now, but that's not our Muammar! My feeling is that, wherever he is, he is probably having a good time. But seeing as even his most stalwart supporters are ready to concede that his return to power in Libya is, at this point, unlikely, I thought it would be a good time to share with the world my Muammar scrapbook.

And if he is in your area, please be hospitable. He is not a bad sort. Things got out of hand; he didn't mean it; he is sorry. All he ever wanted was to be a non-pro-Western Arab dictator, for a change. Who can blame him for that?

With Mr. 0

Being polite to some sleazebag

With Vova

With... WUGGHGHGH!

Puckering up for Yasser

With his good friend Mandela


37 comments:

"e Brutto" said...

On the British, unknowable is what we are it seems.
I noticed that the Black Watch (premier Scottish regiment) was at one point lobbying to be allowed to go in and get some.
Never underestimate our ability to hate people for past slights;¬)
Another plus is we now effectively have the whip hand over the oil, which is essential feedstock for our European 'allies', we get most of the oil we import from Norway so in the short term are fairly secure.
So revenge and the chance for Realpolitik whip whielding actually makes this a good strategic decision for the UK.

Keep Tomatoes Legal said...

Funny article. One thing I'll say about Gaddafi is that he's certainly the best dressed dictator in the world. In fact, I think he dresses better than any world leader. Attention dictators and Presidents! If we have to see you jerks all the time at least take a hint from Gaddafi and spice things up and take off those drab suits.

Rhisiart Gwilym said...

A whip-hand over the oil, Brutto? Really? Where do you see that? Like 'we' have secure, effective, continuing control over Iraq and Af/Pak and their resources, you mean?

"e Brutto" said...

@RG, a critic without your own blog how original.
Collating the ME with NA is rhetoric.
Our allies have refineries designed to process Libyan oil, it would take years to rebuild them for heavy oils, there is no excess supply of light sweet crude in the world.
Perhaps only a 'Welshman' could not see the Realpolitik potential ;¬)

yvesT said...

Caught apparently :

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15385955

benslife said...

They just caught him apparently. You bend the universe to your will Dmitry!

I wonder if he will mysteriously die and be dumped in an unknown location at sea.

JoHio said...

Dmitri, Again, as usual, almost prescient. THAT'S why I am here. And, you are a darkly funny guy. We should drink together sometime. Coming to Ohio?

Dmitry Orlov said...

I am not prescient. I just knew what will happen when I heard that Hillary Clinton got off a plane in Tripoli with bags of blood money. But the blade of political assassination cuts both ways, and if it's a contract killing, then only the highest bidders should be expected to survive.

Rhisiart Gwilym said...

Incomprehensible reply, Brutto. Try again?

Anonymous said...

Dmitry you are indeed a funny fellow in your dark way, but honestly I think you're batting for the wrong team. The real Masters of the Universe, those dreaded "elites" we hear so much about, are very much like you, possessed of the dark genius bestowed upon all who have sold their souls to the Lord of this World. You should consider the wisdom of Nietzsche's aphorism "man needs what is most evil in him for what is best in him" and think about joining the Illuminati; like all supervillains, they are smarter, more creative, more individualistic and more powerful than the so-called “good guys.” There is nothing to be gained by aligning yourself with a Light Side rabble who are losers by definition. The Dark Side is forever where the power is, because it embraces the Satanic virtues: hierarchy, innovation, separation from nature and the Will to Power. Don’t you hear it calling you?

"e Brutto" said...

@RG, see my blog you charming man.

Dmitry Orlov said...

Sith - No. And you seem a bit creepy. Just a heads-up.

Rhisiart Gwilym said...

I'll pass on that thanks Brutto. Lots to do, limited time/energy. Picky. Byeee.

Paul said...

I read that China and Brazil could be the chief beneficiaries.

cybernaut said...

are we sure it is him? could be a look-a-like gaddaffi?

Anonymous said...

The 48-hour Update is the greatest thing you've ever written, Dmitri. Or top ten, anyway.

The cluster-mindfuck-fest in Libya reminds us that George Orwell, were he alive, couldn't get hired doing the high school sports page. Genghis Khan, on the other hand...

