Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Libyan militias now want to keep their arms after all. Go figure?

When the armed-struggle phase of the anti-Qadaffi uprising began and the Libyan state aresenals were being liberated those people and groups making off with all the guns and ammo vowed that they'd turn them all over to the new government when the revolution was successfully concluded. Now it seems that they're having a change of heart about disarming themselves.

It seems that after nearly a century or so of foreign occupation (the Italian Fascists) and misrule by both an unelected King (Idris II) and a bat-shit crazy dictator (Qaddafi) the people of Libya don't trust governments or political elites. Go figure?

That being unarmed renders one contemptible in the sight of one's rivals is a reality of practical politics in unsettled places like Libya; A practical point of existence that you won't learn of at places like the Kennedy School of Government or the Sorbonne. 

NYT story link here.