quote:

CONFIRMED from Tripoli We received confirmation from Tripoli that the fuel situation is now at the edge of breaking point. Queues for petrol/gas have reached record lengths and fuel is being rationed severely. The same issue is present with cooking gas (sold in refillable canisters). It is expected that the city will run out of both within the next 2 days

Ballz posted:

That is in my opinion, a great and logical analysis of the West's intervention. But once again, reading the comments to it will kill many brain cells.

Brown Moses posted:

There's been a lot of chatter on Twitter about gas and fuel shortages in Tripoli, it'll be interesting to see what effect it'll have when it eventually runs out.

quote:

Snipers still present from Al Quweiri store crossroads till the end of Tripoli street. There is currently an exchange of gunfire between them and the revolutionaries

quote:

Gaddafi’s forces have stopped firing after a number of explosions were heard across the city. Fighter jets be heard flying over the city right now

Korak posted:

That sniper situation is a really awful one if they're any way coordinated with one another. Snipers in an urban environment could shut down the whole city and they can feasibly only be took out one by one with gunfire.

Fintilgin posted:

I think there is still some question if these are all actual snipers with sniper rifles and such, or if they're mostly guys holed up with regular small arms just firing out at whatever moves.

EDIT: I don't get the impression that this is like 'Enemy at the Gates' or something, with dozens of highly trained crack snipers taking down everything that moves.

ChaosSamusX posted:

Yeah; I would even go so far as to doubt that these people have decent marksmanship training. That's not to say that it isn't a bad situation, but I don't think these 'snipers' will pose a threat to any organised resistance.

VikingSkull posted:

It's possible that military fuel stockpiles are running low, but it's probably not connected that closely to the civilian market. I'd suspect that coalition forces are a bigger problem for military movement within Libya than fuel concerns are at this time.

Narmi posted:

Not exactly how long you mean by "well before the start of WW2" exactly, but Hitler was chosen in 1938, less than a year before WWII started, and after he began his antagonistic policies towards the west (unless you mean the US specifically, but even then I donèt think they were too keen on his power grabs) and his desire to start a war of conquest became apparent.

Narmi posted:

Not exactly how long you mean by "well before the start of WW2" exactly, but Hitler was chosen in 1938, less than a year before WWII started, and after he began his antagonistic policies towards the west (unless you mean the US specifically, but even then I donèt think they were too keen on his power grabs) and his desire to start a war of conquest became apparent. I mean, it's possible they chose him for different reasons before they knew all that, but by the time he was put on the cover they had to have known what kind of guy he was.

And everybody hated Stalin, who was chosen the year after, in 1939 (the same year that the Soviets invaded Poland with the Germans AND signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler). The invasion of the USSR didn't begin till 1941, so you can't say that he was chosen two years in advance for that while he made peace with the Nazis. With WWII breaking out he became a major player, in addition to being extremely influential beforehand, which is probably why he was chosen.

TapTheForwardAssist posted:

You ain't lyin':



Some of the pro-Ghadaffi stuff reminds me of that one Spanish guy who's a tremendous fan of North Korea and always trying to organise Westerners to support the Juche ideal, disprove all the vicious rumors about how terrible North Korea is, etc.

Dusseldorf posted:

Being anti-war isn't being pro-Ghadffi, FYI.

feedmegin posted:

Well, 1938 was the year of the Munich Agreement, Peace in our Time and all that. He had definitely finally reunited all Germans in the Reich and had said he'd not demand anything else so now everything was going to be peace, happiness and flowers, right?

Contraction mapping posted:

^^^ That explains my rational for Hitler getting on the cover. As for Stalin, he was on the cover TWICE ('39 and '42), and I was referring to his second nomination. To be honest I'm not sure why he was perceived as divisive enough to get the nomination in '39. Either way, the magnitude of Stalin's crimes didn't become apparent until much later, so I'm still pretty comfortable with my assertion that Time doesn't like super-villains on it's front page.

Time, on Jan 2, 1939, posted:

All these events were shocking to nations which had defeated Germany on the battlefield only 20 years before, but nothing so terrified the world as the ruthless, methodical, Nazi-directed events which during late summer and early autumn threatened a world war over Czechoslovakia. When without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe by getting a "hands-off" promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler without doubt became 1938's Man of the Year.

[...]

But the figure of Adolf Hitler strode over a cringing Europe with all the swagger of a conqueror. Not the mere fact that the Fuhrer brought 10,500,000 more people (7,000,000 Austrians, 3,500,000 Sudetens) under his absolute rule made him the Man of 1938. [...] More significant was the fact Hitler became in 1938 the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today.