Just Jenni said...

Very funny post, however I think the USA will Help out those poor Libyans and make sure that democracy gets set up there right away. We will have to remind those powers that be, for the USA to help you, you must give up the oil.

Keep Tomatoes Legal said...

To add to my comment now that Gaddafi is dead: One step forward for deposing dictators, one step backward for dictator fashion.

Redbriars said...

I read somewhere that the Western powers were particularly interested in keeping tabs on the Libyan armoury, including a number of surface-to-air missiles capable of taking down jetliners.

I rather expect that Mr K had some very interesting military toys floating around.

Unknown said...

Today was a very sad day. Muammar's death is being celebrated like some type of American victory. The pictures showed the face of a victim. What outrage would we feel if that were the face of a once American leader? There will be lashback, and I sadly feel it is warranted.

An honorable nation would mourn the death of even their adversary, not parade calling it justice. What a pitiful charade. Muammar died so the US could continue to receive cheap oil. It's well documented, as is the death of another Eastern leader not so long ago for the same purpose, Saddam Hussein. Propaganda suggests they were monsters, but one need only look at their agendas to see the true monster at work.

Today is a shameful day for the US. I am very proud today, to not be a US citizen.

stevelaudig@gmail.com said...

Of those pictured, who is, in fact, liable for more human deaths? Muammar might make the top 3. I'd rank Blair as the top killer/murderer. Putin is probably second. Mubarak and Arafat 3rd? Obama 4th. Mandela seems out of place but Muammar did give him support. but then Idi Amin probably gave money to Mother Teresa. Missing from the photo array is C. Rice. And where's Cheney and Rumsfeld, oh right, they sent Rice.

Anonymous said...

"He is survived by his enemies, who, if they are lucky, will die the death of cowards—in a hospital bed, fussed over by money-grubbing physicians."

Hilary Clinton's vile little smart ass celebration made her look like a fucking animal.

jpwhite said...

Obama 4th? Okay, sure, but if you're considering "killer with a Nobel Peace Prize under his belt," then he's definitely #1. (We're #1! USA! USA!).

Poor Muammar. If only he'd stuck around another 20 years then we might have finally figured out how to spell his last name. And he should have bugged out to Geneva when he had the chance. Just think of the fashion shows he's be giving now!

Rhisiart Gwilym said...

To Steve Laudig.

Hi Steve,

There's a bit of discussion going on now (SAT22OCT11) in one thread on the Medialens Message Board about a name for a suitable large-scale unit of wanton realpolitkally-inspired mass-murder.

'A Stalinsworth' has been suggested, for about 20 million innocent dead.

But the word I'd put up, for a unit that simply engulfs all the others by its sheer size -- because of the modern, cutting-edge technical capabilities behind it to some extent, but mainly because of the sheer, historically-unprecedented size and rapacity of the Amerikan fascisto-imperial state machine -- is a POTUSworth.

That would have to number in the hundreds of millions of murdered innocents, when >all< the historical rapine of Amerika, and its continuing gigantic rapacity right now, by all the different direct and indirect means that it uses, are taken into account.

Apart from his wonderful mordant wit and sharp insight, one of the reasons that I follow Dmitri so avidly is that he makes such a convincing case that the US will collapse very soon now, and thereby quickly lose its unprecedented power to wreak havoc in the world.

I really hope that he's right.

Al M said...

I salute you Mr Orlov!
Rising about the propaganda is not easy these days!

\(:|) O7

Journal Actif said...

I wonder how Lybian people will adjust to paying everything now, from education, to housing, health care, drinking water, energy, food...

Dan Rogers said...

This is a bit off-topic, but what do you think of the occupy movement?

Should we get involved in this? Or does it just single us out to be taken away by tptb when this thing collapses? Is it worth fighting? Or should we simply focus on prepping?

Thanks, love this blog.

Journal Actif said...

@Dan Rogers
I highly recommend you read M. Orlov's book. When you do get familiar with the perspective from which he writes and you think about your particular situation after that, you'll get answers to important questions it didn't even occur to you to ask yourself (or others) yet.

