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

also maybe kaddafi is dead now they say

khadafee

uhhh link pls mr ice cr?m

kdfy

BreakingNews Breaking News
More: U.S. cannot confirm rumors that Libyan leader Gadhafi is dead, U.S. official tells NBC News http://bit.ly/f7iLmt
19 minutes ago

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/blog/2011/feb/24/gaddafi-speech-libya-turmoil-live-reaction

see 7:50pm GMT, appears to be some oil traders mucking around and getting rich.

loving the caption on that picture

xp

clear, to the point

what if QDF is the only one of these guys to hang on?

He ends up like Caecescu

who the fuck is gonna step into the vaccum with Qaddaffy dead, one must wonder

Col. Shakey Moammar Coldafy

shakia law

"All celebrity deaths to be mocked on pain of death. Then those newly dead must also be mocked."

I hope there are no Libyan cooking show stars.

Shakira law. Hey, she's got roots in the region! Give her a country.

id give her my country

She could rule with an iron ... hip.

idk if any of you guys were listening to All Things Considered just now but.......holy shit

no - what is that?

They were on the phone live with a Libyan businessman in a sit-in at the square, and as they're talking machine gun fire erupts and a battle ensues before a tank "an Army tank, we are in control of 5 army tanks" runs over the barricade and forces the Gadhafi supporters back

she asked him what the people there wanted the US to do and he said "Not what was done in Tunisia and in Egypt, where the United States sat back and waited until the people had overthrown the government--things are different here, and we need help"

this is turning into some protest/armed insurrection hybrid

"kinda violence resistance", very contemporary

we are peaceful, also we have some tanks

right i mean they were staging a peaceful sit-in until they got attacked, at which point they were like 'btw we have yr tanks'

bbc coverage is getting annoying imo, seems 50/50 events on the ground + pushing the bad-gov't-evac narrative

............you just said that huh xp

I dunno, the US intervening militarily here seems like a bad idea

yeah

rule of thumb

ok, guys, enough with the fancy debating points sheesh

Chuck Todd writes:According to a senior NSC official, here's EVERYTHING that is truly "on the table" when it comes to Libya at the moment. Some of these items are easier to make happen than others, but it's a menu of options on the table:

-- Push for a "stronger" U.N. Security Council "product, possibly a resolution, possibly sanctions, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability measures."
-- Support Mexico's initiative "to suspend Libya from the U.N. Human Rights Council."
-- Issue a presidential executive order "with sanctions, which could include visa and travel restrictions, asset freezes and/or seizures, civil aviation restrictions" that would be coordinated with allies.
-- Suspend the country's export licenses.
-- Create and enforce a no-fly zone.
-- Freeze the assets of certain Libyan individuals (i.e. the entire Khaddafy family).
-- Send in humanitarian relief.
-- Increase the ability to broadcast into Libya.

don't see the objection to a UN no-fly zone, would sort of like to hear arguments, as i don't think intervention is automatically bad

asset seizures seems like a good idea

"suspend Libya from the U.N. Human Rights Council."

Should happen but not a hot priority I'd say.

should have happened a long time ago.

mexico ftw because its toothless and it looks like were doing 'something' which is essentially nothing but who cares rite

don't really like the idea of a no-fly zone. that's something of a legal fiction for combat. the US is not a party to this. it would also be direct and violent involvement and support of one side in a conflict where the outcome is not certain and a welcome for our presence isn't exactly a sure thing either. there's no telling how long this is going to take. is that too realist for you?

you meaning history mayne but a general 'you' too i guess

p sure i didn't say US... idk, i don't even agree that's true about no-fly zones. it was maintained over iraq without a great deal of extra combat. and that worked out fine!

What do we have to lose in Libya, though, goole? No fly zone means that hardliners can't bomb or machine gun from the air. My impression is that basically Tripoli and little else is being held by pro-regime supporters and apparently through the calculated use of terror- drive-by shootings and other forms of intimidation. If we help the majority (or at least prevent them from being killed from above, we (or the UN at least) may earn some good will. Kaddafy isn't going to come out of this victorious imho and even if he does, he's not going to be terribly friendly. Even beofre all this he felt that his returning to the fold, as it were, hadn't brought him much in the way of tangible benefits.

well the u.n./u.s. would have to spend a day destroying the libyan air force first - bombing a country not usually a good look for rallying people to yr side - sidelines is the best place for the west imho

and yeah it is a bit realist for me. the US 'isn't a party to this'? don't really like this line of reasoning, as a european.

xpost

well the u.n./u.s. would have to spend a day destroying the libyan air force first - bombing a country not usually a good look for rallying people to yr side - sidelines is the best place for the west imho

― ice cr?m, Thursday, February 24, 2011 11:10 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark

letting people get bombed when you could stop it isn't a super look either... bombing some airfields isn't going to be that much of a thing is it?

what is the point of a no-fly zone? to keep other aircraft out of the air. if they fly, you shoot at them. shooting = war. it's not just legalism, it puts the US (yes it would be the US, come on) in as a violent actor in a very fluid situation. i feel like 'no-fly zone', the term, the packaging is something for media back home, look, we just sort of colored this area of the map green, like that!

xps NATO isn't involved either. look if the UN (doubtful, thx china) or the EU feel like putting something together, well, ok, it's their back yard.

That may be true, ice cr?m, I don't know. The Libyan air force ain't looking all that monolithic what with two defections and two pilots ditching their planes (including one who is a member of Muammar's own tribe, tellingly) rather than carrying out ordered bombing raids. I know the African Union is busy all over the place but an AU/UN sponsored moratorium on Libyan air force flights secured by whomever, might be just the thing to secure the success of what looks to be a quite popular revolt.

bombing some airfields isn't going to be that much of a thing is it?

― for all the fucked-up children of this world we give you 1p3 (history mayne), Thursday, 24 February 2011 23:13 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

this guy

obvs idk for sure but it seems like a topic easily exploited for pr purposes 'hey now the america is bombing in support of the tripping hippie protestors sex maniacs - you w/us or them'

shooting = war

If you're threating to shoot them to prevent them from wantonly killing protesters, it doesn't exactly look the same.

my objection is really on the level of "can't" rather than "shouldn't"

yeah sure, we should do what we can to keep people alive and make life shit for tyrants

but no, we can't project air power into another country in a simple, clean, tidy, unobtrusive, legal, non-locally-political way. it's an impossibility.