a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/static/cricket/statistics/scorecards/2011/02/86109/html/scorecard.stm

But damn these past weeks the main thing i'm feeling is just awe.

― sewing wild OTTs (Jon Lewis), Monday, February 21, 2011 1:17 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

for real

i wonder if anyone in the western govts that helped prop up these regimes, politically & practically, feels any shame whatsoever? don't expect anyone to express any, of course.

not like they didn't know what they were getting into so probably not

Realpolitik innit.

#BBC
1933: More details on the call by Libya's diplomats at the United Nations for international intervention to end the crisis. The deputy ambassador, Ibrahim Omar Al Dabashi, told BBC World that Col Gaddafi's government was carrying out a genocide. "It is a real genocide whether it is in the eastern cities of Libya or whether what is going now in Tripoli," he said. "The information that we are receiving from the people in Tripoli is the regime is killing whoever goes out to the streets... He has his mercenaries everywhere in the streets and whenever any demonstrator appears they just kill them. At least they shoot them, whether they kill them or not, but they are shooting them."

Ghadafi prob would have been near to last on the neocon to-topple list, right?

xpost o_O

I bet the Scottish Justice Secretary is wishing this had all happened a couple of years ago.

http://twitter.com/meralhece/status/39784630559318016

Reports that Gaddafi has fled to Venezuela probably exaggerated, as he apparently has fear of flying over water #Libya
18 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

http://twitter.com/meralhece/status/39786478686961664

@thesuzannemoore Not much I suppose. He has fascinating phobias, eg. sleeping on upper floors, and lives in his tent in desert
12 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® in reply to thesuzannemoore

Must reiterate my pitch for a reality series that puts all these deposed dictators in an exile house together in Saudi Arabi.

So a popular cleric named Al Qardawi has issued a death fatwa against Qaddafi live on Al Jazeera?

Amazing that the Islamic extremists that so frequently alarm the, er, alarmists have really taken a sidelined and silent wait-and-see approach to all this multi-front action.

I think this sums things up nicely:

http://o.onionstatic.com/images/articles/article/19253/KellyEgypt_jpg_630x1200_upscale_q85.jpg

saif gaddafi is on twitter, and follows eddie izzard, who sent him a direct message asking him to stop the military killing the people

2011 o_0

whoa.

also:

http://f.cl.ly/items/0i063A1b2h1b2X3d3z0d/Screen%20shot%202011-02-21%20at%2022.13.59.jpg

i've probably read one too many john lecarre novels but all these libyan diplomats suddenly turning in their badges and throwing around the word "genocide" just seems fishy to me. it's not like this is the first time ghadafi's murdered hundreds of his own people - what makes them so sure this is the time to cash out? like i said upthread, i think the CIA has had gameplans for ousting ghadafi drawn up for years - maybe this is just the moment it's been waiting for? the US has wanted a less crazy source of Libyan oil for a long time. so in this scenario it's nice that US interests align so closely with Libyan protestors (whose background and identity appears to have been explained nowhere that i can find - though it took me a long time to figure out the whole labor background of the cairo protests, so) - so the diplomats and a few well-placed military dudes get a sniff of which way the wind is blowing, the US keeps absolutely schtum, and a new, less-crazy dude gets installed who is surprisingly amenable to US commercial and energy interests and who promises to only murder a few people a year and even then strictly on the DL, and a few reform bills get thrown to the Libyan people for whom nothing much really changes

fwiw i have heard this theory promulgated exactly nowhere, it is purely a product of my fever-brane

and may be based on nothing more than the rising bile i feel when watching libyan ambassador no. 1,523 condemn ghadafi in the strongest terms without explaining why they haven't spoken up at some point in their previous 40 years of "service"

i'm not shedding any tears for ghadafi

? why would you??

sorry, wasn't suggesting that you are, just that i'm not that cynical about this revolution (re: "and a new, less-crazy dude gets installed who is surprisingly amenable to US commercial and energy interests and who promises to only murder a few people a year and even then strictly on the DL, and a few reform bills get thrown to the Libyan people for whom nothing much really changes") and if, and i don't believe this is so, the only thing that happens is that ghadafi is thrown out and someone marginally better comes in, that's still better than the current status quo

I've still seen & heard nothing to indicate that anyone in the west had the remotest idea that all this was afoot, where it's going next, what the likely outcomes are, etc. I see no shadowy hands anywhere, just lots of confusion.

