Yesterday a blogger who visits TYWKIWDBI from Brazil requested that I start an "open thread" where readers of this blog can express/share comments about the situation in Egypt.
I'm pleased to do that, but suspect the participation will be modest. My metrics show readers from 213 countries in the past year (about 1000 visits from Egypt), but my personal observation is that the vast majority of visitors here are silent lurkers; commentary on my posts typically comes from a core group of several dozen more outspoken people.
However, with this topic it might be different. A reminder that my policy re comments is that any expression in polite adult language is welcome, but I delete "ad hominem" attacks where commenters try to insult other commenters.
So, have a go.
For starters I offer the clever image above, from Reddit, posted after Mubarak's surprise announcement that he would not be resigning his Presidency.
Obviously the President and the State Department have been caught red-handed in their lies. It's impossible that our Intelligence had imperfect information and the only conclusion we can draw is that the President and his minions are getting exactly what they want in the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteAt least that's the lesson we learned from the Left's analysis of "the Bush Regime."
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteWhy are the Greek protesters referred to as terrorists and anarchists, and the Egyptian "youth" called heroes for democracy?
ReplyDeleteHow can Obama lecture Mubarack about fairness and human rights while a man trapped in Gitmo for nine years with no charges takes his last breath?
But most importantly what's the agenda with making Egypt the absolute hot topic of the year? I still hold that the revolution will NOT be televised.
Seems most people in America haven't even caught up to the fact that the stock exchanges are being merged and the dollar is being seriously shuffled. There are too many extremely urgent problems that Americans are not only not aware of, they don't even want to hear about it.
Securing food is right at the top of that list. Seems a perfectly normal reaction to me to have some idea of how to protect and even produce those basic necessities. Haven't the powers that used to be hinted as much? The Egyptian protests supposedly started with the price of bread.
There isn't much doubt in my mind that the outcome in Egypt will manipulated. But it does seem there are serious cracks forming in the wall. Freedom isn't that orderly really, and as events spiral out of control it may become impossible to predict or control them.Perhaps the only way to restore natural order, if we can still even imagine such a thing in human terms, is by moving through this chaos that has been barely suppressed through various stripes of tyranny.
God forbid that this is just a ploy for the US to occupy Egypt to an even greater extent, (all in the name of freedom you understand.) Evidently the wars we already have are not providing the stimulus our precious economy needs.
My darkest thoughts sometimes linger on those books the believers of the Abrahamic religions follow. Pick an archetype and a three chapter scenario and lets see whose prophet "comes back."
I think that how you feel about this may depend on how clean and efficiently the army can stand up a functional democracy that can in the interim supply food, run hospitals, and keep people employed. It's not trivial since Egypt will need to borrow money and get bussinesses to invest. All that presumes the military will actually act in the democratic interest: the origins of previous leaders Sadat and Mubarak suggest this is not a given.
ReplyDeleteIf you think it can then a military coup will sweep clean and remove the political apparatus that has adjusted the constituion to be a defacto single party system.
On the otherhand if you don't think the military will be efficient then it's throwing out the baby with the bathwater to jettison the current acknowledged legiitmacy of the Egypt governing structure.
Since it's going to take 6 months for candidates to emerge, parties to constitue and issues to emerge. Leaving Mubarak in place will mean continuity. Perhaps suliman would be the next best bet now the mubarak has resigned.
The best thing that would have been nice would have been for mubarak to have laid out a transition plan to a a truly democratic state starting with term limits and mechanisms to allow multi party rule.
Mubarak steps down!!
ReplyDeleteIf you want to see tens of thousands of happy people, click here -
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
A dictatorship which the US was happy to support, finance and arm for 30 years is suddenly out of favour.
ReplyDeleteAny coincidence that as we speak China is buildling Africas largest oil refinery in Egypt??
Or that Saudi Arabia has been overstating its estimated oil reserves by 40 percent, according to leaked US diplomatic documents?
I have that Saudi oil reserve story bookmarked; may get it on the blog tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI just turned on my TV to check the coverage there. The "big three" networks had game shows and soap operas. CNN had live coverage. PBS nothing. I'm back to the internet.
As I watch the live coverage, the events I am most reminded of occurred when the Berlin Wall fell - when East German border guards opened the checkpoint gates and allowed the people of East Berlin to stream into West Berlin, and when the people began demolishing the wall in the next several days.
