Lybia on Al-jezera

[Mr.Canada]

Whom ever has Al-Jezera at home should turn it on right now. It's insane what is happening in Lybia right now.

This "leader" is attacking protesters with air and tank strikes not to mention snipers!

This is terrible. I really hope the people over throw this maniac.

It seems like every country is condemning it but no one is doing anything. This is crazy those people need help...NOW!

Some of the military are defecting to the people's side and are refusing to kill the protesters.

I think Khadafi's time is almost up. So many of the ambassadors are saying so right now on TV.

I hope the police will side with the people and start defending them against the military attacks.

This man is a war criminal and is ordering genocide!

I am starting to think I was in error before about the socialist/Islamic alliance thing. I think these people want to be free how we are. Well I hope they do anyways and that they don't install any sort of extremist government after they get rid of this maniac.

Edit- It's not even about having a government that's friendly with the west and blah blah blah. I'd like to see them be happy and free to decide their own fate and decide how they'd like to go forward in this world.

I couldn't even imagine living like that....it's just terrible...awful...it makes me sad. These are human being for Gods sake and this leader is slaughtering them like they were animals for his own amusement...damn it's sad.

I'm typing this very quickly so it's most likely very emotional...I'm sorry for that....

Edited February 21, 2011 by Mr.Canada

[bush_cheney2004]

...This man is a war criminal and is ordering genocide!

Krikey...it's not "genocide". That word has been abused to the point of being utterly meaningless.

I am starting to think I was in error before about the socialist/Islamic alliance thing. I think these people want to be free how we are. Well I hope they do anyways and that they don't install any sort of extremist government after they get rid of this maniac.

President George Bush said this years ago....everybody laughed at him.

[GostHacked]

Not to worry, you've been wrong about many of things since you started posting on this site. But if you are starting to come around and see the real light, we can start working together to fix things.

[Michael Hardner]

I am starting to think I was in error before about the socialist/Islamic alliance thing. I think these people want to be free how we are. Well I hope they do anyways and that they don't install any sort of extremist government after they get rid of this maniac.

Edit- It's not even about having a government that's friendly with the west and blah blah blah. I'd like to see them be happy and free to decide their own fate and decide how they'd like to go forward in this world.

I couldn't even imagine living like that....it's just terrible...awful...it makes me sad. These are human being for Gods sake and this leader is slaughtering them like they were animals for his own amusement...damn it's sad.

I'm typing this very quickly so it's most likely very emotional...I'm sorry for that....

Hear hear.

These people didn't have the fortune to have their military stand down. They have been massacred.

Al Jazeera seems to be pissing everybody off - Arabic dictators as well as the US. For once, we have journalists who are doing something right.

[GostHacked]

Krikey...it's not "genocide". That word has been abused to the point of being utterly meaningless.

President George Bush said this years ago....everybody laughed at him.

And still laughing at him.

[Michael Hardner]

Krikey...it's not "genocide". That word has been abused to the point of being utterly meaningless.

What would you call shooting down unarmed citizens who are protesting ?

Murder, at least...

[Jack Weber]

What would you call shooting down unarmed citizens who are protesting ?

Murder, at least...

State sanctioned mass murder...

But it's not actual "Genocide"...

Genocide usually relates to entire ethnic populations being systematically wiped out of certain geographic regions...

Unless one thinks most of the Libyan population is a single ethnic group??

As understand it,there are many different tribal affiliations in Libya???

[bush_cheney2004]

What would you call shooting down unarmed citizens who are protesting ?

I would call it "shooting down unarmed citizens who were protesting".

Murder, at least...

Much better...less drama is preferred, no?

[ToadBrother]

President George Bush said this years ago....everybody laughed at him.

That's a strange position, because it was during Bush's years that Gaddafi was rehabilitated and suddenly became the darling of North Africa to the US and the UK.

[Michael Hardner]

I guess that's how they get away with meaning change on a word.

1) Firstly that word is highly charged.

2) It becomes used more frequently.

3) It becomes used so frequently that it's misused.

4) It becomes misused frequently.

Thanks for alerting me to the meaning.

[Mr.Canada]

Ok, alright. Yeah genocide doesn't really fit here.

I think we can all agree that this is a massive violation of human rights....dammit I sound like a bloody socialist...lol.

