Tunisia unrest spreading? Unrest in Egypt

[DivideBYZero]

Okay, I'm really bad at geography myself, but this is beyond retarded. Good work FOX. I can only hope that this was faked.

 

[werepossum]

america says they support democracy in third world countries but they really dont. the us pretends that democracy will result in the election of pro us governments that will give american corporations access, but in practice, once countries have elections they elect politicians that dont want the us exploiting them anymore. any type of elected government anywhere (afghanistan, iraq, egypt, saudi arabia etc...) is bad news for the us

You need to think this through. The USA just established democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable cost in treasure and blood. As far as Egypt - we give them billions each year just to play nice, and we get fuck-all from Egypt. Who is exploiting whom? True, we have other factors we consider in giving or withholding support. That makes us part of a club called every nation in the world.

For what it's worth, Bush was pressuring Egypt to adopt a more open and honest democracy. Obama largely stopped this pressure, as Bush is a big democracy guy and Obama is not. We'll know in a few weeks which of them made the wiser choice. I fear it is Obama.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Okay, I'm really bad at geography myself, but this is beyond retarded. Good work FOX. I can only hope that this was faked.

Do not worry, now that Nicolas Sarkozy has united Europe, he can turn his attention to correcting the woes of The Middle East:

 

[werepossum]

Do not worry, now that Nicolas Sarkozy has united Europe, he can turn his attention to correcting the woes of The Middle East:

LOL Greater France.

 

[db]

You need to think this through. The USA just established democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, at considerable cost in treasure and blood. As far as Egypt - we give them billions each year just to play nice, and we get fuck-all from Egypt. Who is exploiting whom? True, we have other factors we consider in giving or withholding support. That makes us part of a club called every nation in the world.

For what it's worth, Bush was pressuring Egypt to adopt a more open and honest democracy. Obama largely stopped this pressure, as Bush is a big democracy guy and Obama is not. We'll know in a few weeks which of them made the wiser choice. I fear it is Obama.

You can't be serious

 

[TareX]

Thank you TareX for the information and best of luck to you.

The part about Muslim Brotherhood is questionable since they just Declared War on America recently tho.
http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/10/muslim-brotherhood-declares-war-on-america

As Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke point out in the March/April 2007 Foreign Affairs magazine, "jihadists loathe the Muslim Brotherhood … for rejecting global jihad and embracing democracy."

You can read about them on their English website, or here:
http://terrorism.about.com/od/politicalislamterrorism/a/MuslimBrothers.htm

They're not even in the US list of terrorist groups.

Again, if free elections are held and the youths -who previously wouldn't vote bec it was useless and corrupt, the MB wouldn't take more than 20% of the seats -25% at most.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Mubarak has announced that he will not run for office again once his current term is up.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-egypt-idUSTRE70O3UW20110201

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said on Tuesday he would step down in a few months once a successor is elected, a move that responds to massive street protests but which may not satisfy many who want him out now.

Looks like he is done either in a few days or a few months. Unless he places a puppet in charge...

 

[iGas]

Mubarak has announced that he will not run for office again once his current term is up.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-egypt-idUSTRE70O3UW20110201

Looks like he is done either in a few days or a few months. Unless he places a puppet in charge...

That he has.

New Egyptian VP Ran Mubarak's Security Team, Oversaw Torture

The intelligence chief tapped by Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as his vice president and potential successor aided the U.S. with its rendition program, intelligence experts told ABC News, and oversaw the torture of an Al Qaeda suspect whose information helped justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In the midst of Egypt's protests, Omar Suleiman went on television Monday to say that President Mubarak had ordered him to launch reforms and begin talking to opposition parties. But for the U.S., the CIA, Israel, and Egypt's Islamist opposition, 74-year-old Suleiman, who has been the head of Egyptian intelligence since 1993, represents a continuation of the policies of the old regime.

"Mubarak and Suleiman are the same person," said Emile Nakhleh, a former top Middle East analyst for the CIA. "They are not two different people in terms of ideology and reform."

Ron Suskind, author of the book The One Percent Doctrine, called Suleiman the "hit man" for the Mubarak regime. He told ABC News that when the CIA asked Suleiman for a DNA sample from a relative of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Suleiman offered the man's whole arm instead.

"He's a charitable man, friendly," said Suskind. "He tortures only people that he doesn't know."

Suskind said Suleiman "was our point man in Egypt for many years. Everything went through Omar. We never had to talk to anyone else. When we wanted someone to be tortured, we'd send him to Egypt to have them tortured. We wanted to get intelligence and we didn't need it to be stuff that could be doublechecked."

