Middle East Thread of Despair: More Broken Than Syria

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Middle East Thread of Despair: More Broken Than Syria

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Protesting in countries that have dictators and police who will fire automatic weapons at citizens without a second thought is just so incredibly badass compared to protesting here.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2011 19:16

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 04:11

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Rosscifer posted:

There's only a few countries that are not members of the UN. Perhaps they'll form a committee to study whether people are upset. Then they'll recommend that a committee be formed to look into whether the government should stop shooting people from helicopters.

This is always the joke I hear, how true is it? Has the UN ever successfully dealt with problems like this?

# ¿ Feb 18, 2011 19:21

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Back when cellphone cameras appeared on the scene, the very first application I thought of for them was recording atrocities committed by governments against average people. I was not let down, these videos are damning as hell.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 03:09

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

YouTuber posted:

One of the very first major use of cameras were for taking pictures of massive amounts of the dead on American Civil War battlefields. Congratulations coming up with this stunning revelation 140 years later that cameras would be used for taking pictures of dead people!

Yeah but the advent of cellphone cameras means that (eventually) everyone will be carrying a camera with them all the time, whether they went out intending to take pictures or not. As far as I know that's a first for the world.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 03:47

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Xandu posted:

Here you go, but again, it's pretty awful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkDcrb-EwbM

XausF1 posted:

From Kristof's twitter who's in the square right now.

My god this event is everything right and wrong with humanity at the same time.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 20:04

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

One thing I want to know is, how many police officers will refuse to fire on unarmed civilians if they are ordered to? Surely a whole lot of them can look at that crowd and not see a faceless crowd, but rather a bunch of people who could easily be their family and friends. It's a small country after all.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 20:58

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Patter Song posted:

Which is why the Bahraini government has been trying so hard to make this into a sectarian struggle between the supermajority Shia ordinary population and the mostly Sunni security/government forces. It's a lot easier to tell the soldiers that the people on the street are heretical splittists in the pocket of Iran who will compromise Bahrain's independence and frame it as a struggle that way than to have the security forces think of the people they're shooting as "Bahraini."

drat, they are thinking this through. I guess you don't become leader of even a little monarchy like Bahrain without at least SOME smarts.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 21:43

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Cacatua posted:

That's what I hope too but very few world leaders have had much to say about this.

Well I mean, they can't do OVERT things, but there are lots of secret back-room things they can do, right?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2011 23:03

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Peripheral posted:

"Our movement is peaceful; our demands are legitimate."

That is an excellent slogan. Concise, to the point, makes anyone who stands in their way look like an inhuman monster.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 01:30

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Xandu posted:

Even the King and Crown Prince admit it was disproportionate and claim that it will be investigated. This guy is ridiculous.

Oh right, they are going to "investigate" lies by one of their government officials who is probably like seven of them's brother or something?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 01:58

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

ganglysumbia posted:

Aljazeera just reported protesters have captured tanks and are driving them through the city....

There's something about stealing an oppressor's tank and using it against them that makes me feel all awesome inside. Same as in Return of the Jedi when the ewoks stole the walker and started blowing poo poo up left and right.

edit: How easy is it to drive a tank without training anyway? I just realized I have no idea how they operate.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Feb 20, 2011

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 19:22

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Astrolite posted:

Driving them is pretty easy. Firing the main gun would be a bit more difficult, unless it's a very old model.

Eh, no need to bother with the gun, the tank itself can be plenty destructive. And what is the army going to do, blow up one of their own tanks?

edit: vvv yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2011 20:03

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

I must have missed it, but was there some one event that put all this in motion? Something that happened in Egypt two weeks ago or so that was the straw that broke the camel's back?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 07:45

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Xandu posted:

The OP is actually pretty good, albeit out of order.

But yeah, there were longstanding problems in all of these countries and the success of Tunisia helped to inspire people in other countries to rise up.

I was just curious why it happened exactly when it did. Did the government announce some new policy that finally pushed people over the edge?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 08:21

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Nenonen posted:

What I'm concerned with is that even if the Libyan regular army decides to join the protestors side, the Colonel would still have his elite all-virgin bodyguard unit to protect him. They're extremely well trained and might turn any attempts at Gaddafi into a bloodshed. WHY IS AMERICAN MEDIA NOT DISCUSSING THIS???

