Muammar tittering on the brink

[The Dragon]

BBC News - Colonel Gaddafi 'ordered Lockerbie bombing'

Interesting development. More surely to come.

Hmmm..interesting.

I wonder which country he'll flee to? Zimbabwe and Mugabe (merely to spite the West.)

 

[deleted136887]

The title of the thread is misleading. I don't think ole Quadafi is tittering on the brink, he may be teetering on the brink?

 

[wallaboi]

It seems like the options for Gadaffi and family, seeking asylum elsewhere have just about run out, since his mate Hugo Chavez in Venezuela isn't prepared to risk his tenuous leadership. His only choice was to claim martyrdom and accept the inevitable.

Gadaffi will only be remembered in history as a despot but it would be a shame that he might be given the chance to die, deceiving himself to be a martyr. Much better he should rot in some prison.

 

[vince]

The title of the thread is misleading. I don't think ole Quadafi is tittering on the brink, he may be teetering on the brink?

Twittering maybe more apropos. :smile:

 

[Jason]

HMS Cumberland has made a visit to Benghazi and is transporting about 200 people to Malta.

* This action was without the approval of Gadaffi. Does this mean that by its actions the UK is saying it does not recognise Gadaffi as president? Who is in control of the harbour at Benghazi?
* Why is HMS Cumberland transporting people to Malta? Greek ports (eg Khania on Crete) are closer, which might be a significant time saving if HMS Cumberland is returning to Benghazi. Malta is however closer to Tripoli.

 

[798686]

The title of the thread is misleading. I don't think ole Quadafi is tittering on the brink, he may be teetering on the brink?

LOL! I noticed that, too. :biggrin1:

I do think this is the Arab world's 1989/90 'Fall of the Iron Curtain'-type thing. Will be interesting to see how it progresses.

Personally, I think (as in Eastern Europe) some countries will make the transition more quickly and 'easily?' than others (Jordan, Egypt, etc?). Whereas places such as Libya might have a more rocky path.

Wonder if we'll see a transition to democratic, secular governments (which Egypt seems to be in favour of) where church/state are separate - or Islamic governments?

There does seem to be a lot of energy/momentum in the region (as well as anxiety), which could lead to a lot being achieved - for good - if handled sensitively (by outside governments too).

 

[Jason]

The model that Tunisia, Egypt and others might follow is Turkey, a secular country with a functioning democracy. If the new constitutions can be drawn up with the right framework this might be possible.

Cameron's trip to the Middle East plus the action of HMS Cumberland in entering a Libyan harbour in defiance of Gadaffi seems to set the scene for the UK's interest in the Arab world, ie substantial. And as far as I can see Cameron is solely reflecting UK interests, not those of the EU. Indeed has the EU done anything useful in the Libyan crisis?

There is a domestic UK political dimension in the links between Tony Blair, Mandelson and Gadaffi just set out on Newsnight - and the whole Labour project of the release of the Lockerbie bomber issue. It may be that the UK media will start to play this story as very negative to Tony Blair and therefore to the reputation of Labour. So far the Conservatives have had a mixed week. The failure to get planes into Tripoli airport sooner has been a political banana skin, but probably a one day wonder. HMS Cumberland is a more eye catching story. I suspect that the Conservatives are going to come out bruised but not really harmed, while the long-term damage to Labour could be enormous. A real telling point is if the inquiry into the Iraq war gves a report in language that the media can interpret as saying Blair is a war criminal.

 

[vince]

If history is any guide, the region and the world will be probably be better off if the UK's, the USA's, and the EU's influence over current events is limited. I think the EU and the US are taking the right approach in following a hands off approach and letting events unfold as they will. Beyond evacuation of their nationals and refusing to give asylum to the thugs who they have been in cahoots with over the last century, the former colonial powers should keep their noses out of it. Every single action they have ever taken in the Middle East has come back to bite us.

The reason Turkey has a democratic government is because they refused to become a vassel of the UK and France after WW1. In fact, if the plans of Europe had succeeded, there wouldn't even be a country of Turkey as we know it. So in other words, Turkey is the perfect model to follow. Not their civil model though. That should be determined by the locals in each nation. I mean the model of not allowing anyone else to tell them what to do and how to do it.

Self-determination always leads to the most stable and beneficial results for all concerned.

 

[Drifterwood]

The reason Turkey has a democratic government is because they refused to become a vassel of the UK and France after WW1. In fact, if the plans of Europe had succeeded, there wouldn't even be a country of Turkey as we know it.

Not the history I heard, Vince. Europe didn't support Greece as they expected. Turkey survived.

