Libyan Quotes

They ask me how did you get here? Can’t you see it on my body? The Libyan desert red with immigrant bodies, the Gulf of Aden bloated, the city of Rome with no jacket. I hope the journey meant more than miles because all of my children are in the water. I thought the sea was safer than the land. I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running. I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you’re young and asleep. Look at all these borders, foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate. I’m the colour of hot sun on the face, my mother’s remains were never buried. I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck; I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.

Because you can't intervene everywhere, you don't conclude you can't intervene anywhere.

Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. The sculptor from the Stadel Cave may sincerely have believed in the existence of the lion-man guardian spirit. Some sorcerers are charlatans, but most sincerely believe in the existence of gods and demons. Most millionaires sincerely believe in the existence of money and limited liability companies. Most human-rights activists sincerely believe in the existence of human rights. No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our fertile imaginations.

Islam later provided the most persuasive and effective ideological foundation to rally Libyan opposition to continued Italian occupation

She pulled back, but not abruptly. His eyes were the darkest indigo blue that she had ever seen. She let a faint smile curl on her lips. "You inquire how many kisses of yours would be enough, and more to satisfy me," she said, and was startled to hear a husky catch in her voice. "As many as the grains of Libyan sand that lie between hot Jupiter's oracle… as many…" She paused. The look in his eye had made her forget what she was saying. What came after hot oracle! He didn't look sardonic now, but truly surprised. She had to leave. This was all entirely too intimate and uncomfortable. "Alas," she said, gathering up her skirts again and turning toward the rockslide. "I have quite forgotten the next line, so we shall have to delay this learned discussion." He was at her shoulder in a moment, helping her over the stones. "As many as the stars," he said, conversationally, as if they were talking of gardening, or Romans, or any number of polite topics. "As many as the stars, when the night is still, gazing down on secret human desires.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance. 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence, The sound must seem an echo to the sense. Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; But when loud surges lash the sounding shore, The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar. When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labours, and the words move slow; Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain, Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main. Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, And bid alternate passions fall and rise! While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, And the world's victor stood subdu'd by sound! The pow'r of music all our hearts allow, And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.

The abundance of weapons, the absence of a working Libyan government, and lingering anti-Western sentiments among certain militias led to increasingly brazen incidents during the spring and summer of 2012.

I now saw plainly that this foul emanation could have no admixture or connection whatsoever with the clean air of the Libyan Desert, but must be essentially a thing vomited from sinister gulfs still lower down.

America wasn’t like that. You became what you coveted. Memories were short. She met Mexicans, Germans, Libyans, who spoke accented English but responded, From here, whenever asked. Souad became brown. People’s eyes glazed over when she tried to explain that, yes, she’d lived in Kuwait, but no, she wasn’t Kuwaiti, and no, she had never been to Palestine, but yes, she was Palestinian. That kind of circuitous logic had no place over there.

I was about to tell her that Miralles hadn't fought in one war, but many, but I couldn't, because I suddenly saw Miralles walking across the Libyan desert towards the Murzuk oasis- young, ragged, dusty and annonymous, carrying the tricolour flag of a country not his own, of a country that is all countries and also the country of liberty and which only exists because he and four Moors and a black guy are raising that flag as they keep walking onwards, onwards, ever onwards.

But you see, "libertarian" has a special meaning in the United States. The United Statesis off the spectrum of the main tradition in this respect: what's called "libertarianism" here is unbridled capitalism. Now, that's always been opposed in the European libertarian tradition, where every anarchist has been a socialist—because the point is, if you have unbridled capitalism, you have all kinds of authority: you have extreme authority. If capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive. Now, you can say, "they rent themselves freely, it's a free contract"—but that's a joke. If your choice is, "do what I tell you or starve," that's not a choice—it's in fact what was commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example. The American version of "libertarianism" is an aberration, though—nobody really takes it seriously. I mean, everybody knows that a society that worked by American libertarian principles would self-destruct in three seconds. The only reason people pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon. Like, when somebody comes out in favor of a tax, you can say: "No, I'm a libertarian, I'm against that tax"—but of course, I'm still in favor of the government building roads, and having schools, and killing Libyans, and all that sort of stuff. Now, there are consistent libertarians, people like Murray Rothbard [American academic]—and if you just read the world that they describe, it's a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it. This is a world where you don't have roads because you don't see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road that you're not going to use: if you want a road, you get together with a bunch of other people who are going to use that road and you build it, then you charge people to ride on it. If you don't like the pollution from somebody's automobile, you take them to court and you litigate it. Who would want to live in a world like that? It's a world built on hatred. The whole thing's not even worth talking about, though. First of all, it couldn't function for a second-and if it could, all you'd want to do is get out, or commit suicide or something. But this is a special American aberration, it's not really serious.

In this city [Tingis] the Libyans say that Antaeus is buried; and Sertorius had his tomb dug open, the great size of which made him disbelieve the Barbarians. But when he came upon the body and found it to be sixty cubits long, as they tell us, he was dumbfounded, and after performing a sacrifice filled up the tomb again, and joined in magnifying its traditions and honours. Now, the people of Tingis have a myth that after the death of Antaeus, his wife, Tinga, consorted with Heracles, and that Sophax was the fruit of this union, who became king of the country and named a city which he founded after his mother; also that Sophax had a son, Diodorus, to whom many of the Libyan peoples became subject, since he had a Greek army composed of the Olbians and Mycenaeans who were settled in those parts by Heracles. But this tale must be ascribed to a desire to gratify Juba, of all kings the most devoted to historical enquiry; for his ancestors are said to have been descendants of Sophax and Diodorus. [The Life of Sertorius]

So many Libyans felt they’d been avenged by this symbolic gesture. Before his appointment with death, the rapist was raped.