Does Gadaffi have any other Bond movie villain-like qualities I should know about? Does he have a secret fortress under a fake volcano crater or anything?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 19:27

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

I've only been glancing at this thread and the news from time to time, but I can't understand why these governments aren't saying "but....but Israel!" to try and regain order. Isn't that what they normally do when faced with hard domestic problems? Would it not work somehow, or do they have some other plan?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 21:35

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Nonsense posted:

That stuff doesn't work, because people aren't stupid. They might not like Israel for other reasons, but they're not going to fall for bad propaganda from the power structure they're trying to destroy.

Well I mean, I'm not surprised that it wouldn't work, but I am surprised they haven't tried out of desperation. The last few pages have had a few rumors, that's all.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 21:42

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Patter Song posted:

"The boy that cried ." Over the past half-century, the people of the Middle East have discovered that their regimes have no interest in actually helping the Palestinians, and are using the plight of the Palestinians for their own benefit. The Arabs are sick of "but Israel!" They want a government that actually worries about their interests and maybe cares about the Palestinians enough to treat the Palestinians' suffering as more than a PR campaign.

Thanks, that's really, really good to know.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 22:00

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Cjones posted:

Guy on AJE just said they're using anti-aircraft weapons on protesters

I didn't even know that you could point anti-aircraft guns at targets on the ground. Or can the protesters fly?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 22:13

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Boner Slam posted:

Look at the video earlier itt. Or rather don't.
12,7mm on person will rip you to pieces.

sometimes I can't believe how humans can be so horrible to another.

Holy hell. I can't imagine pointing that at a person and pulling the trigger. What range is the shell meant to explode at anyway?

And I don't think I will be watching that video.

edit: Oh, are they not shells that are meant to explode at a certain range? that was the image of an anti-aircraft gun I had in my head.

Samurai Sanders fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Feb 21, 2011

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 22:17

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Just to confirm, there's no chance that he will volunteer to step down, right?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 22:47

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Sivias posted:

Then again, Mubarak said the same thing.

Yeah see, I wasn't expecting that either, that's what gives me a sliver of hope that Gadaffi would make the right decision at the last minute.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 22:50

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Doccers posted:

This. We've lost utterly the ability to meddle or get involved in affairs, without causing even MORE problems.

Wait, when did we HAVE this ability?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 23:20

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Why does Gaddafi still call himself "colonel" anyway? Wouldn't he have taken the rank of general or whatever when he took over the country?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 23:33

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Brown Moses posted:

Obama about to give a worthless speech in about 20 minutes.

Something like "Good job, everyone! Keep doing that thing!" like before?

# ¿ Feb 23, 2011 19:59

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Slantedfloors posted:

"We fully support the status quo, until such time as we cannot do so expediently. At that point we don't support it, and never have"

I thought we were talking about what he would actually say...

# ¿ Feb 23, 2011 20:04

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Patter Song posted:

That is a gross exaggeration and twisting of the facts of what 1950s Iran was like.

Would it be an exaggeration to say that the 50-70s in Iran were better than now, and that the CIA engineered the transition between then and now?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 07:56

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Maybe I don't understand mercenaries very well, but why would they take a side that will almost certainly get slaughtered indiscriminately by an angry mob, heavily armed and fed up with 40 years of oppression? What money is worth that?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 19:46

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

SauceNinja posted:

I'm betting the vast majority of them have taken the money and are convinced they'll A) win because they have guns or B) blend into the crowd when poo poo gets chaotic and try to make their escape. Element B is going to have a significantly terrible effect on the the number of people in group A because people are sheep, even if they have guns.

Oh, so their plan for getting out is to blend into the crowd, that's the part I didn't get. I was thinking "How are they gonna get out of the country once the protesters have taken over the airports and roads and stuff?"

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 19:53

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

SauceNinja posted:

Desperate people are pretty opportunistic. "So this guy wants to give me money to kill these people. These people want to kill this guy and celebrate. Why don't I....take the money, let them kill him, and celebrate!!"

or as stated, there's a pretty decent chance they're believing the rich guy signing the checks. The rich guy has a LOT of wool he's pulling over their eyes.

Huh, if that's the case than I was thinking too highly of mercenaries. I figured they were people who knew how to choose their jobs better.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2011 20:03

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 04:11

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Not give up on hosting the World Cup though?

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 03:28

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