Um, what the hell is happening over there? When do we start bombing?
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by John Cole| 98 Comments
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Um, what the hell is happening over there? When do we start bombing?
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Elvis Elvisberg
We’ve been propping up a hated dictator for a few decades. Uh oh! Time to ramp up our alliance with Saudi Arabia!
Actually, an overthrow of Mubarak is pretty unlikely. Different demographics than Tunisia, and tighter control over the military & policy by the autocrat. See the Marc Lynch post titled “Will the Arab revolutions spread?” at Foreign Policy for more (sorry, don’t want to link, it’s been sending me into moderation).
dr. bloor
Politcal repression and violence in Egypt? Wow, who knew?
Elvis Elvisberg
(Here I throw caution to the wind and include the link: http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/01/26/will_the_arab_revolutions_spread )
sharl
Here’s an eyewitness account from The Guardian’s Jack Shenker. Via Twitter, he also gave a running account of getting caught in a police roundup.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, from the thread intro, nothing at all is happening in Egypt, because there is no link for us to follow to find out what might be happening?
Rioting because Steve Martin is doing “King Tut” at the Pyramids?
Zifnab
It’s the 70s all over again.
MattF
Josef Joffe has an interesting essay about Tunisia compared with the rest of the Arab world in TNR, no less.
geg6
Although I get why the US is aligned with Egypt and that the Egyptian government is probably much too strong to be taken out as easily as Tunisia’s, I find this quite heartening. I have a good friend from Egypt (a Coptic) who has railed against Mubarak for the last three decades. Mubarak is the sole reason his family originally moved here in the 80s and became American citizens. I need to email Nader now and find out what he thinks about all this.
p.a.
Thank you for your application to PNAC, but we currently have no openings, including internships. ;-)
IrishGirl
Wait, we already started bombing didn’t we? Aren’t we the LAST to know……
lacp
And remember: according to our State Department, a political party that withdraws from a governing coalition in a parliamentary system is actually staging a coup.
Carol
Wasn’t that what we said about the Shah and the Soviet Union at one time, that they could never be overthrown? Yet, they fell none the less. This could well be 1989 all over again, as the governing principle behind these governments no longer holds. They also know that the United States, propper up of these governments has practically been bled dry militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, so real intervention to save their dictators or even a military re-supply isn’t too likely.
JPL
Bombing will begin as soon as the unrest spreads to Saudi Arabia.
RalfW
The Christian Science Monitor does a good job poking the Obama admin appropriately:
New Yorker
Freedom Is On The March, John. It’s all thanks to Bush’s wise decision to build a flourishing Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq. Just ask any writer at “Commentary”.
In all seriousness, I imagine your average neocon hack is fidgeting nervously right now and wants Mubarak to send in tanks to run people over. When your entire “intellectual” movement is based on knee-jerk defense of the Israeli right, you don’t want to risk having Mubarak replaced with the Muslim Brotherhood.
FormerSwingVoter
Mendenhall gives Big Ben a celebratory dry-humping, and suddenly the whole world goes to hell.
bobbo
More importantly, what color do we tint our blogs?
Svensker
The Other
WhiteJohnJuan Cole has good info and analysis.Sounds like nothing’s going to happen, at least in the short term. Too easily quashed. Very different from Tunisia.
Svensker
@FormerSwingVoter:
How often has that happened over the last 10 years? This could explain much.
wengler
“We can’t lose Egypt!
It’s our favorite place to send prisoners to be tortured!”
— Washington Press
Crashman
@geg6: The Islamic Brotherhood is a big force in Egyptian politics. If this regime were to collapse and they seized power, it would be a serious problem for us. Egypt is a crucial geopolitical ally. Losing them would cause all sorts of nasty problems.
eemom
IANAEE, but this sounds fairly serious:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Egypt-presidents-son-family-flee-to-Britain/articleshow/
ALSO. Is anyone else finding that the site is loading slower than shit because of that stupid Bachmann video??
srv
Obama has lost Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon, probably Afghanistan, and maybe some day Egypt.
This is the part of his administration that I approve of.
Wish google earth would keep an eye on Cairo West, one of our not-so-little bases there. I’m sure some interesting things are flying in. Special1sts on twitter and all that.
p.a.
has Sully assigned a color yet?
sixers
What color should I change my blog to in support of the protesters???
Poopyman
Oh yes, shit is goin’ down.
