Juan Cole: Egypt, Tunisia and Libya now lead a pro-democracy, pro-civil rights bloc within the Arab

[pampango]

League. The new governments and their people view Bashar al-Assad as a clone of overthrown dictators such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and they want him gone.

A second bloc is driven by two considerations:

1) Largely Sunni Arab countries are receiving strong pressure from their own citizens to do something about the minority Allawite regime in Syria shooting down Sunni protesters. (This depiction of the situation is an over-simplification, but many Jordanians, Saudis and Moroccans believe it).

2) Syria is Iran’s major ally in the Arab world, though Iraq is increasingly close behind it in this regard. The Gulf Cooperation Council Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman) are alarmed by the rise of Iranian influence in the Arab world, and so would have voted to expel Syria so as to weaken Iran.

The flip side is that Iran’s other allies in the Arab League either voted against the measure or abstained.

This step is the second taken this year by Arab League states against a member. In March, they called for the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya after the regime of Muammar Qaddafi deployed jets to attack civilian cities that had defied him, as Agence France Presse and Aljazeera among others reported. Some Libyan pilots defected to Malta rather than follow Qaddafi’s orders to bomb Benghazi, but numerous eyewitness reports show that other pilots followed those illegal orders, which were war crimes.

The government of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad had agreed on November 2 to pull troops out of cities where major protests were being held. Since then, according to Human Rights Watch , Syria has killed one hundred demonstrators.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/11/arab-league-sets-syria-for-suspension.html

[joshcryer]

1. Recommend.

Libya has some militia struggles to deal with, mainly fighting against last pro-Gaddafi holdouts and other Gaddafi crony's who aren't giving up (they know their fate), but otherwise it appears to be doing incredibly well, far better than I expected (I expected far more skirmishes than the few that have been reported).

[tabatha]

8. FromJoanne Joanne ♌ Leo

NTC Jalil says elders from #Zawiya and #Warshefana are talking and trying to dissolve the current crises #Libya #Tripoli
58 minutes ago

[sabrina 1]

2. Juan Cole, still pushing the fairy tale that Libya is part of the Arab

Spring. Unrec, for his support for that Imperial takeover of a sovereign country.

[joshcryer]

3. Juan Cole, a beacon on the left in Middle East politics.

And certainly more relevant than diddling posters on forums.

[sabrina 1]

4. Juan Cole, 'left'?

:rofl:

[tabatha]

6. Yes, Libya is part of the Arab Spring.

In fact some Libyans want to go and help their Syrian brothers, who were amongst the first to congratulate Libyans on their freedom - with the words, congratulations to the rats of Libya from the germs of Syria.

Your voice is insignificant (and wrong) amongst the thousands of Tunisians who helped Libya, and the Syrians and Egyptians who supported Libya.

[Odin2005]

7. Still mad your idol ended up being preserved in a supermarket?

:rofl:

[tabatha]

5. Juan Cole wrote an excellent piece about the worldwide push against the 1%

"From Tunis to Tel Aviv, Madrid to Oakland, a new generation of youth activists is challenging the neoliberal state that has dominated the world ever since the Cold War ended. The massive popular protests that shook the globe this year have much in common, though most of the reporting on them in the mainstream media has obscured the similarities.

Whether in Egypt or the United States, young rebels are reacting to a single stunning worldwide development: the extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands thanks to neoliberal policies of deregulation and union busting. They have taken to the streets, parks, plazas, and squares to protest against the resulting corruption, the way politicians can be bought and sold, and the impunity of the white-collar criminals who have run riot in societies everywhere. They are objecting to high rates of unemployment, reduced social services, blighted futures, and above all the substitution of the market for all other values as the matrix of human ethics and life."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175466/tomgram%3A_juan_cole%2C_protesting_a_pasha-the-tiger_world/

The fact that the voice of the 99% is now being heard in Libya (and Tunisia) is awesome. The body that helped Libya get there has stopped helping and gone home.

I find it appalling that some people who have freedom are so dismissive of others getting theirs. Good lord, how uncharitable.

There are tens of new newspapers in Libya, where there were none before. And the Arts are flourishing, where they were disallowed before. The Amazighi can now speak their language freely. There was a report that Africa will miss Gaddafi's money but not his interference. Even Zuma has come around, although I suspect he was always there but feared Gaddafi retaliation.

And that is bad? Sour grapes.