Too much going on!

Perhaps this is just my problem, but I feel that too much is happening in too many places to keep track of it all. And almost all of it is unexpected. When Barack Obama was elected in 2008 did anyone expect him to approve American airstrikes on another Muslim country? And that those airstrikes would begin on the eighth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War in 2003? And that there would be a loud, resounding silence from the American left?

As Michael Totten wrote today - No one could have predicted any of this in January.

We should all resist trying to predict what will happen next in the Middle East because so much of what happens makes no sense at all in advance of it actually happening.

Who would have thought two months ago that France would lead a Western military coalition, that the United Nations would pass a Chapter VII resolution authorizing the use of force against a country that was elected to its own Human Rights Commission, that Barack Obama would fire missiles at an Arab country when less than thirty percent of Americans approve, and that Qaddafi loyalists would burn Lebanese rather than American or Israeli flags in the capital?

And it's not as if the US is being consistent. Where has been our voice for the democratization of Bahrain? In Bahrain, a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the beginning of the protests in Bahrain we urged the king to stop attacking the protesters - but now, of course, he's called in troops from Saudi Arabia to support him in ruthlessly putting down the protests. I understand that the situation and location of Bahrain are different than Libya - but the principle is the same, of supporting democracy and human rights for the people of all the Arab countries. If we did not depend on oil from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries, we could stand much more forthrightly for democracy.

Update - is the Arab League really supporting the attack on Libya?

The head of the Arab League has criticized international strikes on Libya, saying they caused civilian deaths.

The Arab League's support for a no-fly zone last week helped overcome reluctance in the West for action in Libya. The U.N. authorized not only a no-fly zone but also "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.

Amr Moussa says the military operations have gone beyond what the Arab League backed. Moussa has told reporters Sunday that "what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives." He says "what we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."

But have civilians been shelled? What did Amr Moussa think would be the result of the resolution approved on Thursday? He was at the meeting in Paris yesterday where the attacks were discussed. It seems to me that he's trying to play both sides, perhaps because he's running for the presidency of Egypt. See today's report from the New York Times: "In a field of flowers, the wreckage of war in Libya." The article is about the wreckage from air attacks on Libyan loyalist troops attacking Benghazi.

Littered across the landscape, some 30 miles south of Benghazi, the detritus of the allied airstrikes on Saturday and Sunday morning offered a panorama of destruction: tanks, charred and battered, their turrets blasted clean off, one with a body still caught in its remnants; a small Toyota truck with its roof torn away; a tank transporter still on fire. But it did not end there.

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. One thing, though, seemed evident: the units closest to Benghazi seemed to have been hit with their cannons and machine guns still pointing towards the rebel capital.

Fears and Hopes

I woke up this morning (actually, noon....) and turned on the computer and saw that there had been an explosion at one of the Japanese nuclear power plants that has been badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Very scary. I hope all the officials who are trying to calm the Japanese people that there won't be a nuclear meltdown are telling the truth.

When I turned on CNN to get their typical minute-by-minute coverage, one of their more witless anchors was on, telling me no more than the online NYT coverage. So much for cable news.

In Middle East news, the Arab League to officially request UN impose no-fly zone on Libya. One wonders - will the UN do anything? And if the UN Security Council does approve it - who will enforce it? The Obama administration doesn't appear very keen on getting involved in yet another war with a Muslim country. And as Secretary of Defense Gates has said, enforcing a no-fly zone does require acts of war - like destroying the Libyan air defense system.

Egyptian state television said the Arab League had decided to open channels of communication with a Libyan rebel council based in Benghazi. The League said the council represented the Libyan people, the channel reported.

The Arab League decided on Saturday that the "serious crimes and great violations" the Libyan government had committed against its people had stripped it of legitimacy, Secretary General Amr Moussa said. Earlier Saturday, Moussa called for a no-fly zone over Libya in an interview with a German magazine, ahead of the group meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the proposal. "I am speaking of a humanitarian action," he said in comments to Der Spiegel released on Saturday. "It is about assisting the Libyan people with a no-fly zone in their struggle for freedom against an increasingly inhuman regime." "The Arab League can also play a role," said Moussa, who is stepping down as secretary-general after a decade, intending to contest the Egyptian presidency later this year.

