Has anybody seen this yet it's very disturbing, wow this is how they treat their own people, All I can say is **** you Mubarak. <object width="400" height="300" classid="clsid27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ep"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://ireport.cnn.com/themes/custom/resources/cvplayer/ireport_embed.swf?player=embed&configPath=http://ireport.cnn.com&playlistId=549871&contentId=549871/0&" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed src="http://ireport.cnn.com/themes/custom/resources/cvplayer/ireport_embed.swf?player=embed&configPath=http://ireport.cnn.com&playlistId=549871&contentId=549871/0&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>
Most interesting bit from that article, for me (cover the break from page 1 to 2.) I'm sure will call this BS, but if so, it's either exceedingly clever. I think it's the best statement you could hope for, if you want democracy and social justice in Egypt. "Mohamed Beltagui, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist group that had been the major opposition in Egypt until the secular youth revolt, said that the organization would not run a candidate in any election to succeed Mr. Mubarak as president. He said his members wanted to rebut Mr. Mubarak’s argument to the West that his iron-fisted rule was a crucial bulwark against Islamic extremism. “It is not a retreat,” he said in an interview at the the group’s informal headquarters in the square. “It is to take away the scare tactics that Hosni Mubarak uses to deceive the people here and abroad that he should stay in power.” Mr. Beltagui, who represents the brotherhood on an opposition committee to negotiate a transitional government, said the group wanted a “civil state,” not a religious one. “We are standing for a real democracy, with general freedom and a real sense of social justice.” Multimedia Like many others in the square, Mr. Beltagui said he was not worried that the military might back a new dictator to succeed Mr. Mubarak. He said the determination of the protesters would forestall that, and moted that a religious leader who appeared to back away from some of the protesters democratic demands was booed from a makeshift stage in Tahrir Square."
Very interesting indeed. It's great that the Muslim Brotherhood won't even put themselves up for a chance to rule Egypt, and that they want a civil instead of religious government. ATW's head must be spinning.
Clearly this is the ploy for them to take power a few years later in the next election. The scheming Muslims are just waiting a little bit before slaughtering Jews, stoning women, chopping off hands of thiefs, and establishing their caliphate under Obama.
I don't think they'll have to wait long. By diguising their members as state police impersonating CIA agents impersonating MOSSAD agents on maglev sleds disguised as camels, they can ennact this in no time. ...
Good point, how do we know whether a candidate is a Muslim Brother anyway? All of the people there look like Kevin Martin.
Or it could be they realize the next government will have impossible expectations to meet, will fail and waiting is better in the long-term.
Ah, like the crafty football coach elected to kick it away after winning the coin toss! EXACTLY. They may not even need one of the disguise layers I mentioned.
Some more unbelievable pictures here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/02/a_harrowing_historic_week_in_e.html Boston Big Picture is amazing.
That's a dangerous gambit. The US - and probably the rest of the Western world - will strongly support a new civilian government and will try to give it all the aid and resources necessary to succeed. If the Muslim Brotherhood wants power, a power vacuum is the time to grab it. It will be more difficult down the road.
Maybe, but that's a pretty big gamble. I don't think anyone at all knows if the next govt. will succeed or fail, and to when the leadership is being vacated, to purposely not attempt to seize an opportunity to take it if that is your ultimately goal seems extremely risky.
