What Libya may look like after Quaddafi
by Prairie Weather
In eastern Libya, where the protesters seem to have won the day and probably the future, the town of Bayda offers some clues as to what the future may look like once Muammar Quaddafi has disappeared. It’s not Cairo, after all, where the bureaucracy is entrenched and a system of governance was already in place.
At the height of Egypt’s uprising, Cairo exploded in fervor as popular committees sprung up to police neighborhoods and volunteers picked up trash and painted fences. It was largely symbolic, since the Egyptian military and bureaucracy remained intact. There was never that much bureaucracy in Bayda, where residents had to travel 750 miles to the capital, Tripoli, for something as simple as a housing loan or a business permit.
Days after authority collapsed, residents set up a local council. They said they avoided terms like popular and revolutionary because they smacked of Colonel Qaddafi’s statements. Of its six members, one is from a group called the Youth of February 17, the date people have given the uprising here. Two others are Muslim clerics, one a professor of agriculture and another a businessman. It is led by Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, a former justice minister from Bayda acclaimed as a transitional leader who is now in Benghazi.
Answering to it are impromptu committees for everything from security to education, though schools remain closed here. Underneath a tent in Bayda’s downtown, organizers added more names to a list of 750 volunteers, who identified themselves as everything from students to a tank gunner. Detachments have tried to collect trash every morning. Others have organized aid from Egyptian relief convoys crossing the border.
The New York Times’ reporter, Anthony Shadid, spoke with Maj. Mustafa Muftah, “a former deputy police commander and now head of the security committee,” about Bayda’s potential for political stability.
When asked about a city suffused with arms, he turned vulnerable for a moment. Only a third of the city’s police officers were still at work, he said, and hundreds of volunteers, essentially anyone with a gun, were only nominally under his control. The jail had been stormed, and most of its 700 prisoners were still at large. He said he needed at least six months to bring authority to a city that spent days getting rid of it.
“I’m anxious,” he admitted. But, he added hopefully, “I trust the people here.”
There was a sense of optimism, too, at the city park next to the Bilal mosque, colored in shades of brown. At dusk, scores of children played on merry-go-rounds and swings. A traffic policeman on the road outside joked with a driver inching into the intersection. “Don’t ignore me,” he scolded, smiling. Not even a drizzle seemed to diminish the feeling that one order was ending and another, however ambiguous, was under way.
Optimism and an apparently generous helping of trust between police and those who are leading Libya into a new, developing, political system is reassuring.
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America and other nations sympathetic to the rebels’ plight are trying to make up their minds about whether to rush to the aid of the anti-Qaddafi forces. It’s a tough call, and the pressure is on from some gung-ho senators.
Secretary Gates demurs.
The defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, and top commanders have warned of political fallout if America again attacks a Muslim nation, even to support a popular revolt. So military planners on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff and in its field commands are offering a broad range of approaches, depending on how events play out in Libya and how tough the United States and its allies want to be.
We could help without invading and that appears to be the first, best option.
Even without firing a shot, a relatively passive operation using signal-jamming aircraft in international airspace could muddle Libyan government communications with military units. Administration officials said Sunday that preparations for such an operation were under way.
Other options include dropping in supplies, a “large, floating hospital” offshore as well as another large, floating armada with military supplies. One of Bush’s former advisors has mentioned an air-drop of weapons and supplies. Another suggests sending in a dozen Special Ops. All of that is complicated enough, but things could get more elaborate — like creating a no-fly zone. It’s not just a matter of pressing a button.
The destruction of Libyan air-defense radars and missile batteries would be required, perhaps using missiles launched from submarines or warships. A vast fleet of tankers would be needed to refuel warplanes. Search-and-rescue teams trained in land and sea operations would be on hand in case a plane went down.
The fleet of aircraft needed for such a mission would easily reach into the hundreds. Given the size of such a mission, it would be expected that American and NATO bases in Europe would be used, and that an American aircraft carrier would be positioned off Libya.
This is cross posted from the blog Prairie Weather.