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Mr. Sunshine posted:
Yeah, if an editor's picking through a hundred photos of an Arab demo, he's bound to pick out the one image that shows a sign in English, because it tells a better story to his readership. As for the no-fly zone, there's no reason why Libya couldn't turn into a stalemate that lasts a decade. Western commentators have underestimated Gadaffi every step of the way so far. I've lost count of the times that some talking head has proclaimed that "this is it" for the guy, only to see him alive and defiant on TV the next day. In fact, I'm detecting a lot of annoyance that Gadaffi is failing to follow the script that's been written for him: "Why the hell hasn't he been crushed by a triumphant uprising of the Libyan people yet? What's keeping them??"
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Apr 19, 2011 19:31
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Umiapik posted:Yeah, if an editor's picking through a hundred photos of an Arab demo, he's bound to pick out the one image that shows a sign in English, because it tells a better story to his readership. It's pretty hard to rebel against someone who has your family held hostage in prison.
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Apr 19, 2011 19:33
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How dare we be annoyed that Gaddafi hasn't stepped down yet. Us Western decadent moralising pigs.
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Apr 19, 2011 19:42
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Some stuff about Misarata via Twitter from Change In Libya:quote:Misrata: Revolutionaries are starting to form organized groups, one of them named after a martyr that died 2 days ago: "Alhalbous" quote:Misrata: This same brigade, "Alhalbous brigade" managed to pull off the ambush today and liberate a large part of Misrata, apparently quote:MISRATA CONFIRMED: Revolutionaries in KIRZAZ neighbourhood killed 50 mercenaries and seized 18 vehicles full of ammo in an ambush quote:Misrata: Revolutionaries say that the 50 mercenaries they killed had pockets FULL OF MONEY, and one had a briefcase containing solid gold quote:Misrata: Gaddafi is actually starting to pay his mercenaries in pure bricks of gold, and the mercenary is now in hospital being treated
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Apr 19, 2011 20:17
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More twitter bullshit then. As if a merc is going to carry a briefcase full of solid gold (that poo poo's heavy) into battle with him. I thought the reports of mercs turned out to be greatly exaggerated anyway.
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Apr 19, 2011 20:28
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Jut posted:More twitter bullshit then. As if a merc is going to carry a briefcase full of solid gold (that poo poo's heavy) into battle with him. Yeah, pretty much. I'm no fan of Jut's posting, but mercs bringing the bricks of gold they were paid to the battlefield is pretty outlandish. Why wouldn't Gaffy just pay them in counterfeit USDs or Euros if mercs didn't trust the Libya bucks; surely he still has enough infrastructure intact for that?
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Apr 19, 2011 21:33
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On the other hand, he may feel safer with his gold with him than being held by a "You can trust your gold with us" member of the regime. Edit: And would you trust cash from a guy that's known to counterfeit in the past?
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Apr 19, 2011 21:34
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Contraction mapping posted:Yeah, pretty much. I'm no fan of Jut's posting, but mercs bringing the bricks of gold they were paid to the battlefield is pretty outlandish. Why wouldn't Gaffy just pay them in counterfeit USDs or Euros if mercs didn't trust the Libya bucks; surely he still has enough infrastructure intact for that? Clearly you haven't played Battlefield: Bad Company. If we accepted that they were paid in some amount of gold, I'm not sure why the idea they'd bring it with them would be considered strange. If you're asking to be paid cash upfront it's because you A)don't trust the people paying you to pay you after and b) there is no trust or use for a banking arrangement. We're not talking about blackwater here. If they are similar to some more historical examples I can think of, liquid and portable are more attractive than interest bearing. I have no trouble believing mercenaries would bring their money with them, it's the paid in gold I question the truth of.
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Apr 19, 2011 21:50
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farraday posted:If we accepted that they were paid in some amount of gold, I'm not sure why the idea they'd bring it with them would be considered strange. If you're asking to be paid cash upfront it's because you A)don't trust the people paying you to pay you after and b) there is no trust or use for a banking arrangement. Gold bars are pretty heavy, but Krugerands and other gold coins were pretty common way to pay mercenaries back in the days of the African bush wars. A single 1 oz. gold bullion coin is worth $1000-$1500 dollars and is a hell of a lot more portable and than a standardized 12.4kg gold bar (worth $595K) used in central bank transactions. Edit: need to clarify that that's "gold bullion coins" and not the poo poo you could grab off of Goldline. Young Freud fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 01:44
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Can the Ba'ath regime in Syria even survive without the State of Emergency? It's been the defining element of Syrian politics since the end of the UAR.
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Apr 20, 2011 02:56
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Sure, they'll just put in some new anti-terror laws. It's not like the state of emergency law was what allowed them to clamp down on protesters.
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Apr 20, 2011 02:58
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New pics of the Mercenaries have surfaced: But yeah, I could see them being paid in gold, especially when you're currently in a country where the possibility of financial instability is looming on the horizon. Probably in US dollars too. When my friend was in Africa for a while he didn't even convert most of his money to local currency because everyone took US Dollars. I think he said the exception was when he was in South Afrika, but even there when they went to buy drugs they did it in American dollars.
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Apr 20, 2011 04:43
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I don't think being paid in gold is particularly implausible. Gold bars, though? Yeah, that's a bit much.
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Apr 20, 2011 04:46
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El Estrago Bonito posted:New pics of the Mercenaries have surfaced: I saw this film as a youngin', and didn't notice how ridiculous this was until I took Chemistry. Each one of the gold bars in that bag probably weighs around 30 pounds (I think the standard is 27 or something?), and there have to be at least ten in each bag. Each of those duffles is probably more than 300 pounds. It'd suck to be paid in gold bricks because if you did anything worthwhile enough to be paid in them, you probably wouldn't be able to get it back home unless you had slaves carrying it for you.
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Apr 20, 2011 04:50
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If you have five million dollars worth of gold in a duffle bag, you can probably afford to pay for whatever porters and security you need.
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Apr 20, 2011 06:27
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There's even a chance they were actually paid in gold bars, since the term covers a bunch of different things from those big Fort Knox-type bars to small amounts of gold not made into coins. For example, here's a very small gold bar:  Frankly, if I was a mercenary working for someone like Qaddafi in a situation like Libya, I'd drat well demand payment in bullion. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 06:36
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I didn't write this, but it is printed on my own site, so I don't know how kosher it is. If you gotta probate me for that, I guess that's fair. (FYI: I didn't buy or design my current title. I'm not That Guy.) Anyhow, the person who wrote it is a grad student in the Middle East and has been putting together regular rundowns on the punditocracy's missives about Libya, as well as the history of American arms investments in the country and Tony Blair's history of nauseating lapdog sycophancy toward Libya in exchange for BP concessions. This latest one covered the callowness with which "liberal" opinion-makers have rushed to endorse the Libyan War, while avoiding the "war" word and parroting administration euphemisms. Some of the links might be familiar, but a lot of them aren't. I thought I'd post an excerpt, because the dude deserves a nod even for the effort: ******** Slouching from Benghazi: The Libyan War Is Decadent and Depraved WAR LIE NUMBER TWO: THIS IS ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS Indulge me for a moment, as I build up to the punchline, the irony that betrays just how oxygen-starving stupid this war is, because even Yossarian couldn't have been cynical enough to guess the truth of this death from the skies. This war is not primarily about saving Benghazi from a Viking raiding party's revenge. To say, as Obama did, that the war's aim is "to see that the principles of justice and human dignity are upheld by all" will seem awfully curious to the clay pigeon citizens of Bahrain. That Lord of the Flies island's resident despots, the al-Khalifa boys, were rewarded mid-crackdown with a visit from Defense Secretary Robert Gates on March 11. Bob's mildly critical palaver about "dialogue" with the protestors was requisite, as requisite as his sustained gratitude for King Hamad's gracious hosting of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet in Manama. Good thing SecDef was holding his nose throughout the meeting already, lest any of that tear gas waft his way. ... Funny how we also haven't heard any Obamalarial delirium about a no-fly zone in Yemen, where the hottest new sport to hit the military barracks consists of blocking the arteries of downtown Sana'a with buses and flaming tires, then seeing which American-trained regime lifer can headshot the most trapped children with Western-made rifles. Obama has been awfully brave in ensuring the principles of justice and human dignity in that country, as when he dispatched chief hitman David Petraeus to go smoke Cubans with local tyrant Ali Abdullah Saleh. Hell, before I forget: Yemen and Pakistan are war zones for us too, as they host our moronic Predator drone assassination programs. Petraeus and Saleh had a good laugh, cackling over an aged brandy about the skyborne disaster they had launched in that country. As revealed by Wikileaks, Ali even went so far as to say that he would tell his countrymen it was the Yemeni Army launching the air raids, not the American "advisors" stationed in Sana'a. Conspiring with an Arab dictator to lie to the world about the murder of dozens of civilians — indeed, such is the unerring ardor for human dignity that earned Obama his Nobel Peace Prize and spurred him to firebomb Tripoli. In fact, as I sit in my wood-paneled study scratching my chin with Saddam Hussein's femur, I wonder if there's any other Mideast canton that might benefit from a no-fly zone. Where 1,300 people were liquefied Red Baron-style. Where a brutal military occupation has trapped over a million civilians in a dismal humanitarian crisis, while the only authorities among them are the functionaries