Egypt thread 4

[Elrostar]

The impression I've got from all the reporting so far is that Al Jazeera is being targeted in particular, and everyone else is getting lumped in with them. All credit to the journalists who are willing to stay in Tahrir Square to follow what's going on.

Robert Fisk is writing with his usual eloquence.

[Jon AS]

Two members of the Washington Post were arrested in Cairo today.

Yeah, what I meant with "some protection" was that from what I've read, Al Jazeera's people are treated even worse.

[shadowbinding shoe]

I think the protesters made a big mistake when they refused to compromise with Mubarak. It's always a bad idea to go all out and leave no escape (or dignity) to your opponent. When you do that he fights back with everything he's got.

Mubarak's proposition to go out in grace in half a year seemed like a reasonable compromise when he asked for it. The protesters would've gotten everything they asked for in time. A few more months after decades of military rule seemed a bearable price to pay. Especially since they are so disorganized right now that they wouldn't have much of a leadership or party infrastructure to vote to right now except for the Muslim Brothers and a few other small opposition parties if election came tomorrow.

I lost some of my confidence in the above after what happened in the last few days. Counter-protestancy? Still, the principle should hold. Even if Mubarak tried to pretend like he didn't promise his people he'd go away quietly by September the people will know they have the power to make things happen and most likely the support of outside powers. And his word should hold some value.

[Padraig]

But can you trust Mubarak? He didn't say anything about his son not running, although today the VP said Gamal wouldn't run either. That should have been stated at the beginning. And even now Mubarak could still handpick some crony.

You just don't know what kind of elections will be held under Mubarak. He hasn't got a good record.

[ljkeane]

And his word should hold some value.

He's been using 'emergency' powers to suppress opposition for 3 decades, why should his word have some value now?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I think the protesters made a big mistake when they refused to compromise with Mubarak. It's always a bad idea to go all out and leave no escape (or dignity) to your opponent. When you do that he fights back with everything he's got.

Mubarak's proposition to go out in grace in half a year seemed like a reasonable compromise when he asked for it. The protesters would've gotten everything they asked for in time. A few more months after decades of military rule seemed a bearable price to pay. Especially since they are so disorganized right now that they wouldn't have much of a leadership or party infrastructure to vote to right now except for the Muslim Brothers and a few other small opposition parties if election came tomorrow.

I lost some of my confidence in the above after what happened in the last few days. Counter-protestancy? Still, the principle should hold. Even if Mubarak tried to pretend like he didn't promise his people he'd go away quietly by September the people will know they have the power to make things happen and most likely the support of outside powers. And his word should hold some value.

I agree with those who say there's no reason for people to trust him. If he wants to be trusted, I think he could involve the military sort of as a guarantor of those free elections occuring so people get the sense that the military will ditch him if he doesn't let the elections happen. But his own word isn't, and shouldn't be, enough.

[Ser Reptitious]

I'm not sure if this has been posted in one of the previous threads, but Thomas Friedman has a good article regarding how Israel should handle this whole situation.

I definitely agree with his conclusion:

I had given up on Netanyahu’s cabinet and urged the U.S. to walk away. But that was B.E. — Before Egypt. Today, I believe President Obama should put his own peace plan on the table, bridging the Israeli and Palestinian positions, and demand that the two sides negotiate on it without any preconditions. It is vital for Israel’s future — at a time when there is already a global campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state — that it disentangle itself from the Arabs’ story as much as possible. There is a huge storm coming, Israel. Get out of the way.

[shadowbinding shoe]

But can you trust Mubarak? He didn't say anything about his son not running, although today the VP said Gamal wouldn't run either. That should have been stated at the beginning. And even now Mubarak could still handpick some crony.

No, the possibility that his son will manage to inherit his powers is quite negligible. He has no support outside Mubarak's most die-hard supporters. There's a world of difference between Mubarak's supporters and Gamal's.

He's been using 'emergency' powers to suppress opposition for 3 decades, why should his word have some value now?

There's a difference between holding undemocratic powers and being a liar. Also now both he and the opposition know his powers to control them are limited so he should tread carefully.

I personally think you'd be gravely foolish to trust anything that comes out of this guy's mouth. You can bet that as soon as the protesters went home and the foreign press turned away, emergency law would immediately be reinstated and people like the leaders of the 4/6 movement would disappear mysteriously.

As I said, do we have evidence of Mubarak breaking his word? Your other fear is the most worrying thing that can happen but then again he would get criticized for tampering with these coming elections. When the Egyptian public knows it can influence the government decisions things won't be as easy for the regime as they were before.

This simply isn't true. I'm not sure how you can write something like this. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Muhammad el-Baradei, Numan Gumaa, El-Sayyid El-Badawi, Monir Fakhri Abdel Nour are all very well known politicians who are not part of the Ikhwayn. The Ikhwayn simply isn't part of this movement in any major way, despite what Salamander said about last jumah.

Well, the question is how much do the protesters feel these people represent them?

[Alexia]

The problems with the protesters turning around and going home now is that there is no guarantee Mubarak will not handpick his successor, as has already been indicated by others, and that the protests will lose momentum. Assuming people don't get "disappeared" by his administration before the elections, if he reneges on the deal I very much doubt the people will re-mobilize at the scope they are doing now.

Moreover, why would anyone trust a dictator of 30 years to head up an interim government and oversee a process of free and fair elections? Especially when that dictator sends goons into the streets to beat and shoot civilians who are demonstrating against his rule, as well as beating journalists.

