Egypt death toll now tops toll for Iran protests, which US and West widely condemned as an atrocity
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Egypt Death Toll Now Tops Toll for Iran Protests
Jim Sciutto, of ABC News-London,thumbs:
VERY UGLY: Pro And Anti-Mubarak Groups Clashing
From Twitter:
"Mubarak supporters CHARGE opponents on horses, camels" -- AlJazaeera English anchor frets that government may come with weapons
AlJazeera English, out-of-breath reporter: "Men on horseback and camels seen rushing into Tahir Square...reports of injuries amidst clashes"
Protesters being attacked with horses and camels. We've caught 7 of their horses
Mubarak's thugs are trying to attack Al Shorouk newspaper HQ
military official standing idly on the roof as Mubarak thugs attack peaceful demonstrators
Soldiers left 4 tanks outside museum. Now anti gov protestors sitting on top. Main battle bout 100m further toward gala st. UTTER CHAOS!
They're coming from all directions now, we're being surrounded
"Mubarak supporters CHARGE opponents on horses, camels" -- AlJazaeera English anchor frets that government may come with weapons
AlJazeera English, out-of-breath reporter: "Men on horseback and camels seen rushing into Tahir Square...reports of injuries amidst clashes"
Protesters being attacked with horses and camels. We've caught 7 of their horses
Mubarak's thugs are trying to attack Al Shorouk newspaper HQ
military official standing idly on the roof as Mubarak thugs attack peaceful demonstrators
Soldiers left 4 tanks outside museum. Now anti gov protestors sitting on top. Main battle bout 100m further toward gala st. UTTER CHAOS!
They're coming from all directions now, we're being surrounded
Monday, January 31, 2011
The Economics of Egypt
Zachary Karabell reports:
The mass movement engulfing Egypt exposes a fact that has been hiding in plain sight: In a decade during which China has brought more people out of poverty at a faster rate than ever in human history, in a period of time where economic reform has been sweeping the world from Brazil to Indonesia, Egypt has missed out.
A decade ago, IBM ran a series of commercials featuring its global reach. One included a fisherman sailing on the Nile, tapping into a wireless network. It was an enticing image—and almost completely fictional. Few countries have been less integrated into the global economy.
The country ranks 137 in the world in per-capita income (just behind Tonga and ahead of Kirbati), with a population in the top 20. And while GDP growth for the past few years has been respectable, averaging 4%-5% save for 2009 (when all countries suffered), even that is at best middle of the pack in a period where the more competitive dynamic nations have been surging ahead.
Egypt has long been famous for crony inefficiency. Yet Hosni Mubarak was graced with nearly $2 billion in annual U.S. aid, another $5 billion from dues from the Suez Canal, and $10 billion in tourism...
[The assassinated Anwar] Sadat's most lasting legacy for Egypt may have been his brief attempt to liberalize the economy (the Infitah) and open the country to the world. While President Mubarak gave lip service to that economic opening, for much of the subsequent three decades Egypt's economy has been locked in a system that stifles economic activity and innovation as surely as it does political expression...
Mr. Mubarak seemed to realize that the complete absence of economic reform wasn't tenable. He watched as China surged ahead without loosening the control of the state over political life...
Meanwhile, China ignored the dialectic in the West—which placed political opening at the top of societal imperatives—and plunged into an experiment of hypercharged economic development without political change. Its phenomenal success to date is impossible to refute, just as its future course is impossible to predict....
What allows China to thrive for now (and Brazil and India and Indonesia, among many others) is that its citizens believe they have some control over their material lives and a chance to turn their dreams and ambitions into reality. They have an outlet for their passions that is not determined for them, and an increasing degree of economic freedom.
The young in Egypt—two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30—believe that they have no future, and in many ways they are correct. Under Mr. Mubarak, their food and housing is subsidized and they are placed in jobs or left in unemployed limbo, not starving but without any hope of anything but years of numbing sameness.
America's Mideast Raj is On Fire
By Eric Margolis
When I wrote my latest book on the way America dominates the Mideast, I chose the title, American Raj, because this modern US imperium so closely resembled the famed Indian Raj – way the British Empire ruled India.
As I predicted in this book, and in a column last April, Egypt was headed for a major explosion. America’s Mideast Raj is now on fire. Whether it survives or not remains to be seen.
One cannot escape a sense that we may be looking at a Mideast version of the 1989 uprisings across Eastern Europe that brought down its Communist regimes and then the Soviet Union. Americans should be uneasy seeing crowds of Egyptians pleading for freedom and justice watched over by US-supplied tanks.
There are indeed certainly strong similarities between the old Soviet East Bloc and the spreading intifada across the police states of America’s Mideast Raj. Corrupt, repressive governments; rapacious oligarchies; high youth unemployment and economic stagnation; widespread feelings of fear, frustration, hopelessness and fury.