"As chief of the Mukhabarat, or General Intelligence Directorate," said John Sifton, who authored the 2007 Human Rights Watch report on torture conducted by Egypt's other intelligence agency, SSI, Suleiman oversaw joint intelligence operations with the CIA and other Arab countries "which featured illegal renditions and tortures of dozens of detainees."

As revealed in U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks, Suleiman has cooperated closely with the U.S. and with Israel in trying to undercut Hamas, the Islamist party in the Palestinian territories. The Mubarak regime views Hamas, which has its roots in Egypt's own Islamist opposition, the Muslim Brotherhood, as a threat. ...

 

[OBLAMA2009]

lol its pretty funny to see obama and other americans making it sound like they were the heroes, reprimanding mubarek on the need for democracy, elections, etc... as if they werent the ones supporting his dictatoship for the last 30 years...

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Mubarak has announced that he will not run for office again once his current term is up.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-egypt-idUSTRE70O3UW20110201

Looks like he is done either in a few days or a few months. Unless he places a puppet in charge...

he wasnt going to run anyway...

 

[TareX]

Mubarak has announced that he will not run for office again once his current term is up.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/01/us-egypt-idUSTRE70O3UW20110201

Looks like he is done either in a few days or a few months. Unless he places a puppet in charge...

That was already a given a week ago. Here's why nobody should believe this liar:

First refuting the promises:

He wont run for another term.You are all accepting this as if Mubarak has a proven record of honesty, and he does deliver on his promises. Mubarak in 1981 said he will only stay in power for 2 terms, and we call saw how this turned out to be. We have seen the regime sending out a few hundred people in pro-Mubarak demonstrations, not to mention the tens of celebrities etc. who were saying all those nice things about Mubarak. Giving the regime 7 months to regroup and plan, don't you think for example they can't manage to create a massive large scale pro Mubarak campaign asking him to re-run leaving him "with no choice" but to re-run for another term? If I could think of such a cheap an easy plot, I'm sure Mubarak has at least a dozen of those up his sleeve.What happened to the rest of demands regarding elections? Judicial supervision, the right to vote for Egyptians abroad, voting using your ID (raqam qawmy) to avoid fraud, international and civil society organizations supervision?Again there was no mention of Gamal Mubarak not running for president, but more on that later.

Looking into court appeals regarding electoral fraudLooking into those appeals would mean the re-election of many many seats (under no guarantees that the re-election would be fair [read next point about article 88 of the constitution]), plus the large number of appeals basically means the parliament is not legitimate and the proper course of action would have been dissolving the parliament entirely.

Constitutional changes:

Mubarak promised to ask the parliament to change articles 76, and 77 of the Egyptian constitution. 76 is the article regulating the conditions required to be a presidential candidate, 77 says the president serves a 6 years term with no limit on how many times he can be re-elected. He did not mention anything about article 88 which regulates supervision over the electoral process of the parliament, which means there will be NO guarantee they will be fair and fraud free.

What has Mubarak left out in his speech:

Emergency law is still effective, which means oppression, brutality, arrests, and torture will continue. How can you have any hope for fair democratic elections under emergency law where the police have absolute power?

Internet is still not working, no talks of lifting censorship.
No talks of allowing freedom of speech, freedom to create political parties, freedom to participate in politics without the risk of getting arrested. FYI to start a political party you need the government's permission. How do you expect democracy to come out of this?
He said he will put anyone responsible for corruption to trial right? What about putting the police who killed 300+ to trial? What about members of NDP who are the most corrupt businessmen/politicians in the country. Do you think he'll put those to trial? Think again.

He didn't even take responsibility for anything that went wrong in the last 30 years. Not even his condolences to the martyrs who have fallen in this revolution.

Why should Mubarak leave now and not a day later?

He can't be trusted, and we can't believe a word he says. He's a murderer and a criminal with a 30 years criminal record, and the blood of thousands on his hands.

Every day he stays in power, not only are his cronies stealing every dime and every inch of this country, but we're giving the regime a chance to regroup and get their shit together, and if not Mubarak, or Gamal Mubarak, I'm sure we'll get someone even worse from within the regime.

Egypt will see the worst 9 months of its history in terms of oppression, arrests, and torture from now till September (and after that). Rest assured the regime (with or without Mubarak), will stop at nothing to stay in power. He has given no real guarantees whatsoever that the situation will improve. None. Not even regarding Emergency law.

You should NOT believe that there are any good people in the new cabinet Mubarak recently assigned. No good honest man would work for a criminal and a murderer, especially not in this war cabinet. Many honest Egyptians along the years have declined positions in Mubarak's governments.
If protesting stops now, it will never start again. At least not in those numbers, and thus creating no real pressure. And while giving the police a chance to regroup and reinforce their lines, expect more police brutality, and expect more deaths.

