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Internet Restored In Tripoli As Rebels Take Control
angry tapir writes "Internet connectivity was restored in Tripoli late Sunday local time, as rebel forces took control of many parts of the capital city of Libya. A new mobile network set up by the rebels in the east of Libya in April, called Libyana Al Hurra, and a similar network in Misrata, will soon also be linked to the Libyana Mobile Phone network in Tripoli, said Ousama Abushagur, a Libyan telecommunications engineer in the U.A.E, who led the team that set up Libyana Al Hurra."
I know I shouldn't be so cynical but I have to ask who is the new dictator? It seems like every time I read about some rebel group over throwing some government things really never get better. It's just a new dictator in place of the old. Maybe I'm wrong and Lybian's will get a government that is fair and some what workable but I'm not going to put money on it.
Not about the retun of internet services, but about the entire affair of their dictator and the uprising against him.
Up until now our reports are essentially the press releases of the rebel faction and quadaffi's, respectively.
Unrestricted internet access would grant a wealth of on the street reports on civilian sentiment about these events.
Do you imagine that, even if so motivated, they could have gotten ideological censorship up and running so quickly?
Long-run, the ISP and the censor have the upper hand, because they touch every packet; but it takes time, money, and expertise to get to the point where you can go from shoving packets down the line as fast as you can and start burning system resources on the task of making service work in some ideologically convenient way...
(More broadly, given that the Libyan government spent some decades showing no intention of going anywhere, and maintaining a fairly tight grip, there is probably a very long list of people whose now-inconvenient history of cooperation with the outgoing regime in no secret at all. If the new chaps are still unsatisfied after they've worked through that backlog, the actual witch-hunting might begin; but there are still loads of active armed remnants and former public officials to deal with first...)
I think rebel forces finally taking the capital qualifies as "...stuff that matters". Do we really need to search for a tech angle just to talk about it on Slashdot?
As for the rebels, I have been impressed with how they have persisted despite awful organization and very weak help from the West. I am happy to see them finally prevail.
Achmed will be able to make his 7pm WoW raid on Ragnaros in the Firelands.
The dubious rebel claims have been inflated in the past, it's great they are controlling the infrastructure that exists but it could easily be fleeting. Gaddafi's son Khamis and a group of 10,000 well-trained troops happened to "just disappear" when the rebels got to Tripoli. I have a sneaking suspicion a terrible brand of urban warfare emerges before the internet is anywhere near reliable. Still, the article doesn't mention that the site for Libyan Telecom and Technology posted a congratulations message so - for the time being - it was restored on a national level.
Bashar al Assad is thanking Allah that there's no oil under his country.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Internationally, the "old regime" has little support.
The "old regime" had lots of support until few months ago.
But Gadaffi was a tough guy to deal with, so oil and infrastructure companies will have much easier time by simply putting their cronies into new 'democratic' government.
I mean, I've lived in 2 such countries, I still find it amusing to see how ignorant westerners are about these issues - they still believe it's somehow all done because of people and their freedom. Hahaha.
Don't say it could never happen here because I didn't think we'd be seeing tent cities and families living in cars like something out of the third world either. The bag of tricks at the Fed is completely empty now and congress can't keep up spending forever without our rating plunging further
Hate to burst your bubble, but the poverty rate is quite low in our country, and the bar for poverty is quite a bit higher in this country the average income for the majority of the world. For example, Cuba's average income is about 8k a year, and our poverty line is about $16k per year.
Thats not to say things are perfect, but there are an incredible number of people who pay no rent or pay no taxes and whose lifestyles are partly or wholly paid for by the government.
I might remark that THAT is a problem when we have trouble reining in our spending.
and the teabaggers frankly can't stand anything given to the poor so they'll cockblock any aid packages anyway
Such displays of eloquence do wonders for your credibility and the power of your argument.
But I will note that giving poor people loads of guarenteed no-strings money has never worked, not here, not in somalia, not pretty much anywhere. If you incentivize not working, people will not work, or will find a way to exploit the situation.