So in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, ‘With our own feathers, not by others’ hands, Are we now smitten.

the recent strike on Colonel Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli by F-111s of the US Air Force, in retaliation for the Libyan-sponsored bombing of a disco frequented by American soldiers in Berlin.

It was a dead world upon which all life, all movement except that of the wind, had ceased from the far-off time when the primeval Medusa had looked out over the land and petrified it for ever.

Even so is the Libyan fable famed abroad: the eagle, pierced by the bow-sped shaft, looked at the feathered device, and said, “Thus, not by others, but by means of our own plumage, are we slain.

No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our fertile imaginations.

No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our fertile imaginations. Ever

Here dwell a people whom the Greeks call Maurusians, and the Romans and the natives Mauri — a large and prosperous Libyan tribe, who live on the side of the strait opposite Iberia. Here also is the strait which is at the Pillars of Heracles, concerning which I have often spoken. On proceeding outside the strait at the Pillars, with Libya on the left, one comes to a mountain which the Greeks call Atlas and the barbarians Dyris. 17.3.2

He had seen the banning of books, music and films, the closure of theaters and cinemas, the outlawing of football, and all the other countless ways in which the Libyan dictatorship, like a crazed jealous lover, infiltrated every aspect of public and private life.

In other words, one in every six inhabitants of the Libyan capital was kidnapped and made to disappear. The damage was more lasting because the Italian authorities selected the most noted and distinguished men: scholars, jurists, wealthy traders, and bureaucrats.

A newly converted Trinidad African Muslim, identifying with and being inspired by a Hollywood-made fantasy of a Libyan revolutionary being played by a white Italian-American actor, while engaged in an act of insurrection against his own freely-elected government in Trinidad, was surreal.

As the Libyan engagement has shown, “Western” air power can be a most appropriate and useful instrument in the context of so-called asymmetric conflicts. Yet it succeeded (and even then only after six months) only because NATO nations decided to arm the insurgents and sent in special forces to teach the untrained rebels how to become a skilled military force that could exploit favorable air situations on the ground.

I will tell you what the real Benghazi scandal is. It's not that four Americans died and Hillary Clinton may have lied about it. It's that 30,000 Libyans died in a U.S.-NATO bombing campaign, and the whole country was ripped apart, and Hillary Clinton can still openly brag about it. The war was based on lies but the Republicans and the corporate media don't consider that a scandal because they helped her push those lies.

ref·u·gee noun: a person who flees for refuge or safety We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from burning buildings into the arms of loving families. When we flee from floods and earthquakes to sleep on blue mats in community centres. We are, each of us, refugees when we flee from abusive relationships, and shooters in cinemas and shopping centres. Sometimes it takes only a day for our countries to persecute us because of our creed, race, or sexual orientation. Sometimes it takes only a minute for the missiles to rain down and leave our towns in ruin and destitution. We are, each of us, refugees longing for that amniotic tranquillity dreaming of freedom and safety when fences and barbed wires spring into walled gardens. Lebanese, Sudanese, Libyan and Syrian, Yemeni, Somali, Palestinian, and Ethiopian, like our brothers and sisters, we are, each of us, refugees. The bombs fell in their cafés and squares where once poetry, dancing, and laughter prevailed. Only their olive trees remember music and merriment now as their cities wail for departed children without a funeral. We are, each of us, refugees. Don’t let stamped paper tell you differently. We’ve been fleeing for centuries because to stay means getting bullets in our heads because to stay means being hanged by our necks because to stay means being jailed, raped and left for dead. But we can, each of us, serve as one another’s refuge so we don't board dinghies when we can’t swim so we don’t climb walls with snipers aimed at our chest so we don’t choose to remain and die instead. When home turns into hell, you, too, will run with tears in your eyes screaming rescue me! and then you’ll know for certain: you've always been a refugee.

he elaborated: 'There are going to be four challenges that you're going to come across in your career: your background (Libyan), your faith (visibly Muslim), your gender (a woman)' and then he said with a laugh, 'the last one you're lucky - you're grow out of it - and that's your age.' It was the first time I had felt like it didn't matter how hard I worked, how much I applied myself, and that in order for me to 'succeed' I would have to minimize myself to create comfort for others.

There was a glorious stillness after the vibration and rattle of the day. The silence was absolute. We were two hundred miles from Cairo, and there was nothing near by to make a sound. Outside in the open one listened expectantly for some small noise, a cricket chirping or a cock’s crow, but nothing came; only a little gust of cold dry air that eddied softly in the hollows of one’s ears. It seemed odd almost that the stars overhead, twinkling with a frosty vigour, could do so without making some sound about it.

So spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill To their fixed station, all in bright array The Cherubim descended; on the ground Gliding meteorous, as ev'ning mist Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides, And gathers ground fast at the labourer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanced, The brandished sword of God before them blazed Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat, And vapour as the Libyan air adust, Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat In either and the hast'ning angel caught Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared. They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

the sweat from his dripping brow. But these slaves—look at them! Some are captured Romans, some Sicilians, many black Libyans, but all are in the last exhaustion, their weary eyelids drooped over their eyes, their lips thick with black crusts, and pink with bloody froth, their arms and backs moving mechanically to the hoarse chant of the overseer. Their bodies of all tints from ivory to jet, are stripped to the waist, and every glistening back shows the angry stripes of the warders. But it is not from these that the blood comes which reddens the seats and tints the salt water washing beneath their manacled

Fascists need a demonized enemy against which to mobilize followers, but of course the enemy does not have to be Jewish. Each culture specifies the national enemy. Even though in Germany the foreign, the unclean, the contagious, and the subversive often mingled in a single diabolized image of the Jew, Gypsies and Slavs were also targeted. American fascists diabolized blacks and sometimes Catholics as well as Jews. Italian Fascists diabolized their South Slav neighbors, especially the Slovenes, as well as the socialists who refused the war of national revival. Later they easily added to their list the Ethiopians and the Libyans, whom they tried to conquer in Africa.