of an increasingly despotic, desperate band of Islamists. Where pasta is a dual-use item subject to crippling sanctions, where the only money to be made is in arms smuggling, where the children of those concussed and incinerated in the chemically unquenchable peals of white phosphorous will grow up as extremists nonpareil. If, and that's a big if — if such a place were to exist, I'm sure Barack Obama would forcefully demand such practices end, lest the human dignity of such wretches be trampled upon. There are only two other Middle Eastern dictatorships that could ever see a military incursion similar to that of Libya: Syria and Iran. The governments of those two are just as odious as those of Jordan or Yemen or Algeria: they're just not on our team (though Syria wants to be), and therefore they don't get a pass. The mass murders Syria, Iran and Libya commit will provoke sober, "masterful" speeches on American exceptionalism, while the most grotesque Mideast dictatorship — that of Saudi Arabia — will be propped up by the U.S. 'til the bitter end, as if they were Grant's men at Cold Harbor. At the end of the day, dead Bahrainis and dead Yemenis mean nothing to Barack Obama. Nothing. I'd prefer his spin doctors and hope hacks didn't fake any pain over the dead in those countries, maybe responded to any media inquiries with a two column Powerpoint. One column could be titled: "Despots Who Commit Horrific Human Rights Abuses and Must Be Stopped." The other could read, "Treasured U.S. Partners with a License to Kill Their Uppity Raghead Citizens." They could issue licenses to the governments of Bahrain and Yemen, so as to keep their civvie-hunting strictly kosher: daily haul not to exceed fifty protestors shot, 1,000 protestors sodomized in secret prisons. They are inconvenient in their bleeding. Those rear end in a top hat victims. Holy Diverticulitis fucked around with this message at 07:33 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 07:24
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:There's even a chance they were actually paid in gold bars, since the term covers a bunch of different things from those big Fort Knox-type bars to small amounts of gold not made into coins. Do bear in mind that #changeinlibya is the same account that's posted buckets full of made up poo poo throughout this conflict (i.e. the Free Libyan Air force!!). I give anything from that account the same about of trust as I would CQ's state TV.
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Apr 20, 2011 08:26
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While I do agree with some of the points he makes, and that there's some terrible hypocrisy at play in the Middle East, it does seem he's cherry picking specific reasons for involvement in Libya, and ignoring others, just so he can make certain arguements. I don't think it's a massive revelation that Western countries have more reasons to be involved in Libya than just humanitarian intervention, or that it's likely that the ultimate goal of the West is to get rid of Gaddafi and have a pro-Western government take over.While I do agree with some of the points he makes, and that there's some terrible hypocrisy at play in the Middle East, it does seem he's cherry picking specific reasons for involvement in Libya, and ignoring others, just so he can make certain arguements. I don't think it's a massive revelation that Western countries have more reasons to be involved in Libya than just humanitarian intervention, or that it's likely that the ultimate goal of the West is to get rid of Gaddafi and have a pro-Western government take over.
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Apr 20, 2011 08:36
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Live Blogs 20th April LibyaFeb17.com AJE Guardian Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 08:40
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Slouching from Benghazi: The Libyan War Is Decadent and Depraved They should pass this around to University Writing students to illustrate where, even if you have good points, if you write like an horrible douche, you're much less likely to be taken seriously. I mean, seriously, he has good points (again), but holy poo poo is that the most cuntily written thing in the universe, I can just see him hooking his  up to a turbine to power the New York-Boston metropolitan area while he was writing that. Oh, wonderful, and a Hunter S. Thompson reference. Nombres fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 08:45
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Morning update from the Guardian:quote:Good morning and welcome to live coverage of unrest in the Middle East. In the morning's main development, the Gaddafi regime is waving a big olive branch. In an interview with the Guardian's Harriet Sherwood and other selected journalists, the Libyan foreign minister dangled the prospect of early elections once the conflict is over. Until we put up the full story, here is a sampler. It's worth noting that discussions would include Gaddafi's future. quote:In other developments:
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Apr 20, 2011 09:01
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Jut posted:Do bear in mind that #changeinlibya is the same account that's posted buckets full of made up poo poo throughout this conflict (i.e. the Free Libyan Air force!!). Oh of course, I should have clarified that if the story about the ambush was true, which is by no means certain, then the part about finding gold bars on the dead mercs isn't really very far-fetched. BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Wow, that is really, really godawful writing. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 09:02
