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Arkane
Dec 19, 2006

by R. Guyovich
poo poo. Speak of the devil:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9571000/9571591.stm

New audio out of the Rixos. Seems like they are being held as literal hostages. If that's the case and the rebels are unable to take this part of the city, the US or the UK may be forced to act.

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Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

They pretty much need to secure the area around it first, then convince them to give up. Hopefully they can be convinced their kids need alive more than Gaddafi needs them dead.

The Guardian had this report from the Rixos as well:

quote:

AP's Dario Lopez-Mills filed this despatch from the hotel last night:

quote:

Fighting intensified Tuesday and the smell of gunpowder hangs in the thick heat, along with sweat and a little fear. When the shooting is most intense, we take refuge in the hotel's basement conference rooms.

Two satellite telephones set up on a balcony were destroyed by gunfire, so we've stopped transmitting our material. We wait and worry the gunmen could turn hostile at any moment.

There is no power and no running water. On Monday we ate bread and butter. On Tuesday, the cook made french fries. Bottled water is running low.

We don't know when it's going to end, and we see little of what happens. We weren't there when Bab al-Aziziya was captured less than 24 hours after Seif took us there. He hasn't been seen publicly since then.

So I can tell a story about trapped journalists, but the real story about what is happening to Libya is just out there.

Unfortunately, we can't cover it.

Toplowtech
Aug 31, 2004

Arkane posted:

poo poo. Speak of the devil:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9571000/9571591.stm

New audio out of the Rixos. Seems like they are being held as literal hostages. If that's the case and the rebels are unable to take this part of the city, the US or the UK may be forced to act.
I guess we need full list of the hostages and their nationalities.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Toplowtech posted:

I guess we need full list of the hostages and their nationalities.

Here we go

quote:

Confirmed at Rixos Hotel:

Matthew Price, BBC matthewwprice

Matthew Chance CNN mchancecnn

Jomana Karadsheh CNN JomanaCNN

Annie Phrommayon, Bangkok BBC, Tailand anniephr

Dario Lopez Mills, AP Photog Central America DarioLopezMills

Missy Ryan, Reuters missy_ryan

Paul Hackett, Reuters

Mahdi Nazemroaya, independent journalist, Canada, AP

Sze Ho-wai, CCTV

Feng Yunxian, CCTV

Jiang Xiaofeng, Phoenix TV

2 others, Phoenix TV

Thierry Meyssan, French

Tadek Markowski, FoxNews

Rolando Segura, TeleSUR (Venezuela) @rolandoteleSUR

Walter E. Fauntroy, pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and civil rights activist

John Hutton (at the Rixos, no work info) jnyhutton

Possible:

Mahdi Nazemroaya

Julien Teil

Mathieu Ozanon From mathaba.net (pro-Gaddafi)

Jon Williams, BBC

Martin Geissler, ITV News

Toplowtech
Aug 31, 2004

quote:

Thierry Meyssan, French
Now if he ends up saved by the CIA or the MI6 i won't stop laughing for a few days.

CeeJee
Dec 4, 2001
Oven Wrangler

Toplowtech posted:

Now if he ends up saved by the CIA or the MI6 i won't stop laughing for a few days.

I can just see him standing there as helicopters evacuate everyone else, refusing to believe there is a helicopter.

Arkane
Dec 19, 2006

by R. Guyovich

Brown Moses posted:

Here we go

Only a start...New York Times is saying there's 35 of them held hostage. That's 18 + 5 "possibles."

Lizzie Phelan is one, so thats 19. Still 11 unaccounted for, assuming those 5 are there.

ETA: K.A. Paul is speculated as the Indian MP that's there. Brings us to 25 with the possibles.

Arkane fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Aug 24, 2011

Hefty Leftist
Jun 26, 2011

"You know how vodka or whiskey are distilled multiple times to taste good? It's the same with shit. After being digested for the third time shit starts to taste reeeeeeaaaally yummy."


I can't wait to see Lizzie's face when the rebels walk in and save the hostages from Gaddafi. Maybe she'll refuse to believe they exist.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Matthew Chance is tweeting from the Rixos

quote:

All quiet still. We will continue to update.
Over night store smashed open by gunmen. Journalists told to help themselves.
I had a Mars bar for breakfast

Jenan Moussa is also tweeting from Tripoli

quote:

I'm in #tripoli.Saw Graffiti on walls of #tripoli:down Abu Shadshoufa, nickname of #Gaddafi; saw #french photojournalist shot in leg yestdy.
In #tripoli, saw sand barracks everywhere, situation fluid, streets empty except 4 rebels checkpoints & tens of residents leaving.
I'm in #tripoli.Saw Graffiti on walls of #tripoli:down Abu Shafshoufa,nickname of #Gaddafi; saw #french photojournalist shot in leg yestdy.
Rebels in #tripoli tell me jokingly, "when we finish #gaddafi, we'll take our guns and go help #syria(ns). We are ready."