I hoped to offer U.S. intelligence agencies the opportunity to even place CIA officers in NOC (non-official cover) jobs in our company working under our Libyan contract. With agency officers in place with rock-solid “cover for status”—that’s the lie that explains who you are pretending to be—and “cover for action”—that’s the lie that explains what you’re doing while you’re there—the United States would have direct access to people in the seedy, murky underside of Libya, people whose motives and alliances were now unclear. The goals were a tall order, but don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon, because as my dad would say, you never hit high aiming low.” Excerpt From: Jamie Smith. “Gray Work

When Libya fought against the Italian occupation, all the Arabs supported the Libyan mujahideen. We Arabs never occupied any country. Well, we occupied Andalusia unjustly, and they drove us out, but since then, we Arabs have not occupied any country. It is our countries that are occupied. Palestine is occupied, Iraq is occupied, and as for the UAE islands... It is not in the best interest of the Arabs for hostility to develop between them and Iran, Turkey, or any of these nations. By no means is it in our interest to turn Iran against us. If there really is a problem, we should decide here to refer this issue to the international court of Justice. This is the proper venue for the resolution of such problems. We should decide to refer the issue of the disputed UAE islands to the International Court of Justice, and we should accept whatever it rules. One time you say this is occupied Arab land, and then you say... This is not clear, and it causes confusion. 80% of the people of the Gulf are Iranians. The ruling families are Arab, but the rest are Iranian. The entire people is Iranian. This is a mess. Iran cannot be avoided. Iran is a Muslim neighbour, and it is not in our interes to become enemies. What is the reason for the invasion and destruction of Iraq, and for killing of one million Iraqis? Let our American friends answer this question: Why Iraq? What is the reason? Is Bin Laden an Iraqi? No he is not. Were those who attacked New York Iraqis? No, they were not. were those who attacked the Pentagon Iraqis? No, they were not. Were there WMDs in Iraq? No, there were not. Even if iraq did have WMDs - Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, and so do China, Russia, Britain, France and America. Should all these countries be destroyed? Fine, let's destroy all the countries that have WMDs. Along comes a foreign power, occupies an Arab country, and hangs its president, and we all sit on the sidelines, laughing. Why didn't they investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein? How can a POW be hanged - a president of an Arab country and a member of the Arab League no less! I'm not talking about the policies of Saddam Hussein, or the disagreements we had with him. We all had poitlical disagreements with him and we have such disagreements among ourselves here. We share nothing, beyond this hall. Why won't there be an investigation into the killing of Saddam Hussein? An entire Arab leadership was executed by hanging, yet we sit on the sidelines. Why? Any one of you might be next. Yes. America fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini. He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary at the time Iraq was destroyed, was a close friend of Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, they sold him out and hanged him. You are friends of America - let's say that ''we'' are, not ''you'' - but one of these days, America may hang us. Brother 'Amr Musa has an idea which he is enthusiastic. He mentioned it in his report. He says that the Arabs have the right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes, and that there should be an Arab nuclear program. The Arabs have this right. They even have the right to have the right to have a nuclear program for other... But Allah prevails... But who are those Arabs whom you say should have united nuclear program? We are the enemies of one another, I'm sad to say. We all hate one another, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another. Our intelligence agencies conspire against one another, instead of defending us against the enemy. We are the enemies of one another, and an Arab's enemy is another Arab's friend.

One common criticism emerged from Congress and the media: Obama had not formally addressed the nation since authorizing military action. So, on March 28, two weeks after the Situation Room meeting that had set everything in motion, he gave a speech at the National Defense University in Washington. The television networks said they wouldn’t carry it in prime time, so it was scheduled for the second-tier window of 7:30 P.M., an apt metaphor for the Libyan operation—cable, not network; evening, not prime time; kinetic military operation, not war. The speech was on a Monday, and I spent a weekend writing it. Obama was defensive. Everything had gone as planned, and yet the public and political response kept shifting—from demanding action to second-guessing it, from saying he was dithering to saying he wasn’t doing enough. Even while he outlined the reasons for action in Libya, he stepped back to discuss the question that would continue to define his foreign policy: the choice of when to use military force. Unlike other wartime addresses, he went out of his way to stress the limits of what we were trying to achieve in Libya “—saving lives and giving Libyans a chance to determine their future, not installing a new regime or building a democracy. He said that we would use force “swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally” to defend the United States, but he emphasized that when confronted with other international crises, we should proceed with caution and not act alone.

And barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy, but almost of every art. The Egyptians were the first to introduce astrology among men. Similarly also the Chaldeans. The Egyptians first showed how to burn lamps, and divided the year into twelve months, prohibited intercourse with women in the temples, and enacted that no one should enter the temples from a woman without bathing. Again, they were the inventors of geometry. There are some who say that the Carians invented prognostication by the stars. The Phrygians were the first who attended to the flight of birds. And the Tuscans, neighbours of Italy, were adepts at the art of the Haruspex. The Isaurians and the Arabians invented augury, as the Telmesians divination by dreams. The Etruscans invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute. For Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians. And Cadmus, the inventor of letters among the Greeks, as Euphorus says, was a Phoenician; whence also Herodotus writes that they were called Phoenician letters. And they say that the Phoenicians and the Syrians first invented letters; and that Apis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt, invented the healing art before Io came into Egypt. But afterwards they say that Asclepius improved the art. Atlas the Libyan was the first who built a ship and navigated the sea. Kelmis and Damnaneus, Idaean Dactyli, first discovered iron in Cyprus. Another Idaean discovered the tempering of brass; according to Hesiod, a Scythian. The Thracians first invented what is called a scimitar (arph), -- it is a curved sword, -- and were the first to use shields on horseback. Similarly also the Illyrians invented the shield (pelth). Besides, they say that the Tuscans invented the art of moulding clay; and that Itanus (he was a Samnite) first fashioned the oblong shield (qureos). Cadmus the Phoenician invented stonecutting, and discovered the gold mines on the Pangaean mountain. Further, another nation, the Cappadocians, first invented the instrument called the nabla, and the Assyrians in the same way the dichord. The Carthaginians were the first that constructed a triterme; and it was built by Bosporus, an aboriginal. Medea, the daughter of Æetas, a Colchian, first invented the dyeing of hair. Besides, the Noropes (they are a Paeonian race, and are now called the Norici) worked copper, and were the first that purified iron. Amycus the king of the Bebryci was the first inventor of boxing-gloves. In music, Olympus the Mysian practised the Lydian harmony; and the people called Troglodytes invented the sambuca, a musical instrument. It is said that the crooked pipe was invented by Satyrus the Phrygian; likewise also diatonic harmony by Hyagnis, a Phrygian too; and notes by Olympus, a Phrygian; as also the Phrygian harmony, and the half-Phrygian and the half-Lydian, by Marsyas, who belonged to the same region as those mentioned above. And the Doric was invented by Thamyris the Thracian. We have heard that the Persians were the first who fashioned the chariot, and bed, and footstool; and the Sidonians the first to construct a trireme. The Sicilians, close to Italy, were the first inventors of the phorminx, which is not much inferior to the lyre. And they invented castanets. In the time of Semiramis queen of the Assyrians, they relate that linen garments were invented. And Hellanicus says that Atossa queen of the Persians was the first who composed a letter. These things are reported by Seame of Mitylene, Theophrastus of Ephesus, Cydippus of Mantinea also Antiphanes, Aristodemus, and Aristotle and besides these, Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic, in his books Concerning Inventions. I have added a few details from them, in order to confirm the inventive and practically useful genius of the barbarians, by whom the Greeks profited in their studies. And if any one objects to the barbarous language, Anacharsis says, "All the Greeks speak Scythian to me." [...]

The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq after an extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime more closely allied to Iran, the US’ regional adversary. The Iraq war depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly enlarged Washington’s budget and trade deficits, and reduced the living standards of US citizens. The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome, with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic disaffection, and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the total dissolution of state and civil society, and the emergence of armed tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead

Why Westerners are so obsessed with "saving" Africa, and why this obsession so often goes awry? Western countries should understand that Africa’s development chances and social possibilities remain heavily hindered due to its overall mediocre governance. Africa rising is still possible -- but first Africans need to understand that the power lies not just with the government, but the people. I do believe, that young Africans have the will to "CHANGE" Africa. They must engage their government in a positive manner on issues that matters -- I also realize that too many of the continent’s people are subject to the kinds of governments that favor ruling elites rather than ordinary villagers and townspeople. These kind of behavior trickles down growth. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is the problem. In South Africa the Apartheid did some damage. The country still wrestles with significant racial issues that sometimes leads to the murder of its citizens. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya the world’s worst food crisis is being felt. In Libya the West sends a mixed messages that make the future for Libyans uncertain. In Nigeria oil is the biggest curse. In Liberia corruption had make it very hard for the country to even develop. Westerners should understand that their funding cannot fix the problems in Africa. African problems can be fixed by Africans. Charity gives but does not really transform. Transformation should come from the root, "African leadership." We have a PHD, Bachelors and even Master degree holders but still can't transform knowledge. Knowledge in any society should be the power of transformation. Africa does not need a savior and western funds, what Africa needs is a drive towards ownership of one's destiny. By creating a positive structural system that works for the majority. There should be needs in dealing with corruption, leadership and accountability.

The Venetians catalogue everything, including themselves. ‘These grapes are brown,’ I complain to the young vegetable-dealer in Santa Maria Formosa. ‘What is wrong with that ? I am brown,’ he replies. ‘I am the housemaid of the painter Vedova,’ says a maid, answering the telephone. ‘I am a Jew,’ begins a cross-eyed stranger who is next in line in a bookshop. ‘Would you care to see the synagogue?’ Almost any Venetian, even a child, will abandon whatever he is doing in order to show you something. They do not merely give directions; they lead, or in some cases follow, to make sure you are still on the right way. Their great fear is that you will miss an artistic or ‘typical’ sight. A sacristan, who has already been tipped, will not let you leave until you have seen the last Palma Giovane. The ‘pope’ of the Chiesa dei Greci calls up to his housekeeper to throw his black hat out the window and settles it firmly on his broad brow so that he can lead us personally to the Archaeological Museum in the Piazza San Marco; he is afraid that, if he does not see to it, we shall miss the Greek statuary there. This is Venetian courtesy. Foreigners who have lived here a long time dismiss it with observation : ‘They have nothing else to do.’ But idleness here is alert, on the qui vive for the opportunity of sightseeing; nothing delights a born Venetian so much as a free gondola ride. When the funeral gondola, a great black-and-gold ornate hearse, draws up beside a fondamenta, it is an occasion for aesthetic pleasure. My neighbourhood was especially favoured this way, because across the campo was the Old Men’s Home. Everyone has noticed the Venetian taste in shop displays, which extends down to the poorest bargeman, who cuts his watermelons in half and shows them, pale pink, with green rims against the green side-canal, in which a pink palace with oleanders is reflected. Che bello, che magnifici, che luce, che colore! - they are all professori delle Belle Arti. And throughout the Veneto, in the old Venetian possessions, this internal tourism, this expertise, is rife. In Bassano, at the Civic Museum, I took the Mayor for the local art-critic until he interupted his discourse on the jewel-tones (‘like Murano glass’) in the Bassani pastorals to look at his watch and cry out: ‘My citizens are calling me.’ Near by, in a Paladian villa, a Venetian lasy suspired, ‘Ah, bellissima,’ on being shown a hearthstool in the shape of a life-size stuffed leather pig. Harry’s bar has a drink called a Tiziano, made of grapefruit juice and champagne and coloured pink with grenadine or bitters. ‘You ought to have a Tintoretto,’ someone remonstrated, and the proprietor regretted that he had not yet invented that drink, but he had a Bellini and a Giorgione. When the Venetians stroll out in the evening, they do not avoid the Piazza San Marco, where the tourists are, as Romans do with Doney’s on the Via Veneto. The Venetians go to look at the tourists, and the tourists look back at them. It is all for the ear and eye, this city, but primarily for the eye. Built on water, it is an endless succession of reflections and echoes, a mirroring. Contrary to popular belief, there are no back canals where tourist will not meet himself, with a camera, in the person of the another tourist crossing the little bridge. And no word can be spoken in this city that is not an echo of something said before. ‘Mais c’est aussi cher que Paris!’ exclaims a Frenchman in a restaurant, unaware that he repeats Montaigne. The complaint against foreigners, voiced by a foreigner, chimes querulously through the ages, in unison with the medieval monk who found St. Mark’s Square filled with ‘Turks, Libyans, Parthians, and other monsters of the sea’. Today it is the Germans we complain of, and no doubt they complain of the Americans, in the same words.