Time, on Jan. 1, 1940, posted:

The signing in Moscow's Kremlin on the night of August 23-24 of the Nazi-Communist "Non-Aggression" Pact was a diplomatic demarche literally world-shattering. The actual signers were German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Premier-Foreign Commissar Molotov, but Comrade Stalin was there in person to give it his smiling benediction, and no one doubted that it was primarily his doing. By it Germany broke through British-French "encirclement," freed herself from the necessity of fighting on two fronts at the same time. Without the Russian pact, German generals would certainly have been loath to go into military action. With it, World War II began.

[...]

Moreover, Russian officialdom began to experience a terror which continues to this day. For the murder of Stalin's "Dear Friend," Sergei M. Kirov, head of the Leningrad Soviet, who had once called Comrade Stalin the "greatest leader of all times and all nations," 117 persons were known to have been put to death. That started the fiercest empire-wide purge of modern times. Thousands were executed with only a ghost of a trial. Secret police reigned as ruthlessly over Russia as in Tsarist times. First it was the Cheka, next the OGPU, later the N.K.V.D.—but essentially they were all the same. Comrade Stalin recognized their function when, one day, he viewed that part of the walls of the Kremlin from which Tsar Ivan IV watched his enemies executed, was reported as saying: "Ivan the Terrible was right. You cannot rule Russia without a secret police."

Time, on Jan. 4, 1943, posted:

The year 1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means steel in Russian, whose few words of English include the American expression "tough guy" was the man of 1942. Only Joseph Stalin fully knew how close Russia stood to defeat in 1942, and only Joseph Stalin fully knew how he brought Russia through.

Narmi posted:

A whole-lotto-stuff

quote:

They ride into battle clinging to battered pickup trucks spray painted with signs saying they belong to Libya’s “Feb. 17 Revolution.”

Some don’t even have rifles, but go to war armed with knives and stones. All too frequently their heaviest weapons are .50-calibre machine guns or portable anti-aircraft guns bolted to the floor bed of a pickup truck.

A volunteer force, created on the spur of the moment, in between enthusiastic street protests and government massacres, the rebel army now seeking to end Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year reign of terror is made up of teenagers, oil workers, businessmen, engineers, lawyers, teachers and the jobless.

They have no supply lines or supplies; they lack communications and working cellphones; and they frequently run short of gasoline.

Only a few rebel soldiers have scraps of looted uniforms. Some wear motorcycle helmets into battle.

They lack weapons, leaders, discipline and a coherent strategy — and it shows.

All too often a rebel advance resembles a wild, enthusiastic cavalry charge that can suddenly disintegrate when government troops open fire with tanks or heavy artillery.

“This is a revolution without ideology. It was completely spontaneous,” said Toronto analyst Andrew McGregor, a specialist on North Africa and senior editor of the Jamestown Foundation’s Global Terrorism Monitor.

“There was nobody who was really ready to step in here to organize politically or to come up with a manifesto or some idea of what the resistance stood for other than just being anti-Gaddafi.”

“You have got a lot of people lined up under just this one banner and this situation is reflected every time they have gone into battle,” he said. “No one is really in charge. People do what they want. They show up and leave when they feel like it.”

“You need a unified command and control system, with men under discipline, and they don’t have that yet,” Mr. McGregor said. “As soon as the firing gets a bit thick, everyone jumps into their trucks and takes off.”

A week after a coalition of international powers, including Canada, launched a devastating air war on Libya’s armed forces, crippling its air force, devastating air defences and destroying tanks and heavy artillery columns as they advanced on rebel strongholds, the uprising is still floundering under steady assaults by government ground forces.

Too disorganized to march on Tripoli and outmanned and outgunned by Gaddafi loyalists, the rebels have been swept from the costal cities of Ras Lanuf, Bin Jawad, Berega and Ajdabia.

They are now fighting desperate rearguard actions in Zawiyah and Misrata and only just avoided vicious street-to-street brawls in their stronghold of Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city.

Even now, insurgents there are filled with a paranoid fear of pro-Gaddafi assassination squads and snipers.

They are also increasingly suspicious of defectors, fearing the Libyan dictator is infiltrating counter-insurgency troops into the areas they control.

Coalition air strikes may have shifted the military balance, but they left rebels struggling to organize a coherent offensive. And there is little foreign powers have been able to do about it, because no one was really quite sure who the rebels are.

In the early days of the uprising, the British government was humiliated when it inserted a diplomat and some heavily armed special forces bodyguards into Benghazi in a bid to contact the rebels. They were arrested and expelled by the insurgency’s suspicious and inexperienced leaders.

“The main problem with the coalition is we don’t really know who we are dealing with for the most part,” Mr. McGregor said. “We’ve got a few viable leaders, mostly people who were formally involved with Gaddafi’s regime. But most of the [rebel-led National Transitional] Council, which is forming an interim government, are largely people who aren’t known outside of Benghazi or the immediate area.

