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Space Monster posted:I would say the common people of the region are displaying a remarkable amount of solidarity. February is apparently official 'lets stop this retarded theology/monarchy/military dictatorship bullshit' month. I haven't been this hopeful about the future of the world in a very long time. Black History Month move over, it's Brown History Month now!
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Feb 20, 2011 04:26
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Frozen Horse posted:I'm going to reverse my earlier optimism about Quaddafi's chances for pulling off a soft landing. I'm also going to predict that the army is going to react poorly to foreign mercenaries attacking their countrymen. Maybe I'm a soft westerner, but $30,000 wouldn't be enough for it to be worth it to get shot by the Libyan army. As an American, it wouldn't cover the first two hours of my medical care.
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Feb 20, 2011 05:15
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This is apparently an eyewitness account of what's going on in Libya (it's audio with translation). http://audioboo.fm/boos/282959-englishtrans-lpc-benghazi-man-muammar-s-special-forces-are-executing-doctors-libya-feb17 Lots of dead people, lots of foreigners shooting civilians. And Libya is basically using everything it can against its own people. Edit: From Al-Jazeera "9:23 am British foreign secretary William Hague had strong words yesterday for the "unacceptable violence" in Libya. In videotaped remarks, he noted reports that security forces there are using heavy weaponry and have deployed a sniper unit against protesters" Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Feb 20, 2011 |
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Feb 20, 2011 11:25
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Sivias posted:This is a very ignorant statement. America owes it's standard of living on the control these despots and dictators have on their country and resources. The idea that we have no interest in controlling the outcome of these events is really obtuse. You said it best, "This is a very ignorant statement." Many people care more about justice than having the latest plasma screen.
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Feb 20, 2011 21:54
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"The Libyans who live in Europe and USA, their children go to school and they want you to fight. They are comfortable. They then want to come and rule us and Libya. They want us to kill each other then come, like in Iraq."
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Feb 21, 2011 00:50
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I am really amazed at the volatility of these protests. This has all happened in 2 months. A week ago, Qhadaffi likely wouldn't have dreamed he'd be in the grossly uncertain position he is in today. A month ago Mubarak was solidly in control. Pretty loving amazing.
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Feb 21, 2011 01:07
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QuentinCompson posted:Yes, and while we're at it, why don't you start talking about how they're savages who can't govern themselves? You've obviously never dealt with Arabs if you don't think that family honor is supreme.
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Feb 21, 2011 01:27
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QuentinCompson posted:I'm so glad that you've lived in Qatar for two years and you feel that this grants you sufficient credibility to state that you support a statement coming from someone who doesn't know the difference between Iranians and Arabs and asserts that they're backwards. Frankly it isn't bigoted. It's the truth. And it is true with both Persian and Arab culture.
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Feb 21, 2011 04:18
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Xandu posted:Don't feel like wading into this, but the reality is complicated. People in the US care a lot about saving face as well; there certainly are differences between the American and Arab culture, but it's a mistake to generalize millions of people and it's easy to take the idea of "arabs care about honor" too far and become orientalist if you don't acknowledge that culture is flexible and not everyone embodies their culture. I know you didn't personally feel like getting into this, but you touched on a subject very close to me. And an important one for Americans, who profoundly misunderstand the culture of the ME and who have crafted a disastrous and counter productive foreign policy out of that ignorance. Honestly, I'm curious: What is your personal exposure to Arab/Persian culture? Because even (and often especially) among the educated and liberal, family honor is immensely prised. If anyone is reading this as "any middle easterner would kill someone over family honor" then they're an idiot reading words that aren't there, and given how a few people responded, it seems like that's the case. I've spent 5 years dealing with both Arabs and Persians. While it has been an overall positive experience, it has also been infuriating. Americans profoundly misunderstand Middle Eastern culture (which is itself inaccurate given the diversity of groups represented in the ME, but whatever for the minute). I've yet to meet an American without considerable first hand exposure to ME culture who understood just how overwhelmingly sexist and honor driven ME culture is. Of course this culture isn't 100% universal, but it is dominant, widespread, and deeply rooted. Denying it does no one any good. There are far more things about the ME that I like than dislike, but over there, when it is bad, it is really loving bad. Also the honor issue is as much of a good thing as it is bad: families are very close and very loyal. Which belies the real point: the only way to criticize a Middle Easterner is to sandwich it between two compliments.