In the Libyan desert, fused glass and radioactive tektites were discovered and analyzed by Dr R V Dolphin. His discoveries are discussed by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath: After studying the Libyan desert glass, Dolphin suggested that for the ancient Phoenicians to have worked with temperatures equivalent to 6,000 degrees Celsius, they may have known the secret of atomic power – (The Atlantis Blueprint) Six thousand degrees Celsius is only two thousand degrees less than the temperature of the sun. At the same location jars and vases were found that fashioned in the same manner as earthenware. However, these artifacts were not made from clay, but the hardest substances known, such as basalt, quartz and diorite. Necks of vases were so narrow no hand could possibly have fashioned their interiors. High temperatures must have been employed, but experts are mystified as to how that was accomplished. Exceptionally high temperatures are required to remove impurities from gold. So scientists found themselves perplexed after necklaces, found in Libya, turned out to be one hundred percent pure gold. Doctor Dolphin accepted the truth and openly admitted what most of his academic colleagues could not, namely, that the secrets of atomic energy were known in prehistoric times. Charles Berlitz collated information on similar cases in Mesopotamia and Scotland. He wrote: After finding layers of Babylonian and Sumerian artifacts, the archaeologists had passed through 14 feet of clay which indicated a prolonged flood. Below this strata was a level of fused glass, the same kind found at Alamogordo in Texas after the A-bomb blasts – (Atlantis: The Eighth Continent) In west Scotland there is a fort that has one of its sides completely fused into glass, in the same manner. It had received some intense heat, but not lightening – ibid

Negotiating with a representative of the Libyan pirates in 1786, Thomas Jefferson was told that the Quran commanded the destruction of all nonbelievers, Americans included. And yet, when President Thomas Jefferson later made war on Libya, he dreamed of transforming it into a democracy.

The huntsman of the Libyan desert, the discerning art collector, the tolerant intellectual, disappeared, and in their place Hadrian emerged as a model of Roman power responding to perceived threat with absolute ruthlessness. Generosity became irresolution, tolerance turned into suppression, pragmatism into punitively enforced proscription.

It was one thing not taking an old bitterness to a new country. It was another to actually pay to send back Libyan Semtex to blow up my home.

Think back to the 2012 presidential election in the United States. There was an obvious absence of substantive discussions about major societal issues, including materialism, consumerism, commodification, greed, distribution of power, celebrity fixations, abuses of constitutional human rights, local, national, and international militarism, injustice and humiliation of the poor, and immigrants. The roles of certain religious and cultural groups must also be examined. At best, these discussions were minimal in words and time; the election focused on specific events (e.g., Libyan assassinations, national debt, abortion, candidate personality).

There is more to America’s past than appears on the surface. A strange unrest is apparent among many of the younger historians and archaeologists of the colleges and universities, a sense that somehow a very large slice of America’s past has mysteriously vanished from our public records. For how else can we explain the ever-swelling tally of puzzling ancient inscriptions now being reported from nearly all parts of the United States, Canada, and Latin America?...These inscriptions are written in various European and Mediterranean languages in alphabets that date from 2,500 years ago, and they speak not only of visits by ancient ships, but also of permanent colonies of Celts, Basques, Libyans, and even Egyptians – Barry Fell (America BC) Lewis Spence, one of the latest writers on the subject, concludes that the Toltec and Maya civilizations never originated on American soil but appeared there full blown, with a well-defined art and system of hieroglyphic writing which possesses affinities with the Egyptian – Comyns Beaumont (The Riddle of Prehistoric Britain) There seems little doubt but that the Irish had intercourse with America far earlier than any definite records, nor would it be surprising in view of the comparative proximity of the two – ibid As to so-called Druidical monuments, no argument can be drawn thence, as to the primary seat of this mysticism, since they are to be seen nearly all over the world – James Bonwick (Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions, 1894)

Before Dibble was stationed in London, she was Hillary Clinton’s principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. Her tenure and area of concern intersected with the September 2012 Benghazi attack, when Clinton and other Obama officials misrepresented facts about the terror operation that killed four Americans in the Libyan city. Dibble was also helping frame Papadopoulos.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi—a Libyan intelligence officer convicted of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie—from the clutches of the Scottish justice system.