So there are some... photos going around, showing some of today's dead in Tripoli, and my god they are using some heavy ass shit against their own citizens. People just literally blown in half. Maybe it's just that I haven't looked at a lot of pictures of war dead in my life, but fucking hell.

not very recent photo but it makes me laugh

http://hillary.foreignpolicy.com/files/ClintonQaddafi86088884.jpg

the only thing that happens is that ghadafi is thrown out and someone marginally better comes in, that's still better than the current status quo

oh absolutely! i'm just kind of stunned at the total 180 being done by libya's diplomats (and a few of their military ppl). maybe i am being too cynical.

but i do very much believe there is all kinds of shadowy shit going down courtesy of spies of all stripes. they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they weren't somehow taking advantage of the confusion.

on a related note, this telegraph piece is pretty astute - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/8339469/The-revolution-may-be-televised-but-dont-expect-the-full-story.html

the US has wanted a less crazy source of Libyan oil for a long time. so in this scenario it's nice that US interests align so closely with Libyan protestors - so the diplomats and a few well-placed military dudes get a sniff of which way the wind is blowing, the US keeps absolutely schtum, and a new, less-crazy dude gets installed who is surprisingly amenable to US commercial and energy interests and who promises to only murder a few people a year and even then strictly on the DL, and a few reform bills get thrown to the Libyan people for whom nothing much really changes

I think you may be overestimating the CIA's capabilities and competence. Most evidence points to an organization that is barely able to keep up with events as they transpire, seldom actually foresees events, and has little capacity to dictate events. I mean maybe the CIA is executing all kinds of hugely successful plots that we don't know about, but I kind of doubt it. They seem to spend a lot of time nowadays explaining their failures and getting out of their own way. See news from Pakistan today.

xpost

diplomats prob just seeing the writing on the wall

diplomats traditionally pretty good at that sort of thing

^ These diplomats are major players in the Qaddafi regime, so it makes sense that they would want to distance themselves as quickly as possible from their obvious culpability. They probably figure that dramatic denouncements of Qaddafi might help save their assess.

Who knows whether there are behind-the-scenes overtures from the US or anyone else...my impression (based on nothing more than media reports though) is that it's a mixture of self-preservation and straw-meeting-camel's-back. Obviously anyone high up in the government must have gotten over their qualms long ago but I don't know about e.g. embassy staff.

Assuming Gaddafi isn't going to retire willingly, I assume what needs to happen is for some sections of the military to turn on the regime forces. Seems like a good opportunity for a well-positioned general to take the credit for "liberating" the country.

diplomats traditionally pretty good at that sort of thing

― lex pretend, Monday, February 21, 2011 5:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah occurs to me that the unusual volume and swiftness of their defection likely indicates that they recognized libya was next as soon as egypt feel and have had time to prepare

you couldn't make it up. title of saif gaddafi's phd? "the role of civil society in the democratisation of global governance institutions"

https://catalogue.lse.ac.uk/Record/1187568

ha wow

Ok, this is what I was expecting to see:

10.50pm: Another potentially massive development, if true. Sultan Al Qassemi has just tweeted that Al Jazeera are reporting on a statement by Libyan Military Officers which asks all members of the Libyan army to head to Tripoli and remove Gaddafi.

yeah occurs to me that the unusual volume and swiftness of their defection likely indicates that they recognized libya was next as soon as egypt feel and have had time to prepare

probably occurring across the region - maybe this is one thing that partly explains how each revolution seems so much faster than the previous

No one has any idea what's on the other side of any of these revolutions. More conservative? More liberal? More religious? Less religious? More saber rattling? Less? I've had lots of friends who were all like "OMG, Israel!" And I've said each time, we have no idea what impact any of this will have on Israel. It's all completely without reference point, save the fall of the Soviet Union, but that was so much different.

well, i know

xps

It's interesting though - when did it become inevitable that the regime would fall? Until today I thought that Gaddafi would succeed in putting down the uprising through unrelenting force.

Honestly, I don't know shit about any of these places, but Libya seems like an even harder nut to crack than Egypt and Tunisia. No idea how to read this stuff.

It's interesting though - when did it become inevitable that the regime would fall? Until today I thought that Gaddafi would succeed in putting down the uprising through unrelenting force.

― Pisle of dogs (seandalai), Monday, February 21, 2011 10:57 PM (47 seconds ago)

There seems to be a pattern of sorts. Regime uses violence, and if that violence doesn't break the will of the protestors, regime is done.

Given that Libya's response to the uprising seemed closer to the Iranian model than the Egyptian one, I half-expected that the regime would indeed "break the will of the protestors". It says something about the resolution of the protestors that it hasn't worked.

I don't know that this is so far different from 1989, at least insofar as the revolutions are driven by masses aspiring to a vaguely western, basically secular, materially more prosperous and dignified society. That seems to me such a sweet and precious thing to be preserved and nurtured at all costs. That ideologues, nationalists or islamists get hold of these movements is my big fear. Eastern Europe had sufficient time & institutions to stop that happening, not sure how true that is in the Arab world.

Ismael Klata OTM.

I don't dispute Ismael Klata's analysis, but the geopolitical situation and ideological dynamics are so different in this case.

offering a new anthem and flag is kind of like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me_E5Kl6EPc

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51364000/jpg/_51364325_51364324.jpg

i didn't know that mubarak travels with female bodyguards on the basis that they're less easily distracted than male ones

nor did i know that mubarak's mother-in-law came from pontypridd

less easily distracted by what?? movie bodyguards are always distracted by women, so that, maybe.