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[Nadaka]

So how is Yemen different from Libya again?

It started to heat up more recently?

[Sheb]

Yemen has been in a state of civil war for years. The only difference now is that the conflict moved to the capital.

[Urist McDepravity]

So how is Yemen different from Libya again?

Better question - how is Bahrain different from Libya. Apart of US naval base, of course.

[Sheb]

Easy, the international comunity (well, Morroco and Saudi Arabia at least) is shooting at the protesters.

If you mean why don't we intervene? Because the media got only enough attention span for one or two conflicts, and we don't want to piss off Saudi Arabia, while nobody liked Kaddhaffi anyway. (For the same reasons, Syria may go down since it has ties with Iran.)

[Duuvian]

From : http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/16/114269/wikileaks-cables-show-oil-a-major.html

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One target of repeated U.S. ire is the Rome-based oil giant Eni, Italy's largest corporation and one in which the Italian government holds a 30 percent stake. Both efforts to expand its presence in Iran and its close ties to Russia's Gazprom are frequent topics in the cables.

"Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni told the ambassador that the Iranian energy minister has offered Eni investment opportunities in Iran's South Pars and Azadegan oil fields," said a secret cable from the U.S. embassy in Rome dated Jan. 12, 2007. "Scaroni said Eni is interested in additional investment in Iran so long as there are no multilateral sanctions against Iran in effect, Iran pays money owed Eni under existing contracts, and the investments are structured so that Eni's return is based on world oil and gas prices."

The embassy was particularly unhappy that Eni sought to structure its new business in Iran in such a way that it could claim that Iran was merely repaying old debts owed to the company, some dating to the 1950s. That would allow Eni to help Iran develop the fields and skirt any sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. believes is intended to develop nuclear weapons.

The embassy urged U.S. officials in Washington to lean on Scaroni during an upcoming visit to squelch any deal. A subsequent cable indicates they did.

Scaroni was poised to try again with the Obama administration, according to a May 5, 2009, account of a meeting with another Eni official. "Post thinks there are good reasons for USG skepticism on this request," the cable said.

Eni's ties with Gazprom were the subject of an April 24, 2008, cable that urged the State and Treasury departments to express displeasure very clearly to Scaroni.

Specifically at issue was an Eni deal that would have given Gazprom access to Libyan oil and would have had Eni help Gazprom build a pipeline across the Black Sea. This project would have competed with a similar project backed by the U.S. government that would have connected gas fields in the Caspian region directly to Europe, bypassing Russia and Gazprom.

At the time, Silvio Berlusconi was about to become Italy's prime minister for a second time and the embassy urged headquarters to twist his arm as well.

"Post would like to push the new Berlusconi government to force Eni to act less as a stalking horse for Gazprom interests," the confidential cable said. "Eni . . . seems to be working in support of Gazprom's efforts to dominate Europe's energy supply, and against U.S.-supported E.U. efforts to diversify energy supply."

Eni has been in the news of late because it's the largest player in Libya's oil sector and Scaroni publicly voiced concern that U.S.-led efforts to oust strongman Moammar Gadhafi weren't in Italy's interest. On April 20, Scaroni announced that Eni was temporarily shelving its deal in Libya that would have given Gazprom a big stake in Libyan oil, a move the leaked documents show the U.S. had been seeking since 2008.

[Aqizzar]

Breaking this morning: The Libyan (loyalist) military's top five generals and over hundred other officers have defected en masse, following joint negotiations with Italy and South Africa.  Qaddafi has basically lost his entire "joint chiefs" equivalent, along with most of the senior command chain; military analysts (including the newly defected generals) suggest the loyalist military is operating at "20% efficiency", whatever that means, on top of rapidly running out of ammunition, supplies, and fuel.  Qaddafi himself is in direct negotiations with other heads of state, but who knows what that maniac thinks they're discussing.

Okay, so it took a couple of months, and the Libyan people have certainly taken a lot on the chin, but the noose is finally tightening around one of the world's last entertaining strongmen.