ReplyDeleteHard to believe that was over 20 years ago. I'm glad I have a piece of that wall as a souvenir.
I've been following the activity in Egypt for the past couple of days and have had CNN on. I was watching coverage and hoping that violence would not errupt and give the government an excuse to move with force on the protestors. I was elated to hear that Mubarak was stepping down.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the transitional government will work to establish a concrete way for control of the government to finally be with the people and that they can build a strong country with freedom and rights for everyone regardless of religion, race or gender.
I admire the Egytians for their tenacity, courage, and ability to use peaceful protest to effect the beginning of what will hopefully be monumental change for the good.
Watching them celebrate is just tremendously moving. I keep having to wipe my eyes--while keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the Powers That Now Be don't betray their joy.
ReplyDeleteMSNBC has some excellent live coverage, with NBC's fabulous correspondent Richard Engel right in the middle of the crowd, as thrilled as they are, and Brian Williams injecting his own intelligent commentary from time to time.
Not quite a "bloodless coup," sadly, but a lot less bloody than many such attempts to overthrow a dictator.
--Swift Loris
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article16248.html
ReplyDelete"An excuse for a US or NATO militarization of the waters around Bab el-Mandab would give Washington another major link in its pursuit of control of the seven most critical oil chokepoints around the world, a major part of any future US strategy aimed at denying oil flows to China, the EU or any region or country that opposes US policy. Given that significant flows of Saudi oil pass through Bab el-Mandab, a US military control there would serve to deter the Saudi Kingdom from becoming serious about transacting future oil sales with China or others no longer in dollars, as was recently reported by UK Independent journalist Robert Fisk.
It would also be in a position to threaten China’s oil transport from Port Sudan on the Red Sea just north of Bab el-Mandab, a major lifeline in China’s national energy needs."
You talked earlier about anti-American sentiment and a lot of that has been because the United States while today the Press Secretary is saying how they’ve been talking about Egypt and the need for reform and bringing up this at every meeting that’s not the way many Egyptians see it. Most Egyptians see the United States as having stood solidly by President Mubarak while the government here grew more and more corrupt.
ReplyDeleteAnd they see the Americans as complicit in it. And just today, for example, when we were out on streets this is what a lot of people were showing us about American involvement. If you can see in my hands this is one of the tear gas canisters and very clearly written in English on it, it says “Made in the USA by Combined Tactical Systems from Jamestown, Pennsylvania.” And they say this is the kind of support that the United States has been giving to the Egyptian government and bears some responsibility, although today it it trying to say that it never backed Mubarak so much, it has been calling for reforms for a long time, Egyptians don’t see it that way.
http://www.disinfo.com/2011/02/tear-gas-canister-stamped-made-in-usa-used-against-egyptian-protesters/
This is interesting -
ReplyDeleteZURICH (Reuters) – Switzerland has frozen assets possibly belonging to Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down as president of Egypt Friday after 30 years of rule, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said.
"I can confirm that Switzerland has frozen possible assets of the former Egyptian president with immediate effect," spokesman Lars Knuchel said, declining to specify how much money was involved.
In recent years, Switzerland has worked hard to improve its image as a haven for ill-gotten assets and has also frozen assets belonging to Tunisia's former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali as well as those of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo.
Here's a translation of a Hebrew tweet I just read that says what I think :
ReplyDelete"I don't understand. People are going to celebrate in front of the Egyptian embassy [in Tel Aviv] that the Army had took over the Government?"
I can't watch videos at work, but msnbc.com has a good photo gallery here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41350012/ns/news-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?beginSlide=1 This event makes me think of what could have happened in Tianamen Square if the military had sided with the protestors.
ReplyDeleteRe: Mubarack stepping down I just wanted to add my two cents without jumping into the verbal melee and just say 'hallelujah!'
ReplyDeletePicture what would happen in the U.S. if a million+ tea-partiers occupied the mall in Washington and refused to leave until Obama left office and congress repealed the health reform bill then the military sided with them. That'd be a shinning day for our republic wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteI wish well for the people of Egypt but it's still rather early to celebrate.
The thing that continues to amaze me is the magnificent restraint the Egyptian protesters have shown under provocation and with no organizational structure. If American protesters, of anywhere on the political spectrum, had been in the streets that long, with no police presence, and been provoked that badly, whole neighborhoods would be in flames and looting would be rampant.
