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Author Topic: Egypt and the world and Libya - Now without Ukraine!  (Read 376757 times)

Felius

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2460 on: October 24, 2011, 08:11:58 am »

Changing subjects:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15428360
Quote
"The evidence suggests that some of the victims were shot while being held as prisoners, when that part of Sirte was controlled by anti-Gaddafi brigades who appear to act outside the control of the NTC," Mr Bouckaert said.

Many of the victims suffered bullet wounds to the head, according to an AFP reporter who saw them.

(...)

Mr Abdul Jalil said the new Libya would take Islamic law as its foundation. Interest for bank loans would be capped, he said, and restrictions on the number of wives Libyan men could take would be lifted.
The new regime is showing some worrisome tendencies. Some very worrisome tendencies. I hope it does not become a fundamentalist theocracy. That said, they also demonstrate a pretty bad grasp on economics. Capping the interest is very problematic, specially considering they'll need a lot of money to rebuild, money which the country won't have as of now. Expect to see severe economic problems in Libya the following years, including severe inflation.

Edit:
And on a sidenote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15431926
Will Syria be the next to fall?  :P
« Last Edit: October 24, 2011, 08:14:00 am by Felius »
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webber

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2461 on: October 24, 2011, 09:06:25 am »

I've been studiously avoiding responding to any of your posts, since you're a blind ideologue with this huge chip on shoulder.  This constant barrage of you you you like you think every American on the Internet is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and outright saying everyone who doesn't try to topple their government shares total blame for its every action.

"You you you" was inspired by constant "we, we, we". Let`s just say "your state/government" and "our state/government".
I can perfectly make a difference between American people and American government, and the government`s actions in some particular cases are actually what I do not like. When forming my opinion about said actions I always try to use multiple independent information sources. And American people are OK, especially ones who sometimes use their critical thinking and do not percieve everything what their government says as holy truth.
As for saying everyone who doesn't try to topple their government shares total blame for its every action... seriously, man, what the hell? This is Kogan Loloklam`s statement, and I`m still in this thread because I think this approach violates general human morale.


Don't even bring in nuclear arms into this fight, we bitched about for fucking 50 years with the Soviets and haven't gone AWOL with them during the cold war so shut up about it.

If you want to continue discussion in such tone...
You Your government killed ~150 000 of innocent people, using nuclear weapons. And was planning to kill ~60 millions during Dropshot operation, just because their ideology was different. Counter this.


...
America is sort of like a teenage mother. We screw up all the time, but we do the best we can given our experience and the situation in the world, but if we were to just walk off from our responsibility things could go very bad, but people can always provide proof things would have been better without us in hindsight.
...
It's easier to hate Americans than actually find solutions to the problems we are failing to solve.

Bravo, this is what I wanted to hear. The problem with your government is that they do not respect old good primum non nocere credo, and continue doing exactly same thing despite failing all the time.
As for hating Americans, see above.


And about my unnamed country. As you can see by just looking into my profile, I`m here for like 5 months, and assuming I`m hiding my origin to SAFELY TROLL EVERYBODY IN THIS THREAD is ridiculous. In fact, I just like depersonalized style of discussion, which was completely broken when some people started to speak for their countries.
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Vector

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2462 on: October 24, 2011, 09:21:24 am »

... Let's see... well, your native language is German, right?  Both sentence structure and the unusual apostrophes point to that, as well as your user name.

I want to guess either Swiss or German, but from your argument I'm going to guess the latter.

So.

Germany, bro?
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DJ

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2463 on: October 24, 2011, 09:29:57 am »

Capping the interest is very problematic, specially considering they'll need a lot of money to rebuild, money which the country won't have as of now. Expect to see severe economic problems in Libya the following years, including severe inflation.
Nah, they've got lots of oil.
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Kogan Loloklam

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2464 on: October 24, 2011, 09:32:23 am »

Actually, Capping interest rates isn't a bad policy. A lot of problems people who take loans get into are from predatory lending. A very common source for such behavior comes from being able to set very high interest rates.
Of course if the cap is obscenely low, then it's likely loans won't be used for business building. It really depends on what the cap is to determine how it affects the economy.


