Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

@RABEL222,

spendi always has to mention some author to show he's well read, but he doesn't realize that his opinions with the inclusion of all those writers misses the target of the discussion.

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@RABEL222,

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This is the kind of stuff that sank abuzz. Its what spendi, Ican, waterman and their ilk do. they insult and name call untill they get people to retaliate and argue with them. They love it when they drive someone off the site. If people would just ignore them that would puncture thier balloon.

Yeah well RABEL--check this out--

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Not all Libyans will want their noses stuck on the grindstone like our's are.

That's a more important consideration imo than any amount of what Media says about who is holding what "strategically important oil terminal" on what particular day. And has been for all those years before Libya came to your attention the other week and you thought you might use it as a display cabinet for your compassionate liberal viewpoints and a stage on which to perform your wonderfully caring self-preenings.

I'm aware of the 6.4 million Libyans and not just those you see on your screen rushing backwards and forwards playing with guns. We've seen gun toters saying they are going to make life better for the citizenry many times.

The US prison population rose from 500,000 to nearly 2.5 million between 1980 and 2006.

Don't patronise Libya for your entertainment.

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Quote:

Monday 4 April 2011 13.05 BST

Bodies are lying in the streets of the besieged Libyan city of Misrata and its hospital is overflowing with the injured, an evacuee has said after arriving in Tunisia.

An aid ship operated by the charity Médecins Sans Frontières docked in the Tunisian port of Sfax carrying 71 injured people from Misrata, many with bullet wounds and broken limbs and one whose face was completely disfigured by burns.

"You have to visit Misrata to see the massacre by Gaddafi," said Omar Boubaker, a 40-year-old engineer who was shot in the leg. "Corpses in the street ... the hospital overflowing. Doctors taking care of people in the street. There's no space left in the hospital," he said.

Misrata is the only big rebel stronghold left in western Libya and has been under attack for weeks by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi. Accounts from Misrata cannot be independently verified because Libyan authorities are not allowing journalists to report freely from the city.

The port of Sfax echoed to the sound of sirens as a stream of ambulances ferried the wounded to hospital.

Abdullah Lacheeb, who has serious injuries to his pelvis and stomach and a bullet wound in his leg, cried as he said: "Look what Gaddafi and his sons have done, just because we protested peacefully. I could live or die but I am thinking of my family and friends who are stranded in the hell of Misrata," he said. "Imagine, they use tanks against civilians. He [Gaddafi] is prepared to kill everyone there."

Libyan officials deny attacking civilians in Misrata, saying they are fighting armed gangs linked to al-Qaida.

Many of the wounded who arrived in Sfax vowed that the fight against Gaddafi would go on. Wael Ali, a 25-year-old, had fractures to both legs and an arm. He lifted his uninjured arm to give the victory sign. "We will win, or we will die," he said. "That is our message to Gaddafi ... We're not afraid to die for freedom."

But another injured man, called Imed, said Misrata needed outside help to withstand the attacks. "We cannot do anything against this massacre any more. We ask the Americans and the Europeans to put people on the ground and help us end these crimes ... We need you on the ground to protect us," he said. "Gaddafi is mad."

Western aircraft have targeted government forces in the city with air strikes but have so far been unable to halt the attacks by pro-Gaddafi units, who residents say have snipers on rooftops and are firing mortars and artillery at houses.

Residents in Sfax welcomed the evacuees from Misrata, and saw a parallel between the fight there and the revolution in Tunisia earlier this year in which a popular uprising overthrew the authoritarian president.

Hani, a local man who was in a cafe, told Reuters he was going to a clinic to donate blood for the wounded. "It's the least we can do to help our brothers to achieve the days of liberty we are living in Tunisia," he said

source

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@revelette,

The rebels should have been discouraged from the start. We all know Gadaffi is mad. We have done for decades. Western media egged the rebels on in order to provide "entertainment" and opportunities to enhance the CVs of the reporters, commentators and politicians who love wars.

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@spendius,

You are so full of it spendius, so you think people don't have the right to protest, they deserved to shot for protesting for a better living and if they take up arms to defend themselves, they deserved to get slaughtered? They should just sit down and shut up like good little peasants.

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@revelette,

That's the role of peasants I'm afraid. Revolutions are middle-class affairs.

And that was not what I had said either. They got carried away by Tunisia and Egypt and were egged on by nincompoops who should have known better. We have had to rescue them from the position they put themselves in. And Tunisia and Egypt are nowhere near any real revolution yet.

They are a leaderless, unstructured, defenceless rabble. Who knows whether any of those statements in your previous report are true? Who knows whether the rebels would be any better than Gadaffi? They could easily be worse.

