Egypt: Exchanging a Dictator for a Torturer
By James Ridgeway, Mother Jones, Thu Feb. 3, 2011 8:30 AM PST
As for Suleiman, he looks to be a nasty piece of work.
Egyptian Protests Grounded in Decades of Struggle; Portend Regional Transformation
Egypt is throbbing with resistance. Cairo is cloven between the forces of revolution and those of counterrevolution. Hundreds of thousands of people – on Tuesday, February 1, well over a million – have been streaming each day into Tahrir Square, the largest plaza in the Arab world, located in the heart of downtown Cairo. Army tanks line the streets, helicopters and F16s buzz overhead, and pro-Mubarak demonstrators, many of them hired thugs, bloodied thousands of protesters yesterday in Tahrir and elsewhere. Yet the people keep pushing for Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak's unconditional ouster, and not just in Cairo. Alexandria has been convulsed, while Suez, a small city abutting the Suez Canal, has been riven with some of the fiercest street battles between the police and protesters, while workers there have gone on strike, demanding that Mubarak step down from his palace in Heliopolis.
Phi Beta Iota: The US appears naive and uninformed at this time. This would have a much better outcome if there were a strategic game plan for pulling US forces out of the region, cutting all US military assistance to the region, and pushing Israel out of the US policy process while redirecting 50% of existing US assistance toward waging peace, the other 50% toward deficit reduction. The sooner the US can achieve intelligence with integrity, the better for all.
See Also:
Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, USA–No Legitimacy
Did Obama’s Promise Trigger Arab Revolt?
Shihab Rattansi lays bare US hypocrisy on Egypt