On Wednesday evening, thousands of demonstrators were spread throughout downtown Cairo after being dispersed by security forces. Many had gathered on Gelaa Street, near central Tahrir Square – the site of a violent early morning confrontation between security forces and protesters who had been planning to sleep the night in defiance of the government.
__
Police fired tear gas and broke up concrete to use as rocks to throw at protesters and “egg them on,” Al Jazeera’s Adam Makary reported.
fraught
Yemen up next.
Poopyman
@fraught:
And probably not Lebanon.
Yet.
Stillwater
@FormerSwingVoter: Win!
I actually did a mental double-take when I saw that live. Was he actually humping … Ben Rothlisberger? Some weird shit, bro. Or, I thought so at the time. Now I’m wondering how many other countries might destabalize of the Stillers win the SB.
Joseph Nobles
I don’t know what’s up in Egypt. I’m watching major media figures on Twitter mock Dennis Kucinich because he’s sued a HR cafeteria for giving him a wrap with an olive pit in it. Silly Dennis Kucinich! Biting into a sandwich wrap, fucking up his teeth, dealing with the pain and the multiple dental procedures! Plus, he was a sucky mayor! Leno’s got material for a week!
Downpuppy
Wheat was at $11/bushel when everything crashed.
It’s crept back up to $8-9.
People rioting because they can’t afford to eat is kinda traditional.
Crashman
Hey my comment vanished…
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@p.a.: Sully’s out sick.
That said, this is a Big Deal, actually. Not because of the rioting — that’s happened a few times in just the last decade or so in Egypt — but because of the scale, and especially the foreign media attention, which the Mubarak gov’t is not used to, at all, and does not like overmuch. that point, I suspect, will be key (along with a much less sympathetic Obama Admin) to any changes that might occur.
I’m following, among other sources, a blog of an American Belly Dancer currently living in Cairo, and it’s been interesting seeing it from her POV. It sounds like chaos on the streets…
PeakVT
Here comes the blowback….
Ed Marshall
I dunno what is happening. It was reported that Mubarak sent his family to London, and now that is being denied. It’s bad shit, if the people get in the streets and stay there, the only way out for Mubarak is to roll them up Tianamen style and when he does it’s going to be with U.S. supplied and maintained M-1 Abrams.
joe from Lowell
@RalfW:
What would you have them do? Send in the 101st to install a new government? How about make a big, splashy show of solidarity with the protesters, so the government can blame all of the trouble on foreign agitators?
Keeping quiet and making good-cop statements to the regime seems like the right idea to me.
@Woodrow:
Much less sympathetic to whom, compared to what? I don’t understand what you meant.
Tony J
OT: Why is everything from #20 onwards crossed out? Make it stop.
As to the question posed, this – could – get really bad if the Egyptian military and security forces decide it’s in their interests to ‘restore order’. Mubarak’s son and family running to the UK could just as easily signal that his dad wants his presumptive heir out of the firing line (and far away from any potential kingmakers) before he brings the hammer down.
slag
I likes me a blog where all the news comes from the comments section. It’s like DIGG but less crazy.
General Stuck
Sometimes these things are just temporary ventilation to blow off excess rage at living so long under autocratic rule. Other times they are the beginning of something more. That becomes cyclic in ever increasing episodes that get bigger and bigger. Our part in helping keep dictators in power almost always comes back to bite us in the ass. Sooner or later. And in that part of the world, it usually gives the theocratic activists in a Muslim majority country the upper hand.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@joe from Lowell: Sympathetic to Mubarak, in my estimation.
joe from Lowell
Woodrow,
So, you mean, less sympathetic to Mubarak than Bush was? Or, than Obama used to be?
joe from Lowell
@General Stuck:
It’s just like the Cold War. The more we backed up the oligarchs in Latin America, the more the opposition was driven into the arms of the Communists. We need to not make the same mistake out of fear of Islamism that we made out of fear of Communism.
p.a.
@joe from Lowell:
I have 2 comments, related: 1) you must be young 2) too late
(or was that snark?)
fasteddie9318
What helps Mubarak, unlike Ben Ali’s situation in Tunisia, is that the Egyptian military is more likely to obey him if he orders them to roll up these protests than the Tunisian military was to have obeyed a similar order from Ben Ali. Still, if the son fled the country that could signal something. I don’t think the reformers have a prayer of ousting Mubarak, but they might be able to sway the succession when Mubarak finally kicks the bucket.