sandmonkey weighs in -- Having a policeman say he wanted to kill me wasn’t my most frightening moment yesterday in Cairo. That came when police and civilians smashed our car windows — with the five of us inside it — jumped up and down on the roof, spat on us, pulled my hair, beat my friends and dragged us into a police van. The five of us were lucky: We emerged from our confrontation with President Hosni Mubarak’s police and operatives alive and relatively healthy. Violence over the past 11 days, much of it in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, has killed as many as 300 people in Egypt, according to the United Nations. But it was a day I never dreamed could occur in my native city. It happened not because I was a reporter, a Sudan-based contract journalist for Bloomberg News returning to Cairo for vacation. The friends giving me a ride downtown were just trying to take food and first-aid supplies to those injured the previous night in clashes with pro-Mubarak protesters. We got out of the car when we arrived at about 11:30 a.m. in Talaat Harb square near Tahrir, our planned transfer point for the medical supplies. We felt somewhat safe, as one of the demonstrators had told us it was a secure entrance. When I left the night before, it was controlled by anti-Mubarak protesters. In less than a minute, a mob of about 40 civilian men surrounded our car, banging on the vehicle and grabbing our bags. They looted 1500 Egyptian pounds ($256) worth of medical supplies and 800 pounds worth of food and drinks, uninterested in our explanation of whom it was for. Smashed Window I held onto my backpack, with my Egyptian ID card, as a group of 20 men tried to tear it from me. We managed to get back into the car and sped toward downtown. As we were driving away, one of the mob smashed a side window with a metal rod. Then we saw an army tank. It was the army that permitted the massive march on Feb. 1 by promising not to fire on demonstrators. And it was the army that told people to return home the next day. We pleaded with the soldiers on the tank to protect us: One plainclothes man had followed us in a car from Talaat Harb square, accompanied by others on foot. The soldiers did nothing and we drove quickly on. Our next potential saviors appeared: a group of uniformed policemen, dressed in winter black pullovers. We approached them in the car, asking for protection. Then the man who followed us from Talaat Harb arrived and accused our driver, my friend Mahmoud, of running over seven people as we left the square. It wasn’t true. Traitor Accusations A policeman took away the car key, and about 50 men in plainclothes and five policemen started pounding on our car. They asked our nationality — we were all Egyptians — and accused us of being Palestinians, Americans and Iranians. And, they said, traitors to Egypt. For about 30 minutes, though it seemed more like an hour, the crowd grew, reaching between 100 and 200. They smashed the back windshield, shattering glass all over the car and in our clothing. Men got onto the roof of the car, jumping and yelling. We tried to hold it up with our hands so it wouldn’t fall on us. Then uniformed policemen took our ID cards and searched the car, our bags and our pockets. They took both my mobile phones and Mahmoud’s Blackberry, promising to give them back. Finger Across Neck A policeman looked me in the eye and said: “You will be lynched today,” running his finger across his neck. Others spat on us. They hit the two men in our group in the face through the broken windows, scratching Mahmoud and punching my other male friend. Someone pulled my hair from the back. An army officer was standing right next to the car as well. Several of us screamed during the hail of blows and grabbed his hand, asking for protection. He just looked at us and told us not to be afraid. Two soldiers were also present, one of them standing on the trunk of our car. He fired two gunshots in the air in what seemed to be an attempt to disperse the crowd. When it proved futile, he did nothing. The attack appeared to be orchestrated between the plainclothes men and the uniformed police. At times the police forces would yell “Cordon,” and the mob would hold hands and form a circle around the car. When they were told to sit on the ground, they again obeyed. Then a police van arrived and the officers told us to get out of our car and enter the van one by one. At the same time, though, the non-uniformed men were crying, “If you leave your car, we will kill you.” We screamed and asked the army soldiers to open a safe passage; a soldier said he would protect us. Dragged Into Van The van pulled up right next to the car. A policeman opened our car door and dragged us one by one into the van as people watched down from their apartment windows, in shock. Inside the van, three policemen armed with rifles were sitting at the back. The policeman who appeared to be the leader sat by us. “Look down, look down,” he yelled. “We haven’t slept since Friday because of you.” They searched our bags again and claimed in phone conversations with their superiors that we were carrying “leaflets,” a very dangerous accusation in Egypt. They later acknowledged they had found nothing. As we drove, I saw about 20 foreigners sitting on the pavement next to one of the roadblocks, surrounded by policemen and army tanks. It wasn’t clear whether they were journalists. Inside, I could see the marks of the attack: Mahmoud’s face was scratched and my other friend’s two teeth appeared to be broken. Cairo Vacation The van stopped at the Abdeen police station downtown. A plainclothes policeman sitting in front asked us each our names, jobs, age and addresses. When I said I was a journalist, I was asked only whom I worked for. I told him, adding that I had come to Cairo for a holiday. Then the police offered us water and tea, in the van. One asked why we were in Tahrir Square. We explained, and he said good citizens like us should stay at home and be safe, away from the troubles. “You have no idea,” he said. “We arrested Israelis, Americans, Palestinians, Iranians and even Pakistanis in Tahrir. What were they doing in Tahrir? They want to destroy Egypt.” “We were told you were a group of Palestinians. We were told we would arrive at the car to probably find you dead,” he said, according to my memory of his comments. Not All Policemen We asked who the people who attacked us were and he said they were just Egyptians fed up with the demonstrations. “We don’t want you to think that all policemen are bad,” he said. “They were banging on the car just to pretend they are also angry with you, or else these people would have killed the policemen themselves.” “Now you should go home,” he continued. “Go on Facebook and tell your friends the streets are not safe, and that they shouldn’t come to Tahrir. You were lucky to get out of there alive.” They returned our bags, empty for the most part. They advised us to get new ID cards and to forget about our phones. And they said Mahmoud’s car, a 2010 Champagne Kia Cerato that cost 120,000 pounds ($20,488), was completely destroyed after we left — even though as we drove away policemen still surrounded the car. After a long chat, the police escorted us to the edge of downtown, where a friend’s relative met us with a car and took us back to our homes. It was 4:30 p.m. Our ordeal had lasted five hours.
