With cell phone service soon to go down, the last good link to events is about to go down. Democracy Now! is still planning a live report for tomorrow but I don't know how that will happen with @sharifkouddous certain he'll be offline. I hope for the best... EDIT: From slashdot, google has released a speak=to=tweet service to circumvent the censorship. Google FTW.
This is easy for me to say from my office chair thousands of miles away, but Murbarak knows he will completely impale himself if the military goes on a rampage. The military also knows this about itself. Egypt is too dependent on outside aid. I seriously doubt the military will suddenly lose all restraint after so many days and turn recklessly against peaceful protesters. One thing all of those billions of foreign aid has bought the U.S. is a strong relationship with the Egyptian military. Until you hear the Obama administration sound alarm bells about the military, you should remain very hopeful about their behavior. I'm going to stay up very late tonight to follow Tuesday morning over there.
The Repubs never believe in democracy, but can tolerate it if the winners the winners to do conservaive, often undemocratic things.
The protestors have to remove Mubarek's government and his cronies. No going back. If they fail thousands will be killed and arrested and tortured. The dictatorship will not forgive them for supporting the rebellion. Similarly the secret police and torturers for Mubarek are in for some vengance if their side loses. Let's hope that unlike Tiannemen Square and the Prague Spring the forces of democracy triumph.
Pray for you guys everyday. I wish for the best and hope the military keeps control of things, although their neutrality is maybe questionable? I just hope this is it.
Yes, as well as in Israel, and not only do I not dismiss them, I call them out. Are we going to forget that Mubarak came into power in the first place because his predecessor was assassinated for making a peace treaty with Israel? I don't think this sort of thing is that isolated, nor is it that easily dismissed, and it's irresponsible to project our own wishful thinking onto the events that are taking place. I'm not sure what you are trying to get at. I suspect you must have missed a lot of my posts if you think I'm in the "all muslims are terrorists" camp. It would be a stretch to think that a large country can move from anarchy to an organized army ready to attack its neighbor. I'm not worried about that happening tomorrow. I'm worried about stability deteriorating, the treaty ignored or annulled, about masses of angry people being encouraged by the new powers that be to channel their frustration into belligerence against their neighbor rather than building a civil society. I'm worried about elements of the Israeli government and military who can't wait to cry foul and justify war. They can't wait to retake Sinai, blow up the Aswan Dam and hold out their hand to AIPAC and present themselves in the same breath as the "most ethical army in the world." Why would I be surprised? As I have said, I've been to Egypt many times, and unlike most of the wealthy Arabs and Europeans who go there, it isn't to stay in a 5 star hotel in Sharm. I found myself interacting with a lot of very poor people who had plenty on their minds, and I don't for a second begrudge their grievances.
Fair enough. Was definitely not calling you out for being part of the all muslims are terrorists crowd. I just think for Egyptians, this is a risk worth taking. If that means the world has to then hold Egypt accountable for what its people want, so be it. Personally I don't think they would make that mistake given what they've been through. Mubarak has been able to stifle the brotherhood, so others can as well IMO. The country has been very successful GDP growth-wise, but that hasn't been enough. They can very legitimately claim that Israel (along with the US) has been instrumental in their oppression, and that their own government has also been instrumental in that oppression. I think maybe revising the peace treaty so as to strengthen their sovereignty is not a terrible idea. That foreign aid has essentially been functioning as a means to distort the nation's sovereignty, and I don't know/think if that's what it was meant to do, nor do I think it should continue. I can't understand why a government needs to continue to build up it's military to the tune of over $1bn a year as the result of a PEACE treaty. If there's peace, then that money should go to more pressing matters. IMO there is a very good reason why the protest has remained faceless and without detailed objectives. It's because the only objective is for Mubarak to leave and then for the country to reform its government. I don't think there's a decent indication that the country intends to cause chaos or allow itself to descend into Islamic extremism. I don't think that any Islamic movement is necessarily an extremist movement though. The US appears quite happy for a Jewish democracy to continue, so I don't see a problem with there being an Islamic democracy, though it would be MY least favored option. Understandably, this is not a risk worth taking for the US or Israel or even the neighboring Arab countries. But Egyptians need to stop being oppressed for other people's comfort and, moving forward, they can be held accountable for the actions of a government that they will/should have complete influence over. I think we can agree on that. I hope that the aggressive anti-Jewish groups are kept under control, but to date I haven't seen that this is serious enough to delay the deposition of Mubarak.
