Links to sites with updates:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/africa/libya-live-blog-march-30">AJE Live Blog March 30 (today)
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/twitter-dashboard">AJE Twitter Dashboard
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12776418">BBC Live Blog
http://live.reuters.com/Event/Middle_East_Protests">Reuters Live Blog
http://feb17.info/">feb17.info
http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb?utm_source=lsplayer&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=footerlinks">Libya Alhurra (live video webcast from Benghazi)
http://www.libyafeb17.com/">libyafeb17.com
Twitter links:
http://twitter.com/#!/aymanm">Ayman Mohyeldin, with AJE
http://twitter.com/#!/bencnn">Ben Wedeman, with CNN
http://twitter.com/#!/tripolitanian">tripolitanian, a Libyan from Tripoli
http://twitter.com/#!/BaghdadBrian">Brian Conley, reporter in Libya
http://twitter.com/#!/freelibyanyouth">FreeLibyanYouth, Libyan advocate
http://twitter.com/#!/LibyaFeb17_com">LibyaFeb17.com twitter account
http://twitter.com/#!/ChangeInLibya">ChangeInLibya, Libyan advocate
Useful links:
http://audioboo.fm/feb17voices">feb17voices
http://www.google.com/search?q=time+in+libya">Current time in Libya
http://www.islamicfinder.org/cityPrayerNew.php?country=libya">Prayer times in Libya
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x768720">Day 41 part 1 here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixwx_B38678">Marching On in Libya, for the revolutionaries!Revolutionaries flee from ambush at Sirte
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/29/vision-democratic-libya-interim-national-council">Libyan Karzai? Chalabi? Forget it
Fortunately,
the Council wasn't made-in-the-USA or manufactured by another foreign power. Rather it
came into existence, a month ago, at Libyans' own initiative, soon after the winds of revolutionary change blew Libya's way, and after its people
rose to the occasion with pride and courage.Most of the 31 council members are unknown to the media. And the few with a mandate to attain Western and international recognition have used all contacts from their previous official roles or grabbed onto Western overtures through whatever channels possible, even unsavoury French connections, to get it.
Sources close to the council claim Western powers have opened channels of communications not in return for future Libyan concessions but rather out of concern that they would be left out of post-Gaddafi Libya and its economic opportunities.And unlike some of the Libyan diplomats who jumped ship all too recently, and who shifted their position from loyalty to Gaddafi to passionate proponents of Western ground military intervention,
the Transitional Council has insisted on a limited UN authorized intervention. I wish I could post the full article. It's a must read. LIBYA HURRA!
Video of the convoy sent to take Benghazi, taken from a dead soliders cell phone (shows how massive the operation was):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwWwOeZqz6MSky News went with Gaddafi minders to find a "civilian town bombed" only they were never shown any such thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O5KJavfiQoTNC presser talking about various details of the revolution (thanks to Waiting for Everyone):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=730234&mesg_id=731532Topic on the women of the revolution, dispels myths that they are treated poorly:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x594751Videos to bring the Libyan Revolution into context:
The Battle of Benghazi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0vChMDuNd0BBC Panorama on Libya Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaPnMnpCAABBC Panorama on Libya Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMzwQvcx62sTea of Freedom Song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD5tu5bJWKcLatest indiscriminate shelling in Misurata:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wop3C4zrPXIhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x677397">Text of the resolution.
How will a no fly zone work? AJE reports:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWEwehTtK2kCanada: http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110317/cf-libya-canada/20110317/?hub=WinnipegHome">Canada to send six CF-18s for Libya 'no-fly' mission
Norway: http://af.reuters.com/article/libyaNews/idAFOSN00509220110318">Norway to join military intervention in Libya
Belgium: http://www.lesoir.be/actualite/monde/2011-03-18/la-belgique-prete-a-une-operation-militaire-en-libye-828970.php">Belgium ready for a military operation in Libya
Qatar and the UAE: http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/776/?SID=e80884adc09a37d26904578a9b5978cb">Run-up for Western world’s next military commitment ... with unusual support
Denmark: http://www.cphpost.dk/news/international/89-international/51229-denmark-ready-for-action-against-gaddafi.html">Denmark ready for action against Gaddafi
France: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/africa/19libya.html?src=twrhp">Following U.N. Vote, France Vows Libya Action ‘Soon’
Italy: http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFLDE72G2HE20110317">Italy to make bases available for Libya no-fly zone-source
United Kingdom: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12770467">Libya: UK forces prepare after UN no-fly zone vote
United States: http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/nations-draw-up-plans-for-no-fly-zone-over-libya-1.2765122">Nations draw up plans for no-fly zone over Libya
Jordan: http://www.smh.com.au/world/military-strikes-on-libya-within-hours-20110318-1bzii.html?from=smh_sb">Military strikes on Libya 'within hours'
Spain: http://english.cri.cn/6966/2011/03/19/2801s627320.htm">Spain Expected to Join NATO No-fly Zone Enforcement over Libya
"One month ago (Western countries) were sooo nice, so nice like pussycats," Saif says in a contemptuous sing-song tone.
"Now they want to be really aggressive like tigers. (But) soon they will come back, and cut oil deals, contracts. We know this game." -
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058389,00.html">Saif Gaddafi
(Yeah, Saif, as if you weren't "cutting oil deals, contracts" with western states. Who are the 'tigers' now? Bombing your own people.)
