Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Thousands of Libyans flee renewed fighting. -Yahoo/AP

Tripoli is burning. Yahoo/AP

Over 6000 people a day are fleeing Libya for Tunisia. -Yahoo/AP. Local militias have been fighting each other in the capital of Tripoli. The airport has largely been destroyed and an oil storage building there continues to burn. Over 100 people have died in the fighting. Regular civilians are starting to protest against the various militia groups. Meanwhile, Tunisa is threatening to close its borders. 

My Comment:
Libya continues its downward spiral. This is the problem when you overthrow a strong dictatorial government and replace it with nothing. If you create such a huge power vacuum something else will rise to fill it. In this case it is militias and warlords. In Iraq it was ISIS. 

The good news is that it looks like the Libyan civilians have had enough of the militias and are starting to protest them. They want the government to be in control, not warlords. The more support the government gets the more legitimacy it has. A stronger government means that the chances of the militias surviving long term go down, which is good news for everyone. Still it is going to take a long time and a lot of bloody fighting. 

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