Looks like Gaddafi is probably on his way out (numerous senior officials defecting, fighter pilots seeking asylum and claiming that they have been asked to bomb civilians).
I wonder who is next.
After Egypt there were claims that the Gulf States were likely safe, because the population was prosperous (if more than a little oppressed), but Bahrain seems to contradict that.
I'm finding the way that this is spreading quite amazing, and I wonder where it will stop.
Whatever happens, it looks like oil prices might only be going in one direction for a while.
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Well for north African countries it looks like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. There's been protests in Algeria and Morocco... so maybe all of these governments will go. Wow.
But indeed Bahrain is a little bit of an enigma. I say little. Compared to the above at least. I am sure Gaddafi has 42 years' worth of dictatorship money safe somewhere.... a few tens of billion should do.
I wonder what would have happened if Saddam was still in charge now. I know he tended to massacre thousands at a time when there were uprisings though.
Oil is going up... so therefore is food and everything else :-(
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 21 Feb 11 at 23:33
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>> I wonder what would have happened if Saddam was still in charge now. I know
>> he tended to massacre thousands at a time when there were uprisings though.
It seems that Gaddafi is trying the same thing, albeit perhaps on a slightly smaller scale.
It doesn't appear to be working though. It seems that you can only massacre your own people, if everybody involved is happy that it is going to work out OK.
Perhaps Egypt has shaken confidence somewhat, so officials and members of the armed forces that would have stuck with Gadaffi are now thinking a few weeks ahead, and are not so happy to get their hands dirty.
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Who knows? People are getting bold. Certainly a sight to behold from our point of view.
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This is what made me wonder. After the first war against Iraq for invading Kuwait (referred to as the first Gulf War - being careful) the west encouraged an uprising and it resulted in massacre. And speed forward to now and forget genocide the rulers can't remain in power.
What is the real difference? Don't say Internet!
I will happily pay more for fuel and food if there is a proper government in these countries and stability. No stability then nuke the pfd's ;-)
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 22 Feb 11 at 00:30
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Gaddafi's a real carphound. You should look at his Green Book. Lower Fifth utopian stuff.
He's got form with this business of using foreign mercenaries as troops. He started doing it in the early eighties when he was trying to rip off a chunk of Chad: didn't just use Chadians but Sudanese too, many from Darfur. I've got lots of pics of rows and rows of them sitting on the ground in jail (taken and facilitated in defiance of the Geneva Convention). I believe Libyan behaviour at that time helped destabilise large areas of Sudan (but only helped as the Sudanese were up for it too apparently).
Of course foreign troops are less inhibited about wasting local demonstrators. Perhaps some even enjoy it. In the other place where foreign troops have been used for repression in the past few days - Bahrain - the foreign troops are Sunni, like the royal family, whereas the people who want change are Shia locals. Messy business, bad medicine.
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...Lower Fifth utopian stuff...
So that's where some of the political commentators on here get it from.
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"Don't say Internet!"
But surely the internet is exactly the difference. The internet brings the ability to see what is going on in neighbouring countries and also the ability to organise. One of the basic tenets of running a successful dictatorship has been to keep your population in ignorance of world opinion and to monitor and suppress internal communication.
the old model of dictatorship would no longer appear to work.
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>>
>> the old model of dictatorship would no longer appear to work.
>>
It does in North Korea, where the internet doesn't exist. Along with electricity as a rule, of course. Or food.
So yes, communication is key.
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>> I wonder who is next.
Us. The Frogs and Huns, et al.
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Us? think so. We have a population where most won't turn out to vote, let alone demonstrate.
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As per maps in this page, very few countries are actually democratic!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
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The Israelis are worried about Jordan.
It is possible to put this lot down, Iran managed it (temporarily - it will topple one day). As I said some time back there just isnt the standard of dictator any more.
On a serious note its not a problem, until you see how its possible, if you are organised, to fill the power void. The only people who are organised are the radicals.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 22 Feb 11 at 09:31
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Contagious revolution was a phenomenon long before the internet. 1848 was the "year of revolutions" in Europe. It happened in 1918, but was contained eventually in all but Russia.
It happened in the Middle East in the fifties - Egypt, Iraq, Algeria, and then later Libya when the monarchy was ousted.
These things go round, and use whatever tools come to hand.
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In 1917 through the early twenties and into the thirties - Franco, Hitler etc etc.....It's part of the human condition and in general it's no bad thing. Nice speech from Mr Cameron this morning in Kuwait.....balancing Britain's interests and values. Now that's something we've struggled with in the past.
Edit: I'm not suggesting that inter-war Euro Dictators were in any way a good thing.
Last edited by: Pugugly on Tue 22 Feb 11 at 12:57
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Good for him, he is the first western leader in there. Quick off the mark.
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Well my money is on , in no particular order.........
Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and Iran.
Bahrain is the old Sunni / Shia struggle
I was buttonholed by my CEO two weeks ago and he introduced me to our new manager in Libya and suggested I pop over there to visit him. Yes , well I think I will give that trip a miss for the moment.
My company has been recently flying on oil operations in Libya and Yemen but I have had no news as to what is going on as our oil operations tend to be located away from the main population centres.
A few years ago one of our pilots got a bullet through his leg whilst flying when he accidently got involved in the middle of a local contretemps in Sudan, he managed to land safely.
I had one colleague who got bombed in Beirut a few years back and another who ended up in that bad earthquake in Turkey......
Life can be dangerous in the Middle East
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Life is cheap in the middle east.