2 air force planes piloted by high ranking officers have defected to Malta. One high ranking general has taken the side of the people and is giving them weapons to defend themselves and this generals unit is fighting with the people.

Seems to be only a matter of time now before Gaddafi is gone.

It would be better if another Arab nation condemned Gaddafi as well. So far they've been silent, from what I've heard so far....I could be wrong...I'm learning today that I've been wrong a lot lately...bordering on sounding like a complete idiot....

Wow , this is so crazy....beyond belief. I really hope that Gaddafi is held to account for his actions. There is no excuses possible for using military force against the people....that is wrong, wrong, wrong!

Typing fast again, my TV is in the living room. My PC is in my office...dammit I really need to buy another LCD for in here...lol.

[GostHacked]

I guess that's how they get away with meaning change on a word.

1) Firstly that word is highly charged.

2) It becomes used more frequently.

3) It becomes used so frequently that it's misused.

4) It becomes misused frequently.

Thanks for alerting me to the meaning.

It's a method used to downplay the problem. Trying to distract you.

[Michael Hardner]

Drudge Report says he's leaving the country.

This is big. The more of these things that happen, the bigger the strongman, the more momentum gathers.

It really makes one wonder about... dare I say it... Saudi Arabia.

[GostHacked]

Drudge Report says he's leaving the country.

This is big. The more of these things that happen, the bigger the strongman, the more momentum gathers.

It really makes one wonder about... dare I say it... Saudi Arabia.

We can only hope!! I welcome this new world disorder.

[ToadBrother]

Hear hear.

These people didn't have the fortune to have their military stand down. They have been massacred.

Al Jazeera seems to be pissing everybody off - Arabic dictators as well as the US. For once, we have journalists who are doing something right.

Libya's military is not the homogeneous entity that the Tunisian and Egyptian armies are. Its top officer corp has been rendered all but useless by many years of pogroms by Gaddafi, ever fearful that they might turn on him (as is essentially what happened in Egyptian and Tunisia). Whatever else Gaddafi might be, he saw a long time ago that the army is the weak link, that a strong army underwrites any regime, and by the same token, can remove a regime, so he took a page from Stalin's book and cut into it. He's much more reliant on the police, secret or otherwise, to maintain fear and order, so there isn't going to be a moment like there was in Tunisia and Egypt where the Army says "Okay, Mr. Dictator-President, we're not going to go around shooting our fellow countrymen, so I think you'd better just get on the next plane out of here."

I have this nasty feeling that if Gadaffi is finished, he's going to try his hardest to trigger a civil war, light up the oil wells, and who knows what else. This guy isn't some institutional dictator like Ben Ali or Mubarak, he's an out and out tyrant who will have no problem seeing tens of thousands of Libyans suffer or die for daring to want him and his nasty brood thrown out of the country. As much as we think of the likes of Mubarak as bad guys, they're pussy cats compared to Colonel Gaddafi.

All I can hope now is that all those folks in London, Washington and Rome who have been so smoochy-smoochy to Gadaffi over the last decade now have to look into this crumbling regime and realize they were shaking hands with one of the vilest, nastiest bastards to ever run a country.

[Michael Hardner]

All I can hope now is that all those folks in London, Washington and Rome who have been so smoochy-smoochy to Gadaffi over the last decade now have to look into this crumbling regime and realize they were shaking hands with one of the vilest, nastiest bastards to ever run a country.

I think that many applauded the shaking of hands, mostly because it was better than the alternative. When Reagan bombed Libya in the 1980s, some people were quick to call Reagan on that. Libya was on the outside like North Korea. They were slowly, uh, reacquainted with the western powers over 20 years or so.

I don't think they liked him.

[ToadBrother]

We can only hope!! I welcome this new world disorder.

I dunno. I don't think a sensible person welcomes this level of disorder. These uprisings have the potential to rewrite the North African and Middle Eastern map, but that could mean big trouble as well. Oil prices going through the roof. The potential of Islamists and Jihadists overthrowing important regimes.

I'm all for democracy, and it's hard to shed a tear for guys like Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saleh, and I would probably not cross the road to p*ss on them if they were on fire, but at the same time, and for purely selfish reasons, having the Middle East that we all know and love go up in smoke and the whole thing reorganized with some pretty nasty guys along with the reformers looking for a place at the table, or looking to kill everyone else at the table, this kind of volatility is very scary.

[Mr.Canada]

Drudge Report says he's leaving the country.

