Mister E

While Ghadaffi`s regime is horrible, and in an ideal world he never would have gotten power in the first place, I wonder what will replace him once he`s gone. As bad as he is, there are worse, and I doubt very much that after he is deposed, Lbya turns into a functioning democracy overnight. What is mroe likely is either a military type dictatorship (a la Pakistan for decades, until recently) or civil war. Why havent we heard anything about whats happening in Tunisia now? Who is running that country, and are the people better off? The last I heard out of Egypt is that the military has clamped down, and is arresting and/or torturing and remaining protesters!!!

I am absolutely no fan of these regimes, but what is targic is that to a man, they all sent their children to be educated overseas, in wetsern style democracies. And it seems that, upon returning, their kids were trying to modernize their countries particularly by opening up the economy to outside investment/influence. As hard as it would have been, and as long as it would have taken, I wonder if the more likely to succeed strategy would have been supporting their efforts, and allowing the economy to transform the country, much like we are seeing in China (however slowly the social reform is coming) .

As it is now, the forces that were trying to prevent modernization, seem to be the onmes who have benefitted the most (especially in Egypt). I hope these revolutions lead to very positive change quickly, but it seems to me that unfortunatley the opposite is more liekly