Also, Islamic Law as a foundation sounds scarier than it really is. The real question is will it be a secular state like Turkey, a Blended state like Egypt, or a Theocratic state like Saudi Arabia. Given that Qaddafi was a blended sort, being a nut and adapting things so he could have more power, it's likely they will either go secular or theocratic, depending on who has the majority.

Them taking the foundation of Islamic Law was a given. Doing anything else causes a major regional conflict. Sub-Saharan nations could get away with taking a common law, but unless they want trouble with their neighbors they have to have the basis of their laws as Islamic. The major change from their current system might be the elimination of the Green Book. As long as they have a democracy though, they will eventually change the most nonsensical items of law they adopt. Every Islamic Nation that does tends to do so.

Despite popular opinion, I don't think it's the Muslim nature of the Middle East that spawns so many terrorists. I think it's the quantity of multi-decade dictators that reign in that area. Areas with a high ratio of dictators with a low rate of turnover seem to be the problem children of the world.

In fact, I just like depersonalized style of discussion, which was completely broken when some people started to speak for their countries.
Like... You?

Bravo, this is what I wanted to hear. The problem with your government is that they do not respect old good primum non nocere credo, and continue doing exactly same thing despite failing all the time.
As for hating Americans, see above.
You felt free to lump all of America in one big lump, while claiming all the crap you want. Sorry, but that doesn't fly. And no, your unnamed country is not listed in your private profile. I don't really care what you "Wanted" to hear. What you want doesn't matter a scrap to the world. It's about what you do. And what do you do? You bitch about America, complaining about us taking a role your nation failed to take. A role I and others here have informed you that wasn't the role America chose for itself. You don't have any better solution to the problem than letting the world fall apart. You sir, have nothing of value to add to any discussion about global policy. When you have something with more substance than bashing someone who is acting as part of a GLOBAL EFFORT, then your comments will be worth listening to.

You even failed to understand the ideology between the war of America and Japan. Yes other participants were involved, but you really have no clue how vicious and brutal it was. It was total war for either side, and without a drastic demonstration of a change of power, we were going to have to level every City in Japan as we fought foxhole to foxhole. How many civilian deaths do you think would have occured as we brought Artillery to the outskirts of Tokyo? Short of dropping Nuclear bombs, guess what it was going to take? They were sending untrained boys to crash airplanes into our ships. Do you have any idea of the kind of ideology it takes for a nation to deliberately train people to kill themselves for little gain? I'll give you a hint, When did Qaddafi surrender? By dropping two bombs that had never before been used in a battle, we demonstrated that the fight was a total futal effort, and that we could kill them ALL without a single further American death. This avoided another 2-3 years of war. You know how many people died when we took Okinawa? I'll give you a hint, The bomb we dropped on Nagasaki killed 39,000. Okinawa's CIVILIAN deaths were greater than that. And our NUCLEAR attacks weren't the ones that killed the most Civilians. In fact, the attacks that killed more civilians did not result in the surrender of Japan.
This is why people were telling you not to even talk about it, because you got no clue.

(Edit: Oops, Improperly quoted. Fixed.)
« Last Edit: October 24, 2011, 09:34:45 am by Kogan Loloklam »
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RedKing

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2465 on: October 24, 2011, 10:05:54 am »

Since I hadn't seen it mentioned, what do folks think about the fact that we're getting involved (even if on a very small scale) in Uganda?

Personally, I think it's good news. It was hypocritical in the extreme to say that we're going to combat terrorism wherever it stands, but then leave a group like the Lord's Resistance Army untouched. I mean, seriously....Joseph Kony makes Osama look like Ralph Nader.

