News of the Day: Dead is Dead

I am confined to quarters and Khaddafy may be dead.

These are the moments you do not want to be caught watching msnbc.  The early morning somber-faced wonks are clueless in matters such as bullets-to-the-head or the national identities of NATO air forces.  They seem delighted to find themselves coincidental to this event, quite pleased with themselves, as if they possessed some sort of agency in it.  Liberals preening, pure-dee ugly.

Still, after one gets over the need for facts, the morning joe crew has successfully launched a sophisticated discussion about a new phase in the war on terrorism.  The details of the actual news story fade from their forebrains.  I confess, I am wondering what Khaddafy's hair looks like today and what his last indignant thought might have been.

Each msnbc speaker trolls for the memorable phrase, thinks ahead to the day of commentating and opining, and one suddenly strikes gold with the phrasing "the NATO strike complicates the narrative." I know what Little Jack Horner looked like now -- him, his thumb, and the plum.  He's right, of course, what a good boy!  The NTC needs to have been the author of this denouement, not the West.  And, somehow, the story line shifts again, Bedouin sands, and I am contemplating "an Obama success, a validation of 'leading from behind.'"

There is General McCaffrey, and yes, I am feeling more and more rotten, and all I ever think of is how I wish his dentures were a finer fit.  The man angers me, and succeeds in confusing me, as well.  For a good background on Pentagon punditry, give this Center for Media and Democracy's PR Watch article a read.  While it is not exactly chilling, his performance, it serves to remind me of the power of propaganda and I listen to him give blatantly revised statistics, such as the number and extent of NATO air sorties.  On the spot.  It's amazing.

He even explains to the less Machiavellian in the audience that the NTC will have to "overdo" the distribution of any pictures or video documentation of Khaddafy's corpse, as a solution to what he calls "their credibility issues." Wow.  Sham wow!

Jeez.

I am spiking a fever and the head aches.  For lack of a better word, I am experiencing neuropsychiatric disturbances.  My axons and dendrites, alas! My neurotransmitters, fie upon them!  I momentarily lose control and, forgetting the wealth of its disparity, I enter "spelling variations of Khaddafi" into Google search and promptly receive my least favorite sort of computer quip:

Showing results for "spelling variations of Gaddafi"
Search instead for "spelling variations of Khaddafi."

These are the moments I peer at my web cam, which I maintain in a pristinely disabled state, sure that some one at a remote Google location is watching my irritation and snorting coffee up her nose.

Part of the problem here is that there's no universally accepted authority for transliterating Arabic names. Normally, news outlets will just go with whatever spelling the subject prefers, but this particular subject hasn't settled on a single Roman orthography for his name.

Instead, Libya's Brother Leader lets a hundred flowers bloom. The banner at the top of his official website spells it, "AL Gathafi." But if you go deeper into the site, you'll see it variously rendered as "Al Qaddafi," "Algathafi," and "Al-Gathafi." Adding to the multitude of his spellings is the increasingly ironically named "Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights."

And that's just the surname. Variations on his given name include Muammar, Moammar, Mu'ammar, and Moamar, and many others. Once you've settled on how to spell his first and last names, you then have to decide whether you want to add the Arabic prefix "al-" before his last name. Which can also be spelled "el-." And then you have to decide whether the prefix should be capitalized.

In any event, he's dead and can no longer confuse us with his wily spelling deceits.

{time lapse}  i cook a pot of small red beans.  that's what they are called:  "small red beans." it is a package of three sorts of beans, two of them ruddy enough to be called "red," but the third is clearly a squiggle-marked brown pinto.  i bought these dry beans by accident once, the accident being their inexplicably low price.  i celebrate their mystery and cook some up every few weeks as a... well, as a bean treat.  
sigh.

i begin but do not complete five emails.  in lieu of completing them, i tuck them inside my cozy draft file.

i add ibuprofen to tylenol, even though i am not supposed to and have promised not to.   i really just don't care anymore. {/time lapse}

I turn on the telly again.  I am listening to this very recent history, Khaddafy maybe-dead-maybe-wounded, just hours old, being recast.

The Talking Heads were prescient.

The rebels need to be credited with killing Khaddafy, as they need the legitimacy of the kill.  Despite this, reports continue that he was made dead by an air strike as he sought to flee Sirte in a motorcade.  The rebels now claim, however, that he was really captured by them as he cowered in a hole (like Saddam).  Or a drainage ditch.

One thing is sure:  There will be no need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission -- like the restorative justice process in South Africa after the fall of apartheid -- or the national angst of a trial.

Why I keep using the word "national," I dunno.  AL Gathafi's oppressive genius both reinforced and exploited ancient tribal "organization," and yet we persist in believing this revolutionary struggle has been, neatly, between loyalists and rebels.

I listen some more, peer at grainy photos, flashing vids.  Suddenly the despot seems to be dead because NTC guns went off that sent bullets into his heart, brain, and abdomen.  The bullets went into him in much the way women can stumble and fall, pregnant.

I hate when that happens.

My brain hurts and I imagine a bullet to my head.

**********     *****     **********     *****     **********

I'm sure there is an obvious reason for it, but the obvious escapes me right now -- Now being yesterday's tomorrow, with its obligatory edit for spelling and opacity --

*Anyway* -- I ended up not reading aloud from Mon Bel Oranger, which has been a recent comfort of a habit. Instead, there I was, careening around my office, digging out a scruffy copy of Camus' L'Etranger.

