What the heck is REALLY happening lately in the Middle East???

[Ghost_Tracker]

cnn.com just did a story that included a map that really got my attention.
Not like I didn't have a clue already, but when you see it, it's really striking.
The area where there's protests now is TRULY massive; and includes almost
every Arabic country except for Saudi Arabia. I feel there's several obvious
questions that haven't really been answered; and I'd love to throw them out
there to get everyone's thoughts:


The most obvious one is, Why now? SURE, sure, Facebook "caused" this, it started in
Tunisia and spread to Egypt and onward but - that's not a root cause. Why now?

What and who is really behind this?

Why has it spread so rapidly, like wildfire in a gasoline-soaked woods?

What exactly (really...) is The Muslem Brotherhood? Who are they really,
and what is their agenda?

How is all this going to pan out?

Please add any other questions that occur to you, as well.

...This situation could get REALLY interesting!

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

cnn.com just did a story that included a map that really got my attention.
Not like I didn't have a clue already, but when you see it, it's really striking.
The area where there's protests now is TRULY massive; and includes almost
every Arabic country except for Saudi Arabia. I feel there's several obvious
questions that haven't really been answered; and I'd love to throw them out
there to get everyone's thoughts:


The most obvious one is, Why now? SURE, sure, Facebook "caused" this, it started in
Tunisia and spread to Egypt and onward but - that's not a root cause. Why now?

What and who is really behind this?

Why has it spread so rapidly, like wildfire in a gasoline-soaked woods?

What exactly (really...) is The Muslem Brotherhood? Who are they really,
and what is their agenda?

How is all this going to pan out?

Please add any other questions that occur to you, as well.

...This situation could get REALLY interesting!

I didn't find it. Did it include Morocco as well?

[louielouie2000]

I've been wondering the same thing the past few days. The situation in the entire region appears to be extraordinarily fragile... and the media is just fanning the flames. I'm about the furthest thing from a paranoid conspiracy theorist... but it was worldwide economic collapse followed by regional instability and unrest which lead to both WW I and WW II. I hope whatever happens in the Middle East goes down peacefully... I'm just so sick of bad news and hard times.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

hard times.

Since when have you ever disliked anything hard?

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by DavidMn

I didn't find it. Did it include Morocco as well?

I don't believe Morocco was on there, no.
As I recall, so far it's (to one degree or another)
in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, The Sudan, Yemen,
the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon.

[Ghost_Tracker]

Originally Posted by DavidMn

I didn't find it. Did it include Morocco as well?

Here's a copy of the map.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by Ghost_Tracker

Here's a copy of the map.

Ok no. Morocco is the country west of Algeria.

[bretonbanquet]

Anything that genuinely threatens the regimes in Algeria or Libya is going to be stamped on quickly - those countries aren't the relatively relaxed places that Tunisia and Egypt are. Sudan is splitting up - the southern part (the more pleasant part) has voted for independence, so that should settle things down there a little bit, but Sudan is just one of those countries that's permanently in uproar. They stuck their oar into the civil war in neighbouring Chad, they're fighting rebels in the east on the border with Eritrea, and obviously there's the Darfur situation. There are untold wars in Africa that we never hear about.

I wouldn't bet on Iran changing hands anytime soon, though I guess it's possible. Bahrain's protests are not really aimed at getting rid of the real leaders (the royal family), rather the prime minister, who has been in office since the Brits gave them independence in 1971. But the prime minister is the King's uncle, so it's not straightforward.

Yemen is a bit of a basket case, pretty backward, and they had a civil war in the 90s. They also have a terrorist-harbouring issue which they're not capable of addressing properly, and it's the kind of place where tourists get kidnapped. There are a number of groups who would jump on a protest bandwagon to get rid of the government, so I'd say it's the most likely place for any regime-toppling that might occur in the near future.

There's no common cause for the wave of protests - it's just a case of individual nations experiencing a rise in protests, the kind of protests that other countries have all the time when there's an economic downturn. The reason for them all happening at once in this area is simply that ordinary people are encouraged by what happened in Tunisia, where it kicked off. In some places like Tunisia and Egypt, they're able to get a result relatively peacefully. In other countries, like China and Burma, and Saudi Arabia for example, that's a dreamworld.

[BTFLCHLD]

I found the news of CBS reporter being repeatedly raped and beaten by the mob of protesters absolutely horrendous. most likely they will never find and punish those that did that to her. I hope those animals burn in some sort of hell.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by BTFLCHLD

I found the news of CBS reporter being repeatedly raped and beaten by the mob of protesters absolutely horrendous. most likely they will never find and punish those that did that to her. I hope those animals burn in some sort of hell.

You dont have to be sorry for making that statement at all. I completely agree with you.

[LukeA]

She wasn't raped.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...656309184.html

[LikeAWillow]

Originally Posted by LukeA

She wasn't raped.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...656309184.html

Should this invalidate what happened to her?

[LukeA]

Originally Posted by LikeAWillow

Should this invalidate what happened to her?

Its a clarification to stave off unfounded unbridled speculation, not an invalidation.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by LikeAWillow

Should this invalidate what happened to her?

A "brutal and sustained sexual assault" sounds a bit vague to me. It sounds like "rape," but it was not described as such. So I suppose it could be anything from "merely" a groped boob to something more intrusive, albeit, just short of some type of "penetration." But something about her story doesn't pass the sniff test to me. If it was as "brutal" as described, why wasn't she hospitalized immediately? After all, they do have hospitals in Egypt! Instead, she waits a day, takes an arduous 12+ hour flight back to the U.S. and then goes to the hospital? Call me cynical, but could this be manufactured drama? Could this be an obscure reporter trying to get her 15 minutes of fame? Sure, she could have been swept up in some kind of a rampaging street mob... and yes, when you have lots of people densely packed together like that, body parts are going to tend to get touched and you're gonna get hurt. Yes, she may have felt violated, but everyone else in that mob was probably groped and shoved around too. If it was me, and if I was swept up in an angry mob like that, my first instinct would be about getting the eff away from the rampage, not obsessing about whether someone incidentally groped my ass.

[BTFLCHLD]

wow. I wonder what scrutiny someone you know (or even you) would fall under, particularly in looking at decisions they felt necessary or how they handled a situation similar to this.

without even being there, I know this woman for 'her 15 mins' of fame did not call out "feel my ass, touch by (o)(o), brutally sustain sexual assault on me, beat me pulpless!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape

unbelievable.