I like this Stasi thing.

Hmm... is "this material" referring to the image you just posted?

It's from this album. The article jdyer1012 posted made me think of it.

To be fair, "the west" was rather reluctant to go into this one and it was pretty much started by the Libyans themselves.

And I will say here and now, that there won't be a war with Iran. Many people seem to forget that this country is hanging on by its fingernails in many regards. I say internal powershift within 26 month... (Unless Iran has a breakthrough with their nukes, than all bets are off)

And going back to domestic issues, I was under the impression that Tusk was much more liberal, also in domestic policy than that small guy I can't spell.

He's only trying to be publically perceived as a liberal. He's a socialist like all of them.

Anything he did during his 4-year gov. was based on raising taxes. And he wants to raise them even further.

And he was elected again.

and thanks for correcting the "east west" problem for me :D I think I was confused with sth when I wrote my last comment.

Agree. I think the requests/pleas from within Libya and the will of the Arab League helped pave the way for a UN mandate and an intervention. In some ways this was not very different from the situation with Bosnia in the early 1990s. The coalition/NATO seemed to move more quickly this time, though, which was probably just as well.

War isn't much of a positive thing in itself, of course, but I think it's good that a number of European countries were able to contribute a great deal to the operation with the U.S. progressively taking up a more supporting role. Nevertheless, Europe still has a way to go towards a higher degree of "military independence" from the U.S.