The Arab Spring: Anyone else thrilled with the wave of peace that's going to go across the globe?

Definitely moving in the right direction as far as peace goes. But the hard part will keeping it. People will disagree over whatever they want and let things escalade to war. Happens over and over and over again.

Rofl.

Egypt = Military Police State where people are whisked away in the night.

Libya = Now run by a group listed by the US State Department as TERRORISTS. But the solution, we changed their name, call them something else and they are fine folk!

Iraq = Went from a secular nation where women could wear short skirts and be doctors, to honey if you don't have a bag on your head you are likely to be beaten or killed.

USA = bombing 6 countries currently, with no war actually declared.

Oh yes, the Peace is breaking out all over!

Egypt = Military Police State where people are whisked away in the night. - So so far nothing changed from before revolt.Libya = Now run by a group listed by the US State Department as TERRORISTS. But the solution, we changed their name, call them something else and they are fine folk!-They were terrorists targeting Qaddafi's rule. They were put on the list to appease Qaddafi.Iraq = Went from a secular nation where women could wear short skirts and be doctors, to honey if you don't have a bag on your head you are likely to be beaten or killed.-Yes life was lovely under the brutal Saddam regime. Selective memory is great.

wow justwow wrote:

Rofl.

Egypt = Military Police State where people are whisked away in the night.

Libya = Now run by a group listed by the US State Department as TERRORISTS. But the solution, we changed their name, call them something else and they are fine folk!

Iraq = Went from a secular nation where women could wear short skirts and be doctors, to honey if you don't have a bag on your head you are likely to be beaten or killed.

USA = bombing 6 countries currently, with no war actually declared.

Oh yes, the Peace is breaking out all over!

It was great. Didn't you see Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 911"?

Valley Green wrote:

-Yes life was lovely under the brutal Saddam regime. Selective memory is great.

peace is a long way off. Years of infighting over who owns what and where, sadly.

Compared to USA occupation Iraq was a paradise under Saddam. What's amusing is Christians, Secular Iraqis all got slaughtered or were forced to flee. Meanwhile the Al Sadr groups have become prominent.

USA = DOESN'T CARE IF IT CREATES FUNDIE MUSLIMS STATES, AS LONG AS IT'S INTERNATIONAL OIL MASTERS MAKE $$$.

It seems like just yesterday that supporters of the war on Iraq were insisting that war opponents apologize to the world for our inability to see how wonderfully the whole attack would go. Actually, it was about five days ago, and a few days certainly can make a difference. Now, of course, those same war whoopers have become strangely quiet, with a few even bold enough to at least wonder about the forces they unleashed.

What happened?

Well, it's called having a million Islamicists march into Karbala, whipping themselves into a bloody frenzy in commemoration of Imam Ali. Oops, maybe this road to democracy and freedom, something that seemed so easy not so long ago, isn't going to go as military planners predicted.

Many Americans — at least the kind who get their news off of the Internet rather than from sitting wide-eyed before the TV set imbibing the liberal craptrap from the networks or the neoconservative war-mongering on Fox — are starting to understand what's happening. All the Pentagon spin in the world won't change the significance of the coming Iraq disaster.

The Chicago Tribune quoted a popular young cleric named Sheik Abbas Zubaidi: "The new government will be ruled in the name of God in heaven, whose light shines into all walks of life. You can tell America: Islam is back."

With a vengeance, perhaps.

This would be funny, if it weren't so tragic. One Russian newspaper is referring now to the Iraqi war as the "Dawn of the Shiite Empire." Instead of igniting a pro-democratic revolution throughout the Middle East, Iraq War II is an act of arson that will ignite the fires of Islamic fundamentalism, and perhaps even prop up a neighboring Iranian fundamentalist regime that had been facing increasing domestic resistance.

So, tv news is bad but the Chicago Tribune is ok?

85% of Iraqis polled last month said they remember Saddam Hussein's reign as a time of stability and wish their country was like that now.

I have to say, Michael Moore is one seriously full of sh*t dumb ass

wow justwow wrote:

USA = bombing 6 countries currently, with no war actually declared.

I agree with you, but can you verify the six countries?

I got: Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya.

Same ones? Palestine is another, and do we still have special forces rooting out Muslim rebels in the Philipines? We're also funding the suppression of the Bahrainian public.

The list gets longer and longer when you really start thinking about it.

Merica Number One! wrote:

I agree with you, but can you verify the six countries?

I got: Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya.

Same ones? Palestine is another, and do we still have special forces rooting out Muslim rebels in the Philipines? We're also funding the suppression of the Bahrainian public.

The list gets longer and longer when you really start thinking about it.

Didn't we recently bomb something in Egypt?

I'm not completely up on this stuff. I didn't realize we were currently bombing in Iran.

What's the 30-second scoop on Yemem & Somalia?

not an x-pert wrote:

I agree with you, but can you verify the six countries?

I got: Iraq, Iran, Afganistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya.

Same ones? Palestine is another, and do we still have special forces rooting out

I think Pakistan has to be on your list - we regularly bomb there via drones.

I grew up in the Cold War when we had to do air raid drills at school and suburban families envied their neighbors' fallout shelters. Most of us pretty much expected that the world would be annihilated someday by some maniac with his finger on the launch key of an ICBM.

I actually thought the world might be a better place for my kids when the Berlin Wall fell and the world danced and sang and celebrated. But that joy was pretty brief, wasn't it.

If anything, it is worse now. At least in the old days, you sort of knew who your enemies were. Now we are dealing with stateless suicidal maniacs that are impossible to negotiate with, and meaningless to eliminate. The future seems pretty bleak if you pay too much attention.

But then I go out for a run and life is good again.

Civil War in Libya II starts tomorrow. Misrata vs. Benghazi vs. Tripoli vs. Gaddafi loyalists (plenty, just underground now) vs. Islamists. Thousands of newly minted militiamen with no jobs to go back to and a taste for blood in a destroyed country. It's going to be very messy.

Hillary Clinton's overthrow of dictators has released hundreds of surface to air missile launchers into terrorist hands....

BobtheTomato wrote:

Definitely moving in the right direction as far as peace goes. But the hard part will keeping it. People will disagree over whatever they want and let things escalade to war. Happens over and over and over again.

They will just replace on dictator with another. Gaddafi was once a freedom fighter

The entire system is corrupt in those countries

Has Iraq got peace now Sadam is dead

Since we're giving Libya aid we can attach strings and stipulate that democracy and justice are mandatory. But the Obama regime doesn't do that now with Turkey, Russia, Israel, etc. thus those countries have brutal military dictators, no freedom, and they slaughtering their own people en masse.

60% of Egyptians want sharia law. Algeria has spent 2 decades suppressing a fundamentalist movement. Whether the US likes it or not, secular dictators are able to achieve the majority of the US' policy goals in these countries (control potential threats, deliver resources, secure borders with allies). A "Bigman" seems to be the natural political outcome, so why not somebody who supports some US values like womens' rights, property rights, etc.

Hussein, Mubarak, etc. will probably be seen as the better alternative when this is all over.

The Etch-A-Sketch has been shaken. Maybe what comes after will be better than what came before. Who is to know?