Revolution(s) in the Arabian World

[JonInMiddleGA]

BBC now adds the fight includes "US personnel from the nearby CIA station"

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Not being reported anywhere else yet but I trust BBC more than anywhere else I looked (CNN, MSNBC, Fox) except NPR and their website is typically slow to get news

FWIW, I first saw it on the AP Twitter feed (which was in the sidebar of some website or another) ... that's what sent me searching for more, which I found on BBC site

[JonInMiddleGA]

A BBC correspondent says the assailants are embroiled in clashes with President Hamid Karzai's bodyguards, as well as security personnel from the nearby ministry of defence and a CIA station.

The Taliban have said they are carrying out the attack.

BBC News - Afghanistan presidential palace attacked in Kabul


Top story on sites in both Australia & Russia ... as of a couple of minutes ago, the only US coverage I'd seen was a single sentence brief from AP on the WaPo site.

[whomario]

Taliban also killed a group of mountain-climbers at a base camp in the Himalayas ...

Meanwhile, Iran had their presidential election and selected the most open-minded/western candidate.

[Autumn]

My understanding is that the Iranian president doesn't really represent any change in policy. I mean the candidates are all basically selected by the Ayatollah to start with. Iran figures if people think it's a moderate they'll lay off them for a while. But nobody's going to get elected under that system that represents any policy change.

[JPhillips]

Things have gotten crazy in Egypt fast.

Protests are continuing.

As many as ten ministers have resigned from the government.

The military threatened to intervene somehow if Morsi didn't get things fixed in 48 hours.

[sterlingice]

Yeah, that escalated quite quickly this morning. I have no idea what the actual outcome here will be.

SI

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, so here is what looks like the "long form" version of the latest from Egypt from AP.
My Way News - Egypt's military issues 48-hour ultimatum

So basically, the only substantial beef with Morsi that's mentioned (that I can find) is that the Muslim Brotherhood is calling the shots. Well WTH did anybody expect when they elected the guy?

I can't help but think back to the few "be careful what you wish for" voices during the last governmental overthrow. This article -- part "celebration in the streets" piece, part anticipating the conflicts to come -- after last June's elections seems worth re-reading today. Morsi won by a 13.3m to 12.3m margin (over the Mubarak tied guy), so what comes next? I'm guessing the Brotherhood backers demonstrate in the streets when, presumably, a Mubarak-esque candidate wins the next (hypothetical) election. And we get to watch as they lather-rinse-repeat indefinitely, since the country (based on the election results) is split roughly half & half.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

the country (based on the election results) is split roughly half & half.

And here we decry public apathy...

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by whomario

Meanwhile, Iran had their presidential election and selected the most open-minded/western candidate.

That not saying as much as you probably hope it's saying.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

And here we decry public apathy...

Well, actually ...

Low voter turnout showed Egyptians' mixed emotions - The National


The election that seated Morsi last May drew only around 40% turnout (less than the 54% parliamentary elections of 6 months earlier)

The U.S. low in a recent presidential election was 49% in '96. Was 49.2% and 48.9% in 1920 and 1924.

edit to add: So you've got 60% that didn't bother to vote and the rest were split almost equally. I wonder which group is marching in the streets this week?

[whomario]

Originally Posted by Mike D

That not saying as much as you probably hope it's saying.

not everything can be "solved" in a day and a bit of improvement is still better than none.

[Autumn]

Originally Posted by whomario

not everything can be "solved" in a day and a bit of improvement is still better than none.

But the quesiton is, is it improvement, or is it the image of improvement so they can continue with more of the same? The mullahs are not going to offer up a candidate that wants to undermine their power.

[JPhillips]

Sure sounds like Egypt is on the verge of civil war. Morsi was on TV and said he wouldn't make any concessions and the military now says it will spill blood to defend Egypt. There are reports of clashes between Morsi supporters and protestors.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Interesting (to me anyway) tidbit from a photo caption of the current AP story.

The pic is of armed plainclothes police guarding the anti-Morsi protesters, along with this:
Witnesses said that armed and masked men marching with Muslim Brotherhood protesters fired pellets at protesters holding a sit in in the Kit Kat area, leaving a number of people injured. Police men in plain clothes held their automatic rifles and sided by protesters to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood protesters.

So he's got neither the military nor the police with him? Umm ... what sort of half-witted lamebrain is he/his Brotherhood handlers to not at least have control of the police after a year in power?

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Interesting (to me anyway) tidbit from a photo caption of the current AP story.

The pic is of armed plainclothes police guarding the anti-Morsi protesters, along with this:
Witnesses said that armed and masked men marching with Muslim Brotherhood protesters fired pellets at protesters holding a sit in in the Kit Kat area, leaving a number of people injured. Police men in plain clothes held their automatic rifles and sided by protesters to disperse the Muslim Brotherhood protesters.

So he's got neither the military nor the police with him? Umm ... what sort of half-witted lamebrain is he/his Brotherhood handlers to not at least have control of the police after a year in power?

They realized the Laffy Taffy area just wasn't going to get the publicity.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

They realized the Laffy Taffy area just wasn't going to get the publicity.

