Witnesses: Libyan fighters loot Gadhafi's hometown

[Bosonic]

Source: AP

SIRTE, Libya—Witnesses say Libyan fighters have been looting Moammar Gadhafi's hometown of Sirte, alongside fierce battles to drive out loyalists of the fugitive leader.

Associated Press Television News reporters saw trucks carting off tractors, industrial generators and heavy machinery on the road from Sirte to nearby Misrata.

Misrata was under siege by Gadhafi forces for months.

AP reporters also identified looted equipment from Sirte's airport. Trucks were carrying red-carpeted mobile staircases, baggage carts, airplane towing vehicles and security screening equipment, all apparently meant for Misrata's badly damaged airport. They said Sunday they also witnessed looting of houses in Sirte.

Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/iraq/ci_19125952

[OnyxCollie]

1. So these are the good guys?

It's beginning to look like Iraq.

[Igel]

2. Yup.

Everybody was so frantically mirroring, assuming that because they wanted to believe that the fighters were like themselves therefore the fighters *were* like themselves they forgot things.

Like large-scale cultural differences between the US and Libyans, US liberals/progressives in particular. Multiculturalism and ethnic/cultural diversity in Libya: We see a couple of college-educated, America-dwelling Libyans and all the Libyan youth are like progressive American college kids. They say "freedom," we assume it means exactly what we want it to mean.

They forget that the USSR used words like "freedom" and "democracy" to describe *their* system, and explicitly said that their system was at odds with ours (which was neither "free" nor a "democracy").

Pomo babble one second, evincing some understanding of how language works (and then twisting it); linguistic feeblemindedness the next. The only thing uniting the two is a deep and blindly fervent commitment to one's confirmation bias.

We saw it in the need to avoid fighting in Beghazi because it might hurt civilians. And the fierce fighting in Sirte even though it might hurt civilians. We saw it in condemning the seige of Misrata, because hospitals didn't have enough supplies, electricity and water were in short supply. We saw it in chortling over the seige of Tripoli because, well, it meant hospitals didn't have enough supplies and electricity/water were in short supply. Until the "good guys" needed medications, electricity, and water--then it was horrendous, somehow, that Qaddhafi had shorted the city by not stepping down and avoiding the seige. Ethnic purges? Bad if Qaddhafi did it, an unfortunate, entirely forgiveable occurrence when the good guys did it. Political revenge? Looting? Good or bad, depending on whose doing it--but in either case, an absolute universal moral principle. One that flips and flops like a goldfish that's jumped out of its tank and realizes it's made a bad choice.

Libya might turn out well. It might not. The absolute confidence that it could only turn out well was, well, probably not a wise bet. Possibly not as bad as the goldfish's choice. Perhaps so.

[Bo]

3. The COALITION OF THE WILLING at work again...lolololol

The blind leading the blind....