European states hope the Arab League will lead the way in shaping policy, particularly over a no-fly zone, towards the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

In his opening remarks to an Arab League meeting Saturday, the foreign minister of Oman said, "What is needed now is Arab intervention using mechanisms of the Arab League and at the same time in accordance with international law." "Based on this we must look at various options that [the] circumstances in Libya need," he said.

Oman Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah also said that the Libyan crisis poses a threat to the stability of Arab states, and that Arab inaction on the Libyan crisis could lead to "unwanted foreign intervention" and fighting among Libyans.

And then there's the terrible terrorist attack against a family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar on the norther West Bank: Horror in Samaria: Terrorist murders family of 5

A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death. The shocking attack occurred around 1 am as the terrorist entered the family home and murdered three children aged 11, 3, and a baby girl along with their parents. The victims were apparently sleeping as the killer came in.

Three other children at the home, a 12-year-old girl and her two brothers, aged 6 and 2, were able to escape to a nearby house and inform their neighbors of the attack.

A later article says that apparently two terrorists carried out the attack, and "Authorities also estimate that the attack was carried out by a local cell not directly affiliated with Hamas or any other organization, and that the murder was motivated by growing friction with settlers, growing incitement against the settlements on the Palestinian street, and a desire to avenge 'price tag' acts."

One of the Haaretz articles on the attack also says the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade took responsibility for the attack. The English article didn't have any details, but below is my translation of the relevant Hebrew article.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, by the name of Imad Mughniyah, from the military arm of the Fatah movement, took responsibility for the terrorist attack. An announcement by the organization said that "The attack was a heroic action and a natural response to the murderous actions of the Israeli occupation against our people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip." Despite this, the reliability of the announcement was not yet clear, because in the past the organization has rushed to take responsibility for actions that they had no connection to. Hamas expressed support for the terrorist attack, but denied that its men were involved in carrying it out.

Leftist rulers who support Qaddafi?!

Update: Another supporter of Qaddafi (3/2/11 at 10:35 pm): Louis Farrakhan has just come out in support of Qaddafi, according to a press release from the ADL.

Included among his conspiratorial messages was the allegation that "Zionists" are goading the United States into "a military offensive against Libya," whose leader, Muammar Qaddafi, he praised as "my brother" and "my friend."

"President Obama, if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Qaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, I'm warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves."

Further update on Chavez (3/1/11 at 7:02 pm): An Al Jazeera blog by Imran Garda has Chavez's latest comments on Libya:

As my colleague Gabriel Elizondo recently pointed out, tiny Nicaragua has rushed to show solidarity with the man who has given it over $300 million and who still claims, “they love me, all my people are with me” despite losing almost every town and city in his country barring the capital, to the protesters. Protesters - he claims - who are being drugged by “Osama bin Laden” who has put “things in their Nescafe.” Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega said Gaddafi is "waging a great battle" for his country.

Prior to February 28 there was still room for doubt as to the extent of Hugo Chavez’s support for Gaddafi. He had refused to openly weigh in on the issue, and the only evidence for his support had been a tweet of his saying “…viva Libya and its independence! Kadafi is facing a civil war!!”

Even that was open to interpretation. However, his latest take on the crisis has been unequivocal, "A campaign of lies is being spun together regarding Libya...I'm not going to condemn him. I'd be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend."....

But the man who models himself on Latin America’s liberator Simon Bolivar, and projects himself as an heir to his legacy (and sometimes to Fidel Castro’s) - is finding himself in a changing world.

He may see himself as a leader of the global “Left” - but what left is he claiming to lead?

The enemy-of-my-enemy “Left”, of hollow, mud-slinging slogans, in support of anything or anyone who claims to oppose imperialism in all its forms in this Yankee-dominated world, no matter how monstrous his policies?

Or a principled “Left” based on respecting the values entrenched in the universal declaration of human rights, democracy and most importantly, the “Left” which places its support squarely on the part of the people tormented, rather than their tormentor.