Dave
If Egypt has to resort to flat-out killing their citizens to maintain order, it’s over. That was the final nail in the Shah’s coffin. Black Friday did him in.
SiubhanDuinne
Strikethrough cleanup required in Aisle 20, please.
Turbulence
Speaking as an actual Copt, I’m happy to take questions about recent Egyptian history. I was born in the US and my parents immigrated here in the early 70s but I still have some family in Egypt.
fasteddie9318
@Turbulence: Is your family in Cairo? Are they keeping their heads down?
Mart
@New Yorker: Yes, I too am amazed that Bush’s Masterplan to spread Democracy across this barren land is finally coming to fruition. Never mind the twitter, food prices and political butterfly effects.
Will Danaher
“Feeney, get your book out.
Set down the name, the one Sean Thornton.
Well, strike a line through it.
That´s for him. Sean Thornton.”
Roger Moore
@Dave:
Yeah, because blood in Tienanmen Square really did in the Chinese government, and the government shooting protesters was a huge win for the Green Movement in Iran. Killing protesters could make the revolution worse, or it could scare the protesters back into hiding. Which one it will be depends on the will of the protesters and the willingness of the military to kill civilians. There’s no way of telling which except to watch what happens.
Turbulence
@fasteddie9318: Is your family in Cairo? Are they keeping their heads down?
Some of them live in the Cairo and its suburbs. I can assure you, my family is extremely skilled at keeping their heads down ;-)
joe from Lowell
@p.a.:
No, I’m not particularly young, and no, it’s not too late.
Go ahead, point out a country to which the Obama administration has provided aid to the government in order to crush a popular opposition movement, the way we did in Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and a dozen other Latin American countries.
(My money is on you naming a country – Afghanistan, say – in which we backed the government against a small, unpopular revolutionary clique that had neither popular support nor democratic aspirations.)
Dave
@Roger Moore: I would put Egypt’s situation (a familial dictatorship dealing with religious and political unrest) closer to 70s Iran than China (a monolithic party dictatorship).
beltane
Whatever is happening in Egypt, it has had the effect of silencing Tom Friedman. The Moustache of Understanding has been strangely quiet.
PeakVT
@Turbulence: How much does the Egyptian government intrude into daily life there? I’ve wondered about that.
joe from Lowell
@beltane:
Viva la revolucion!
Sharl
@beltane #51: Hah, that won’t last long. The Moustache of Understanding is chatting up cabbies even as we speak; sure, they may not be Egyptian, but {waves dismissively in vaguely eastern direction} they’re from that area.
BBC World had that putz on a couple nights* ago (*U.S. EST, wee hours), fawning over him as some humongously insightful intellect. Jeez, the cutbacks over there at BBC must be removing some brain tissue.
THE EARTH IS FLAT ‘N’ ALL THAT!!
Also, too.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
Israel (Gaza). Yemen (geographical separatists, though of course we claim that money is only used in operations against al Qaeda for PR). Turkey/Iraq (PKK).
So that’s a couple easy ones. Unless you meant popular opposition movements that are objectively benevolent, thus making our obstruction an affront to increasing social justice? Then the list gets murkier…
GregB
The Arab states are the last in the entire world to under go a wave of Democratic change.
Much of Asia, almost all of Eastern Europe, almost all of South and Central America have gone through their revolutions.
This region has been stuck in limbo for a long time because of two major factors. Oil and Israel.
The Western powers have helped to maintain a very anti-democratic status quo because of these two factors.
We can’t claim to support human rights and democracy and continue to look the other way at despotic regimes like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan as well as the other Gulf sheikdoms.
There is also the thorny issue of the Palestinians. The last time they had an election it was nullified by the US and Israel because we didn’t like the outcome.
The clock is ticking on American power and this is a sign that our power to keep things as they were is running on empty.
Turbulence
@PeakVT: How much does the Egyptian government intrude into daily life there?
A fair bit. Egypt is not exactly a libertarian paradise.
(1) Quotas: a lot of important government positions have Christian quotas. So, for example, if you want to become a judge or a prosecutor, there’s a fixed number of Christians in each incoming class that they’re willing to accept. The problem is that the government picks quotas that are much lower than the proportion of Christians in the population. So, around 10% of the population is Christian, but a typical quota for the Egyptian equivalent of assistant district attorneys might be 0.5%. This was explained to me by a relative who used to be a judge.
