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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (92712)	4/19/2011 2:00:41 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

At the same time, they say that the government should not raise the legal debt ceiling, despite warnings that failing to do so would force the government into default, credit markets into turmoil, and the economy into a tailspin. This is what worries me about Americans......they still manage to hear and accept the BS put out by Rs.

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (92712)	4/19/2011 2:09:38 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 149317

Benghazi: A huge sense of optimism for the future By Barrie Peach - 04/18/11 02:50 PM ET Being in Benghazi has undoubtedly been my most memorable time in the Foreign Office, and there have been quite a few to choose from! It is an amazing opportunity to see at first hand people shake off unimaginable repression of 42 years of Qadhafi’s rule and to watch the honorable people of Libya take their first steps to build a modern democratic state. The buzz in “Freedom Square” is amazing, even journalists who have had more than their fair share of experiences have commented on how different this feels. There is the huge sense of optimism for the future. Spin doctors could only dream of the unity of message that is coming from all of the people that I have met, from senior officials, academics, emerging civil society organisations to people selling revolutionary souvenirs on the street. Everyone wants Qadhafi, his family and associates gone. I’ve tried to find opposing voices, but there seems no room for debate on this. They all want a free and democratic Libya in which everyone has a voice. Everyone here has told me how united Libya society is. That is true. But from what I have seen, it is also very tolerant. I have visited few places where I have been made to feel more welcome, perhaps because people here have felt so isolated from the outside world. But I have also met Europeans who have been here for generations and visited a church built in the Ottoman period. I have been chastised for what the western media are reporting about links between the revolution and AQ. The Libyan people are devout Muslims but nobody here wants extremists. They have had enough of that over the past four decades. One guy I met made me laugh as he pulled on his beard and explained that it did not mean that he was an extremist, it was just because he was too busy supporting the revolution to go for a shave. I was out and about in the city today gauging reactions to the Doha meeting. I stumbled across a demonstration. The first banner said “thank you Contact Group” and that really summed up on the mood on the streets. The banner was surrounded by a sea of free Libyan flags, peppered with Union Jacks, Stars and Stripes and Tricoleur. Not to mention praise of the Qataris. It’s a great feeling to have people come up and thank me for UK foreign policy, which does not happen all that often in this part of the world. But then in the midst of all of this, there is the fear that Qadhafi might return one day. It is unimaginable. Not only because these people fear the brutality that would come with this (and it would be grim). But these people have tasted freedom, they now know what it is to express themselves without fear of disappearing in the middle of the night. Things could never go back to how they were before. A final thought for this blog, the people of Misurata and other towns under Qadhafi’s occupation and bombardment are never far from everyone’s minds here. I am not sure that I can imagine what they are going through. But I hope that it will be over soon and that I will be there to witness the birth of a new and better Libya. Barrie Peach is a British diplomat working alongside the U.K.’s Special Envoy, Christopher Prentice, in Benghazi. thehill.com