The crisis in Egypt

GostHacked · January 28, 2011

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE70O3UW20110128

Does not look like the rioting will stop any time soon. And ElBaradei is most likely going to take over the leadership of Egypt? So how much worse is this going to get before it gets better?

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/01/egyptian-protesters-burn-police-post-in-suez--in-third-day-of-demonstrations/1

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/01/28/technology-broadcasting-amp-entertainment-us-egypt-protest-internet-outage_8279764.html

What better way to control the information coming out of Egypt than to cut Internet access.

SAN FRANCISCO -- About a half-hour past midnight Friday morning in Egypt, the Internet went dead.
Almost simultaneously, the handful of companies that pipe the Internet into and out of Egypt went dark as protesters were gearing up for a fresh round of demonstrations calling for the end of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, experts said.

Article Controls

Egypt has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major Internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely from the Internet to try and silence dissent

Hopefully this does not spill over, but with Tunisia also going through some of the same things Egypt is, it has the potential to get much bigger and consume a good deal of Africa and spill over into the Middle East. Keep your eyes on this, hopefully it does not escalate.

bush_cheney2004 · January 28, 2011

....Hopefully this does not spill over, but with Tunisia also going through some of the same things Egypt is, it has the potential to get much bigger and consume a good deal of Africa and spill over into the Middle East. Keep your eyes on this, hopefully it does not escalate.

I hope it does "escalate"....that was the plan all along!

GostHacked · January 28, 2011

I hope it does "escalate"....that was the plan all along!

Of course it was the plan all along. So what part does the CIA play in all this?

bush_cheney2004 · January 28, 2011

Of course it was the plan all along. So what part does the CIA play in all this?

Youtube and Google.

GostHacked · January 28, 2011

Youtube and Google.

Well, those two are the obvious ones, what else?

scribblet · January 28, 2011

There's a good chance it will spill over and escalate. Why would Obama want to stir it up, Egypt is a close ally, any escalation of violence is only bad for everyone.

bush_cheney2004 · January 28, 2011

There's a good chance it will spill over and escalate. Why would Obama want to stir it up, Egypt is a close ally, any escalation of violence is only bad for everyone.

That depends on the objective....see Bush Doctrine. President Obama may have changed the tone, but Mubarek is as much a liability as an ally for the USA. Or as Chinese saying goes, change is opportunity.

myata · January 28, 2011

There's a good chance it will spill over and escalate. Why would Obama want to stir it up, Egypt is a close ally, any escalation of violence is only bad for everyone.

That "ally" thing would certainly explain noticeable absence of condemnations, lecturing and such from our Chief Democracy Watch. There're dictatorships that suppress discent and well, "allies".

It's not about "democracy", silly

nicky10013 · January 28, 2011

There's a good chance it will spill over and escalate. Why would Obama want to stir it up, Egypt is a close ally, any escalation of violence is only bad for everyone.

Because if Mubarak falls and they attempt to develop free institutions, it would be a victory for the US.

Michael Hardner · January 28, 2011

Because if Mubarak falls and they attempt to develop free institutions, it would be a victory for the US.

If... they attempt to develop free institutions. A big if.

People who have lived under dictatorship sometimes don't make the best decisions when they first become a democracy. For example, how much support is there really in Egypt for peace with Israel ?

bush_cheney2004 · January 28, 2011

People who have lived under dictatorship sometimes don't make the best decisions when they first become a democracy. For example, how much support is there really in Egypt for peace with Israel ?

That's OK....like the lottery, you have to play to win.

nicky10013 · January 28, 2011

If... they attempt to develop free institutions. A big if.

People who have lived under dictatorship sometimes don't make the best decisions when they first become a democracy. For example, how much support is there really in Egypt for peace with Israel ?

A very good question. THe military has moved into Cario and the protestors are welcoming the military, so who knows where this could go.

I've currently got CNN on and they've said Mubarak's family has fled to London, but they currently don't know where Mubarak himself is. He was supposed to talk on Egyptian State TV an hour and a half ago.

Michael Hardner · January 28, 2011

That's OK....like the lottery, you have to play to win.

The analogy I use, more often, is the garden of Eden analogy.

With the dictator (God) not running their lives, they will have to learn to cope with the real world.

Michael Hardner · January 28, 2011

A very good question. THe military has moved into Cario and the protestors are welcoming the military, so who knows where this could go.

I've currently got CNN on and they've said Mubarak's family has fled to London, but they currently don't know where Mubarak himself is. He was supposed to talk on Egyptian State TV an hour and a half ago.

If this does lead to a half-decent outcome (relative stability, no escalation of religious rhetoric, or sabre rattling) then I will give GW Bush credit for sowing the seeds of the possible with these people. Also Al-Jazeera.

nicky10013 · January 28, 2011

If this does lead to a half-decent outcome (relative stability, no escalation of religious rhetoric, or sabre rattling) then I will give GW Bush credit for sowing the seeds of the possible with these people. Also Al-Jazeera.

