From Benghazi to Washington It Is All About Politics

Fresh from his foreign policy gaffe during the London Olympics, Mitt Romney, yesterday, took on the Middle East, using the anti-American riots in Cairo and Benghazi as an opportunity to criticize the Obama Administration. Romney ended up looking like an  insensitive, ill informed  political opportunist.Obama ended up looking, well, er,  ' Presidential"

By now, with flag burnings and angry demonstrations having taken place in Cairo, Yemen, and Iran, it is starting to become clear that this was not just a spontaneous popular uprising, but is possibly a carefully orchestrated  political operation in which the Muslim masses were manipulated by a small militaristic group who planned to eliminate the Ambassador and American officials under cover of a popular demonstration at the Embassy.

It also looks like the anti-Muslim film which  supposedly started the whole thing, was not a legitimate film at all. The actors and crew hired for it were not told what it was about.  Nobody got to read an entire script or knew the whole story. In fact, the American actors and crew who were in the film (which was titled Desert Warrior) are very upset and were grossly mislead.  They have issued a statement. Here's a quote from the Sidney Morning Herald 

''The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer,'' the Los Angeles Times quoted them as saying. ''We are 100 per cent not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.''

Several of the principals and backers of the film seem to have melted away into thin air. Who actually funded and masterminded the making of the film and promoted it( translated into Arabic) online is unclear, however, somehow, the Arab street seems to have the impression that the American government somehow sanctioned the film..... wonder how they got that idea, don't you?

 And then there is the fact that it all happened on the eleventh anniversary of the September eleventh attacks and we all know how important " numbers" are to Al Quaida and their ilk.  This is all starting to smell like a politically motivated rat to me. What political movement could possibly benefit from this situation? Not the new democratic governments in Egypt and Libya, that's for sure.

I'm thinking there is a lot more here than meets the eye. Too bad Mitt Romney didn't realize that before he opened his mouth.

 I hope he stays home and keeps his mouth shut for awhile.

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A New Job for Donald Trump

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You Call This A Cease Fire?

What kind of Cease Fire is this?  I am tired of watching Gaddafi's hired thugs mowing down innocent people. The man is crazy and truly evil and this is what he calls a cease fire.  Hello?  Unless somebody stops him he is going to kill everyone in the whole country.

 This is genocide on the scale of Rowanda and Bosnia. The world has an obligation here and time is running out. Have a look at this video of a Libyan war plane, evidently shot out of the sky today by the beleaguered people in Benghazi. They are brave and they are hanging on by a thread.

While world leaders dither in Paris, Ghaddafi's mercenaries are entering the city of Benghazi where they will be difficult to dislodge from the air.  Every minute means more death and destruction.

Please world, stop talking and DO something.


UPDATE:

Looks like they eventually got it together in Paris. French, British, and Canadian jets are on their way to Libya to  enforce the no fly zone.  French warplanes are already on the scene and have taken out several targets.  Vive La France!

What Wisconsin and Libya Have In Common

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In the wake of the very sad events of  yesterday , this cartoon just begged to be passed on.  Sometimes, even in sad situations one needs to smile.  Wisconsin and Libya are, of course, not equal in scale. Wisconsin has a nutty Governor who may soon be gone if the people of Wisconsin have their way.  Libya  on the other hand, is under the heel of a mad dictator who has been in power for forty years of bloody, despotic rule and now seems bent on murdering the entire population of the country.. It may seem like an insult to the brave people of Libya to compare the two situations, but there are some similarities.

Governments govern only with the consent of the governed . In both Wisconsin and Libya, that consent is in the process of being withdrawn, albeit in vastly different ways.  The people of Wisconsin are picking up placards.  The people of Libya are laying down their lives.  Wisconsin is calling a general strike.  Libya is living through a bloody popular revolution. The difference is one of scale. In both cases the people are making their voices heard and in the end,  they cannot be denied. They will have their way.

Power to the people, in Libya, Wisconsin, and all over the world. We are not separate. We are one and what happens in Wisconsin or Libya has far reaching consequences for all of us who call planet Earth home.

From Protest to Genocide in Libya

Yesterday was the day Muammar Qaddafi crossed the line from repression to genocide.  Yesterday was the day he ordered the Libyan  air force to attack thousands of unarmed protesters and  at least two pilots flew their planes to the island of Malta and asked for asylum instead. 

Yesterday was also the day an amateur video surfaced on YouTube that showed the charred remains  of Libyan soldiers who refused to fire on their fellow citizens. They were burned to a crisp in their barracks for their  scruples.  I saw it first on the Al Jazeera English live feed    It's pretty graphic and profoundly shocking.

 That same feed showed various Libyan ambassadors quitting their posts and  various Libyan expats calling for the ouster of the regime.  Ibrahim Dabbashi,  deputy ambassador to the UN publicly pleaded with Qadddafi to step down and begged the international community to intervene.

There are two possible responses by a despotic regime to a threat to its power.  We saw one in Iran last year and another recently in Tunisia and Egypt.  The sad fact is, that with enough force, a brutal regime like that of Iran, can put down any uprising and it looks like Qaddafi is willing to do whatever it takes to hang on. Qaddafi is not only a dictator, he is a  psychopath-- brutal and wily. We are only now seeing the true face of the regime and the evil that the nation of Libya has been living with for more than forty years.

There is not much time.  Things are unfolding very quickly.  Yesterday the situation moved from protest to genocide.  If the civilized world does not intervene in some meaningful way, who knows what tomorrow will bring.