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Intel5 posted:Has there been any major group in the Arab world arguing against a no fly zone? I don't see why we need to wait for a UN mandate when everyone in the region is calling for someone to step up and stem the bloodshed. A government still needs to go and do that though. And noone will because they don't want to be responsible for Libya after this mess is over (and they've bombed the wrong targets)
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 19:41 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 17:50 |
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BBC reporting that reporters have been sequestered at the Rixos in Tripoli today and forbidden from filming from upper floors. A red carpet has also been rolled out in expectation of something, presumably a Gaddafi visit. This following the carnage in Zawiya today leads me to suspect a possible announcement by the regime that they have retaken the city. Guardian on Zawiya: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/gaddafi-forces-devastating-attack-on-zawiyah
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 19:45 |
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Koine posted:Haha, really? Are you in economics class right now? I've never seen a more bizarre comparison than oil futures speculation and the origins of agriculture. The point, which I guess you missed - I blame myself for not being clear enough - is that someone arguing against "speculation" is using a definition for the word that basically means "just those kinds of investments that I disagree with" which is useless. If buying real estate in hopes of quick profit is speculation, then so is buying anything in hopes of profit. Where do you draw the line? Buying stocks is speculative. Deciding to pack your stuff into a wagon and Go West in hopes of free land and clean living is speculative. Taking your boat of goods to a foreign port in hopes you can make a profit is speculative. Deciding to settle down and trying to grow a crop instead of following your traditional nomadic route is speculative. Speculation just means taking a risk in hopes of a gain, financial or otherwise. If we want to have a useful conversation about bad behavior by investors, we need to move beyond the word "speculation" and talk about exactly why these markets exist. Commodities markets exist because, in theory, the more people participate in finding the appropriate market price for a commodity, the more accurately that price will reflect the current state of the world, in terms of supply, demand, and risks affecting supply and demand. That is an actually useful function, one that was a huge improvement on the situation before commodities markets were well-regulated and open to anyone to participate. Oil futures may provide an opportunity for people to gamble with their money, to the detriment of everyone who needs to buy oil... but that does not mean that they are inherently evil and wrong, and that there is no benefit to the existence of publicly-tradable oil futures contracts. I'll draw a different comparison: Libertarians (the really hardcore Rand Paul type) like to point out some of the problems that come along with fiat currency... including, especially, the ability of governments to simply print more money and then spend it. Their proposed solution - returning to a metals-based standard - is wildly ignorant of history and utterly unworkable for many practical reasons. Proposing that we close the public market for futures contracts because "speculation is bad" is equally ignorant. At least the proposal to tax it makes a little more sense, but as someone pointed out, simply blanket-taxing profits doesn't make people want them less (despite what Republicans like to claim when they argue the capital gains taxes need to stay low), but does add a liquidity "brake" to the entire marketplace which does not, it seems to me, do anything to control inflation of a bubble. There are enormous taxes and (especially) transactional costs on real estate, and yet, as we've seen, a disastrous real estate bubble formed anyway. I think this whole oil-futures speculation thing is barking up the wrong tree. If we want to stop experiencing sudden and disastrous rises in global energy prices, we need to find a way to make our economies less dependent on a single commodity for energy. If we could reduce consumption in response to falling supply or rising prices, then the prices wouldn't rise as quickly or (especially) as much. And that just means being able to drop consumption by like 5% or 10% when oil prices go up by 5% or 10%. Just as an example: in the US, if taking public transportation to work was even remotely available to most workers, even if it cost a little more or was a little less convenient than driving, a sudden spike in gas prices could prompt lots of people to switch to the public transportation to save money, which would reduce consumption of gasoline and put a brake on the price spike. But, of course, that would require a big infrastructure investment and that's something we haven't been doing well for, oh, 50 or 60 years now.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 19:52 |
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Maybe I have been watching too much 24, but isnt the easiest safest way out of this to have some CIA guy snipe Gaddaffi later when he steps out on the red carpet? Theres apparently huge crowds around when he shows up not hard to get away I would think. Seriously I dont get how he hasnt been assassinated. Either by lybians, or by some big brother who actually does stuff.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 19:55 |
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sweeptheleg posted:Maybe I have been watching too much 24, but isnt the easiest safest way out of this to have some CIA guy snipe Gaddaffi later when he steps out on the red carpet? Theres apparently huge crowds around when he shows up not hard to get away I would think. You have been watching too much 24.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 19:59 |
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"Proper" assassination: harder than it looks, and apparently the CIA's reputation for direct action (DA) is a myth... apparently the CIA can't even put together kill teams (from the Army's Delta Force instead of in-house -- although not surprisingly there's supposedly a lot of crossover) right anymore.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:02 |
