Thursday - February 24, 2011

Arab turmoil could mean an orgy of bloodletting and rocketing oil prices.

It’s almost 6:30pm here and on the 6 o-clock news there was an interesting theory from the Colonel in Libya. No, I’m not kidding.

Gaddaifi suspects that the ring leader behind all the trouble in Libya is ..........

OSAMA Yeah. That Osama. OBL!

As you’d expect, Libya is almost wall to wall and especially as there are so many Brits trying to get out of there.
Very embarrassing for the govt. here. They got a flight yesterday to go and bring back a bunch of their citizens BUT .... the plane left 10 hours late due to tech problems.  Couldn’t get the dam,n thing in the air. Oh boy. What next?

Then there are all the accusations of the former govt. cozying up to Gaddaifi and selling him weapons etc. Which really is hypocritical. I have zero love or tolerance for the govt. I think helped to wreck this country. But come on.  It isn’t like the cons here raised any kind fuss and fury over the years I’ve been here. They have known for years.  There isn’t any way they could not have known. So to now take the moral high ground is pretty raunchy.
Ppl here have known as we have in the USA, that the colonel is a creepy killer and a terrorist of the first rank.  And we came to an accommodation as well.
OK so ....  There was an interesting column in The Mail this morning.  I won’t post much here, and it’s long. But it is worth the reading and some may not agree. He is one of those who holds the belief that the war against Iraq was wrong. But his column isn’t all about that.
The headline in the paper is different from that of the one on line. Here’s what I saw. It made me read the whole thing which isn’t easy because they cram an awful lot into a page in very small print. 
I can’t say I agree with him on all points. That doesn’t make this any less interesting.
I’ve edited for space.

MANY HAIL EVENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AS A BRIGHT NEW DAWN.

BUT REVOLUTIONS HAVE A NASTY HABIT OF KICKING NAIVE IDEALISTS IN THE TEETH.

By DOMINIC SANDBROOK
Last updated at 8:38 AM on 24th February 2011

Even by the repressive standards of Middle Eastern autocrats, Colonel Gaddafi has long cut a brutally capricious figure.

But while nobody who remembers the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher or the appalling slaughter at Lockerbie will mourn Gaddafi’s downfall, this year’s tumultuous events in North Africa could mark a shocking and seismic shift in the balance of power.

We are at a hinge moment in world history. As the Arab revolutions have shown, the old certainties are cracking apart.

And despite the naive predictions of a new liberal order, the future might well prove a very dangerous place indeed — with potentially devastating economic repercussions for millions of British families.

Indeed, in all the excitement at the fall of the Arab autocracies, it is hard to miss the whiff of Western hubris.

Like the arrogant neo-conservatives who thought it would be child’s play to export democracy to Iraq, many of the idealists exulting in the giddy triumphs of street politics believe history is on their side.

Sadly, history has a habit of kicking idealists in the teeth. The revolutions in the Arab world are far from over.

And when events have played themselves out, there is a good chance the results will be very different from the utopian fantasies of the armchair pundits.

But what the idealists often forget is that not all uprisings, like the peaceful transition in the former Czechoslovakia, come cloaked in velvet.

All too often, as in Mexico in 1910 or Russia in 1917, violence begets violence.

And eventually, as the French politician Pierre Vergniaud — who ended up on the guillotine — famously put it, the revolution devours its own children.

READ IT ALL HERE

Posted by peiper     on 02/24/2011 at 01:23 PM   
Filed Under: • Africa •  
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