As Isaiah pointed out in last week's The World Today Just Nuts "Spanked on the Global Stage," Barack's a joke. Back in March, when he was promising it would only be a matter of weeks (a "cakewalk" perhaps?), Barack said Muammar Gaddafi "must leave." Four months later, he's still there.
Thursday, David D. Kirkpatrick (New York Times) reported the death of Abdul Fattah Younes. Who?
Thursday on Flashpoints (KPFA, Pacifica), guest host Kevin Pina spoke with Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya about the death (Flashpoints Radio airs live on KPFA from 5:00 to 6:00 pm PST, Monday through Friday).
Mahdi Nazemroaya: Abdul Fatah Younis has been declared dead. The circumstances around it exactly aren't known. We'll know at the press conference. And CNN will be present, BBC, Sky News, as well as various international news services.
Kevin Pina: Well Mahdi, explain to us who this man was and why it's so important. And obviously this is a breaking news story, you're breaking news on Flashpoints that this man was confirmed dead.
Mahdi Nazemroaya: Well this man was the former Interior Ministry of the government in Triopoli. He's a longtime friend of Col Gaddafi as well and he's also a member of the group of young Arab officers who started the revolution with Col Gaddafi. So it was actually a big surprise when he defected and joined the Transitional Council in Benghazi. Now his death, as I mentioned, the circumstances around it aren't known. I've heard different things I'm going to have to confirm. I was told that the rebel forces, the so-called rebels, have claimed that they killed him themselves because he was about to defect --
Kevin Pina: Defect back?
Mahdi Nazemroaya: Yes. He was going to do a second defection. Because a lot of the rebels are also tired of the fighting and I've heard that there might have even been negotiations for them to end the fighting and to come back. But anyways, I've also heard that he probably could have been killed by the government side. So this is not clear and it has to be confirmed.
Zhang Xiang (Xinhua -- link has text and video) reports today, "The Libyan National Transitional Council has confirmed that it had issued a warrant for the arrest of its top general. Abdel Fattah Younes was killed by gunmen on Thursday after he had been held and questioned by an NTC investigator regarding a military matter." Al Jazeera (link has text and video) adds, "Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the NTC, said that the warrant had been signed by Ali Essawi, his deputy, and that after Abdel Fattah Younes, the commander of the rebel armed forces, had been questioned on Thursday he had been released. Jalil, speaking at a press conference on Saturday, said that it was following Younes' release that two men killed the general and two of his aides."
Abdel Fattah Younes' death may end up being one of the most significant moments in the Libyan War after the news that the so-called 'rebels' were backed by the CIA. A number of the forces are what? Libyans. And what message does it send to defectors when they learn that the defector they put in charge of their forces was never trusted?
The message is that no one in the so-called rebels trusts anyone. That's some form of team building exercise . . . for losers.