Be Excellent To Each Other

In Yemen, AJ are reporting that three generals are supporting the protestors.

Good piece by @Sandmonkey on this.

Okay, I haven't been following this at all, so can someone explain in a brief paragraph why we are invading Libya?

We're not invading Libya, we're blowing it up. Because Gadaffi was killing his own people.

So we wanted to show we could do it better? Okay, with it.

It's enforcing a UN no-fly zone and basically anything short of a ground invasion to stop Gaddafi from bombing & airstriking civilians and population centres. France and we are leading the way, with support from the US, Canada, and apparently Turkey and possibly Germany*.

Pretty much everyone except Russia and China were in favour of it - the Libyan rebels (who started out basically the same way as the Egyptians, but soon found themselves being shot and bombed by Gaddafi's forces, kicking off a civil war) were literally days, if not hours, from complete annihilation in an attack that would probably have ripped Benghazi in half.

Many dickheads are interpreting it as a war 'to oust Gaddafi', but it's not actually about that. I think what everyone really wants (particularly the US, who really were reluctant to get into this) is a ceasefire and for the UN's backing to galvanise the Libyans and/or Gaddafi's military to do it themselves.


Edit: *They're considering it, after a lot of wavering. On reading a bit further, it seems that quite a few nations are contributing - Denmark, Greece, Italy (not really surprising tbh), Belgium, Norway, and even Qatar are sending all sorts of aircraft and ships and that, as are several other countries. More are getting ready to pile on, if NATO asks for it.

How can they tell? Aren't they already crying?

Aaaannnd... he's back!

There is also a very justified worry that he would use chemical weapons on his own people and I suspect one of the main reasons we would be reluctant to put troops on the ground for a full invasions is the high chance that our troops would have to fight in full mopp suits.
He sees the rebels and anyone connected with them as a virus that needs to be stamped out and made an example of, if he takes control the world may see a mass slaughter on a scale not seen since the holocaust. This is why we should be behind the government on this one. I'm truly terrified for the people in Libya, I'm a Atheist Jew but even so I'm going to be saying the following Muslim prayer out of respect for the dead.

Allahumma salli ^ ala Muhammad

Allahumma-ghfir lihayyina wa mayyitina, wa shahidina wa gha’ibina wa saghirina wa kabirina, wa dhakarina wa unthana. Allahumma man ahyaytahu minna fa ahyihi ^alal-Islam, wa man tawaffaytahu minna fa tawaffahu ^alal-’iman.*

Allahu akbar

*0 Allah, forgive our dead and alive, our present and absent, our young and old, our male and female [Muslims]. 0 Allah, whomever among us You gave life, let him live with Islam. Whomever among us You took life from, let him die with Iman (Faith)”

Bahrain's King Hamad claims victory over "foreign plot" that apparently took place over 20 years.

Um. 20 years? No offence or anything, but does anyone care enough about Bahrain to plot against them for 20 years? That's half a Cold War.

Interestingly, the curbstomping of these protestors has enraged one nation in particular, which has appealed to the UN to order the withdrawal of Saudi troops from Bahrain.

That nation is Iran.

I wonder what the Saudis gave us to keep us so quiet that Iran look like the more respectable party.

Commons debate on Libya.

(I prefer using theyworkforyou.com when reading these things, but it hasn't appeared on that site yet)

They're going to carry on selling us oil at these prices?

Oops!
https://twitter.com/jonsnowC4/status/50251500022267904

Ghastly screwup in Libya:Us jet crashes:rebels save crew:US rescuers shoot rebel rescuers:one has leg amputated:Lindsey Hilsum C4News tonite

— Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) March 22, 2011

Ooh-rah!

Armed TV newsreaders?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12815687

Newspaper reporters too!
http://twitter.com/RhodaBuchanan/status ... 4100816896

Gadaffi would not be releasing CWA in a battle scenario, as he would eliminate the efficiency of his own troops. It is possible, assuming he has any CWA, he could use them as terrain denial.

