the word I made up — "contristador" — is hopefully a loaded weapon. It contains the word "con" as in "con-trick", the word contristado as in very contrite and sorry and the word "conquistador" which is all about conquering... Here is that word again "con"...

The UN has withdrawn all its international staff from the Libyan capital Tripoli following a mob attack on its offices.

UN buildings and some foreign missions were targeted by angry crowds following a Nato air strike that reportedly killed a son of Col Gaddafi.

The UN says all its international staff have now left for Tunisia and the decision will be reviewed next week.

After its Tripoli embassy was sacked, the UK expelled the Libyan ambassador.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13253896

“Right now, socially, we are disintegrating.”

So says Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and potential candidate for president of Egypt.

Indeed, post-revolutionary Egypt appears to be coming apart.

Since the heady days of Tahrir Square, Salafis have been killing Christians. Churches have been destroyed. Gangs have conducted mass prison breaks. The Muslim Brotherhood brims with confidence.

And demands are rising for the prosecution and execution of former president Hosni Mubarak.

“People do not feel secure,” says ElBaradei, “They are buying guns.” And as Anthony Shadid and David Kirkpatrick of the  New York Times write, it is not only Egypt’s future that is in doubt.

“(I)n the past weeks, the specter of divisions — religion in Egypt, fundamentalism in Tunisia, sect in Syria and Bahrain, clan in Libya — has threatened uprisings that once seemed to promise to resolve questions that have vexed the Arab world since the colonialism era.”

Can the Arab revolts cope with “the cacophony of diversity … the Arab world’s variety of clans, sects, ethnicities and religions?”

Or will we witness the disintegration of nations like Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, as we did Ethiopia and the Sudan — and of African, Latin American, Asian and European nations, as well?

With the end of the Cold War in 1991, it seemed the world was moving toward unity. The post-Cold War era saw the expansion of the European Union, NAFTA and GATT, the creation of a World Trade Organization, the Rome Treaty for the prosecution of war crimes, the Kyoto Protocol, and the G-7 expand to the G-8 and then to the G-20.

Nations seemed to be coming together to solve global problems.

Today, nations seem everywhere to be coming apart.

http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/05/26/democratic-dawn-or-darkness/

WASHINGTON — The House dealt a symbolic blow to President Obama on Friday by resoundingly rejecting a bill to authorize United States military operations in Libya. But the chamber also defeated a measure that would have limited financing to support those efforts.

The result, coming after weeks of tension between Congress and the White House over authorization of American military aid for the NATO mission in Libya, was a mixed message to the Obama administration, with Republicans and Democrats forming alliances that splintered customary party lines. The resolution to support the mission failed 295 to 123, with 70 Democrats joining Republicans in a rebuff to Mr. Obama.

The resolution was based on a Senate bill written by Senators John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona,  to blunt criticism that the president has failed to seek Congressional approval for his actions in Libya.

“We are disappointed by that vote,” said Jay Carney, a White House spokesman. “We think now is not the time to send the kind of mixed message that it sends when we are working with our allies to achieve the goals that we believe that are widely shared in Congress.”

He said that these goals included “protecting civilians in Libya, enforcing a no-fly zone, enforcing an arms embargo and further putting pressure” on Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader.

A second bill, which had the strong support of Speaker John A. Boehner, would have prohibited money for military operations outside of support activities like search and rescue, aerial refueling, operational planning, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It was intended to essentially end direct American combat activity like missile strikes while remaining supportive of NATO’s efforts.

That measure failed 238 to 180, with 89 Republicans deserting their party and only 36 Democrats voting in favor.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/us/politics/25powers.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

David Cameron can thank Rupert Murdoch, even the wretched Andy Coulson, for one ironic blessing. The Prime Minister's appalling misjudgment and obstinacy in hiring Coulson has so dominated headlines these past days that an equally staggering misjudgment in the international theatre is escaping well-merited ridicule and rebuke.

The issue here is Nato's efforts to promote "regime change" in Libya, whose failure after two and a half months of bombing and arms supply to various rebel factions is now glaring.

Obviously Nato's commanders are still hoping that a lucky bomb may kill Gaddafi, but to date the staying power has been with the Libyan leader, whereas it is the relevant Nato powers who are fighting among themselves.

When Cameron vied with French president Sarkozy in early May in heading the charge against Gaddafi, no weighty hand of caution seems to have disturbed the blithe mood of confidence in Downing Street. It was as though Blair's blunders and miscalculations in Iraq, endlessly disinterred in subsequent years, had never been.

Cameron presumably had intelligence assessments of the situation in Libya from the Foreign Office, the secret services and the military. Did any of them say that Gaddafi might be a tougher nut to crack than the presidents of Tunisia or Egypt, might even command some popular support in Tripoli and western Libya, historically at odds with Benghazi and the eastern region? If they did, did Cameron pay any attention?

 “This is destruction!” complained Nouri Ftais, a 51-year-old commander, who offered a rare, unheeded voice of reason. “We’re destroying Libya with our bare hands.”

The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that “freedom is a problem.” Much about the scene on Wednesday was lamentable, perhaps because the discord was so commonplace.

“Some of it is really overwhelming,” said Ashur Shamis, an adviser to Libya’s interim prime minister, Abdel-Rahim el-Keeb. “But somehow we have this crazy notion that we can defeat it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/world/africa/libyas-new-government-unable-to-control-militias.html?_r=1&hp

The contristadores are mitigatedly happy... the oil flows out in their direction while the country self-destructs... See toon at top... And the contristadores want the same thing to happen in Syria... Who could have ever thought? Ha ha (sarcastic laughter) ...

Meanwhile in Egypt, the religious mafias want to take over the government... Who could have ever thought? Ha ha (sarcastic laughter) ...