Had I been dropped into my Tripoli hotel by airplane, there would be little to indicate that this was the capital of a country at war. Well-dressed women in headscarves and heels click along the marble halls. Waiters in waistcoats take my latte orders with a slight bow. The streets outside are quiet, and for the moment at least, no air strikes to be heard.
But my drive into Tripoli from the Tunisian border last night told a different story. I came legally, as a guest of the regime. I was met at the border by a government bus that ferried me, and a handful of other international journalists, through the multiple checkpoints. Some appeared official, with armed and uniformed guards. Others less so: the guards—boys really, gripping the wooden stocks of their semi-automatics nervously—seemed unorganized and ad-hoc. We barreled through desert scrubland, Santana blaring over the loudspeakers.
Continued -