Chavez’s open support for Gaddafi (who he presented with a replica of one of Bolivar’s swords in 2009) despite his outrageous disregard for his own people, disturbing intent to “open the arms depots” and let his country “burn,” rather than listen to the demands of Libyans, at this crucial point in the history of the region - sounds vacuous and adolescent.

In fact, it’s starting to sound like he’s been drinking some of that hallucinogenic Nescafe that Gaddafi was talking about...

Update (2/26/11 at 4:00 pm): Although I would hardly call him a leftist, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who received Qaddafi's farcical human rights award in 2010) thinks it's all about Libya's oil, and that the UN should not impose sanctions.

"You cannot secure world peace by resorting to sanctions in each and every incident. We call on the international community to approach Libya not with concerns about oil but with conscience, justice and universal human values," Erdogan said. In an apparent reference to Western interests in oil-rich Libya, he said the region's people "are fed up with being used as pawns in oil wars".

Update (2/24/11 at 11:04 pm): Chavez has now come out in support of Qaddafi. The report is from Al Jazeera's live blog on Libya:

5:01am: Venezuela's top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro's accusation that Washington is fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation's oil reserves.

Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said:

They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya.

4:27am: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has backed Muammar Gaddafi on Twitter.  Chavez twitted:

Gaddafi is facing a civil war.
Long live Libya. Long live the independence of Libya

Original Post, 2/22/11 So, who is supporting Qaddafi these days?

The protests sweeping across Libya have created challenges for the Latin American allies of Moammar Gadhafi. Leftist governments in the Americas have long embraced him as a fellow fighter against U.S. influence in the world. Gadhafi has responded over the years by awarding the Moammar Gadhafi International Human Rights Prize [sic!] to Castro and Ortega, as well as to Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, [and] Evo Morales of Bolivia.

1. Nicaragua president Daniel Ortega called Gaddafi to express support.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega says he has telephoned Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to express his solidarity. Ortega says he has called several times this week because Gadhafi "is again waging a great battle" to defend the unity of his nation.

To my embarrassment now, in the 1980s I was one of the defenders of Ortega and the Sandinistas when they ruled Nicaragua.

2. Fidel Castro, who says that "unrest in Libya may be a pretext for a NATO invasion."

European governments and U.S. leaders have denounced the crackdown, but Castro used a column published Tuesday by Cuban state news media to say it was too early to criticize Gadhafi. "You can agree or not with Gadhafi," Castro said. "The world has been invaded by all sorts of news ... We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

But he did urge protests of something he says is planned: A U.S.-led invasion of the North African nation aimed at controlling its oil. "The government of the United States is not concerned at all about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a question of hours or very short days," Castro wrote. "An honest person will always be against any injustice committed against any people in the world," Castro said. "And the worst of those at this instant would be to keep silent before the crime that NATO is preparing to commit against the Libyan people."

3. And what about Hugo Chavez?

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticizing the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over "the regrettable loss of many lives" and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution....

While Chavez has not commented publicly on the unrest in Libya, Venezuela's foreign minister issued a statement Monday saying he had phoned his Libyan counterpart to express hopes that Libya can find "a peaceful solution to its difficulties ... without the intervention of imperialism, whose interests in the region have been affected in recent times."....

Others [Venezuelan opponents of Chavez] said Chavez's silence suggests he might be trying to distance himself from his North African friend. The two leaders have had such warm ties that on Monday, rumors swept the world that Gadhafi was fleeing to Venezuela. Gadhafi took to television to deny them.

"Our garrulous president is keeping a thunderous silence," the director of the newspaper Tal Cual, Teodoro Petkoff, wrote in an editorial. "Now that the democratic rebellion has reached Libya, Chavez is looking the other way and even abandoning his disgraced 'brother.'"

Will Libyan rebels ask for foreign intervention?

Libyan Rebels Debate Asking for U.N. Airstrikes to Dislodge Qaddafi

This is remarkable:

BENGHAZI, Libya — In a sign of mounting frustration among rebel leaders over Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s diminished but unyielding grip on power, the revolutionary council here is debating whether to ask for Western airstrikes under the United Nations banner, according to four people with knowledge of the deliberations.
By invoking the United Nations, the council, made up of lawyers, academics, judges and other prominent figures, is seeking to draw a distinction between such airstrikes and foreign intervention, which the rebels said they emphatically opposed.
“He destroyed the army; we have two or three planes,” the council’s spokesman, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, said. He refused to say if there would be any imminent announcement about such strikes, but he wanted to make it clear: “If it is with the United Nations, it is not a foreign intervention.”