They're obviously looking for someone to give them a break.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by whomario

not everything can be "solved" in a day and a bit of improvement is still better than none.

I agree with that.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Autumn

But the quesiton is, is it improvement, or is it the image of improvement so they can continue with more of the same? The mullahs are not going to offer up a candidate that wants to undermine their power.

Eventually, I've always hoped that the Iranian youth will slowly carve out a new modern ideology. Eventually modernism will take hold in the middle east. I would hope it would happen now, but it just might still be 300 years away.

I look at the Middle East today and I still see Christianity circa 1400...they have a long way to go to change the mindset of their entire culture. Of course, the big problem with that is their desire to have nukes. Religious wars circa 1400 with WMD's sounds like a net loss to me.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

They're obviously looking for someone to give them a break.

SI

[sterlingice]

So, uh, I guess round 2 for Egypt.

Morsi ousted in military coup. Their equivalent of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is in charge. I think it's anyone's guess what happens next.

Morsy out in Egypt coup - CNN.com

SI

[Dutch]

I'm not sure they are setting the proper expectations with these coup's...

[sterlingice]

"We're going to keep on doing these until we get them right!" (or horribly, horribly wrong)

SI

[cartman]

So, with Morsy out, is Johnny Marr next up?

[Passacaglia]

Someone on my facebook page who's in Egypt posted this:

So, Cairo watchers. Here's what the Defense Minister said:

Temporary halt of the constitution
Constitutional court acts as president
Early elections and constitutional court runs the country until a new president is elected.
The head of the constitutional court is empowered to issue proclamations during the transitional period
Forming a government to manage transitional period
Forming a committee that discusses required amendments to the constitution
Constitutional court forms a parliamentary elections law.
Having a code of ethics for the media.
Taking executive measures to include the youth in various positions in power and authority.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by cartman

So, with Morsy out, is Johnny Marr next up?

You're on fire today.

[JonInMiddleGA]

My Way News - Police storm protest camps; 149 dead across Egypt

Question for anybody who cares to look (please, no "all look alike" jokes, I'm actually serious)

Do the man in the first picture look to be the same man on the left in the 2nd picture? Also note that the captions with both pics indicated that these are pics of wounded, not dead (i.e. I'm not trying to be a callous prick here).
edit to add: The captions also credit two different AP photographers, so it's not one photog sticking with someone as they're moved to a different location.

I'll spoiler tag the pics just to avoid causing the thread to hang up as much

Spoiler

and

[sterlingice]

So this isn't getting any better in Egypt

SI

[Autumn]

Obama announcing now that he will ask Congress for authorization to use force in Syria.

http://live.reuters.com/Event/Syria_9

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Obama announcing now that he will ask Congress for authorization to use force in Syria.

Syria | Reuters.com

IMO, this was his best way out. It's a very pragmatic move, meaning that he believes he has the power, but realizes how unfavorable the option to use it is. If he goes to congress and they tell him no, not right now, he gets to save face, while coming out more popular all around as opposed to straight unilateral action. In the end, the congress gets to really exercise their views and the President gets to save face.

No way it's approved. I'd be very surprised if for some reason it is. But, at least he goes with the congressional blessing.

Personally, the vote was the best idea that I could come up with. We need to turn up the pressure on those who are in the middle east to police their own. They need to be called out and pressured for their own lack of action or passive acceptance of the status quo.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Wow.

10-Year-Old Works Alongside Father in Weapons Factory - Yahoo! News

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Wow.

10-Year-Old Works Alongside Father in Weapons Factory - Yahoo! News

Call me tin foil all you want but that looks like war propaganda 101 to me.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by panerd

Call me tin foil all you want but that looks like war propaganda 101 to me.

Put those conspiracy theories back into the box. I'm sure we got a full story with the two lines of text and the horribly sympathetic pictures. WE NEED NOTHING MORE! ONWARD TO WAR!

SI

[molson]

Ya, everyone knows that Syrian rebels have some of the more progressive child labor laws in the world, and that all the children are in school all week learning times tables.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by molson

Ya, everyone knows that Syrian rebels have some of the more progressive child labor laws in the world, and that all the children are in school all week learning times tables.

No, silly, they're learning fractions. How else are you going to make a good cut in the weapons factory?

Spoiler

(they probably just use the metric system so they don't have to worry about such things but that's neither here nor there)

SI

[cartman]

Maybe the kid is just a big Bugs Bunny fan, and really liked the one where Bugs worked in the bomb factory testing them by hitting them with a hammer.

[JPhillips]

For fuck's sake. If the Syrians will allow real international control of even most of their chemical weapons it's a big win. Even if they dick around we can always bomb them later. There really are other options besides blowing things up.

But the war machine is hungry and must be fed.

Better said at TalkingPoints Memo:

Secretary of State Kerry offhandedly suggested that Assad might be able to avoid a retaliatory strike if he surrendered control of his chemical weapons. Russia jumped into the fray by endorsing the idea and saying it would take the lead in pushing Syria to put its weapons stockpiles under international supervision and on a path to dismantlement. BusinessInsider says this was a galactic goof on Kerry’s part and Putin has put him “in check on Syria.”