[Duuvian]

That sounds very promising. I'd say it sounds like his military is being dismantled quite well with surprisingly few civilian casualties, although I'd expect those numbers to go up a bit simply through people having time to count. All in all I have to say it seems a good job is generally being done by the people supporting the Libyan rebels. I hope the casualty counts are still low after the Libyan revolution is over.

EDIT: Also it might be a good idea to help out the Syrians a bit more, by that I mean the anti-Assad protesters, as it seems the authorities are shooting into crowds.

EDIT2: If I was Uncle Sam, what I would do since these protests seem to come under sniper fire, is offer the services of the best sniper teams in the world to provide overwatch over demonstrations and to coordinate recovery of enemy combatants so you could see who it is that is being a bastard and sniping civilians. Of course this is probably not allowed so it probably won't happen, but I think it would not be a bad idea as long as the Americans didn't end up getting blamed for sniping non-combatants, which I would hope would be something that could be avoided.

[Aqizzar]

EDIT2: If I was Uncle Sam, what I would do since these protests seem to come under sniper fire, is offer the services of the best sniper teams in the world to provide overwatch over demonstrations and to coordinate recovery of enemy combatants so you could see who it is that is being a bastard and sniping civilians. Of course this is probably not allowed so it probably won't happen, but I think it would not be a bad idea as long as the Americans didn't end up getting blamed for sniping non-combatants, which I would hope would be something that could be avoided.

1) People are being sniped at anti-government rallies.
2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.
3) America offers to send snipers to out-snipe the snipers.
4) Everything's gonna work out fine.

Yeah, legality is the least of the reasons why that's an awesomely silly idea.

[Alexhans]

That's just the common violent video-game-fuck-yeah style of solution thinking. 

I'm going to ask Duuvian a much more crucial question when thinking about what "policies" to take:

What's there to gain? What are the cons?

That's it.  That's the most important question.  And don't give me all this relative crap about freedom and civil rights.  That can be handle by the propaganda depart-- err, unbiased mass media.

[Ampersand]

2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.

As an American, I'd be concerned if we didn't.

[Alexhans]

2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.

As an American, I'd be concerned if we didn't.

Sure, you've already been convinced that everyone is out to get you so 70 % of your taxes must go to protecting you from all those threats.  Also, healthcare and education don't protect you from Chinese, Communists and Terrorists so they can cut. 

Disclaimer:  As always, statistics have been adjusted to suit the authors current needs.

[Jackrabbit]

I'm starting to think you're being passive-aggressive for the sake of it.

2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.

As an American, I'd be concerned if we didn't.

Spare a thought for the rest of us, please.

[Virex]

2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.

As an American, I'd be concerned if we didn't.

In the sense that that would mean something is royally going wrong with the government you mean?

[Ampersand]

In the sense that we pay more money into our military industrial complex than the rest of the world combined, and we better damn well be getting our money's worth.

But I kid. We don't need assassins and secret agents to make foreign governments do what we want. Why spend the money on such agents when putting that money directly into the pockets of said foreign governments works just as well at making them parrot the lines we feed them?

[Duuvian]

EDIT2: If I was Uncle Sam, what I would do since these protests seem to come under sniper fire, is offer the services of the best sniper teams in the world to provide overwatch over demonstrations and to coordinate recovery of enemy combatants so you could see who it is that is being a bastard and sniping civilians. Of course this is probably not allowed so it probably won't happen, but I think it would not be a bad idea as long as the Americans didn't end up getting blamed for sniping non-combatants, which I would hope would be something that could be avoided.

1) People are being sniped at anti-government rallies.
2) Even Middle-Eastern people who like America think it has secret agents and assassins hiding behind behind every throne.
3) America offers to send snipers to out-snipe the snipers.
4) Everything's gonna work out fine.

Yeah, legality is the least of the reasons why that's an awesomely silly idea.

Yeah, I suppose it is silly. I'm not going to argue much for this idea, but I figured it could be said. I suppose this idea probably is a bad one unless a popular revolution requested assistance. Even then I'd guess a lot of people around the world would not like it, so I'll respect their concerns and admit that now isn't the time for this idea and most likely never will be except if it were to be requested.