Great reading, very interesting. I feel a little ill in agreeing so much with Cameron (and of couse there are ulterior motives as well, there always are), but it's hard to find much fault with him here.

Aaaand....in cartoon form:

http://img863.imageshack.us/img863/3504 ... 810d5a.jpg

THAT is brilliant!

It's "Le lets do this" that got me laughing.

‘Libya is a country!?’ got me, as Miss Malabar is such a belm she didn't know Scotland was one.

One of my brother's ex-girlfriends couldn't find the UK on a map of europe.

She pointed at France

Talking of ignorance has that fucking idiot from East Kilbride figured out whether or not Gadaffi's a legitimate target yet?

More space. Better weather. Maybe she was just thinking ahead.

It is (and "libya is a country" caught me out too), but it's also misleading. France and the UK dragged the US into this, not the other way round. Sounds fussy, but it's important.

Way too much going on to keep in touch with it all, but here's a couple of links on today's events:

Protestors fired on in Syria, according to AJ

Protests continuing in Yemen (AJ)

Worth looking up Egypt, too. I've not been able to keep up with much, but things sound like they're getting a bit fractal following the referendum. The army have outlawed protests (there have been loads about all sorts of matters), which is a bit of a smack in the face. Unclear if the tahrir movement have yet started to get politically savvy enough to unite the various protest interests.

That's what I just said.

LALALALACANTHEARYOU

Protests today in Cairo's Tahrir Square as people (apparently a wide variety of groups, including those who've been reticent to protest in recent weeks) demand that Mubarak faces trial (he's currently under house arrest).

The army have responded harshly. Lots of reports of gunfire in Tahrir square.

Al Jazeera are currently airing a documentary on the tahrir square revolution. Lovely stuff, but quite bitterly ironic that it's airing at this moment.

Military coup in Egypt.

BBC.

Someone I did the GDL with has put a bunch of photos up on facebook of him in the square the past few nights. I'm not quite sure what is going on there, as I haven't been following it, but is the gist of it "We didn't get the govenment we were promised, so we're throwing you out again"?

Gill and Jen are in Egypt. Anyone know if they're doing 'proper' Egypt or just the sharm thing?

Bloody lesbians causing revolutions.

Lesbolution.

I'd hope that the road trip to Cairo would be ill-advised right now.

Did they go to either of them?

To be honest, unless you are female under the age of 25 and on a beach holiday you are background noise on my timeline.

She posted in a B&B thread about going to the same park where a little girl drowned, and that happeded in Sharm, so she should be out of the way. Unless the Muslim Brotherhood take over and put her on trial for Anti Islamic Lebiosity.

An islamic scholar on Radio 4 a while back said you were allowed to be a gaymosexual if you were an islamist*, but not allowed to touch naughty bits, as it is that that is objected to, not gaying it up.

*Originally I had used a slang term for homesxuality but not for followers of Islam, but then I thought I'd better apply such thinking evenly, and decided I liked the word gaymosexual better than any others.It's an absolute minefield, this legislation.

Last time around, nothing happened in Sharm, as its not really 'Egypt'. The locals there are far more interest in keeping tourist dowwar than the government.

Holidays in Sharm are so cheap at the moment. It's tempting.

Apparently they take you on a plane with armed guards if you want to go and see the pyramids.

I believe you're thinking of Transformers 2, there.

It would take armed guards to make me go and see Transformers 2, so that sounds reasonable.

For ages I wondered why people were calling Muslims Islamists. Then I found out that it's the violent extremist nutters that are called Islamists and that sort of makes sense, but why then are right wing fundamental Christians not called Christianists? What's wrong with the term "Islamic Extremists"?

Malc

I'm pretty sure you can just get that on DVD.

That wasn't the case when I went, though they may have tightened up since. There are armed guards and scanners at historical sites though, after the massacres and all. What japes.

So after I rather drunkenly ranted at someone important about Egypt at a garden party a few weeks ago, and was told that as a civilian I didn't understand the complex subtleties, I've been told I'm not allowed to go back and say "I told you so"