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Not if you have to pay blood money to someone's billionaire family it isn't...
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Sorry your right.
*some* life is cheap.
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Yesterday, Thursday, at 7pm, a Newsnight special on the events in the Middle East.
Nothing's perfect of course but this is why the BBC is still world class. Hardly a dud talking head in the whole thing, mature, informed and most unusual of all, upbeat. Quite exceptional.
It's still on Iplayer for anyone actually interested. Called Revolution 2011. I don't often recommend stuff this strongly.
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Bump.
Zero, have a look if you haven't already. May cheer you up actually.
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I have yet to watch that - As always it's the individuals I find impressive in a story like this. The Libyan but UK based doctor who has returned to treat the wounded - that is a special kind of bravery. The man working on placards in Benghazi - an articulate idealist....
The historical resonance of names engraved into the hearts of a generation of British troops during the North Africa campaign. HMS York sailing there now, it's forerunner was an asset that sailed those waters in 1941 between North Africa and Malta. Shame we haven't got an aircraft carrier now just exactly when we need one for air-cover for any rescue mission.
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I thought I heard on a news bulletin that HMS Cumberland had been diverted to Benghazi to assist with the evacuation, from a trip back to UK to be scrapped!
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Rescue mission? what rescue mission.
Its nowt to do with us, we should keep our noses out.
There are trains running to Cairo.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 25 Feb 11 at 22:28
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It shouldn't last long now, Uncle Muammor will give in 'cos Cameron's promised some strong rhetoric !
Ted
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My only surprise is the USA. Shouldn't they have been there now. There's oil in Libya isn't there? ;-)
I am sure the remaining British in the desert (working for BP no doubt) will be found and got out via other routes. Probably involving a cross country trip with SAS chaperones.
If one ignored the fact Col Gaddafi is a dictator in power for over 40 years (taking over from his father)..... I would then be surprised to think he can continue anyway. In Tunisia and Egypt the delaying tactic was probably down to moving financial assets.
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>> a dictator in power for over 40 years (taking over from his father)...
au contraire rtj, Gaddafi somehow came out on top of, and perhaps led, the military coup that overthrew the tired Senoussi monarchy of King Idriss (can't remember his number, II I think). He was a colonel aged, I think, 29 at the time. He was quick on his feet and original.
As he grew older and people got to know him these characteristics revealed themselves as unpredictability and eccentricity, nay distinct oddity. Libya is a tribal society and his cousinage has prospered, and helped him maintain power. But all the talk of socialism and direct participatory democracy was just rubbish. The country with its small population and large oil production was so rich he could literally do what he liked, try imperialism (in Chad and Sudan), fund revolutions and opposition movements and terrorists. Lockerbie is nothing. The guy has wasted tens of thousands of Africans, perhaps hundreds of thousands. The money kept a lot of the population happy too, for a while.
Behind the flimflam he's a slightly mad (but talented unfortunately although he doesn't look it now) desert raider writ far larger than he deserves, nasty as hell. The sooner one of the inner circle tops him the better. But I'm not holding my breath. And I have to admit that at one time I thought him amusing in a risky sort of way.
Libya is the only country in the region so far that is having something I would call a revolution. The word has been bandied about. Now it fits. I hope the revolutionaries win.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 26 Feb 11 at 00:20
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>> And I have to admit that at one time I thought him amusing in a risky sort of way.
I think if a film was made then Micky Rourke would look the part. Although the name Mickey Rooney's comes to mind when I mean Rourke! Old age I suppose ;-)
I was sure I heard Col Gaddafi sidelined his father. I did not think it boded well that his son said plans a-c were to live and die in Libya. Someone unfortunately needs to kill them all soon.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 26 Feb 11 at 01:06
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And when I say Col Gaddafi I do actually refer to: Brotherly Leader and Guide of the First of September Revolution of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Trips off the tongue that does. Shame the bomb dropped..... no wrongful thinking about the F-111.... shame really. It is really ironic Gaddafi mention al-Qaeda but he harboured and funded terrorists.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Sat 26 Feb 11 at 01:12
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>>He was a colonel..
A popular misconception, AC; he was 27 year old a captain at the time.
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>> popular misconception, AC;
Hey, watch it! Popular indeed...
He became a colonel remarkably quickly after the coup. And to give the devil his due (one thought for a while) he never became a general or field-marshal like certain others.
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I think he deposed the last king who went by the memorable name of Idris!
1969: Bloodless coup in Libya
King Idris of Libya has been deposed in what appears to have been a bloodless coup.
There may be plans afoot to get inland oil workers out of the country by flying them from an inland airfield near the Khufra Oasis. They may be nearer to that than they are to the coast.
Courtesy of wiki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufra_Airport
Last edited by: Perky Penguin on Sat 26 Feb 11 at 10:58
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I read yesterday that Oman is getting warm, and today it seems China could be too.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12593687
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Saudi?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12594032
Would seem unlikely, but you never know...glad I filled up with diesel a couple of days ago...
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Riots in Oman, 2 killed by police in Sohar, near Muscat. More about poverty and cost of living than "Down with the Sultan". Government buildings burned down. I worked there for 10 years and it is a lovely country with a fine and well educated population.
www.timesofoman.com/echoice.asp?detail=41836&rand=gXuf88T7Y6krA57e6KfFC9Aw2j
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"Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told the BBC he is loved by all his people and has denied there have been any protests in Tripoli."
"Col Gaddafi said that his people would die to protect him."
Yup Died they have
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Libya...who's next? - rtj70
