I think your intentions are well placed, but there are aspects of this that you do not fully understand. As has been metioned earlier, democracy is good, but not enough. Rule of law, checks and balances, minority rights, non-corrupt governments, etc have to be in place, also. Honestly I think you've gotten emotional, which is limiting your ability to reason, but instead turning into a time for you to just vent against people you believe know less than you. Take the emotions out of it -- and think.
The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. I think the US would be all for any peaceful democratic regime anywhere. But, in a mob scene you can't really tell what they are for, only what they are against. The forces behind the scenes are vying for power with little indication of who will be in control and what they stand for. In many cases the autocrats we have supported are the bulwarks against civil wars, ethnic cleansing, theocratic autocracies, but, I think the US considers them to be temporary stabilizing stages in an evolution toward democracy. Slow evolution in the many cases where there is little precedent for democracy, heavy influence by anachronistic theocracies, a history of inter-cultural violence and no free exchange of ideas. If you will recall, when the current regime in Egypt took control, Egypt was in the Soviet sphere of influence. The evolution of Egypt since 1967 has been from a Soviet influenced adversary, actually engaged in warfare with Israel, to a benign partner in solving the Middle East crisis. While the internal politics are less than ideal for the US, on the world politics stage that is a huge transition. To say that the US supported Mubarak as a dictator is the wrong interpretation. The US supported Mubarak as the successor to Sadat, the man who was the defacto power in Egypt, who could be influenced to a pro-Western policy, and primarily, as a leader who did not support wars of aggression against Israel. That's was a pretty major change for the better. I feel it was more the internal politics of Egypt that defined his paranoid strong-arm thuggery. Within the boundaries of a sovereign nation we can only influence that so much. The Army, yes we fund them and we work with them. The Interior Ministry, not so much. Some history
this is pretty interesting. more evidence of the amount of planning that went into the protests, and lends credence i think to the earlier story about planning/training for this event as far back as 2008.
I'd still like to here your own opinion as to why the US would plan and attempt a coup against the leader of a country that we have propped up and supported financially for the last 30 years? A leader that is the US's strongest ally in the region that supports Israel’s right to exist? All indications I've seen shows this to be an organic uprising from the people of Egypt, not some planned coup by the US.
reagan thought so. see his policy towards latin america where he propped up brutal dictators and supported and funded terrorism. and democracy in iran was against our 'self-interest' - we overthrew their democratically elected leaders and set up the shah, who 'disappeared' 250k iranians. democracy in iraq was against our self interest too - we supported saddam in the 80's (reagan). then when saddam wasnt our friend anymore we decided democracy was in our self interest. democracy in saudi arabia is against our 'self-interest' too.
You've brought up another sore spot I have with Bush. I still remember him campaigning in 2000 saying he would use his connections and influence with the Saudis to lower the price of oil. What a joke.
An American wouldn't but at the same time then again as the American president and not the Egyptian Obama has to consider American interests over Egyptian. Obama's statement is one that acknowledges that Mubarak is and still remains in charge but it isn't one of unqualified support. Further US rhetoric has said about the situation of respecting the will of the Egyptian people. If Obama was fully throwing his weight behind Mubarak the statement would've been phrased differently and would've emphatically stated the legitimacy of Mubarak's reign and focused on the violent nature of the protests. Obama's statement recognizes there are problems with the Mubarak rule and presses him to make changes. While it doesn't state what will happen if he doesn't it is clear the statement isn't offering unqualified support for Mubarak. I don't think its clear that the US wants corrupt dictators. The US wants leaders that are friendly towards the US and US interests that they are corrupt or democratic is secondary. Naturally this isn't going to appeal to the people but what it seems like you are asking for is for the Obama and the US to intervene again this time on behalf of the protests. If Obama were to do so I don't think that would help the situation at all. As you note though Egypt is a very important country for a variety of reasons and Obama needed to say something about it. I think this statement was about as far as he felt he could go. I agree Mubarak's time is probably over and for the good of Egypt and the Middle East he needs to go. I suspect that the Obama Admin. probably feels the same way but given the uncertainty of the situation they can't say so.
