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

The important thing here is to hold on to our skepticism and wish Libyans the best.

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, March 18, 2011 8:52 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

well, yes. but 'wishing them the best' would likely have led to mass murder. heavy shit is still on the cards, of course. but iirc the UN was set up to prevent that sort of thing.

how many times would you have sought Security Council resolutions in the last, say, twenty years, nrq?

Even accounting for differences between how and why we invaded Iraq and what's happened in the Security Council the last few hours (and what it means for their respective countries), your tone a few posts ago reminds me of a Heritage Foundation intern in 2003. "It's the right thing to do, let's not worry about these silly details now, fuck niceties."

yours remind me of kissinger in the 70s rly so

xp: which was also highly unusual

Except that the village in question was on the border with Iran, and both were lobbing chemical shells at each other all the time.

It isn't that unusual for the local dictators to use extremes of retailiation against their own dissent. Assad of Syria leveled the town of Hama with artillery in 1982. The Algerian military were alleged to do some horrific false flag operations starting their own civil war with militants.

i suppose there is a point where, 'what about yemen, what about ivory coast' kind of questions of this can be answered with, welp, you do what you can to help who you can whenever you can. no, the reasons why libya is a problem when other things are not Big Problems don't look good added up.

if Q wasn't such a crazy m-f and was better at his job as a tyrant -- wear a suit and don't fuck about, assad style -- we'd probably not do anything, or wouldn't think we needed to. i dunno.

but damn if this doesn't give me a sick feeling. another war.

lol assad xpost, how often does that happen

re pan am 103 -- this didn't lead to action because it wasn't really clear who had ordered it. initially, im fair sure libya was not in the frame. and it's still a pretty murky story that may have involved syria and iran.

Algerian civil war is probably a closer analog to what's going on (or is about to go on) although maybe minus the extremist/salafist angle

xp

Pan Am 103 is a murky murky case beginning to end, if you needed an Axis of Evil stick to beat him with you'd be better referencing his supplying the 'Ra with guns/cash/explosives whatevs, which is at least documented

yeah but no one at the Corner cares about that shit

yours remind me of kissinger in the 70s rly so

dude seriously? Fuck you.

There's a lot of murk in Yemen as well. From a distance it may become hard to say where the civilian protests break off and a seventh outbreak of the 2004-2010 Shi'ite insurgency starts.

yeah but no one at the Corner cares about that shit

― in my world of suggest bans (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 18 March 2011 21:08 (13 minutes ago) Permalink

no one in the corner has swagger like us

lol D

I cried when they gave Alfred the Nobel Peace Prize. true story.

I perhaps spoke too soon: the 2004- Shi'ite insurgency revisits the grievances stemming back to South Yemen's independence, while the 2009- Sunni separatist insurgency in is more or less a continuation of the 1986 South Yemen Civil war. Both Shi'ia insurgents from the North and Wahhabi separatists from the South seem to be using the protests in San'aa to air grievances.

To make it all more confusing, "Yemen" is Arabic for "south". Maybe they called it Yemen (Aden) for years to avoid headaches.

iirc north and south yemen were reunited some time ago, before that aden was the southern capital and sana'a the northern capital

x-post

viability of the resistance.

It's kind of a catch-22, but how can this Libyan resistance be considered vibrant when it needs international military support to survive? That's what's so awkward about this commitment. The only way the resistance can win is if we (the international community) directly aids them, and even then, they can't do it without our planes. But then it's a case of us/the US/the UN directly engaging with Qaddafi as enemy, which seems to be fishy, seeing as he's done nothing to anyone outside his country at this point. Horrible though that may be, he's not alone in his dastardly despotism.

nrq doing a great job of picking up Dom's "biggest asshole on ILX" banner itt

seriously dude, just shut up. "the argument goes"... yeah, right, thanks for putting words in my mouth. Kosovo wasn't strategically important? god you really have no fucking idea what you're talking about for somebody who poses as an intellectual.

The International Action Center (IAC) is an activist group founded by former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark. It supports anti-imperialist movements around the world, and opposes U.S. military intervention in all circumstances.

nah they've got a link to an article about how Milosevic is one of the great peacemakers of the 20th Century so I think it stands up

was kinda hoping i was doing a great job of picking up Dom's "biggest asshole on ILX" banner

hey sleeve who did 9/11?