Al Qaeda blew up stuff and beheaded people. The LRA kidnaps 12-year olds from their village, turns the girls into sex slaves, give the boys hard drugs and machetes, and force them to go back home and murder their families with said machete. Or else they'll cut their ears and nose off.

You tell me which one is more worthy of military action. The main reason we've ignored them up until now is no one in the West gives a flying fuck about Africa, especially central Africa.
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Nadaka

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2466 on: October 24, 2011, 10:11:43 am »


If you want to continue discussion in such tone...
You Your government killed ~150 000 of innocent people, using nuclear weapons. And was planning to kill ~60 millions during Dropshot operation, just because their ideology was different. Counter this.


The fucking hell? You think we dropped nukes on Japan and planned on invading Japan "just because their ideology was different". Learn some god damn history.

Invading Japan to end the war would cost millions of lives as the Japanese kill themselves in devotion to their leader rather than face dishonor. There were 2 alternatives:

1: allow the God Emperor of Japan and his cult to continue the extermination and enslavement all non Japanese.

2: Use of nuclear weapons in an attempt to break the will of their leaders and force a surrender. Using nuclear weapons absolutely saved dozens of times more lives than it cost.

The cult of the God Emperor was every bit the xenophobic racist genocidal monster bent on world domination that the Nazi party was.

edit: missed the multiplier.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2011, 10:53:35 am by Nadaka »
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Kogan Loloklam

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2467 on: October 24, 2011, 10:40:40 am »

Your #1 wasn't an option. It was actually drop nukes or invade. And "Millions" is a better word than "dozens".
At least hundreds of thousands more.

(Edit: By the way, we've been doing Predator Drone Strikes in Somalia for awhile as well. So Uganda isn't unique in Africa in having American Operations.)
« Last Edit: October 24, 2011, 10:42:33 am by Kogan Loloklam »
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scriver

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2468 on: October 24, 2011, 10:46:58 am »

Since I hadn't seen it mentioned, what do folks think about the fact that we're getting involved (even if on a very small scale) in Uganda?

Personally, I think it's good news. It was hypocritical in the extreme to say that we're going to combat terrorism wherever it stands, but then leave a group like the Lord's Resistance Army untouched. I mean, seriously....Joseph Kony makes Osama look like Ralph Nader.

Al Qaeda blew up stuff and beheaded people. The LRA kidnaps 12-year olds from their village, turns the girls into sex slaves, give the boys hard drugs and machetes, and force them to go back home and murder their families with said machete. Or else they'll cut their ears and nose off.

You tell me which one is more worthy of military action. The main reason we've ignored them up until now is no one in the West gives a flying fuck about Africa, especially central Africa.

I'm not sure what it entails, but it sound good from what I know. Some disturbing shit over there.

Might be better to have another thread about it, though, since it's not part of the Arab Spring thing.
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RedKing

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2469 on: October 24, 2011, 10:48:10 am »

Whoa, whoa, whoa....no. Yeah, the military junta was not a "nice" group. Hirohito himself was mostly a unwilling bystander in all this.

Racist? Yes. Genocidal? Not really, although some of my Chinese friends would probably disagree vehemently.
It's arguable as to whether the Japanese really would have fought to the bitter end or not. The junta's grasp on power was already crumbling. Hirohito was looking for ways to get peace talks going, and who knows what might have happened. They might have killed the Emperor and put a 12-year old Akihito on the throne in order to prevent that. There might have been a coup within the officer corps itself, pitting pro-peace and "bitter end" factions against each other. It's really hard to tell. The atom bombs tipped the balance and more or less destroyed the junta's authority and allowed the Imperial faction to arrange for surrender talks. But it might have happened anyways once all those troop ships and battleships and carriers pulled up to the coastline.