This is big. The more of these things that happen, the bigger the strongman, the more momentum gathers.

It really makes one wonder about... dare I say it... Saudi Arabia.

Lol I was just thinking the same thing about Saudi...that's funny. I think Saudi is better organized to quell an uprising imho.

I just worry about Islamist fanatics taking over in these places.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Mr.Canada

[ToadBrother]

I think that many applauded the shaking of hands, mostly because it was better than the alternative. When Reagan bombed Libya in the 1980s, some people were quick to call Reagan on that. Libya was on the outside like North Korea. They were slowly, uh, reacquainted with the western powers over 20 years or so.

I don't think they liked him.

I never said they liked him, but everyone seemed pretty happy to be shaking hands with Gaddafi again. Bush went around declaring that the Iraq War had had its first outside success when Gadaffi went hat in hand and agreed to let weapons inspectors in. A lot of toasts were made as political and business agreements with Libya were made and great dreams of avarice were awakened again, particularly in Europe, where that Libyan oil was greatly appreciated. And there was indeed some lionizing of Gaddafi, who seemed to relish in this newfound attention.

I'm sure they all knew that Gaddafi was the dangerous, if clownish viper he had ever been, but all the olden days seemed forgotten as Gaddafi was rehabilitated and turned into a world citizen again.

Bush deserves no more credit for what's going on now than anyone else. Libya has been bitten by the same ills that are overturning everything else in the Middle East, a demographic bubble of young people, wealth concentrated in the hands of the powerful and those who have been smart or lucky enough to align themselves to them. In Libya it's even worse as the eastern tribes, long antagonistic to Gaddafi, have been left out in the cold even as Western dollars have been dumped into the country.

[GostHacked]

I dunno. I don't think a sensible person welcomes this level of disorder. These uprisings have the potential to rewrite the North African and Middle Eastern map, but that could mean big trouble as well. Oil prices going through the roof. The potential of Islamists and Jihadists overthrowing important regimes.

I'm all for democracy, and it's hard to shed a tear for guys like Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saleh, and I would probably not cross the road to p*ss on them if they were on fire, but at the same time, and for purely selfish reasons, having the Middle East that we all know and love go up in smoke and the whole thing reorganized with some pretty nasty guys along with the reformers looking for a place at the table, or looking to kill everyone else at the table, this kind of volatility is very scary.

No you are right, I don't support the new world disorder. However the map was already drawn up years ago. The crisis that started with Egypt was only the beginning of all this, and it's not going to stop with Lybia. I share your concerns with the islamist extremists in the fact they might fill the void now that the western supported puppets are falling.

My real concern, which many don't share, is that this will come to our shores soon enough.

[Jack Weber]

I dunno. I don't think a sensible person welcomes this level of disorder. These uprisings have the potential to rewrite the North African and Middle Eastern map, but that could mean big trouble as well. Oil prices going through the roof. The potential of Islamists and Jihadists overthrowing important regimes.

I'm all for democracy, and it's hard to shed a tear for guys like Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi and Saleh, and I would probably not cross the road to p*ss on them if they were on fire, but at the same time, and for purely selfish reasons, having the Middle East that we all know and love go up in smoke and the whole thing reorganized with some pretty nasty guys along with the reformers looking for a place at the table, or looking to kill everyone else at the table, this kind of volatility is very scary.

This is the thing...

Watching Fascist dictators fall is a very good thing!

It's what "order" that comes out of the resulting power vacuum chaos,that begs questioning...

If the chaos is truly bloody and punishing,it's very easy to see how a society in this region might turn inward towards Islamofascsim...

To your other post about Khaddaffi (Ghaddaffi Ghadaffi?)...

Most likely he has purged the military of anything but his most fearful bootlicking yes men.That deos'nt necessarily they are sharpest military minds in the drawer,it just means they're smart enough to tell the Col. exactly what he wants hear to keep their heads attached to their necks.

If that military is breaking apart,in terms of loyalty,It's over for the regime...Because Khaddaffi is clearly more feared (and loathed) than loved by his people...

[ToadBrother]

Lol I was just thinking the same thing about Saudi...that's funny. I think Saudi is better organized to quell an uprising imho.

