The army says we’ll only stay in power for 6 months until free and fair elections. Yeah, that’ll happen… real soon. —It ain’t over ’til…
This article appears in Feb 10-16, 2011.
Egypt
Leave a comment
Subscribe to our newsletter
Be the first to know about breaking news, articles, and updates.
Considering that every one of Egypt’s leaders post-King Farouk have come from the military and been supported in power by them (including Nasser & Sadat, the architects of modern Egypt) that need not be automatically presumed to be a bad thing. Also, the army showed itself unwilling to shed Egyptian blood for Mubarak, allowing him a graceful exit and the feel-good spectacle of a televised non-violent revolution. At least in the short term. Only time will tell.
I think this is different. When I was in Egypt last year noone was talking about violent overthrow, they were respectfully saying when Mubarek dies or steps down, they look forward to reforms and change. The police have a rep for brutality, but the military seems to be more “of the people” than you would expect from a normal dictatorship. I think we’re seeing a historic change.
I sure hope so, anyway.
I hope so too.
“we’ll”? Hopefully you’re not referring to Canada. Our country doesn’t need to waste money on nations that have no monetary benefit to Canada.
That’s why some of your parade funding got culled, sebastian. And it was a good thing for our government to do that 🙂
they thought they had it bad before, heh,heh. wait til one of those power hungry suckers decide to say fuck it, and become a dictator, remember cuba, korea,and a few other places, where military took over rule.
well those people are gonna be regretting getting rid of that dude, and it won’t take 6 months.
and of course the u.s. of assholes, will stick it’s fucking nose in, and escalate things even more, probly leading to another war, that no one wants.
but that is the way they are, start a war, and let other suckers finish it for them. ah, history will be doomed to keep repeating itself. and don’t forget, canada, the bum buddy to the u.s., will have to go there, and more people’s kids, will get killed, for no real good reason.
“well those people are gonna be regretting getting rid of that dude”
Only neocons and Christian/Jewish Zionists are sad about him leaving, and it will remain that way.
Western dictatorship is falling. And that’s a great thing.
In a hurry to have the mad mullahs in charge ?
Yeah, bring on the wife killing and other 7th century madness.
I guess I’ll have to renege on that Nile cruise with the boss. Paddling on Banook seems a whole lot safer….and cheaper….no palm trees and no greasy camel chaser with a hand out for Baksheesh. Fuck the pyramids, we’ll go and look at the great new tourist attraction in Grand Parade and marvel at the stupidity of HRM council.
Joeblow is a fucking genius. the only options for Arab countries are:
A) western backed dictatorships
B) Islamic theocracies
Can’t let those “sand people” have fair elections, can we joeblow?
It’s not about “letting” them. It’s about will they get a chance? I hope they will but history is against them. Too many military juntas and extremists in the Arab world at the moment. With luck that history will change one country at a time. It’ll be interesting to see where the rumblings in Jordan and Iran will lead. Maybe the Iraq invasion will lead to some good in the long run with the people wanting to run things.
They have more of a chance with the military than the police. The people actually respect the army and vice versa. It’s the police that were running around kidnapping and torturing people. I think the army is smart enough to know the protests can happen all over again.
Joeblow said:
“no palm trees and no greasy camel chaser with a hand out for Baksheesh”.
I think with this statement you forfeit any claim to support the Egyptian people’s aspirations for a more democratic political system. Your true feelings in this matter are clear.
Egypt is a another example of how the West (read “America”) espouses democracy and freedom as universal ideals, but frequently refuses to let those ideals take root in what folks used to call “the Third World”. The West’s (read “America’s”) preferred option is to support a local strongman with lavish amounts of foreign aid (read “military aid”) in order to provide what is euphemistically referred to as “stability” in the Western (I think you get the idea by now) media and in government communiques.
The list of such examples is very long. Many Americans are apparently unaware of such a list when they frequently wonder “why do they hate us?” and then fail to search for answers or latch on to the rationalization that “they hate our freedoms”.
Supporters of the tactic of invading foreign countries in order to bring “freedom” frequently make the statement that “democracy is messy” but the kind of mess they are usually referring to is the collateral damage (another euphemism) inflicted on innocent civilians when war is unleashed. I submit that achieving real democracy can be messy and what the Egyptian people want will very likely be somewhat different than what “we” want them to want. Must free people everywhere be forced (a bit of an oxymoron) into the mold of American democracy, complete with their own version of George Washington and the twin devotions of Christianity and Capitalism, in order to be legitimate? The Americans obviously think so.
The Americans want “stability” in the oil-rich region of the Middle East for the obvious reason. How that stability is achieved has never bothered various American administrations. Most (but not all) of the American people, of course, are fairly ignorant about their long history of supporting tyrants and dictators.
What the Egyptian people should have in terms of rights and freedoms is ultimately up to them. They aren’t likely to get that until the flow of American military aid (billions of dollars every year) is stopped or transformed into real aid for the Egyptian people and not sent to prop up various military strongmen.
Like it or not the Egyptian military is going to play kingmaker in that country for some time to come. And the restraint shown by that “recipient of American miltary aid” is the single biggest reason why Tarhir Square doesn’t resemble Tianenemen Square right now. They have the power to oversee an orderly transition to some form of functioning democracy while at the same time sidelining the psychopaths of the Muslim Brotherhood. Or they can descend into “Bonapartism” (heh heh – one of my favorite Marxist doublespeaks). And the trouble with Bonapartism is that at some point they declare war on their own populace to curb unrest; or attempt to “unite” the people with some lemming-like military adventure against a “traditional” foe.(I doubt Libya or Sudan are losing much sleep) The desire for “stability” in the region isn’t as cynical as it sounds, nor is it simply to appease the shareholders. I’d love to see the Egyptians transition to a functioning secular democracy, if only for the effect it would have on the mad mullahs of Iran and their holocaust denying sock-puppet. They must be shitting in their dishtowels right now.
Well said all (except for joeblow, that guy’s an asshole).
It seems to me that the question ultimately comes down to the Generals’ position on camel toes.
I think we already know what the Mullahs’ position is.
Montrealman, you are born-again funny! >: )
He cracked a joke? wassupwidat?
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qQ4GO0M9LYQ/S1hC…