Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Hosni Mubarak: General, Tyrant, and Complete Idiot

Pardon me while I vent...


From the start, Mubarak has been in denial about his true situation. But this latest turn of events is just insane. I think I heard best put by David Gergen on CNN this evening when he said that Mubarak's only chance of staying in office until September was if he had the backing of the US and a coalition of world governments. I had thought that he'd blown any chance of getting that support when he let loose the thugs on the anti-Mubarak demonstrators yesterday. But today he doubled down on crazy, blood thirsty tyrant strategy. He's set his thugs after the journalists from all over the world.

The top story regarding Egypt for half the new agencies on the planet is about to shift from "is it really Mubarak or chaos?" to "Hosni Mubarak Intolerable, Journalist-beating Monster." This may be interspersed with references to the Military Police attack on the Cairo office of Amnesty International and taking of its staff along with staff members of Human Rights Watch and some Egyptian human rights activists (all of whom are still missing as of the night of Feb 3). In very short order he will be confronted with near universal condemnation and demands to immediately resign.

Mubarak is 82 years old. It's been clear for a week that neither he nor his son were going to be running Egypt a year from now. The military is in a very strong bargaining position generally, so I doubt this is about Mubarak thinking this is about keeping the military in charge either. This is about Hosni Mubarak's pride. He's angry that a country he feels owe him so much doesn't love him. In revenge he's going to unleash hell on his countrymen and anyone else he chooses to blame for his situation. Blind rage in an individual is unfortunate enough. When combined with unchecked power, it's unspeakably horrible and tragic.

UPDATE (2/4): I have heard that the three largest opposition parties, the Muslim Brotherhood, New Wafd Party and El-Ghad Party are refusing to talk to Vice President Sulieman because they blame him for directing the attacks by pro-Mubarak thugs. Given what he said about foreign journalists just before the violence was also directed at them, I'm inclined to believe that Suleiman is behind it.

According to CNN, Suleiman said in a nationally televised address: "I actually blame certain friendly nations who have television channels, they're not friendly at all, who have intensified the youth against the nation and the state... They have filled the minds of the youth with wrongdoings, with allegations and this is unacceptable. They should never have done that. They should have never sent this enemy spirt."

8 comments:

The Law Talking Guy said...

Just how many more Egyptians are going to have to die before the Army decides that it's not worth it to keep that nasty old man around? That's the question we're all asking.

USwest said...

They army isn't the main problem. The police are the problem. The army stood by and let a lot of that violence happen (2/3), but yesterday (2/4) they made sure those thugs stayed out of the square. The army, I think, is trying to stay neutral because they aren't sure which way to go. I think they are leaning toward democracy at this point.

Raised By Republicans said...

US West,

I don't think LTG meant to suggest that the army was behind the violence. Rather I think he was suggesting that army could, by forcing Mubarak out, end the violence very quickly.

You are right that they are carefully staying nominally neutral (but also protecting the demonstrators from thugs). But they are also refraining from doing what the Philippine military did with Marcos or the Tunisian military did with Ben Ali.

The Law Talking Guy said...

Unfortunately, Mubarak will remain in power unless (1) the army moves to remove him or (2) the army lets the people storm parliament and the presidential palace in Heliopolis.

Raised By Republicans said...

Confess, LTG, you wrote that comment partly as an excuse to use "Heliopolis" in a sentence. ;-)

On the substance, I agree with you about the conditions for Mubarak's continued government.

Raised By Republicans said...

This latest hint that he might resign followed by a refusal to resign is more proof of his idiocy and the idiocy of his clique. Even if the goal was to keep Mubarak in power but with a lower profile, it was incompetently handled.

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