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Feb 21, 2011 05:36
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Xandu posted:I just got back from living in Beirut (whose culture is relatively distinct from the rest of the Arab world I feel) and have spent some time in Morocco. I do understand what you're saying, but the original comment was Hopefully without turning this into a dead-horse beating competition... We are very much in agreement. It's only on the subject of women and family (honor and otherwise) that responsibility becomes a very complicated matter. I have a huge love/hate thing going with the ME. I've never found a region before with so much to love and so much to despise. And in the last two months, so much new hope. thiswayliesmadness posted:or we can stop making GBS threads up this thread with your sweeping generalized opinion of millions of people and concentrate on what's actually going on in the middle east. There is so much more going on than just people getting shot in the streets. This will surely go down in history as one of the most profound periods of social change in the ME. Just because something is not all-encompassing does not make it profoundly relevant. Moving ahead as many of the popular movements want to is going to require (and force) cultural change. So far, every major movement has been against the traditional paradigm of ME power. Which is a direct product of the family-first and family-above-all mentality. That's what is so amazing and heartening about these protests: they're a shift to a national/collective-good-first way of thinking. It's been amazing to watch and we will be seeing the fruits of these months for decades to come. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 06:39
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Shageletic posted:As a guy born and raised in the Middle East, I have to say you're way off-base. First off all, which Middle Eastern country are you talking about? Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf states (which have their own huge differences, there's an figurative ocean between life in Oman and the UAE), etc? Second, you just can't classify people by country. Growing up, hanging out with friends that were Jordanian, Palestinian, Egyptian, we'd geek out over Star Wars and make fun of old fogies and how out of touch they were. And then there would be fucks, even in my age, getting off on power trips and pushing down those that weren't like themselves. It depends on the individual. I'm not an expert, nor did I claim to be. I simply have half a decade of fairly constant experience with Middle Easterners of nearly all nationalities. The youth of the ME are why I personally see so much reason to hope for the best in the ME. I am genuinely excited to see what the next 30-40 years bring. A whole boatload of crazy poo poo aside, and as you say, there is a massive shift towards the middle underway among the younger generation(s) (in Turkey, Egypt, and Iran, but in no way whatsoever exclusive to). I understand that everyhing about the ME needs a caveat. It's a large region with over three-hundred-million people, more than a dozen countries, and some of the richest and poorest people on earth. In my posts I'm talking of my collective experience with people from the Middle East. Of course there are individual exceptions to everything, but there are absolutely some generalized characters of the ME that are useful in understanding what is going on. As you say, there are out-of-touch fogies, and TV loving kids to name two groups (which are two of the biggest stereotypes that Middle Easterners themselves have conveyed to me, the others being parents, endearing old-fashioned grandparents and lastly a lot of jokes about engineering degrees). I'll shut up because, as you say, I'm nowhere close to an expert and I am only speaking from my experience and interest in the subject. It's a complicated subject and I stand behind what I said. Understand that it comes from a perspective of loving the ME while also being personally very frustrated by some unfortunately pervasive bits of culture. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 07:29
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Samurai Sanders posted:I've only been glancing at this thread and the news from time to time, but I can't understand why these governments aren't saying "but....but Israel!" to try and regain order. Isn't that what they normally do when faced with hard domestic problems? Would it not work somehow, or do they have some other plan? Give brown people some credit.
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Feb 21, 2011 21:50
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Times posted:I fear very strongly for your friend. It does not look good. He is in the middle of nothing short of a massacre by a government of its own people. They don't care about who they kill - they are killing everyone, punishing all the citizens for daring to speak out against a criminal regime. Why would you ever hold proportional self-defense against someone?
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Feb 21, 2011 21:51
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Welp. If you have a weak stomach or simply don't want to remember images of people blown apart with intestines and viscera strewn around, I suggest not clicking on any of the images or videos just starting to come out of Libya (or that will be coming out in the weeks to come). Seriously, I will save you the trouble and tell you what you are missing: broken, burned bodies missing arms, legs, torsos, heads, etc. I've seen a good amount of footage from Chechnya (and I don't mean that execution video, I'm talking about ambushes and firefights) and that stuff doesn't even come close to this for sheer brutality. This isn't the work of small arms or even heavy machine guns, but of auto-cannons and artillery. Not to say that there is any shortage of images of people with small arms wounds, but you will see the full range of brutality that modern weapons can inflict if you really feel it is worth it to click the links you'll see in the next days. If the gore in Saving Private Ryan made you sick to your stomach, this will have you puking your guts out for a week. i feel like I should make some upbeat claim that we can take heart in this being an unfortunate step in the right direction, but that's just bullshit. Nothing is worth this carnage. Go Libyans. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 22:49
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"Don't believe what he was saying, eet was very lousy speech"
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Feb 22, 2011 00:03
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Wow the AJ anchor couldn't even cut that woman off.
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Feb 22, 2011 00:14
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Xandu posted:Holy poo poo, CNN's Ben Wedeman is inside Libya right now. I wonder how he got in. Most likely through the Egyptian border.
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Feb 22, 2011 00:20
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Brown Moses posted:To be honest this is making the Green Movement look kinda faggy. Iranians do love their V-necks.
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Feb 22, 2011 00:23
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de_dust posted:Oh to be young and full of such youthful idealism.  Edit: why the gently caress is his finger on the trigger?
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Feb 22, 2011 07:53
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Sivias posted:Tear off all his toenails, cut his flesh and force him to bathe in a tub of hydrogen peroxide till his skin sloughs off. Then dry and salt him like jerky. What other horrible tortures can we imagine for the worst of our planet? gently caress torture, there's no reason to debase ourselves. Just throw him in a cell with Never Going to Give You Up on infinite loop at a low volume.