[aimlessgun]

Judging by AJE interviews with protestors they don't fucking trust him to do a transition. They are also rightly afraid that if they leave with the govt. still in place, many of them will be disappeared in the days afterwards.

I mean the guy just sent a bunch of thugs to attack them and killed a bunch of people. They say they will stay in Tahrir until Mubarak leaves, and if it takes 6 months they'll stay 6 months. I hope they can pull it off.

[Relic]

Mubarak says he's "fed up" of being president and that stepping down would being "chaos".

[Elrostar]

He also says that he never intended to run again, and that he never intended Gamal to succeed him.

Right, I feel confident that everything he's saying is completely truthful and can be taken at face value.

You know, if you really didn't want there to be 'chaos', perhaps it would be an idea to not send mobs of armed thugs out into the street... After all, there hadn't really been much in the way of fighting until the so-called pro-Mubarak people showed up.

[mormont]

I think the protesters made a big mistake when they refused to compromise with Mubarak. It's always a bad idea to go all out and leave no escape (or dignity) to your opponent. When you do that he fights back with everything he's got.

Mubarak's proposition to go out in grace in half a year seemed like a reasonable compromise when he asked for it. The protesters would've gotten everything they asked for in time. A few more months after decades of military rule seemed a bearable price to pay. Especially since they are so disorganized right now that they wouldn't have much of a leadership or party infrastructure to vote to right now except for the Muslim Brothers and a few other small opposition parties if election came tomorrow.

I lost some of my confidence in the above after what happened in the last few days. Counter-protestancy? Still, the principle should hold. Even if Mubarak tried to pretend like he didn't promise his people he'd go away quietly by September the people will know they have the power to make things happen and most likely the support of outside powers. And his word should hold some value.

The problem with this analysis (apart from the obvious point that Mubarak can't be trusted anyway, as others have pointed out) is that the 'pro-Mubarak demonstrators' were on the street so fast that it's impossible not to conclude that this was the plan all along. In other words, the offer to stand down was clearly made in bad faith in the first place. It was, and is, blatantly a tactic to try and peel off some of the local and international opposition. The demonstrators were right not to accept it: that, too, was a trap.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Mubarak says he's "fed up" of being president and that stepping down would being "chaos".

It's chaos now.

[Shryke]

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the violence was carried out by "elements close to the government or ruling party."

"I don't think we have a sense of how far up the chain it went," he noted.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/03/egypt.obama.reaction/index.html?hpt=T1

There even starting to officially blame the violence on Mubarak.

[RhaegarTar]

Pinochet did exit peacefully, after planning for several years in advance, and holding, a free and fair election in 1988. Pinochet and Mubarak are in no way comparable.

On the Egypt note, obviously there needs to be a transition to a freely elected government. Have their been discussions of international supervision of the September election, and can that be effective or nah?

No, I'm pretty sure he's a liar, too. Does rigging every single election so that an election where you only get 88% is considered progress make you a liar?

In your view, does torturing and assassinating people who don't like you make you a liar? Or just a bad person?

EDIT: Let's throw another question out there: would you trusted Pinochet to exit peacefully?

[RhaegarTar]

Me? Graduate school. Plus most of the forums here aren't really interesting. However, when I thought about discussing the transition in Egypt, I figured here would be a good place.

DUDE

WHERE THE FUCK YOU BEEN AT

[The Iceman of the North]

As long as Mubarak and Suleiman maintains that the anti-government protests are lead by 'foreign interests', and the obvious harassment of foreign journalists, there's absolutely no reason to trust either.

A Swedish journalist is seriously injured after being abducted by Mubarak's thugs.

[Altherion]

The problem with this analysis (apart from the obvious point that Mubarak can't be trusted anyway, as others have pointed out) is that the 'pro-Mubarak demonstrators' were on the street so fast that it's impossible not to conclude that this was the plan all along. In other words, the offer to stand down was clearly made in bad faith in the first place. It was, and is, blatantly a tactic to try and peel off some of the local and international opposition. The demonstrators were right not to accept it: that, too, was a trap.

I very much doubt it. The offer to stand down was made first and foremost to Egypt's army and I have very little doubt that if he keeps his post that long, Mubarak will leave in September. And yes, the 'pro-Mubarak demonstrators' were planned all along -- I suspect Mubarak got the army to agree to that as a means of dispersing the remaining protesters (though I doubt they agreed to monumentally stupid actions like firing a machine gun into the crowd).

[shadowbinding shoe]

No, I'm pretty sure he's a liar, too. Does rigging every single election so that an election where you only get 88% is considered progress make you a liar?

Rigging the election is a dishonesty of the regime. I'm talking about Mubarak's personal honesty. Is he a man of his word? Show me where he made promises only to break them later (Saddam Hussein was famous for doing that for example). We need to remember who we're talking about here. Mubarak is not a strapping young man. He's 82 years old and has serious health problems. He's been thinking about his exit strategy for years now. Since his son lost all chances of inheriting him he can either concede to the demands of the protesters and exit with dignity or he can cook up some scheme to pass the mantle to someone from the military or as you all claim make someone pry it from his cold dead fingers in a couple of years.

To me it seems pretty obvious that Mubarak wants to be remembered kindly in the future history books. Clutching stubbornly to his position until he dies or giving it to someone from his inner circle won't help him achieve that. But being thrown into exile by an angry mob would be much worse. As I said in my first post trying to strip him of his dignity was a mistake. And that is how this counter-mob came about I would think. He was pushed too far.

You don't win by pushing your enemy against the wall unless you want an all out war.