Article

2011-01-27 Terror Networks

Full court press: Leb, Tun, Egypt, and now Yemen

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Posted by Water Modem 2011-01-27 06:13|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 The mid-east is rebooting. I hope whatever operating system it loads is not as buggy as the last version.

Posted by Bunyip 2011-01-27 07:00|| 2011-01-27 07:00|| Front Page Top

#2 All the world's dirty birds know they have just this year to make their messes without Carter II responding to it. Next year Reagan II will be running for President on a platform of house cleaning.

Posted by rammer 2011-01-27 08:32|| 2011-01-27 08:32|| Front Page Top

#3 Next year Reagan II will be running for President on a platform of house cleaning.

I hope so. The children have been at play in DC for a couple of years now.

Posted by JohnQC 2011-01-27 11:39|| 2011-01-27 11:39|| Front Page Top

#4 The children have been at play in DC for a couple of years now.

With little supervision, I might add!

Posted by JohnQC 2011-01-27 11:54|| 2011-01-27 11:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Also, Somalialand want to separate and there are protests in Jordan. Problem with these movements is they are about US, and our influence. They want to break their countries from US influence.
No leaders are in place yet so in most cases these countries will end up with a moslem shit sandwich.

I see the Moslem Brotherhood creeping around in the periphery.
It could become quite rambunctious.

Posted by newc 2011-01-27 12:45|| 2011-01-27 12:45|| Front Page Top

#6 Hmmm, I wonder what will replace the current governments or will this light off a civil war? None of the names on the list are a surprise, but I am not too sure who is running the show and who will be left standing. Except for the case in Lebanon, the rest of these could EASILY be Iran 2.0

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2011-01-27 14:25|| 2011-01-27 14:25|| Front Page Top

#7 newc, I suspect there are multiple motives behind these movements. Removing US influence is one, but so too is the fact that the governments in charge are often arbitrary, corrupt or simply hapless to provide middle class amenities to large and rapidly growing populations. They've sent kids to school and teens to universities, but the graduates emerge into economies dominated by a few families and without what they see as suitable opportunities for employment and political participation.

Posted by lotp 2011-01-27 15:05|| 2011-01-27 15:05|| Front Page Top

#8 lotp, I think you inadvertently hit the nail on the head.

...simply hapless to provide middle class amenities...
It's not the governments job to provide the amenities. It's the governments job to provide the environment (aka liberty) which allows those amenities to develop.

The people in these holes don't get it. They see the government getting fat through corruption and are really bitching that THEY'RE not getting fat through corruption. They don't want to work for it any more than the current crop of corrupt weasles.

Posted by Alan Cramer 2011-01-27 15:11|| 2011-01-27 15:11|| Front Page Top

#9 Well, I see it as more of a flash mob. At least from what I see in Egypt.
SWC has a thread on it here. And of course, Sandmonkey is tweeting. - and there is the power of facebook.

And yes, Leb is Iran 2.0, highly armed, right on the border of Israel. Israelis are working up force protection right now - digging in real well.

Posted by newc 2011-01-27 15:21|| 2011-01-27 15:21|| Front Page Top

#10 Maybe, Alan. But open economies dominated by middle class jobs and free-ish markets don't happen overnight. They certainly didn't do so here in the early days of our country, despite the wealth of natural resources and land that colonists enjoyed.

If you've never been in the Middle East, or done business there, it may not be apparent just how much of what we take for granted is missing. Job advertisments and job fairs at schools. Promotion based on merit, most of the time. Even the idea of a career path that is linked to a discipline and skills rather than to political connections.

Missing. Just not there for even the most industrious to base a decent life on.

Been there. Seen it.

Posted by lotp 2011-01-27 15:23|| 2011-01-27 15:23|| Front Page Top

#11 Al Arabiya has latest updates

Including video, map of cities with protests and map of downtown Cairo.

Posted by Frozen Al 2011-01-27 15:54|| 2011-01-27 15:54|| Front Page Top

#12 Burn, baby, burn!

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-01-27 16:44|| 2011-01-27 16:44|| Front Page Top

#13 Gromguru,

Here are pictures of Suez where the rioters have set fire to both the Police station and the fire station.

Posted by Frozen Al 2011-01-27 16:54|| 2011-01-27 16:54|| Front Page Top

#14 Gracias.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-01-27 17:16|| 2011-01-27 17:16|| Front Page Top

#15 Truthfully, I am underwhelmed. I think the vast majority of these riots will fail to overthrow governments, because they lack what revolutionary movements need. The real mystery is why Ben Ali folded so quickly.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-01-27 18:16|| 2011-01-27 18:16|| Front Page Top

#16 El Baradai has been positioning himself to replace Mubarak. I wonder where his support is coming from, tho.

