Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cairo. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement

President George W. Bush and Egyptian Presiden...Image via WikipediaI am so glad Hillary Clinton lost the 2008 primary. I am so glad Joe Biden lost the 2008 primary. These white folks are acting unreal. Hillary thinks the street action in Cairo is chaos that might bring forth the Islamists on stage. Biden went on record to say "Mubarak is not a dictator." That is what happens to you when you spend too many long years on the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee.

This reminds me of the American ambassador in Nepal in 2005. The dude was hellbent on suggesting there was only a military solution to the Maoist insurgency, and that the democrats should forge an alliance with the monarch who had just pulled a coup and taken over. Made no sense.

This revolution in Egypt is not the US State Department's doing, but the US State Department is hellbent on undoing it. Why? Assange gets more credit that Hillary on the "chaos" in the streets of Cairo. The exposure showed that the governments of the world are incapable of the rapid change that the world is asking for. The message in Cairo is democracy now, not democracy after Mubarak dies in the presidential palace, peacefully in sleep two decades from now.

Mubarak was always a dictator. The only legitimate way to conclude this revolution is by a total ouster of Mubarak and the taking over of power by an interim government led by that Nobel Prize winning dude. His mandate would be to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year. Then that assembly takes over power.
Time: Egypt Opposition Defiant over VP Warning: a warning from Vice President Omar Suleiman that if their movement doesn't enter negotiations, a "coup" could take place causing greater chaos, as a mass demonstration in a central Cairo square entered its 16th day...... Many have been sleeping underneath the tanks of soldiers surrounding the square to prevent them from moving or trying to clear the area for traffic....... a coalition of the five main youth groups behind the protests in Tahrir Square ...... U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke by phone with Suleiman, saying Washington wants Egypt to immediately rescind emergency laws that give broad powers to security forces — a key demand of the protesters..... "We won't give up," Wael Ghonim promised at one of the biggest protests yet in Cairo's Tahrir Square...... Many protesters fear he aims to fragment the movement with partial concessions and gestures.
If this revolution does not see complete success through a total, unceremonial ouster of Mubarak, the tide will stop. The tide will not spread to the other Arab countries like Saudi Arabia. And maybe it is Saudi Arabia that the US State Department is thinking about. It should not. The Saudi king also has to go.

The next phase of the revolution would be to march on the presidential palace itself. You can not wait forever. You have to take it up one notch.

Connect the dots. Unless all Arab countries have been turned into full fledged democracies, there can be no genuine peace in the Middle East. All those high profile summits organized by the US State Department are sham as long as there is no democracy. And street protests are the best way to bring democracy about. Fan the flames. Don't try to douse them. Saudi Arabia next. Iran all over again.

A democracy movement concludes with an utter, total collapse of the autocratic regime and the taking over of power by an interim government led by the leading democratic activist. And then in a year you hold elections to a constituent assembly.

How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards
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