Revolutionary Wants Technology To Transform Libya

pbahra writes in with the story of Khaled el Mufti, the network-security engineer who was in charge of providing telecommunications for the Libyan revolution. "It isn't often you get the chance to meet a real revolutionary. It is a term cheapened by misuse, but Khaled el Mufti is a revolutionary. It is no exaggeration to say that the role he played in the Libyan uprising last year was crucial; had he and his telecoms team failed, it isn't hard to think that Col. Muammar Gadhafi might still be in power. Today, Mr. Mufti is a telecoms adviser to the interim government and heads the e-Libya initiative, a bold plan to use the transformative powers of technology to modernize the Libyan state, overturning 40 years of corruption and misrule under Gadhafi. Mr. Mufti is an unlikely revolutionary, a softly spoken network-security engineer with a degree from Imperial College in London. Almost by chance he was in his native Libya when the revolution took place, working on a project with BT in the capital, Tripoli."

Comments

My prediction:

[russotto]

Dead within a year.

Libya had a communications satellite

[AHuxley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_African_Satellite_Communication_Organization
http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Space-Systems-and-Industry/Rascom-Libya.html
"'ground network includes gateway Earth stations and low cost," -
It made parts of Africa spend less on Intelsat and a lot less on big telco interconnection fees.
Now the West is back and wants their telco interconnection fees back... all of them.

Interesting background on the coup

[Burz]

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html

No wonder The Wall St. Journal is gushing.

Re:Interesting background on the coup

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one hell of a conspiracy theory. Her main thesis is that Libya was attacked because it wouldn't play ball with the Bank for International Settlements? Well, if you look at the map there are only 4 Islamic countries which are part of the BIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_for_International_Settlements

Could it just be that banking standards in the Islamic world differs highly from the rest of the world, and rather than there being an extra layer of conspiracy where Western countries are targeting non-BIS countries (of which there are yet many in USA's backyard of South America, and in France's backyard of Easter Europe), it's just that Libya happened to be a place where human rights violations were immediate (like Syria, Bahrain) and no major powers were backing it (unlike Syria, Bahrain).

There are two kids being abused, one lives near you, the other lives in a community where neighbors support the abuse. Where would intervention be the most effective?

Re:Interesting background on the coup

[bill_mcgonigle]

Skimmed the article - from what I've read elsewhere:

Gaddafi wanted to price oil in terms of gold and get all of Africa to do so as well. This threatened the petro dollar.

Libyans had a very high per-capita reserve of gold.

The same day as the US^H^H^H^H^H NATO started to attack, the 'rebels' set up a central bank and a national oil company.

The idea that the war was fought to protect rebels or civillians (see also: Syria, Bahrain) is sketchy. The idea that it was fought to protect the value of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency and maintain the primacy of central banks ... well, we wish that weren't true.

Re:Interesting background on the coup

[Xest]

"Libya - The US Currency Protection War"

An Epic story, brought to you from such esteemed authors as "The Jews did 9/11", "The Financial Crisis is the Banks Taking Over the World", and "UFOs took my mum"

It's stupid, I suppose these people think that Gaddaffi was in on it too and sent his forces to destory Benghazi provoking the initial French strikes to tip the scales in favour of military action too only to be backstabbed later on? Presumably after the initial strikes the reason Qatar, Britain, and France spent most money and took most risk over the conflict was because Cameron and Sarkozy were caught up in a love triangle with Obama and hoped to whisk him away to Canada where gay marriage is legal too?

A bank is a pretty important symbol of a functioning state, and a rebel cause like this needs an incredible amount of funding to stand up to the amount of reserves of gold and cash Gaddaffi had lying around to fund mercenairies and so forth.

As with all wars, those that helped the winning side will likely hope for some kind of repayment - favour for their companies when it comes to oil contracts and such, but to suggest this was some kind of planned US coup is fucking laughable. America was pretty reluctant over Libya and didn't even really want much to do with it, and after softening Gaddaffi's stationary implacements and facilities with initial cruise missile strikes, didn't in fact have much to do with it providing little more than intel from drones and satellites.