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Feb 22, 2011 08:11
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Brown Moses posted:It's basically people who want to feel like unique snowflakes because they know "the truth", unlike they sheeple that surround them. It gives them a way to feel superior to other people, and in a way that anyone's denial of "the truth" and therefore their superiority are just sheeple, reinforcing their sense of superiroity. Yeah, it's 50% people wanting to feel important (an almost universal human desire) and 50% projecting their own distrust of the world onto the unknown and unverifiable.
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Feb 22, 2011 13:05
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This would be a great opportunity for the ICC to show its teeth and do something worthwhile.
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Feb 22, 2011 13:07
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2bDtQV_9YA That's a lot of mercenaries.
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Feb 22, 2011 13:25
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CeeJee posted:Regular army units in countries like Libya are often given no ammunition in their barracks. Their ability to fight may be very limited compared to the well supplied units loyal to the regime and any foreign mercenaries. All that matters is that they aren't fighting against the people.
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Feb 22, 2011 14:40
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Gravy Jones posted:Wait, we're talking about people who are being accused of indiscriminately raping and murdering and as far as depravity goes destroying blood is "stooping"? I mean it's certainly pretty hosed up, but as far as appalling war crimes go I'll take it over executing civilians. If someone you loved was going to die without a blood transfusion, you'd consider it just as bad.
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Feb 22, 2011 16:00
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whoflungpoop posted:The latest consensus from reports with locals is that there was no naval shelling of Benghazi - the original rumour came from a caller to Al-Hurra but has been since retracted and I haven't seen any updates to this since. http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=107473
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Feb 22, 2011 22:15
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Maels posted:http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122216458913596.html You've obviously never heard of LSD.
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Feb 22, 2011 22:19
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This is what Gaddafi actually believes.
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Cjones posted:Sticking up for another dictator in the Middle East? Sticking up for LSD.
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Feb 22, 2011 22:27
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Brown Moses posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61m567lqL74 I love Muslim grandmothers. 
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Feb 22, 2011 22:44
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redscare posted:I doubt anyone expected Libya to blow up - let alone to do so as fast as it did - however. I felt that if Libya did uprise, Gaddafi would do exactly what he did - go with the kill-everyone aproach - but apparently I over-estimated the loyalty of his forces and under-estimated the willingness of Libyans to martyr themselves for their cause. When life is hell, death feels like paradise.
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Feb 24, 2011 07:59
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EskimoFreeState posted:It's really a bummer that they have smuggled Chinese cell phones, but (if I'm reading this correctly) have to live/be within 10 km of the border to communicate with anyone. I assume that if you live farther south and the government keeps seeing you commute 200 miles out of your way twice a week, they're gonna get suspicious. It's not like people in NK have any way of commuting 200 miles twice a week. There are very few vehicles, fewer highways, and even less petrol. Sure there are trains, but they aren't really suitable for the job. I'm guessing most people simply are already close to the border. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Feb 25, 2011 |
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Feb 25, 2011 07:37
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Sivias posted:The thing about it is it's not a doomsday scenario. Empires come and go. You can't avoid it. Ottomans, Persians, Greek, Roman, British, French, German. Each thought they were unique and their reign would last forever and they were the most powerful the earth has ever seen. It's worth pointing out that the Egyptians kept a single civilization/empire going for 2500 years.
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Feb 28, 2011 22:42
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http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ad_1298859291 This is supposedly a video of Saif Qadaffi pumping some police up to go kill protesters. Any arabic speakers who can stand a Libyan accent able to attest to this? Translation posted:
Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Feb 28, 2011 |
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Feb 28, 2011 23:21
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Roark posted:http://www.libyafeb17.com/?p=2975 !!! Ground meat (lamb or beef) with turmeric, lemon, lentils and white raisins is my go-to dish for feeding Middle Easterners. I take it they won't be offering any tea then?
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Mar 1, 2011 00:36
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Brown Moses posted:Attacking a city, losing, then leaving weapons and vehicles behind for the residents to use next time you attack probably isn't covered by Sun Tzu. "If a fight is fair, your tactics are terrible." Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 12:33 on Mar 2, 2011 |
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Mar 2, 2011 12:28
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Brown Moses posted:Bit more about the current situation in the East: Ironically that's becoming the case.
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Mar 2, 2011 12:48
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Brown Moses posted:The ICC has just announced they are opening an investigation into abuses in Libya. They have an opportunity to really legitimize themselves in the eyes of the world.
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Mar 2, 2011 15:27
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Spiky Ooze posted:As we've seen from Abu Ghraib or the Stanford prison experiment, all you have to do is tell some of these grunts to terrify people and they will. Hell, a few people are hard wired to get a boner from this kind of thing, as sad a fact as that is. I actually get hard when I troll really hard. Is that what you're talking about?
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Mar 10, 2011 06:09
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Pedrophile posted:Well if these dictators have learned anything it is that foreign soldiers won't defect if they aren't shooting at their own people. This has been common knowledge since before the Romans.
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Mar 16, 2011 11:45
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Yeah, there may be a substantial Shia-backed rebellion in Bahrain. Hence the pre-emptive move of sending in foreign troops and armor. I hope the Shia get the rights and freedom they deserve.
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Mar 16, 2011 12:35
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