Let's talk a little bit about what's going
on in Libya. Louis, you've been reading up
about this, and of course, being half Iranian,
I know that you keep a close eye on the pulse
of the Middle East. What exactly is going
on?
Louis: Well, I guess one of the many countries
to...
David: Take a cue from Egypt.
Louis: Right. There's been massive protests,
but I think, from what I read this morning,
that they... that the protestors took over
the second largest city in the country.
David: That's right.
Louis: And I've got all sorts of fascinating
updates here. For example, Libya's ambassadors
at the UN are calling for the leader to step
down.
David: Right.
Louis: I guess that two pilots have defected
to Malta after basically refusing to gun down
civilians, protestors.
David: But not everybody refused.
Louis: No, that's right. Jets, fighter jets
did open fire on the crowds.
David: And people were killed?
Louis: Yes.
David: You know, this brings up an interesting
question, which is we can't say for a fact
that the other Middle East protests taking
place now have been inspired by what happened
in Egypt, what we can say is that there is
a general atmosphere that is developing there
which is certainly maybe making people think
that this is as good a time as any. But what
I have been thinking about is maybe what happened
in Egypt has influenced some to think that
it's going to go the exact same way anywhere
else and that the army is not going to go
out and just start mowing people down, and
that's not necessarily going to be the case,
as we're seeing in Libya.
Louis: Right. I think Egypt I guess was an
anomaly, because in the-- I think in the vast
majority of countries, there will be military
force, and we're seeing it here. I guess also
the Justice Minister stepped down, citing
excessive use of violence.
David: So we're really seeing a two-sided
thing. We are seeing, number one, the military
going above and beyond what we would hope
to see and what we saw in Egypt, but at the
same time, we are seeing actual officials
saying you know what? I disagree with this
so severely that I'm out of here. So different
than Egypt on both fronts.
This brings us back to a discussion we had
a couple of weeks ago which is knowing that
the situation in the U.S. is not one where
we have had the same dictator in power for
30 years, hypothetically, if a similar-magnitude
protest started here, would it be able to
effect change the way that it appears to have
done in Egypt? And we basically said we don't
know. I think that what would happen in the
U.S. would be I'm not saying mowing people
down the way we're seeing in Libya, but I
think that there would be less restraint on
the part of the military than what we saw
in Egypt.
Louis: Yeah. Oh, I think there's really only
three outcomes. Either you have relatively
peaceful protests, or maybe even violent protests,
and there's a change, like in Egypt, or the
government, military, just completely shuts
you down, kills many people, whole lockdown,
or I guess what could happen, which might
still happen in Libya, is the military uses
force, it gets a bit too much, the military
starts refusing orders, all their leaders
start leaving.
David: And you have de facto change.
Louis: And you have change, but not without
many deaths.
David: And certainly Louis being very... there
are more than those three options, but with
regard to the military force and how involved
they are, I think you're right.
Louis: Well, what else could really happen
here?
David: Yeah, no, I don't know what will happen.
And my fear is just that individuals will
be influenced by Egypt and assume that it
will go the same way where they are, and they
may have a far more... a very rude awakening,
for lack of a better term.
Louis: Right, right. Not every country is
the same as Egypt.
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