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2011/04/04/110404taco_talk_anderson#ixzz1HvS7iW22">Who Are the Rebels?
Three of the world’s great armies have suddenly conspired to support a group of people in the coastal cities and towns of Libya, known, vaguely, as “the rebels.” Last month, Muammar Qaddafi, who combines a phantasmagorical sense of reality with an unbounded capacity for terror, appeared on television to say that the rebels were
nothing more than Al Qaeda extremists, addled by hallucinogens slipped into their milk and Nescafé. President Obama, who is torn between the imperatives of rescuing Libyan innocents from slaughter and not falling into yet another prolonged war, described the same rebels rather differently: “people who are seeking a better way of life.”
During weeks of reporting in Benghazi and along the chaotic, shifting front line, I’ve spent a great deal of time with these volunteers.
The hard core of the fighters has been the shabab—the young people whose protests in mid-February sparked the uprising. They range from street toughs to university students (many in computer science, engineering, or medicine), and have been joined by unemployed hipsters and middle-aged mechanics, merchants, and storekeepers. There is a contingent of workers for foreign companies: oil and maritime engineers, construction supervisors, translators. There are former soldiers, their gunstocks painted red, green, and black—the suddenly ubiquitous colors of the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag.
And there are a few bearded religious men, more disciplined than the others, who appear intent on fighting at the dangerous tip of the advancing lines. It seems unlikely, however, that they represent Al Qaeda. I saw prayers being held on the front line at Ras Lanuf, but most of the fighters did not attend. One zealous-looking fighter at Brega acknowledged that he was a jihadi—a veteran of the Iraq war—but said that he welcomed U.S. involvement in Libya, because Qaddafi was a kafir, an unbeliever.
Outside Ajdabiya, a man named Ibrahim, one of many émigrés who have returned, said,
“Libyans have always been Muslims—good Muslims.” People here regard themselves as decent and observant; a bit old-fashioned and parochial, but not Islamist radicals. Ibrahim is fifty-seven. He lives in Chicago, and
turned over his auto-body shop and car wash to a friend so that he could come and fight. He had made his life in the United States, he said, but it was his
duty as a Libyan to help get rid of Qaddafi––“the monster.”
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/25/world/middleeast/map-of-how-the-protests-unfolded-in-libya.html">Click here for updated map
Military Installations
Oil Map
http://bit.ly/fe3P">Google Earth DL here to see positions of army and patrolling route of mercenaries
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=212059469427545728757.00049c4df2474b6543347&ll=31.203405,30.058594&spn=96.173452,183.867188&z=3">MAP of Protests across the Middle EastMohammed Nabbous, killed by Gaddafi's forces while trying to report on the massacre in Benghazi
"I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid to lose the battle" -Mohammed Nabbous, a month ago when all this beganI'm struggling to come up with something to say about this man. I was not aware of the Libyan uprising until I saw Mo's first report, begging for help, posted here on DU. I was stricken. Here was a man giving everything he had to explain a situation that clearly terrified him, I would not call him a coward in that moment, but you could see the fear in his eyes, and desperation in his voice. For 30 days Nabbous would spend many hours covering the uprising in Benghazi. For many nights I would go to sleep with the webcast of Benghazi live on my computer screen, looking to it occasionally to be sure it was still 'there.' Mo treated the chat room as if we were his friends, and in some way, we were. I never signed up to LiveStream to thank him for all his work and it seems somewhat shallow to do so now, given that I was a lurker for so long. Ever since I took over posting these threads "Libya Alhurra" has been linked as a source of information. It wasn't until last night, when I posted, and twitter posted on Mo's adventures out into Benghazi to try to determine the truth of the situation, that Mo's webchannel became a hit, over 2000 people were watching him stream live. This was curious to him because he'd done many reports like this in the past but he appeared somewhat bemused that the view count exploded as it did. Last night Mo became a star. This is a man who first started out with a webcast replete with fear and desperation finally overcoming that aspect of himself and losing that fear, to become someone who was a fighter for the resistance just as much as those who held the guns. Reporting on the front lines of Benghazi became his final act, and for that he should never, ever be forgotten. I'm so sorry Mo that I never got to know you better.
Mo's first report, which many of you may remember, begging for help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38EXALI60hg Mo's last report, a fallen hero trying to spread the word to the world:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecu_iWLn-rgMo leaves behind a wife who is with child, she had
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/23/a_bright_voice_from_libyas_darkness">this to say about the No Fly Zone and R2P UN resolution:
We started this in a pure way, but he turned it bloody. Thousands of our men, women, and children have died. We just wanted our freedom, that's all we wanted, we didn't want power. Before, we could not do a single thing if it was not the way he wanted it. All we wanted was freedom. All we wanted was to be free. We have paid with our blood, with our families, with our men, and we're not going to give up. We are still going to do that no matter what it takes, but we need help. We want to do this ourselves, but we don't have the weapons, the technology, the things we need. I don't want anyone to say that Libya got liberated by anybody else. If NATO didn't start moving when they did, I assure you, I assure you, half of Benghazi if not more would have been killed. If they stop helping us, we are going to be all killed because he has no mercy anymore.