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Chortles posted:"Proper" assassination: harder than it looks, and apparently the CIA's reputation for direct action (DA) is a myth... apparently the CIA can't even put together kill teams (from the Army's Delta Force instead of in-house -- although not surprisingly there's supposedly a lot of crossover) right anymore. In actuality, the CIA's entire track record for assassination and regime change is one of apalling failure. They managed to pull off a few Central-American coups in the 50's, and rested on their laurels for the rest of their existence.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:03 |
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Chortles posted:"Proper" assassination: harder than it looks, and apparently the CIA's reputation for direct action (DA) is a myth... apparently the CIA can't even put together kill teams (from the Army's Delta Force instead of in-house -- although not surprisingly there's supposedly a lot of crossover) right anymore. If assassination was as easy as on TV we'd probably see a whole lot more of it throughout the world.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:05 |
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A real life example of how effective assassination is would be the Israeli retaliation for the killings at the Munich Olympics (the operation the movie Munich is based on). It took them 20 years, and among the list of people killed was someone confirmed to be completely innocent (a waiter that kind of resembled one of the targets). There may have been others, but that's the only 100% confirmed case. The after the whole thing ended there was retaliation against Israeli government officials all over the world, so it's not as if nobody knew who did it. So assassination isn't really the quick fix the movies make it seem like. It turns out that finding a specific person in a planet of 6 billion people with even more places to hide is kind of difficult.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:13 |
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It's International Women's Day, so expect a lot of the news stories to have a women's issues slant towards them. Ivory Coast News: Ivorian women held another protest in honor of their 7 sisters who died in the assassination drive-by last week: quote:Ivorian women protest over killings http://english.aljazeera.net//news/africa/2011/03/20113815518827469.html My French is very rusty but the signs say--(center) "On March 8, 2011, Gbagbo arrested and murdered women and their children. Enough is enough! Out! Out! Out!" This is a paraphrase of course. There are a couple of words on the sign that don't make sense to me. (right) "Simone how can you condone the murdering of mothers..." Some of the words are obscured and some of them don't make sense to me. Gbagbo's response? Why, shoot some more of them! quote:Soldiers backing Ivory Coast's rogue leader Laurent Gbagbo have again opened fire on civilians, killing at least four people hours after hundreds took to the streets to protest against the shooting dead of seven women at a march last week. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/08/ivory-coast-troops-open-fire-civilians?CMP=twt_fd International Women's Day isn't going so well in Egypt either, it seems: quote:CAIRO —For someone whose rally was just disbanded by plainclothes policemen and thugs wielding knives, Amal Abdel Karim is remarkably calm. The Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated candidate for parliament, now sitting serenely in the parlor of her makeshift campaign headquarters in the poor Cairo neighborhood of Agouza, tells me she has been through far worse. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/27/egypts_pro_women_election_turns_ugly?page=full Part of having a free and open democracy includes enfranchising women, Egypt. It isn't really a democracy if men are the only benefactors of the newfound freedom. They fought for you, they died next to you, they fed you and treated your wounds, and now it's time for you to acknowledge them and share power with them. ~*BIASED NEW ALERT*~ It's not a good day for Coptic Christians either, apparently the cease-fire during the protests is over, and the new interim government has to deal with the fallout: quote:Egyptian Christians continued to protest today after the homes of Coptic Christians were attacked and the Church of St Mina and St George was torched during an attack on a village on the outskirts of Cairo on 5 March. http://pakistanchristian.tv/news/20..._medium=twitter I give the biased news alert because "Pakistani-Christian TV" is hardly the most unbiased resource. I've passed on posting many stories from other Christian media sources. Christian media loves to claim "Haha! We're still being persecuted!" while at the same time, denying that the various sects of Christianity that are actually being persecuted are true Christians at all. In case that sentence was too convoluted for you, Pentecostal Christians and Evangelicals in the US would probably deny that Coptic Christians were true Christians if the Coptics showed up in the US. This story is relatively unbiased except for the "Aha! Persecution!" factor. Christian media is almost gleeful when a Christian is killed by a Muslim. I'm waiting for the T-Shirts that say "Miss me yet?" with a picture of Mubarak on them: quote:A few weeks ago, Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak found himself up to his eyeballs in trouble. His regime was crumbling, the Egyptian people were demanding he step down from his dubious position as "President for Life," and every time he turned on his TV, cell phone cameras showed his goons beating up protesters. http://www.thestylus.net/madness-in-the-middle-east-1.2082227?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter I have to admit that Gaddahfi makes Hosni look good. There is gang warfare in Algiers: (translated from French by Google Chrome) quote:[Neighborhoods] The security services helpless. The gang war rages http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=196813873676082 <---This is in French btw A video from Zimbabwe, compliments of Witness Org: http://ht.ly/1bFDpL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyJF-01LlLI So much pain. SO. MUCH. PAIN. You would think that a call for a constitutional monarchy wouldn't be that controversial in today's climate in the Middle East, since it's still a monarchy, but noooo.... quote:In Riyadh the mood is tense; everyone is on edge wondering what will happen on Friday – the date the Saudi people have chosen for their revolution. The days building up to Friday so far have not been as reassuring as one would like. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/08/saudi-arabia-revolution-protests?CMP=twt_gu This is what the Egyptian protesters were fighting against: quote:VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWS EGYPTIAN PRISON INMATES APPARENTLY TORTURED AND KILLED http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/video-footage-shows-egyptian-prison-inmates-apparently-tortured-and-killed-2011-03- It's not that Tripoli really supports Kaddahfi, it's that they're living in absolute terror: quote:In "company town" of Tripoli, loyalty to Qaddafi http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20040594-503543.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Harry Smith is a great journalist imho. Add Mauritania to the list: quote:8 March 2011: “The young are mobilising in Mauritania too, and the unions are at their side, fighting for change” http://www.ituc-csi.org/spotlight-on-abdallahi-ould.html?lang=en&sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d7676f684a7ebbc,1 Mauritania is kind of hard to track, because there are lots of "they are tear-gassing us now" on-the-streets reports and Che-style blog posts, but very few news links. I've added a few people to the Middle East - Africa news list so I can get updates from Mauritania on the situation there. I haven't posted much about this since it isn't in the Middle East or Africa, and I've also left out the protests in Wisconsin, since there's a thread for that, but now I'm going to break my rule. The proles are pretty pissed off about budget cuts in the UK: quote:Demonstrations ruin Nick Clegg's weekend http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24140&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter Can't help but think this is the wave of the future: cut humanitarian aid and education, continue on with military funding and tax breaks for the rich.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:16 |
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The Cheshire Cat posted:A real life example of how effective assassination is would be the Israeli retaliation for the killings at the Munich Olympics (the operation the movie Munich is based on). It took them 20 years, and among the list of people killed was someone confirmed to be completely innocent (a waiter that kind of resembled one of the targets). There may have been others, but that's the only 100% confirmed case. The after the whole thing ended there was retaliation against Israeli government officials all over the world, so it's not as if nobody knew who did it. Not to mention, it seemed to dominate Mossad's activities that the whole country was taken by surprised by the Yom Kippur war. Also, I remember catching this British dramatization of the planning around Hitler's assassination that includes a lot of historians discussing whether or not it was feasible (it was, but the guy getting the assignment would essentially be sacrificed) or even if it was preferred, as Hitler had started taking more and more personal control of the Army and loving up the German war effort in the process. I think by the time they got everything sorted out, Hitler retreated to Berlin and was then unreachable by that time.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 20:20 |
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brathering posted:oh yes, make the commodity market illiquid, what a great idea I'm sorry, I don't know much about stock terms and market mumbo, but what would it mean to make this commodity "illiquid"?
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 21:23 |
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Nonsense posted:I'm sorry, I don't know much about stock terms and market mumbo, but what would it mean to make this commodity "illiquid"? My understanding is it would make it less 'transferable'. Like a stock/future/etc you can buy/sell quickly and easily. Actually taking physical possession of the commodity would decrease your ability to liquidate/sell it easily.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 21:39 |
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Apology posted:My French is very rusty but the signs say--(center) "On March 8, 2011, Gbagbo arrested and murdered women and their children. Enough is enough! Out! Out! Out!" This is a paraphrase of course. There are a couple of words on the sign that don't make sense to me. Pretty close. It says "On this day 8 March 2011, the Gbagbos (referring to the Pres and his wife) ordered the murder of women and their children. Enough is enough. !" On the right it says "Simone, being a mother how can you support the murder of mothers (covered by person)." edit: Simone is Laurent Gbagbo's wife, the First Lady of Côte d'Ivoire. e: I spell good. Soviet Commubot fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Mar 8, 2011 |
# ? Mar 8, 2011 21:57 |
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Gadhaffy to speak to reporters airing on CNN in "moments" They've been waiting half an hour. I'm sure he's just busy adjusting his collar and buttons.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 22:40 |
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Tevryr posted:Gadhaffy to speak to reporters airing on CNN in "moments" Live.cnn.com has the stream, apparently. Gonna watch this.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 22:45 |
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The journalists have been tied up for 7 hours waiting for Gaddafi, while Zawayi burns to the ground.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 22:52 |
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gently caress, this guy here http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ad_1298859291 holds a G36. I am more than slightly enraged. How come we export one of the best service rifles to those who use them against their own people. If one country should not have modern weapons tech, then it is Lybia. gently caress you Heckler und Koch. gently caress you.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 23:19 |
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Boner Slam posted:gently caress, this guy here You must have not been here early on when protesters where recovering FN303s off of merc bodies. I believe it was the British or the French who bought them for the Libyans, who then gave them to mercenaries.