That clock has been started a long time ago (also see sig).
So the West gets its oil and Gaddafi gets booted?
The issue is not so much whether Gaddafi gets booted, but rather who comes in his place. Do you seriously believe that Libya will now become a secular democracy? What will happen to their quality of life (which was consistently highest on the continent)?
Contrary to popular opinion, people can get fucked just as well in a democracy. Even worse, an unstable democracy can easily give way to an even more brutal dictatorship - Nazis enjoyed broad electoral support, and Afghanis approved the constitution that contains clauses making Sharia above any other law of the land, and which are immutable and cannot be amended by the normal (or any other) process.
"Although Syria is not a major oil exporter by Middle Eastern standards, oil is a major pillar of the economy. According to the International Monetary Fund, oil sales for 2010 were projected to generate $3.2 billion for the Syrian government and account for 25.1% of the state's revenue. Syria is the only significant crude oil producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean region, which includes Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. According to the Oil and Gas Journal, Syria had 2.5 billion barrels of petroleum reserves as of January 1, 2010"
Syria has a fair amount of oil... enough to get its neighbors interested, at least...
The issue is not so much whether Gaddafi gets booted, but rather who comes in his place. Do you seriously believe that Libya will now become a secular democracy? What will happen to their quality of life (which was consistently highest on the continent)?
I don't care whether Libya becomes a democracy or not. I'm interested more in strengthening the precedent of knocking over dictators for any pretext whatsoever. The less secure that job becomes, the easier it'll be to transition these governments to more democratic ones.
Contrary to popular opinion, people can get fucked just as well in a democracy.
Then you should be able to come up with evidence to support your claim. Note that I read what you wrote first. Germany wasn't a democracy when Hitler began fucking people over and the end of that democracy was obvious for quite some time. As to Afghanistan, one shouldn't get hysterical just because they adopt elements of Sharia. While I consider the whole of Sharia unfit for a system of law and justice, it does have workable parts. Besides a wholesale adoption of Sharia isn't happening in Afghanistan.
And that brings me to the obvious point. Keep the democracy and the problems you claim democracies can lead to, don't happen.
Care to explain?
The German military had started planning a new total war from the 20s. Read up on the history of Heinz Guderian. As a planner for the Weimar Republic military, developed a number of battle tactics for the German military (that is, blitzkreig and combined arms) that required vast numbers of troops (far more than the puny 100,000 that Germany was allowed to have by treaty) and used weapons and troops in ways that no potential enemy could do or was planning to do. Within ten years, Hitler was in charge building that very military, using those very tactics. The Junkers also threw their weight behind Hitler. Their antipathy towards the Weimar Republic was also well known.
It was not a matter of "if", but "who" and "when" for the dissolution of the Weimar Republic and its replacement by an authoritarian government. Hitler just happened to be the one who ended up on top.
Second, Hitler's abuses didn't really start until he had dissolved the Republic. That happened rather quickly once he became Chancellor.
So there you have it, powerful groups with interest in dissolving the Weimar Republic combined with plans, made years before, for what to do after that Republic was dissolved. Count also the two depressions, and you have obvious signs of the end of the Republic. And of course, the timeline of Hitler's rise to power shows that he acted cautiously until the debris of the Republic was swept away.
If I was a Rebublicon, I'd say "You mean like Obama?"
If I was a Dumbocrat, I'd say "You mean like Bush?"
If I was from any other party it wouldn't matter, nobody would be listening anyway.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
There are already accusations that energy companies are doing the same in the West already (massaging profits so customers don't balk when record profits are announced alongside record price rises).
It was not a matter of "if", but "who" and "when" for the dissolution of the Weimar Republic and its replacement by an authoritarian government. Hitler just happened to be the one who ended up on top.
That is a far-fetched assertion. Just because there are elements plotting to overthrow a regime doesn't make said overthrow inevitable.
Second, Hitler's abuses didn't really start until he had dissolved the Republic. That happened rather quickly once he became Chancellor...