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@spendius,

spendi, Don't you even keep up with the news of the Middle East? Those revolutions are from the poor people who has nothing to lose by trying to fight for freedom - both political and economics. Your perceptions about the world around you are totally wrong and misguided.

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@spendius,

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We all know Gadaffi is mad. We have done for decades.

Really, Spendi. I wonder how "we all" have known this. The dictators on the outs are all mad, the dictators who are in are fine.

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@JTT,

There are many different view points out there here is another one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-5rgoL82rw

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@JTT,

Especially when the US supports "them."

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@cicerone imposter,

It's you who are misguided ci. Just because American peasants are allowed to choose the colour of their front door and go on jaunts does not exclude them from my remark.

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@spendius,

Don't you know that wide and straight streets are designed for the ease of strafing rioters with bullets and canon shells.

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@spendius,

Quote:

They are a leaderless, unstructured, defenceless rabble

That pretty much defines what the colonists were in the early days of the American Revolution also.
Yet we managed to get it together and defeat England.

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@mysteryman,

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Yet we managed to get it together and defeat England.

Britain sent a small percentage of its army .

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@mysteryman,

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Yet we managed to get it together and defeat England.

"We" eh. I don't think you had much to do with it mm. They were all of European extraction. Basically, as Io suggests, it was let go. Possibly because there was no other choice.

It was a complex business and one-liners don't even try to do justice to it. But if they make you feel better about yourselves I'm all in favour. The American propensity to assert the feeling is so pronounced as to cause a suspicion about it like with the fading beauty continually undergoing expensive makeovers. CBS News' American Spirit feechewer in unheard of here. We know we are all wankers. We are under no illusions on that point. Same with the Libyans.

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@Ionus,

Ionus wrote:

Quote:
Yet we managed to get it together and defeat England.
Britain sent a small percentage of its army .

Your point?

The US didn't focus 100% of its military might on Vietnam, and yet I think history shows and/or will show that it was defeated.

Virtually every defeated army can and has rationalized why they didn't win.

Britain, very clearly, attempted to hold on to its American colony and did not. Whether under different circumstances it ever could have, is immaterial, especially without considering what the consequences of alternative circumstances might have been.

If Britain had ever been foolish enough to devote all or even a majority of its forces to the American revolution, do you think it's enemies elsewhere would have had the courtesy of holding back until the British could take care of those pesky colonists?

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@spendius,

Your response is very disjointed. What does U.S. prison population have to do with libya?

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@RABEL222,

I thought it sort of showed that some of us are not all that much better than others in some respects. Shackling people and using armed guards is not very nice is it?

And that's not the end of it if JTT is right. The country with the most humane dealings with misfits did abstain in Res. 1973.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I thought it was rather obvious.....Britain could have won . Even with the very few troops it did send, it went close .

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The US didn't focus 100% of its military might on Vietnam, and yet I think history shows and/or will show that it was defeated.

The Allies in Vietnam were not beaten militarily . In fact, they had just won a resounding military victory in the Tet offensive when the politicians decided to pull out . They had bombed North Vietnam into negotiating and could have done more . Terrorists dont always win like in the USA War of Independence .

Quote:

If Britain had ever been foolish enough to devote all or even a majority of its forces to the American revolution, do you think it's enemies elsewhere would have had the courtesy of holding back until the British could take care of those pesky colonists?

You are right to a point ; remember it took ten times more British troops to hold Ireland than it did all of India . But also remember the revolution was led by some radicals trying to grab power . Taxation was already down to a token amount and still they were not happy . There was no money being made from the Americas by the British anymore .

And what about the aftermath ? Judge Lynch lynching people because they were British.....a bit of ethnic cleansing as a lead up to the Indians . The whole war was not about taxation but about expansion . It was actually an incident where the colonists attacked the Indians and not honouring a British treaty that started the war .

Perhaps history will repeat itself in North Africa . These are early days .

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@Ionus,

"Could have won?"

No kidding Dick Tracy.

And Hitler might have been triumphant if he hadn't tried to conquer Russia during the winter.

With the exception of academic curiosity and speculation, what difference does it make how a power is beaten?

The US was defeated by Vietnam.

The power that is the US is the totality of its military, its media, it politics and its people. If any element of the totality frustrates the military's aims, it still spells defeat.

Irrespective of how hard Britain fought to retain its American colonies, it fought and was defeated. I really doubt that medals were handed out to British Generals on the basis of their efforts in America...with the understanding that the Crown didn't really care...

Why the colonists rebelled and how they behaved after their successful revolution is also immaterial as respects the question of who won and who lost.

If the Libyan rebels closely mimic the American rebels, notwithstanding the the inevitable flaws of the latter, North Africa will be a truly amazing source of replenished democratic energy.

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Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

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