Most importantly, 300+ haven't sacrificed their lives, so we'd settle for some lame ass promises with no guarantees, and risk all this going to waste. They wanted Mubarak gone, and the least we can do is honor their will and keep going until Mubarak, and the rest of the regime are gone. Not in 9 months, but now.

My answer to the following claims:

"But the country is already in a state of chaos. Lets stop protesting so we can have some security and stability"

Don't be fooled, this state of chaos is mostly intentional. With the economy reaching almost a complete halt, and lack of security on the streets etc, Mubarak made sure you'd eat up whatever he throws at you. Would you rather be ruled by a corrupt and criminal regime for another 9 months (at least), or go through "chaos" for another week, two, or a month until the regime has fallen?

Don't let the blood of our martyrs go to waste. We've seen countries rise from the ashes of war, we've seen countries rise from the devastation of nuclear bombs. We can most DEFINITELY pull through for another couple of weeks. And once we have democracy, once we have freedom, once we get rid corruption, when 100% of our money goes into the country and not into the pockets of corrupt politicians and businessmen, we'll rebuilt this country in no time. What are a few years of struggle in a the history of a free and proud nation?

"If Mubarak leaves now, who's gonna be president? ElBaradei can't be president!! With no one in power we'll be in a spiral of chaos and havoc etc"

This is by far the most naive argument. Do you know what happens if the president has health problems? Do you know what happens if the president resigns? Do you know what happens if the president dissolves the government and resigns? Do you know what happens if the president dies? Do you know how an interim government works? Do you know what your constitution says? No. So any opinion you have on the matter is naive and based on emotion and not facts nor political understanding.

The constitution as it is tailored at the moment, puts on obstacles making it hard to proceed if Mubarak resigns at the moment. In other words the constitution obviously doesn't account for the coup d'etat scenario. You can read articles 82, 84, and 189 to understand what I'm talking about it.

However the scenario we want is:

The ousting of the regime entirely: President, government, and parliament.

Establishing an interim (transitional) government representing everyone across the spectrum, chosen by the people, to make the necessary constitutional changes and prepare for fair democratic elections in 6 months while providing the necessary guarantees. There are lots and lots of names who can fill this interim government but everyone is concerned about the president of that transitional government, and to those I say: a) Enough with the centralization of power. Its seems we can't think out of the one-man-ruling-the-country box. b) We are a country of 80 million people. Any honest decent Egyptian, who isn't part of the current regime, could be the head of this interim government. c) Whats wrong with ElBaradei? If you know anything about me I'm not exactly a fan of his, but we just need an honest man, who knows the necessary processes, constitutional changes and legislative changes required to establish the basis for democracy. I wouldn't want ElBaradei or any of the current opposition leaders to be president for a full term, but ElBaradei has what it takes to put down the ground work for fair and democratic elections after 6 months. Some people say he's too "soft" to handle the tough reality of Egypt, well you have to keep in mind a leader is only as strong as his supporters, so whichever whoever leader the people stand behind will have the necessary strength to lead this transitional phase. The circumstances of an interim government are different from a normal government. Think of it as a committee temporarily running the country with the primary focus being elections in 6 months.Finally given 6 months of political freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, no emergency law, and with constitutional and legislative changes, not only will we have one strong candidate for presidency, we'll have dozens.

For the reasons above, our goal should be: keep going until we overthrow the regime completely. And if you're bothered by the chaos, remember that the more the people protesting, the faster the regime will fall and the chaos will be over. And once the regime has fallen, we should dedicate all of our efforts to make sure we choose a proper interim government that really represents the people, and everything will go smoothly from there, and the future of Egypt will be brighter than ever before.

We will be strong, keep pushing, with no compromises. We haven't forgotten what they have done, we all know what they will do. The revolution has to go on so the lives of 300+ martyrs, and the blood of thousands other free Egyptians wouldn't go to waste.

Don't be naive. Its time to think politics and not just revolution. True freedom has a price and all of us should be willing to pay it.

Leaders don't demand their method of departure; THEY EARN IT.

 

[fed3r2198]

King Abdullah of Jordan dismisses government and promises reforms as protests spread there.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/01/jordan.government/

The king of Jordan dismissed his government Tuesday and appointed a new prime minister with orders to implement political reform.

The dismissal follows several protests calling for change in Jordan -- protests that echo demonstrations that have swept across North Africa and the Middle East in the last few weeks.

King Abdullah II asked Marouf Al Bakhit to form a government in Jordan that will implement "genuine political reform," the Royal Court said in a statement.

The government will "take practical steps, quick and concrete, to launch a process of genuine political reform" and "comprehensive development," according to a letter from the king to Al Bakhit. It also will act to strengthen democracy, the letter said.