Mob rule to some extent, sadly. The dreamers who think this is all just a hippie congregation with idealists who stick flowers into guns are mistaken. I could imagine that the best organized group (Muslim Brotherhood) helps to restore order, which will only help their standing among the people.
OOOOOOMMMMMMGGGGGGGGG I don't know if this has been mentioned but Mubarak's alleged worth is $40 BILLION. Just saw it on tv (Fox News, I don't know why I'm watching this channel) and here is a link http://www.politicolnews.com/pres-mubaraks-steals-40-billion/ Apparently he stole it, and he probably did. But wow he could buy his own country with that money.
It's the family's combined fortune. And it's actually estimated between 40 and 70 billion. Still, that's like more than Bill Gates.
In a country where many make $2/day or less. No unions to speak of. No wonder so many conservatives have supported Mubarak so much.
From Der Spiegel. This sort or reminds me of the tactics of the elite in the US, unleashing the Tea Party and having them crash Congressional talks on health reform, though we tend to be a bit more civilized. ******* REUTERSIn exchange for the equivalent of a few euros, poor seasonal workers have taken part in street fighting in Cairo on the side of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The thugs, who fight with iron bars, knives and clubs, have been recruited by privileged members of the regime, including party officials, security forces and rich business people with lucrative state contracts. In Cairo's working-class district, they organized a big demonstration, including a motorcade of cars and motorbikes. They shouted slogans such as "Mubarak, we kneel before you," and "Yes to the president of peace." Taking part were members of trade unions and associations, as well as employees of state-run companies, who were obviously told by their bosses to attend. In the background, the movement is being controlled by businessmen with lucrative state contracts, public servants, security officers and party officials http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,743537,00.html
I just read a good piece by ex-Haredi, Yossi Gurwitz. I think he puts the Muslim Brotherhood paranoia into perspective: http://972mag.com/nobody-mentions-the-jewish-brotherhood/ Saturday, February 5 2011|Yossi Gurvitz Nobody mentions the Jewish Brotherhood Israelis bemoan the alleged rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, ignoring their own local variety While Israelis pay plenty of attention to the fear of the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, they steadfastly ignore the rise of the Jewish brotherhood in their own country. The motto of the MB is “Islam is the solution”: faced with the failure of modernity in the Arab world, they want to step back into an imagined past of a pure Islamic rule – Sunni Islamism, of course. This interpretation of Islamic history has little relation to Islamic rule as it was in fact. The Jewish Brotherhood, which uses widespread slogans such as “Jehova is the King” and “Return the Crown to its old glory”, address a much more mythical world: No “pure” Jewish regime ever existed. The very short years of independence in Judea – under the Hasmoneans – were run under a purely Hellenistic fusion of the rule of a king (who was, in Hellenistic and Roman propriety but hardly a Jewish one, also the high priest) and a council of notables, the Sanhedrin. Many of the Hasmonean kings relied on the Sadducees rather than on the Pharisees, who would give birth to rabbinical Judaism as we know it. The rabbis would, in later ages, almost completely remove the hated Hasmoneans from history – the references to them in the Talmud would fill a very short brochure – and imagine their own independent government. It still has a king, but he was playing a decidedly second fiddle to the rabbis. And since the marking sign of Jewish thought from Talmudic days onwards was fanatical hatred of non-Jews (to whom they referred as “goyim”, similar to the Hellenistic/Roman usage of “Barbarian”), the future Jewish kingdom was supposed to be free of non-Jews, unless those who would either be subservient to the Jews, or would accept a version of Jewish law (“The laws of the sons of Noah”). The Jewish state coming into being in 1948 was, as far as many Jewish fanatics thought, a total failure. It was the result of distinctly foreign ideologies, running the gamut between socialism and eastern European nationalism. Neither was particularly interested in Jewish law. The nationalists would show respect to its symbols – wearing the yarmulka when appropriate, held a kiddush from time to time – but would recognize the full monstrosity of Jewish law as their guide to life. As a result, terrorist groups of ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox-nationalists abounded in the earlier days of the state; the famous if such terrorists was Mordechai Eliyahu, later to become Chief Rabbi and the father