But there is also a big difference. The principled Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Communist rulers of Eastern Europe, refused to turn their army’s guns against the rebelling people.
In Tunisia, where the current Arab uprising began, the army has so far stayed admirably neutral.
But in other Arab states now seething with rebellion – Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan – there may be no such reservations. Their ruthless security forces and military could quickly crush the uprisings unless the soldiers refuse to shoot down their own people – as happened in Moscow in 1991.
As of this writing, Egypt’s 450,000-man US-equipped and financed armed forces are poised for action against that nation’s popular uprising, but its generals are undecided whether to shoot down their own people and earn universal hatred, overthrow President Mubarak’s regime, or openly seize power. Mubarak’s newly named vice president, Gen. Suleiman, controls the hated and feared secret police, or mukhabarat, but is unloved by the army.
Somewhere in the ranks of Egypt’s armed forces must be a group of officers like Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Young Officers who seized power in 1952 to end foreign control of Egypt. Nasser, adored by most Egyptians was the first authentic native-born leader in 2,000 years. Look for a resurgence of Nasserism.
Washington is watching this growing intifada in its Mideast Raj with alarm and confusion. Ignore the Obama administration’s hypocritical platitudes urging "democracy." All of the authoritarian Arab rulers now under siege by their people have been armed, financed and supported for decades by the US. The US has given Egypt $2 billion annually, $1.4 billion of which goes to the military. Almost all the tanks and armored vehicles deployed in Cairo’s streets came from the US.
Washington has previously lauded Mubarak for "moderation" and "stability." These are code words for faithfully following US policies and crushing all opposition. Moderate opposition groups across the Mideast have been jailed and tortured, leaving only outlawed underground movements. The same thing happened in Iran.
Egypt’s armed forces were configured to keep Mubarak’s military regime in power, not to defend the nation’s borders. The US keeps Egypt’s armed forces short on munitions and spare parts so it cannot fight a war against Israel for more than a few days.
The brutal, sadistic secret police and other security forces of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen were all trained and equipped by the US or France. The CIA taught them "interrogation techniques," just as it did to the Shah of Iran’s secret police, Savak. We have reaped the whirlwind in bitter US-Iranian relations.
Read the rest here.
When I wrote my latest book on the way America dominates the Mideast, I chose the title, American Raj, because this modern US imperium so closely resembled the famed Indian Raj – way the British Empire ruled India.
As I predicted in this book, and in a column last April, Egypt was headed for a major explosion. America’s Mideast Raj is now on fire. Whether it survives or not remains to be seen.
One cannot escape a sense that we may be looking at a Mideast version of the 1989 uprisings across Eastern Europe that brought down its Communist regimes and then the Soviet Union. Americans should be uneasy seeing crowds of Egyptians pleading for freedom and justice watched over by US-supplied tanks.
There are indeed certainly strong similarities between the old Soviet East Bloc and the spreading intifada across the police states of America’s Mideast Raj. Corrupt, repressive governments; rapacious oligarchies; high youth unemployment and economic stagnation; widespread feelings of fear, frustration, hopelessness and fury.
But there is also a big difference. The principled Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Communist rulers of Eastern Europe, refused to turn their army’s guns against the rebelling people.
In Tunisia, where the current Arab uprising began, the army has so far stayed admirably neutral.
But in other Arab states now seething with rebellion – Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Jordan – there may be no such reservations. Their ruthless security forces and military could quickly crush the uprisings unless the soldiers refuse to shoot down their own people – as happened in Moscow in 1991.
As of this writing, Egypt’s 450,000-man US-equipped and financed armed forces are poised for action against that nation’s popular uprising, but its generals are undecided whether to shoot down their own people and earn universal hatred, overthrow President Mubarak’s regime, or openly seize power. Mubarak’s newly named vice president, Gen. Suleiman, controls the hated and feared secret police, or mukhabarat, but is unloved by the army.
Somewhere in the ranks of Egypt’s armed forces must be a group of officers like Col. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Young Officers who seized power in 1952 to end foreign control of Egypt. Nasser, adored by most Egyptians was the first authentic native-born leader in 2,000 years. Look for a resurgence of Nasserism.
Washington is watching this growing intifada in its Mideast Raj with alarm and confusion. Ignore the Obama administration’s hypocritical platitudes urging "democracy." All of the authoritarian Arab rulers now under siege by their people have been armed, financed and supported for decades by the US. The US has given Egypt $2 billion annually, $1.4 billion of which goes to the military. Almost all the tanks and armored vehicles deployed in Cairo’s streets came from the US.