Can the world stop the massacres in Libya?

Interesting article by Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy about the reasons to want, and to fear, Intervening in the Libyan tragedy.

The appropriate comparison is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act. It is time for the United States, NATO, the United Nations and the Arab League to act forcefully to try to prevent the already bloody situation from degenerating into something much worse.
By acting, I mean a response sufficiently forceful and direct to deter or prevent the Libyan regime from using its military resources to butcher its opponents. I have already seen reports that NATO has sternly warned Libya against further violence against its people. Making that credible could mean the declaration and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, presumably by NATO, to prevent the use of military aircraft against the protesters. It could also mean a clear declaration that members of the regime and military will be held individually responsible for any future deaths. The U.S. should call for an urgent, immediate Security Council meeting and push for a strong resolution condemning Libya's use of violence and authorizing targeted sanctions against the regime. Such steps could stand a chance of reversing the course of a rapidly deteriorating situation. An effective international response could not only save many Libyan lives, it might also send a powerful warning to other Arab leaders who might contemplate following suit against their own protest movements.

Update
Andrew Sullivan has an interesting roundup of ideas on this question.

More news on Libya

Apparently protests have also broken out in Tripoli, Libya (capital of the country). Libya protests (From BBC News).

Al Jazeera also reports that protests have spread to Tripoli, and that some tribal leaders have begun to support the protesters.

Security forces have shot dead scores of protesters in Libya's second largest city, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause.

While Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attempted to put down protests centred in the eastern city of Benghazi against his four-decade rule, Al Jazeera began receiving eyewitness reports of "disturbances" in the capital Tripoli early on Monday as well. There were reports of clashes between anti-government protesters and Gaddafi supporters around the Green Square.

"We are in Tripoli, there are chants [directed at Gaddafi]: 'Where are you? Where are you? Come out if you're a man," a protester told Al Jazeera on the phone.

A resident told the Reuters news agency that he could hear gunshots in the streets and crowds of people. "We're inside the house and the lights are out. There are gunshots in the street," the resident said by phone. "That's what I hear, gunshots and people. I can't go outside."

An expatriate worker living in the Libyan capital told Reuters: "Some anti-government demonstrators are gathering in the residential complexes. The police are dispersing them. I can also see burning cars."

There were also reports of protesters heading to Gaddafi's compound in the city of Al-Zawia near Tripoli, with the intention of burning the building down.

Meanwhile the head of the Al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya has threatened to cut off oil exports unless authorities stop what he called the "oppression of protesters" [and], the Warfala tribe, one of Libya's biggest, has reportedly joined the anti-Gaddafi protests.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Shaikh Faraj al Zuway said: "We will stop oil exports to Western countries within 24 hours" if the violence did not stop. The tribe lives south of Benghazi, which has seen the worst of the deadly violence in recent days. Akram Al-Warfalli, a leading figure in the Al Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, told the network: "We tell the brother (Gaddafi), well he's no longer a brother, we tell him to leave the country." The tribe lives south of Tripoli.

Protests have also reportedly broken out in other cities, including Bayda, Derna, Tobruk and Misrata - and anti-Gaddafi graffiti adorns the walls of several cities.

Anti-government protesters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi have reportedly seized army vehicles and weapons amid worsening turmoil in the African nation. A local witness said that a section of the troops had joined the protesters on Sunday as chaos swept the streets of the city, worst hit by the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year old rule.

Mohamed, a doctor from Al Jalaa hospital in Benghazi, confirmed to Al Jazeera that members of the military had sided with the protesters. "We are still receiving serious injuries, I can confirm 13 deaths in our hospital. However, the good news is that people are cheering and celebrating outside after receiving news that the army is siding with the people," he said. "But there is still a brigade that is against the demonstrators. For the past three days demonstrators have been shot at by this brigade, called Al-Sibyl brigade."

