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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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 Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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Just heard about this:
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Is Lara Logan's Assault a Bad Omen for the Women of Egypt?
Posted: February 15, 2011 at 5:21 PM By Rachael Larimore
During the Egyptian protests that led to the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, there was considerable talk about the role women played in the demonstrations. There were reports, including this account by Sarah Topol in Slate, that women felt safe at the protests, sometimes safer than they�d ever felt. That in itself isn�t saying much�as Topol pointed out in her piece, 86 percent of Egyptian women report having been sexually harassed�but it certainly contributed to the feel-good atmosphere surrounding the events in Cairo.
A depressing counter to that is today�s news that CBS�s Lara Logan was the victim of a �brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating� in Tahrir Square on Friday, the same day that Mubarak stepped down and celebrations broke out in the square and around the country. |
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/lara-logans-assault-bad-omen-women-egypt
Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18iraq.html?_r=1&hp
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Meanwhile, in Kut, about 1,000 protesters took to the streets demanding the release of 45 people arrested Wednesday after clashes with government security forces.
The protesters on Wednesday had set the provincial government headquarters and governor�s home on fire after security forces fired on them as they threw rocks at the building, demanding that the governor resign. Three people died in the melee and at least 27 were injured, including a security officer.
The protesters in Kut have called on the province�s governor, Latif Hamad al-Tarfa, to resign over accusations that he stole money from the government and failed to improve the economy and electrical supply.
A donkey with the word �the governor� scrawled on its side stood with demonstrators in front of the headquarters on Thursday.
�We will stay here in the street until the governor walks out,� said Mahdi al-Yasiry, a 37-year old engineer who is unemployed. �Everything in this province is bad. No gas. No electricity. No jobs. No nothing.� |
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In Basra, about 600 people gathered in front of the provincial headquarters, calling for the governor�s ouster.
And in the northern city of Kirkuk about 400 people protested in front of a government building, calling for better services for widow and orphans.
The protesters there shouted: �We want justice. Where are our rights? Protect the orphans from the thieves. We are hungry in a country of oil." |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 1:39 am Post subject: |
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| Is Lara Logan's Assault a Bad Omen for the Women of Egypt? |
Isn't it more likely that Ms Logan's attackers were pro-Mubarak thugs? I doubt after this much time has passed that anyone could ever find out, but that's at least deserving of consideration.
Anyway, it's been a week since the revolution in Egypt and things have been pretty wild all over the region, with no sign of slowing down yet. The low hanging fruit may be gone now and the ones left may be more difficult. Time will tell.
From my reading of history, once you have a revolution, it takes about a century for things to settle back down to stability. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:14 am Post subject: |
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Many killed in Libya
If there is one person not afraid to massacre citizens, it's Qadaffi. |
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NYC_Gal 2.0
Joined: 10 Dec 2010
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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All this unrest and revolution makes me laugh. They're fighting and dying for the system we have. A system we fought and died for. It's a system we completely take for granted and are willfully throwing away in fear of those same brown people fighting for their rights in the name of freedom.
Maybe I meant cry instead of laugh. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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It's rare that you can look at a current moment in time and recognize it for the historical significance it holds. 2011 is turning out to be the Year of the Protest, as people all over the world take to the streets, demanding fairness, equality and civil rights.
In years past, groups like al Qaeda have capitalized on this unrest to make inroads with disaffected and radicalized individuals. How should the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and across the Arab world affect al-Qaeda's thinking? Their Strategic Planning Cell (SPC) requested advice from the reliable SWISH (the South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics) consultancy, and their report is both telling and pessimistic over al Qaeda's continued reach: |
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Your position shares something of this ambivalence. You profess enthusiasm for the display of resistance; but you are clearly also troubled by the awkward reality that the removal of illegitimate governments - an aim you also aspire to - has been successfully accomplished by a people�s mobilisation in no way rooted in or guided by an Islamist worldview.