Jordan has been deprived of "achievement opportunities" due to some leaders' resistance to change, the king wrote, and because they had sometimes put their own interests ahead of those of the public.

The king asked Al Bakhit and the new government "to conduct a thorough evaluation process" and review laws regarding political affairs and civil freedoms to "address the mistakes of the past" and develop "a clear action plan that takes the march of reform forward."

 

[TareX]

I also want to make something else clear.

Mubarak is a very, very smart man. He's surrounded by very, very smart men as well. They are all professionals, who know exactly what they're doing, and what they're announcing, and the rate at which they're gonna make these announcements.

There are many other concessions he could have made but is apparently saving them for when the people become really desperate e.g. after Friday's march. Maybe he'll announce the dissolution of the parliament, and new elections in place. Whatever he'll say, it won't involve him stepping down, and will be enough to break the crowds who -unlike him, can't afford to have the situation continue for long. He's a professional.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

A few hundred pro-Mubarak fans showed up with rocks, sticks, machetes, spears etc and are attacking the protesters. I hope the military kills every last one of them, and then goes on to kill every member of Mubarak's government and lynches him too.

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

 

[yllus]

I also want to make something else clear.

Mubarak is a very, very smart man. He's surrounded by very, very smart men as well. They are all professionals, who know exactly what they're doing, and what they're announcing, and the rate at which they're gonna make these announcements.

There are many other concessions he could have made but is apparently saving them for when the people become really desperate e.g. after Friday's march. Maybe he'll announce the dissolution of the parliament, and new elections in place. Whatever he'll say, it won't involve him stepping down, and will be enough to break the crowds who -unlike him, can't afford to have the situation continue for long. He's a professional.

Naw, don't give them too much credit. The blind spot of every dictatorship is how the people actually view them at any given time - they simply never receive accurate information (and often the people don't know how they feel until they feel it). They are inches away from panicking and fleeing the country - the protestors just have to keep at it. Probably will, too.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Wounded, unconscious children being carried away, pro-Mubarak people being dragged away by the crowd and handed over to the military...

 

[fed3r2198]

A few hundred pro-Mubarak fans showed up with rocks, sticks, machetes, spears etc and are attacking the protesters. I hope the military kills every last one of them, and then goes on to kill every member of Mubarak's government and lynches him too.

http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Sent by the regime no doubt. I'm watching on Jazeera and the pro-Mubarak supporters appear to be all military aged men, I don't see any young or old or women among them.

 

[fed3r2198]

Holy shit this is completely insane. Mubarak should hang for this.

 

[crownjules]

Al Jezeera's live news stream is very good. Great coverage of the events as they occur. Lots of really good interviews as well.

US Press Sec conference was interesting. We're basically telling Mubarak to leave or we cut off their aide.

edit: Also it's been reported that an Anderson Cooper crew was attacked by a pro-Mubarak mob and that Anderson himself was hit in the head several times.

 

[AshPhoenix]

The Egyptian army is siding with the regime, although they are trying to not look like they are. They intentionally allowed the regime's thugs to enter El Tahrir Square to attack the protesters, and just watched the thugs inflict casualties and injuries on the protesters. They prevented medical supplies and food from reaching the besieged protesters in the square. They also arrested some protesters. One protester reported that he was beaten and called names by soldiers of an army unit. Another protester even reported that the army shot at the protesters while they were being shot at by the thugs.

EDIT: Today, Friday, February 04, the army is preventing protesters from reaching El Tahrir Square.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

The Egyptian army is siding with the regime, although they are trying to not look like they are. They intentionally allowed the regime's thugs to enter El Tahrir Square to attack the protesters, and just watched the thugs inflict casualties and injuries on the protesters. They prevented medical supplies and food from reaching the besieged protesters in the square. They also arrested some protesters. One protester reported that he was beaten and called names by soldiers of an army unit. Another protester even reported that the army shot at the protesters while they were being shot at by the thugs.

EDIT: Today, Friday, February 04, the army is preventing protesters from reaching El Tahrir Square.

Not doing a very good job at it then, considering the hundreds of thousands of protesters on the square.

 

[Craig234]

Not doing a very good job at it then, considering the hundreds of thousands of protesters on the square.

I think he meant the pro-Mubarak hired thugs.

 

[AshPhoenix]

Not doing a very good job at it then, considering the hundreds of thousands of protesters on the square.

They can't do it very openly, and there are many ways and backstreets leading to El Tahrir Square.

 

[AshPhoenix]

I think he meant the pro-Mubarak hired thugs.

I meant the army too, an Egyptian eye witness reported it on Al Jazeera.

 

[AshPhoenix]

Egyptian police truck runs over protesters - 03-02-2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eGjU9asHuM