(2) Bribery: if you have any money, you will be harassed constantly for bribes. In the US, police officers earn a living wage. In Egypt, police officers and government clerks rarely earn enough to live off of with their government salary. So they have to earn cash on the side, or their kids don’t eat.
(3) Failure of development: the huge problem is that the economy is stalled and has been for a long time. There aren’t enough jobs. There isn’t enough housing. Younger people can’t afford to get their own apartment because there aren’t enough jobs and what jobs there are don’t pay well enough. It is widely believed that many of the economic problems stem from Mubarak’s regime: Mubarak and his family take a cut from large deals. Plus, some areas of the economy are basically given over to the military to run for profit, and competing with them is sort of illegal. Like in Pakistan, the military makes breakfast cereal. That allows some military officers to get lots more money which discourages them from thinking any revolutionary thoughts.
The economic failure exacerbates sectarian tensions. Even middle class people are just being hammered. My cousins left Egypt 10 years ago because they couldn’t get jobs that paid enough to get an apartment. These guys have graduate degrees in engineering. One of them worked for Alcatel (the French high tech company that bought Lucent/Bell Labs).
Note that although I talk about Christians versus Muslims, the division is not entirely based on religion. In Egypt, religious differences are a marker of class. So it is commonly thought that Copts are rich folk who only buy and sell from other Copts. In reality, Copts are overrepresented amongst the middle class technocrats and underrepresented amongst the poorer folks and richer folks. In a way, some of the anti-Copt sentiment is the Egyptian version of hating on elites.
(4) There’s basically a bread ration that lots of people depend on: the government subsidizes the price of low-quality bread that poorer folks eat. Rising food prices have caused big problems here in the past.
Sharl
@Turbulence, I appreciate your knowledgeable contributions here. I had a vague idea of some of it, but didn’t know details (e.g., the “Christian quotas”)
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
Not a good example. The Israel/Palestine conflict is a fight between two nations, not an uprising by the public against its own oppressive government.
So, once again, this is not an example of a popular uprising seeking to topple and replace their country’s own oppressive government, but a separatist conflict.
Again, separatists that most certainly do not represent a popular uprising of the country’s people.
None of those are comparable to
The VC, the FMLN, the Sandinistas, and the other rebel group we helped quashed weren’t separatists, or a marginalized minority group seeking greater rights; they were popular uprisings, representing the aspirations of something like most of those countries’ citizenry – like what we’re seeing in Egypt and Tunisia.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
That’s a ridiculous mischaracterization of the situation in the Gaza strip and you know it.
PeakVT
@Turbulence: Thanks.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw: If you’re getting huffy because “the Palestinians aren’t really a nation,” save your breath.
If you don’t like the fact that I didn’t go out of my way to express to express sympathy with one side or the other, ditto.
The conflict in the Gaza Strip, and in Israel/Palestine as a whole, is a conflict between the people of two distinct nations, not a popular uprising of a nation’s people against its own unresponsive, repressive government.
HyperIon
@Ed Marshall wrote:
Right after Sadat was assassinated and Mubarak took over, I recall reports of an unhappy crowd taunting him with chants of: “Mubarak, the reviewing stand awaits you.”* The wheels of justice grind slow, but very fine.
*For those too young to remember, Sadat was killed while reviewing the troops.
Turbulence
@joe from Lowell: The conflict in the Gaza Strip, and in Israel/Palestine as a whole, is a conflict between the people of two distinct nations, not a popular uprising of a nation’s people against its own unresponsive, repressive government.
That’s a really bizarre way of looking at things.
At the end of the day, people living in Gaza are beholden to the Israeli government. They can’t fly in the air over their homes without the permission of Israel. They can’t trade with other countries without the permission of Israel. They can’t use the water under their homes without the permission of Israel. They can’t even broadcast radio waves without the permission of Israel.
The Israeli government controls life in Gaza to a large degree. People in Gaza hate that. And the Israeli government is not responsive to their complaints.
eemom
@joe from Lowell:
again, not an expert on any of this, but I think your distinction of popular revolution vs. separatists holds up.
But for the category-lovers among us, I don’t think Gaza fits into any of them. Maybe oppression of an occupied land, except that technically it is not “occupied” any more.
daveNYC
Yep, but even then, Joe is right. Israel-Gaza is more like a case of an foreign occupation.
joe from Lowell
@Turbulence:
At the end of the day, the people of any conquered territory, being governed by a foreign occupying army, are beholden to that foreign government.