Rosscifer
Aug 3, 2005

Patience
It's a very historically important hat. It dates back at least to 1971.



Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

Arkane posted:

Only a start...New York Times is saying there's 35 of them held hostage. That's 18 + 5 "possibles."

Lizzie Phelan is one, so thats 19. Still 11 unaccounted for, assuming those 5 are there.

ETA: K.A. Paul is speculated as the Indian MP that's there. Brings us to 25 with the possibles.

Thierry Meyssan's explanation would be that some of them are CIA and MI6 agents.

Felix_Cat
Sep 15, 2008
Man, I would not be impressed if I went to all the trouble of staying in Tripoli for the entire conflict, only to end up stuck inside a building unable to report while the most important poo poo is going on right outside.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

More Rixos news

quote:

Paul Danahar BBC Middle East bureau chief is about a kilometre (two-thirds of a mile) away from the Rixos hotel. He says rebels have sealed off the road leading to the hotel, saying a firefight is taking place. Paul can hear periodic exchanges of fire, but he can't tell how close it is to the hotel.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Russia are a bit behind everyone else by the looks of it:

quote:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Muammar Gaddafi and Libya's rebels to stop fighting and sit down for talks.

"We want the Libyans to come to an agreement among themselves," Medvedev said after talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at a Siberian military base.

quote:

"We would like [the fighting] to stop as soon as possible and for them to sit down at the negotiating table and reach an agreement on Libya's future."

Medvedev also suggested Moscow could recognise the rebels as Libya's formal government if they can unite the country.
He said Gaddafi still has some influence and military capabilities despite rebel successes.

Little bit more from Jenan Moussa:

quote:

I saw convoy of rebels driving from #nalut 2 #tripoli 4 reinforcements.Also another convoy arriving today from #Benghazi to #Tripoli.

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Aug 24, 2011

Priapist
Aug 10, 2002

Heeeere's Herbie!

Brown Moses posted:

Here we go

Did I hear correctly the BBC audio report mentioned a U.S. Congressman was in the hotel? Who would it be?

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

Priapist posted:

Did I hear correctly the BBC audio report mentioned a U.S. Congressman was in the hotel? Who would it be?

It's ex-Congressman Walter E. Fauntroy, now pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., civil rights activist, and president of a organization campaigning for peace in the Middle East.

Toplowtech
Aug 31, 2004

Priapist posted:

Did I hear correctly the BBC audio report mentioned a U.S. Congressman was in the hotel? Who would it be?
Walter Fauntroy is a former Congressman.

e:fb

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

quote:

Wyre Davies BBC Middle East correspondent is outside Col Gaddafi's compound and says while the outer walls have been breached, the inner sanctum still a dangerous place with loyalist fighters holding out in the maze of tunnels and bunkers. The men inside, he says, are professional soldiers, probably members of Gaddafi's tribe, highly trained with nothing to lose.
I hope they can at least find some plans for the tunnels, it must be a labyrinth down there.

Rosscifer
Aug 3, 2005

Patience

Brown Moses posted:

I hope they can at least find some plans for the tunnels, it must be a labyrinth down there.

One of the articles I read said they found a set of the West German contractor's blueprints for the whole site.

Ghetto Prince
Sep 11, 2010

got to be mellow, y'all
so whats stopping them from just cutting off the water and electricity? Even if they do have a few thousand squirreled away underground they will run out of batteries , fuel and water really drat quickly.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Probably just finding the right switch to flick, and the right valve to turn. I guess they won't try to gas them as Gaddafi family members could be down there still.

Juan Cole has written a good piece on what should happen next:

quote:

The illegal American invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation was so epochal a catastrophe that it spawned a negative phrase in Arabic, “to Iraqize” or `arqana. Tonight I heard an Alarabiya anchor ask a spokesman for the new government in Libya whether there as a danger of the country being “Iraqized.” He was taken aback and asked her what she meant. Apparently she meant chaos, civil war, no services, etc. (Those Neoconservatives who trumpet their Iraq misadventure as a predecessor to the Arab Spring should take a lesson; no one cites Iraq among the youth movements except as an example of what must be avoided). The Libyan intervention was legal in international law, authorized by the UN Security Council, and so can hope to have a better outcome. So how can Libyans and the world avoid the Iraqization of Libya?

