Who wants to talk about Egypt?

Jason · Only in cartoons

RE: Who wants to talk about Egypt?

DEATHPIGGIE · I'm fat and nobody likes me

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/khomeini-believes-that-iran-should-become-a-parliamentary-democracy/71274/

Just sayin'.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Noted, but that is related to the bleeding corpses of formerly hopeful revolutionaries... how?

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

It looks like the regime in Libya's days are numbered.

Qaddafi is ordering the air force to bomb opposition-held cities, and several pilots have defected to Malta (or, in one case, ejected and let their plane crash), rather than carry out the orders.

Of the regimes in the Middle East that have got to go, I'd put Libya's high on the list.

Jason · Only in cartoons

john31584 wrote:

Of the regimes in the Middle East that have got to go, I'd put Libya's high on the list.

Agreed. Qaddafi is amassing mercenaries in Tripoli, though, so I don't think this one will end without a horrendous bloodbath.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Probably not, sadly.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

And unlike Egypt and Tunisia, which had organized opposition groups, and professional, apolitical militaries, who will probably be able to set up governments that are at least marginally better than the ones that came before them, Libya essentially has no institutions. The military is completely fragmented. This was by design, as Qaddafi (correctly, it turned out) feared that it would turn against him. He has an extremely bizarre and abhorrent (though very clear and specific) view of how a society should function. And he knew that in order to implement his grand plan, he would first have to dismantle all of Libya's institutions when he took over, presumably to rebuild them from the ground up. Guess which step he completed, and which he never seemed to get around to.

What will happen when he's gone is completely up in the air. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be very surprised if Libya turned into something like Somalia.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Libya also has a large number of tribal communities. My guess is that it would be more like Afghanistan than Somalia: a centralized, ineffectual government in the capital city that would like to be influential but is widely ignored. Then again, I don't know who would draft the constitution for that centralized government. The more people from outside the country are involved, the less legitimacy the government will have.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

So, Qaddafi is now blaming the uprising on a few misguided teenagers who have gone crazy because Al Quaeda put hallucinogenic drugs in their Nescafe.

He literally said that.

Jason · Only in cartoons

It would be funny if this guy weren't in control of large stocks of chemical weapons.

Jason · Only in cartoons

Well... it's still kind of funny.

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

This seems to be one of the only Twitter feeds from inside Libya.

I'm not sure how much of it is true, but it seems pretty legit: http://twitter.com/#!/ShababLibya

john31584 · Zinc Saucier

Holy crap.

They've discovered a huge complex of underground prisons in Benghazi, with over 1,000 "disappeared" political prisoners inside.