Washington has previously lauded Mubarak for "moderation" and "stability." These are code words for faithfully following US policies and crushing all opposition. Moderate opposition groups across the Mideast have been jailed and tortured, leaving only outlawed underground movements. The same thing happened in Iran.
Egypt’s armed forces were configured to keep Mubarak’s military regime in power, not to defend the nation’s borders. The US keeps Egypt’s armed forces short on munitions and spare parts so it cannot fight a war against Israel for more than a few days.
The brutal, sadistic secret police and other security forces of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen were all trained and equipped by the US or France. The CIA taught them "interrogation techniques," just as it did to the Shah of Iran’s secret police, Savak. We have reaped the whirlwind in bitter US-Iranian relations.
Read the rest here.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Reich: Egypt and Tunisia Are Nothing Compared to What's Coming
Former Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton, Robert Reich, thumbs:
Reich is dead on as far as more trouble down the road, but I have no idea what he expects the U.S. to do. Double the size of Michelle Obama's White House garden?
The problem is two fold and there are no quick solutions. The first is tyrannical governments which take and take, leaving little incentive for people to produce. The second problem is central bank stop and go money printing, in first world countries, which makes if difficult for farmers to plan the size of their operations.
The best thing the U.S. can do is stop Fed money printing and then get out of the way, so those in other countriess can see that the success of the United States is the result of free markets, private property and rule of law. Then, quite possibly, some of these revolutions may lead to free market reforms as opposed torevolutions that lead to newtyrants with a different disguise.
If you think revolts in Tunis, Egypt, and Yemen are big, wait for coming food and energy shortages around world. US shld take lead now.
Reich is dead on as far as more trouble down the road, but I have no idea what he expects the U.S. to do. Double the size of Michelle Obama's White House garden?
The problem is two fold and there are no quick solutions. The first is tyrannical governments which take and take, leaving little incentive for people to produce. The second problem is central bank stop and go money printing, in first world countries, which makes if difficult for farmers to plan the size of their operations.
The best thing the U.S. can do is stop Fed money printing and then get out of the way, so those in other countriess can see that the success of the United States is the result of free markets, private property and rule of law. Then, quite possibly, some of these revolutions may lead to free market reforms as opposed torevolutions that lead to newtyrants with a different disguise.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Battle at the Egyptian Interior Ministry
From Twitter reports:
Sounds like there's a real battle going on at the interior ministry. No pictures available, though.
Gunfire getting louder - Tanks moved to block street to Min. of Int. Claiming it is to stop the police from reaching the main square
The army is separating the police an the protesters in front of the interior ministry
People asking how I'm tweeting from Egypt, we are using a work-around. Internet is still down and I can't send pics
One protester last night: 'The soldiers are all right. The police are sons of bitches'
fallen protester soaked in blood carried on shoulders of protesters as crowd roars on behalf of him
Sounds like there's a real battle going on at the interior ministry. No pictures available, though.
Gunfire getting louder - Tanks moved to block street to Min. of Int. Claiming it is to stop the police from reaching the main square
The army is separating the police an the protesters in front of the interior ministry
People asking how I'm tweeting from Egypt, we are using a work-around. Internet is still down and I can't send pics
One protester last night: 'The soldiers are all right. The police are sons of bitches'
fallen protester soaked in blood carried on shoulders of protesters as crowd roars on behalf of him
Police Open Fire in Egypt
Al Jazeera TV reports about 1,000 Egyptians try to storm interior ministry in Cairo, police open fire.
The Big Question: if protesters actually succeed in chasing Mubarak from power, who will they put into the power vacuum? And a power vacuum it will be, since there is no evidence that in Egypt there is a mass understanding of a private property society and how it does not require a power center.
Replacing the man carrying the machine gun is not the same thing as taking away the machine gun.
The Big Question: if protesters actually succeed in chasing Mubarak from power, who will they put into the power vacuum? And a power vacuum it will be, since there is no evidence that in Egypt there is a mass understanding of a private property society and how it does not require a power center.
Replacing the man carrying the machine gun is not the same thing as taking away the machine gun.
Friday, January 28, 2011
How To Get Online in Egypt, Even withGovernment Blocking of the Internet
Steve Kovach at Business Insider says go old school. In Egypt, while internet access has been blocked, old school access via dial up through telephone lines is working.
Lifehacker suggests trying the global dialup ISP Budget Dialup or the French ISP FDN, which is providing free access to users in Egypt.
More from Kovach:
Lifehacker suggests trying the global dialup ISP Budget Dialup or the French ISP FDN, which is providing free access to users in Egypt.
More from Kovach:
One site worth checking out is the forum OPENMESH that was just launched as a resource for finding ways to help Egyptians get back online. TechCrunch says, they're looking for people with a tech background who may be able to skirt around the block. If you have any ideas, share them on Twitter using the #OPENMESH hashtag.
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