If there were any countries for whom this would be a conspiracy it would be Britain, France, or Qatar, as they were the primary instigators of it throughout, but then you'd have to find a reason other than the US dollar conspiracy theory.

It's also highly unlikely Russia and China wouldn't have an idea of what the Americans were upto, and they'd have outright vetoed the UN resolution knowing this is what it was about.

Really, it was what it was, some may disagree whether it was right and that's a fair point, some may point to greed when countries who supported the uprising get handed favourable contracts, but this wasn't some grand US conspiracy - as with most conspiracy theories, the theory only tentatively pieces together a handful of disparate points, whilst failing to string together a cohesive explanation for all the parts of the story that don't fit, no, they just get conveniently ignored by the nutjobs.

This depresses me

[sideslash]

Not saying there isn't great potential for good there, but I don't expect to see it. Unfortunately, the Islamists in Libya and Egypt would like nothing better than to use technology the same way Iran does -- to stifle any dissent from the political/religious straightjacket that is Islamic fundamentalism. I hope for the best, but don't like some aspects of the political momentum I see in the "Arab spring". It seems like they are dumping corrupt secular dictators, just to prop up theoretically less corrupt, but still abjectly fascist slave masters wielding Sharia law.

Re:This depresses me

[Mashiki]

Oh come on. The media elitists keep telling us that this arab spring is nothing but good stuff, and there's rainbows, and cookies, and everyone is going to hold hands. That's why in egypt they just elected a group of people which will be happily throwing the countries legal system back to the 13th-14th century, and quickly shoving women back to chattel status.

Oh...and the same thing is going on in libya. Sadly the people that believed this revolution stuff would be positive were so naive that it made me wonder if they'd ever left their home countries and wondered the world in the slightest.

Re:This depresses me

[artor3]

It seems like they are dumping corrupt secular dictators, just to prop up theoretically less corrupt, but still abjectly fascist slave masters wielding Sharia law.

I don't see that at all. The Muslim Brotherhood won in the election in Egypt, not to Salafis. They had an election, and they elected one of the moderate parties, by their standards. Maybe you were hoping for them to elect the liberal party, but there's a difference between "not the party I would have voted for" and "abjectly fascist slave masters".

If anyone expects Egypt to be a utopian bastion of democracy within a few years, they're fooling themselves. It never works like that. But they're taking steps in the right direction, and they fought like hell for the right to take those steps. Don't run them down for that.

Re:This depresses me

[artor3]

By the standards of the country, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate, and perhaps more importantly, they were elected. It's better to have an elected government than a dictator, even if that elected government does some bad stuff.

Let's not forget that America passed plenty of terrible laws when it was younger. Still does, in fact, though not to the same extent. The Sedition Act made it illegal to say anything bad about the government. Black people were deemed 3/5ths of a person. No, that doesn't mean they got three fifths of a vote. It means their owners did. They banned sodomy and alcohol. Non-protestants weren't allowed to hold office in many places.

It takes a long time for democratic countries to level out and start running themselves well. But it beats the hell out of being completely at the mercy of a dictator.

Re:This depresses me

[shutdown -p now]

If thats what the egyptians want, then thats their right. You or I don't have to like it, but it sure as hell aint any ones business but the egyptians.

Keep in mind that Sharia equals death penalty for homosexuals, for example. Statistically, about 10% of Egyptians are homosexual. Do you think they want it? Or do you think that, if the majority wants to oppress some of the minorities - maybe even massacre them - they're free to do so so long as they held a vote first?

Re:This depresses me

[sourcerror]

If you refer to the Muslim Brotherhood, then you must be really misguided. It's like saying that a Christian-Democrat partys wants reintitute inquisition.

Allahu ackbar!

[hessian]

USA: starry-eyed techs go into IT in order to make our lives better through technology, end up having to update thoughtless websites, and hate it.

Middle East: starry-eyed techs go into IT with hopes of bringing democracy to their countries, end up working for Islamic Brotherhood and designing suicide vests, and hate it.

See, we're all the same after all....