Libya Next

Gaddafi who is think used to be spelled Qaddafi is possibly trying to run to Venezuela, a rumor he refuted tonight in Tripoli with an umbrella:



Why should he be worried? He's shooting directly into peaceful protests and losing his own government out from under him:

"What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead," Adel Mohamed Saleh said in a live broadcast on al Jazeera television. "Anyone who moves, even if they are in their car, they will hit you."

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A group of army officers issued a statement urging fellow soldiers to "join the people" and help remove Gaddafi.

The justice minister resigned in protest at the "excessive use of violence" against protesters and diplomats at Libya's mission to the United Nations called on the Libyan army to help overthrow "the tyrant Muammar Gaddafi."

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Two Libyan fighter jets landed in Malta, their pilots defecting after they said they had been ordered to bomb protesters, Maltese government officials said.

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The demonstrations spread to Tripoli, on the Mediterranean Sea, after several cities in the east, including Benghazi, appeared to fall to the opposition, according to residents.

Human Rights Watch said at least 233 people had been killed in five days of violence, but opposition groups put the figure much higher.

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A coalition of Libyan Muslim leaders told all Muslims it was their duty to rebel against the Libyan leadership because of its "bloody crimes against humanity."

The building where the General People's Congress, or parliament, meets in Tripoli was on fire on Monday, as was a police station in an eastern suburb, witnesses said.

Even the Libyan ambassador to the U.N. has pledged allegiance to the people, not the dictator and his family. Per Juan Cole, the cost is high:

I am watching Aljazeera Arabic, which is calling people in Tripoli on the telephone and asking them what is going on in the capital. The replies are poignant in their raw emotion, bordering on hysteria. The residents are alleging that the Qaddafi regime has scrambled fighter jets to strafe civilian crowds, has deployed heavy artillery against them, and has occupied the streets with armored vehicles and strategically-placed snipers. One man is shouting that “the gates of Hell have opened” in the capital and that “this is Halabja!” (where Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered helicopter gunships to hit a Kurdish city with sarin gas, killing 5000 in 1988).

This is what pisses me off about Americans who don't bother to exercise their right to vote.

Sharpen those meathooks.