Their heart bleeds for Syrians, Libyans, Afghans, Iraqis, Rwandans, Kosovars … but not for Palestinians,”5 Hasan was reacting to Israel’s action at a protest in Gaza on March 30, 2018, the beginnings of what was called the “Great March of Return,” where Israel shot 773 people, leading to 17 fatalities.

After this encounter, and despite being a US ally, the Italian government alerted Libya of the incoming attack. Whatever their motives may have been, the Italians succeeded in alerting Gaddafi at his Bab al-Aziziya residence only minutes before the F-111s arrived. The Libyan leader barely escaped with his family.

When the Libyan uprising was first gathering steam, Qaddafi dismissed the protestors as “rats” and vowed to eradicate them with unmatched fury. Six months later, dirty and on the run, he was found by Libyan fighters hiding in a sewer pipe near the city of Sirte, begging his captors not to shoot him. They did not oblige. Tellingly, in a sign of broader trends across the region, on the day that Qaddafi’s palace in Tripoli fell to the rebels, the flag that was hoisted atop the building was that of Qatar, a sign, no doubt, of the tiny sheikhdom’s surprising reach and power. Qatar’s flag was soon replaced by Libya’s own new flag. But the symbolic importance of seeing the Qatari flag over Qaddafi’s one-time headquarters was hard to miss. A new regional power had risen.

I’ve been reading about the Tree of Ténéré. This solitary acacia used to stand in the Sahara and was a landmark on caravan routes in north-east Niger. A symbol of hardiness, it was considered the most isolated tree on earth, the only one for 250 miles. It had been there for generations. Just one tree and a lot of desert all around it. Literally nothing else anywhere near by. In 1973 a drunken Libyan male truck driver hit the tree and knocked it over. I do not know how men have ended up ruling the world.

The second one was the Libyan (Euripides), the third the Delphian (Chrysippus), the fourth the Cimmerian (Naevius and Piso), the fifth the Erythraean (Apollodorus of Erythrae), the sixth the Samian (Eratosthenes), the seventh the Cumaean (Varro), the eighth the Hellespontine (Heraclides), and the ninth the Phrygian.

Elizza continued to scroll. It only got worse from there. Bandwagons of other girls, Libyan and non-Libyan, joined the thread with their own comments, so that within twenty or so tweets about the subject, what started out as blatant appreciation of male physical perfection soon downward spiraled into down-right stalking. She had to stop herself after a few minutes of reading—she didn’t think she could handle much more of it. She only knew of one word to describe the sad little thread, if only she could think of it. What is that word the young kids used these days? Oh yeah. Thirsty.

Jana was loved by all the Libyan moms, especially the ones with eligible sons. Elizza was not such a big hit. She got along great with everyone, but the moms looked at her with a sort of disapproval. They couldn’t quite put their finger on what exactly they disapproved of. They just had an instinct that this girl would give their son trouble if he was to marry her, and so they warned each other with subtle looks and some outright rude comments about her, to steer their sons away. They wanted someone haadiya for their sons. Elizza was still trying to tap down the exact Arabic to English translation of that word, but the general idea of it was quiet, shy, obedient. All she knew was, she was not it.

The former Libyan justice minister Salah Marghani explained that the EU-led program, of which Israeli drones are a key element, was all about trying to keep European hands clean. “Make Libya the bad guy,” he said. “Make Libya the disguise for their [the EU’s] policies while the good humans of Europe say they are offering money to help make this hellish system safer.”31 Frontex officers deploy to non-EU states as EU borders expand politically if not geographically. Human Rights Watch condemned Frontex for its “pattern of failure to credibly investigate or take steps to mitigate abuses against migrants at EU external borders.

We have seen, in a number of other settings, that powerful political figures with narcissistic tendencies and cult followings garner attention at the expense of the masses – all while speaking in the name of those masses.

Indeed, there is a profound intellectual debt owed to societies in North Africa in the development of social theory... Pierre Bourdieu studied the Kabyle in Algeria to develop theories of capital, habitus, and symbolic violence, concepts that have transformed cultural anthropology and approaches to ethnography in sociology... Michel Foucault lived and worked in Tunisia shortly after its independence from French colonial rule and become politically active in contesting neocolonialism in the emerging state. It was partly from these observations that he developed his theories of disciplinary power, governmentality, and biopolitics.

The use of Israeli drones is only one part of the Frontex infrastructure. Weiss said that his group and the few other NGOs aiming to monitor the central Mediterranean for migrants had an incredibly difficult task because the aim of the EU was not to help those in trouble at sea. Instead, the EU left the refugees to drown or placed them in the hands of the Libyan coast guard, which then took people back to detention centers in Libya—though this is a breach of international law.

There were countless stories of migrant deaths on the Mediterranean. One of the most chilling occurred in April 2021, when up to 130 people were left to die by EU and Libyan authorities off the Libyan coast in a storm despite both groups being constantly told of their presence. Alarm Phone, a hotline for migrants in distress in the EU, reported that “once more, these events show that death at sea is not an accident but the outcome of actions and inactions taken by European and Libyan actors.

But if we really want to reduce bias toward people with black skin, those of us with black skin need to succeed at higher rates. No amount of Ibram Kendi-style anti-racism propaganda will change that. Remi Adekoya, a Polish Nigerian writer, notes: Whether it is Libyans selling black Africans into slavery, which is happening right now, Chinese people contemptuously discriminating against blacks in China, or Indians doing [the] same in India, a general low regard for black people across the world does seem to be a constant. In fact, the reason we focus on racism in the West and not elsewhere is because western societies are the most responsive to black opinion. As a general rule, the Chinese, Indians and Arabs don’t seem to care very much whether we consider them racist or not. Their societies are openly assertive of their felt superiority.20 He goes on to note that only when Black Africa becomes prosperous will Black people begin to be respected around the world.