ReplyDeleteIt hasn't taken long for some pundits to come out and say that this is a validation of the Bush doctrine, completely missing the point that democracy can only come from within and can't be brought to a population on the tip of a fixed bayonet.
ReplyDeleteGovernment governs with the consent of the governed. If they want military leaders in charge so be it. Congrats to the Egyptian people : ارفع ارفع الهتاف شعبنا حر ومش هيخاف
ReplyDelete@Minnesotan:
ReplyDelete- Egyptions protest 24 days - Mubarak hangs on.
- You start an open thread - boom, he's gone
Coincidence? I don't think so
@ JDJarvis - you have to be kidding - how can you compare President Obama, a democratically elected official with a dictator? I think the word you're looking for is 'putsch'.
ReplyDeleteWhere were you when President Bush took this country into a war based on false intelligence? A war that costs this country over 3,000 American lives, countless other casualties, and trillions of dollars?
I think it would be wise to reserve judgement until we see what the military intends to do with their newly delegated power. I hope the Egyptian people are successful in their quest for a more democratic government, for sure! As someone recently said to me, "Government by democracy is a messy process."
ReplyDelete@Dirac - as Bill Reilly would say, "You can't explain that."
ReplyDeleteHuman Rights Watch has data on the number of persons whose lives were lost during this revolution. The current figure is 300, but more are expected to be identified, especially with increased freedom of reporting in the days to come.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hrw.org/he/news/2011/02/08/egypt-documented-death-toll-protests-tops-300
"By now, the Egyptian people must understand that neither the American government, nor the U.K (whose Prime Minister just lamented how all those non-Brits — shhh; Muslims — are diluting his culture), nor any other Western government places the “aspirations of the Egyptian people” for democracy or economic justice above their own strategic interests. They care about returning Egypt to a condition of “stability,” apparently defined as a regime that protects access to the Oil Canal, doesn’t threaten war against Israel, and doesn’t become a springboard for violent, anti-Western radicalism. The West’s indifference to authoritarian oppression in Egypt has been on display not merely for the 30 years of Mubarak’s regime but for 150 years, or is it 2000? We just used them to help us torture our kidnap victims and looked the other way when Mubarak tortured and murdered his own people. "
ReplyDeletehttp://my.firedoglake.com/scarecrow/2011/02/06/dear-egypt-sorry-about-the-torture-tear-gas-can-we-borrow-your-protesters/
Jack of All Tirades , Where was I when...I was posting on the internet on a different social forum network with a different screen name.
ReplyDeleteI was also working for a firm that was involved in 9-11 recovery efforts in NYC and know what that was like.
I've had young soldiers who had limbs blown off shake my hand for the work I contributed to that saved their lives, I explained it was very tangential and they still said it helped saved their lives.
I'm very aware of how politics can go astray and rob people of their lives and dignity.
Folks are celebrating an unknown right now. I hope there's something to celebrate after their elections in September.
I'll hold off rejoicing until I see what replaces Mubarak. Nature abhors a vacuum.
ReplyDeleteI have been a steady lurker for about six months now. Love your site! I link to it a lot from Facebook, but its hard to say how many of my hammerhead friends actually follow the links. We do have a mutual Blog pal though, my buddy soubriquet over at Grit in the Gears.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what I wanted to throw into the mix is what I thought was a great quote from ol' Lawrence of Arabia a while back....
"Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, ...not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is."
Hey Wiki! Good to know you!
I'm glad to see change, and I pray it's change for the better for the people of Egypt.
ReplyDeletejaundicedaye: there are those in any situation who will take advantage for personal gain. In fact, despite your indication to the contrary, there was serious issue with looting and fires in Egypt during the protests. Fortunately there were also those actively opposing such behavior.
@Mike--according to most reports, the looting and most of the violence was perpetrated by Mubarak's thugs, not the protesters. It was the protesters, in fact, who were objecting to it.
ReplyDeleteEver heard the term "agents provocateurs"?
--Swift Loris
I was so happy when I heard the news today, I felt like honking my car horn on the highway.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations my Egyptian brothers and sisters!!
The people on the right, Middle Eastern regimes and Israel are saying, Obama didn't go far enough in supporting the dictator.
The people on the Left are saying, "Oh, we shouldn't have propped him up all this time. Shame on Obama for following the status quo of 200 years."
WE DIDN"T EVEN SUPPORT THE FRENCH REVOLUTION!
Obama pressured Mubarak to resign and appoint a VP. Mubarak was angry with the US and publicly said to quit meddling.
