The Gadhafi speech ....

[Darth Rotor]

I think you are getting delusions of relevance here. Do the events in Libya depend on everybody shutting their eyes and saying "this is a peaceful democratic uprising"?

Who is saying this?

No, the events in Libya will take their course depending on the actions of the various factions and power blocks there. So we are free to accurately describe events as far as we are able without fear that this will have repercussions on the unfolding of events.

Agree with your first sentence, do not understand the point of your second sentence. Do you think talking about the Libyan civil unrest/conflict/war is going to influence the events?

What I see is a split in the ruling elite with the Interior Minister leveraging his control over the special forces to gain control in the western half of the country and being joined by other members of the government including an ambassador to the UN and the Justice Minister and most likely others including regional chiefs.

That's one way it could play out, sure.

At the moment it seems Gaddafi remains in control in Tripoli and the eastern and interior regions - but this could change very very fast. If it stays balanced like this, Libya is in for a very difficult time to resolve it.

Civil wars are a real sumbitch, aren't they?

Might a regime set up by the Interior Minister be better than Gadaffi? Yes! Might it be worse? Yes! Might it be pretty much the same for most people? Most likely.

Concur. So, what alternative do you suggest?

If the country stays split and no one reaches for compromise then the "civil rights" will just be code word for lots of corpses to change power. I mean, I am all in favor of civil rights and would like this excellent concept extended to Australia also, but that doesn't mean I am in favor of people with rpgs parading up and down Sydney and Melbourne.

Oz has civil rights, and also has civil rights advocates who don't resort to rpg's. I don't get your attempt to paint a picture otherwise ...

Civil Rights don't grow out of the pointy end of an rpg.

True enough, but sometimes change only comes from the application of force ... sad but true.

 

[dudalb]

I think it's just being a goddamn idiot.

The two often go together.

 

[UWdude]

I'm not American and I think you're an idiot. Does that help?

American and western perception. And the closest nation ideologically to America, when it comes to abominable foreign policy, is the U.K.

That doesn't mean that brutal dictators who supress the people of their nations are just given a bad press though. Guess what? I studied crap like this at university and we used direct sources and academic texts to look at people like him and they came out as pretty much agreeing that they are monsters. Pinochet, Ghadaffi, Kim Jong Il, Stalin...all beaten upon in the US/Western press and all still vicious dictators.

But are they "crazy".

Yet you support Ghadaffi? Holy logical disconnect Batman!

I support Ghaddafi?

Let me put it this way. You say the MSM in the US is corrupt and badly flawed. I completely agree with you. I think it's a terrible source of news most of the time. That doesn't mean that everything or even most of what they say is wrong, it just means they spin factual stories or present them in a bad way.

???

Anyone who tells you that the US is imperialistic is an idiot. I come from a genuinely imperialistic country (in the past) and while I have no love for the creeping spread of American influence, it's only imperialist if you desperately imagine it is.

Anybody who denies the US is an empire is an idiot.

I'm also no fan of the Iraq war, I think the whole "War on Terror" thing is a sick joke and I dislike a lot of American policy, both foreign and domestic. I still think that Ghaddafi is a lunatic.

why? Because he is a dictator? All dictators are lunatics?

Ok, I'm jut going to come right out and say it. You're a tool.

The US has screwed the pooch over and over and over again with it's foreign policy. It's provided ample fodder for the Anti-Western lunatics in the Middle East and it isn't by far the best nation on earth no matter what some people keep saying, but explain to me, exactly, what misery the US has spread?

This should be a laugh.

? Seriously?

You never heard about Americas wars, or their overthrowing of democratically elected governments? Surely you know about Mossadegh, since your country was involved with that one as well. (BTW, Mossadegh was called "crazy" and "insane" by the Anglo-American press too.. go figure)

There was also the removal of the democratically elected government in Guetemala, which led to 200,000 deaths over the next 30 years.

Military and financial support of brutal dictators/despots in Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, Egypt, el Salvador, the list goes on and on and on...

ISRAEL....

And of course, the numerous small wars and invasions, which spread misery. Like Panama, that killed 5,000 civilians. But there were also lesser invasions like Grenada.

Need I mention the major "police actions" (and failures) since 1945 led by the United States to stop the self determination of nations, or do you get it yet? because everything I have mentioned so far is just small stuff.

You tell those shills! One day we'll be living under the gloriously fair and just system of....something, as espoused by the great leader....someone.

The old TINA argument. There is no alternative, pronounced by your glorious leader Margaret Thatcher.

Who knows what will come next. For some, it will be worse, for others it will be better. Perhaps the world will look to china and say "Hey, brutal oppression + capitalism seems to be the best way to improve the lives of people... let's go with that!!!" And because china is so wealthy, anybody advocating socialist democracy will be booed off the stage. "If socialist democracy was realistic, then why is china doing so great, it is the exact opposite of socialist democracy, and look at them!!"