Ideological Kabuki at the Empire's Periphery
On the ground in Libya after Gaddafi's death
This is a Carousel guest piece by a Twitter anon
I spent New Year’s Eve 2014 in a hotel in Tripoli speaking with a politician fighting to remain relevant on his country’s national stage. Two sides were emerging in post-Gaddafi Libya, and our man was relegated to the sidelines.
A former mayor of Tripoli appointed Prime Minister by the Libyan Supreme Court, he was looking for Americans who could plead with our government or the UN to include him as a party in forthcoming peace talks. That we probably didn’t have the juice we all knew but was left unsaid.
Over the years, lots of political hacks (including those near the current American president) have made fortunes bilking dictators in exchange for the promise of political assistance, but our host wasn’t really a dictator and we weren’t really getting paid. My main thought on the Libyan conflict and our host’s role in it was that people aren’t obligated to tolerate …
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