You don't stay 41 years in power without learning a geopolitical rick or two. A wily fox, the African king of kings Muammar Gaddafi seems to have carefully surveyed the chessboard and come to an iron-clad conclusion; the no-fly option - not to mention an invasion of Libya - won't fly in the United Nations Security Council.
#1
If this uprising is called a union protest against a rollback in benefits because of being broke, you would see Obama, Jesse Jackson, and the SEIU backing the anti-government forces and a no-fly zone in Libya in a New York minute.
#2
NObody is going to invade Libya and take down KaDaffy. NATO wont. France wont. The US wont.
It surely doesnt need to be explained, does it? The only reason we did Saddam (gurkkk!) was he threatened the US and he had all that Oil where we have troops there NOW as Insurance to keep it moving. The US is going to stay in Iraq "just enough" to make sure that the Oil stays relatively safe....about as long as we stayed in Germany (at least).
Did anyone take down Saddam while he was buggering his own people? No. Hey, they were all Moslems doing it to Moslems.
In Libya its the same as under Saddam. Moslems doing it to Moslems. The diplomats are whores, they just talk...you have to "make it worth their while",kids. Talk is what the DO.
EVERYbody will make kissy-kissy with KaDaffy as soon as he wins and we get the Oil to our benefit again. We dont really care about Moslems killing Moslems. Nobody does.... not even Moslems.
Who wants to die for the people of Libya? If you were a soldier (US? France? NATO? or any booga booga Moslem neighbor?) would fighting for the poor saps of Libya be right up there on YOUR agenda ? Of course not.
Its not the US' problem if the boogas want to kill each other, fine, now if it were practical to sell them a few guns...but it isnt...WHO would pay for the guns, the Libyan bitches , bakers and candlestick makers dont have any money..and people who sell guns dont work on Credit.
NObody is going to help the Libyans. They are on their own. They either win or they turn into fertilizer. Moslem fertilizer.
We will shake KaDaffy's greasy hand and sell him some guns for Oil when this is all over. The Emperor Vespasian said it so well: You cant smell the blood and the s*** on the coin, CAN you? I mean, Obama is President and Harry Reid WAS re-elected, right? What does that tell'ya?( What do you think Politicians ARE? Only BJ goes to Congress. Get out your fifth grade reader, class.)
Six months from now everybody in the US and France and NATO will fuhgetaboutit. Save the baby seals in Tibet.
#3
IMO, a NFZ will not work because it is a half-measure with few results. I will have to become able to perform airstrikes against airfields and hardened targets, armor.
As far as I can tell the area formally known as Libya had 3 industries: oil, training camps, and Thedaffy. None of which would be called hollywood honorable but all are strategic - especially to Europe. I can see how France et al are keeping an eye out. I bet 6 months out if this has not been stabilized one way or the other there will be a fleet of boats headed north. If not sooner. The UN is cover for not doing something. The OIC is disinterested because they fear that they too have a chance to have to respond as Daffy. The EU is too kaffir because apparently the only thing worse than moslims killing moslims is moslims receiveing help from non-believers. That leaves the MU as first in line, something I am weary of, creates images of alliances not seen in 100 years.
I find it unfortunate the US has decided to nerd up, but here is that post-US world clammered for, hope y'all get your sea legs quick.
Actually, Europe (more specifically, Italy) gets the majority of Libya's oil. 56%, in fact.
The U.S. gets 5%. That's 'five percent'.
China gets 10%. That's 'ten percent'. Twice as much as the U.S.
Y'know if you're angling for that Nobel Prize in Online Literature, it might help if you do some research first instead of polishing your lurid prose..
[Arab News] There are good reasons to be concerned about organized demonstrations coming to Soddy Arabia; especially if the organizers are using the term, "day of rage." While one can understand the interest in sharing the enthusiasm sweeping the Middle East,
Once upon a time in America, the enthusiasms included eating goldfish, piling into telephone booths, and shrieking at the appearance of rock'n'roll singers. But the rock singers didn't roll through the crowd in tanks.