of Shmuel Eliyahu, the main engine of current ultra-Orthodox nationalism. Their purpose was to bring down the pseudo-democracy of the 1950s – Israel still held its Arab citizens under military law – and create, in its stead, a theocratic state. They failed to win support. And, like the extremists among the MB, the Jewish right adopted terrorism as a tool. Jewish terrorists killed mostly non-Jews, but they put Jews in their sights, as well: Emil Grunzweig in 1983; Yizhak Rabin in 1995; The attempt by Ohad Bart, a Bnei Akiva (right wing Jewish Scouts) guide and later a National Unity Knesset candidate, to run minister Yossi Sarid off the road and into an abyss in 1996 (two months after the assassination of Rabin); The attempt by Chabad member Harry Shapiro on Shimon Peres’ life in Jacksonville in 1997; and various less deadly attacks, from the defacement of offices of human rights organizations and leftist organizations to arson. Terrorism failed, as did rebellion. During the disengagement of 2005 – the removal of Jewish settlements from Gaza – there was a widespread attempt to bring about a revolt. I once interviewed the spokesman of the Yesha Council – the mainstream settler organization – about the focal point, the clash in Kfar Maimon, where Sharon forced the army to stand its ground and bring the revolt down. “They had tanks. They had gunship helicopters,” he told me. “Gunships! What could we be expected to do against that?” The Council was under attack by more radical settlers for not doing enough. I guess it’s a good thing the IDF brought along something heavier than jeeps. Following the failure of the revolt, the movement’s ideologues – particularly Elyakim Levanon – began talking of taking over the establishment: more officers in the IDF, more “Emuniim” (“people of faith”) in every nook and cranny of the regime. It’s rather easy to identify religious reactionaries: the litmus test is their attitude towards women’s rights. Levanon forbade women from running in the elections for his settlement’s leadership (Hebrew), reminding them that Jewish law forbids “granting office to women.” His rabbinical position was strong enough to enforce the ruling. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, whose basic assumption is that the first process towards a return to the glory days is cleansing society of non-Islamic elements, the Jewish Brotherhood always claimed that non-Jews ought to be removed from Jewish society. In this, they enjoyed wide support from most of Israeli Jewish society, which was always racist to the bone (a vast majority of Orthodox Jews in Israel consider a family member marrying a non-Jew to be a blot on the family’s honor). This process reached new peaks during the last few years. About a year ago, some hitherto unknown group in Safed started demanding (Hebrew) employers sign their non-Jewish workers to a pledge to keep the “laws of the Sons of Noah” – i.e. recognize their subservience to Jewish law. By no accident, Safed is the town of Shmuel Eliyahu. The initiative spread to other towns. Then came Eliyahu’s ruling, forbidding renting apartments to non-Jews, which led to the “Rabbis’ Letter,” signed by more than 300 Israeli rabbis. Immediately afterward we were hit with the “assimilation” hysteria: The Rabbis Wives’ letter (apparently they’re denied political office, but are allowed carefully-vetted political expression), a ruling by the rabbi of Rosh Ha’Ayin forbidding the employment at Jewish women and Arab men in the same workplace; and the blood libel that Arab witches brew seduction potions, made of rabbits, to be used against Jewish females, particularly Orthodox ones (I **** you not; Hebrew). The last few weeks have seen an acceleration: the LHVH organization, which focuses on “the danger of assimilation”, produced a new sort of kosher certificate - one noting the business employs no non-Jews – and it seems to be doing brisk business (Hebrew). Soon, MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) will use the podium of the Women’s Promotion Committee of the Knesset to hold a debate on the “perils of women assimilating” – i.e. promote the standard racist libel that “they” are trying to ravish “our” women, and grant it the imprimatur of the Knesset. I mean, if the Knesset debates it, it must exist, no? It should be noted that Israeli law already fights interfaith marriages: A Jew and a non-Jew (as well as any Muslim trying to marry a non-Muslim) cannot marry in Israel, which stubbornly refuses to permit civil marriages and leaves standing the formation of the old Turkish Millet, or religious sect. An Israeli Jew wishing to marry a non-Jew is forced to marry abroad. And, soon enough, his or her partner won’t be able to work alongside Jews, and she (or he) will be severely rebuked by the Knesset for defiling all that is holy in Judaism. So, once again – which of the two is nearer power, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, or the Israeli Jewish Brotherhood?