“They are not exactly national figures and it doesn’t help that most of them have gone into hiding since the rebellion started.”

When eastern Libya exploded with protests and rebels seized control of Benghazi last month, there was no clear leadership poised to fill the sudden political vacuum.

Col. Gaddafi has built an entire nation around his bizarre personality and idiosyncratic political vision. He has also implemented a divide and rule policy that intentionally left the armed forces weak, and banned political parties, opposition movements, trade unions and civil society groups.

As a result, it is difficult to identify institutions or individuals who might stand a chance of replacing him.

“The only truly functioning bodies in Libya have been the National Oil Corp. and the security services,” said Alison Pargeter, a British Middle East analyst. “Behind the facade of formal government, all power has lain in the hands of the leader and his immediate circle [consisting primarily of members of his own family and tribe. Unlike Tunisia and Egypt] Libya has not even had a ruling party.”

But while the rebels have lacked organization and leadership on the battlefield, the political side is a little more cohesive.

In the early days, a group of Benghazi notables and former dissidents formed an Interim Transitional National Council to try and lead the rebellion.

The council has 31 members, most of whom refuse to be identified publicly because they fear relatives in Gaddafi-controlled parts of Libya will be murdered.

“The council is made up of respected groups of people who defected from the regime,” said Ali Ahmida, a Libyan North African scholar at the University of New England in Biddeford, Me.

“You are talking about academics, lawyers, judges, writers, human rights activists — people who have a very non-sectarian, non-violent outlook. They’re calling for a pluralistic and democratic Libya.”

On Wednesday, the interim council announced the creation of a provisional government and made Mahmoud Jibril, a U.S.-trained political scientist and strategic planner from the University of Pittsburgh, prime minister.

Ali Tarhounui, an economics professor at the University of Washington, who has lived in exile since he fled Libya in 1973, was appointed finance minister. On his first day in office, Mr. Tarhounui admitted the provisional government’s work “was and remains very chaotic.… We have got to get our house in order.”

One of his first tasks was to create a new national oil company to replace the one controlled by Col. Gaddafi whose assets were frozen by the UN Security Council.

The new corporation will supply the provisional government and its fledgling army with desperately needed funds by selling oil from eastern oil fields controlled by the rebels.

While confined to rebel-held eastern Libya, the new provisional government claims to represent all Libyans and rejects any talk of partition or separation.

In trying to create meaningful, functioning institutions from scratch, the fledgling government will be plagued by a shortage of qualified and experienced people and will struggle to overcome Libya’s traditions of tribalism and regionalism.

“They remind me of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan: anointed by the Americans, distrusted by much of the country and supported by a fractious coalition,” said George Friedman, founder of the Stratfor global intelligence consultancy.

“The West is now supporting a very diverse and sometimes mutually hostile group of tribes and individuals, bound together by hostility to Gaddafi and not much else. It is possible that over time they could coalesce into a fighting force, but it is far more difficult imagining them defeating Gaddafi’s forces any time soon, much less governing Libya together. There are simply too many issues between them.

“It is, in part, these divisions that allowed Gaddafi to stay in power as long as he did,” he added.

Narmi posted:

Time's editors clearly know who they chose. I'll admit that you're right about Stalin in 1942 (they're kinda neutral, and portray him as America's buddy, glossing over their previous articles on him), but wrong about Hitler and Stalin in 1938 and 1939.

dj_clawson posted:

Christ, that's a good cover, or at least it would have been if they hadn't crammed the dead celebrity in.

I gotta switch over from Newsweek to Time. Newsweek is being run into the ground by Tina Brown. The cover of the current issue is seriously: "What the ($@*! is next?" Me unsubscribing, that's what's next.

Xandu posted:

Time hasn't been readable in about 15 years. Their archives are great, but the new issues are just awful.

dj_clawson posted:

That's what I always thought but a lot of writers seem to be ditching Newsweek for Time.

dj_clawson posted:

That's what I always thought but a lot of writers seem to be ditching Newsweek for Time.

dj_clawson posted:

That's what I always thought but a lot of writers seem to be ditching Newsweek for Time.

quote:

MalathAumran: youth of Latakia Now organizing guarding shifts at the entrances of their lanes [1-2] #Syria

MalathAumran: I talked for like 10 friends there and all of them said the thugs is AL-Shabihaa (youth armed gangs of Al-assad family)[2-2] #Syria

Dusseldorf posted:

I don't see how getting the writers from Newsweek could possibly help the situation.

quote:

UN resolution seeks sanctions against Ivory Coast
ANITA SNOW
UNITED NATIONS— The Associated Press
Published Friday, Mar. 25, 2011 4:56PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Mar. 25, 2011 5:34PM EDT

France and Nigeria on Friday introduced a UN resolution aimed at halting the growing violence in Ivory Coast's political standoff by imposing new sanctions on leader Laurent Gbagbo and his inner circle who have refused to cede power.

