Egypt - Fausta's Blog

February 3, 2011 By Fausta

Egypt: Blogger Sandmonkey arrested by State Security UPDATED

UPDATE:
He was beaten and released, according to Jane Novak’s sources.

@Sandmonkey’s been released, he’s on his way home. His car has been destroyed and he and friends were beaten. #egypt #jan25 35 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

More details to come.

Earlier post:

Jane Novak reports,

Doesn’t Mubarek have enough problems? Does he really want to piss off the entire US blogosphere? Sandmonkey is a well known, self-described, “Micro-celebrity, Blogger, activist, New Media douchebag, Pain in the ass!” He was arrested en route to Tahrir square with medical supplies, friends and family report: “I just called @SandMonkey ’s phone and a man answered and he asked me who I am, I said where is monkey, he said your c*nt friend is arrested.”

Jane and Brian Ledbetter post Sandmonkey’s last post.

His account remains suspended, his whereabouts unknown. Read his last post at the links above.

Cross-posted at The Green Room

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February 3, 2011 By Fausta

Good-bye, stability

Ann Marlowe thinks that the US should abandon its “stability” fetish since,

We’ve forgotten that extremist ideology mainly emerges from forced “stability,” not from free societies. As Elliott Abrams wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Sunday, “regimes that make moderate politics impossible make extremism far more likely. Rule by emergency decree long enough, and you end up creating a genuine emergency.”

That is not untrue, but that’s not the reason “stability” has become a thing of the past.

The reason is that technology has caught up with repressive regimes. Daniel Henninger, in his article Stability’s End, encapsulates in a sentence this fact,

Technologies with goofy names like Twitter and Facebook are replacing political stability with a state of permanent instability.

Mubarak unleashed the camels after trying to shut down the internet, the Iranian mullahs carry out executions by the thousands. The Medieval measures won’t work, any more than the Jimmy Carter 1979 approach to foreign policy would.

Indeed,

This new, exponentially expanding world of information technologies is now creating permanent instability inside formerly stable political arrangements.

This stuff disrupts everything it touches. It overturned the entire music industry, and now it is doing the same to established political systems.

Adding to the instability is the increasing food inflation. Larry Kudlow points out that

In addition to Egypt, the people have taken to the streets to varying degrees in Algeria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, and Yemen. Local food riots have even broken out in rural China and other Asian locales.
…
The CRB food index is up an incredible 36 percent over the past year, including 8 percent year-to-date. Raw materials are up 23 percent in the past year. Inflation breakouts have occurred in China, among various Asian Tigers, and in India, Brazil, and other Latin American countries. Even Britain and Germany are registering higher inflation readings.

In dollar terms, the price of wheat has soared 114 percent over the past year. Corn has surged 88 percent. These are incredible numbers.

And let’s not forget that the world’s poor are the hardest hit by food-price inflation. They literally can’t afford to buy bread. It brings to mind the French Revolution in the 18th century. When you see this kind of mass protest in the streets, spreading from country to country, you see a pattern that cannot be explained by local conditions alone.

In our hemisphere, Venezuela has the highest inflation – 28%, as the economy contracts while the government takes over private property and food production and distribution. Chavez is ruling by emergency decree: if “Rule by emergency decree long enough, and you end up creating a genuine emergency” is the case, for how long will Hugo Chavez’s regime stand, considering these numbers?

“Instability is the new status quo”, states Henninger, and I agree.

The question remains, how will political systems and societies adapt to it? How will the US, when its own administration is passing thousands of pages-long laws that haven’t even been read?

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February 2, 2011 By Fausta

Egypt roundup: Violent clashes on streets

Clashes Erupt in Cairo Between Mubarak’s Allies and Foes

President Obama’s calls for a rapid transition to a new order in Egypt seemed eclipsed on Wednesday as a choreographed surge of thousands of people chanting support for the Egyptian leader, Hosni Mubarak, fought running battles with a larger number of antigovernment protesters in and around Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

The mayhem and chaos — with riders on horses and camels thundering through the central square — offered a complete contrast to the scenes only 24 hours earlier when hundreds of thousands of antigovernment protesters turned it into a place of jubilant celebration, believing that they were close to overthrowing a leader who has survived longer than any other in modern Egypt.

Video: Obama somehow manages to say nothing meaningful in Egypt statement

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Perhaps Obama will realize soon that It’s Time To Earn that Nobel Peace Prize, but don’t hold your breath.

Bernard Lewis granted Jay Nordlinger an extremely rare telephone interview (I have spoken with Mr Lewis in the past and he usually does not grant interviews)

Lewis says, first of all, that “it’s too early to say anything definitive” — anything definitive about Egypt. He is too smart, too experienced to make many pronouncements while events are in flux. He says, “Things look a little better than they did” a couple of days ago. “But they could go badly wrong.”