Beyond remembering, with the accompaniment of a sharp cranial pain, what a freaking masterpiece it is, I got lost inside the memory of the first class discussion of its very first line, and how my palms actually had sweat.  It's maybe the only bit of fiction that succeeded in making me nervous.   Then, of course, I fell into a revery of appreciation for my last stand of neurons, my mental Alamo, with its reservoir of quaking, shaky heroes -- appreciation for the small part of me that recollected where I should be and what I should be doing, my museum of replicas.

The first paragraph of Camus' The Stranger:

MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.

I cannot leave the English translation sitting there, alone, pretending to be sufficient (so typical of English! {snobbish snark::snobbish snark}). This text demands the original French -- Yes, in spite of its oft-proclaimed "simplicity" of language, the reason most given for its assignment as a French language learner's first "novel."  The opening sentence alone, in French, contains worlds:

L'Etranger, édition Gallimard, 1957

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about Qaddafi, still dead one day later.

The Nod: Affirming the Legitimacy of Libya's TNC

Excellent move:

ISTANBUL (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration has decided to formally recognize Libya's main opposition group as the country's legitimate government. The move gives foes of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi a major financial and credibility boost.



Clinton announced Friday that Washington accepts the Transitional National Council as the legitimate governing authority of the Libyan people. Diplomatic recognition of the council means that the U.S. will be able to fund the opposition with some of the more than $30 billion in Gahdafi-regime assets that are frozen in American banks.

Just perusing the initial reports from various news outlets, it looks like most of the other 32 nation members of the "Contact Group on Libya" have also recognized the legitimacy of the TNC. 
 

Excellent decision...

it's 6:15 am where you are, qaddafi. have a good day.

not thanks to any great insight, just a quick read of the headlines before bed, but i am lead to think of tripoli, and all of libya, while we on this edge of the world may sleep.  i rise into waking every 40 minutes or so, and will rise into thoughts of liberty, as the libyan people -- "its tribes, clans, and loyalties" -- may deign to construct that notion.

beware, qaddafi.  it's 6:15 am where you are.  have a good day.

WSJA(2/21): Libya Death Toll Surges In Crackdown

Monday, Feb 21, 2011
(From THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASIA)

By Charles Levinson and Tahani Karrar-Lewsley

CAIRO -- Libyan security forces fired live ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades at demonstrators in the eastern city of Benghazi on Sunday, pressing a bloody crackdown on snowballing protests demanding the ouster of leader Moammar Gadhafi that has doubled the death toll to at least 173.

Protests consumed at least six other cities in eastern Libya, according to reports from residents and a warning from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli. In many of the cities, residents said government security forces had withdrawn from the streets to their bases, ceding whole cities to protesters, at least for now.

Protests also sprung up on the outskirts of Libya's capital of Tripoli, according to residents in the city and opposition activists. Though they were quickly quashed by security forces, the spread of protests from the country's more isolated eastern half to Mr. Gadhafi's center of power was a sign that calls for Mr. Gadhafi's ouster appeared to be gaining momentum.

The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli warned in a statement of violent clashes between protesters and security forces in at least six other cities in eastern Libya.

There were widely varying casualty figures. Human Rights Watch said they had confirmed 173 deaths in protests so far. Those numbers were limited to confirmed deaths reported by hospitals and the real toll was likely much higher, according to Human Rights Watch's Heba Morayef and doctors at Libyan hospitals.

Libyan state TV broadcast images of burning buildings and blamed the "acts of sabotage and burning" on "foreign agents," echoing the attempts made by other Arab leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and Yemen to dismiss the unrest.

Residents said it was the first time government media had acknowledged the growing unrest, suggesting the violence was spreading to the point that the government had no choice but to address it directly.

Residents said they received text messages from the Libyana mobile network urging calm. "People and youth of Benghazi, the civilians and police killed are all the sons of Libya so stop what is happening and stop the bloodshed," the text read, according to residents.

Reports of the fiercest fighting came from the city of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city, which lies on the country's northeast coast, according to reports from people inside the country and Libyan activists monitoring the situation abroad.

Residents said government control of Benghazi and other cities in eastern Libya appeared to be slipping, at least for now, with police and army forces disappearing from the streets and retreating to their bases. Residents said tens of thousands of people had gathered to protests outside Benghazi's courthouse on Saturday.

They said parts of Benghazi had been consumed by full-fledged urban warfare between protesters and pro-government forces. Residents said pro-Gadhafi loyalists were firing rocket-propelled grenades at civilians and driving in cars randomly shooting down civilians.

"There are some criminals driving cars shooting at people, and they are using antitank weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, the bullets are the size of my hand," said a Benghazi resident whose wife works as a doctor at a local hospital.

The Internet remained down in most of the country after the government shut down servers early Saturday, according to Renesys, an Internet access watchdog. Journalists were banned from entering the country or reporting on events, making it impossible to confirm reports.

Residents reached by telephone were gripped by fear, unwilling to give their names over the telephone for fear the government was monitoring calls and would arrest them for relaying details of the unrest to journalists outside the country.

A Libyan journalist in Tripoli said some journalists who had spoken with Arab television stations had been arrested within minutes of speaking on air.

Amid the information blackout, a sense of panic and mayhem in Benghazi was fueled by rumors sweeping the city, including unsubstantiated rumors that the government had poisoned the city's drinking supply and was flying planes full of mercenaries into the city.

It was unclear just how much real estate protesters controlled and how much remained in the hands of the government.

"Neither side has complete control of Benghazi," said a student in Benghazi who would identify himself only as Abdullah for fear of his safety.

Amateur video footage from Al Bayda, a smaller city east of Benghazi, showed thousands of chanting protesters demonstrating in front of the city's central mosque.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires