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Reveilled posted:I can't help but wonder if Egypt might start actively formenting revolution in other nations once the country is back on its feet. If/when a new civilian reigime led by the opposition groups comes to power, it's going to be pretty unpopular amongst the kings and dictators of the rest of the Arab-Iranian world, especially if the unrest continues for a prolonged period. If that happens, active support for the protestors in other nations would be in Egypt's national interest. That would be ignoring the fact that Egypt never was popular with the other Arab nations after Sadat made peace with Israel and became America's allies. Libya, Syria and Palestinians don't give a gently caress if Hosni is in power, Sadat and Mubarak were traitors to them. They only care if Egypt is willing to rattle sabers with Israel once more. It's not very likely that any sane Egyptian government would actively try to stir trouble in the area, as it would likely backfire. It's difficult to spread peaceful revolution into police states like Syria, compared to how easy it is to fund terrorist cells in unstable democracies like Iraq.
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Feb 18, 2011 10:19
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Xandu posted:A captured, well I'm not exactly sure, some sort of "anti-tank" weapon, in al-Bayda, Libya. SPG-9 73mm recoilless rifle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc9-MkCxq5c
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Feb 19, 2011 20:26
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Warbadger posted:Too small. It's probably a M40 105mm recoiless rifle, note the spotting rifle on top. I didn't know Libya uses any US equipment? drat, now I must find out what's going on. Is that footage certain to be from Libya?
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Feb 19, 2011 21:03
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'minor protests' in Somalia? I guess that's one way to put it when the country has been in civil war for twenty years now.
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Feb 20, 2011 02:36
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I hope that 2011 will be remembered in Middle East/African history in a similar vein as 1848 is in European history. Except with more permanent successes.
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Feb 20, 2011 04:23
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Suntory BOSS posted:I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this could be the beginning of a Fourth Wave of Democracy and that the United States should put strategic and political considerations momentarily aside in order to aggressively promote and support nonviolent people's movements against autocratic regimes. What's Bahrain going to do, kick out the 5th Fleet and stare down Iran themselves? What will Yemen do, turn away our counter-terrorism aid and training? And make it look like USA organized the rebellions in the first place. That would only give the armed forces a legitimate reason to fire at protestors - they'd not be fighting against their people's will, they'd be defending their country against a foreign intervention. gently caress, even the protestors would take arms to fight against a US military expedition. It'd be just another quagmire of civil war like Iraq. Besides, if Obama really wanted to support democracy, he'd already have had Karzai removed.
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Feb 20, 2011 18:08
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Brown Moses posted:Gaddafi is threatening to stop co-operating with the EU over illegal immigration if they don't stop encouraging the protesters, ie criticising Libya for murdering protesters. Oh gently caress, now we're screwed. Time to send some arms and trained snipers to support Gaddafi! IMMIGRANTS  
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Feb 20, 2011 19:19
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Xandu posted:I think it has. He can't win it without killing everybody. And??? That's like saying "you can't get rid of this chocolate cake without eating it". In 1982 the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria started a rebellion in Hama, the fourth largest city in Syria that had a population of 250,000 at the time. In response President al-Assad besieged Hama with army special forces, ordered for the city to surrender and declared that anyone staying would be considered a rebel. Then the city was bombed by airplanes, artillery and tanks for almost a month. 10,000-40,000 people died and many more lost their homes. The Muslim Brotherhood was not a problem after that. That's how you roll the ball in a dictatorship. For Mubarak this wasn't so much a chance, because Egypt depends on western tourists and his power wasn't that strong anyway. But Gaddafi has got nothing to lose. It all depends on his control of the army, and his ability to use non-local divisions to suppress the uprisings. If the army defects, then he's screwed. But that is not very likely. Gaddafi took power as a Libyan army captain, and since then he's taken good care of not letting others do the same.
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Feb 20, 2011 21:12
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Hammerstein posted:Well Mubarak also had his roots in the Egyption army and was a big figurehead there. But ultimately this did not help him and his army buddies left him stranded. He did, but still Egypt was not as much under his thumb. Mubarak rose to power because he was Sadat's deputy - he was injured from the same bomb that killed Sadat, who in turn had been the vice president of Nasser. This is not as strong a base of power as Gaddafi's who has been the sole leader since 1969 and has been able to shape all aspects of the Libyan state to his liking without older party members interfering.
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Feb 20, 2011 21:54
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lil sartre posted:North Sudan may take him since he supported them in the war against the South and Bashir doesn't need to worry what the outside world thinks since he's already a pariah. Gaddafi actually supported the Southern Sudanese rebels in the 1980's during Nimeiry's leadership because Nimeiry supported the Israeli-Egyptian peace. Libya was basically being a dick to anyone who didn't agree with Gaddafi's ideals of Arab and Muslim unity, even if this meant funding Christian rebels. Soon after Nimeiry left the relations between Libya and Sudan improved, however, so much so that Libyan troops were allowed to be stationed in Darfur to operate against Chad. Trying to understand North African politics might become easier after Gaddafi has gone...
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Feb 20, 2011 23:36
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Gaddafi looks like he's on his way to a Charles Bronson Lookalike Contest.
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Feb 20, 2011 23:58
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Brown Moses posted:It's the old "give a rambling speech and promise reforms even though it's way to late for that" that Mubarak pulled. This is the best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWIbCtz_Xwk At 2:39 mark the crowd starts a whistling concert and Ceausescu and his wife totally lose the situation. Four days later, on Christmas day, they were executed.
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Feb 21, 2011 01:00
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Nessus posted:So like, are they asking us to send in the Marines? Are they volunteering to be invaded by America? WOAH WOAH, hold it buddy! Some gunship policy logic you've got there. The tribal leader is demanding the government forces to stop the violence, or else the only source of income will be plugged. Where did you read a request for foreign invasion in that? And US Marines, on top of that? What makes you think that any Arab Muslim would want them to invade their homes? It'd be like the Tea Party asking for Russians to come and protect them from Obama. e: or did you mean that Gaddafi is asking for intervention... IDGI Nenonen fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 01:39
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Nessus posted:I misread this as a threat to the world from the main government, not a threat from a tribe to the main government. MY BAD Ah, well in that case...  Actually that might be made into an interesting scenario. Muammar could rig a few oil tankers with explosives and then send them to the coasts of Spain, France, Italy and Greece, then demand EU to quell the uprisings or the tankers will blow up. <strokes the white cat>
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Feb 21, 2011 01:48
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Jut posted:Although the 1989 revolution was more of a political coup d'etat than anything. Just look who took power afterwards, Ion Iliescu and his merry band of communists. You could say the same thing about Boris Yeltsin and his merry band of communists, but that would be misleading. The communist leaders were overthrown by popular uprisings, not by backstage maneuverings (the military arrest of Gorbachev was a true coup). That many of the new leaders had been members of the old ruling party should not be surprising in what used to be a one party state.
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Feb 21, 2011 03:30
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Jut posted:
I'll take your word for that, but... how is any of that even in the slightest related to anything?
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Feb 21, 2011 04:31
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^^^ ah, drat you. Well, here's this longer post anyway: BBC says that according to a member of Sudan's ruling party, President Omar al-Bashir will not seek to be re-elected in the next elections. The next elections won't be until 2015, though, so he's still got time to screw his country good before handing power to his henchmen. Of course, the following had to be added just to avoid confusion: quote:"But he is not under pressure... This is not in the context of the change that is happening in the Arab world. It is happening because of the political strategy of the NCP to broaden participation," he added.
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Feb 21, 2011 09:41
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What I'm concerned with is that even if the Libyan regular army decides to join the protestors side, the Colonel would still have his elite all-virgin bodyguard unit to protect him. They're extremely well trained and might turn any attempts at Gaddafi into a bloodshed. WHY IS AMERICAN MEDIA NOT DISCUSSING THIS???
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Feb 21, 2011 19:20
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THE HORSES rear end posted:The only time the US could intervene militarily is if a genocide were breaking out between two different sub-Saharan factions (except Somalia). USA has intervened there militarily, but only on a limited scale - bombing some Islamists, maybe some small scale black op stuff And then of course there was that botched plan to capture Aidid... which is part of the reason for why USA is reluctant to do anything similar again.
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Feb 21, 2011 20:25
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:Are you honestly considering the possibility of that happening? What's wrong with you? It's really scary, isn't it? People take "Did you hear that Hitler escaped to Brazil! Reportedly a Mexican battleship sunk a Royal Navy ship guarding the Kiel harbor to enable him and Goebbels to escape on an invisible paddle boat."
