(CNN) – What began as a popular uprising that toppled the Tunisian government before spreading into Algeria, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan and, of course, Egypt, may now be headed for Syria.
Opposition movements in Syria are calling for mass protests on Saturday against the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad.
i hope they all go down and the brown dudes over there that i don’t know get new leadership and get all happy and stuff.
then they’ll shut western nations out of their economies and the west will be forced to enact more protectionist policies to curb China and all the new developing nations from feeding off our economies. the world silos.
It is awesome. I don’t think they’re going to shut western nations out of their economy anymore than they’d cut off their own foot because of an annoying hangnail, but things will definitely change for us.
Is it bad that as long as the west doesn’t get involved and no crazy muslim regimes are elected that I don’t give a fuck about any of these? I have 0 desire to ever visit any of them.
I don’t know. That part of the world is fascinating. I’d love to see it stabilize so I could visit.
Shit just a couple of years ago my wife and I were looking at going to Egypt but even then it was too fucked to go see the pyramids. Not like I’m a pussy traveler either. On my last vacation I had to obey a government curfew for half the trip because of a political state of emergency. Soliders blocking off streets and shit. :tup: <3 Thailand.
Looks rough in Libya. The 2nd largest city is out of government control and Ghaddafi says he’s got the army’s backing and will fight a civil war before stepping down.
Meanwhile the protests in Bahrain are growing.
Iran sent military ships down the Suez canal for the first time since the 1979 revolution.
Something tells me that this is the biggest political happenings in my lifetime, other than the fall of the Soviet Union, but I don’t yet understand what things are going to look like once the dust settles. The general population overthrowing a dictator is never a bad thing, but I’m unsure of the practical implications. I guess it will depend on whether fundamental Islam wins out over Twitter and Gucci.
I’m hoping they take a page out of Thailand’s playbook and find ways to culturally merge tradition with modern.
I cannot believe Libyan military was shooting and bombing their own people. Ghaddafi’s got no chance if that actually happened.
If i had the time to read cablegate it would be interesting to do some research into how western powers actually felt about these places and how they feel about it now. I find watching US television completely self-serving on the issues… “what does it mean to us” rather than what does it mean to them (the protesters), but canadian television doesnt get into nearly enough detail.
Am i wrong to assume that the west put up with and even supported these regimes simply as a matter of convenience and profitability because they were far lesser evils than others?
to me it puts people in a bad spot to have been supporting a particular leadership group so obviously and for so long and then support and call for their re-organziation… so transparent.
You’re not wrong. The west is interested in the most friendly, stable regime they can get. Other than Bush, they will generally always support a stable dictatorship in the Middle East vs. an unknown with a chance at fundamentalist Muslim rule. In these cases I think we’re just scrambling to not piss off the winning side.
Of course the west allied with these dictators out of self-interest. Why kind of idiot would act for his own self destruction in the name of principle, aside from lower class republican voters?
so what you’re saying it that democratic freedom is not the policy objective in the middle east, it’s second to a friendly dictatorship… and we’ll just wait it out for 41 years if we have to?
Personal grudges in Iraq notwithstanding, it’s not our business to pick sides unless one is blatantly bad for us. If they have oil, they pretty much just have to avoid supporting terrorists and genocide against their people, or hide it decently well, and we’re cool.
No, it’s not. Self protection is. We didn’t go in there to be nice, we did it to protect our own interests. Remember when Al Qaeda attacked us and Iraq stopped cooperating with UN weapons inspectors? Yeah. That’s why we’re not involved in all this shit. It doesn’t affect us, but we’d like to be allies with whoever comes out on top so we change our allegiance depending on which way the winds of change are blowing. I see no problem with that. “Oh, you guys don’t want to be ruled by Mubarek anymore? Well he was our friend, but it’s not our business how you run your country. Can we like trade stuff when you’re done?”
