The Egyptians say it was those damn French:

It is clear that without the personal intervention of French President Nicolas Sarkozy there is very little chance it would have happened. Only small children and nice- minded little old ladies are inclined to believe it is solely about the welfare of the Libyan people. If it was, France and NATO would be at war with half the world including themselves for what they are doing to civilians in Afghanistan. […] His claim to be concerned “to protect the civil population” sits uneasily with the report in the well- informed Canard Enchainé that French intelligence agents have been active in stirring up rebellion in Libya since well before the outbreak of hostilities.

I keep seeing similar reports about American intelligence agents…at Infowars. That’s not to say it isn’t true, or even to agree it would have been a bad thing. After all, the unrest in Libya has been simmering for years, beginning with a 1996 massacre at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli. As Jo Becker of Human Rights Watch recounts,

Despite Libya’s repressive laws, the families began to organize to learn the truth and to demand prosecution of those responsible. In March 2007, about 30 families lodged a civil claim before the North Benghazi Court, demanding information about the fate of their family members at Abu Salim. The court, after stalling and an appeals ruling, found in their favor, but the government refused to implement the ruling. So the families began holding public demonstrations in Benghazi – virtually the first independent demonstrations in Libya in 40 years. Every Saturday, family members gathered, holding posters with photos of their loved ones and statements such as: “Where is my father? Where is his grave? Where is his corpse?”

Add the tensions of the times — resource scarcity, climate change, and food insecurity — on top of a youth bulge and the natural burdens of oligarchy, especially lack of opportunity and disempowerment. Add Ghadafi’s shrunken government leaving cities unprepared for that educated, unhappy generation, and you have the makings of revolt. The sparks of Tunisia struck a powder-keg in Libya, but the explosive charge was Ghadafi himself. He didn’t need help wanting to kill Libyans to protect his his king-of-kings-of-Africa fantasy on the mermaid couch.

I should hope Western intelligence agents were in Libya. I’d like to think they actually had an ear to the ground for once, were not so surprised by the uprising, and stood ready to offer assistance when the revolt actually took shape. The Libyans didn’t need help hating Ghadafi — they could, and did, accomplish that on their own, and then proved it by fighting and dying. Ghadafi gave them plenty of reason, and met their peaceful resistance with fire.

There are two continuing indicators that Libyans are in the midst of democratic revolution. One is their continuing sovereignty: not only are there no “boots on the ground,” but the TNC won’t extradite the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing as he clings to life:

Relatives said that he was close to death, and that looters had “stolen all his medicine”. They insisted that they were being given no help from Gaddafi loyalists. Megrahi was pictured, clearly unconscious. His son, Khaled al-Megrahi, told CNN: “We just give him oxygen. Nobody gives us any advice. There is no doctor. There is nobody to ask. We don’t have any phone line to call anybody. We just sit next to him … he has stopped eating and sometimes he goes into coma.”

As I keep saying, the Libyans have their own mind about what happens in their own country, and are proving perfectly capable of managing their own crisis. Andrew Gilligan reports the opposite of Baghdad in Tripoli:

For me at least, as a witness to the collapse of both the Iraqi and the Libyan dictatorships, the differences, for now, seem greater than the similarities. In Baghdad in 2003, it took less than 24 hours for the city to crumble into looting and anarchy, a state from which it never really recovered. In Tripoli, for all the fear and death, things are for the moment curiously orderly. Every main road has its quota of burned-out vehicles, blasted tanks or amateur barricades made out of street signs, rocks and office furniture. But every few hundred yards there is a checkpoint, manned by friendly and polite rebel fighters. Five days after most of the city fell, there has so far been little or no looting.

On their way out of Tripoli, Ghadafi fighters managed to temporarily disrupt Tripoli’s water supply without causing major or permanent damage. Some reports have garbage piling up, but so far there is no indication that Tripoli’s essential services are as affected as those of Baghdad.

The other sign of democratic revolution is the way TNC forces continue their fight. They took over the most important border crossing with Tunisia this weekend, enveloping the resistance center at Zuwarah. The TNC has maintained a multi-track approach in rolling up the country: by maintaining communications with tribal elders in Sirte even as forces press forward through Bin Jawad, the new government is already indicating pluralism and not punishment in the new Libya. Note that Libyans are planning and executing their own offensives, taking Sirte from at least two directions.