That doesn’t make their situation comparable to that of Nicaraguans looking to overthrow Samoza, Vietnamese looking to overthrow Thieu, or Egyptians looking to overthrow Mubarak.
I really don’t understand what your objection is here. Yes, resistance to a foreign occupier and resistance to a domestic repressive government are both resistance. No, that does not mean they are the same thing.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
You keep cheating and talking about “Palestine” (whatever that means) instead of merely Gaza because you know you’re cooked on this one.
It has nothing to do with sentiment. Gazans were ghettoized and actively occupied against. Then they became passively occupied. They sought the right to self-governance. They were denied, and embargoed. This was all done with full US support and backing. This is what happened.
Or in other words, what Turbulence wrote as well.
joe from Lowell
The Sandinistas were a Nicaraguan movement that claimed that they represented the genuine, legitimate aspirations of the Nicaraguan people, while the government claimed to represent the aspirations of those same people.
The Viet Cong claimed that they represented the genuine, legitimate aspirations and interests of the Vietnamese people, and so did the government they fought.
The FMLN, the Salvadoran people – and so did the ARENA Party/Salvadoran government.
Do Hamas, Fatah, or any Palestinian organization for that matter, claim to represent the genuine, legitimate interests and aspirations of the Israeli people? Does the Israeli government claim to represent the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people?
No, because Gaza is not a case in which a nation rises up against its own government because that government is oppressive, but rather, resistance against a foreign government.
Turbulence
@joe from Lowell: I really don’t understand what your objection is here.
My problem is that you described this as a conflict between two nations. But one of these “nations” doesn’t control the air over above it, the water below it, its borders, or its EM spectrum. That seems to stretch the definition of “nation” to its breaking point. If I buy some land in the country, am I now a “nation”? What other “nation” exists in the world under those limitations?
Cris
This is tangential, but you’ve brought to light an important rhetorical response to the right-wing American jackasses who like to bitch about the pay that government employees receive.
If you don’t pay government workers a reasonable salary, they’re much more vulnerable to bribery.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
Actually, I’ve made my point several times now, quite effectively, and will be happy to keep making it, because I know I’m right.
I see my point went over your head on the second attempt as well. I’ve explained it yet again at 5:26; let’s see if you get it this time. Here’s a hint: absolutely nothing you wrote, not a word of it, serves in any way to rebut, or even address, my argument.
joe from Lowell
eyeroll
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
And you are once again explicitly ignoring who it was that Hamas defeated in the 2006 Gaza elections, and why that is relevant to your unworkably pure foreign/domestic dichotomy. They weren’t running against Kadima, let’s put it that way…
joe from Lowell
@Turbulence: I’m using “nation” in the more accurate sense of “a people,” rather than “a state.”
Mubarak’s government isn’t terribly popular among Egyptians right now; nonetheless, his is an Egyptian government. Indeed, he is an Egyptian nationalist politician.
Whereas the Israeli government is most certainly not a Palestinian government, but a foreign government. Hence, resistance to the Israeli government by Palestinians is different from that of Egyptians to Mubarak’s government, in that the conflict in Egypt (or El Salvador, or Nicaragua) is a conflict between a government and its people (or, between a people and their own government), rather than a conflict between a people and a government which – in the eyes of the government, and in the eyes of the people – isn’t actually theirs.
That’s the distinction I’m talking about.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw:
I’m also ignoring the popularity of cricket in Gaza, and for a similar reason: because that, too, is completely irrelevant.
The conflict in Gaza, as well as in the West Bank, is between the Israeli nation and the Palestinian nation, making it completely different than the conflicts in Egypt or Tunisia.
Turbulence
@Cris: If you don’t pay government workers a reasonable salary, they’re much more vulnerable to bribery.
Right.
I think it is easy for people who haven’t spent time in the developing world to see corruption as exclusively about personal morality; of course, morality is part of it, but so is economics. I’m not sure demanding bribes is even all that immoral when your kids don’t have enough to eat.
joe from Lowell
@Bob Loblaw: Tell me if I’m understanding you correctly: you mentioned “Gaza” not to bring up the Israel/Palestine conflict, but the civil war between Fatah and Hamas?