I don't think any US president deserves credit.

bush_cheney2004 · January 28, 2011

If this does lead to a half-decent outcome (relative stability, no escalation of religious rhetoric, or sabre rattling) then I will give GW Bush credit for sowing the seeds of the possible with these people. Also Al-Jazeera.

Bush and company don't even need that much credit...all they did was shake up the ant farm in the face of a growing threat. Or as Hillary once said, "Never waste a good crisis".

Edited January 28, 2011 by bush_cheney2004

Michael Hardner · January 28, 2011

I don't think any US president deserves credit.

I guess it's impossible to tell the degree of thanks that the US is due.

The only president I'd say we can thank for sure is Washington.

Michael Hardner · January 28, 2011

Wait, maybe Obama deserves credit too...

And, in a week in which the Middle East's historic self-started wave of democracy protests came to a head, Barack Obama might have used his State of the Union address to cheer along all the protesters; and perhaps to warn all the leaders, country by country, of the fate that awaits them.

Instead he confined his specific remarks to Tunisia, saying: ''The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.'' So, in a region of 333 million people, where to varying degrees a good 325 million are under the heel of unelected leaders, the US President addressed only little Tunisia.

The lame excuse offered to reporters was that Cairo erupted late in the drafting process of the speech but that last ''aspirations of all people'' phrase was a recognition that ''what happens in Tunisia resonates around the world''.

But if he does deserve credit for so small a signal to the people of North Africa, then Bush - who established a democracy in an Arab country - definitely does.

Sydney Morning Herald

Edited January 28, 2011 by Michael Hardner

nicky10013 · January 28, 2011

I guess it's impossible to tell the degree of thanks that the US is due.

I'd say none or close to none but you're right, it's too hard to tell. In these situations it's local conditions that spark these. I mean, Americans (most of the Reagan presuasion due to his speech) still try to take credit for the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR and nothing can be further from the truth. It seems to me that the first question in the US media (maybe to get people interested at home who otherwise wouldn't be) is to say how are we involved? When they're not. It happened during the 2009 Iranian Green Revolution and it's happening now. I think the proper phrase here is that people can get angry at their governments all on their own and can topple them without the US.

CNN: Oh man they've got reporters on who have been beaten up and instead of asking them about how the protests are going first hand they'd rather ask them about how they had the perseverance to get back on the air after that. Just let them cover the story! They had a BBC arabic correspondant and all he wanted to do is reprot what's happening but they wouldn't let him. They just kept asking about him. THey had an American photojournalist on 5 minutes after and they tried to do it to her as well and she just told them off. "I'm not the only reporter having their camera smashed, this is a bigger story than what happened to me." Good for her.

nicky10013 · January 28, 2011

Reporters from CNN and the BBC are reporting that the protestors in the street believe the army is on their side. There's was a twitter link to an article from Al Jazeera that claimed the police and the army were fighting in the streets but the link was to an article in arabic, which unfortunately I can't read.

GostHacked · January 28, 2011

This is the first time we have seen a country's Internet access go down and get cut. I mean that in of itself is huge news.

If the Egyptian military is supporting the protesters then I find that encouraging. If they did not, then they would be seen as supporting Mubarek in which the people want him gone.

Could this also be an attempt at a coup with ElBaradei getting into power?

myata · January 28, 2011

We'll have to wait until tomorrow. The army will figure out their act overnight. If they decide to join in with the protest, one more despot is done. If not, there will be bloodshed, and difficult road ahead.

In any event, the "democracy" Watch will go with the flow. Not like they would support Democracy when ally is involved.

wyly · January 28, 2011

We'll have to wait until tomorrow. The army will figure out their act overnight. If they decide to join in with the protest, one more despot is done. If not, there will be bloodshed, and difficult road ahead.

In any event, the "democracy" Watch will go with the flow. Not like they would support Democracy when ally is involved.

the army doesn't need to join in only stand by and the government will fall, the police and internal security forces have been overwhelmed by the protestors...the army is always pivotal, will they fire on their own people or not... if not, then unless mubarak can pull a rabbit out of his hat he's done...

bloodyminded · January 28, 2011

For once I agree with Bush_Cheney2004, in that this is a positive thing overall.

Certainly, things could go horribly wrong. But the people demanding the ouster of dictators?

In and of itself, it's a good, and is a positive sign.

myata · January 28, 2011

If Mubarak falls it could be a beginnig of something extraordinary.. nothing short of the fall of communism in the 90-s. Of course Bush, Chainey and Obama can all claim it.. if not with principled stance against all dictators, then maybe with their fiaskos in Afghanstan or Iraq... brilliant policy in Iran and Palestine...not to mention those clumsy attempts to undermine wikileanks.