A different and interesting take on it that I've heard is that if we hadn't dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then both the US and Soviets would have used a LOT of them in the opening salvoes of a hot war and millions would have died. By seeing just how devastating they were, the bombs gained deterrent value. Before that, they were just really big bombs. It was an ironic byproduct, but it would not have been there without somebody using them first.
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Zangi

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2470 on: October 24, 2011, 10:51:01 am »

Seems some Libyans have decided to take justice into their own hands?

I'll be honest, Gaddafi getting shot while in custody really shows how much of a handle the new leadership has over its now many armed 'volunteers'... 
Definitely not a representation of the new Libya, but still a glaring problem if they continue on giving out vigilante justice... or using the situation as an excusemeans to loot.


Also @discussion, insert El Presidente.  20 years is good if I can make it out with my slush funds.
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ChairmanPoo

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2471 on: October 24, 2011, 10:53:54 am »

Quote
Yeah, the military junta was not a "nice" group. Hirohito himself was mostly a unwilling bystander in all this.
Maybe. Or maybe it got retconned like that because they needed Hirohito as a symbol for the new goverment. I think Yamamoto was a fall-man
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Montague

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2472 on: October 24, 2011, 10:56:05 am »

Anyways, Japan started the war and the nuclear weapons used amounted to far less in terms of destruction and death as the firebombings of Tokyo and elsewhere. The nuclear weapons were more of a psychological weapon then anything else. Without them, we might have gone in and done it the old-fashioned way and crushed resistance street-to-street with the tips of bayonets, much like the Japanese did with mainland China and Korea during that time-frame.

But that discussion is pointless, nobody fights total wars anymore, not even the USA.

I think the real reason nobody cares about the civil wars and genocides in Africa is because these insurgencies and militant organizations pose no threat to anybody outside of their borders and the governments or opposition groups that battle them are really just as repugnant as the rebels. A nation can't claim self-defense or self-interest and they can't even pick a side and look good doing it. So to what purpose would a nation intervene in such a conflict? To alleviate human suffering and to save lives? By bombing them? Would that solve anything? The same people that would advocate such a war would turn against it as soon as the realities of it become transparent.

The USA is just sending advisers and trainers into Africa against the LRA. It is being done basically as just a reward to governments there that have helped the USA by combating Al-Qaeda and it's ilk in that part of the world. Its diplomatic reciprocity, not so much warmongering or interventionism.
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webber

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2473 on: October 24, 2011, 10:57:37 am »

In fact, I just like depersonalized style of discussion, which was completely broken when some people started to speak for their countries.
Like... You?

Please quote me speaking for my country. What I say is my own opinion, and (I hope) this opinion is not affected by any government`s propaganda.

You felt free to lump all of America in one big lump

I can perfectly make a difference between American people and American government, and the government`s actions in some particular cases are actually what I do not like.


...
a drastic demonstration of a change of power
...
we demonstrated that the fight was a total futal effort, and that we could kill them ALL without a single further American death

My congratulations, again. What your ancestors did is definitely a terroristic act. Useless, by the way, because nation sending untrained boys to crash airplanes into our ships didn`t really care about death of its citizens. It only would have given them more fanaticism for another 2-3 years of war. And what really made Japan to surrender was Soviet Union entering the war and immediately beating the shit out of Kwantung Army, capturing ~600 000 of war prisoners.

you got no clue

Japanese sources. Soviet sources. American. German. Mostly memoirs, sometimes historical analysis. The key is to estimate possible level of author`s bias. The knowledge is everywhere, but it is useless if your mind is locked in a cage of false righteousness.

By the way, what are your sources? Where do you get your information?



Germany, bro?

Nope.  :) Don`t rely on username, it has no sense.


The fucking hell? You think we dropped nukes on Japan and planned on invading Japan "just because their ideology was different". Learn some god damn history.

Dropshot operation. Learn some god damn history.

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RedKing

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Re: Egypt and the world and Libya
« Reply #2474 on: October 24, 2011, 11:04:11 am »

How about learning some god damn manners?  >:(
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