QUADDAFI BEING SWEPT AWAY BY HISTORY
 No one can be certain how it will end, but the end is certainly drawing near for Muammar el-Qaddafi, the man who has longed been thought of in the west as the madman of the middle east. It could be long and even more bloody, but the odds right now are that he will be gone within 48 hours. The entire Libyan delegation at the United Nations has resigned their posts and have denounced Qaddafi as genocidal killer directing guns and aircraft against his own people and responsible for mass killings. If there are sufficient weapons among the people of Libya, or if other forces join them in battle, the Qaddafi could simply be forced out at gunpoint or killed. More likely, with increasing numbers of the ruling elite turning against him, he will have no choice but to leave in advance of a forceful exodus. There seems almost no chance he could win and remain in power, but he could inflict thousands of casualties if he decides to stay and fight. All in all, a very dangerous, risky situation. The United States has far less influence in Libya than it had in Egypt, in part because Egypt was a virtual client state of the U.S. Libya does a lot of trade with the west and that has increased since the economic embargo was removed in 2003 following negotiations. Libya paid huge “fines”, agreed to change its ways and rejoined the west of the world with those agreements. One of the great potential benefits for American citizens coming from all the turmoil in the middle east is that terrorism could simply go away as an international force of fear and death. While our government worries about the opposite, the positive possibilities are huge. For one, an active and engaged population of young people would have far less reason to want to enter holly wars. If hundreds of thousands of young men are put to work, or engaged in building democratic states, they would be far less likely to be attracted to jihad. Terrorism developed from isolation and economic hardship. If you can remove the isolation and also get the economies moving, you remove some of the soil in which terrorism grew in the first place. Yes, there would be larger risks by increasing commerce and travel with Europe, the US and the middle eastern states, but there would be a greatly lessened motivation for terrorism. Besides, part of the narrative sold to young men has been that America is part of a great oppressive system. If that system is gone, then America’s role falls in importance. Our government, if it is active and alert, can even partner in the expansion of economic opportunities. A very large ball is rolling across the middle east. It is going to keep rolling. Once people realize they can be free from dictators, it is all but impossible to stop. Libya is trying a vicious, brutal form of suppression that will ultimately ensure its collapse. Doug Terry 2.21.11 The TerryReport predictions on terrorism in the middle east are echoed on cnn.com by Paul Cruickshank: The burgeoning democracy movement across the Middle East appears to have caught al Qaeda off guard and threatens to reduce the terrorist group to irrelevance. "If you have freedom, al Qaeda will go away," said Osama Rushdi, a former Egyptian jihadist. "Al Qaeda can work under a dictatorship regime, but I think if we open the door for all people to be part of society and have human rights, then there will be security not just in Egypt but around the world," Rushdi told CNN. More at http://cnn.com | ||||||
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