I think there are lessons from history, which might teach us to be wary of confusing a desire for a government to improve itself with mindless vindictiveness.
Even worse than that would be a self-centered bid for more lifestyle subsidies at the expense of planned city developments. More often than not, when people let rage blind them, they accomplish just the opposite of what they set out to do. One should use the press and the courts to solve injustices. When corruption gets in the way, peaceful civil resistance can make sense. But even that can be abused.
Indian leader M. K. Gandhi, who is thought of as a father of noncooperation as a form of civil resistance, warned of this himself. He didn't advise the masses to just run out one arbitrary day and stage a huge country-crippling protest against the government.
It helps to do this against a government which doesn't view strafing its people as an inalienable right.
There are steps to be taken to get one's grievances heard and responded to and when those steps are skipped, one becomes guilty of rash and shameful behavior.
There are good examples and bad examples. As a good example, we should remember the Indian Hindus and Mohammedans who worked so well together to rid their country of cruel racist British overlordship in India.
As cruel as the religionist overlordship in Pakistan nowadays?
As a bad example, we should remember how those same two groups failed to work together after they attained their independence. The country was split between them and border fighting continues to this day.
Border fighting always started by the Pakistanis, oddly enough. Why d'you suppose that is?
Those planning for a day of demonstrations ought to consider whether, by having such a day, they are skipping a few steps.
I can think of, at least, ten questions which any person or group of people in any country might ask themselves if they have grievances.
The following is a list of questions useful for those living in a Western society governed by the rule of law, but utterly useless in one ruled by a despot.
How can I help the people I perceive as victims of human rights ... which are not the same thing as individual rights, mind you... abuses in a legal way or how can I help myself in a legal way if I believe I am such a victim?
Not recognized. Shut up.
Have I made, or have we (if we are a group) made our grievances known to the responsible party?
Not interested. Shut up.
Can I define my position and recommend a solution that gives the responsible party a clear and reasonable understanding of how I believe they should act?
Nobody cares. Shut up.
Have I or has anyone written to the newspapers about the injustices we are concerned about?
The newspapers are wisely self-censoring if not under complete government control. Your letter will be filed in the traditional circular file, unless it's handed over to the secret police.
If I disagree with an ideology or cultural tradition, is my position a minority or majority position? (Minorities can rarely reasonably expect as much representation as the majority).
You are permitted to agree with your despot. That's what he's for.
If my position is a minority position, but I am a victim of human rights abuse, can I content myself with an awareness raising campaign and wait patiently?
If your country has oil, nobody cares about your unhappiness. If your country does not have oil, nobody cares about your country.
Have we filed a formal complaint or hired a lawyer?
Where would you find a lawyer to take the case?
Have my efforts been defeated by corruption?
Yes.
Can I identify the source and scope of the corruption?
The source at this moment is your despot. The scope is pretty much the entirety of your society.
If bad laws are the issue, shall we campaign for better laws or better politicians or both?
You do not live in a democracy. You do not live in a society ruled by the law. A "Day of Rage" is the only campaigning option available, and that gets people killed.
I think the need to answer these questions is self-evident. A person who has not thought all this through is liable to get confused and to be misled and even used by people who have the wrong agenda.
Where have we seen that happen before? Let me tell you a story, the details of which are not easily confirmed, but which should, nonetheless, illustrate the danger of rash impulsive behavior. This is a story of students lacking forethought and adequate commitment to ethics whose actions were actually counterproductive to their goals. The story is one I think most people in this region of the world might find interesting considering this is the region most affected by their actions. Read on and consider the moral.
This story is about Iran and Iranians who have had a long-standing problem with the US. This story is also about the US presidents that have had to deal with Iran -- some good and some bad. Bear with my history lesson while I build up to the moral of my story.