Charlie Sheen

correct answer was 'becky lucas'

Kosovo wasn't strategically important? god you really have no fucking idea what you're talking about for somebody who poses as an intellectual.

― sleeve, Friday, March 18, 2011 10:15 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark

great link

get to 'The TRUTH about Milosevic' in how many clicks?

took me 2 iirc

apparently he was lovely

i concede that clinton took office with a barely concealed hard-on for kosovo. the plans were drawn up years in advance and he was looking for any excuse. any!

I have no idea what you guys are on about

Now that I've had dinner and am rested, let me respond to nrq: if you think my cautious let's-wait-and-see attitude has any comparison with Kissinger's sociopathic disregard for East Timor, Greece, Chile, and Iraq in the seventies, then you're the one who needs history lessons, my friend.

We should airdrop Kissinger onto Qaddafi from a great height.

^^^^ would approve the presidential finding

i completely get where alfred is coming from and we are all going to have to wait and see and yes, i have no idea what "our" Plan is or what "we're" gonna do if gaddafi decides to actually test "us", but the thing is that had the united nations Waited And Seen the question would have become academic quickly.

and as has already been covered this is almost totally dissimilar to the iraq invasion: unanimous security council coalition providing so-far-tentative air support to a preexisting revolution vs. united states plowing into a country in defiance of the u.n. and hoping to invent a revolution once inside.

xp sleve:
The Trepca mining complex has remained dormant since the Kosovo occupation (it was seized by NATO troops due to "environmental concerns" with the lead smelter). Curiously, privatization to Kosovo based firms for reopening just began this month.

alfred you attributed to me the sentiment "It's the right thing to do, let's not worry about these silly details now, fuck niceties," which isn't that fair a reading of what i've said -- and in any case im mostly testing out arguments here, trying stuff out. i do think a few days' more wait-and-see would have led to the rebels losing and substantial reprisals. it's hardly an easy question, but there has been quite a bit of nicety-observing and coalition-building. to reiterate, this has arab league approval and a UN mandate. so in that respect the imperialist running dogs in washington have done their due diligence.

Fair enough, but I've had problems several days now with "the rebels" as taxonomy. Who are they? What are their motives? Should Qaddafi fall, would some sort of coalition of "rebels" form?

I would guess tribal rivalries would come to the fore

You guys haven't seen their logo yet?

http://www.wearyourbeer.com/images/Star_Wars_Rebel_Logo_Navy_Shirt.jpg

man anyone who likes the imperial wheel more than the rebel... thing is just so lame

THAT'S RIGHT ANYONE

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070821055826/lyricwiki/images/thumb/1/1d/Billy_Idol_-_Rebel_Yell.jpg/180px-Billy_Idol_-_Rebel_Yell.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Mwev8cEJEMA/TPDtmpBv3XI/AAAAAAAAAd0/8A4PbmJuAN4/s200/Crystals+-+He%2527s+a+rebel.jpg

Just a couple of starting points to help Alfred out.

hillary clinton met delegates from the rebels earlier in the week. i should imagine there have been diplomatic contacts before then. i'm sure that process is what delayed the US's decision. it's a risk -- there is a big risk of being drawn deeper in, and it isn't clear how the_west backs away from whatever's about to happen.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't mind sending some RPGs and similar weapons through a back door to keep the resistance to Ghaddafi going and maybe help it succeed, if that were possible. I don't care if keeping the resistance going sends oil to $150/bbl for a while. But plunging the USA into another war seems like a very, very bad idea to me.

Do our compassionate ilxors have any idea what it costs when the US military goes to a live-fire hot-war basis? Or, other than "let's fuck Ghaddafi, he's a shitheel", what our war aims would be? All a war can do is blow stuff up and kill people until one side gives in and agrees to stop. Not a very delicate instrument of policy.

I kinda wish Qaddafi WAS Saddam Hussein -- it would make things easier.

this isnt scooby doo son

zoinks!

I live through something similar every day in South Florida. Cuban-Americans insist on treating Fidel as if here Stalin, and the comparison doesn't even do justice to Fidel's particular kind of rottenness.

here = he were