Obama made encouraging statements to the people, but was diplomatic in public. Just as a statesman should be. I'm proud of the way he handled it.
So in the middle, you have what's called diplomacy, people. That's why you have a United Nations. To get things accomplished when they absolutely have to be decided on a global scale.
I don't think they want a democracy, and they definitely won't get one. It will be another Iran with a militaristic Muslim government interested in only Sharia law and obliterating Israel. But I didn't watch the craven, fawning news shows, I actually used only internet. Take a look at the Pew poll from last year. Looks like we won't be touring the pyramids any time soon. http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/562840/201102101920/What-Egyptians-Really-Do-Want.htm
ReplyDeleteThe arguments cited by the anon above have been widely circulated on the internet. His/her link goes to Investors Business Daily, which has reprinted boilerplate text from another (unspecified) source.
ReplyDeleteTrying to track it down, I Googled the phrase "adults in Egypt don't crave Western-style democracy, as pundits have blithely trumpeted" and found hundreds of other links that also reprint the same text without any citations to the Pew Research Center.
Finally, I searched the Pew site itself, and found this -
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1874/egypt-protests-democracy-islam-influence-politics-islamic-extremism
- which referenced these data from 2010:
http://pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/
"In recent years, Switzerland has worked hard to improve its image as a haven for ill-gotten assets and..."
ReplyDelete...and will continue to open and maintain accounts for Them in total secrecy until they get caught or threaten to move the assets abroad.
Stan, your open thread is doing great. Thank you for the experience!
ReplyDeleteAs a brazilian, however, I would like to pose a different historical perspective to events like these. Since 1964, for over 20 years, my people stood under the boots of a military junta, designed and orchestrated by the State Department and the CIA. I don't believe and am not sugesting that american people are directly responsable for the evil perpetrated by U. S. government and agencies, I am just laying widely demonstrated facts; I can return to it later.
Our military was trained, comanded and paid by the U. S. government, just like Suleiman is. Serious, independent journalists like Amy Goodman are reporting that Suleiman was a key figure in the dominance of the american military over the region, perpetrating "extraordinary renditions, advanced interrogatins thecniques and eliminations" (a.k.a. kidnapping, torture and assassination) custom; that the Wikileaks' cables say that he was the favorite of the Department of State and the government of Israel since he where still the chief of the secret service, and his identity was still unknown by the egyptian people.
Here in Brazil, we used to be lead by poeple like him. At the time, the media used to say american should accept the situation in Latin America, given the fact that our poor education and lack of civility would make us occasionaly succumb "to comunism" - that was the threat, at the time, not "islamofascism", that is the new big word from the fear mongers.
We fought for democracy. By the time we were on the streets, calling for the opening of the regime, media commentators all over the West were writing about the threat to political stability, taking place in a so important and strategic ally, just like they say now about the Egypt. When we elect our first center-left government, nine years ago, there was a massive flight of capital, impulsed by the media and the right wing. The fear monger and the victimization is still taking place over the region, now mostly against the governments of other countries, like Bolivia and Equador. But we are doing great.
I don't think the perspective of the american government or the american public opinion is correct; at least if you call what is portrayed by the international media as the american public opinion; nor I agree with most of the opinions about the significance and the future of this revolution that are writen up here in these comments. I think freedom should be praised. I think the world should be happy for them.
Those were some surprising views expressed in that that Pew study. I've been having a pretty favorable opinion of Egyptians the last few weeks. I did shutter every time I saw a poster of Mubarak with a star of David drawn on his forehead.
ReplyDeletePoster's link: "Romantics in Western media expect "democracy" to flower from the anti-Mubarak rioting in Cairo. But polling shows Egyptians actually seek strict Islamic rule."
But there are hopeful signs.
Pew: "A 59%-majority of Muslims in Egypt believed that democracy was preferable to any other kind of government. About one-in-five (22%), however, said that in some circumstances, a non-democratic government could be preferable, and another 16% said it did not matter what kind of government is in place for a person in their situation."
Brazil: I'm not surprised the US meddled in the foreign affairs of Brazil. But since I wasn't born until 1968, I had to do some Wikipedia research to Paulo's post.
ReplyDeleteBrazil was a mess at the time, in 1964. Of course, the US was fighting the Cold War with the USSR and Cuba in our own backyard.