This would be good if true. Based on Obama's weasling when the rightists overthrew the democratically elected government in Honduras I would expect to find that the US is doing all it can to keep the dictator in power. His words are probably just window dressing. This would be considered "well played" by many. Hope I'm proven wrong.
I think you are misunderstanding me. We are all in agreement that those things are necessary for a democracy to function correctly. But my position is that mubarak can not be in charge anymore regardless of that. Those things need to be installed with or without him and i completely reject the notion that he can't be removed simply because those systems and controls are not in place.
I agree with most of what you've said here, but respectfully disagree with your assessment of the speech. Also, you seem to think that i want Obama to intervene right note. In reality, my grievance is against the 30 year intervention followed by this sudden non intervention at this critical juncture. Obviously the administration will act in the best interests of its people, all I'm saying is that this action is hypocritical given what is constantly repeated on television, and that it us morally reprehensible, though you can't expect anything less in the game of politics. I also still think that it is a poor strategic choice given what Egypt will become. El baradei odd already speaking of America like the enemy, and the youth are eating that **** up.
This post is indicative of many. No we can't be sure things will be very very much better. This does not mean we should deny the Egyptians the right to try and overthrow the dictator.
El Baradei says he's been "mandated" by the revolution to form a unity government...with the muslim brotherhood.
Rereading that I don't think I phrased that very well. I meant was that while the possibility exist that Egypt might end up being a theocracy I don't think that is a given.
What then do you want from Obama? Do you hold Obama responsible for the previous 30 years? Honestly do you think that Obama speaking out forcefully on the side of the protest will make things better? I suspect that him speaking out on the side of the protesters might undermine the protests as giving the impression that they are being orchestrated or at least influenced by the US. As another poster noted earlier there was a reason why the protesters in Iran said they didn't want the US to support them. From what I am hearing a lot of the anger towards the US is because the police and military have largely been armed by the US. Protesters have shown tear gas canisters with "Made in the USA" to emphasize that. Obama can't do anything about that short of militarily intervening and again I doubt that would help things and I doubt that is something that you would want to see.
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While what you’ve said in the second paragraph certainly used to be true, and for many decades, I think it’s pretty clearly not true of the Obama administration. Whereas Bush probably would have called Mubarak a “friend of the US” and strongly backed him, Obama has not done this. In fact Obama’s response clearly called for change. What’s most notable for me about Obama’s response is that he did not throw his weight behind Mubarak. In order of affect change for the better, however, you need to have a plan for where you want to go. Remember the foolishness of the Bush administration when it thought, or so it said, that simply removing Saddam Hussein would solve the problems in Iraq, or that removing the Taliban would solve the problems in Afghanistan. And if you want to go back in history a bit, remember how the Bolsheviks essentially hijacked the Russian revolution. If people are telling you that you don’t need to know where this Egyptian revolution is going, then they may just not want you to know where they want to take it. We all knew that there would be extremists involved in this trying to take it in the direction they wanted it to go, and unfortunately what you’re saying here about the manufactured anti-Obama spin, and the deemphasizing of the desired outcome of all of this, suggests to me that their influence may be on the rise. ----- I’m wondering what the army is planning for its next move. As the rioting and looting starts to become more of an issue, and the average citizen starts to worry more about his own safety and the safety of his family, then he will start to be more concerned about restoring law and order and less concerned about reform. In a day or two there might be a lot of support for the army cracking down and restoring law and order. I heard reports today that some of the reformers are prepared to accept the recently appointed VP as an interim leader until an election can be called. If this is the case it may be the best way out of this.
This is an emotional, reactive, response and not a forward thinking one. I have no doubt that many people feel this way in the moment, but this is also why the movement needs some clear headed leaders with some foresight.
