Qaddafi murders hundreds, Obama calls for "restraint"

Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi ordered his air force to bomb protesters. The air force there was "bombing indiscriminately across Tripoli on Monday."

"What we are witnessing today is unimaginable. Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead," Adel Mohamed Saleh said.

Saleh, who called himself a political activist, said the bombings had initially targeted a funeral procession.

"Our people are dying. It is the policy of scorched earth." he said. "Every 20 minutes they are bombing."

Asked if the attacks were still happening he said: "It is continuing, it is continuing. Anyone who moves, even if they are in their car they will hit you."

However, thankfully, two of the pilots given the mission flew to Malta instead.

Two high-ranking Libyan air force pilots have who fled to Malta in their aircraft are reported to have told officials they escaped rather than carry out orders to bomb civilians. ...

The two Mirage F1 jets touched down in Malta after the pilots said they urgently needed to refuel and sought emergency clearance to land. The Times of Malta reported on its website the pilots had told officials they flew to the island after being ordered to bomb protesters occupying Libya's second-biggest city of Benghazi.

One report said they had also brought with them two other members of the Libyan armed forces. The pilots – both colonels – said that, after taking off from Okba Ben Nafi base, they flew low through Libyan air space to avoid radar detection.

So some of Qaddafi's fellow rats are fleeing his sinking ship. Well, I suppose a late change of heart is better than none, especially when the changed heart decides not to mass murder its fellow subjects.

Since the demonstrations against Qaddafi began, there are hundreds killed in the streets by Libyan security thugs.



Reports today say that Qaddafi has fled the country to - where else: "Dictator may already have fled and be on his way to Venezuela after Libyan air force attacks civilians."

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has fled Libya and may be heading for Venezuela, William Hague said today.

The [British] Foreign Secretary said he had seen 'information' that suggests Gaddafi is on his way to the South American country - as Libya was up in flames amid increasingly bloody battles between protesters and security forces.

If true, Qaddafi has left the country in the on-so-tender hands of his son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who "warns of "rivers of blood" in Libya."

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's son warned early Monday that the country faces a bloody civil war if protesters refuse to accept reform offers, in a speech broadcast as gunfire rang out in the capital, saying that his father remained in charge with the army's backing and would "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet."

But don't worry, Libyans! President Barack Obama, who was so daily vocal about the Cairo demonstrators, is on top of the situation! Uh, right?,

President Obama urged restraint in a written statement Friday on Libya and two other countries, but he hasn't appeared on television to talk about the crisis.

So what does "restraint" mean? "Please, Mr. Qaddafi, don't escalate to killing thousands instead of hundreds?" Or maybe, "Don't kill hundreds, kill only dozens."

So pusillanimous is Obama's statement that Libya's own ambassador to the United States attacked it (same link):

Now here's a situation pretty much without precedent: The Libyan Ambassador to the U.S. just called on the Untied [sic] States to denounce his country's leaders -- and his employers -- more forcefully.

"I want the U.S. to tell the world and to work with the countries who love peace...they have to stop this," Ambassador Ali Ojli said, suggesting that he had resigned his post, in an interview with Al Jazeera English.

"I would never ask us to intervene physically in Libya," he said, but called on the Obama Administration to "take a strong position that what's happening in libya must be stopped now...and to avoid giving the impression to the Arab world that the West "has only a materialist mind -- they don't care about human rights...except when it comes to their own interest."

Mr. Ojli vastly overestimates this administration's capability to understand what is in the United States' interests.

Doug Ross has more.

Update: The WaPo finally wades in. It's a pretty good piece, actually, but shrinks from the whole truth here:

Tribal and religious leaders condemned Gaddafi for the attacks against civilians; some urged all Muslims to rise against him. Influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi told al-Jazeera television that he urged any Libyan soldier who has the opportunity to kill Gaddafi - and issued a religious decree to that effect.

"I am issuing a fatwa now to kill Gaddafi," the cleric said. "To any army soldier, to any man who can pull the trigger and kill this man to do so."

Managed to miss mentioning that al-Qaradawi is the public face of the Muslim Brotherhood and that he was cheered by a million Egyptians Feb. 18 in Cairo's Tahrir Square for promising Islamist rule in Egypt.