“The immediate alternatives are not attractive.” What are those? “Continuation, in some modified form, of the present regime, or a takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood. Obviously, the former is better.”

Are we witnessing a democratic revolt? “I don’t know what ‘democratic’ would mean in this context. It is certainly a popular revolt.” Egyptians are suffering from both unfreedom and material want. (They usually go hand in hand.) “The economic situation in Egypt is very, very bad. A large percentage live below the poverty line.”

Here is something to bear in mind: “The fact that this regime,” the Mubarak regime, “has good relations with the United States and Israel only seems to discredit the idea of good relations with the United States and Israel.”

And here is a question of the hour: Is Egypt 2011 like Iran 1979? Lewis: “Yes, there are certain similarities. I hope we don’t repeat the same mistakes.” The Carter administration handled events in Iran “poorly.”

The Obama administration should ponder something, as should we all: “At the moment, the general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression”: one of being a reliable friend and a dangerous enemy. “That is the way to be perceived.”

IBS editorial points out that Egypt Means Real Trouble For Israel, while the Wall Street Journal has a symposium on Where Should Egypt Go From Here?
Protests in Egypt have rocked the country’s political order, and last night President Hosni Mubarak announced he would not run in the September presidential election. Four experts—Francis Fukuyama, Ryan Crocker, Maajid Nawaz and Amr Bargisi—weigh in on where Egypt should go from here.

Phyllis Chesler asks, Am I the Only One Troubled By Cairo Street Scenes? Indeed, Phyllis is not the only one – go read her article to see why.

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February 1, 2011 By Fausta

Egypt roundup: “Those who unleash the tiger very rarely ride it for long…”

…says Andrew Roberts, writing about Obama’s Dangerous Game in Egypt (h/t Roger Kimball)

For when President Obama visited what he called “the timeless city of Cairo” to give his famous speech of June 4, 2009, and went through all the diplomatic pleasantries and greetings with Mubarak, exchanging presents and so on, it turns out that his administration was actively undermining his host and ally. WikiLeaks has revealed that only three weeks before Obama’s inauguration, on December 30, 2008, Margaret Scobey, the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt, warned the State Department that opposition groups had drawn up secret plans for “regime change” before the September 2010 elections. The embassy’s source was an anti-Mubarak campaigner whom the State Department had helped to attend an activists’ summit in New York. This secret support for anti-Mubarak campaigners continued after the change of administrations, and up to the outbreak of the present attempted revolution.

Should Mubarak survive, he will understandably abhor American double-dealing in this matter, and the alliance between Egypt and the United States will hereafter be characterized by suspicion and deep distrust.

Should he fall, and his place be taken at any stage by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Republican narrative for the next presidential election will be obvious. Truman lost us China; Johnson lost us Vietnam; Carter lost us Iran, and now Obama has lost us Egypt. You can’t trust the Democrats in foreign policy. Argue over the historical minutiae if you like—was LBJ more or less to blame than JFK or Nixon, for example—but if Cairo goes Islamist the overall narrative will be compelling.
…
History shows how small, extremist, determined, and, above all, well-organized revolutionary cadres tend to succeed out of all proportion to their numbers against amorphous, well-meaning, middle-class liberals.

Lenin usurped the Russian revolution only eight months after Alexander Kerensky toppled the Czar. ElBaradei might well be fated to play the role in Egypt that was played by Shapour Bakhtiar in Iran or Bishop Abel Muzorewa in Zimbabwe, of the stopgap figure who is acceptable to the West but soon swept away by the far more extreme Khomeini and Mugabe, respectively. Timeless Cairo itself provides the example of Mohammed Naguib, who lasted only 17 months as president of Egypt after the revolution that toppled King Farouk, before being ousted and placed under house arrest for 18 years by Nasser. Those who unleash the tiger very rarely ride it for long.

Ralph Peters, on the other hand, comments on Denial On The Nile
We Can’t Dictate Egypt’s Future and sees zero chance of a short-term Muslim fundamentalist takeover.

Mark Levin interviewed Frank Gaffney last night; The Right Scoop has the interview, where Gaffney sees the Muslim Brotherhood behind the revolution.

At the LA Times, the headline reads, U.S. open to a role for Islamists in new Egypt government; if that’s the case, this represents a momentous shift in American foreign policy. The LA Times article says,

The organization must reject violence and recognize democratic goals

which strikes me as a particularly naive attitude when dealing with taqiyya.

Carolyn Glick Washington’s reaction as clueless.

Over in Jordan,
Jordan’s King Dismisses Government Amid Protests

Jordan’s King Abdullah II dismissed his government and named a new prime minister tasked with introducing “true political reforms,” following weeks of street protests calling for economic and political change.

