a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

Mordy and Aimless, you can also get it directly on their site: http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

US aid for democracy promotion and civil society in Egypt in 2010
= $24 million

US military aid to Egypt in 2010
= $1.3 billion

so i guess he's dead

http://www.othermeanspolitics.com/uploads/2/2/6/9/2269187/8858284.jpg

i feel like hitchens 'dictatorships fall therefor they must not be constructed v well' formulation doesnt really work irl - i mean mubaraks been in power for 30 years right - that a p good run - you think any elected official wouldnt take 30 years - i mean how longs the n korean regime been rolling - theyve got lol hueg pictures of themselves everywhere - everything in the world eventually fails youve got to look at it in relative terms

looks pretty stoic about it

kinda bemused imo

Hitchens' point is what I've been mulling over all week. What's more stable than a system, if not a particular govmt, that is widely perceived to be legitimate and responsive to real popular feeling? It could be a constitutional monarchy or a republic but it's likely to last longer than a dictatorship or an oligarchy.

ice cr?m, 30 years is pretty short according to the long view and it can be argued that w/o America as bogey-man and PRC as a benefactor, NKorea would have toppled already. Maybe the corollary to his point is that, yes, you can keep an authoritarian regime in power for ages but the more successful you are at it, the poorer and more brutalized the ppl, i.e., Burma or NK.

Obv, the key to any dictatorship is to prevent the mass of people from openly communicating their true thoughts about it. The moment these thoughts become openly available to everyone, the dictator falls.

BTW, the whole point of those thousands of grandiose portraits and statues of the Maximum Leader is to cow you into accepting your insignifigance in comparison and to project omnipresent superpotency. That's why they do it, fella. No mistake being made there.

I like this bit in Hitchens' essay:

None of them ever seems to master a few simple survival techniques: Don't let the supreme leader's extended family go on shopping sprees; don't publicly spoil some firstborn as if the people can't wait for him, too, to be proclaimed from the balcony; don't display your personal photograph all over the landscape; don't claim more than, say, 75 percent of the vote in any "election" you put on. And don't try to shut down social media: It will instantly alert even the most somnolent citizen to the fact that you are losing, or have lost, your grip.

liberal democracy may be more stable from the pov of maintaining a form of government for a long time - but thats not what dictators are after - they want a form that gives them personal power for the longest time

theyd just rather not be voted out of office

Now official. Mubarak won't run again, but intends to stay in power until new elections are held. I predict that minimal sop won't disperse the crowds in Cairo.

It does allow him a small fiction of being 'constitutional'.

tried pretty hard to play on the looting angle.

I noticed he was semaphoring to the military, too. Stuff about how 'I am a military man and therefore think only of my duty to my country.'

I noticed he was semaphoring to the military, too.

Well, that doesn't surprise me at all, plus the Republic was declared under Gen Naguib and then taken over by Gen Nasser.

Did this get posted yet:

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Articles/Obama_Muslim_Brotherhood.htm

http://grab.by/8IvM

welp

cool site polyphonic

serious hair dye action (xp)

seems kinda petty/silly to claim that a) his intention not to run has nothing to do with the protests and b) the protests are a result of outside forces trying to take over the gov't

seems like he might want to consider leaving the palace by Friday to avoid being strung up by an angry mob

mubarak being petty.... weird

b) the protests are a result of outside forces trying to take over the gov't

Well in his conception, the People are an outside force.

One of my closest friend's wife's parents are stuck in Egypt at the moment and cant get out. Theyre all freaking out big time.

just me or does mubarak look and sound like a boss in metal gear solid

apparently he's told friends he has a phd in obstinacy.

posting to move bookmark

at the end of this video - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12342611

xpost

order breaking down in Cairo, Anderson Cooper "punched 10 times in the head"

There's a live feed on msnbc.com of a huge rock battle between the protesters and the "regime supporters". Surreal. Really hope this isn't live footage of the beginning of a civil war.

Kristof just tweeted "Mubarak seems to be trying to stage a crackdown not with police or army, but with thugs. They are armed and brutal."

Somebody talk me off the cliff, my stomach is turning.

Al Jazeera is reporting that many of the Mubarak "supporters"/thugs are carrying police IDs. This is basically a Mubarak sponsored attack against the protesters.

Unsettling images... Horrible.

Mubarak "supporters" now showing up in Alexandria.

classic stuff

Army tanks have rolled into the square now...

tanksTRUCKS

Shots being fired again

jesus

Army has "no orders" to intervene and therefore are staying put, according to correspondent on Al Jazeera.

Mubarak looking to "gain momentum" by letting the chaos and rioting flame on :-(

If Mubarak keeps responding with violence, it'll be so sad. What can anyone else do? Urge them not to do it through diplomatic channels?

Mubarak seems to be deciding that he would rather be Ceaucescu than Hoenecker.

someone now reporting that 500 have been injured today and 300 killed (the latter figure they're unsure as to whether that's just today or an accumulated total)

Mubarak looking to "gain momentum" by letting the chaos and rioting flame on :-(

yeah, and punching it up a little. AJ reporter talking about how few ambulances there are.

xpost
It's 300 cumulatively, over the last 9 days.

ok "good"

Reports on the ground strongly suggest that Mubarak is doing far more than punching it up a little, or merely letting the chaos continue.