I guess I did miss that point. mainly because my attitude about that kind of stuff is "so what?" that's international politics for you. the world of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" and "the strong take what they can, the weak get what they must." sometimes states align themselves with all manner of unsavory characters to oppose some greater perceived evil (e.g. the US with Latin American and African dictatorship during the Cold War). anyone who has a reasonably sophisticated understanding of how international politics works will understand that, and will not be impressed with those pics. I mean hell, the US is aligned with Saudi Arabia right now! you don't think we would drop the royal house of Saud in a heart beat when it became evident that it was going to collapse from an internal struggle? and we would most assuredly accompany said drop with all kinds of declarations about our principles of freedom and democracy and the will of the people. never mind that we supported that same repressive dictatorship for decades.
More importantly, we are willing to drop our dictatorial friends but not our democratic ones...anybody calling for the ouster of the Greek or Irish leadership last year?
The most hilarious thing is that Gaddafi could technically hide out in the United States since we never became part of the ICC and don't have to extradite him. That being sad, I don't think it's a coincidence that have fallen so far have had close ties with the West. This goes for Saleh in Yemen, Ben Ali in Tunisia, Gaddafi now in Libya, but especially Mubarak in Egypt. If a the regime in an Arab country is close or friendly with the U.S., that's usually an indication that its authoritarian.
That being said, I think the overwhelming majority of the 6 million Libyans feel very thankful towards France and Britain. There's tons of graffiti thanking Sarkozy and French flags are always seen in the masses of Benghazi. So that's actually pretty cool, to have done something useful for once in the Middle East. It's rare but it happens.
if they leave quickly and gracefully, that feeling of gratitude will continue. but if they leave too quickly, they will leave a fledgling democracy with a huge power gap that could easily degenerate into chaos. that's a tough choice for them.
The only democracies in the Arab world are Palestine and Iraq. The chances are, if a regime exists in the Arab world, it's dictatorial.
That's the difference. Gaddafi was one of the people that funded the IRA that killed about 3500 people in Britain but, then again, so did some people in the USA, albeit not it's leadership. Point being, we ain't gonna start bombing the US any time soon. Mind you, as far as RT is concerned that shows we have an 'inconsistent approach' or whatever it is their resident retards bang on about Plus I suspect there'll be a few more in the next year or so Actually, on that subject, I wouldn't mind betting that Libya will end up being a more effective democracy than Egypt which has retained more of the army controls. On the other hand maybe the Egyptian army will be like the Turkish one which has retained enough control so as to maintain a secular democracy. We'll see I suppose.
Israel? http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...ates-react-to-events-in-libya/?iref=allsearch Interesting reactions from GOP candidates to the news out of Libya
An article examining the success - so far - of President Obama's strategy in Libya. This is the most interesting part: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61849.html !!!
Fortunately, our European friends, including Germany, have pledged to lead the post-Ghaddafi efforts.
I've never seen a profile of the guy. How does he get a pillow case on with that chin (or lack thereof)?
Not to toot my Commander-in-Chief's horn, but: At the end of Bush II's second term in office, we had ONE largely functioning Arab democracy (Lebanon) and one Jewish democracy (Israel) - given Turkey's unique status as a Euro-Asian-Islamic-Turkish-WHATEVER, it is a democracy but doesn't really fit. After eight years of warfare, he had managed to turn Afghanistan from a unitary, albeit fundamentalist country into an anarchy that would make Somalia proud, and Iraq into an electoral authoritarian system that took two years to complete an election. Three years into Obama's term, wherein - as schrutebuck points out - we spend $1.1 billion on the Libyan effort and are pulling out and returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we have this list of democracies and/or democratizing states: Tunisia Egypt Lebanon Morocco Israel Libya Jordan Syria Iraq Palestine (soon to ask for UN approval for statehood) Yemen Oh yeah. Now, there is a good chance that most of these countries will have some sort of authoritarian system - much like Mexico's before the 1990s or the current Filipino electoral regime. Yet that alone would be tremendous progress. And, if we are to be fair, it happened on Obama's watch and he deserves at least some credit. Remember when all the Bushies were claiming credit for the color revolutions? Well now they have to concede Obama getting credit for this. (Liberals - stay consistent: neither of them had much to do with this anyway)
Reagan gave a speech in West Berlin after a few million East Germans began protesting, and gets credit from the conservatives for bringing down the Soviet bloc two year later. Obama gave a speech in Cairo before there were protests. A couple of years later, Arab dictatorships fall, after a few million Arabs organize, protest, take up arms. Conservatives won't see the irony of this. Obama = Reagan.
Huh? The East German protests were in the Fall of 1989. The Wall itself was breached on 9 November 1989. Reagan's "Tear Down this Wall" speech was 12 June 1987. In fact, Reagan was no longer president in 1989. His speech was only a part of a decade long struggle (and to be frank, a small part -- the State Department tried to get him to remove the words from his speech).
How does any of that refute what he says? It may be refutable, but not by your answer. Indeed, it seems you are actually helping to make his point. President makes pleas about a certain area of the world. Within a couple of years, that area of the world takes up arms in advancement of the specific pleas that President spoke about earlier. In Reagan's case, yes ... the conservatives give him massive credit for the fall of the wall, even though he wasn't President at the moment it fell. In Obama's case, he happens to still be President. The guy you are quoting is simply saying it's ironic how different it is viewed by people on the right .... and it is (especially so because as is mentioned, Obama is the SITTING President while his "vision" as it were is coming to fruition). Personally, I think much of the "credit" given both ways is tenuous, but it's funny seeing how the same people who still are praising Reagan are contorting themselves in order not to give Obama any props.