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Feb 21, 2011 20:46
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Globo-Corp posted:Sounds like the protesters need to get some of the military working on their side. We don't know that this isn't already happening, really. Maybe some army units have joined the rebellion and the air force is bombing them? All information coming from Libya is so sketchy that Picasso's Guernica looks like a realistic depiction of the event in comparison. Anything that the government officials say is doubtful, anything that the protesters say is doubtful. Eg. there is much talk about 'mercenaries' and everyone seems to take it as an accepted fact, but there is no proof of this, just claims. Just like there have been repeated claims for a few days now that Gaddafi has left the country for good. Russians also claimed there were Latvian female mercenaries sniping at their troops in Afghanistan/Chechnya/Georgia. I'm not saying that any of this isn't possible, but the information is too sketchy and too biased to really know what is going on.
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Feb 21, 2011 21:09
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Samurai Sanders posted:I didn't even know that you could point anti-aircraft guns at targets on the ground. Or can the protesters fly? AA guns are always dual purpose. Other posters have mentioned the use of heavy (German 88mm and 128mm) flak guns against tanks in WW2, but heavy AA is not used any more as missiles have replaced them. Rapid firing small calibre AA guns however are still very popular, and they are also very effective anti-infantry weapons due to their high rates of fire, especially as mounted versions such as the Soviet ZSU-23/4 Shilka (four barrels of 23mm caliber). With just one second burst, it can fire When used against demonstrators in a street, it's the same as putting people through a meatgrinder, and I don't understand how anyone would be able to pull the trigger against their own people?!? But I also don't understand how anyone can suicide bomb schools and poo poo, and it still happens. 
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Feb 21, 2011 22:40
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roundmidnight posted:It's not just about the end result. How it happens is just as important. Interventionists also become entangled politically in the whole thing, and find themselves having to support the monster that they've created, even if they agreed the people didn't like it. Eg. there's no chance for an independent Kurdistan for as long as west supports the Iraqi government, just like Hamid Karzai will be the Afghan president for life, or at least for as long as the west cares about Afghanistan. Otherwise it would seem like all the US/NATO/Coalition sacrifices were for nothing.
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Feb 21, 2011 22:48
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Your policy is literally that we have to let genocides occur. I don't think you really understand the word 'genocide' correctly. Doccers posted:Really, I have no clue about their credibility, I just know Italy was saying they were scrambling their air force I believe this is just a reaction to the two Libyan fighter pilots defecting to the neighbouring Malta, nothing else. It's more a precaution aimed at assuring Italians that those crazy brown people won't be landing in the St. Peter's Piazza or anything, but will be properly escorted to army air bases. Or maybe Italians just realized that they could finally capture Malta??? Nenonen fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 23:01
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Billy the Mountain posted:Good thing we didn't help the 6 million Jews during the holocaust. Yes because the Libyan situation is literally the WW2 Holocaust. People are being taken out of their homes and sent on trains to destruction camps. Sivias posted:Seems like the military isn't respected like Egypt's is. At least anyone below the rank of a Colonel can say "we were just following orders"...
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Feb 21, 2011 23:14
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Patter Song posted:In Libya, Qadaffi IS the regime. Remove him and there's nothing, Libya will need to build a new order from scratch. Gaddafi really is batshit crazy. There was a news some time ago of him deciding to dismantle the Libyan central government completely, leaving only regional governments. Gaddafi should be a tea party idol. Also, there is an Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. 
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Feb 21, 2011 23:27
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Doccers posted:France has a full fleet carrier last time I checked, and they're close enough their fighters have the range to fly missions there from home. Germany too I suspect, though they don't have a carrier they can park offshore. I honestly don't know the status of the Italian air force. All of the countries in question have air refueling units, so in theory it'd be possible to do bomb runs on Libyan military targets from Scotland if there was a need. For a sustained combat air patrol I don't know how manageable that would be, probably not very. But Sicily is close enough for NATO fighters to operate in the coastal region.
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Feb 22, 2011 00:04
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farraday posted:There are wars and then there are wars. Being the well compensated Arab point man for preventing crimes against humanity in Libya is fairly different from invading. This isn't the French revolution. The Egyptian provisional government consists of the same old Mubarak people, and even if they weren't that, they would have no popular mandate to invade their neighbour. Egypt needs to have its economy fixed so that people can eat. "Short victorious wars", while tempting, come second.
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Feb 22, 2011 00:50
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Ham posted:There are about 500,000 Egyptians living and working in Libya who are now being specifically targeted along with Tunisians by Qaddafi's people after his son's speech last night, so that's a pretty serious cause but I don't see the military intervering other than in humanitarian ways. Also 15,000 Egyptians have crossed the border into Egypt today, so far. Half a million Egyptians in Libya? That's a tremendous amount for a country of six million people!! What is this figure based on, and where are they locationed?