Follow the link for a timeline of the uprisings in the Middle East.

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January 31, 2011 By Fausta

Egypt: US evacuating relatives of Embassy personnel

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)

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January 29, 2011 By Fausta

Venezuela: Chavez says Egpyt embassy briefly taken over by protestors

A fake takeover, and a real takeover in today’s news:

First, the fake takeover,
Egyptian Embassy in Venezuela Briefly Taken Over, Chavez Says

Demonstrators briefly took over Egypt’s Embassy in Caracas today in a bid to show support for protests taking place in the North African country against the regime of President Hosni Mubarak, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

The protesters entered peacefully under the pretext of collecting documents and once inside took over the building, Chavez said. They were persuaded to leave after speaking with Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro, he said.

“The wanted to protest, of course, but they shouldn’t have done that because we are obliged to protect all of the embassies, which are sovereign territory,” Chavez said in comments carried on state television during a military event.

Seems to me that the protesters made their point and left, without much happening; indeed, the Wall Street Journal’s headline is less dramatic, Egypt Embassy In Venezuela Sees Shortlived Protest – Chavez

When reached for comment, a worker at the embassy who declined to identify himself said “everything was calm and had returned to normal.” He declined to give further details.

It seems to be another instance where Chávez is inflating his importance by injecting himself into today’s headline.

The real story in Venezuela, however, is the housing crisis. Chávez is now commanding the poor to squat on private property:
Chávez tackles housing crisis by urging poor to squat wealthy parts of Caracas
Move to exploit ‘unused’ land in capital rattles Venezuela’s middle class, as troops also take over ‘unproductive’ farms

ugo Chávez has sent out troops to take over farms and urged the poor to occupy “unused” land in wealthy areas of Caracas, prompting a wave of squats that is rattling Venezuela’s middle class.

The move by Venezuela’s president to step up the campaign to “recover” land and other property follows a housing crisis that has left millions of people in shabby conditions and affected his popularity in the run-up to next year’s election.

Squatters wearing red T-shirts from Chávez’s socialist party seized 20 spaces in a co-ordinated strike in the well-off Caracas municipality of Chacao last weekend, a move which shocked even some government supporters. Additional groups have targeted other cities.

Chávez’s attack on property rights, the cornerstone of democracy, continues (emphasis added),

The government has stepped up rural expropriations by deploying 1,600 troops at 47 farms in the western states of Merida and Zulia, claiming the farms were unproductive. The state has taken control of 2.5m hectares since Chávez gained power in 1999.

Just another day in the cult of Chavismo.

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Al-Jazeera has continued livestream video in English from Egypt, which you can watch here.

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January 28, 2011 By Fausta

Egypt cuts internet, cell phones, CNNI, arrests ElBaradei

Egypt Leaves the Internet

every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world. Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air.

Ironically, At last, Obama addresses Egypt protests – on YouTube

Answering questions during an online “town hall” with YouTube viewers, Mr. Obama spoke of Egypt’s longtime president, Hosni Mubarak. “I’ve always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform – political reform, economic reform – is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt,”

Which, of course, no one in Egypt can watch.

Cell phones are blocked, too,

The use of text message services on cell phones were also blocked in an effort to stop people from passing on information and mobilizing protesters.

Police seized CNNI’s camera,

CNN’s Ben Wedeman and Mary Rogers were under an overpass and behind a column as police tried to hold back protesters. Plainclothes police arrived, surrounded the CNN team and wanted “to haul us off,” Wedeman said. In a struggle, police grabbed Rogers’s camera, cracked its viewfinder, and confiscated it. Wedeman said the police threatened to beat them.

After returning to Egypt, Mohamed ElBaradei warned President Hosni Mubarak today that his regime is on its last legs. ElBaradei is now under house arrest.

Al-Jazeera reports that a curfew is imposed from 6pm to 7am local time.

[language warning on link] Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 30 years — longer than Cleopatra’s reign of 21 years, but Joe Biden’s saying Hey, Mubarak’s not a dictator

UPDATE
Richard Fernandez looks at the dustbins he has known, and is reading between the lines,

In spite of everything the whole region is in a race, but in the general direction of democracy. Things are up for grabs and the administration is trying to play catchup after running for two years in the opposite direction. That is, if it knows how.

Big “IF”.

Egypt news livefeed

Al Jazeera is carrying a livefeed which you can watch here (h/t Ben at Ace’s).

Stratfor has ongoing updates on The Egypt Unrest. The latest is Mubarak calls in the army

Pressure from the military likely influenced Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s decision to ask the army to take control of security alongside Egyptian police.

And,

Frst Tunisia, then Egypt, then Yemen, now the protests have reached Jordan

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