Rebels reach Tripoli; Gadaffi reportedly flees

Amid reports that Gadaffi and his family have already fled, Libya's rebels reached Tripoli today and took control of a military airport there. Neighboring Tunisia recognized the rebellion as Libya's government hours ago. [Reuters]

• [ocschwar]

  Mabrouk ya Lybia! Mabrouk ya Trablous!

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    You know, people might take you more seriously if you spelled Libya correctly since it’s in the two-line post.

    Who am I kidding?

    • [dragonfrog]

      Roight.  ‏ليبيا‎

• [gwailo_joe]

  Great news….that has been 7 months coming.  Good luck you plucky rebels!  Hope you can run the country better than the last guy…

  Muammar: GTFO!!!  -tho I cant imagine there could be that many places that would want you-

  delusional old fool…

• [Guest]

  Obama’s third war is almost over!! Yah!!!

  • [C.Nate]

    Because Obama started the rebellion along with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars right?  #Bullshit

    • [Guest]

      Is he not the president?

    • [Aloisius]

      Actually, Obama personally started not only the Iraqi and Afghanistan wars, but he visited the UN and personally beat up members of the UN Security Council until they authorized defense of the Libyan people. Obama is basically Rambo. Couldn’t you tell?

  • [alec bennett]

    Couldn’t you maybe consolidate all your many trolling comments in multiple postings to maybe just a few? Maybe by using the snazzy new “edit” button when you feel you really need to defile the discussion yet again? As of this moment you have 5 comments in this thread, and at least that many in the Wikileaks thread I just read, every one of them clumsily grinding an axe.

• [Guest]

  Hopefully France will retake the country and oversee the oil production. We could use a discount.

  • [ocschwar]

    “Retake”?

    The Lybians got the “joy” of being colonized by Italy, not France

    • [sagodjur]

      Never let the truth get in the way of good trolling.

    • [Guest]

      Sorry I thought it was France that had tried to take the country back in March…has it really been that long? “Days, not weeks”

      • [ocschwar]

        Sorry I thought it was France that had tried to take the country back in March…has it really been that long? “Days, not weeks”

        last I checked those green, red, black flags are not French.

        • [Guest]

          President Obama said he expected that the period that the US would be involved in heavy kinetic activity would be “days, not weeks.”

• [kyoorius]

  Have to take into consideration that this news could be part of the disinformation campaign that is in progress. NATO/the rebels objective is to promote an uprising in the city to flush out Gadaffi.

• [Green Ghost]

  Soon we will find out if the people of a middle-eastern muslim nation can create a reasonably free and functioning democratic society. I sure hope so. History is not on their side but there’s a first time for everything (Although I haven’t heard much about Tunisia lately. Have they done it yet?) Good luck Libya!!

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Soon we will find out if the people of a middle-eastern muslim nation can create a reasonably free and functioning democratic society.

    That wouldn’t pander to the oil and security needs of the West, so we’d have to destabilize it.

    • [bnschlz]

      no no no! The west always ‘stabilizes’!

      ‘”stability” has a meaning. It means US control. So we had to
      destabilize the country that was out of US control in order to bring
      about stability’

      http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20100525.htm

• [gws]

  If this is accurate then I strongly hope this marks the end of this war. It sure does look like Gaddafi has packed up his crazy and left the country. It’s about time. I wonder what happens when they catch up with this guy?

  • [EH]

    If this is accurate then I strongly hope this marks the end of this war.

    Is it a war, or is it the West sponsoring terrorism (or at least gangs) within the Middle East?

    • [gws]

      I’d categorize it as a war.

• [Robert Baruch]

  What really makes this different, though, is that the military fought tooth and nail against the people. They’re not just going to stand down and party like it’s 1951. They’ve got huge grudges, they still probably have caches of weapons, and they haven’t been fighting “in support of Gaddafi”. They’ve been doing it to stay on top, and to keep the status quo. They’re not happy. They’re pissed off, and there’s going to be a ton of violence to follow.

  That being said… I truly wish Libya all the best.

• [Manuel Piñeiro]

  At worst, this war will serve as a wake-up call that the pseudo-political “alternative press” could think of nothing better than mindless repetition of the most basic coup d’etat psyop: the status quo has fled the palace! We’ve been hearing this one since Gaddafi had supposedly fled to Venezuela on Day #2.

  At best, Gaddafi and the Libyan majority will stand up to this insane aggression + aforementioned apologists willl be forced to re-examine their role as cheerleaders of NATO bombing runs. 

  P.S. Mr Moderator, how *does* one spell Libya? Hint: you start by using a different alphabet. Anything else is transliteration (and, thus, phonetic) … hence, the disagreement on the spelling of Gaddafi. 

  • [ocschwar]

    Hello, Saif. Don’t you think instead of throwing forward the usual anti-imperialist rubbish you should be packing your bags and leaving Tripoli? 

    “At best, Gaddafi and the Libyan majority will stand up to this insane aggression”

    Teehee. Seen the celebrations in Ben Ghazi yet, Saif? 

    • [Manuel Piñeiro]

      mm, good arguments. it’s that strong, vibrant commit to freedom of speech, intellectual debate and other liberties that make ‘general washington’-esque leaders like guma al gamaty appear as noble figures. see http://bit.ly/rentarebel

      No one here can defend the Libyan opportunists as a meaningful popular resistance nor can anyone here indict Gaddafi or his Pan-African movement for any kind of unusual crimes against humanity.

      ocschwar: Pull out a population density map of Libya. Celebrations in Ben Ghazi. Wow. Good to know that cheap, see-through propaganda is working on somebody. 

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Do you have any better citations than a YouTube clip from a cable access talk show?

• [Robert Hall]

  Guess part of this is payback for Lockerbie…..

• [sultanica]

  Rebel Advances on Tripoli is Fake Disinformation Campaign
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tghoRiZ3ek
  go figure

• [Link47]

  See: Lebanon, Turkey.

• [benher]

  Regardless of what happens to Libya I’m sure I’m not alone when I say to it’s former leader:
  “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

• [IRMO]

  “No one here can defend the Libyan opportunists as a meaningful popular resistance nor can anyone here indict Gaddafi or his Pan-African movement for any kind of unusual crimes against humanity.”

  True enough. His brutality was distinctly usual.

• [IRMO]

  “ocschwar: Pull out a population density map of Libya. Celebrations in Ben Ghazi. Wow. Good to know that cheap, see-through propaganda is working on somebody.”

  Very relevant observation, given that Lybians don’t have cars with which they can cross municipal boundaries to attend a celebration.