Archives for January 2011

While the Egyptian police reappear alongside army as Mubarak protests enter 7th day,

The U.S. Embassy was preparing to evacuate American citizens living in Egypt, diplomatic families and nonessential embassy personnel. The first charter flights were expected to leave by nightfall.

Cairo airport a scene of chaos as foreigners flee

Cairo’s international airport was a scene of chaos and confusion Monday as thousands of foreigners sought to flee the unrest in Egypt and countries around the world scrambled to send in planes to fly their citizens out.

Nerves frayed, shouting matches erupted and some passengers even had a fistfight as thousands crammed into Cairo airport’s new Terminal 3 seeking a flight home. The airport’s departures board stopped announcing flight times in an attempt to reduce tensions – but the move backfired, fueling anger over canceled or delayed flights.

Making matters worse, check-in counters were poorly staffed because many EgyptAir employees had been unable to get to work due to a 3 p.m.-to-8 a.m. curfew and traffic breakdowns across the Egyptian capital.

The US is using chartered flights for evacuation,

A U.S. military plane landed at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus on Monday afternoon ferrying 42 U.S. Embassy officials and their dependents from Egypt. The U.S. Embassy in Nicosia said at least one more plane was expected Monday with about 180 people – most of them U.S. citizens. U.S. officials have said it will take several flights over the coming days to fly out the thousands of Americans who want to leave Egypt.

As the Obama administratin puts Alfred E. Neuman in the driver’s seat and
Hillary Clinton was on TV just now giving lip service to “orderly transition”, Richard Fernandez considers the loss of intelligence assets

As the Mubarak regime goes into the last stages of existence, the race is on for the real treasures of a great state. Not the relics of antiquity, valuable as these may be, but the intelligence assets of a government which for decades traded them in exchange for Western financial and political support. With the ultimate fate of the Egypt uncertain, and the final extent of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence uncertain, the disposition of those assets will assume the utmost importance.

Also don’t miss John Podhoretz’s article, It’s never been about Palestine,

No one has ever been able to offer a convincing explanation for what role the anti-Zionist struggle, emotionally stirring though it may be, might play when it comes to, say, the price of bread in Tunis, the unemployment rate in Cairo or the prospects for economic growth in Yemen.

It has never made any sense to argue that, unique among the people of the world, Arabs are more concerned on a day-to-day basis about the treatment of people they don’t know than they are about how they’re going to put food on their own tables, or whether their sons will ever find a job.

Read the rest here

UPDATE:
“Mubarak does U.S. bidding”? (h/t Instapundit)