The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #136495 Message #3219981
Posted By: bobad
08-Sep-11 - 08:10 AM
Thread Name: BS: Bombing of Tripoli March-April, 2011
Subject: RE: BS: Bombing of Tripoli March-April, 2011
Hope for a moderate future in Libya:
"What we know of the top rebel leadership is also reasonably encouraging.
Mahmoud Jibril, the acting prime minister of the rebels' Transitional
National Council, earned his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh
and taught there, too. As for Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the acting chairman
of the council, he is a former justice minister who challenged Colonel
Qaddafi by calling for the release of political prisoners. Ali Tarhouni,
the finance minister, is a former economist at the University of
Washington.
Some Americans have fretted that Islamic
extremists will take over Libya, but very few of the rebel leaders have
been associated with Islamic fundamentalism. One exception is Abdel
Hakim Belhaj, a military commander in Tripoli, who says he was tortured
by the CIA in 2004. Yet he told my Times colleague Rod Nordland that all
is forgiven and that he appreciates the American role in the Libyan
revolution.
Frankly, any representative Libyan government
needs to include fundamentalists like Mr. Belhaj, who were particularly
brave in standing up to the Gaddafi regime. The mood in Libya is both
pro-Islam and pro-Western."
Nicholas Kristof
NY Times