Keep an eye on the NYT for the US government line. YOu can trust them on that. For instance if other sites say the crowd was over a million and the Times says 100,000 you know the US is still trying to support Mubarak and hopes for a compliant dictatorship. Perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but you can't trust the NYT too much. From Democracy Now by way of Juan Cole. Million-Person Marches and the Army Backs Off Posted on 02/01/2011 by Juan Despite efforts of the regime of Hosni Mubarak to forestall it by canceling trains to Cairo and throwing up checkpoints, masses of Egyptians poured into Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, as well into the downtown of Alexandria, on Tuesday morning. At Twitter, courtesy Google/ phone land line (+16504194196 ), we could read from Sharif Abdel Kouddous of Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now!: sharifkouddous Sharif Kouddous Got searched by at 3 army checkpoints and 5 citizen checkpoints. Frisking an looking at IDs to prevent state security forces in… and sharifkouddous Sharif Kouddous: “Wow. It’s 10am and already more people in Tahrir than I have ever seen. And there’s more flooding in #Egypt Other twitter reports say that people are walking in to the capital from the outskirts. There are an estimated 20 million people in the Greater Cairo area, so it would be hard to isolate it! The tens of thousands said to be thronging in Egypt’s two biggest cities are attempting, by the sheer force of their people power, to impress on Hosni Mubarak that his government simply cannot survive. The Egyptian army made clear late Monday afternoon Cairo time that it would not repress peaceful demonstrations. A spokesman read out a statement on television: The military said it was fanning out through the streets to prevent looting and acts of sabotage. It said that the military recognized the legitimacy of the demands of the people and of the demonstrators who are asking for vast political and social adjustments. It said it would “never resort to the use of force against this great people.” Meanwhile, the newly appointed vice president, Omar Suleiman of military intelligence, offered to open negotiations with the demonstrators. Some analysts are interpreting these statements as a two-pronged strategy. But I wonder if they do not point to a split in the security forces. Suleiman is from military intelligence, not the regular army. The new prime minister, Ahmad Shafiq, is an officer from the relatively elite and pampered air force (like Mubarak himself). The statement about not using force on the people came from the regular army, which is made up of a combination of staff officers and thousands of conscripts. Army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Sami Anan (Enan) may have decided to preserve the unity of his branch of the armed forces, the closest to the people, by throwing the other three under the bus. As a smart Pakistani analyst put it: ‘ The Egyptian theatre now has four key players — Lt Gen Sami Annan, Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Army, Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, Defence Minister, Air Marshal Ahmed Shafiq, Minister for Civil Aviation [and now Prime Minister], and Lt Gen Omar Suleiman, the intelligence chief. Of the four, Lt Gen Annan commands 468,000 troops, Field Marshal Tantawi oversees 60,000 Republican Guards while Lt Gen Suleiman is rumoured to be ailing. ‘ Thus, Suleiman’s offer to negotiate is probably a way of trying to keep the newly appointed military cabinet in power, perhaps with an eye to new elections, by reaching out to and perhaps bringing in from the cold at least some of the opposition. Lt. Gen. Anan, in contrast, seems not to care very much whether the Mubarak crew stays in power or not, as long as the institution of the army is safeguarded and law and order can be preserved. In a mass popular uprising of the sort now ongoing in Egypt, unity of the military and security forces, their backing for the ruler, and willingness to be ruthless, are key to a government remaining in power. This combination of factors was present in Iran in summer-fall, 2009. But the news out of Cairo late Monday and into Tuesday suggests deep divisions and diffidence in the military, which bodes ill for Mubarak http://www.juancole.com/.
democracynow.org for good current coverage right now. link tv has live Al Jazeerah for those of who want to watch the Egypt Demo live.
That's what will have to do as "reform." http://www.haaretz.com/news/interna...s-cabinet-in-wake-of-street-protests-1.340588
Hilarious video to lighten the mood: <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tsySmWJWPDQ" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>
According to one prominent Egyptian journalist the fall of Mubarak is analogous to the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Jordan's action would seem to indicate this. Let freedom ring!
Mathloom, would you like to see a stronger islamist influence in Egypt, like the Muslim Brotherhood being involved in government?
Uh, TH;DW (too horrible, didn't watch.) For those of you fed up with American media sources, I recommend the BBC, just in terms of facts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12331520 They've got a lot less of a dog in this fight (the UK, that is.)
That is disturbing. I was looking at the situation in Egypt as being similar to Indonesia and the Philipines where an authoritarian leader is overthrown by people power when the army no longer supports them. That seems to be where Egypt is heading but if Mubarak has forces personally loyal to him that is nearly as strong as the regular army it seems like he could hold out and cause a lot of problems.
