Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution By Ethan Chorin
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In Exit the Colonel Ethan Chorin a longtime Middle East scholar and one of the first American diplomats posted to Libya after the lifting of international sanctions goes well beyond recent reporting on the Arab Spring to link the Libyan uprising to a flawed reform process egregious human rights abuses regional disparities and inconsistent stories spun by Libya and the West to justify the Gaddafi regime s rehabilitation Exit the Colonel is based upon extensive interviews with senior US EU and Libyan officials and with rebels and loyalists a deep reading of local and international media and significant on the ground experience pre and post revolution The book provides rare and often startling glimpses into the strategies and machinations that brought Gaddafi in from the cold while encouraging ordinary Libyans to break the barrier of fear Chorin also assesses the possibilities and perils for Libya going forward politically and economically Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan RevolutionWhen the US engineers a revolution the result is broken eggs than omelette This is again the case as demonstrated in Ethan Chorin s take on Libya Chorin a policy wonk in the Obama State Department is an ongoing US point man in Libya s evolving or dissolving re emergence into the world Chorin s expertise on Libya and the Middle East makes him an excellent go between But as to be expected he firmly backs the US rationalizations for intervention and investment in nation building But at lest he avoided the conventional weasel phrase regime change coined by the policy establishment in Madisonian dread of the R Word One is simply incredulous at reading on p 214 that a pre cooked American plan to topple Qaddafi was unlikely and unmotivated This statement is belied not only by a long history of US interventions overt and otherwise but Chorin s whole presentation of the Qaddafi US rapprochement over the prior decade This may not mean the US conspired to get rid of him immediately in 2004 but Libya s opening to reform laid the groundwork for 2011 As Chorin outlines in several chapters Qaddafi and the West dealt with each other only because they had to The West held the key to the goodies of globalism Qaddafi was the door to Libyan oil Growing outside involvement exposed the regime s dry rot to only weaken it further and revolution we re told is merely kicking down a rotten door American interests saw their chance in the Arab Spring to cut out a long despised odious middleman whose hand few relished shaking. Book Exit the colonel douglas Libya was a Bay of Pigs that succeeded following a long line of such scenarios that CIA powder burns and fingerprints scream for due forensic attention None can doubt the hatred of Qaddafi was real as Chorin reiterates the Colonel s bloody deeds old and new One doesn t stay king of the mountain 42 years without a firm grip of terror at its base With Libyan elites looking for a way out of their green curtain plus regional divisions and grass roots tribesmen out for blood revenge there were certainly no lack of allies and assets for regime change The Western necessity to pour gas on this smoldering compost is a smoking question Chorin evades than answers which in turn only fuels the conspiracies he deplores Qaddafi s fate is a warning to other Third World leaders to be wary of opening to the West the very ones most anxious to do business with Qaddafi Berlusconi and Sarkozy in particular were the first to ditch him and call for his ouster namely its manner We see Madame Secretary Clinton issuing the Imperial thumbs down like a Roman proconsul he must go showing the law of sovereign nations is just Sunday go to meeting rubbish when Caesar speaks To be followed by her ghoulish gloating at Qaddafi s lynching We came we saw he died ha ha ha revealing the moral gap between Western powers and Third World despots is often not as great as vanity has it The latter at least don t travel halfway around the world to kill someone else s people To rephrase the Sakharov quote on p 311 A country that puts the health and welfare of its own people first rarely disrespects the rights of others. Book Exit the colonell Chorin is formally non committal on the future of Libya but offers hopeful assumptions that the Libyan people will not allow their secular freedoms to be lightly snatched from them by the violent and the fanatic However Libyan society was already greatly secularized in association with Qaddafi s Green Revolution As in Iraq and Syria the secular state is in danger of being thrown out with its former leaders Other dangers lurk in less obvious places Also on p 311 Chorin advises that the US and the West do not have to wait to implement change they should deliver as much technical assistance as Libya is able and willing to accept and pay for This suggests that the gravy boat o Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution b Exit the Colonel b by Ethan Chorin After my review of Tamim Ansary s b Games without Rules The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan b If you haven t read it yet you really really must it was my number two nonfiction book for 2012 the publisher gave me the opportunity to review this work on Libya One would think that given the amount of media attention that Libya gets there would be a plethora of books on the subject but as I began this book I realized that despite having read well in excess of a hundred books over the years on the Middle East and political Islam a good history of Libya had slipped through the cracks of my reading list. Book Exit the colonel douglas Ethan Chorin explained why Western journalists had always been rather thin on the ground in Libya during the Gaddafi regime and therefore modern histories of Libya are a very new literary phenomenon literally since the fall of Gaddafi Chorin s book which came out in late October of 2012 and covers material he gathered as late as that summer gives some of the most up to date information that readers can find in book form. Exit the Colonel epub.pub There are other books out there that will give you a comprehensive history of Libya that is not his intent Chorin does give some history essentially what you need to know to understand how Gaddafi was able to maneuver himself into power from a cultural standpoint He does an excellent job explaining the duality of Libya as a country the divisiveness that those of the eastern half and those of the western half have always felt towards one another and the powerful effect that this has in her politics not to mention her soccer matches we are not talking friendly rivalries here Obviously politics plays a huge part in this book and there is a massive cast of players I would dearly love a roster at the front of the book listing them all That said mine is a pre publication manuscript so it is possible that one was added at publication time A good deal of ink is spread detailing the role not only of Gaddafi but also of his second eldest son Saif al Islam who was believed by many to be the son whom Gaddafi most wanted to succeed him in power In addition many power brokers on the Libyan U. PDF Exit the colonella and European fronts are discussed If you don t know about Gaddafi s dealings with Tony Blair and Nicolas Sarkozy this book will be rather enlightening for you Mr Chorin briefly explains the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt which inspired the Libyan rebellion that finally brought down Gaddafi after forty two years in power He then goes on to cover about seven months after the fall of Gaddafi