I can see a revolution in Saudi Arabia, but it wouldn't be the kind of creature we're seeing in North Africa. I think we have to think in terms of culture and geographic proximity. The North African states have long had ties to Europe, whether mercantile or colonial or whatever. The young people in places like Egypt or Tunisia look across the Mediterranean and see their peers enjoying a high standard of living, good job prospects, in general a future. They see stable democratic governments that in general respect the citizens, and I think these young people are filled with envy for their European counterparts and rage at their own governments which have done little to help them out, while continuing to lavish luxury and privilege on themselves.

In a place like Saudi Arabia, which has always, even in the Ottoman days, been a land filled with very conservative, very religious tribes that were never particularly exposed to the lifestyle of the Ottomans or the Europeans, and where they were exposed, particularly after Wahabism became a force to be reckoned with, viewed as perversions and corruptions. What I can see happening in Saudi Arabia is a very conservative, possibly Islamist revolution. There are a lot of folks in Saudi Arabia who despise the House of Saud's close relationship with the United States. Osama bin Laden was one, but hardly the only one, and there are still a lot of fears that if the Saudi regime liberalizes too fast, it will reawaken that nascent Wahabistic puritanism and the regime will fall to be replaced with something we definitely do not want to see.

[Michael Hardner]

I never said they liked him, but everyone seemed pretty happy to be shaking hands with Gaddafi again. Bush went around declaring that the Iraq War had had its first outside success when Gadaffi went hat in hand and agreed to let weapons inspectors in. A lot of toasts were made as political and business agreements with Libya were made and great dreams of avarice were awakened again, particularly in Europe, where that Libyan oil was greatly appreciated. And there was indeed some lionizing of Gaddafi, who seemed to relish in this newfound attention.

I'm sure they all knew that Gaddafi was the dangerous, if clownish viper he had ever been, but all the olden days seemed forgotten as Gaddafi was rehabilitated and turned into a world citizen again.

Bush deserves no more credit for what's going on now than anyone else. Libya has been bitten by the same ills that are overturning everything else in the Middle East, a demographic bubble of young people, wealth concentrated in the hands of the powerful and those who have been smart or lucky enough to align themselves to them. In Libya it's even worse as the eastern tribes, long antagonistic to Gaddafi, have been left out in the cold even as Western dollars have been dumped into the country.

I still think what they achieved with Libya was a good thing, upon reflection. I don't think any of those people would have expected him to react any differently to internal threats than he has, but he wasn't sponsoring world terrorism or shooting police bobbies in London any more.

I don't know about credit. You can draw a line between 9/11 and these events, I'm sure. So does Bin Laden deserve credit too ? Bush deserves credit for saying that democracy in the middle east was a goal and for trying to make it happen in Iraq, whatever you think about his motivations.

Al Jazeera deserves credit for bringing journalism to the people of the region.

[ToadBrother]

No you are right, I don't support the new world disorder. However the map was already drawn up years ago. The crisis that started with Egypt was only the beginning of all this, and it's not going to stop with Lybia. I share your concerns with the islamist extremists in the fact they might fill the void now that the western supported puppets are falling.

My real concern, which many don't share, is that this will come to our shores soon enough.

I don't see revolution coming to the West. As disgruntled as some folks may be, we're all basically democracies that have certain political safety valves. You might see some more populist movements like the Tea Party, but even the Tea Party, except maybe some small lunatic fringe, is advocating wholesale revolution. To be sure these revolutions in North Africa and beyond are going to have an anti-Western element to them, but at the same time, there may be some opportunity. For instance, there are some who have long dreamed of building a stronger economic alliance between Europe and the African Mediterranean states, and I can well imagine there a lot of Egyptian, Libyan, Tunisian, Algerian and Moroccan kids and young adults who would like to get close to the standard of living they see among their European peers.

Where it's going to hit the West is in the pocketbook. Instability in major oil producing countries is going to effect everything from food prices to the price of a pair of sneakers. It's going to mean that, in many of these countries, the rule book that we've had since the Cold War days is going to be tossed out and we're going to have to learn how to deal with new leaders, governments and altered societies.

[Michael Hardner]

but even the Tea Party, except maybe some small lunatic fringe, is advocating wholesale revolution.

I think you meant to type "is not"...

Anyway, no. Their anger is limited. Tea Party types really want the basics: to be able to have enough left over at the end of the day to tip the caddies and skycaps, and the little Mexican boy who washes the whitewalls of their tires, so their anger should only be taken so seriously.