And of course, the timeline of Hitler's rise to power shows that he acted cautiously until the debris of the Republic was swept away.
History doesn't agree with you.
(1) Hitler putshed in Bavaria in 1923 and was convicted to 5 years in prison for it. (He was released after 9 months for "good behavior.") It was in prison where he wrote his seminal work in which he was pretty open about his hatred for any democratic regime and his plan to overthrow it using "democratic" means.
(2) The SA (the early paramilitary wing of the NSDAP) had clashed with the communists and social democrats since the 1920s. Nothing cautious about these street battles, either.
(3) The final nail in the coffin of the Weimar republic was the Enabling Act of 1933. By that time the communist opposition (who got 12% in the election before it) was outlawed and terrorized. The social democrats received a good beating as well.
(4) Before the "dissolution" of the Weimar republic (which legally never happened), the Prussian state government was overthrown and Prussia was directly administered by the Reich. That wasn't done by Hitler, but it played directly into his hands, because the Prussia would have been in a strong position to defy Hitler.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
That is a far-fetched assertion. Just because there are elements plotting to overthrow a regime doesn't make said overthrow inevitable.
As it turned out, it was German military and industry, right there. They weren't just "elements". Second, Hitler did act cautiously. 1923 was not 1932. He learned and cleaned up his act.
The SA (the early paramilitary wing of the NSDAP) had clashed with the communists and social democrats since the 1920s. Nothing cautious about these street battles, either.
Teflon. Hitler wasn't involved in those clashes. His image stayed shiny.
(3) The final nail in the coffin of the Weimar republic was the Enabling Act of 1933. By that time the communist opposition (who got 12% in the election before it) was outlawed and terrorized. The social democrats received a good beating as well.
The real action didn't start till 1934. Stuff like Night of the Long Knives.
(4) Before the "dissolution" of the Weimar republic (which legally never happened), the Prussian state government was overthrown and Prussia was directly administered by the Reich. That wasn't done by Hitler, but it played directly into his hands, because the Prussia would have been in a strong position to defy Hitler.
Yep. Mighty convenient. You might want to look at who did that and how they dealt with Hitler afterwards. I actually see this as confirmation of my original claim. It's one thing to have a single politician knocking over the props, one by one. It's another when there's numerous politicians from different parties all chipping away at the edifice.
As final evidence, I want to point out the rapidity of the German military build up. For example, an invasion of France required that the Germans overtake the French military without giving the other European powers time to build up their own forces in response. I think the logistics behind this maneuver was more sophisticated than anything on the battlefield. Some of it was clearly the Nazi's doing such as using the SA as a pool to draw on when they jump started conscription and broke the Treaty of Versailles.
But I don't see that the Nazi's had the military logistics experience to design and build the new large German military. That I suspect started with the German military and perhaps sympathetic industrial leaders prior to Hitler's rise to power.
I guess to summarize my point of view coherently, history has the Nazis rising to power and consolidating that power internally by mid 1934 with the Night of the Long Knives. The Germans then had to build up their military fast enough that they could overtake the major military powers without triggering an arms race. That's roughly six years from 1934 to the invasion of France in 1940. I suppose it could be possible for the Nazi wonders to get manufacture of tanks, planes, and ships ready in that time frame, but at this point we're taking some Nazi propaganda on faith.
Reading history, it's pretty clear that a lot of people high up in the German leadership undermined the Weimar Republic, such as Hindenburg who made several moves over the years to undermine the legislative branch and allowed Hitler to consolidate power in 1933.
So here's my alternate proposal. Back at some point around 1928-1930, it was decided to remove the Weimar Republic, but there was two big problems. How to get to that point and who would be in charge. The military developed either on their own or in conjunction with industrialists plans for rebuilding German forces. Guderian's approach may not have been adopted at first, but he probably was influential in getting good tank and dive bomber designs, for example.
Meanwhile Hindenberg served as the final arbiter for who would rise to power. Several politicians vied for the honor, Hitler eventually joined that group, though he was not favored due to his politics, dislike by Hindenberg, and perhaps breeding. 1932