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Unrest in Egypt

  • Thread starter Thread starter Priceless
  • Start date Start date
Re: Unrest in Egypt

NPR reported this morning that many of the "soldiers" firing on people in Tripoli are paid mercenaries from Sudan, Chad, and other poorer Muslim-African countries. Similar to Bahrain.

The airport in Benghazi has been damaged so that the planes there can't get off the ground to support the protesters in Tripoli (and supplies can't get in).

Egypt setting up field hospitals on the border for their nationals (1.5 million of them) who escape on foot.

This is seriously ugly.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

geezer said:
At what point would the benefits outweigh the risks of sending in peace keepers? Is the UN awake to this?
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That hasn't been publicly addressed, but might be after the UN Security Council meets today.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he is "outraged" by Libya's deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters, and told Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to stop the violence "immediately."
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Monday Washington joins the international community in "strongly condemning" what she called "unacceptable bloodshed" in Libya. She said the Obama administration is working "urgently" to send Libya's government a message that it must respect "universal rights" of free expression and assembly.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron described the Libyan crackdown as "appalling" and a "most vicious form of repression." French President Nicolas Sarkozy condemned what he called the "unacceptable use of force" in Libya.
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Pretty common to see Libya denounced by the West.

Iran's Foreign Ministry also condemned Libya for suppressing what it called the "righteous demands" of Libyans engaging in a regional Islamic awakening.
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But when you get condemned by Iran... It's like Mister Magoo denouncing the referee for being blind.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

Seems to me that Libya would be a likely place to show a firm, united, hand of support for human rights, which might give other regimes pause in how violently they deal with protests. But I don't imagine the UN could do anything quickly enough to make it happen. Unless this goes on for months... a protracted civil war is one forecast.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

They're not going to send peacekeepers in to get slaughtered.

I'd wait to see if they even get a no-fly zone going.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

geezer said:
Seems to me that Libya would be a likely place to show a firm, united, hand of support for human rights, which might give other regimes pause in how violently they deal with protests. But I don't imagine the UN could do anything quickly enough to make it happen. Unless this goes on for months... a protracted civil war is one forecast.
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Tough issue.

Except in very extreme cases, the days of US international action need to be over. Nows the time that development of the UN starts to pay off. This is exactly the type of issue that the UN should handle. But we need to remember that the UN is made up of its member nations...it won't do anything that the security council doesn't want. Frankly this isn't a slam dunk decision yet to go in or not...but the level of deliberation this morning shows the complexity of any decisions and the logistics involved in any action. Especially when a top objective in the organization is peace...and rightfully so.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

Quadhifi is talking (shouting) live on Al-Jazeera now.

Edit:
Says if he didn't die when the US and Brits bombed his house in '86 he won't die now. Asks where the protesters were when he was bombed (hint: many of them hadn't been born). Calls the protesters "rats."

He's ranting now...I can't follow him and it seems the translator is getting lost too. Probably better to wait until they have time to do a literal translation.
 
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Re: Unrest in Egypt

5mn_Major said:
Tough issue.

Except in very extreme cases, the days of US international action need to be over. Nows the time that development of the UN starts to pay off. This is exactly the type of issue that the UN should handle. But we need to remember that the UN is made up of its member nations...it won't do anything that the security council doesn't want. Frankly this isn't a slam dunk decision yet to go in or not...but the level of deliberation this morning shows the complexity of any decisions and the logistics involved in any action. Especially when a top objective in the organization is peace...and rightfully so.
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UN peacekeeping doesn't work during situations where bullets are flying because their chain of command and rules of engagement are by design a clusterfark. You end up with Belgian troops handing their guns over to Rwandan troops and getting executed because their commander didn't know how far he was legally allowed to go.

The last time UN forces went in hot, was what, Korea? And that was under American command.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

bronconick said:
UN peacekeeping doesn't work during situations where bullets are flying because their chain of command and rules of engagement are by design a clusterfark. You end up with Belgian troops handing their guns over to Rwandan troops and getting executed because their commander didn't know how far he was legally allowed to go.

The last time UN forces went in hot, was what, Korea? And that was under American command.
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The UN totally beholden to the collective of its member states. As such, the UN is the correct tool for any action here (whether its taken or not). If that tool needs to be adapted (as with Korea) or upgraded, so be it.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

5mn_Major said:
The UN totally beholden to the collective of its member states. As such, the UN is the correct tool for any action here (whether its taken or not). If that tool needs to be adapted (as with Korea) or upgraded, so be it.
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No one really wants to upgrade it because they're either able to do most of those things already (The permanent SC members, and a handful of other nations) without permission of the world and don't plan on turning over their capability to someone else, or they can't, and don't want another organization that can try to impose their will on them.

Nation-States like the UN on a short leash with no teeth. It's those opposing those nations (rebels, protestors, etc) that wouldn't mind them stronger.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

Al-Jazeera had enough of the speech. They've switched to commentary. Apparently they have a whole team working on translating the speech. As one person said "It's exhausting to translate that much crazy."
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

The US is stretched too thin to do anything. Europe has no stomach for sending troops to a true "hot war." The UN is pretty useless as is the OAU. Egypt might have done something unilaterally had Mubarak still been in power, since there's no real love lost between Egypt and Libya, but that's no longer an option.

The only way you get a no-fly zone is if it's enforced by Shell and BP. :cool:
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

The last thing we need is a UN with loose rules of engagement or to go into any "hot" situation.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

Priceless said:
Al-Jazeera had enough of the speech. They've switched to commentary. Apparently they have a whole team working on translating the speech. As one person said "It's exhausting to translate that much crazy."
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Limbaugh: "I don't even want to hear from him until he figures out how his name is spelled."
 
bronconick said:
They're not going to send peacekeepers in to get slaughtered.

I'd wait to see if they even get a no-fly zone going.
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That there would be the simplest thing to do, and would likely be something that most of the Euros could stomach doing. Just have them fly patrols from Italy and Greece perhaps. It wouldn't replace putting boots on the ground there, but it would at least keep qiuddaffy from killing people from the air, and bring to bear public opinion to do more perhaps.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

dxmnkd316 said:
The last thing we need is a UN with loose rules of engagement or to go into any "hot" situation.
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No, the last thing we need is the US to go into any 'hot' Libyan situation...and the second to last thing we need is any other nation to go into any 'hot' Libyan situation.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

Everywhere you look on this, you can see the fingerprints of the internet...and its impact cannot be understated on the events here. IMO it really solidifies its position as arguably the world's most important technological development in centuries.
 
Re: Unrest in Egypt

5mn_Major said:
Everywhere you look on this, you can see the fingerprints of the internet...and its impact cannot be understated on the events here. IMO it really solidifies its position as arguably the world's most important technological development in centuries.
Click to expand...

Probably the most revolutionary invention since the printing press.
 
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