This is a very grim development for your movement, in two ways. First, you are failing to lead or inspire a rapidly escalating revolutionary process, and as a result risk being seen as irrelevant. Second, and even worse, as the regimes fall or shake you are in danger of losing a vital pillar of support for your cause: namely, the idea that people�s hatred of these regimes could only be channelled effectively by embracing your version of Islam. The revolts demonstrate that you are clearly not the only alternative - and this is very bad news indeed.Indeed, the current tumult holds out the possibility of even graver developments that could end any serious prospect for your entire movement. |
http://crooksandliars.com/ |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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comm
Joined: 22 Jun 2010
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:35 am Post subject: |
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I really wish I could buy these people some rifles... if one in ten civilians owned and were proficient with a scoped rifle, the army would never leave the safety of their APCs. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:48 am Post subject: |
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| comm wrote: |
I really wish I could buy these people some rifles... if one in ten civilians owned and were proficient with a scoped rifle, the army would never leave the safety of their APCs. |
Yes, the Second Amendment is the last and final ward against tyranny. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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Some Random Thoughts
Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man who set himself on fire back in December that started this whole thing, was/is easily the Person of the Year, not Mark Zuckerberg. And probably should be retroactively declared Person of the Year 2010 and is already deserved of Person of the Year 2011 (posthumous).
Let's give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that George W. Bush's foreign policy has a major role in this, for better and for worse. Certainly he has done far more than either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, again for better and for worse. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
Let's give credit where credit is due and acknowledge that George W. Bush's foreign policy has a major role in this, for better and for worse. Certainly he has done far more than either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, again for better and for worse. |
Hell no. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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What the heck is going on over in Libya? I've read stories about gun fights between Gaddafi's sons and threats of civil war.
Ha. I can't improve on that. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| comm wrote: |
I really wish I could buy these people some rifles... if one in ten civilians owned and were proficient with a scoped rifle, the army would never leave the safety of their APCs. |
I agree. It is not possible for me to agree more. Put a gun in every home. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:40 pm Post subject: |
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Snap Analysis: Libya's Muammar Gaddafi will fight to the end
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(Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will fight attempts to unseat him until "the last man standing," one of his sons said on Sunday after days of protests reached the capital.
At least 233 people have now been killed since unrest started last week, Human Rights Watch said, making Libya's uprising one of the bloodiest to have erupted in the Arab world over the past two months.
IS GADDAFI BLUFFING?
No. Gaddafi's security forces really could fight until the last man is standing because they know that if their boss falls, they too must fear for their lives.
This is the crucial difference between Libya and its neighbors Egypt and Tunisia.
In those countries, entrenched leaders were toppled because the military decided it was not prepared to fire on civilians to preserve the power of the head of state. That was possible because the military in Tunisia and Egypt preserved a degree of autonomy from the president. They existed as institutions in their own right and retained some public credibility.
In Libya, the military does not exist in the conventional sense of the word: it is more a personal militia for Gaddafi. An illustration of this is the fact that another of his sons, Mutassim, is national security advisor. A third, Khamis, is a senior military commander while a fourth, Saadi, holds high military rank.
The security forces know that without Gaddafi in power, they will fall too. They will therefore fight to defend their status and their lives.
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I've got Libyan friends watching this whole saga, and until now they were pretty confident that Gadaffi would ride out the storm, but now events seem to be taking a new direction.
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WASN'T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A LOCAL ISSUE?
Until Sunday evening, the challenge to Gaddafi's power was confined to the eastern Cyrenaica region around the city of Benghazi. That, for him, was manageable because the region had traditionally been ambivalent toward him. As long as it did not spread to the center and west of the country, analysts said there was no real challenge to his grip on power.
Those calculations are now being torn up. Anti-government protesters late on Sunday were in the streets of Tripoli throwing stones at the ubiquitous billboards of Gaddafi and shouting "Allahu Akbar," or "God is great." A resident who lives not far from the central Green Square, said he could hear gunfire. The fact that the violence has jumped 1,000 km (600 miles) west from Benghazi to Tripoli means that Gaddafi is now in a real fight to hold onto power.
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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