148 Voice for Rebellion and Relief 5.2 representing While the broadcasting of facts and claims online, in the streets, and in public forums was a key component of diaspora mobilization for the Arab Spring, activists sought to do much more than act as “transistor radios” for the revolution. They also worked to represent the revolution directly by lobbying for outsiders to take action, joining revolutionary groups and leadership cadres, and acting as spokespersons for the cause in the media. 5.2.1 Lobbying outside Powers Libyans served as representatives first by lobbying their host-country governments for limited military intervention. They did so because even though Libya’s military members began defecting en masse immediately during the uprising, loyalist brigades buttressed by mercenaries from neighboring countries began to retake towns one by one and moved to launch a major offensive against Benghazi in February using airpower and tanks (Bassiouni 2013). In the view of revolution supporters abroad, these threats warranted militarized counter-measures to save lives. Second, Libyans in the diaspora echoed calls from Libyans on the ground for protection and support in the fight against Gaddafi. Third, diaspora members viewed limited military intervention in the form of no-fly zones as distinct from Western interventions undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq; no one wanted a ground occupation, they emphasized to me repeatedly. At the same time, stopping Gaddafi from obliterating entire liberated zones (as Assad has done since) was mandated, in their view, by the UN’s Responsibility to Protect doctrine and international law.4 To that end, Libyan representatives on both sides of the Atlantic advocated for a no-fly zone using congruent framing strategies, arguing that intervention was in their governments’ economic and security interests. They also contended that democratic Western powers had a moral responsibility to intervene and prevent a massacre in Benghazi. Mazen R. from Seattle, who lobbied his US congressional representatives before joining the National Transitional Council (NTC) himself, explained that in order to get anti-war Democrats on board, “You had to shape it or frame it in an American way. Explain Gaddafi, how horrible he is and that he’s killing people. This is the humane thing to do. And explain that it’s not going to cost the US lives as well.” To that end, the Libyan Emergency Task Force in Washington, DC, worked with the report-issuing group Libya Outreach and other activists to lobby officials. Parallel efforts were established in Britain by longtime dissidents like Mahmud, who had been shot in the leg protesting against Gaddafi 4 See my earlier work (Moss 2016a, 2017) for a more detailed analysis of Libyan and Syrian demands for limited military intervention from the West. These works explain why activists viewed outside military intervention pragmatically as the best bad option available and necessary to save lives in the short term according to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (see also Nahlawi 2019). According to testimonials, missives, communiqués, and their personal relations with activists on the ground, such as Raed Fares of Kafranbel, Syria, respondents also argued that it was what Syrians and Libyans themselves were calling for from the front lines. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press