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 23:23 |
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Young Freud posted:You must have not been here early on when protesters where recovering FN303s off of merc bodies. I believe it was the British or the French who bought them for the Libyans, who then gave them to mercenaries. Apparently it was the Wallonians. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Europe_steps_up_pressure_on_Libya_999.html
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 23:32 |
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Brown Moses posted:The journalists have been tied up for 7 hours waiting for Gaddafi, while Zawayi burns to the ground. Apparently he left! Too many reporters or just a gimmick to get them out of Zawiyah?
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 23:36 |
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Soviet Commubot posted:Apparently it was the Wallonians. Ah, that's new, but makes sense. 32nd Elite Forces Battalion? Is that the unit under Khamis' command?
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# ? Mar 8, 2011 23:44 |
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Waited for the CNN live, it cut to a trial, i left unsatisfied.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 00:21 |
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Thomase posted:Waited for the CNN live, it cut to a trial, i left unsatisfied. That's because Gaddafi buggered off. The reporters who had been waiting now have a horrible case of journalistic blue balls. BBC Live Blog posted:#
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 00:24 |
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Young Freud posted:32nd Elite Forces Battalion? Is that the unit under Khamis' command? Yes, the 32nd Brigade is also known as the Khamis Brigade. Thomase posted:Waited for the CNN live, it cut to a trial, i left unsatisfied. Yeah, have to wonder why he even called for a press conference. Still, it's not a total loss - this was linked to the video, and is actually a nice piece to watch. Also, if you're like me and wondered where they managed to get all the old flags on such short notice, it solves that mystery.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 00:29 |
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Apology posted:International Women's Day isn't going so well in Egypt either, it seems: This is an old article from before the revolution so it's kind of irrelevant now.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 01:48 |
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Apology posted:You would think that a call for a constitutional monarchy wouldn't be that controversial in today's climate in the Middle East, since it's still a monarchy, but noooo.... Tawfiq al-Amer is a Shi'a so probably anything he says that isn't 'work faster, dogs' is controversial. I half-expect that he gets detained every time he says 'bismillah' over his food.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 01:53 |
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I've got some down time at work right now. Did that sex tape of the princess ever get released?
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 02:00 |
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Milovan Drecun posted:This is an old article from before the revolution so it's kind of irrelevant now. http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/3/8/international-womens-day-in-cairo.html I doubt it's irrelevant now. Things have changed, but women can hardly be considered equal citizens.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 05:16 |
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Narmi posted:Yes, the 32nd Brigade is also known as the Khamis Brigade. I've got no reason not to believe you, but 397 sets of F2000 rifles, P90s, and Five-Seven pistols doesn't seem to stretch to cover 10,000-man unit. It is a battalion-sized amount of arms. I'll assume that Khamis' most loyal people are probably using them. Everybody else is probably carrying G36s like Boner Slam was talking about.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 06:19 |
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Xandu posted:http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/3/8/international-womens-day-in-cairo.html It doesn't help that I didn't post the commentary that linked to the Nov. 2010 article, in which someone said that Mubarak's quotas were going to be scrapped now that he was out of power and that they were considered a great injustice in Egypt. It's true that not a whole lot has changed between then and now, Nov. 2010 was only months ago.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 06:31 |
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hGuaVwJDfJI7vRgu0XYDJZApqogw?docId=CNG.18fc58cd464ba5d3197d3444a57e8dcf.3b1 posted:DUBAI — A group of Emirati intellectuals and activists on Wednesday petitioned the president of the Gulf state to introduce direct elections and vest the parliament with legislative powers. I'd have to see who the 133 signatories were, but that's unexpected.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 09:00 |
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Young Freud posted:I've got no reason not to believe you, but 397 sets of F2000 rifles, P90s, and Five-Seven pistols doesn't seem to stretch to cover 10,000-man unit. It is a battalion-sized amount of arms. I'll assume that Khamis' most loyal people are probably using them. Everybody else is probably carrying G36s like Boner Slam was talking about. That's a good point, whenever I've seen anything about the Khamis brigade they always mention how it's the most loyal to Gaddafi and received the best training and equipement, though maybe they are referring to a smaller part of the whole brigade. I did find several references that General Dynamics UK had a $165 million contract to equip the Khamis Brigade, and that there was talk about Khamis buying vehicles (mainly troop carriers, here's an article talking about a $77 million deal that fell through) and helicopters from the US, but specifics are remarkably vague (given all that's happened, you'd think someone who knew something about their arms deals would've said something) on what exactly they have.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 09:41 |
