Morning in Libya

The battle has been taking place over Gaddafi's compound with NATO airstrikes leading the way. If you want to watch, check out www.aljazeera.com which has it all live.

One interesting bit of guessing about the whereabouts of the King of Kings was the notion he was actually in the Rixos Hotel where the international journalists were staying. His compound and others are connected by tunnels to the Hotel. A reporter for a major network claimed that Gaddafi at one point gave a speech in the Hotel and the journalists didn't even know.

The big news of last night was Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the dreaded son showing up at the Hotel in an armored limo and saying he had never been captured. He said that he had been travelling around the city the whole day in a convoy. Previously,the TNC and the ICC had confirmed his capture. The whole episode set the press in motion raising doubts whether the revolutionaries had control over any of the city. The whole dance was fascinating since you saw journalists ignoring the reporting of their other colleagues, who actually were with the opposition forces.

The appearance of Saif was brilliant psyops because it did trigger a wave of tweets from Libyans, who became demoralised and began to ask questions about the TNC. What about the TNC's credibility? The TNC didn't help themselves by remaining silent.

Saif said to "Hell with the ICC", which has an outstanding charge against his "crimes against humanity". He said his father was safe and unharmed and claimed that Gaddafi really controlled Tripoli-- a notion pretty dubious.

The New York Times Lede had great videos of the hijinks of the various Gaddafi sons. You get to see Beyonce's performance--actually quite tasty-- for them shot on a cellphone. This was the $1 million private concert. Or the other son who wanted to be a professional soccer player in Italy. You get to see him entering a game in Italy to much laughter from the locals.

More governments are now recognizing the TNC. This morning Iraq chimed it. I guess Al-Maliki was somewhat embarrassed about his recent $5 billion gift to Syria's Assad and wanted to change the story. Russia would not recognize because of the TNC's statements about Russia's business interests.

The Pentagon released the costs of the Libyan operation so far. About $890 million so far. Final estimates are the cost will be about $1.1 billion. In other words, a rounding error in the Defense budget. Slightly different from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

NATO spokespeople were very chipper this morning ,saying that the days of the Gaddafi regime were basically over. They cited the rapid degradation of the loyalist forces, the elimination of arms and the massive loss of strategic territory in the country. The Brits seemed to assure UK citizens that their people were in fact on the ground coordinating the final offensive.

The Drudge Report printed a photo of Gaddafi shaking hands with President Obama at a United Nations function to deflect attention from the videos of McCain bowing to Gaddafi and the other articles surfacing about Gaddafi's thank-you letters to John Boehner for his opposition to the Libyan operation.

A blog war has broken out over the issue of humanitarian intervention and whether we should do such things in the future. Personally, I think that is fair game. The ease of the Gulf War led to the Iraq debacle and people are already chanting about Syria being next. So the issue of whether will should use military force continues to be relevant and should be debated.