We (my family and I) consider this book an excellent investment. I'm sure it'll be for you too. (I know I sound like an ad, but I don't know Mr. Orlov and he doesn't make me favors or give me money, promise).

To very partially answer your incomplete question, I will tell you we choose not getting involved in protests (and that has nothing to do with fear of TPTB singling us out later). We need all our energy working on family resilience (notice I didn't even say preparedness, although working on better bouncing off bad circumstances is actually a form a preparedness). We won't waste energy and precious time trying to change the system, "wiggling toes against a coming tsunami".

Read that book, I promise you'll have fun too reading it. We did.

Jon said...

Got this list from another site: silvergoldsilver.com...

During the reign of Muammar

1. There is no electricity bill in Libya; electricity is free for all its citizens.
2. There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at zero percent interest by law.
3. Having a home considered a human right in Libya.
4. All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 dinar (U.S.$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family.
5. Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25 percent of Libyans were literate. Today, the figure is 83 percent.
6. Should Libyans want to take up farming career, they would receive farming land, a farming house, equipments, seeds and livestock to kickstart their farms are all for free.
7. If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need, the government funds them to go abroad, for it is not only paid for, but they get a U.S.$2,300/month for accommodation and car allowance.
8. If a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidizes 50 percent of the price.
9. The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per liter.
10. Libya has no external debt and its reserves amounting to $150 billion are now frozen globally.
11. If a Libyan is unable to get employment after graduation the state would pay the average salary of the profession, as if he or she is employed, until employment is found.
12. A portion of every Libyan oil sale is credited directly to the bank accounts of all Libyan citizens.
13. A mother who gives birth to a child receive U.S.$5,000.
14. 40 loaves of bread in Libya costs $0.15.
15. 25 percent of Libyans have a university degree.
16. Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project, known as the Great Manmade River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.

And now there is one less nonRothschild central bank in the world.

Carlo E. Fromaggio said...

I agree with Jon and wholeheartedly support his proposal to rename Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd to Brother Leader Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi Blvd.

said...

Shockingly the man who brought Libya out of poverty got sodomized at the end. With peak oil evolving and structures falling apart is that what people have to expect?

See here: I wonder how something like that falls into the 5 stages of collapse. Is that what humanity has to look forward too?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29508.htm#idc-cover

piano4tay said...

@Jon: That list could have also mentioned the free-issue viagra Gadaffi gave to his mercenaries so that they could rape those ungrateful rebels with greater efficiency & enthusiasm. I'm sure here in the UK the NHS would have charged them a fortune....The Libyan Jamahirya was indeed a social paradise cruelly destroyed by Western imperialist greed.....

michigan native said...

If my memory serves me correctly, some Libyans were merely accused of bombing that Pan Am flight over Scotland. The US demanded that the "suspects" be handed over. Gaddafi merely asked for some evidence before he had citizens of his nation carted off to the new torture state that was already getting off the ground during the Reagan era. I suspect because Gaddafi was getting chumy with the then former USSR, the media spent months demonizing the man and then that bombing and assasination attempt where US warplanes succeeded in killing his 3 year old daughter. As I remember, the flagwavers back here basked in a patriotic orgy. "USA, USA" came the chants of men who if not poisoned with too much testosterone were certain lacking in brain cells. Qaddafi supposedly did hand over the suspects. Now we have our good freinds from the UK to jump on the useful idiot bandwagon. Truly amazing.

There were in fact a great many good things that Qaddafi had accomplished for his nation and his people. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread767633/pg1?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

Perhaps his biggest crime was to promote unity and independence for his country and his people and encourage oil rich Muslim and African nations to trade their oil in the dinar and dump the US dollar. The West sure didn't not want this to happen, nor did they want to see his ideals start to gain in popularity, as they supposedly were doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35_Ai6EsMU

So once again the US gets in bed with mercenaries with ties to Al Queda or the exporters of opium. Internet rumors have some of the weapons supplied to those who overthrew Gaddafi beinmg used to fight US troops in Afghanistan. The acts of an empire in decline will become more and more insane as the collapse process advances and becomes more widely distributed

Anonymous said...

