Barely 36 hours after The Sunday Telegraph in London published its interview with Gen. Sir David Richards, Britain’s chief of the defense staff, foreign reporters in Tripoli were summoned to a news conference at which Libyan telecommunication officials announced that they would deploy human shields.
Four decades of ruthless penalties for political dissent — and vast rewards for Qaddafi loyalty — long ago transformed Libyan public life into a kind of elaborate theater, dropping a heavy curtain between public expression and private opinion.