I think you could make a case that America’s backing of the Fatah government against Hamas in Gaza is an example of the U.S. supporting a government against a popular uprising, but the question I asked was about the Obama administration, while the intra-Palestinian, popular (?) uprising against Fatah, and the U.S.’s backing of Fatah, took place under Bush.
General Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
I think BoB has just crossed over to arguing with himself, and is winning that argument, and losing it ,
Could either way or both ways.
Bob Loblaw
@joe from Lowell:
There is no Palestinian unity at the moment. You know this. The situation has evolved into an uneasy tripartite system. That’s why I asked you what “Palestine” means to you. Because it means something very different to supporters of Hamas.
And that intra-national conflict (by your definition) was the pretext for further repression by the “foreign occupying forces.” With the tacit support of the Palestinian Authority, who have been conferred political responsibility over the occupied territories by the United States and Israel without an explicit electoral mandate.
The Other Chuck
Could you two just pull them out and break out the rulers and get it over with?
eemom
@General Stuck:
I usually don’t read much of Lob Bowow, but this kind of confirms my suspicion that he exists for no other purpose than to instigate meaningless arguments on blogs. I think there’s a word for that…
Roger Moore
@Turbulence:
Iraq? Afghanistan? There are historical precedents, too. When we occupied Germany and Japan after WWII, they lacked control over every aspect of their countries. They couldn’t control the air above, water beneath, border around, or EM spectrum in their countries, either. But that doesn’t mean the German and Japanese nations ceased to exist. They were just occupied by foreign governments that denied them effective control over their nations. If they had held a popular uprising, it would have been against a foreign government, not their own.
The same thing is true in Gaza. In case you’re forgetting, the events that precipitated the Israeli sanctions were ultimately driven by Hamas winning local elections. Hamas is the legitimate Gazan government but not the target of the Palestinian attacks. Instead, the attacks are against the Israeli attempts to impose their rule on the people of Gaza. IOW, the Palestinians are fighting against a foreign government, not their own. The lack of a formal Israeli occupation is not a significant distinction.
General Stuck
@eemom:
Idiot
or troll, or both
Cris
Godwin’s little theorem: As an online discussion of foreign policy grows longer, the probability that the original topic will be overwhelmed by a discussion of Israel approaches 1.
joe from Lowell
Let me try to haul this back to the point that was relevant to the topic of the thread: the Obama administration is behaving in a very different manner towards oppressive, American-allied, anti-Islamist governments that are facing popular, democratic uprisings than did American presidents during the Cold War who saw oppressive, American-allied, anti-Communist governments that faced popular, democratic uprisings.
The Raven
I think this is one for the Angry Black Lady. In Ohio woman has been convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison time for lying about her address so her children could get into a better school district. This perhaps makes little sense? The woman is black and poor and lives in Akron, the school district is in a well-to-do white suburb. The local prosecutor and school district threw the book at her.
(Not related to the opening topic of this thread, but I don’t have an easy way to forward it, else.)
matoko_chan
@Elvis Elvisberg: Mubarek is DYING.
The Muslim Brotherhood will be the new majority party, like APK in Turkey, the Shi’a party in Iraq, the Hizb’ party in Leb.
See a trend?
Iran redux, dumbasses.
i dont think we can open a third front of Jeebusdemocracy “promotion” just yet, but look for Sick Grandpa calling for MOAR missionaries with guns to be dropped on Cairo.
less see…..1.7 billion muslims vs approx 200 million fat white judeoxians….good luck with that.
matoko_chan
Perhaps this needs unpacking for the balloonjuice cudlips. America props “secular” dictator in +95% muslim nation. (the Shah, Saddam, Mubarak, etc).
the people rise up and the nation becomes another islamic state that hates America.
point, set, match.
4jkb4ia
@beltane:
He’s writing a book. I am sure everyone here can hardly wait.
4jkb4ia
You want to cheer for these people so badly, but Egypt is the country that broadcast the show based on “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. No matter whether there is a secular or religious democracy there Israel is going to go through some anxious times.
Captain C
@Cris:
I suspect that at least some of the jackasses look forward to the fun and profit they can have when they are able to take advantage of this vulnerability.
mclaren
I’m more interested in knowing when it will happen in America.
The system ain’t workin’. Time to tear it down and start fresh.
Captain C
@Cris:
I suspect that at least some of said jackasses look forward to fun and profit from taking advantage of this vulnerability.