Posted by lotp 2011-01-27 19:23|| 2011-01-27 19:23|| Front Page Top

#17 The support for Hosni's replacement will come from the Musselman Brotherhood.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2011-01-27 19:40|| 2011-01-27 19:40|| Front Page Top

#18 TW: Zhang Fe, we agree on the reason America is hated more than the rest of the non-Muslim world by the Ummah. For the rest, you are right, but Muslim governments do push the anti-Zionism/antisemitism hard -- trying to distract them from bad governance. (Not that it appears to be working any more.) But their people are not better educated for Ramadan television series based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and maps missing a neighboring nation, however much they may not want it to be there. Were the maps correct, the teachers might (would probably) teach that Israel ought not be there, but that is different than "I can't see you, so you're not there!"

Thanks to 1948, anyone in the Muslim world who says anything remotely non-negative about Israel will be shunned and even targeted for physical violence, given the proclivities of Muslims for vigorous action over innocuous things like apostasy and blasphemy. But it's not simply Muslims who have atavistic impulses. The following Aviation Week article says something similar about the Chinese, and is consistent with my personal interactions with actual Chinese both abroad and in China itself:

People who live outside of authoritarian states often imagine that the governments in such countries are in control of everything and that those statesâ firm or aggressive behavior internationally stems from the hard attitudes of the people in charge.

But in China the average person probably wants much stronger defense and foreign policies than the government has. This attitude is rooted in intense and rising nationalism, which is itself encouraged by the ceaselessly nationalistic propaganda of the media, even the media that the government does not strongly control.

Chinese children are also taught at school to be nationalistic.

Even without propaganda, Chinese people would probably be highly nationalistic, anyway, because of their grand and ancient culture, the size of the country and knowledge that it is becoming great again.

As a result, the idea of extraordinarily aggressive foreign policy, or even war, comes up in ordinary conversations with ordinary people.

So, while the Chinese government was badly criticized abroad for the strength of its reaction in the recent flare-up of its dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands this year, at home it was widely criticized as gutless.

From casual conversations with several Chinese friends, I got the impression that war with Japan would have been a perfectly satisfactory policy to them. Obviously they were not thinking things through. But the point is that ordinary Chinese believe in strong measures to protect Chinaâs interests. And it must be stressed that most of them only have those thoughts when Chinaâs interests are at stake.

Readers in Western countries might remember the 2008 street marches by Chinese students studying abroad who were angry at what they saw as Western bias amid riots in Tibet. The anger that you saw was a good insight into the strength of nationalist feeling here.

This leads to a surprising conclusion: the Communist Party of China is to some degree a heat shield between the rest of the world and the Chinese people. A democratic China would have no such heat shield. It might be a lot hotter to handle.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-27 20:00|| 2011-01-27 20:00|| Front Page Top

#19 Truthfully, I am underwhelmed. I think the vast majority of these riots will fail to overthrow governments, because they lack what revolutionary movements need. The real mystery is why Ben Ali folded so quickly.

Do you mean cooperation from factions of the existing government?

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-27 20:04|| 2011-01-27 20:04|| Front Page Top

#20 Thank you, Zhang Fe. What I see there is chicken/egg. The common people have strong feelings, government propaganda reinforces and drives those feelings further, then the government finds itself with a population panting for the kind of aggressive action that would get their rubble bounced.

Would I be correct in assuming your prediction is that if Mubarak falls, the next government will start a war with Israel?

Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-27 20:25|| 2011-01-27 20:25|| Front Page Top

#21 This is the same el baradei clown who was running the nuke inspections? Right?

If so this guy is way more dangerous than just being a shitty nuke inspector. He's been playing the west.

Posted by Hellfish 2011-01-27 20:33|| 2011-01-27 20:33|| Front Page Top

#22 Wasn't one of the stated grievances by some group that it was the wikileaks which exposed Mubarak and co. to accepting USA money?

Average Mo looks around, sees the poverty, then sees what the gov has. How much would you trust The Street (the rumor pushers et al that is) to not try to make that connection?

Just asking questions, few days from knowing much for certain anyways I'd guess. Baradi was UN, so he plays everyone.

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-27 22:07|| 2011-01-27 22:07|| Front Page Top

#23 tw: Thank you, Zhang Fe. What I see there is chicken/egg. The common people have strong feelings, government propaganda reinforces and drives those feelings further, then the government finds itself with a population panting for the kind of aggressive action that would get their rubble bounced.

The way I see it, the job of government propaganda is to traffic in Muslim shibboleths / capture the zeitgeist and stay away from subjects that make the government look bad. My sense is that most governments (allied or hostile) tend to dial down the propaganda to a level slightly below the public's existing prejudices because dialing it up raises the public's expectations - after all, inaction in the face of (trumped-up) extreme enemy provocation would make the government look impotent. But the anti-Jew/-Israel/-US government propaganda has to be out there, because the mosques - a traditional outlet for rebels - are looking for any signs of government apostasy in regard to what the ummah considers the big issues of the day. Any government turn away from the Muslim consensus could lead to imams turning en masse against the ruling power and inciting the public to armed revolt. Even if it's a non-violent revolt, dictator wants to have to deal with it - political prisoners cost money to feed and cause problems with Western donors.

tw: Would I be correct in assuming your prediction is that if Mubarak falls, the next government will start a war with Israel?