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Feb 22, 2011 01:22
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There is nothing to indicate that Gaddafi would have left Libya. There were somewhat credible reports that he had left Tripoli to his hometown, Sirt, but it's unclear if even those reports were true.
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Feb 22, 2011 04:56
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Xandu posted:Giant hi-res panorama of Cairo with Midan Tahrir way in the back. Just click the original size. Pretty cool looking. I can see M1 Abrams tanks. But where the hell is Waldo?
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Feb 22, 2011 09:37
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Brown Moses posted:mercenaries So far there's no positive proof of mercenaries. I was just listening to BBC and a Libyan caller was claiming that there are 'white men who are maybe East Europeans' shooting at people, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions based just on that. Looking at photos of the Libyan Mirage F1 fighters that landend in Malta, I was wondering if anyone here can confirm what the pods under the wings are? I think they might be Matra rocket pods, each containing 18 68mm SNEB rockets. But I'm not an expert. If true, and they were ordered to strafe crowds in the streets, you can only imagine what the result would be like.  Rockets also would go poorly with the Gaddafi Jr's claim that the airforce had only been used to bomb army depots to prevent weapons from falling into terrorist hands. Light rockets don't do poo poo to munitions sheltered inside (likely reinforced) buildings.
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Feb 22, 2011 11:04
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Brown Moses posted:According to AJA adverts have appeared in Guinea and Nigeria offering would-be mercenaries up to US $2000 dollars per day. There's also the video of a dead black soldier being dragged around which was claimed to be a mercenary, as well as claims that papers taken from dead mercenaries show they are foreign citizens. I have seen them, but I don't think black skin is solid proof yet as there are minorities in Libya too (and there are white gunmen in that photo too). I'm not sure just how many black people though, ignoring the immigrants on their way to Europe. But you would always use soldiers recruited from other areas, preferably from different tribes, to shoot at Tripolians, because recruits from the northern cities would be likely to fraternise with them. Evidence of actual Libyan recruit efforts in other countries would be very clear proof, though.
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Feb 22, 2011 11:22
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Apparently the Libyan deputy foreign minister has promised to Al Jazeera to immolate himself:quote:Khaled Al Ga’aeem: Good evening, the reason I am calling is to seek the truth and only the truth. I want stress two facts to the viewers in the Arab nation [world] - and especially to Libyans inside and outside Libya. And I take personal and full responsibility, and I am ready - not only to resign from my post - but also set myself on fire in the Green Square - if it is confirmed that there were mercenaries from African states coming by planes and if it is confirmed that there was aerial bombardment. And, by the way, I asked the British ambassador to be a witness and to bring a media crew tomorrow morning to tour all Tripoli to look for find any aftermath of aerial bombardment or discriminate bombardment. I will bear full responsibility and I will pay with my life as a price for it.
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Feb 22, 2011 12:12
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Vernii posted:I've been unable to find anything that identifies what type of units those are, but if they are purely infantry, then could be between 1500-6400 men as an estimate, which would be between 3-12% of the army right there, if we assumed 100% defections among those units, and 100% loyalists in other units. Hopefully they are armored brigades though, those would have a lot more firepower at hand. I have read that Libyan army is undermanned, with only 25-30% of the nominal man strength, and even the best formations are not full strenght. Given the current situation, many of even those may have already left their formations, so a 'brigade' might be as big as a company.
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Feb 22, 2011 12:37
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Pureauthor posted:You could try asking why he thinks America would pay to have one of their biggest allies remvoed from power. So that they get an excuse to invade them!  Sheesh, the Colonel is rambling like the demented old fart that he is about kids on drugs and foreigners!
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Feb 22, 2011 17:15
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drat, all the things that you can order over the internet! 
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Feb 22, 2011 17:26
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The Brown Menace posted:He's going to break Strom Thurmond's record, this is going to be his magnum opus, a 24+ hour long speech about his bum being on the Swedish. Gaddafi is infamous for torturing people with lengthy speeches that jump from one conspiracy theory to another. quote:Muammar Gaddafi threw the UN general assembly into chaos today when he effectively hijacked the podium to make a rambling, unscripted speech.
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Feb 22, 2011 17:34
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Hah, he returned to Boris Yeltsin and the Davidian Sect now.
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Feb 22, 2011 17:42
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 "Nobody can allow their country to become an international laughing stock in the hands of a crazy person"
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Feb 22, 2011 17:44
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