Who were the good presidents? There were not many and maybe just one. I would argue that Carter was good even though he was the president in office when the Iranians attacked the US Embassy and took 52 Americans hostage. What did Carter do to upset them so much? The answer is really quite ridiculous. Carter, following the bad advice of Henry Kissinger, merely welcomed the ailing Shah to medical care in the US. He also naively believed Kissinger, who said that the Iranian people loved the Shah and said as much in public. Iranians had reason to be upset, but was such an unethical violation of international laws and human rights proportional to what Carter did?
Considering what President Eisenhower did to Iran with British Prime Minister Churchill in 1953, the Iranians had reason to be angry much earlier than this with somebody else -- not Carter. If you don't know, do a Google search with the words, "Operation Ajax," which will lead you to articles explaining how they covertly replaced their democratic leader with a puppet dictator.
The Iranians were only just then liberating themselves from that mischief.
But by having taken, for over a year, 52 personnel at the US Embassy in Tehran as hostages, bully boy students effectively made Carter's popularity in the US plummet and caused him to be defeated in the polls. Another way of saying this is that these students helped put pro-Israeli Ronald Reagan into office as his replacement.
Carter has been misunderstood in Iran and maybe the whole Arab world. What did the Iranians know except that Carter was in office during the Islamic revolution and he welcomed the Shah to the US? Let's look at some more facts. Carter brokered the Camp David Accords, which led the Zionists to relinquish the land they stole from Egypt. If Reagan were in office at that time, he would have done just the opposite and helped the Zionists to keep the Sinai Peninsula.
True. President Reagan understood the difference between good and evil.
While much of the Arab world has long resented Egypt?s recognition of Israel and therefore has viewed pictures of Carter holding hands with Begin and Sadat with disgust, there are a few points this region should bear in mind. Carter and Sadat were better men than Reagan and Mubarak. US foreign policy under these presidents was very different. Carter was warning the country about the pro-Israeli lobby while Reagan cultivated that lobby, relied on them and did their bidding.
Let's look at some more facts. Carter has written extensively on the predicament that Zionists have created for the Middle East and the world. But do the Iranians know this? No.
Neither does anyone else. His books are consistently found in bookstore remainder bins.
Carter was guilty of only one faux pas. He listened to Kissinger who fed him misinformation about Iran and about the Shah.
To this day, I don't understand why a Democratic president trusted and consulted with a man from the opposite party with a history of engaging in dubious conflict of interest activities and which, in this case, ultimately led to Carter getting replaced by a Republican president.
The worst part of this story is that the Iranians played into Kissinger's hands. Regretfully, Carter's efforts to bring peace to the region were probably sabotaged by, more than anything or anyone else, the Iranians who allowed their blind rage to be exploited by Kissinger. They do not realize that both Carter and they were duped by Kissinger into unwittingly helping him put a Republican back into the president's office -- in this case, one who happened to be pro-Israeli.
In the end, it all goes back to the perfidy of the clever Juices. Because it couldn't be about non-Juicy Middle Easterners choosing to be self-destructive all on their own.
The moral should be roughly understood as: Don?t let someone with an agenda take advantage of your rage and blind you to the correct answers to questions one through ten and don?t act like destructive vigilantes rather than constructive, ethical power brokers truly interested in justice.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The cockroaches beginning to grasp that the house is burning?
This writer seems to have a pro-Iranian point of view. Who is he?
He senses a conspiracy and he believes the Zionists and Reagan were in bed together? Were they? And Carter was "a good man." I dont doubt that he was. But nice guys finish last a lot of the time.
If I was Arabia I would find out who the individuals were who were sponsoring this Day of Rage ( rageboy style) and BUY his ass. Offer him a red Ferrari and get him a couple of girls. Wait a few months, (till everything got quiet again) and then shoot him in his sleep.
[Asharq al-Aswat] [At the start of 2011], President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... was the third longest-serving Arab head of state, currently in power. Today, he is soon to be crowned the longest-serving current leader, following the ouster of Egyptian geriatric President Hosni Mubarak, and the toppling of the Qadaffy regime after more than 40 oppressive years in power. Saleh came to power in 1978, and has managed to remain in charge of a country that is not easy to govern. All his predecessors were either killed, or tossed in adverse circumstances.