Not an all-out war, but with a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Cairo, Hamas won't have to charter boats out of Turkey to get its weaponry. Note that prior to Camp David, Egypt used to hit Israel with periodic artillery barrages, inflicting serious damage on the Israeli economy because of frequent reservist call-ups of skilled professionals in the civilian sector. My guess is that these attacks could resume. Except that Egypt is now armed with F-16's and M1 tanks, making retaliatory raids by Israel much more costly in Israeli lives and equipment. Limited scale border attacks mounted over years could really do a number on both Israeli morale and economic growth, given that that Israel's economy can't really afford to deal with year-round repeated call-ups of the reservists who will have to deal with the heightened military alert status that would be the response to such Egyptian attacks. Eventually, Israel would have to mount a 1967-style war to reclaim a Sinai buffer, and even that still wouldn't solve the problem. The Cold Peace Israel currently has with Egypt isn't ideal, but it's the best that can be hoped for, given the current Arab zeitgeist.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-27 22:42|| 2011-01-27 22:42|| Front Page Top

#24 Zhang Fei, arguing that the ChiComs are a good thing because they keep the lid on the pressure cooker is no different than arguing that supporting Hozni is good because he keeps the Muzzies down. So, you are tempting me into an easy solution to a hard problem -- just ignore it.

But I refuse.

Every nation needs a vision to be better. Obama fumbled the ball last night, but what he got right was that America needs to be improved. Cameron is taking a beating for austerity, but he deserves credit for putting the future ahead of the now.

Where is the vision to make China better? Not wealthier, not bossier, not bigger, but better. Same, same for Egypt or Saudi or South Africa or Bangladesh.

No vision, no chance. Just sayin' Expect what was planned -- moral stagnation until collapse.

Posted by rammer 2011-01-27 23:01|| 2011-01-27 23:01|| Front Page Top

#25 Zhang Fei, arguing that the ChiComs are a good thing because they keep the lid on the pressure cooker is no different than arguing that supporting Hozni is good because he keeps the Muzzies down. So, you are tempting me into an easy solution to a hard problem -- just ignore it.

But I refuse.

Every nation needs a vision to be better. Obama fumbled the ball last night, but what he got right was that America needs to be improved. Cameron is taking a beating for austerity, but he deserves credit for putting the future ahead of the now.

Where is the vision to make China better? Not wealthier, not bossier, not bigger, but better. Same, same for Egypt or Saudi or South Africa or Bangladesh.

No vision, no chance. Just sayin' Expect what was planned -- moral stagnation until collapse.

I'm a conservative in a fundamental sense. One sense is the idea of limits - the notion that there are certain things that we can't do because (1) we don't know how, (2) the expense is too great, (3) our resources are too limited, (4) the negative consequences are too unknowable, et al. The fact is that we have spent $1.5T in Iraq and Afghanistan to end up with governments where the Christian minorities are slaughtered at will, and nearing extinction via murder, conversion (due to fear of the first) and emigration. These governments are also borderline hostile to the US, even as we continue to shovel $100B a year into their economies. Imagine their attitude when we stop shoveling that money in. I think we need to stop thinking of democracy as a holy grail. For what is the US profited, if it shall gain a world of democracies, and lose every single ally in the process? The unfortunate thing is that that the American officer in "Full Metal Jacket" was wrong - despite our most fervent wishes, inside every g**k is *not* an American trying to get out. They have their own culture and their own shibboleths, and many of these are in mortal opposition to ours.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2011-01-27 23:22|| 2011-01-27 23:22|| Front Page Top

#26 This is the same el baradei clown who was running the nuke inspections? Right?

He's been doing things for the UN since 1964. I'd always thought he was a physicist who was kicked upstairs, but it turns out all his degrees were in law, including his Bachelor's, and his expertise is working the UN system.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-27 23:25|| 2011-01-27 23:25|| Front Page Top

23:55 SteveS
23:52 SteveS
23:50 USN,Ret
23:47 USN,Ret
23:44 gorb
23:39 gorb
23:38 USN,Ret
23:37 gorb
23:33 CincinnatusChili
23:25 trailing wife
23:22 Zhang Fei
23:08 pan
23:06 trailing wife
23:04 rammer
23:01 rammer
22:55 pan
22:42 Zhang Fei
22:12 Fire and Ice
22:07 swksvolFF
21:52 Frank G
21:49 Iblis
21:36 rwv
21:26 Skidmark
21:20 CincinnatusChili