1. No Western infantry or armored units should be stationed in the country. Their presence would risk inflaming the passions of the Muslim fundamentalists and of the remaining part of the population that is soft on Qaddafi. The presence of Western troops in Muslim lands creates terrorism, which then produces calls in the West for more Western troops, which creates more terrorism. It is the dialectic of a horror movie. The hawks who believe people can be bludgeoned into acquiescence have been proven wrong over and over again, in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. If large numbers of Western troops could always prevail, the Algerian Revolution of 1962 could never have succeeded.

The Qaddafi government collapsed in the east of the country in February, and Benghazi, al-Bayda, Dirna and Tobruk have been tolerably stable. There is no reason to believe that the west of the country need be less so once the fighting subsides. Security is not perfect, but let the Libyans supply it. Already in Tripoli, neighborhood watch groups have been formed to supply local security, and aside from the hated Bab al-Aziziya compound, there has been little looting.

2. As much as possible of the current bureaucracy, police and army should be retained. Only those with innocent blood on their hands or who were captured rather than surrendering or switching sides should be fired. The EU is doing the right thing in trying to ensure the bureaucrats get paid their salaries in the aftermath of the fall of Tripoli. The descent of Iraq into looting under Rumsfeld in spring of 2003 marked the beginning of a long gap in security. In Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi fired tens of thousands of capable Sunni Arabs who had been mid-level Baath Party members, thereby depriving the country of the people who knew best how to accomplish things and deliver government services, and driving them into violent opposition instead.

3. Some Libyans are complaining about the prospect of retaining the same police as in the old regime, and want local security committees instead. A compromise would be to establish a strong civilian oversight over police.

4. Avoid being vindictive toward former Qaddafi supporters, and avoid purging all but the top officials from the body politic. Egypt perhaps hasn’t gone quite far enough in removing Mubarak cronies, which provoked the July demonstrations. And it is important to prosecute secret police and others with blood on their hands. But moderation and wisdom should be used, in hopes of knitting the body politic back together. Note that once the Anglican Church in the United States renounced allegiance to the British king, it was given full rights in the new American republic, even though Anglicans in general had opposed the revolution.

5. Avoid a rush to privatize everything. Oil countries anyway inevitably have large public sectors. Impediments to entrepreneurship should be removed, but well-run state enterprises can have their place in a modern economy, as some of the Asian nations have demonstrated. Rajiv Chandrasekaran demonstrated in his Imperial Life in the Emerald City how the US fetish for privatization destroyed state factories that could otherwise have been revived and that could have supplied jobs.

6. Consult with Norway about how it is possible for an oil state to remain a democracy. The petroleum income can make the state more powerful than civil society, and there is (pdf) a statistical correlation between have a state that depends heavily on a single primary commodity and a tendency to despotism (as well as a tendency toward violence, since such commodities can be smuggled and cartels emerge to fight over smuggling rights). These problems of dependence on a high-priced primary commodity can be seen in Iraq, where the prime minister has increasingly become a soft strong man, in part because of government petroleum revenues.

7. Use the Alaska dividend system to share the oil wealth with Libya’s 6.5 million people. This model was often discussed with regard to Iraq but was never implemented.

8. Democratization and economic growth cannot be attained through oil exports alone. Having a pricey primary commodity like petroleum causes a country’s currency to harden. A harder currency means that manufactures, handicrafts, and agricultural produce from that country artificially cost more to countries with softer currencies. This effect is called the “Dutch disease” because the Netherlands developed natural gas in the late 1960s and found it actually hurt some parts of their economy. The cure is to diversify the economy. The most clever way to do so is to use the petroleum receipts to promote other industries and services. Libya has a high literacy rate and could potentially attract investors to put its population to work in other sectors.

9. Recognize Berber as a national language. The TNC has stress that the new Libya will be pluralist and multicultural, and the new constitution does not assert that Libya is an Arab state, as the intrepid Brian Whitaker has pointed out. There is no reason for which the important Berber minority should not be given its due. It is obviously important for national unity there be a strong Arabic component in the schools.

