Libya: Eyes on Benghazi

A young man attends a protest against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi Libya's rebel-held city of Benghazi. The opposition-controlled city has filled a political void with a coalition which is cleaning up, providing food, building defences, reassuring foreign oil firms and telling Tripoli it believes in one nation. (REUTERS/Suhaib Salem)

Below: A man plays with his son in front of a cartoon depicting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Benghazi. (REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

yes of course, 14.5 != 15.5.

and the 14.5×114 surely looks scary. thank you for the pointer.

.~.
CopraCandy

In the second pic, why is there a boot with what looks partly like a Pakistani flag, kicking Gaddafi in the bum?
- Moody75
  
  It is not Pakistan’s flag. It is the pre-Qadhaffi era flag kicking him out of the country.
  
  https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Flag_of_Libya
- Ahkenhaton
  
  It’s the Libyan flag from before 1969, which has been adopted by the uprising as a symbol of a new Libya freed of Q’daffi’s tyrannical rule.
  
  Read this e-mail from a friend of mine in Tripoli:
  HI my friend
  thx for your help. now we are not afried we dont have any things to lose we need freedom and we must pay the price. i hope to die or get the freedom not for me. but for my kids for the future. we are not afried. we will fight until die.its freedom. and we are ready to pay it. he push us to fight and we will do it. we fight to get it until last libyan.alot of people died.and we are ready to pay more.more for the freedom.
  we need medica and milk for the kids. we need all the free world to help libyan.
  thx for your help.
  best hope to see you in libya
  BEST
  FADI
awjtawjt

What does the 14.5 mean?
Anonymous

http://vimeo.com/20423428

Made this slide show with pics from the protests.
Anonymous

@1 (awjtawjt):

“get the f out and don’t you forget to take your toys as you go”?

possibly a 2006 reference.

.~.
awjtawjt

@Anon Thanks for that link to a wide angle shot. I also did a little looking. The 14.5 is on a detached gun barrel that he’s clinging to. His loyal troops are using 14.5mm anti-aircraft artillery to shoot people and essentially punch 6 inch wide holes through them. Sickening.

Human Rights Watch is saying 1000 dead. Over the last couple days, I imagine that pace has slowed due to the country amalgamating itself in opposition. Just prior to that, when the killing was at its height, I imagine that many, many more than 1000 people have lost their lives when facing weapons of that calibre.

The Libya dead will probably be somewhere around 5000 when all the dust settles, fragged soldiers and dead mercenaries are accounted for.