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

I really don't care to expound on what a gangster entity like the US govt should be doing in some fantasy dimension, enrique.

Wondering whether Mubarak has a dedicated thug budget, or if it just comes out of the general slush fund.

Another good article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/the-battle-in-cairos-tahrir-square/70663/

Roy Edroso catches a writer at National Review getting off the bus they built and drove for eight years: The rebellions sweeping across North Africa and into Jordan may in fact be the stuff of the neocon/Bushian fantasy that all peoples everywhere yearn to be free and that the answer to “Islam is the answer” is Jacksonian democracy. But color me skeptical.

he US will NEVER do what it SHOULD do in these situations, bcz it will always support despots when they are deemed strategically "necessary."

i wish we lived in a country that did not do this, like atlantis

Speaking of Iran, will the right-wingers also blame Obama for Iran executing 66 people in January (a rate three times that of last year). http://af.reuters.com/article/southAfricaNews/idAFLDE7111UG20110202

I heard someone interviewed on the radio who said most of those executions were for political reasons, and they suggested that iran wants to especially keep things quiet now (because of Egypt and the anniversary of the earlier protests in Iran)

i assume the right-wing hedge-betting is mostly that, if the uprising succeeds, it was inspired by the iraq invasion.

I saw posters with pictures of Mossadegh during the Green Revolution ostensibly pointing out that, just like in 1953, the will of the people had been thwarted. Obama underlinging the essential sovereignty of the people and stating support for govmt forebearance and the right of the people to assmble and petition w/o threat of violence has been spot-on in both cases and meddling in other peoples' affairs in either Iran or Egypt is counter-productive.

Speaking of Iran, will the right-wingers also blame Obama for Iran executing 66 people in January

The US officially called on Iran to halt political executions yesterday.

i wish we lived in a country that did not do this, like atlantis

sooooooo adult o' you.
how about Switzerland?

Yeah, because there's nothing morally suspect about Switzerland.

nobody in egypt gives a shit what governments switzerland endorses; governments america endorses are more of a Hot Topic

how about Switzerland?

lol

nazi gold etc

if america plays this cool, and is lucky, they get a perceived ally, not a perceived puppet. which is way more useful, to everyone.

I get shit about SNL from 35 years ago and you have to go back to Nazis, eh

really kinda sorry (and glad) I'll probably die around the time the USA becomes a second-rate power.

hey if you need an updated example where do you think all your favorite plutocrats and drug lords stash their cash. in fact, where do you think Mubarak is probably flying suitcases of cash too RIGHT NOW

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XTuc6i1Uo

relatively irrelevant details, baby, our financial cachets are just as bloody and likely moreso

i mean, i wish that everyone in the american administration were at liberty to say exactly how they feel about egypt and i would also hope that many of those people would side firmly with the protesters. it's just that a country in america's situation being capable of doing that would be so bizarre a historical anomaly it'd probably have dragons.

I really don't care to expound on what a gangster entity like the US govt should be doing in some fantasy dimension, enrique.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 2, 2011 8:44 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

ok, probs best not to go around talking about how "the US will NEVER do what it SHOULD do in these situations" then

where's my dragon goddammit

which is why Biden saying "um, not really a dictator" brought the lolz

xp

hey guys, i don't think it matters what we think or say, like in everything else.

ok nrq -- targeted assassination of Mubarak. fuck you.

Money, as much as anything, if not more so, is what made France/UK/Israel bail on Suez in '56.

the US will NEVER do what it SHOULD do in these situations, bcz it will always support despots when they are deemed strategically "necessary." For all the acknowledgment of realpolitik in the public sphere, "we support freedom" is the mother's milk of public rhetoric.

Can I borrow your crystal ball, morbz? Hopefully what will emerge both for the US and for regimes around the world, is that realpolitik is all well and good in the short term but if you fuck the people over, eventually you end up with either a rotten country or a revolt, sometimes both and the longer democracy and accountability are denied, the uglier the politics get.

targeted assassination of Mubarak. fuck you.

That would be disastrously stupid.

that is why I added the kiss for nrq.

so Morbz position on what the US should do is that they should assassinate someone. HEY. Maybe Obama can joekz about that at the next Press Comedy Hour!

y'all judging the US by what's being said in public? save that for Hopey's reelection campaign.

