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#141 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
VIP PASS Join Date: Jun 2004
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#142 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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^ Right, by most estimates they control well over a third of Egypt's economy, with monopolies on producing everything from olive oil to pipeline to armaments for the public sector, as well as running splashy beach resorts, megamalls and 'gated communities' for the rich and expats. (It's illegal in Egypt to report on the military's finances; that info isn't public record, so no-one really knows for sure.) That doesn't mean they aren't also humiliated by their lack of battlefield cred and widespread perceptions that they've been bought off to serve the Israel-Egypt peace treaty (who really controls the Sinai? debatable); presumably, too, there are latent tensions between the higher and lower ranks which could be exploited, not to mention the already obvious ruptures between the internal security forces, the intelligence establishment, and the army. Still, it's a safe bet they won't give up those privileges easily.
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#143 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: in a glass of CheerWine
Posts: 3,266
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#144 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: May 2001
Location: nowhere..........man
Posts: 20,254
Local Time: 08:36 AM
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#145 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
VIP PASS Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: NYC
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I know the reporter is from FOX News, but I don't think anyone here wishes violence on him and his cameraman:
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#146 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Apr 2002
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#147 | |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: In a dimension known as the Twilight Zone...do de doo doo, do de doo doo...
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Ergh, yeah, I feel sorry for anyone who's gotten caught up in this chaos. I wish Greg and Olaf a speedy recovery from their injuries.
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Uh, buddy? Think it's a wee bit late to worry about that... Angela |
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#148 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Local Time: 01:36 PM
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Reuters, BBC, CNN, FOX, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, and various smaller networks have all reported violent assaults on their reporters and crews...I remember reading last night that an al-Arabiya reporter had been beaten into a coma during an invasion of their Cairo bureau by pro-Mubarak thugs. For Arab journalists, this isn't new--Mubarak's forces have roughed up their reporters before--and neither is the "Israeli spies" accusation: Saudi media have reported on a (nonexistent) WikiLeaks cable exposing an Israeli-Qatari plot to undermine Egypt (al-Jazeera is Qatar-based); state-owned Egyptian media have alleged, incredibly, that there's a joint Mossad/US/Iran/Hezbollah/Hamas plot afoot to overthrow Mubarak; and one of the Guardian's bloggers noted yesterday that the pro-Mubarak goons were screaming "liars and Jews" at journalists. Ironically, these kinds of slurs from "allies" generally go unnoted in US media, despite all the freaking out about what might happen to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty under a possible Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government (a valid strategic concern, granted, but the grievances there are rational and could be addressed rationally, whereas this stuff...).
Reportedly Washington is now pushing hard behind the scenes for an interim government headed by Suleiman. Suleiman is himself a sinister creep and not reliably an improvement, not that my opinion matters; then again, as of now it's reportedly still unclear whether even Suleiman is willing to abandon Mubarak, so perhaps Washington's opinion won't matter either. |
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#149 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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doubt Suleiman would be well received though as he has been standing by Mubarak...
the attacks on foreigners are very worrying indeed... i'm wondering what's going on with certain travel companies - i've read that some travel firms have stopped flights to the Red Sea resorts from all of their other European countries, but are still flying the Brits in LOL as someone reported, the Brits will go anywhere if there's a £50 discount ![]() |
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#150 |
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The people in the streets, the playstation generation, should be happy just to have Mubarack and his son out.
Suleiman would be fine as a caretaker leader, until an open and fair election. |
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#151 | |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
VIP PASS Join Date: Aug 2004
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this is interesting, from Guardian live updates, so maybe the people would be ok with Suleiman during an interim period... i still have my doubts though tbh - i thought Suleiman had been involved in organising the pro-mubarak attacks by police/thugs on the peaceful protesters, no???
have to say it's quite amazing, though sometimes quite overwhelming, seeing these things unfold hour by hour due to digital media... imagine if our history books had such detail... wow... Quote:
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#152 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
VIP PASS Join Date: Aug 2004
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i'm just skeptical seeing how our western governments have turned a blind eye and propped up Mubarak all these years, and am particularly sickened by Tony Bliar describing Mubarak just the other day as "immensely courageous and a force for good"
![]() surely Suleiman would be no change at all?? |
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#153 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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They didn't like it when he was announced as VP. They would fear (rightly) that this is not 'regime change', just a change of figurehead. That gives him 8 months of running the 'transition' and he will likely use that time in a way similar to how they fear Mubarak would use it - sabotage it, basically. He is, also, properly evil. But the US would be comfortable with him because he has run their torture programs in Egypt - old friends.
