Man, i was at those protests, cos i support their message, and looking at the idiots who were throwing shit at the police and hauling themselves up on the Cenotaph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...l-royalty.html

It makes me feel a little embarressed, to consider what theyre fighting for in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia. Wish the protests were bigger in support of those people

yes, interestingly Tehran has been the counterbalance to US influence, everywhere the US sends money and guns pro-business, pro-US governments and movements across the Middle East and North Africa and the Caucaus areas, Iran sends the same things in the complete opposite direction. By the way, this does not make Iran good or bad, just heavily involved in the opposite direction.

yep, Iranians aint gonna overthrow the theocracy because of this, the regime has some laughable words of support for the Egyptians

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/02/14/i...s-only-please/

oh quite the opposite, the regime in Iran is pumping up the revolutions across the region sort of like how Castro pumped up Sovietish movements in Africa. The Iranians are playing their card smart, they are coopting the revolutions as their own and taking all the credit at home for such things, effectively silencing internal opposition with the same heavy handed tactics used by the dictators that are being opposed and deposed in Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Oman etc etc etc

However, Iran is playing the field too, they send a lot of money and guns to those countries to stir shit up, and much like Americans, they play both sides of the field to hedge their bets

yeah, i meant the words of "support" were indicative of the hypocrisy, given the regime in Iran will only support democratic movements of an Islamic bent.

Its been great these last 3 weeks or so, my cousin is married to an Egyptian doctor (who of course has done well out of the Mubarak period) and they are on the side of the democracy movement too, these last few weeks have honestly made my heart swell up, these people are an inspiration. I hope it spreads, even if im not that optimistic

from todays' rawstory.com:
'Thousands' of protesters may have been tortured: report
Egypt's secret police, long accused of torturing suspects and intimidating political opponents of President Hosni Mubarak, received training at the FBI's facility in Quantico, Virginia, even as US diplomats compiled allegations of brutality against them, according to US State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.
One cable, dated November 2007 and published by the Telegraph, describes a meeting between the head of the SSIS, Egypt's secret police, and FBI deputy director John Pistole, in which the secret police chief praises Pistole for the "excellent and strong" cooperation between the two agencies. (Pistole has since been appointed head of the TSA.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My concern is the torturers will be given safe harbor here in the US.

http://azarmehr.blogspot.com/

somethin to follow

Colnel Gadaffi's son has a facebook fan page!!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saif-a...256698?sk=wall



HE WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEEEEEEEND!

interestingly, in an obscure article in the LA Times casually mentioned that riots are still on-going in Albania, which reminded that Tunisia isn't even the country that sparked all this off, it all started December in Albania!

now it has even spread to Cameroon and Senegal! Essentially, everywhere anyone is even remotely pissed off (for decades of considerable grievances) they have been inspired to take the streets. This is very much looking like 1968 for the Arab/Muslim/Middle East/North Africa/Caucasus worlds..

Ive just done a search and there is a "Council of Arab-British relations"

http://www.caabu.org

Their front page currently says
“Our new website should be live at the end oof (sic) February”


Egyptians, Tunisians, Bahrainians, Libyans, Algerians, Yemenis dont seem to keen on only relating to Britain in terms of their “Arabian-ness” for much longer.

Id suggest cancelling that website update

The Lybian revolution is the most important for the UK (in terms of our recent major political decisions), the shame of how we behaved with the Pan-Am bomber, the fact he held his hands up after the Iraq war and how we shook his hand in return

That action after getting rid of Saddam is key, how did we handle that with the rest of the nations? We just acted as though removing your nuclear program meant you could stay in, when Egypt, etc had no nuclear program. How were the people meant to feel?

We (and i mean those of us on the left) should have helped the people over there who wanted what we wanted, it turns out there were more of them than we thought.

actually what happens in Libya is probably more important in Italy then UK, as aside from the many Libyans living there, Italy has had a long standing relationship with Kadafi. During Italy's brief affair in colonialism, they relied upon the Belgian tactics of cruelty in both Libya and Ethiopia, where they resulted in the mass killing of tens (perhaps hundreds) of thousands of people. The symbol that Italy and Libya are heavily cliqued up, Italy signed a $4 billion reparations/development deal with Kadafi two or three years ago, and left Ethiopia out in the cold, making further steps to deny their crimes in Ethiopia especially after cutting Libya the check so as not to give Ethiopia credibility to rightfully claim reparations of their own, let alone for the Eritreans.

Before the media caught on I knew Libya would be the next to errupt because aside from Kadafi's big "I Heart Africa" spiel when Libya held the recent presidency of the AU, and though he literally pretended to be the last Elder Statesmen of the African Fathers tradition, the reality is even worse than those previous "Elders" and Libyan regime relies on literally Nazi tactics to keep their oil-ocracy aflot and also continue to imagine themselves to be European, more Moorish than African..

Libya has been on the verge for over a decade now, I knew this spark would set it off just I called it in 2006 when the Somalis provoked the Ethiopians to invasion, I knew the tension ran deep for years there.

In Libya, much like in Ethiopia, this recent current of revolution and uprising was the final straw..

yeah i know that the events in the region is more important, i meant its important in terms of the events in the middle east in the last month

i wonder what will happen if the governments of some of these countries do get ousted, not that the current regime is any better but will there be a power vacuum that allows some other oppressive regime in.

I think the manner in which these revolutions are happening means no such vacuum is going to exist, theyve all been looking at their neighbouring countries and i think the "fuck's sake, if Tunisia/Egypt can have it, why the fuck cant we" factor is too powerful. I honestly think this is seismic stuff because of that

What is it about fallen leaders and umbrellas?