It occurred to me today that what we may actually be watching is empire collapse.  Specifically the collapse of the U.S., but to some extent also the European empires.  Essentially these countries were set up by European and American state power, and controlled by it through the maintenance of dictatorial regimes friendly to the empire interests, were they not?  When one of these satellites got out of line it has either been bombed, invaded, sanctioned, or undermined through clandestined means to restore it to alignment with empire interests.  Are the successes of these uprisings reflective of a loss of influence as Western power waivers and the dollar faces toilet paper status?   Or will these revolutions simply occur and the CIA or state department simply step in and dangle billions in front of whoever ends up in power and buy these people right back into enslavement?   How can these events occur without leaders of these movements stepping up who know that is exactly what they can engineer for themselves if they can bamboozle the people into supporting them?

I believe you are right Weedwhacker, and no doubtly the CIA will try to step in.  Thing is, information travels much faster nowadays and fears of Wikileaks perhaps releasing information of CIA involvement (just a wild guess) might prevent involvement.  Even so, I forsee it like the Arab Council in Lawerence of Arabia.  Just more bickering and oppression but upon different sects. 

Gaddafi's son has just been on Libyan state TV attempting to scare the shit out of people about Libya Balkanised

There's a rumour tonight that Gaddafi himself has already fled the country possibly to Venezuela

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Libya: Colonel Gaddafi 'flees' to Venezuela as cities fall to protesters

It appears Gaddafi has not fled

In fact yesterday he was on television going nuts & I really do mean he sounded & looked nuts

Theres protests on my campus (University of Missouri) at this very minute.  Theres somewhere between 30-40 students yelling in some Arabic dialect, and a news camera covering it.  Its quite interesting to see how it brings the issue to the forefront and sparks conversations.

I read the articles covering the protests. A few people have family over there and are unable to get ahold of them at the moment.  From what I've gathered, the protests here have been focused on wanting to bring justice upon Gaffadi & not so much on what to do afterwards.  I guess it comes one step at a time.

EDIT: I'll throw in the links I've been looking at

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/feb/23/protesters-stand-up-for-libya

http://www.abc17news.com/news.php?id=1070

http://www.komu.com/KOMU/d7e2017e-80ce-18b5-00fa-0004d8d229cb/53f7863f-80ce-18b5-00b3-ad30762caa78.html

Here it is.  A carrier group is on the way to Libya.  The united states government going in to police it's world in the name of justice.  I did not consent to fund this with my tax dollars and the devaluing of my cash! 

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/02/repositioning-some-forces-for-libya-carrier-moved-back-to-red-sea.html

This is how it happens.  If that carrier ends up shooting down any of Kadaffies planes, yes that will make many of the Libyan's happy, but all his supporters will curse the great satan and look for stuff to blow up.  Then what if a new dictator get's in there that is even worse!  The united states will bear responsibility for it and will draw fire for that as well from the very people that cheered us shooting down Kadaffie's planes.

   Don't the Chinese have carriers?  Let them be the great satan.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgbt408XvHk

fucking hilarious!

David Cameron has been making somewhat of a twat of himself regarding Libya.

On Monday he hinted of possible military intervention but other NATO governments aren’t keen on the idea & neither are the rebels because NATO intervening will play right into Gaddafi’s agenda. Never mind about NATO or the Libyan rebels being not being keen on the idea of military intervention, at least half the present government cabinet are opposed to military action.

I still can see neocons whipping things up in regards to Libya as they did with Iraq.

http://www.sophiabotha.net/?p=217

Colonel Gaddafi is definitely mad, bad & gruesome, but its not up to David Cameron or any other leader of a western government to be going about attempting to topple him. The reason I know that its not up to the British government or any other western government to be attempting to be toppling Gaddafi is because generally the Libyan people have said its not up to the Libyan people to be toppling Gaddafi. The rebels in Libya have consistently said they don’t want NATO or any other western military intervention in what is now basically a civil war in Libya because it would play straight into Gaddafi’s agenda. Gaddafi has been continuously accusing the rebels in Libya of being own by interests outside Libya & well western government intervening militaristically would give assistance to Gaddafi’s propaganda.

At the beginning of last week David Cameron began intimating that there were possible plans for military intervention in Libya, the only problem being that other NATO governments haven’t seemed to be that keen (including surprisingly the US government) on there being military intervention in Libya. Cameron also last week seemed to make what first seemed an off the cuff remark about arming the rebels in Libya, but since then its an idea which seems to be gaining support, including support from former US presidential candidate John McCain.

If private individuals want to raise funds for the rebels in Libya then fair, but if western governments want to do it then it will create nothing but negative blowback. The US government’s funding of the Israeli state has created nothing but negative blowback upon the United States & as for military intervention well before British troops were involved in the invasion of Iraq there hadn’t been Islamist terrorist attack on British soil but in the aftermath there were the terror attacks of July 7th 2005 in London. The problem with government’s backing one side or other in any war is that that backing pisses off the opposing side & that endangers all citizens governed by that government.

