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The article I submitted earlier was a little misleading, suggesting (1) that the Arab League was unanimous for the resolution, and the US administration was undecided or did not support it. BBC World News gives a more rounded picture, as well as claims about advances by Gadhafi forces that I think have to be treated skeptically, including that Zawiya has fallen. I always watch these carefully because such claims are used as a justification for further imperialist intervention to save the helpless Libyan people. On the whole, I believe the direction of motion has not changed. Every day reports more measures and resolutions and so forth against Gadhafi. The official state in Libya is profoundly isolated. The movement against it, based in the east, is presented as "America's sweetheart") and the "sweetheart" of the "world community." Of course, this will not ultimately apply to their mass base, which has to be contained. The New York Review of Books website has a current article with a great deal of interesting information about the struggle in the east, including the strength of Islamism. The Islamist leaders are said to be ambivalent, but currently going along with the calls for imperialist intervention, called by the opposition titular leadership "non-intervention." The Islamists are said to be responsible for the placards we all noted saying, as I recall, "No Intervention -- The Libyan People Can do it Ourselves" which are apparently common in Benghazi. But of course, now we all have to recognize that the titular leadership has had some success in redefining intervention as excluding anything that helps them win or at least stay in the game. I think Nestor's relative optimism is not strongly founded. If and as the Gadhafi forces push east, there will be fierce resistance for the revolt of the people in that region, long alienated from the regime in many ways and probably discriminated against in the way losers in clan and tribal struggles normally are by the Gadhafi regime, is clearly popular. It includes such tell-tale features as the involvement of relatively young teenagers as the NYT reported -- I think accurately;, even though I could not prove that everything, including photographs, was simply invented. So there will be fierce fighting, and many opportunities to whip up campaigns around atrocities (real, imagined, or, like Serebrenica, a combination of both). Imperialist military intervention is not inevitable, but that is still the direction in which things are moving. At any rate, here is the supplementary info from the BBC on the Arab League resolution. Following is the excerpt from the BBC report Fred Feldman http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12723554 The Arab League vote for a no-fly zone was opposed only by Syria and Algeria, reports from the Cairo meeting said. Nato has previously cited regional support for the idea as a key condition before it could possibly go ahead. The US welcomed the Arab League's call, saying it strengthened the international pressure on Col Gaddafi and support for the Libyan people. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