All leaders of the so-called free world (such as it is) are beholden to groups of very powerful and rich people who use said people as the sound board for which they resonate through. It is neither Putin nor Obama. Not Gaddafi or even Mandela who we should be celebrating.
It is the mothers. It is the Fathers. It is the ordinary people. We must take reality back from those who distort it to their own end.
It is not about building an oasis or advising others on how to survive what you deem to be the inevitable course history will take–It is about taking action rising above your own personal fears and interests.
Collapse is inevitable but not forever.

said...

Amnesty International found no evidence about M. Gaddafi encouraging rape and other artroceties. Obviously the Western media lied again and made up all kinds of stories to destroy this relatively nicely structured country.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html

http://www.frumforum.com/have-qaddafis-abuses-been-exaggerated

Also, this might have been an early water war in disguise.

http://freedomtodiscuss.com/2011/04/u-s-water-doctrine-the-actual-goal-in-libya/

Quote from above link, "At a celebration event of the project in 1991, Gaddafi told the audience: “After this achievement, American threats against Libya will double… The United States will make excuses, [but] the real reason is to stop this achievement, to keep the people of Libya oppressed.” The conflict is not about democracy or reducing violence. The United States has turned a blind eye to violent dictators in the past and it will do so again. Only self-sufficient violent leaders with control over natural resources call its attention. In Libya, the world has seen its first major military conflict over the new liquid gold."

Gaddafi knew this would come.

Also, I came across the following video which might be of interest.

Libya, a truth forbidden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7A9jMnKf7w&feature=player_embedded#!

Peace to this crazy collapsing world.

piano4tay said...

@michigan native: actually Gadaffi's daughter seems to have survived, indeed thrived: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8693628/Col-Muammar-Gaddafis-daughter-Hana-still-alive.html.

michigan native said...

I stand corrected. It was the Berlin disco bombing that was supposedly a (senseless) plot by those evil empire commies in what was then East Berlin and their socialist cohorts from Libya that prompted the first bombing/assasination attempt. In either event, I suspected then (and suspect even more now) that it was nonsense. Again, Gaddafi was promoting African unity and getting chummy with the former USSR. That is what prompted Reagan's funding of terrorists and drug smugglers in what was known as the "contra" war, an attempt to overthrow a legally elected government in Nicaragua that was promoting unity and independence and was getting chummy with the former USSR (the illegal invasion of Grenada under the guise of a "rescue mission" was more immediately effective)

This time he was again promoting African unity and independence, creating their own banking system with a gold backed dinar which all oil rich Muslim and African nations would adapt and dump the US dollar. This time he was getting chummy with the Chinese and supposedly with the Russian Federation

Whether or not they killed his 3 year old daughter in that first assasination attempt (which if anyone cares to recollect, was supposed to be illegal, but the neocons probably figured if they could whack JFK right here in the US and get away with it, anyone is fair game)is but a minor footnote of the disgraceful and utterly despicable desperate acts of an empire that failed. They could have acted with some dignity, but the message is still clear. Do what the central banks, the multinationals, and the West (especially Uncle Sam, who know appears to be rivaling Uncle Joe)tells you to do else you will be assasinated along with your sons and daughters, your country will be bombed into the stone age, your country invaded and your government overthrown. Any dissenters or loyalists will be killed in the ensuing civil war, which the US will be involved in, giving arms and support to whoever backs their interests, whether they have ties to Al Queda, opium growers, cocaine smugglers, death and torture squads and on and on.

My belief is that when the Chinese realize that are never going to get repaid all that debt they took on for the US, after Mitt Romney keeps his promise to increase defense spending (with money that isn't there) and bombs/invades Iran, the blow back will be that Muslim nations will have said "enough!" and enter into long term agreements with China that will lock the US out of the 60% of energy it needs to import from these nations, and a broke and war weary public will have no insane desire to attack a country with multiple warhead ICBMs like China, let alone will the war machine have the gas to pummel small third world countries, literally. Uncle Sam's war machine will run out of gas as the will and cooperation of its people vanishes with the food on their table,heat for their homes, their healthcare, the retirement, their children's future and their children's future

Then it will truly be lights out for the former US, but in the meantime, watch how insane they will get trying to keep the game going.