Libyupdate: Yup, Still Insane.

The last few weeks have confirmed a couple things about Libya.

look at that sign. That's an awesome sign.

1) It's become a bad, bad place to be. Rarely was Tripoli a cushy vacation destination before, but this is just ridiculous:

-the air bombing continues, this time in Brega, an oil outpost. Just to clarify and reiterate: Gaddafi is using the air force to bomb his own country.

-Reports are coming in that Gaddafi's forces have been tying up and burning soldiers that refuse to fight, and burying them in the streets and barracks where they fall. They've also been shooting from ambulances, and killing wounded protesters in hospitals.

-it's becoming increasingly dangerous for Sub-Saharan Africans working in Libya--they're being targeted for violence because they're assumed to be mercenaries hired by the regime. Whether or not they actually are is up for debate, but pre-revolt, sub-Saharan Africans were the majority of over a million foreign nationals in Libya: they certainly can't all be working for the nutbar in the mumu.

-being reasonable people, thousands of Libyans and expats alike are looking around at their situation and deciding to get the hell out of Libya. As a result, the Tunisian and Egyptian borders are overrun with desperate refugees, threatening to rival Tripoli as a humanitarian hypercrisis. Aid staff is trying, and airlifts are happening, but it's understandably quite difficult and really tense.


2) Gaddafi is effin' certifiable. He's orders of magnitude more disconnected from reality than Hosni Mubarak was. The man isn't even in the solar system anymore; he's like an interstellar machine that pumps out human rights atrocities and really ridiculous outfits. I recently learned he wants to abolish Switzerland. What. And it doesn't appear that he's going anywhere.

Yesterday, the world spent a lot of diplomatic face time asking "WTF do we do about Libya?".
It sort of went down like this:

UN Security Council: So Gaddafi's nuts enough to bomb his own capital and endanger the security of a whole hell of a lot of oil interests.... I dunno, let's sanction him and his goons, freeze his assets? Any arguments? Didn't think so. (gavel!)
UN Human Rights Council: Yeah, sack that crazy man. Suspend him from the council. Wtf is he doing on here anyway? Ugh. I need to go wash my hands.
International Criminal Court: Send him to us. I don't care if he hasn't stepped down yet, you heard me.
President Sarkozy of France: Oui, he needs to GTFO.
Basically Every Other EU Leader: What he said.
Prime Minister David Cameron, UK: Yeah, get out--or we'll send in the army! Or we won't. Maybe.
The Arab League: Waitasecond there...
NATO: Guys, this is pretty intense...should I launch a no-fly zone?
Everyone: (foot shuffling) Ummmm.....
(scene.)


In addition, everyone outside of Libya is scrambling to send frigates, planes and warships to rescue their expats from the crazy so they can drill another day.

To lighten the mood, boingboing posted a fantastic video of the UK's Charlie Brooker sending a verbal lashing to Gaddafi. Extra points to the included fashion montage.

And as a last note on Nelly Furtado: big up on you for donating the million dollars Gaddafi paid you for a 45 minute concert in 2007. In honour of your press-worthy save-face, I'll still do my wondering about why 41 years of brutal absurdist military dictatorship and human rights abuses were okay for a pop star to profiteer off before it was really in the news--but I'll do it quietly.