Quote Originally Posted by Marc View Post
Lots of smileys and lots of jokes in this thread.
Laughter OTOH is generally beneficial.
... the Taliban emerged...Hezbollah emerged in southern Lebanon and Hamas emerged in Gaza...Moqtada Al-Sadr emerged in Baghdad.
And, lo, the world is still here.

A world that survived the Romans, Sassanids, the Khans and World War II didn't even blink at any of the post 1980 stuff. Nor should it have; they were small things. Very small. Not terribly significant until we made them seem to be...
Are we to assume that democracy will emerge naturally in post-Gadhafi Libya?
I don't know who constitutes your "we" but I certainly do not assume that -- nor do I care whether it emerges or not. That's the Libyan's affair and no concern of mine. Nor should any American really be that concerned, none of our business and our foolish attempts to 'foster democracy' here and there over the past 60 or so years have done more harm to the world and people in it than have any of the post '80 events cited.