That may be so. This Syria thing has been handled so badly that it’s hard to find any of it that has been handled well. But I’m not so sure I agree on this particular judgment. Or to put it a different way: diplomacy means always being remaining flexible enough to back out of brown bags you’ve walked into and grab other opportunities that may arise.

Why not grab on to this?

I’m not saying I think it will be easy or that the Russians are sincere. But getting all the regimes chemical weapons arsenal under international control would be no small achievement. Simply focusing on it would give the US something to apply leverage against (something it sorely lacks at the moment) and put the Russians in an awkward spot. The introduction of foreign forces of whatever sort is always something a regime trying to remain in power seeks to avoid. It would be a development that might well be used to leverage Assad out of power.

The key is that this potentially allows the US to reshuffle the deck and come at the problem on terrain which is inherently more favorable, given the Russian opening. Take the whole thing back to the Security Council. Have the Russians veto what they just proposed.

One might say this only amounts to a delaying tactic to stall US military action. But really? At the moment our tally shows that 232 members of the House are on the record as planning to vote ‘no’ - in other words, well over a majority. 47 are yes and 153 undecided. (If Obama can just get 150% of the undecided to go his way he’s golden.) So it’s not clear to me that there is anything to delay.

Is it ideal? No. But our current position is far from ideal. We should see this as an opportunity.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by molson

Ya, everyone knows that Syrian rebels have some of the more progressive child labor laws in the world, and that all the children are in school all week learning times tables.

I don't think that all the kids there are learning 'fractions' - however the photo's I've seen look staged for various reasons (lack of other people in pictures, disparate activities involved, obvious 'bomb shaped' items being manhandled, photogenic kid with carefully placed 'dirty face' etc.).

In practice in a munitions plant you'd give any unreliable workers (ie. kids) things to do which were easy and repetitive and unlikely to explode surely ... thats not 'progressive child labor laws' thats wanting your weapons to be completed and not blow up taking your raw materials and workers with them.

For a 'western equivalent' - when we have work experience kids in from school in the UK they work in QA, we don't give them a critical part of the game to code, when I worked on farms as a kid I did the menial tasks - mucking out stalls without animals in them etc. .... they didn't give me anything dangerous to do or that I could potentially screw up too badly.

PS - One thing I'm wondering is that such munitions plants are likely 'strategic targets' should any bombing be done - as such should we consider those photo's 'pro bombing' (ie. look at how horribly they treat their kids) or anti-bombing (ie. don't bomb their munitions plants, think of the kids).

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I don't think that all the kids there are learning 'fractions' - however the photo's I've seen look staged for various reasons (lack of other people in pictures, disparate activities involved, obvious 'bomb shaped' items being manhandled, photogenic kid with carefully placed 'dirty face' etc.).

In practice in a munitions plant you'd give any unreliable workers (ie. kids) things to do which were easy and repetitive and unlikely to explode surely ... thats not 'progressive child labor laws' thats wanting your weapons to be completed and not blow up taking your raw materials and workers with them.

For a 'western equivalent' - when we have work experience kids in from school in the UK they work in QA, we don't give them a critical part of the game to code, when I worked on farms as a kid I did the menial tasks - mucking out stalls without animals in them etc. .... they didn't give me anything dangerous to do or that I could potentially screw up too badly.

PS - One thing I'm wondering is that such munitions plants are likely 'strategic targets' should any bombing be done - as such should we consider those photo's 'pro bombing' (ie. look at how horribly they treat their kids) or anti-bombing (ie. don't bomb their munitions plants, think of the kids).

How can I be one of those kids in QA??

[panerd]

Originally Posted by Marc Vaughan

I don't think that all the kids there are learning 'fractions' - however the photo's I've seen look staged for various reasons (lack of other people in pictures, disparate activities involved, obvious 'bomb shaped' items being manhandled, photogenic kid with carefully placed 'dirty face' etc.).

In practice in a munitions plant you'd give any unreliable workers (ie. kids) things to do which were easy and repetitive and unlikely to explode surely ... thats not 'progressive child labor laws' thats wanting your weapons to be completed and not blow up taking your raw materials and workers with them.

For a 'western equivalent' - when we have work experience kids in from school in the UK they work in QA, we don't give them a critical part of the game to code, when I worked on farms as a kid I did the menial tasks - mucking out stalls without animals in them etc. .... they didn't give me anything dangerous to do or that I could potentially screw up too badly.

PS - One thing I'm wondering is that such munitions plants are likely 'strategic targets' should any bombing be done - as such should we consider those photo's 'pro bombing' (ie. look at how horribly they treat their kids) or anti-bombing (ie. don't bomb their munitions plants, think of the kids).

You want war propaganda, you aint seen nothin yet. Tomorrow's nights address to the nation is going to be pulling out all the stops! They have already hit the children angle about every way you can so its on to the women. I am guessing tomorrow we will find out how they rape all their women and then kill them and eat their private parts. Bloodthirsty cannibal rapists!

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Amazing bravery...........

Pakistan to award slain boy for foiling bombing - Yahoo News