Libyan opposition: Gadhafi forces not working with local tribes

[Turborama]

Source: CNN International

April 24, 2011 -- Updated 14:12 GMT

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- An opposition leader on Sunday denounced Libyan government claims that the regime is working with local tribes to deal with rebels in the port city of Misrata.

The regime has said that it is calling on the tribes to either negotiate with the rebels or use force.

"There are no tribes and there are no negotiations. It's only Libyan people fighting against Gadhafi's forces," said Col. Ahmad Bani, a rebel military spokesman.

Ruler Moammar Gadhafi is "lying to say to the world that he's looking to find a solution," Bani said. "These are Gadhafi dreams and they will never happen."

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/04/24/libya.war/index.html?hpt=T2

[msongs]

1. thousands of years of exactly the same behavior nt

[harmonicon]

2. care to elaborate? nt

[Iterate]

3. The myth of tribal Libya

The myth of tribal Libya

Portraying Libya as 'tribal' is not only wrong – it dismisses the notion that our uprising has anything to do with national dignity
Alaa al-Ameri guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 March 2011 10.00 BST

...

The regime has two main aims for this repeated yet baseless claim. First, people in western Libya are largely cut off from outside media and so the assertion that the Gaddafi regime has the allegiance of regional leaders is intended to crush the confidence of those wishing to rise up in their own cities. Second, it aims to confuse outsiders into believing that the Gaddafi regime is all that's holding together a fractured and disunited people. Images of Iraq are the desired effect. Among some in the international press and anti-interventionist movements, Gaddafi's aims seem to have been met without much resistance.

...

The big picture, therefore, is not one of long-established tribal conflict. Most recent instances of disputes based on tribal loyalty have been fomented and engineered by Gaddafi’s national policy of divide and conquer. As long as people squabbled among themselves, they were far less likely to unite against him. Well, now they have, and in a desperate attempt to survive, Gaddafi, his son and his close circle are repeatedly attempting to raise the ghost of a rejected system of patronage which they used to maintain power for decades.

Complete and well worth reading"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/30/libya-tribal-myth-national-dignity

Any look through Libyan history will provide scant evidence for significant tribal conflict through the ages. In fact, the tribal system was more important as a means of conflict resolution.

[AllTooEasy]

4. ..and some idiots still think Qaddafi can be negotiated with.

I hate war, but I hate mass murders and sadistic dictators MORE! Don't give me the Iraq War comparisons. Saddam was contained and Bush created an emergency situation out of nothing. This civil war created by the Lybian rebels and we should help them overthrow Q-bastard.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Whilst others are educated enough not to end sentences with prepositions.

.

[Odin2005]

7. If you were taught that you were taught wrong.

That is one of those "rules" made up 250 years ago by people that thought English should work like Latin. it is not a real part of Standard English.

[dipsydoodle]

9. I assume you mean its not part

of standard American English. :rofl:

[Odin2005]

10. It's not a part of standard English, period.

that rule was completely fabricated in the 1700s by grammarians who knew Latin, thought it was some "perfect" language, and though English syntax should emulate it. Dangling prepositions are actually a perfectly normal feature of Germanic languages, a relic of Proto-Indo-European's lacking a distinction between prepositions and adverbs.

[Turborama]

11. I didn't know that.

Thanks. :thumbsup:

I find it interesting when sub-threads lead into random informative conversations like this, even if they were started with an abusive ad hominem.

[joshcryer]

12. Same, ever since being scolded for it on IRC, I have avoided them.

Now I won't feel so bad (BTW, the wikipedia article backs up what he says).

I get more shit for using (purposefully, consciously), "singular they."

The Brit-Grammar-Nazi's hate "singular they." Sorry folks, becoming a norm now. :hi:

[Odin2005]

15. Singular "they" is OLD, even Chaucer used it.

IMO the hate against it has more to do with sexual politics more than anything, conservative types ignorantly thinking it is evidence of PC gone nuts by people not wanting to use "he" as the default.

[joshcryer]

17. I used to get a lot of Jane Austin mockery for using it.

But I never cared, it feels natural (and I wasn't exactly brought up in a liberal household that preferred genderless language).

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. It is the sort of thing up with which I will not put

As Winston Churchill said, quoting Fowler - who, if anyone was, was the expert on standard British English:

It is often said that a sentence should not end with a preposition, so []ithey broke everything they could lay their hands on should be recast as they broke everything on which they could lay their hands.

In a long article, Modern English Usage, second edition, traces the origins of this "cherished superstition" and ends with the advice: "Follow no arbitrary rule but remember there are often two or more possible arrangements between which a choice should be consciously made. If the final preposition that has naturally presented itself sounds comfortable, keep it."

In a sentence like "we should take account of what the readers will be comfortable with" it would be absurd to put the preposition anywhere but at the end.

It was Fowler whom Churchill was quoting when he famously said that such a rule was an imposition "up with which I will not put".

http://www.eng-lang.co.uk/fowler.htm#preposition

[dipsydoodle]

14. I thought it was ok with a rider

e.g.

I'm going shopping.
Who are you going shopping with ?
You shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition.
Ok - who are you going shopping with....you picky cow

:)

[AllTooEasy]

16. Sorry, I was an electrical engineering major. Me never read good.

[al bupp]

5. The myth of Libyan tribalism deserves to be thoroughly debunked /nt

[Odin2005]

8. Gagoofy PWNED.