Shaked considers the West’s demands for more openness and democracy in Egypt to be a fatal mistake. “It is an illusion to believe that the dictator Mubarak could be replaced by a democracy,” he says. “Egypt is still not capable of democracy,” he adds, pointing out that the illiteracy rate is over 20 percent, to give just one example. The Muslim Brotherhood is the only real alternative, he opines, which would have devastating consequences for the West. “They will not change their anti-Western attitude when they come to power. That has not happened (with Islamist movements) anywhere: neither in Sudan, Iran nor Afghanistan.”
Ultimately the choice is between a pro- or an anti-Western dictatorship, says Shaked. “It is in our interest that someone from Mubarak’s inner circle takes over his legacy, at any cost.” In the process, it is not possible to rule out massive bloodshed in the short term, he says. “It would not be the first time that riots in Egypt were brutally crushed.” (Read more from spiegel.de)
Great photo collections here and here. Also, this video of protesters crossing a bridge and cops giving way before them demonstrates the scope of these protests.
The White House may stand behind the protesters in Tunisia, but demonstrators in Egypt haven’t gotten the presidential blessing. Appearing on PBS NewHour last night, gaffe-prone Vice President Joe Biden remarked that he doesn’t consider Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak a dictator—despite his 29-year rule—and isn’t sure what exactly protesters want.
I wonder how much of the US’s luke warm view of the protests has to do with the Israel Lobby. I can imagine them wanting a tyrant whom the US more or less controls over a popular movement.
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Obviously, government repression doesn’t like internet freedom of information. By the way:
Internet ‘kill switch’ bill will return A controversial bill handing President Obama power over privately owned computer systems during a “national cyberemergency,” and prohibiting any review by the court system, will return this year. . . . Portions of the Lieberman-Collins bill, which was not uniformly well-received when it became public in June 2010, became even more restrictive when a Senate committee approved a modified version on December 15. The full Senate did not act on the measure. (Read more from news.cnet.com)
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Riot control agents used against the Egyptian protests seem to be Made in the USA. Are you proud, chest-thumbing neo-cons? Wait, don’t answer that.
See Also: The US government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to equip the Egyptian security forces with high-tech military hardware.
But unless things get really, really bad there, it’s unlikely that any big-ticket American military hardware will be used directly against the Egyptian demonstrators. A selection of Defense Department contracts dating to the mid-1990s reveals weapons sales to Egypt that include a Black Hawk helicopters (Sikorsky), a dizzying variety of missiles (Raytheon), Abrams tanks (General Dynamics), Humvees (AM General Corp.) and all manner of ammunition. . . .
Now, if through some incredible circumstance Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak decides to flee the country, Ã la Ben Ali, there’s a good chance his first-class flight would come courtesy of the American taxpayer.
Pentagon contracts show that the US government has spent at least $111,160,328 to purchase and maintain Mubarak’s fleet of nine Gulfstream business jets. (For those keeping score, Gulfstream is a subsidiary of General Dynamics.) (Read more from warisbusiness.com)
* State of the Union will be known as delusional once the collapse comes.
* Congressional Budget Office upgrades this year’s deficit projection by $400 billion. (So much for Obama’s $100 million cut.)
* President’s central planning — education, high speed trains, etc. — is wasteful central planning. No one knows future.
* Fed voted unanimously to do more of the same: quantitative easing, 0% interest. Full steam ahead on financial suicide. Fed printing will soon eclipse tax revenue.
* Government panel on financial crises was a complete farce. Financial crises was used as excuse to grow government. Concluded housing bubble *not* caused by Freddie, Fanny, low interest, government forcing banks to make bad loans. Panel concluded instead it was a lack of regulation.
(Here the NY Times gives voice to the inquiries fraudulent findings.)
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Jack Hunter notes the response to the State of the Union, and the palpable shift of conservative rhetoric away from war and toward fiscal sanity:
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See also, Visualizing Obama’s Budget Cut:
“The president’s team is going to take 90 days to find some way to take this [1/4 of one penny], out of that [those thousands of pennies on right].”
I think an excellent start would be firing the team.
Shaked considers the West’s demands for more openness and democracy in Egypt to be a fatal mistake. “It is an illusion to believe that the dictator Mubarak could be replaced by a democracy,” he says. “Egypt is still not capable of democracy,” he adds, pointing out that the illiteracy rate is over 20 percent, to give just one example. The Muslim Brotherhood is the only real alternative, he opines, which would have devastating consequences for the West. “They will not change their anti-Western attitude when they come to power. That has not happened (with Islamist movements) anywhere: neither in Sudan, Iran nor Afghanistan.”
(Read more from spiegel.de)