Open your eyes, sheeple!

i think we're judging the US by what we know has to be said in private and the elegance or inelegance with which it's admitted in public.

"we're judging the US by what we know has to be said in private"

who told us, Bob Woodward?

u guys did read that Bush phoned Mubarak?

At a cost of over a billion a year, we got the premier Arab country to remain at peace with Israel (and to switch from the Soviets to the US) even though it ended up costing them their leader and us our credibility, but we didn't impose this military leadership on Egypt, we just helped it stay in power. Since the Free Officers revolt/Revolution of 1952, though technically a Republic, Egypt has essentially always been ruled by a military officer.

no matter what else is true about this situation, this stuff definitely is: a corrupt regime the united states has supported for years because it's uniquely friendly to u.s. foreign policy objectives is being overthrown in an obviously justified middle-class revolution that may lead to a government similarly friendly to u.s.f.p.os. it may also be crushed, or turn into something much less obliging to the united states. if the united states throws itself behind the revolution and the revolution succeeds, the state it creates will have been tainted by u.s. involvement. if they do so and the revolution fails, they lose a whole lot of willingness to cooperate from mubarak. if they do so and the revolution becomes notably less middle-class and secular, they might as well not have done so. the only thing anyone in the administration can possibly do, with this giant inertia-swollen thing behind them, is find a good way of phrasing "we are waiting to see what happens". expecting anything more from them seems pretty fruitless.

i'm sure there are plenty of cia guys in cairo doing all kinds of exciting stuff. those guys are being similarly pushed by history but they'd be easier to argue about than what speeches robert gibbs gives.

(as far as i can tell "crushed" is off the table now, but it wasn't as late as monday.)

Mubarak could have cracked down on the protestors at any time over the last few days. But the violence didn't erupt until Mubarak's statement last night that he will not seek another term this year. Today's clashes were probably not the regime's final death rattle, but rather the beginning of the struggle to determine who emerges on top in the post-Mubarak era.

from David Kurtz at TPM

obama, OSAMA ... amirite morbius

really kinda sorry (and glad) I'll probably die around the time the USA becomes a second-rate power.

don't give up! i feel that your posts here are laying the groundwork for a violent revolution that will restore the nation to greatness.

bye guys. I have already advised Bam not to let Mubi over here if he gets sick.

internet is back on there, my cousin and her kids are leaving on an ordered departure, her husband is staying, they just moved there a couple weeks ago fyi

Video footage:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201122124446797789.html

no matter what else is true about this situation, this stuff definitely is: a corrupt regime the united states has supported for years because it's uniquely friendly to u.s. foreign policy objectives is being overthrown in an obviously justified middle-class revolution that may lead to a government similarly friendly to u.s.f.p.os. it may also be crushed, or turn into something much less obliging to the united states. if the united states throws itself behind the revolution and the revolution succeeds, the state it creates will have been tainted by u.s. involvement. if they do so and the revolution fails, they lose a whole lot of willingness to cooperate from mubarak. if they do so and the revolution becomes notably less middle-class and secular, they might as well not have done so. the only thing anyone in the administration can possibly do, with this giant inertia-swollen thing behind them, is find a good way of phrasing "we are waiting to see what happens". expecting anything more from them seems pretty fruitless.

i'm sure there are plenty of cia guys in cairo doing all kinds of exciting stuff. those guys are being similarly pushed by history but they'd be easier to argue about than what speeches robert gibbs gives.

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, February 2, 2011 9:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this seems otm 2 me. idk about 'tainted' by US involvement. a perception thing really. i mean, did anyone begrudge the fact that the american revolution got an assist from absolutist france?

oh a perception thing's what i mean. nobody begrudged america france that i know anything about, but america wasn't right in the middle of a region with an endless unpleasant history of being fucked around with by france to serve french interests. i mean, not in the same way.

wheres kermit roosevelt when you need him

serious poetry here - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/world/middleeast/03arab.html

i don't know if anybody else is showing this right now, but MSNBC is essentially broadcasting a battle in a way i've sort of never seen before.

yeah i'm watching

oh god

this is... i don't know if i want to see this.