Illustration by Paul Szep

As the ground and air war continues in Libya, I received an email from a former colleague and friend from the Detroit media. He related how he covered a story in the mid-1980s about a Gaddafi’s loyalist. Musa Kousa, who had attended school at Michigan State University studying sociology and following the Spartans’ sports teams. He sent me the link for the mid-1980s story he uploaded to You Tube.

Kousa returned to his homeland and then became the equivalent of the Libyan ambassador to the UK when he headed up the Libyan Mission in London. Back then, he was allegedly in charge of assassinating the exiled political opponents of Colonel Gaddafi. In 1984, during demonstrations in front of the Libyan Embassy in London, the crowd of demonstrators was sprayed with bullets from the embassy. Among those killed was a London police officer, Yvonne Fletcher. At that point, the Brits told Kousa to get out and shut down the embassy.

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by Christopher Griesedieck

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Yesterday, news broke that President Obama had signed a secret order – called a ‘finding’ – which authorised the covert support of the United States government for the Libyan rebel forces. Basically, a finding is one of the principal forms by which the president authorises secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency.

As an Iraq War veteran, I’ve approached our increasing involvement in the Libyan civil war with a gradually escalating sense of foreboding. The lack of clarity in what we want to achieve in Libya, and how we intend to achieve it, is eerily reminiscent to me of our entanglement in Iraq.

There are a few things that come to mind here, now that we are ‘covertly’ supporting the Libyan rebels. Full story »

At so many points along the way I have felt like music was life. There is music on most of the day when I’m working. There’s music when I’m driving around. Music when I’m riding my bike or working out. Music when I go to sleep. Music in my best and worst moments.

I was a club DJ and I DJed at a college station (as well as pulling a shift or two at a rock station where I worked shortly after graduating from college). Picking a song that makes me happy, well, as with the last couple of days, the hard part is picking just one. So I thought back to a time when I wasn’t generally happy. Thanks to a personal crisis (yes, involving a woman) I endured some very dark days during the two years I spent getting my MA. I tried to think about music that lifted me out of the blackness. And a memory came to me. Full story »