Another reason in particular to Libya as to why western governments shouldn’t be backing the rebels is that other then the agenda of toppling Gaddafi is anyone sure of the longer term agenda of the rebels. It appears that the movements across the Arabic world have been about wanting greater democratic rights & freedom, but no one is sure if that’s just being said because that’s what the us in the west want to hear & what might place various authoritarian regimes could be equally as bad if not worse. I’d like to believe that these movements we’ve seen in the Arabic to topple various authoritarian regimes have been genuinely been about wanting greater freedom but I’m cautious as to whether greater freedom in the Arabic world will actually be the eventual outcome. Let us remember that the intervention of western governments in the Middle East has been over the decades horrendous. Western governments have continuously backed despotic authoritarian regimes & its now these regimes which the masses are now seeming to be rising up to depose.

Western powers have backed many a horrid regime in the Middle East more often then not in interests of oil’ Libya has oil, in fact it has lots of oil, but not only does it have lots of oil it has the sweetest kind of oil. Because of the civil unrest in Libya the oil supply is disrupted & though Libya only currently provides 2% of the world’s oil, we’ve seen the disruption to that oil supply impact upon the price of oil, this because though Libya only supplies 2% of the world’s oil it does provide the majority of oil consumed in Europe.

A lot has been made in the press about Tony Blair visiting Libya when he was Prime Minister & well David Cameron has a cheek to be criticising the involvement of the previous government with the Libyan regime. The same reason as to why Cameron wants there to military invention intervention in Libya is the same reason as why Blair visited Libya….because its in the interests of the big oil corporations such as BP. When Tony Blair visited Libya he went with an entourage of oil executives from BP who signed an exclusive deal to drill for oil in Libya & now because of the civil unrest in Libya not a lot of oil is being drilled so no wonder the idea of military intervention is being pushed by Cameron. Its not been a good year for BP what with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico & the compensation its going to have to pay for that disaster & now its unable to drill in Libya. You don’t have to be any kind of genius or conspiracy theorist to work this stuff out.

Obviously some say that if the suggestion of military intervention is purely about oil then why don’t the western powers back Gaddafi or wouldn’t it be in the interests of the west to back Gaddafi? It would be unseemly to the masses if western governments were seen to back Gaddafi. Because we now live in an age where there’s a greater flow of information & greater scrutiny by the mass media as well as by the new media, I seriously doubt western powers would now get away with supporting Gaddafi, particularly when Gaddafi’s forces are seen on the news night after night bombing & killing. Thing is with the oil companies they really don’t give a damn who in charge of Libya just so long as they can plunder Libya’s oil & so in other words if Gaddafi does regain control of Libya & allows oil companies to drill then hey ho.

Gaddafi is mad, bad & world would be better off without him. He’s mad because he still insists the masses still love him, when half the country is denouncing him & the other half are too scared to denounce him. He’s bad because he is attempting to massacre those who denounce him. The world would be better off without him because the world is always going to be better off without tyrants, but its up to the Libyan people to rid themselves & the world of Gaddafi.

It might seemed an off the cuff remark from Cameron about arming the rebels in Libya, but over the weekend there was the botched SAS mission. The SAS were supposedly attempting to escort a British diplomat to make contact with rebel leaders in Libya or were the SAS more likely escorting a representative of the British government who was seeking to sell arms to the rebels. Maybe Cameron’s remark about selling arms to the rebels not so off the cuff, was Cameron’s remark was more a confession & in fact the British government is already looking to arm the rebels. If indeed the British government are already arming the rebels then it could lead to a heap of hurt for the British people. Every Islamist with a chip on their shoulder about western imperialism will use the British government’s possible meddling in Libya as an excuse to orchestrate attacks on the British.

I think I should conclude by saying isn’t it weird that Cameron wants to fund the Libyan rebels when at home he’s claiming the government can’t afford to help the most vulnerable in society.

http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=45&page=5149

If Malcolm Rifkind wants to fund the rebels in Libya then fine, just not with my taxes or the taxes of any other British citizen.

UN have just voted to take military action in Libya

No Fly Zone one day war soon enough

http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=1

Mark my words here going on 2am on the 18th of March 2011, Libya might start with a no fly zone but before too long western governments will be backing all out war in Libya at the behest of the Military Industrial Complex.

French planes are now patrolling over Libya

Oh well let me get back to drinking beer & watching rugby

Considering the performance of the English rugby team i thinkI'd of preferred to of wartched a French bombing run

U.S. and Brits have now started launching cruise missiles into Libya.  All in the name of "protecting civilians" of course.  This has nothing to do with maintaining the access of empires to Libyan resources. 

The Brits have been launching missiles

Geez I thought Cameron had sold them all to other despots in the Mid East

http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=45&page=5151

So now we essentially have a UN declaration of war against Libya.  WTF?  Presidents and prime ministers killing people and breaking stuff on their decision alone with zero legislative imperitive and zero impending threat at home and calling Kadaffi a tyrant.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/af_libya

Yeah Kadaffi is a tyrannical nutbag, but little bits of truth:

"He called the international assault "simply a colonial crusader aggression that may ignite another large-scale crusader war."

Then there's this:

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy."

Talk about no mercy, can you imagine if this was like the days of Shay's rebellion and armed Americans attacked some American government facility enraged that their property was being used without consent or choice, for undeclared war and global engineering at the expense of their grand children's prosperity, freedom, and safety?  How much mercy would they be shown?

It will be very interesting to see what comes out of this, but I'm not too optimistic.

http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=45&page=5167