But there needs obviously to be a decent transition period. A decent amount of time before elections (even September will come around quite quickly) to allow people time to properly organise. The protesters surely can't expect to get a result where everyone steps aside for some misc. rabble of assorted unorganised factions, and an election in anything less than six months (minimum.) If you do that, you'll just get trouble. Maybe not of the chaos-on-the-street variety (although, with somewhat of a vacuum, maybe), but certainly a country that is just completely on 'pause', which really can't help when its on its knees economically already. There needs to be a decent amount of time to get political groups and parties together, with some sort of strong leadership at the top making sure both that the political development is smooth, and that the country doesn't just slide even further during this time. But letting the opposition genuinely develop and organise is most important. Which is another good point amount the Muslim Brotherhood, and fears about them. They are only as influential as they are right now really because they aren't as influential as they seem. By that I mean, it's a dictatorship. Any person or group the regime saw as being any serious threat has been taken care of in one way or another - they effectively don't exist. The MB have been allowed to operate (to some degree - a lot of influential members jailed or worse) in part because no matter how strong dictators are in these countries, they can't touch religion, but also because they actually aren't that much of a threat, or haven't been. But they are currently the most organised 'opposition' group. All the others (either historical like the Wafd, or potential) have never been allowed to develop any kind of real structure or organisation. So the MB look like the most powerful, or noisiest, or best organised, or largest opposition group - but given a few months of letting others genuinely get their shit together, you'd see more clearly where they really stand. But move too fast and, yeah - they're the best organised, loudest, most powerful (etc) I think it's pretty obvious that they'll have to accept Suleiman and a September election (and it does seem, in the last 24hrs, like they're realising that) - and that also gives the US/West eight months of behind the scenes carrot/stick efforts to ease the military out. |
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#154 | |
Blue Crack Supplier
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Netherlands
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Interesting article in Salon.com (from the live stream of The Guardian Egypt protests – day of departure live updates | World news | guardian.co.uk ) about the politicians in the US who are supporting Mubarak (and are against the protest):
Meet Mubarak's American fan club - War Room - Salon.com Quote:
Meet Mubarak's American fan club | Slide Show - Salon.com |
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#155 | |||
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Jul 2002
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I don't understand why we can't ever just let another country handle changes in their government themselves. If we truly, honest to God believe in the democracy we so feverently wish to promote, shouldn't it make sense that we let the PEOPLE decide for themselves how they want their country to be run? It's obvious where we've gone wrong in the "promoting democracy" tour we've been on for god knows how many decades now. We always seem to start from the top down, seem to start with the leaders, who can be deeply corrupted and untrustworthy. We need to start from the bottom up, and start working on befriending the people better. Then from there we can work with and forge friendships with leaders. And if they should do something horrible? We let them know we stand on the side of the people. We also need to figure out that democracy isn't a novel idea. We're not the first ones to come up with it. It's been around for a really, really, REALLY long time. Many people around the world are fully aware of the concept. So if they want it, I think they know how to get it. And until we make sure our own government is in healthy working order, we also kind of need to just shut up, lest we appear the slightest bit, oh, I dunno, hypocritical? Those quotes from those supporters of Mubarak really don't help matters. Quote:
(Also, given how horrible a dictator he is, funny how he's still an ally, but Saddam was an evil, evil man who needed to be taken down NOW, and stuff! You know, after he'd been an ally of ours for a long time, too, though, of course) And the rest of the commentary from those in the pro-Mubarak link is laughable at best (gee, Pamela Gellar seems like a bright gal, doesn't she?) and terrifying at worst. In happier news, I liked this from that first link Popmartijn shared there: Quote:
![]() Angela |
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#156 |
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#157 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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From the Guardian live updates:
Eyewitness reports in Tahrir Square confirm the presence of Amr Moussa in the square with the pro-democracy demonstrators. He is the current secretary general of the Arab League and former minister of foreign affairs, is a liberal politician. The Catholic Cardinal in Egypt was witnessed hand in hand with a Muslim cleric, both in their religious dress with the pro-democracy demonstrators. He was speaking about national unity, stating that the myth of sectarian strife is only made by the failing government security apparatus and urge people to unite as Egyptians. The Muslim cleric also stated the same. Communist Caliphate! |
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#158 |
Rock n' Roll Doggie
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fantastic!!!
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#159 |
Blue Crack Addict
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Oh, wow. That's pretty cool. Way to go, guys.
Angela |
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#160 |
Blue Crack Addict
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: South Philadelphia
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This is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen:
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