What Enver and Pan-Islamists failed to realize was that Muslim solidarity was effective when it complemented self-interest and the instinct of self-defence. In Cyrenaica, the CUP aim of preserving the integrity of the Ottoman state coincided with the desire of the Arab tribes to remain in control of their lives. Not only Enver but many Western strategists drew from the Libyan war the conclusion that Muslim solidarity was a powerful force everywhere, at least potentially. Events in the course of the First World War were to prove them wrong.

beyond American surveillance. There were no other messages on Haytham’s phone, and he shut it off. He accessed the text messages on Mayfield’s phone and saw a new text from Walsh. It read: TO ALL FBI AGENTS AND NYPD DETECTIVES: TWO LIBYAN INFORMANTS IN NY METRO HAVE COME FORWARD WITH INFO ON SUSPECT KHALIL IN CONUS. CHECK E-MAIL FOR DETAILS AND OPERATIONAL INSTRUCTION REGARDING APPREHENDING SUSPECT. WALSH, SAC, ATTF/NY. He shut off Mayfield’s phone and thought about this. If this was true, it presented some problems to him and to his mission. In fact, he would not know who to trust. He realized, though, that if this message from Walsh had been sent to all agents and all detectives, then it should have appeared on Haytham’s screen. But it had not. And Walsh did not know at the time he sent his message that he, Asad Khalil, would have Haytham’s phone in his possession. So why was the message not on Haytham’s phone? And why was it on Mayfield’s phone? She was dead when the message was sent. Therefore, he thought, this was a false message, sent only to Mayfield’s cell phone, which Walsh must now suspect was in the hands of Asad Khalil. And this was why Mayfield’s phone was still in service. He sat back on the bench and stared out at the sunlit water. So perhaps they were being clever. But not clever enough. Or… possibly it was a true message, but not actually sent to all detectives and agents despite the heading. Perhaps they did not trust Haytham. Or perhaps Haytham was not included for some other reason. In truth, Khalil did not know all there was to know about the inner workings of the Task Force, which was not as well known to Libyan Intelligence—or to his new friends in Al Qaeda—as was the FBI, for instance. In any case, this message had all the tell-tale signs of disinformation, and that was how he would regard it, which would please Boris, who had spent days teaching him about this. Boris had said, “The British are masters of disinformation, the Americans have learned from them, the French think they invented it, and the Germans are not subtle enough to put out a good lie. As for the Italians, your former colonial masters, they believe their

Unlike lying, an imagined reality is something that everyone believes in, and as long as this communal belief persists, the imagined reality exerts force in the world. The sculptor from the Stadel Cave may sincerely have believed in the existence of the lion-man guardian spirit. Some sorcerers are charlatans, but most sincerely believe in the existence of gods and demons. Most millionaires sincerely believe in the existence of money and limited liability companies. Most human-rights activists sincerely believe in the existence of human rights. No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our fertile imaginations. Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens have thus been living in a dual reality. On the one hand, the objective reality of rivers, trees and lions; and on the other hand, the imagined reality of gods, nations and corporations. As time went by, the imagined reality became ever more powerful, so that today the very survival of rivers, trees and lions depends on the grace of imagined entities such as the United States and Google.

Most human-rights activists sincerely believe in the existence of human rights. No one was lying when, in 2011, the UN demanded that the Libyan government respect the human rights of its citizens, even though the UN, Libya and human rights are all figments of our fertile imaginations. Ever

The shadow of the Second World War still hangs over Germany. The Americans, and eventually the West Europeans, were willing to accept German rearmament due to the Soviet threat, but Germany rearmed almost reluctantly and has been loath to use its military strength. It played a walk-on part in Kosovo and Afghanistan, but chose to sit out the Libyan conflict.

In 2013 the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron visited Tripoli and told the Libyan people that the lesson learned in Afghanistan and Iraq was: ‘helping other counties, intervening in other countries, is not simply about military intervention.’ To cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ he pledged: ‘In building a new Libya you will have no greater friend than the United Kingdom. We will stand with you every step of the way.’ But then, as the country plunged into chaos, with numerous militia battling for control, the Europeans walked away, leaving a broken state, a desperate people and a new route opening up for illegal immigration into the continent.

It is clear, then, that the Amorites of Canaan belonged to the same white race as the Libyans of Northern Africa, and like them preferred the mountains to the hot plains and valleys below. The Libyans themselves belonged to a race which can be traced through the peninsula of Spain and the western side of France into the British Isles.

In addition to involving the nation in an unauthorized war in Libya that empowered jihadist enemies of the United States, he and his subordinates falsely represented that the purpose of the war was to protect civilians, pursuant to a United Nations resolution.1 In fact, the purpose of the war was to overthrow the Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi, a government that he and his subordinates had previously portrayed as a key counterterrorism ally of the United States.2

The president instigated a war, unauthorized by Congress and in the absence of any threat to the United States, against the Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi.

It was an almost supernatural power, I sometimes came to think (though immediately I mocked the idea), making normally talkative people like the Bolognan fall silent, or silent people like the Libyan turn entirely mute, a force that wrested every last question from the mouths of the eternally curious, that created a space of artificial silence and darkness where I could cry and writhe in pain because I didn't like what I was doing, but where I could also come as many times as I wanted and where I could walk (or probe the surface of reality with my fingertips) without false hope, without illusion, not knowing the meaning of it all but knowing the end result, knowing why things are where they are, with a degree of clarity that I haven't had since, though sometimes I sense that it's there, curled up inside of me, shrunken and dismembered - luckily for me - but still there.