 

[vince]

Not the history I heard, Vince. Europe didn't support Greece as they expected. Turkey survived.

True, and it doesn't contradict what I wrote. What happened was a bit more complex than your sentence. The allied powers occupying Anatolia abandoned their plans once it became clear their Greek proxies were certain to be defeated by Turkish nationalists under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal.

Under the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Sevres, the British, French, Italians, Armenians, and Greeks took possession of Thrace and Constantinople, and vast swaths of Anatolia from Izmir in the west, to Van and Diyarbakir in the east. The idea was to have Anatolia broken up into small states and spheres of foreign influence. All that was to remain of Turkey was a rump of an inland state, with most of it's outlets to the sea under foreign control, and it's sovereignty reduced to a shadow. This was accepted but never ratified by the Ottoman government in Istanbul. The rebel Nationalists of Mustafa Kemal in Anatolia did not accept the treaty and attacked the Caliphate forces sending them back towards the City and alarming the British battalion occupying it. The Greek army headed north and drove them back and continued an offensive towards Ankara. Lloyd George was an enthusiastic supporter of the Greeks and their endeavours. The French and Italians not so much, and the Allied Supreme Council withdrew the authority for the Greek army's advance. However with the support of George, they continue their advance in fits and starts for more than a year until their supply lines were very long, reaching nearly to Ankara. In this time of strategic retreat, the Nationalist forces rebuilt their military forces. The end was a swift and utter route of the Greek army from Turkey in 1923. It was also a very tragic end to the the multi-ethic society that had existed befor the war.

Lord Patrick Kinross's biography of Ataturk and Louis de Bernières Birds without Wings are very good reads on this subject.

The demonstrations have today spread to Iraq over corruption and lack of basic needs. In Cairo, one month to the day since the first protests, there was a huge rally to keep up the pressure on the military government to live up to it's promises of free and fair elections at the soonest possible time.

 

[Drifterwood]

However with the support of George, they continue their advance in fits and starts for more than a year until their supply lines were very long, reaching nearly to Ankara. In this time of strategic retreat, the Nationalist forces rebuilt their military forces. The end was a swift and utter rout of the Greek army from Turkey in 1923. It was also a very tragic end to the the multi-ethnic society that had existed befor the war.

It wasn't the official policy of the British Government and Lloyd George resigned. Not much consolation to the Greeks who had been there 2500 years longer than the Turks and suffered what is now officially a genocide. One of Turkey's four in the last hundred years.

I have firends who are descended from Smyrna (Gavur Izmir) refugees, Vince.

 

[vince]

It was a tragedy all around Drifter and there were victims and criminals on both sides. I have friends whose ancestors were refugees from Salonika with horrific stories. There was an ethnic cleansing in Smyrna of Turks by Greeks two years before the the city burned at the end of the Freedom War. There was a huge migration in both directions to and from Greece and Turkey and the Balkans of peoples who had been settled and living beside each other for centuries in one place or the other. It's a shame and a blot on the history of Turkey and of the whole region that they are only now beginning to come to terms with. When revenges are taken, it isn't easy to know who started what when. I sure don't.

Regardless of whether or not actions of foreign governments in other countries are official policy, my point is that those actions have often have undesirable results for both the inhabitants and those interfering. Iraq is another example.

IMO, these people having their revolutions now would be best served if history doesn't repeat itself and "the west" and everyone else, keeps their noses out of it and leaves them to determine their own path. Whether they chose parliamentary democracy or jihad, or anything in between.

 

[NCbear]

. . . .

Regardless of whether or not actions of foreign governments in other countries are official policy, my point is that those actions have often have undesirable results for both the inhabitants and those interfering. Iraq is another example.

IMO, these people having their revolutions now would be best served if history doesn't repeat itself and "the west" and everyone else, keeps their noses out of it and leaves them to determine their own path. Whether they chose parliamentary democracy or jihad, or anything in between.

Yep. That's what it's all about--letting the people of a country decide how they want to live. All of the people of that country.

NCbear (who thinks this is what "bringing democracy to the planet" means )

 

[Drifterwood]

It is a fair question, Vince, to ask whether the intense hatreds and actions still seen within the wider Balkan area are rooted in the experiences of the Ottoman Empire.

But anyway, that is way off topic. I am not sure that I agree with total non intervention. Are you saying that we should all stand by and watch if he slaughters his own people with mercenaries? This is a revolution that can not be lost. The price of failure would be total.

 

[MASSIVEPKGO_CHUCK]

If we'd only been more accurate back in 1986 when we 1st bombed the sumbitch, we wouldn't need to worry to about him.