Ali Abdullah Saleh's direct predecessor, President Ahmed al-Ghashmi, ruled for only eight months before being assassinated by a briefcase packed with explosives, sent to him via an envoy of the then President of South Yemen Salim Ali Rubai. President Ibrahim al-Hamdi, who preceded al-Ghashmi, was also assassinated after ruling for three years. Prior to that, President Abdul Rahman al-Iryani was removed from power by a military coup, and so on and so forth.
Yemen has always been considered an unstable state, with its complex demographics and rugged terrain. Today the country is facing a severe test, as the public have openly rejected several undemocratic practices of the regime, such as its continuation in power and senior positions being reserved for relatives [of the ruling regime]. In this most critical moment, President-for-Life Saleh ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... has discovered that his allies have quickly abandoned him, whilst he is being besieged by protestors, and that he now stands alone at the helm of power.
As is the case in all Arab countries, Yemen does not possess a system for a peaceful and smooth transfer of power. Any attempt to replace the state leadership would be a thoroughly risky venture. Political change might come in the form of a "quick birth" as occurred in Egypt, where developments occurred rapidly without sustaining heavy losses. However we could also see a long and painful labor, as is the case in Libya, where over 6,000 people have bit the dust in the space of ten days.
Are we about to witness Sana'a adopting the same approach which prevailed in Cairo's Tahrir Square? Are we going to see protestors, demonstrations, media pressure and the peaceful transfer of power, or will Yemen resort to gunfire, as we see in Libya today?
The Yemeni question is complicated indeed. Power is being shared by a number of tribes, and half of the country seems to be advocating a return to secession. President Saleh, who has survived in power for three long decades, built his rule upon an intricate web of balances, rivalries and alliances. Today, it appears that his rivals have ganged up on him, whilst many of his allies have abandoned him. Suddenly the opposition is no longer listening to the regime's warnings against change, which could result in the secession of the south, or potential tribal or sectarian schisms in the north. The regime may be correct to issue such warnings, but the situation in Yemen has not improved a great deal under its management, and opposition forces are quick to highlight this. They believe that the regime is incapable of modernizing and developing Yemen, and regard its lengthy domination of power as utterly unacceptable. Furthermore, the opposition refuses to allow the regime's leaders to determine who will succeed them.
Although the Yemeni regime is now facing tremendous challenges, as the entire political spectrum, regardless of their differences, have ventured to take to the streets to demand that Saleh steps down, there remains hope that the birth of political change will be peaceful.
President Saleh has already responded to some demands from the protestors - he agreed to abstain from renewing his presidential term, and pledged that power would not be bequeathed, nor would elections be rigged. Yet Saleh's major problem when confronting the protesting masses is his lack of credibility. The Yemenis believe that President Saleh has promised a lot, and broken all of these promises. The Yemeni opposition wants to take advantage of the current international focus on the region, in order to bring about change no matter the cost. However if change is forced in Yemen, this would be a risky venture that could see the country descend into anarchy. In contrast, a peaceful change would preserve the president's dignity, and satisfy the demands of the masses. However, The infamous However... what is clear is that if no change occurs, the country will descend into further chaos and potential secession.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2011 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Yuan won't be adopted as a reserve currency, no matter how much the Chinese government wants it to be, for the simple reasons that China is seen as dishonest, with its economy manipulated by its government solely for its short term interests; that the central government does not require the regional governments to obey the national law; that its economy lacks transparency; and that China is a kleptocracy with other nations technology and patents.
This means every investment in China must be calculated ahead of time as potentially being a 100% loss; there are no corrective mechanisms in their government to improve the situation, either.
#2
The more they look like they're trying to increase the value of the Yuan, the more Yuan they can print.
One of the dirty secrets of recent times is that China wants to LOOK like its currency is valuable but artificially depressed by currency exchanges when they're inflating it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