He also explained Operation Trojan, where Mossad relayed disinformation to be received by the US and Britain. They planted the Trojan, a communication device, deep inside the enemy territory. The device would rebroadcast prerecorded digital transmissions, which would be able to be picked up by Americans and the British. On the night of February 17th, two Israeli missile boats headed through the Mediterranean, letting four submarines and two speedboats disembark just outside the territorial waters of Libya. The submarines headed for shore and the agents headed inland with the Trojan device. They were picked up by a Mossad combatant who was already there, then they headed to the city, where they went to an apartment building less than three blocks away from the Bab al Azizia barracks known to house Qadhafi’s headquarters. They brought the device to the top floor of the building, activated it, then headed back to the beach. The combatant monitored the unit in the apartment for the next few weeks. The Trojan broadcasted messages during heavy communication traffic hours. They appeared as long series of terrorist orders to Libyan embassies around the world. The Americans began to perceive the Libyans as active sponsors of terrorism, while the French and Spanish were suspicious. The Mossad used America’s promise to retaliate against support for terrorism, to manipulate them into the ploy. Their intention was to get a country with better weapons to attack Libya. They succeeded. On April 14th, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircrafts dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. A deal for the release of American hostages in Lebanon was cut, forty Libyan civilians died, and an American pilot and his weapons officer died. For the Mossad, this mission was incredibly successful. However, it doesn’t highlight the intelligence agency in the same ways as other stories of operations. It showed deceit toward the Americans, who they would normally try to cooperate with. It “by ingenious sleight of hand, had prodded the United States to do what was right.” It showed the world what side the US was on in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In Libya in 2011, fourteen NATO members and four partner countries prevented Muammar Qaddafi from carrying out a promise to slaughter tens of thousands of his own people—and then they removed him from power. France, Britain, Italy, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and others struck 90 percent of all NATO targets. Spain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Greece, and Romania enforced an arms embargo at sea. Sweden, not a NATO member, contributed naval and air force personnel and equipment. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan, and Morocco also contributed.18 There was not a single U.S. casualty.19 The point is not that Washington should persuade others to do all the heavy lifting. NATO jets were able to hit their targets only because U.S. cruise missiles had already wiped out Libya’s air defenses. When Europeans ran short on precision-guided missiles, Washington sent them more.20 Without the United States, there would have been no mission. Critics carp that while NATO rid the world of a dangerous monster, it hasn’t created a stable Libya. That charge misses the point. From a Moneyball perspective, the goal was not to bomb Libya into democracy, start a war, or launch another improvisational bout of nation-building. It was to give Libyans a chance to escape the fate Qaddafi intended for them, and to enable them to begin the long-term process of building their own future.

I am a Muslim, an Arab and a Libyan,” she said. “I have to tell you that democracy cannot work here. It’s not possible with Arabs. Gaddafi did a lot for Libya.

Throughout this section, we’ve seen how the US government, which increasingly resembles a terrorist organization, worked with extremists, including its then-asset Osama bin Laden, to destabilize and then destroy Serbia. According to John Schindler, professor of strategy at the US Naval War College, the American Department of State and President Clinton sought to bomb the Serbs to help the Muslims, “following the lead of progressive opinion on Bosnia.” Thousands of Arab-Afghans (Saudis, Yemenis, Algerians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Iraqis, Libyans, Jordanians, and others), with extensive combat experience gained fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan on behalf of the Americans, opened a new front in the Balkans. They had weapons procured with help from the US government, as well as money from the Saudis and Americans, including that passed through the al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn. They had the assistance of the Maktab al-Khidamat (Services Office), set up to recruit, train, and aid fighters for the Afghan war. Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, wanted a repeat of the Afghanistan model in the Balkans, using Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan to send arms to the combatants. Front companies, secret arms drops, and Clinton’s National Security Council all played a role. The result was the creation of a larger and more capable cadre of murderers, war criminals, and human rights violators. They enabled the United States to topple a socialist opponent of its policies in Yugoslavia, tap the natural resources of the region, and control the routes from and access to oil and natural gas in Central Asia. American propaganda that flooded the media about murderers, war criminals, and human rights violators was particularly effective in gaining support in the United States and abroad. Like actions against the USSR, the United States trained fighters, supplied arms, and provided financial aid to rebels seeking to overthrow their government. Washington and NATO applied economic sanctions to Yugoslavia, hastening the country’s collapse. The KLA, directly supported and politically empowered by NATO in 1998, had been listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization supported in part by loans from Islamic individuals, among them allegedly Osama bin Laden.

Those silent evenings were worth many times the heat and labour of the day. Now at last there was no hurry to make the most of the daylight driving hours, for the day was gone.

The hallmark of these European conservative demagogues was a single-issue hatred of Muslim immigrants, particularly since the Syrian and Libyan migration crises, which led millions of people to flee to Europe. Add to this the rise of ISIS in Syria that led Muslim nationals born in France, Belgium, and Germany to carry out terrorist attacks in their countries of birth.

Wilson, he said, was a killer, whose current job was arranging to knock off the enemies of Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy. In response to my direct question, Mulcahy said he knew nothing that would link Wilson to the Kennedy assassination, but Wilson, like David Phillips, was deep inside that CIA clique pulling the strings at the time.

I.T.I. had also agreed to set up a training camp to teach Libyans bombing and political assassination techniques and to fill Libya’s order for an American-made Redeye missile, which is capable of shooting down a commercial airliner.

He escaped a second time, was caught a second time, returned to prison, and then sent for yet another spell of military service. By the time he finally fled to Sudan, aged fifteen, he had been jailed twice, and forced to become a child soldier three times. After being kidnapped and tortured by Libyan smugglers, he finally reached Italy by boat in May 2015.

I knew no one here and yet I knew them all. i knew this tentative silence, these faces and their cautious withholding. I could sit without saying a word, enduring that discreet anonymity of Libyan male society, with its careful social architecture that allows each one to keep to himself all that matters, that one could come to know an individual intimately and yet have no idea of an essential fact about him.