Excerpts:
When Quadros office on January 31, 1961; it was the first time since Brazil became a republic in 1889 that an incumbent government peacefully transferred power to an elected member of the opposition. It was also the first time in 31 years that the presidency was not held by an heir to the legacy of Getulio Vargas.
Quadros laid the blame for the country's high rate of inflation on his predecessor, Juscelino Kubitschek. As president, Quadros outlawed gambling, banned women from wearing bikinis on the beach, and established relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba, trying to achieve a neutralist international policy. The re-establishment of relations with the Socialist Bloc in the middle of the Cold War cost him the support of the UDN in Congress, so that he was left with no real power.
Congress was initially reluctant to recognize Goulart as president.A compromise was agreed upon thanks to Leonel Brizola and the "cadeia de legalidade" (chain of legality), and Goulart was able to take the presidency, but with his powers constrained by a parliamentary system of government.
A Constitutional Amendment was accordingly passed abolishing the presidential Executive and creating a parliamentary system of Government, and only then was Goulart allowed to take the oath of office as President, to serve as head of State only. Goulart then nominated Tancredo Neves for appointment as prime minister.
President Joao Goulart was not favorably viewed in Washington. He took an independent stand in foreign policy, resuming relations with socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba; his administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits multinationals could transmit outside the country; a subsidiary of ITT was nationalized; he promoted economic and social reforms. And Attorney-General Robert Kennedy was uneasy about Goulart allowing "communists" to hold positions in government agencies.
When he reached Brasília, Goulart realized he lacked any political support. The Senate president, Auro Moura Andrade, was already articulating for congressional support of the coup.
Declassified transcripts of communications between Lincoln Gordon and the US government show that, predicting an all-out civil war, Johnson authorized logistical materials to be in place to support the coup-side of the rebellion. These included ammunition, motor oil, gasoline, aviation gasoline and other materials to help in a potential civil war in US Navy tankers sailing from Aruba. About 110 tons of ammunition and CS gas were made ready in New Jersey for a potential airlift to Viracopos Airport in Campinas. Potential support was also made available in the form of an "aircraft carrier (USS Forrestal) and two guided missile destroyers (expected arrive in area by April 10), (and) four destroyers", which sailed to Brazil under the guise of a military exercise.
CIA involvement
In the telegraphs, Gordon also acknowledges US involvement in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies…and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business" and that he "may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future.". The actual operational files of the CIA remain classified, preventing historians from accurately gauging the CIA's direct involvement in the coup.
What is democracy?
ReplyDeleteThe term is largely used in the posts above, but we don’t spend much time thinking about the significance of this Word. I am not, of course, supposing we should try to achieve the real significate of the term – there are no real, pure, eternal significates in language. I am trying to shed light over the fact that one term have multiple meanings, and these meanings can be manipulated by the user to address different purposes.
When we say that the egyptians don’t want democracy, that only 59% (it is already majority) thinks it is the best form of government, we forget that the current regime – that places periodical fake elections and suports a constitution with over 30 years under state of exception – is ruled by the National Democratic Party. Under such specific situation, one that simply lacks the theoretical understanding of the idealistic meaning of democracy is able to trash democracy on his considerations, identifying it with what is happening to them since 1952. This also explain, by the way, at least part of the 22% that poses that "there are better forms of government" as well.
On other side, one that reads that the USG was involved in "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies…and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment” doesn’t know that the so-called democratic rallies where in true ultra-conservative rallies, organized by the Catholic Church against a democratic elected government, that also helped to put in place a cruel, vicious dictatorship, that was not democratic at all; and that when secretary Gordon says “democratic” he means “pro-american”, with “comunist” meaning any anti-american or independent point of view whatsoever.
By the way, “anti-american” is another big word, that means simply “wrong”: it is used under the supposition that the american way never fails. But that’s another story.
For the record, Investors Business Daily did cite its source, the Pew survey Minnesotastan finally found, for the statistics it quoted. It didn't provide a link, but I Googled "Pew AND Egypt" and a report on the survey came right up, with a link to the complete text of the survey.
ReplyDelete--Swift Loris
Perhaps the best we will see from this revolution is other regimes who are reminded that power comes from their people; even when it's rocks vs. tanks, the side with the rocks may, under certain amazing and perhaps unique circumstances, win. Especially when the tanks stand aside.
ReplyDeleteWe hope, then, not harsher measures in those places, but attention to the needs of the people.