10. Once it gets on its feet socially and economically, Libya should go forward with bruited plans to get into solar and wind energy big time. Petroleum will always have value in petrochemicals, but burning it is bad for the earth because extra carbon in the atmosphere causes global warming, which will hit Libya especially hard. It is a delicious irony that the petroleum revenues could make it possible to ease the transition to solar power. Libya’s big desert is ideal for photovoltaic panels. Transitioning away from petroleum exports as the major industry would help economic diversification and increase the likelihood of a retention of democracy, as well as likely contributing to social peace. Not to mention that you don’t want it hotter in Libya in the summer than it already is.

Namarrgon
Dec 23, 2008

Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!

Ghetto Prince posted:

so whats stopping them from just cutting off the water and electricity? Even if they do have a few thousand squirreled away underground they will run out of batteries , fuel and water really drat quickly.

I don't think you fully grasp a hostage situation.

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

Brown Moses posted:

5. Avoid a rush to privatize everything. Oil countries anyway inevitably have large public sectors. Impediments to entrepreneurship should be removed, but well-run state enterprises can have their place in a modern economy, as some of the Asian nations have demonstrated. Rajiv Chandrasekaran demonstrated in his Imperial Life in the Emerald City how the US fetish for privatization destroyed state factories that could otherwise have been revived and that could have supplied jobs.

This is probably good advice, but the new Libyan government will also have to deal with the fairly extreme culture of corruption in Libya's state institutions. That doesn't mean privatization, but I'm not sure the new government can simply take over the old institutions and just keep on truckin'. The same may be true of some of the police and military institutions as well.

canada jezus
Jul 18, 2011

Guy on my facebook has been posting notes and videos about how nato invaded because of the gold dinar khadaffi wanted to introduce. He's also convinced nato is killing civilians intentionally.

Last week he was on about how the rebels would be locked into a stalemate for years and years. He's kinda gone off the deep end since they got to tripoli.

Vir
Dec 14, 2007

Does it tickle when your Body Thetans flap their wings, eh Beatrice?
The legality of an invasion or military action isn't really a good indicator for how well "nation building" efforts will go afterwards. I mean, the justification for going into Afghanistan was much more solid than the legal foundation for the invasion of Iraq, but Iraq is improving while Afghanistan seems to be deteriorating.
The main point though is that Iraq is not Libya is not Afghanistan. They have vastly different histories and cultures, and thinking that lessons from Iraq can be implemented 1:1 in Libya is like thinking that the policies which worked in Japan after WWII would work just as well in Vietnam or Iraq.

On privatization, state ownership far from any guarantee that it'll be better managed. State oil companies can also be heavily involved in corruption and unethical behavior. Even Norway's Statoil (mostly state owned) has been involved in corruption in Iran, enviornmental breaches in the oil shale project in Canada, operation in occupied Western Sahara etc.

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010
The BBC just posted the transcript of an interview with its correspondent Matthew Price from within the Rixos Hotel:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14644953

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

Vir posted:

On privatization, state ownership far from any guarantee that it'll be better managed. State oil companies can also be heavily involved in corruption and unethical behavior. Even Norway's Statoil (mostly state owned) has been involved in corruption in Iran, enviornmental breaches in the oil shale project in Canada, operation in occupied Western Sahara etc.

True, but once you start going down the road of "examples of unethical activity" private oil companies don't exactly have a great record either, and can corrupt a government as well (see Shell Oil in Nigeria for an example).

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Matthew Chance of CNN has just tweeted there's now fighting outside the hotel, and the journalists are "hunkered down". Paul Danaharo of the BBC, who is outside the hotel is reporting that the rebels are trying to flank and surround the hotel, and there's lots of heavy fighting.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

quote:

The Guardian's Luke Harding has been rifling through the papers of Libya's departed prime minister. In his latest audio dispatch from Tripoli Luke says:

quote:

I'm standing in the courtyard of the office of Libya's prime minister, or ex-prime minister as we have to call him, Dr Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, who has scarpered off to Tunisia. I have just been sifting through the prime minister's correspondence. There was an attache case there with various petitions. There was a report about investment in Libya written by Ernst and Young. "Quality in everything we do" was the slogan of the accountancy firm. I found a wedding invitation. I don't know whether he got to the wedding or not. There is all the diplomatic legacy of a defunct regime which no longer exists.

Luke also gave a harrowing account of a visit to a hospital where dead and wounded have been taken.

quote:

The other place I went to this morning was Tripoli's Italian-built central hospital where they have treating the dead and the wounded and it is a pretty ghastly scene. On the left as you come in there is a room full of dead fighters, who have been shot - terrible smell. The doctors weren't sure how many they brought in yesterday but it is dozens ... The hospital is lacking all sorts of medical supplies.