The witness reports came on a day in which local residents told Al Jazeera that at least 200 people had died in days of unrest in Benghazi alone. The New York-based Human Rights Watch on Sunday put the countrywide death toll at 173. The rights group said its figure was "conservative".

'Massacre'

News of the rising death toll came as residents of Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, reported renewed gunfire from security forces in the city. Sadiq al Ghiryani, a Libyan religious leader, told Al Jazeera a "massacre" was under way in the city and troops firing shots were mostly mercenaries. Kamal Hudethifi, a judge, described the killings as "ethnic cleansing".

The Reuters news agency said at least 50 people had been killed in Benghazi since Sunday afternoon. Moftah, a Benghazi resident , who requested Al Jazeera use only his first name, said the city had become a "war zone" in recent days. Residents have barricaded the streets with overturned trash cans and debris, and security forces have largely confined themselves to two compounds, though snipers continue to target protesters, he said. The forces who remain are "thugs" loyal to Gaddafi, Moftah said, and they are firing high-calibre ammunition at protesters.

The eyewitness report came a day after security forces opened fire at a funeral in the eastern coastal city on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring scores more.

A group of six alleged mercenaries - reportedly brought in from Tunisia and other African nations to bolster pro-Gaddafi forces - were captured and arrested by demonstrators in the city of Shahat.

For an eyewitness report on Libya of a few years ago, Michael Totten has posted his account of visiting Libya on his blog - In the Land of the Brother Leader.

Revolt continues in Libya - more massacres

More horrible news from Libya: Libya defiant as hundreds of protesters feared dead. Qaddafi and his evil family are determined not to give in.

Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, writes on the Guardian's Comment is Free site: "Assuming that the Libyan protesters have the stamina and determination of those in Tunisia and Egypt , even in the face of gunfire, the resolution of the conflict seems to depend on two factors: will the disturbances spread to the different urban environment of Tripoli? And will the army – composed of Libyans, not foreign mercenaries, and therefore open to tribal influences which are largely unknown – continue to be willing to fire on unarmed civilians?"

Report in the New York Times on the battle for Benghazi:

Several residents of Benghazi described an ongoing battle for control of the city, Libya’s second-largest, with a population of more than half a million. By Sunday, thousands of protesters had occupied a central square in front of the courthouse, which some call their Tahrir Square after the epicenter of the Egyptian revolt, and they were chanting the same slogans that echoed through the streets of Tunis and Cairo, “The people want to bring down the regime.”

By evening, two witnesses said, the protesters had stormed the security headquarters, and, these witnesses said, a few members of the security forces had defected to join the protesters. “These young men are taking bullets in their chests to confront the tyrant,” Mr. Hadi said, speaking by phone from the siege of the security building.

But more than a thousand other members of the security forces had hardly surrendered. They were concentrated a few miles away from the courthouse in a barracks in the neighborhood of Berqa. Witnesses said young protesters were attempting suicidal attacks on the barracks with thrown rocks, stun grenades usually used for fishing, or occasionally vehicles stolen from the security forces. But the security forces responded by shooting from the cover of the fortified building, while others shot from vehicles as they cruised the side streets....

Benghazi, the traditional hub of the country’s eastern province, has long been a center of opposition to the Qaddafi government centered in Tripoli. In 1996, it was the site of a massacre at the Abu Slim prison, when security forces shot more than 1,000 prisoners. Those killings have since become a major rallying point for Qaddafi critics there.

Protests in Libya - horrendous massacre

Libya protests: 140 'massacred' as Gaddafi sends in snipers to crush dissent

The five-day uprising in eastern Libya has been the greatest challenge to the 42-year rule of Col Gaddafi, the world's longest-serving ruler. With internet and phone lines to the outside world disrupted, it was unclear whether the revolt inspired by the revolutions in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt was spreading from the impoverished east of Libya to the capital Tripoli, or whether it was being successfully extinguished.

Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian writer and activist, has been sending many tweets (@monaeltahawy) about the situation in all the Arab countries where there are protests.

Nicholas Kristoff is in Bahrain and has been reporting and tweeting from there (@NickKristoff).