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Boner Slam posted:holds a G36. EDIT: I've personally held an (unloaded) FN 303. Chortles fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Mar 9, 2011 |
# ? Mar 9, 2011 10:13 |
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Live Blogs 9th March BBC Guardian AJE Maps BBC Zawiyah quote:7:08am GMT quote:7:14am GMT quote:8:15am GMT quote:8:35am quote:8:49am quote:8:53am Ras Lanuf quote:7:40am GMT Gaddafi Interview quote:Here is a chunk of that LCI interview with Col Gaddafi, in which he threatens to align himself with Osama Bin Laden: "I cannot fight against my people, that's a lie by colonising countries: France, Britain, the Americans. They have suffered (Osama) Bin Laden's interventions, and now, instead of saying that this is an attack against Bin Laden and instead of supporting Libya, no, they want to re-colonise Libya. But this is a colonialist plot, it's colonialist. If al-Qaeda no longer is a common enemy, then from tomorrow we are going to meet Bin Laden and reach agreement with him. He will become our friend if it is considered that this is not terrorism." quote:More quotes from Col Gaddafi from his interview with Turkey's TRT television: "If al-Qaeda manages to seize Libya, then the entire region, up to Israel, will be at the prey of chaos... The international community is now beginning to understand that we have to prevent Osama Bin Laden from taking control of Libya and Africa."
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 10:24 |
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At this stage it seems like a stalemate is developing, that could last a very long time without outside intervention. You look at the situation in the West, and Gaddafi's forces have spent several days trying to take control of Zawiyah, apparently using a very large number of troops to surround and seige the city. From what I've read the rebels in the cities have access to some AA guns, light machine guns, AKs, and RPGs, which seems to be enough hold up the Gaddafi forces in that area. Even if Gaddafi manages to take control of the city he'll need to keep troops there to ensure it doesn't fall back in rebel hands. Then he'll have to move onto Misarata and do exactly the same thing there, before he can start sending the majority of his army to the East. At this rate it could be several weeks before the West of the country is full secure and he can focus fully on the East of the country. Then the Gaddafi forces will have to fight their way to Benghazi, taking one town after another, all of which will be fortified and full of rebels that have access to more anti-tank weapons and support from other cities. Unlike the West where cities are isolated and unable to help out other cities under seige the rebels will be able to send forces from other cities to attack any sieging forces. The rebels are limited in what they can achieve without any air support, and will find it very difficult to push past Sirte, so unless the international community wants this to last for months they need to create a no-fly zone, and start providing medical aid, fuel and food to the rebels in the East.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 11:46 |
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Brown Moses posted:Gaddafi Interview Definitely crazy... maybe someone will in his inner circle will blow him away soon.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 11:47 |
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Interesting air traffic around Greece:quote:Greek media reports say one of Col Gaddafi's private planes has crossed Greek airspace en route to Egypt. Greek officials have given no information on who was inside. quote:No detail on that Libyan plane that's said to have crossed Greek airspace, but Greece has had strong relations with the Gaddafi regime - hence the phone conversation we referred to earlier (1033) between Col Gaddafi and the Greek prime minister. quote:The Greek defence ministry says that Gaddafi's plane has crossed Greece en route to Egypt, al-Arabiya reports.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 12:06 |
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quote:Karl Stagno-Navarra, a journalist in Malta, told al-Jazeera taht three out of five of the Gaddafi family jets are in the air, headed to Vienna, Athens and Cairo respectively. quote:More on the Libyan plane crossing over Greece. A Greek air force source told AFP that it was a Libyan Airlines Falcon 900 that normally carries VIPs, though the pilot denied that dignitaries were on board. "The pilot tabled a flight plan from Tripoli to Cairo," the official said, adding: "The plane crossed southwest of the island of Crete around an hour ago. It should be landing in Cairo by now." Brown Moses fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Mar 9, 2011 |
# ? Mar 9, 2011 12:11 |
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# ? May 21, 2024 17:50 |
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What the hell is that all about? Also, I updated the OP to focus on Libya, but have fallen too far behind with the yt etc. videos. If anyone has ones they think are important to see, post them and I'll add them to the OP.
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# ? Mar 9, 2011 12:29 |