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Brown Moses posted:While I do agree with some of the points he makes, and that there's some terrible hypocrisy at play in the Middle East, it does seem he's cherry picking specific reasons for involvement in Libya, and ignoring others, just so he can make certain arguements. I don't think it's a massive revelation that Western countries have more reasons to be involved in Libya than just humanitarian intervention, or that it's likely that the ultimate goal of the West is to get rid of Gaddafi and have a pro-Western government take over.While I do agree with some of the points he makes, and that there's some terrible hypocrisy at play in the Middle East, it does seem he's cherry picking specific reasons for involvement in Libya, and ignoring others, just so he can make certain arguements. I don't think it's a massive revelation that Western countries have more reasons to be involved in Libya than just humanitarian intervention, or that it's likely that the ultimate goal of the West is to get rid of Gaddafi and have a pro-Western government take over. Kidding aside, you say, "I don't think it's a massive revelation that Western countries have more reasons to be involved in Libya than just humanitarian intervention," but your statement begs the question that humanitarian intervention is a reason or cause. It's not. Our blithe unconcern with Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Gaza immediately impeaches any humanitarian claims. Those claims are insupportable. So, when you remove the garland of humanitarian rhetoric from the discourse, then what are you left with? To go by your comment, it's that "the ultimate goal of the West is to get rid of Gaddafi and have a pro-Western government take over." But that's not a goal asserted by the author or text, and it's not one certain at this point as a current-events watcher scanning the al-Jazeera Twitter feed. I appreciate that you might disagree with the quoted text, but you're doing so by question-begging about the allied intervention and about what the text supposedly claims. Neither is a credible engagement of either what was posted or the full linked article. Nombres posted:They should pass this around to University Writing students to illustrate where, even if you have good points, if you write like an horrible douche, you're much less likely to be taken seriously. I mean, seriously, he has good points (again), but holy poo poo is that the most cuntily written thing in the universe, I can just see him hooking his
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Apr 20, 2011 09:24
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Perhaps I'm misguided and overzealous in support of someone whose experience and command of multiple Mideast journalistic organs and domestic editorial policies is estimable. Perhaps I question the style-points and presentational slams from someone with capitalization and agreement problems with articles and nouns, as well as a reliance on making a point with a smiley while dropping the internet's laziest go-to insult of "douche." Despite that, I totally agree with you about the Hunter Thompson riff, as it's inevitably a signal to strangers that you are an unserious person about to rant in some collegiate affectation of mortal inconvenience. That said, there's probably less poseur danger in dropping an allusive title if you back it up with 7,000+ words of content, after you've already dropped about 6,000 on the same topic. You can be titularly flippant, even appeal to mass-media tropes, if you've established a good-faith base of ample content. Or maybe that's just cunty get-out-frog of me. Please, anything but that. This prose is so purple I'm afraid you're going to die of asphyxiation.
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Apr 20, 2011 09:39
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Nombres posted:This prose is so purple I'm afraid you're going to die of asphyxiation.
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Apr 20, 2011 09:45
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Ahahaha you literally don't know what words mean. If you say so. Your writing is still bad and you distinctly seem to be trying too hard, though. Seriously, calm the gently caress down. The article's style obscured the points because it was trying to be too clever and elaborate - I even said that I agreed with the gist of the article itself.
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Apr 20, 2011 09:47
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I'll try to be clearer, need more coffee in me at this time in the morning so I can wake up properly. I'll start by saying that the situation in the Middle East is a result of Western powers not giving a poo poo about the people of the Middle East over a very long period of time, and supporting regimes who also don't give a poo poo about their people, so I'm aware that there's a huge amount of hypocrisy at play in this situation. To clarify my earlier point, I'm not saying that humanitarian intervention isn't part of the reason the west has gotten involved, and each country involved has their own reasons for supporting action against Gaddafi. You look at France at the start of the Libya crisis, and they had recently received a lot of criticism for the way their government handled the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, so some observers said that their strong response to Gaddafi's attacks on protesters was a response to that criticism. That pretty much trashed their relationshop with Gaddafi's regime, but as they were relying on the rebels to win they thought it didn't matter. The problem for France is the rebels started to lose, and by that point plenty of other countries in the EU had jumped on board the anti-Gaddafi train, so there was a real risk tht the EU would end up with a very hostile regime with some scores to settle sat on the other side of the Med. I also think that having supported the rebels so vocally that then allowing them to be crushed in Benghazi would have humiliated the Westerns powers that had supported them, and been a massive victory for Gaddafi, and those Western powers weren't willing to accept that, hence the UN resolution. There was also the risk that having been so vocal and then failed to take action their words in the future would be extremely hallow if the same situation arose again. So, in conclusion, I believe that Western powers had hoped and bet on the rebels suceeding without any intervention, and that they wanted to start building good relations with the expected new regime early on by giving them vocal support. The problem is, that didn't happen, and by the point the tables had turned against the rebels they had already burnt their bridges with the Gaddafi regime, so they couldn't return to the status quo.
