I wouldn’t rule out bravery’s cousin, desperation.
So if Ghadaffi goes down, who does Doc Brown buy plutonium from?
I’m still in shock at how fast things are changing throughout the Arabic world. I always wondered why the people living there put up with their dictators, but long ago decided that they were just to fatalistic to change anything. Surprising how swiftly the dominoes tumble once somebody demonstrates that in fact it can change, and change fast.
How far will this go?
Well, everyone pooh-pooh’ed me when I suggested this might be a USSR-esque turning point. I’m feeling pretty good about that prediction, frankly. If Libya pulls this off, it will set a precedent for the nastier states that wasn’t there with Egypt.
H.
I just hope Israel still exists at the end of it all. Our team at Microsoft has an Israeli programmer who is here this week for one of his periodic main-campus visits. Understandably, he’s rather concerned about the endgame here. If all these dictators get replaced by Islamist theocracies a la Iran, it’s potentially very, very bad for Israel’s continued existence.
(Of course, it would be great if this winds up getting the Iranian green movement all fired up as well, and finally getting the hellish Ahmedinejad/Khameini dictatorship out of there…)
My father served in the Korean war. He told me once that the Chinese attacked in waves. The first wave would have no weapons. They laid down on the barbed wire. The second wave would have sticks and rocks and run over the ones on the barbed wire. It was only the third wave that had guns.
I’m just wondering if the Palestinians will finally get a fucking clue and go for a nonviolent movement. If they had done that from the beginning, they’d be sitting in their own state today and have had decades to build up their economy and society. Now the results are staring them in the face across the Egyptian border.
Of course, I recall a very salient quote that I think Peres said about the Palestinians. “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
If that becomes the case then I hope that puts enough pressure on Israel to begin negotiating in good faith and ready to compromise.
This thread has gone to shit rather quick.
Well, yeah, because by then the Americans’ machine guns will have overheated and they’d be running low on ammo. Chinese tactics were very brute force. If you’ve got a million man army, might as well use 'em up.
What a strange thing to say. The Egyptian experience doesn’t indicate the effectiveness of non-violent resistance. It’s true that the revolution was more-or-less non-violent, but then again, the military switched sides and they didn’t have to use violence. Had the military stayed on the side of the government, then a scenario more like Libya would have played out… and violence would have been both necessary & appropriate.
What are the chances that the Israeli military would switch sides & join forces with the Palestinians? What are the chances that a non-violent approach would convince the fucking Israeli settlers to give up their homes?
Of course, the violent solution hasn’t proven terribly effective either. That’s why there is so much despair about the Palestinian situation: there doesn’t seem to be any way to resolve the situation. Neither violence nor non-violence work.
The Palestinian thing isn’t that close of an analogy; they wouldn’t be rebelling against their own government.
Ah, we’ll do fine. Honestly I’m more worried about the US economy than Israel’s neighbors. In today’s status Israel can defend itself. However if extremist Islam rises to power it might be dangerous to all of western society. (I don’t think this is the case, I believe Egypt is on its way to becoming a real democracy, and that real democracies refrain from wars)
With regards to Israel’s reaction on the events in the region I find the Al-Jazeera opinion columns very enlightening. And sad, because Israel seems completely unable to give these events the support and welcome they deserve.
But Israel should probably go in a separate thread or I fear this one will be completely derailed.
They are, figures at 3-4 thousand arrested and sent to Evin which promptly became overcrowded to they reopened that place they close at the end of the protests last year where people were kept in pits.
Iran prefers mass private torture and selected public hangings after “confessions” to mass shootings in public view.
They have not only cut off phone and internet to Mousavi’s house, but are erecting a physical barricade around it I hear as well. Not sure how relevant he is anymore, but the regime is certainly hateful of him.
All respect to your father, but that sounds a little bit urban mythy.
People’s Liberation Army
The term “human wave attack” was often misused[COLOR=#0645ad][5][/COLOR] to describe the Chinese short attack — a combination of [COLOR=#0645ad]infiltration[/COLOR] and the [COLOR=#0645ad]shock tactics[/COLOR] employed by the Chinese [COLOR=#0645ad]People’s Liberation Army[/COLOR] (PLA) during the [COLOR=#0645ad]Korean War[/COLOR].[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR] A typical Chinese short attack was carried out at night by small [COLOR=#0645ad]fireteams[/COLOR] on a narrow front against the weakest point in enemy defenses.[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR] The Chinese assault team would approach undetected within grenade range, then launch surprise attacks against the defenders in order to create a penetration and to achieve maximum shock and confusion.[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR]
If the enemy defenses failed to give way after the initial shock, additional fireteams would press on and attack the same point until a wedge was created in the enemy’s defense.[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR] Once a penetration was achieved, the bulk of the Chinese forces would move into the enemy rear and attack from behind.[COLOR=#0645ad][7][/COLOR] During the attacks, the Chinese assault teams would disperse while masking themselves using the terrain, and this made it difficult for UN defenders to target a large number of Chinese troops over a short period of time.[COLOR=#0645ad][8][/COLOR] The attacks by the successive Chinese fireteams were also carefully timed to minimize casualties.[COLOR=#0645ad][9][/COLOR] But due to the primitive communication systems and the tight political controls within the Chinese army, short attacks were often repeated indefinitely until the defenses were penetrated or the attackers were exhausted.[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR]
This persistent attack pattern left a strong impression on UN forces that fought in Korea, thus the description of “human wave” was born.[COLOR=#0645ad][10][/COLOR] US Army historian Roy Edgar Appleman observed that the term “human wave” was later used by journalists and military officials to convey the idea that the American soldiers were assaulted by overwhelming numbers of enemies, but it had no relation to the real Chinese infantry tactics of the same period.[COLOR=#0645ad][11][/COLOR] [COLOR=#0645ad]S.L.A. Marshall[/COLOR] also commented that the word “mass” was indiscriminately used by the media to describe Chinese infantry tactics, and it is very rare for the Chinese to actually use densely concentrated infantry formations to absorb enemy firepower.[COLOR=#0645ad][12][/COLOR] In response to the media stereotype, a joke that circulated among the US servicemen was “how many hordes in a [COLOR=#0645ad]platoon[/COLOR]?”[COLOR=#0645ad][6][/COLOR][COLOR=#0645ad][13][/COLOR]
Egypt worked because the protestors could shut down the country and get the sympathy of their countrymen in the army. If the Palestinians did the same, they would shut down Palestine while the occupying Israeli army watched bemused from behind their concrete walls. How exactly would peaceful protests in the West Bank force Israel to pull out?
Because nonviolence is awesome and it works all the time no matter what, duh.
From my experience the general consensus here is pro-democracy but fear from a new Egyptian government which will break the peace treaty. If you could guarantee Israel that the new government in Egypt will be democratic (And not a second Iran) and that the peace treaty will be kept they will gladly applause the revolution there. (As for the other riots, there’s enough support)
Keep in mind Israel can’t issue public statement on the issue since it will give ammunition to all those regimes claiming Mossad agents are behind the riots. So the official orders to Israeli officials is to shut up.