The 2011 Uprisings

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
John Marwood said:
And just in case we forgot about Egypt with all the staggering world news...
A good day to bury bad news.Or to bury anything else you happen to have lying around.

What news of the 'Day of Rage'? Extreme violence washed away by a News Tsunami.
 

Astro Boy

Pocket Rocket
Withnail said:
What news of the 'Day of Rage'?
Not much. Was quashed before it started - more police than people in Riyadh.

Kicked off in Bahrain - the home of the US Navy's 5th fleet, the police of the uber strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Another couple of articles:

Mummies and models in the new Middle East
Egypt, previously a moribund land of "stability" and bosom buddy of whoever was in power in Washington, has been hurled into the Middle East's New Great Game. Possible models for transition range from Turkey's modern, Islamic ideal to Muslim-majority Indonesia's flourishing democracy and Latin America's path of total independence. Either way, it's enough to make Western diplomatic circles tremble.
Pepe Escobar

"...What this leftist/liberal/Islamist coalition is fighting for is a labor-friendly, independent, truly sovereign democracy. It doesn't take a PhD from the London School of Economics, like the one held by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, to see how cataclysmic this newly independent outlook could be for the current status quo....."

African dissent on no-fly zone counts
The Arab League's decision on Saturday to recommend imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya has given the fig-leaf of respectability needed for the West to approach the United Nations Security Council. Yet the playboy kings, sheikhs and sultans from the bleached Arabian deserts are not the real stakeholders in Libya's march to democracy. The African Union counts.
M K Bhadrakumar
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Astro Boy said:
Withnail said:
What news of the 'Day of Rage'?Extreme violence washed away by a News Tsunami.
Not much. Was quashed before it started - more police than people in Riyadh.
Martin-Rowson-12.03.11-008.jpg
 

Astro Boy

Pocket Rocket
House of Saud 'liberates' Bahrain
The House of Saud has rolled into Bahrain with armored carriers, tanks and troops to repress protests that have revealed the United States client state and its corrupt 200-year-old dynasty as the Gulf's weakest link. Media-fueled illusions of Iran as the bogeyman and Saudi Arabia as a "reluctant" regional policeman are as unreal as the West's "support" for Libyan rebels.
Pepe Escobar

Turkey casts a leery eye on Israel
The revolutionary wave sweeping aside autocratic, Israel-friendly regimes in the Middle East is making Tel Aviv nervous. As Turkey casts a leery eye over the finer details of a broken alliance that looks more irreparable by the day - Ankara's recent rapprochement with Iran a case in point - Israel has every reason to worry about the consequences of deeper regional isolation.
Seyfeddin Kara
 

Astro Boy

Pocket Rocket
Libya and Bahrain sheikh, rattle and roll
In both Libya and Bahrain, the great 2011 Arab revolt seems to have reached the red line. Regime change stops here - with the House of Saud at the top of the Arab dictatorial pyramid, followed by its Gulf minions. And as Muammar Gaddafi rolls out his forces to crush rebellion in Benghazi, the world will watch the killing like silent sheep.
Pepe Escobar

New offensives, old battlefields
Wind back 70 years on Libya's raging rebel conflict and the titanic Western Desert campaign of World War II was in full flow, with famous battles at Tobruk and Benghazi between forces of Bernard Montgomery, "Monty", and Erwin Rommel, "the Desert Fox". As his loyalists push back along the same Mediterranean coastline, Colonel Gaddafi may be leafing through Rommel's attack manual.
Ronan Thomas

How a tiny kingdom strong-armed the US
The bullet that killed a pro-democracy protester in Bahrain last month was probably paid for by American taxpayers. Just how US bullets make their way into guns used by the tiny country's troops opens a window on the Pentagon's relationships with autocratic Arab states that have recently proven more powerful than American ideals and the United States president.
Nick Turse
 

John Marwood

I ♥ cryptic crosswords
Any posting on the world news seems to be outdated within seconds this year but has Dave dithered over Libya? Seems the brother leader has fought back...
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
John Marwood said:
has Dave dithered over Libya?
Hasn't the League of Nations in general dithered over Libya?

Maybe a no-fly zone will be in place just in time for it to be too late.
 

joshua

Well-Known Forumite
Playing the long game perhaps, why not bide your time as it seems this revolution may not succeed and if you are seen to have backed it with military force, things may be very uncomfortable if next time oil negotiations come round and Gaddafi is still there.
Only a cynic would think that this the reason why president Obama is so reticent to overtly commit us forces to support the rebels.
 

basil

don't mention the blinds
Gramaisc said:
Malcolm Rifkind has suggested that we get the Egyptians to have a go for us...
He did indeed raise this scenario at PM Qs, Dave noted his comments however in his head the PM was probably saying.... FU*K OFF! you idiot.......
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
joshua said:
Playing the long game perhaps, why not bide your time as it seems this revolution may not succeed and if you are seen to have backed it with military force, things may be very uncomfortable if next time oil negotiations come round and Gaddafi is still there.
Only a cynic would think that this the reason why president Obama is so reticent to overtly commit us forces to support the rebels.
Only an even more cynical cynic would argue it has more to do with the USA not being a big consumer of Libyan oil.

To be fair to the dithering world, there is not a big appetite for further interventionism - especially when no one quite understands what the world is intervening in.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
basil said:
'Better the devil you know ' seems appropriate........
Indeed. I'm not sure that the West really wants genuine democracy around there - we could end up with an Arab Union, stretching from the Atlantic to the Iranian border, and holding half the world's oil. Perhaps it's better, for us, to have the place run by various client dictators and royal families even more ficticious than our own.
 

basil

don't mention the blinds
Gramaisc said:
basil said:
'Better the devil you know ' seems appropriate........
Indeed. I'm not sure that the West really wants genuine democracy around there - we could end up with an Arab Union, stretching from the Atlantic to the Iranian border, and holding half the world's oil. Perhaps it's better, for us, to have the place run by various client dictators and royal families even more ficticious than our own.
However once it's all settled down what will billy hague say to the libyan leader when begging for more trade/business ?.......
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
basil said:
However once it's all settled down what will billy hague say to the libyan leader when begging for more trade/business ?.......
One gets the feeling that his talents may possibly be re-directed in the not so distant future..
 
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