Hero

[oddlots]

http://feb17.info/images/photo-of-mu...mukhtar-osman/

[lektrode]

Re: Hero

http://feb17.info/images/photo-of-mu...mukhtar-osman/

whoa! huh?
and the post today "where ya gonna get your news"
the best source i'm aware of..
without meaning to promote commercial activity...
or advocate for any particular editorial POV...
nor make recommendations of any kind...
but would say, if forced to provide an answer...
my fave news outlet (as well as inlet)would be....
undeniably....

http://www.itulip.com/

[c1ue]

Re: Hero

This whole Libya situation is looking far more like a tribal issue as opposed to an entire 'people of Libya' issue:

http://www.temehu.com/Libyan-People.htm

[oddlots]

Re: Hero

This whole Libya situation is looking far more like a tribal issue as opposed to an entire 'people of Libya' issue:

http://www.temehu.com/Libyan-People.htm

I don't know Clue but the wide distribution of places where people were willing to take huge risks to demonstrate against the regime would suggest to me that this is a secondary story. At the high-water mark they had taken control of a large number of towns, a fact attested to by the Guardian's map of what the Gadaffi needed to reassert his control over:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/inte...st-gaddafi-map

I thought this seemed a reasonable take on the relationship between tribal loyalties and the pro- vs. anti- government schism:

"As far as we can judge, and it's difficult to know, his support base among the Gadhafa and the Maghraha, the two key tribes, is still pretty good," he says. "Amongst the Warfalla, the third tribe in that particular group, it seems to be uncertain."


Credit: NPR
Joffe says tribes in other regions remain neutral, waiting to see how things shake out. Analysts say the situation in Libya is fluid, and they warn against simply calling it a tribal conflict. Mary-Jane Deeb, the head of the African and Middle East division at the Library of Congress, says it's important to neither overestimate nor underestimate tribal importance. She says over the past few decades, Libya has become highly urbanized, which has helped dilute tribal affiliations.

"But in the final analysis ... the blood ties, the family ties are extremely important," she says. "So in times of crisis as we see today, people tend to regroup along tribal, clan and family lines. And I believe this is happening."

Deeb says given the nature of the country, tribes opposing Gadhafi are involved in the conflict primarily to help pull in their members.

"I think that the role of the tribe at this point is not so much to take over the country as to mobilize people to overthrow the regime," she says. "So it's more of a mobilizational, organizational unit, if you want, that is building up to move against Gadhafi."

Deeb says when — if — Gadhafi is toppled, it's Libya's tribes who will likely sit down to negotiate and decide about a new leadership — and a new direction for the country."

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/09/134373...-is-threatened

Putting it in obviously simplified terms: if the revolutions across the ME are primarily tribal rather than political, the explanation for their domino like behaviour seems hard to explain no?

[c1ue]

Re: Hero

Putting it in obviously simplified terms: if the revolutions across the ME are primarily tribal rather than political, the explanation for their domino like behaviour seems hard to explain no?

I don't know about that. There are definitely risks in taking on an incumbent dictator - it may just as easily be true that the other tribes are seeing how well the 'leaders' do before making a decision.