France's UN Ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters that he circulated the draft to Security Council members Friday morning and it would be discussed next week.

He said the resolution calls for an end to the violence in Ivory Coast and for Mr. Gbagbo to hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of November's presidential election. It would also ban heavy weapons in the capital, Abidjan, where Mr. Gbagbo's troops reportedly have used mortars to fire on civilians.

Mr. Araud said the resolution also calls for the International Criminal Court and the UN human rights chief to report to the council on alleged abuses against civilians.

“The reason for the political crisis is simple: Gbagbo doesn't want to leave,” Mr. Araud said. “There have been many attempts to find a political solution ... but Gbagbo is resisting.”

UN sanctions on Ivory Coast, including an arms embargo and controls on the export of rough diamonds, have been in effect since 2004, during a civil war between Mr. Gbagbo's government and rebels supporting Mr. Ouattara.

The additional UN sanctions being considered would target Mr. Gbabgbo, his wife and three other members of his inner circle for an asset freeze and travel ban.

Atul Khare, the UN Assistant Secretary-General for peacekeeping, told council members earlier Friday that since he last briefed them on March 3, “the escalation in the use of heavy weapons has had a serious toll on the lives and well-being of the Ivorian people.

“The human rights situation is very grave, with a high number of human rights violations,” he said.

At least 462 people have died in the violence since mid-December, said Mr. Khare, including 25 killed on March 17 when security forces loyal to Mr. Gbagbo fired several mortar shells at a market building in the rebel-held Abobo district of Abidjan. Mr. Gbagbo's forces earlier used heavy machine guns against women demonstrating peacefully in support of Mr. Ouattara in Abobo on March 3, killing seven and seriously wounding many others.

The United Nations said Friday that up to 1 million people have fled their homes to safer areas amid growing fears of civil war.

Ambassador Yossoufou Bamba, the Ouattara government's representative to the UN, called on the council to “take rigorous measures” against the Gbago government, “given the risks of crimes against humanity.”

“This situation will lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and will greatly affect the region,” Mr. Bamba told council members.

He called for travel bans on Mr. Gbagbo and his family, as well as better protection for civilians by the UN peacekeeping forces in the country and destruction of the heavy weapons used by Mr. Gbagbo's forces.

Human rights groups and other nongovernmental organizations have also been alarmed by the violence against civilians in the country.

“Civil war in the country has been reignited,” Louis Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group wrote in an open letter. “We are no longer warning of the risk of war, but urging swift action to halt the fighting and prevent ethnic cleansing and other mass atrocity crimes.”

Bobfromsales posted:

Time is bad, they may not be directly sensationalist but they suffer from the same 'must report both sides of the issue no matter how retarded' problem as many news outlets.

Narmi posted:

What's wrong with Time's reporting both sides of an issue? Is it the way they do it? Unless they're biased towards one side, this is usually a good thing since it can expose the flaws of one (or both) side(s). The reporters in Libya interviewing Gaddafi and his family are what showed the world how crazy he is, and probably helped drum up support for the rebels.

Spiky Ooze posted:

I think he means more like how most of the media will run reams of statements from Gaddafi or Libyan state TV and don't even bother to put a constant disclaimer, "Oh, by the way, these are the same people who said the revolution started because Al Queda was drugging Nescafe and the youth were drinking it. There's also been horrific violence documented in Libya which they daily claim is not happening and has never happened, but reality is begging to differ. They've also claimed multiple times to be abiding by a ceasefire, while quite provably shelling towns with tanks, and sniping cities." It might help to qualify the coverage just a bit when one of the sides you're covering is that crazy and lying through their teeth. It's unfortunate but I guarantee some Americans are not paying any attention and believe Gaddafi is an innocent victim of colonialism right now.

Narmi posted:

What's wrong with Time's reporting both sides of an issue? Is it the way they do it? Unless they're biased towards one side, this is usually a good thing since it can expose the flaws of one (or both) side(s). The reporters in Libya interviewing Gaddafi and his family are what showed the world how crazy he is, and probably helped drum up support for the rebels.

Narmi posted:

Zappatista posted:

Is this by the same photog who did the crying Glenn Beck pic?

Bobfromsales posted:

It's bad when reporting the other side means giving a page to Jenny McCarthy to rant about the evils of vaccines.

THE HORSES rear end posted:

Take the logic of the article further, and you begin to see that the narrative is increasingly in favor of both the West and the Arab street. If the rebels emerge victorious, we'll have another Muslim country that that really really likes us (Bosnia, Albania, and Kosovo are also Muslim countries that are quite fond of the United States, for similar reasons).

dj_clawson posted:

Pussy reporters, most of them didn't do anything.

XK posted:

Please regale us with tales of what you would've done.