Or perhaps the military regime, annoyed with US pressure at the end, wants to send a wee little message that they can, if they so desire, play another game, but in fact hasn’t changed much at all.
Yusuf Al Qaradawi of the Muslim Brotherhood just issued a fatwah calling for Qaddafi’s assassination.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110221/wl_mideast_afp/libyapoliticsunrestfatwa_20110221212046
I read someone saying it’s not a fatwa, that he only made a personal statement, not a religious pronouncement. Can someone clarify what that means, is it true?
I thought that the Egyptians were bound by international treaties requiring them to allow passage through the Suez canal to ships of any nationality, military or civilian.
It isn’t like the Pope speaking ex cathedra; a fatwa is basically an informed opinion. It doesn’t sound like he carefully cited sources, hadith, etc, but if he was speaking to Al Jazeera he also wasn’t just saying something off-the-cuff.
(And this is a very big deal - Qaradawi is probably the most influential Muslim televangelist in the Arab world.)
[QUOTE=wmfellows]
Or perhaps the military regime, annoyed with US pressure at the end, wants to send a wee little message that they can, if they so desire, play another game, but in fact hasn’t changed much at all.
[/QUOTE]
That’s a good point and one I hadn’t considered. Yeah…it could be just a way of slapping the US for turning on the previous regime. I’m sure that pissed a lot of folks in the Egyptian military off.
[QUOTE=Shmendrik]
I thought that the Egyptians were bound by international treaties requiring them to allow passage through the Suez canal to ships of any nationality, military or civilian.
[/QUOTE]
AFAIK, no Iranian warship had been allowed to transit the Suez since 1979. Perhaps they just never tried, but the article I was reading seemed to indicate that they wouldn’t have been allowed to, so there must be some latitude in those treaties.
-XT
The cwnal is open to all by treaty. Mubsrak denied irsnisn warship psssage anyway, presumably in support of eestern policy. So now tney are back in compliance. I expect they hsve more important things to worry about anyway.
Well, it would be a big deal if he wasn’t talking about a guy who apparently has a lower popularity rating among his own people than Sauron in Mordor. As it is, calling for Gaddafi’s assassination is like running up to the head of the parade and pretending to lead. The people of Libya don’t need to be told to kill him.
Yeah, the hard part will simply be for them to get their collective hands on him.
ETA: Although, this might encourage someone in his body guard or military around him to take the correct steps to ‘fix’ the problem.
-XT
But if one of his personal bodyguards is thinking of putting one in Gaddafi’s head, but feeling conflicted . . . maybe this fatwah could flip him over.
Hmmm, true.
Better save a bullet for his sons. I think he has 8 of them.
Any Swiss bank accounts to grab? He has funneled the oil money into his pockets like an American banker.
If I were Libyan I’d be saying, let him keep his billions, so long as he goes! (The country’s real wealth is in its oil reserves, and Gaddafi can’t take those with him.)
Partial answer after some googling: Apparently there is no significant al-Qaeda presence in Libya (despite Gaddafi’s lies-or-delusions to the contrary). There is a sort of affiliate called the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which has actually split with al-Q over the latter’s commitment to violent anti-Western jihad (LIFG being interested mainly in jihad against Gaddafi), and in any case nobody seems to have heard much out of the LIFG for a long time, not even in connection with the ongoing rebellion.
Not to hijack the thread, but how did NATO get involved in Kosovo? I realize it was only a decade ago, but I was concerned with other things in high school. Would any arguments used in 1999 work in Libya right now?
I think the argument was that Kosovo constituted an internal European matter that triggered an emergency response, constituting a threat to NATO members (if the conflict spilled out of the region). That’s what brought the US into it IIRC.
Grain of salt though, since I’m just guessing as the the rationale used. I don’t believe that the same rationale could be used with Libya, however.
-XT
A precedent that really can’t be used here – at this point, nobody really knows what crimes against humanity are going on in Libya. It would weaken the meaning of “crimes against humanity” to apply it to something as ordinary as a regime shooting down its open opponents in the streets, armed or unarmed.
?
No, NATO can undertake out of region actions, as in Afghanistan. I know American forget there are British, Dutch, French, German, etc. troops there, but they are, and it is a NATO command.
I believe that the justification for NATO in Afghanistan would be an attack on a member nation, no? I think you are being overly sensitive here wmfellows…no one has forgotten European contributions in Afghanistan.
ETA: Out of curiosity, what would their justification be in attacking Libya? That’s pretty much what this was all about after all.
-XT