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Apr 20, 2011 09:55
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Nombres posted:If you say so. Your writing is still bad and you distinctly seem to be trying too hard, though.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:02
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t3ch3 posted:The size of the force will be the real determining factor, but I get a sense this is a lot like the 50,000 "military advisors" that the US has in Iraq. Just an update on the numbers being sent, it's apparently 10 people.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:14
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BITCH I SELL CAINE posted:Perhaps I'm misguided and overzealous in support of someone whose experience and command of multiple Mideast journalistic organs and domestic editorial policies is estimable. Perhaps I question the style-points and presentational slams from someone with capitalization and agreement problems with articles and nouns, as well as a reliance on making a point with a smiley while dropping the internet's laziest go-to insult of "douche." Despite that, I totally agree with you about the Hunter Thompson riff, as it's inevitably a signal to strangers that you are an unserious person about to rant in some collegiate affectation of mortal inconvenience. That said, there's probably less poseur danger in dropping an allusive title if you back it up with 7,000+ words of content, after you've already dropped about 6,000 on the same topic. You can be titularly flippant, even appeal to mass-media tropes, if you've established a good-faith base of ample content. Or maybe that's just cunty get-out-frog of me. Please, anything but that. Perhaps this is more telling of my own intellect than anything else, but god drat is it painful to read what you write. I share the same opinion of that opinion piece you posted. Seems my underwater basket weaving degree may be wasted on me.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:26
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quote:Rebels have been laying anti-tank mines, according to Human Rights Watch, despite commitments not to do so last month. To be fair to the rebels if Gaddafi isn't stopped in the East he'll slaughter a lot of civilians, so this is probably the lesser of two evils. Bit of diplomatic news: quote:The Reuters news agency has reported that Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of Libya's rebels will meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Wednesday.
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Apr 20, 2011 10:28
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Small update from Misarata:quote:Fighting is going on in Misrata’s Tripoli Street, but no shelling was taking place on Wednesday, an opposition fighter told Reuters. They now control some 50% of Tripoli Street. The port is calm now, he said, but added that shelling could resume any moment. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13133258
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Apr 20, 2011 11:05
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quote:President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has promised a Libyan rebel leader in Paris to intensify air strikes on Gaddafi's army, says Reuters via its Twitter feed.
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Apr 20, 2011 12:43
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The French are providing more help as well:quote:More news on the French operations in Libya. France is following in the footsteps of the UK by sending military officers to assist the Libyan opposition. After a meeting of the French cabinet, government spokesman Francois Baroin said:
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Apr 20, 2011 13:03
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Nombres posted:They should pass this around to University Writing students to illustrate where, even if you have good points, if you write like an horrible douche, you're much less likely to be taken seriously. I mean, seriously, he has good points (again), but holy poo poo is that the most cuntily written thing in the universe, I can just see him hooking his Ah good I'm not alone. I got almost a paragraph into it and it was sounding like half of the "good" MMA journalists who just basically like to read what they typed more than they have anything useful to say. edit: Nombres posted:This prose is so purple I'm afraid you're going to die of asphyxiation. Ah so there's a term for that. Thanks. glug fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Apr 20, 2011 |
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Apr 20, 2011 13:08
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quote:Ignazio La Russa, Italy's defence minister says that Italy will send 10 army advisers to aid the rebels in Libya, after Britain and France announced they were also sending officers, according to AFP news agency reports.
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Apr 20, 2011 13:44
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Brown Moses posted:I think the plan is to get every country in the world to send 10 people, then it won't look like an invasion. It's also interesting all the news reports fail to label them correctly as mercenaries.
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Apr 20, 2011 13:55
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AllanGordon posted:Perhaps this is more telling of my own intellect than anything else, but god drat is it painful to read what you write. ! glug posted:Ah so there's a term for that. Thanks.
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Apr 20, 2011 13:57
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bitch's twitter posted:Ah good I'm not alone. It cracks me up that it manages to be massively over-written while also largely composed in the passive voice. To our Bitch, Please tell your 'grad student' friend (and why don't you say what field? Is he getting an architecture degree or what?) that if he wants to engage intellectually with people he needs to cut out his offensive, childish "raghead" stuff. Also, quote:Mobute Mobutu Sese Seko 
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Apr 20, 2011 13:59
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