in October of 2011 and so the book includes the first faltering steps of the Transitional National Council One area in which this book really shines is tracing Libya s economic journey both before Gaddafi through his regime and after Ethan Chorin has excellent sources both inside Libya and outside and he shows how Libya affects and is affected by global trade It is interesting to note that in Libya unlike in Afghanistan and many other countries where the United States and her allies are involved in trying to assist in establishing democratic governments and stabilizing economies in the wake of civil unrest we are dealing with a country that is well able to pay her own way as Libya is very rich in natural resources and has the know how and infrastructure in place to exploit them. Exit the Colonel kindle reader My one major quibble with this book and the factor which kept it from earning a fifth star has to do with a writing and not a research element which bothers me to no end because I feel like it could have been solved so simply This book makes the most ridiculous overuse of acronyms I have ever encountered To the point that it renders the book almost unreadable I quite literally had to begin a crib sheet that I kept in the cover of my e reader because I could not remember them all These are not the acronyms that we all know such as WMD for weapons of mass destruction some of these were obscure acronyms for organizations that the average reader of this book is not going to have in their working vocabulary And the acronym was not just used several times within close proximity of each other several chapters later an acronym might pop up again one time out of the blue Without my crib sheet I would have been lost Seriously Would it really have been that difficult to type out the words It drove me crazy and it was so unnecessary because simply typing out the unfamiliar names would not have been overly repetitive as the list of acronyms was MASSIVE It almost felt like the author put in all the acronyms during his research process as a form of short hand and then in the editing process everyone neglected to go in and write them out for the reader Or failing that at least give the reader a list at the beginning of the book with all the acronyms and their interpretations So reader just be aware from the beginning unless you have a prodigious memory for acronyms I highly recommend making a list as you go along I must say this is the oddest reason I have ever withheld a star from such an excellently researched and written book On a positive note you needn t take my word on the merits of this work Professor Dirk Vandewalle unarguably the most highly respected scholar regarding Libya and a professor of government at Dartmouth says of Chorin s work Chorin s book will undoubtedly remain the best analytical work on Libya and its revolution for a very long time Coincidentally there is a first rate article written by Professor Vandewalle and published in the November December 2012 issue of i Foreign Affairs i magazine entitled After Qaddafi The Surprising Success of the New Libya it makes the perfect epilog to Ethan Chorin s book On the advice of both Professor Vandewalle you cannot get better than his really and my own feelings from my reading I recommend this one to serious readers of nonfiction political history Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution i admire ethan chorin among the diplomats journalists and think tank analysts that are currently writing about libya he seems to be one of those rare beings that s actually fluent in both her dialect and culture and if you squint a little through the diplomatic well measured exterior you will even find love for the country don t go to this volume for sensationalism on gaddafi or for details on the benghazi attack it is a little dated case in point back in 2012 ansar al shari a was a little known group that had just appeared in the derna area but you will get an exhaustive and exceptional analysis of gaddafi s rise to power through his gruesome end the assessment chapter in particular was excellent a game of what ifs that are a fascinating read given we now know about how things shook out and are continuing to do so in libya highly recommended Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution Just when I dreamed of getting a book that is both comprehensive and conveys historical background of Libya I get this book The book does not only tackle modern Libyan history with relation to Gaddafi s ruling or the days that led to his gruesome demise in 2011 it also takes you way back to the 16th century and states how Libya never enjoyed the pleasure of peaceful living due to continuous foreign eastern western exploits and interferences I do believe without exaggeration that Chorin s work should be to a great extent studied by Libyans in specific There are several historical occurrences that we need to be aware of to understand why others took place and how they were in part the sole factors of the collapse of our infrastructure leading us to becoming a failed state in modern day Gaddafi s Libya. Book Exit the colonel littleton Going through recounts of Feb 17 revolution always gives me the chills I felt back then Tears fill my eyes every time I read unarmed peaceful protests let alone the atrocities Gaddafi inflicted upon us. Exit the colonell Chopin provides key dates and names chronologically ranging events roughly since the 70s all the way to 2012 which could definitely come in handy for research and reference Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution The most comprehensive and in depth look at the events leading up to and after the 2011 Libyan revolution Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution 
Some what inforative Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution An American diplomat s overview of Libya and description of the circumstances before and during the Libyan revolution Also a subtle defense of US policy actions toward the actors in that conflict Although a bit dry in some parts with the occasional grammatical error or sentence for sentence repetition one gets a sense of how revolutions can be conducted against oppressive regimes The rapprochement of the 2000s between Libya and the West is not usually talked about and as such I had no knowledge about its domestic repercussions It literally sealed Gaddafi s fate This is very good news as African dictators are bound to go down this route sooner or later Once a little is given any reform of any sort there s hope I just pray that which ever nation comes next manages the aftermath better than in Libya Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution Good book BUT While Chorin s knowledge of the country and his extensive research is beyond reproach the book suffers from what I can only assume is lack of editing verbatim repetition of lines and paragraphs misspelled words incomplete sentences But the worst of it was in Part III concerning the 2011 Civil War and NATO intervention Chorin keeps jumping back forth in time Not years but months or even weeks so it s difficult to tell in what order certain critical things happened. EPub Exit the colonel sanders But if you re interested in The Arab Spring or the fall of Qaddafi you need this book Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution Rushed to production I think Probably good reading for a class or for experts in the field but pretty dry overall Exit the Colonel The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution.
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A lesson in Western Values not lost upon its victims.S. to which we remained passive for decades