Timbuktu falls to al-Qaeda�s great African land grab

[Mountains Magpie]

[3.14159]

i have to be quick because i keep dropping out and losing what i've written but are you ppl serious about wanting to send the troops in?

over the last two years we have seen totalitarian rule over thrown not by military force but by the populations concerned wanting democracy.
libya, egypt, etc etc and now syria.
Timmbucktoo is the hot dusty endhole of the earth. It is surrounded by what is widely considered one the nastier deserts on gods green earth.
Is major claim to fame is it's salt mines and it's mud brick mosque.
if i could choose one place on earth to send these truely bad ppl timbuk would be right up there.
in years to come the techno age will arrive for the Timbucktootians and so will an understanding of what freedom is and they will ask these no-fund mentalists to leave.
or not, the choice is theirs.

[stui magpie]

^

Not "the troops" but the hit squad. Seal team 6, some nasty CIA people, kill the leaders and funders, badly.

[3.14159]

there are worse things than death of and ruling over a mud mosque that is apparently "too flashy for the big m".
so they are destroying the better parts of it if you believe the daily telegraph.
the mosque is made of mud.
if thats where they wanna base their Nue empire from such a wonderfull air-raid shelter (and in such prime real-estate) they are going to need more than one miracle.
then theres the ethical side, do we really have to extreminate these ppl totally?
are we better than them or are we hell-bent on extreminating every-one that looks sideways at the West? do we employ assinins, are we any better than al queada?
anyway, this whole story is a beat-up (no pun intended) by brittains daily Telegraph.

[sq3]

Yes - we send in mercenaries - not any of the regualr armed forces (although a lot are ex military) - we must send them a message that they will understand.

[watt price tully]

[Tannin]

Egypt is rooted now. The religious fanatics and the military torture-merchants are locked in a power struggle, and it doesn't matter who wins. My money is on the religious nuts, but they are every bit as capable of resorting to the knife, the electric shock machine, and the mass grave, so what's the point?

[David]

I hope you're both wrong; but, sadly, all the evidence is pointing the other way at the moment. Might be time for our friends at the Socialist Alternative to change tack � revolution, as far as I can see, seems to have a pretty abysmal rate of success.

How's Tunisia going?

[Tannin]

On the other hand, David, acquiescence and inaction has a zero
success rate, and you can't get any lower than that. Some of history's revolutions have been, over time, outstandingly successful .... but never, ever painless.

Thomas Jefferson, father of the (successful) American Revolution put it best - the tree of liberty must be fertilised, from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Or to misquote Churchill, revolution is the worst possible response to dictatorship ..... except for all the other responses to dictatorship.

[Tannin]

so good I had to post it twice

[3.14159]

what i'm tlking about is self determinism.
for the life of me i can't understand what gives us the right to tell ppl in other countries how they should live their lives and what sort of government they should have.

[Tannin]

^ I agree. I suppose the question then becomes something like "at what point do we take responsibility for outside takeovers of other countries?" These days, outright invasions like Hitler v Czechoslovakia or Kennedy v Cuba at Bay of Pigs, or Indonesia v Timor in 1975, or North Korea's march across the 38th Parallel in 1950 are rare. Invasions, these days, are more subtle ..... but no less brutal.

Where do you draw the line?

[3.14159]

I draw the line at the hysterical shreikings of the Daily Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/mali/9389732/Tombs-of-ancient-Timbuktu-mosque-destroyed.html

Do they ever do any research or try and present a balanced picture? Nup never. Those mosques are made of mud and need to be repacked every year to replace what the rain takes away. AlQeada controls 2/3rds of the country? That 2/3's is desert with virtually no-one living there.
It's in Africa and this sort of thing happens all the time and we don't get all gun-ho about it so whats different this time? They have added the phrase "Muslim Extremists" to sell a few more papers now that tapping phones is no-longer seen as a form of press release.
. I admitt that things in Tunisia and Egypt aren't exactly what the ppl expected but it's early days, they will get it right some-time, or they won't. It's their country and they have the right to make mistakes, or right their mistakes. Rome wasn't burnt in a dae.
.... and after all, it's their country.

We are still in Afganistan so my opinion on "Countries occupying other countries" is somewhat coloured.

Btb,
Thomas Jefferson.., not many trees can tolerate too much fertilizer,
,.... Perhaps that's why it's not flourishing?

[stui magpie]

Question about the concept of telling other people in other countries how to lead their lives.

Isn't the point that the people in these countries don't have a choice? They get a dictatorship government and can't do anything about it because they're disempowered. A tiny minority controls, supported by a larger minority flushed with self interest.

The majority of people take it or try to leave as refugees.

Is trying to help those majorities by pushing in democracy, which in essence is giving the people the choice how to live their lives, so bad?. If they democratically elect a bunch of fundamentalist nutjobs they made their choice.

The religious fundamentalists don't believe in democracy because it doesn't suit their aims.

[Mountains Magpie]

Until the human race can get past all this, then, in the end, we're all in a lot of trouble.

Idealistic ? Certainly.

Achievable ? Definitely.

When ? We may very well have to push ourselves to the point of extinction before we wake up.

MM