Weekend Sober Thread: Shit's Gettin' Real in Egypt

Anyone know what time the march starts? Live coverage on AJZ should be pretty amazing.

 

I'm fine, thanks for the concern. Back in the good ol' U S of A. All of the study abroad students from my university have been sent to Qatar, which hopefully will not be the next domino to fall.

If you think this revolution has anything to do with Islam, you are a fucking retard. Al-Jazeera English has had the best coverage by far on this event. I'll leave the rest to quotes.

I've been glued to the fucking computer on this, so if anyone has questions, fire away... with the caveat that I'm just an average shmuck who happened to live in the country for a while.

 

This is very hopeful.

<a class="postlink" href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/20111311965695371.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middl ... 95371.html</a>

I'm very glad to see the military stand by the people.

 

It's not Egypt, but it's Egypt adjacent: the government of Sudan has accepted the south's vote of succession and wishes them good luck.

<a class="postlink" href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/01/2011131173810198363.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://english.aljazeera.net/news/afric ... 98363.html</a>

 

It's quite simple, really. The present administration in Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel and is okay with the US.

Meanwhile, the protesters have burnt the flags of Israel and the US at every single demonstration. I'm sure both groups are equally corrupt, and the economy will suck under either regime.

But personally, I'd like to avoid more bloody wars between Egypt and Israel, and more terrorist acts out of Egypt aimed at Europe and the US.

That's just me, though.

 

.... and you know this how ??

 

I've been glued to AJZ and haven't seen a single flag, US, Israel, or otherwise burned during these demonstrations.

In other news, the Prime Minister of Turkey made me happy:

"You have to listen to the wishes of the people in order to create security and stability. First you must take steps that are good for Egypt. You must take steps that satisfy the people."

But then he said "Everyone has the right to fight for freedom, but without violence,"

As someone who enjoys freedom that was paid for with 25,000 lives, I don't like telling other people that violence is never the answer.

 

Street protests in Jordan, President's cabinet sacked. Where have I seen this before?

<a class="postlink" href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112113957115258.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middl ... 15258.html</a>

 

1) It's really not that simple. The reasons it's not that simple have been discussed at length in this thread.

2) You have actual proof of that?

3) Treating those events like foregone conclusions is a neat trick, but you'd be hard-pressed to prove their inevitability. I, and several other posters, have already pointed out several examples of how Egypt is different from most other Middle Eastern states. You should check those posts out.

And, my favorite:

As to the first point, and just briefly: King Abdullah II of Jordan, King Hassan II of Morocco, King Abdullah Bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, President of the UAE and his wacky, magical, high-flying council of Emirs, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani of Qatar, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain.

Each of those leaders has either established or enjoyed the fruits of prosperous relations with the United States. Their personal "hatred" for Israel doesn't matter, because they understand that if they want our money, they'll sit quietly with their hands in their laps and deal with it. Formal state recognition means squat as long as they don't attack, which they won't. Don't worry your head about it: there are plenty of dictators left in the Middle East for us to prop up and trade with.

As to the second point, and for all your grand moral indictments of our national character, the fact of the matter is this: our government's primary goal is to sustain American supremacy, or what is left of it. Mubarak, even if he stays in power, is now a threat to that supremacy. Ergo, Mubarak gets the cold shoulder. I would expect the same thing be done to any former ally who doesn't toe the line in support of our interests, especially when they receive billions of dollars in annual aid to do exactly that. We paid this man to keep his house in order. For myriad reasons, he can no longer do it. Partnership dissolved. It's not cowardice, it's business.

I can't even speak to your point about Iraq and Afghanistan, other than to say that neither of those two occurrences has anything to do with Egypt. What you display with statements like that is a naive willingness to equate the politics and culture of one Arab state to any other. If that's how you're going to play this game, I can do nothing for you, son.

 

To be quite fucking honest. I haven't seen a single image of this either, and I've been watching either AJE or BBC nonstop for the past six days or so.

As for the other issues, they've already been covered. You really don't know what you're talking about here.

 

AJZ correspondent Sherine Tadros (@SherineT) just Tweeted that it looks like the march on the palace is off due to roadblocks.

 

On AJE they're estimating between 1.5 and 2 million in Tahrir Square. A large segment of the protesters are women which so far I haven't seen much of.

Don't think a roadblock is going to stop that many people if they decide to march.

 

It's a pretty common fear, and while I can't claim to know the future, I think it's a little bit overblown. The Muslim Brotherhood was derided as ineffectual even when I was there, and considering they only backed the protests three or four days in, I doubt they'll be the leading figures coming out of this. Besides which, while they are an Islamic group, they are not (by and large, nowadays) a violent group. For that you have to look to the Gama'a Islamiya, which renounced violence in 2003.

Egyptian Islamic Jihad (led by Ayman al-Zawahiri) was merged into al-Qaeda. So I wouldn't give it a very high possibility, and certainly not anything like those retards in the Israeli foreign office are predicting.

 

AJZ just reported that John Kerry is calling for Mubarak to stand down.

Who the fuck is John Kerry?

 

What I've been seeing is that MB's main contribution isn't ideological, but organizational. They have experience with protests, and are able to help with communication and keep the demonstrations peaceful.

 

Jordan may be heading that direction next...

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-jordan-protest-idUSTRE71041F20110201" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/ ... 1F20110201</a>

 

I'm impressed with the organization and security going on. Citizens and military are working together to make sure people aren't bringing weapons to the protests.

AJZ also did a story on prisons that had been raided. While most of the prisoners have fled, some stayed behind, citing either fear of getting a harsher sentence if they were caught later, or pride and wanting to leave with dignity.

 

Mubarak will not run in upcoming September elections

I wonder if this will be enough. If I were protesting, I'd be wary of this compromise. It's a long time until September. A lot of retribution can be exacted between now and then.

 

It's not enough. It's bullshit. The man needs to step the fuck down before he ends up dead through vigilante justice.