On the security situation Luke had a briefing from the man at a rebel command post.

quote:

He said although the fighting isn't on the scale of yesterday there are still groups of Gaddafi loyalists who are holed up ... close to Gaddafi's compound and they are sniping and returning fire. He said today's task was to flush them out. Tripoli feels pretty empty. You hear the odd mortar and artillery fire, but nothing on the scale of yesterday where it was kind of bonkers ...

The big question which nobody has been able to answer is: where is Gaddafi? Is he hiding underground somewhere in Tripoli? Has he also run off like his prime minister? It is the big mystery and nobody seems to know.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

More from Paul Danahar:

quote:

Have driven right thru #Tripoli & only found very small pockets of #Gaddafi forces. Rebel checkpoints every 500m.
Rocket or RPG fired from inside compound landed few hundred mtrs from where I am. Some locals now pulling back.
More reinforcements of rebel fighters arriving at #Gaddafi compound to finish the fight

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Aug 24, 2011

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010
Footage allegedly of the capture of the Libyan state TV presenter has been released:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bCSr_Pflcg

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010
Also, Jon Leyne, BBC News, makes a good point:

quote:

One gets the impression that there's possibly a high value target in the Rixos hotel. It's hard to understand otherwise why the Gaddafi people are defending it so strongly, unless they're just leaderless and carrying on with the orders they were given as no-one has countermanded it.

Maybe Saif, or possibly even Muammar?

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

That could be right, it just seems odd they'd defend it so heavily when they could have tried to escape.

farraday
Jan 10, 2007

Lower those eyebrows, young man. And the other one.

Brown Moses posted:

That could be right, it just seems odd they'd defend it so heavily when they could have tried to escape.

If they were true believers it's possible, but presumably true believers would also be the ones who were defending any high value targets, so the effect is the same.

Rip Testes
Jan 29, 2004

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
I wonder if that RT 'journalist' at the Rixos is actively undermining the efforts of the other journalists there trying to convince the gunmen it's over and to just take off.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

The transcipt of the audio report from Matthew Price has been written up, which points to something interesting

quote:

Well, some of them have been saying that they are going to defend their country and their city. There's one man who, some here who speak Arabic have been getting along with rather well... who was talking about his three-year-old son back home and the journalists who spoke Arabic were saying to him: "You should put down your weapon and just go home, don't be a part of this. It's all over."

And he's saying: "No, no, no; we should fight for our country, we need to fight for our leader." So, you know, call it fanaticism... I suppose the point is there has been four decades of authoritarian rule here in which a large section of the population has believed everything they have been told by the leadership.


You'll remember yesterday I was on the programme having just spoken to Saif al-Islam, Gaddafi's second son - who was smiling broadly... brimming with confidence, full of passion, saying that we are winning the fight for Tripoli.

It's clear that they weren't winning the fight for Tripoli and they haven't won the fight for Tripoli. They have lost it in an almighty fashion over four days of fighting.
"Fight for our leader" can be taken more than one way in a situation like that.

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 12:04 on Aug 24, 2011

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

Brown Moses posted:

That could be right, it just seems odd they'd defend it so heavily when they could have tried to escape.

Well, we know Saif was in the area at least very recently. If he was there because he's trapped and unable to find a way out, I suppose he may have holed up at the Rixos, possibly hoping to either find a way out or strike a deal using the hostages as leverage and protection from attack. But that's just speculation.

Brown Moses
Feb 22, 2002

Rob Crilly has just driven towards Sirte from Benghazi, and confirmed the fighting is at Bin Jawad, about halfway to Sirte.

quote:

France and other partners are working on a new UN resolution on Libya to unlock sanctions and unfreeze assets, a French diplomat told the Reuters news agency.

Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Aug 24, 2011

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010
The new doormat at the Libyan embassy in London:

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farraday
Jan 10, 2007

Lower those eyebrows, young man. And the other one.

Brown Moses posted:

Rob Crilly has just driven towards Sirte from Benghazi, and confirmed the fighting is at Bin Jawad, about halfway to Sirte.

BM, reading through the Guardian thread, if you need a reference for CIA, I know a guy. I hear they're looking for someone to replace an asset who recently wandered off to Libya to fight.

From Hague's comments.

Hague: Monitoring situation at Rixos hotel very carefully #Libya #Tripoli

Definite chance for it to end with a spec ops raid.

farraday fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Aug 24, 2011

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