Articles with the Tag Mubarak

Denial is a river in Egypt — Mubarak not going yet

Real Life Revolutions
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You know you’re fucked when you give a speech and #Ceausescu starts trending — angryyoungalex.

So Mubarak had his big speech and while everybody expected he would announce his retirement, he instead blew a giant raspberry to the Egyptian people, who are now more angry then ever. It does remind you of the last speech of Ceausescu, that moment when everybody but the great dictator himself had realised that he was toast, that repression no longer worked and compromise was no longer possible, that the question was no longer if the revolution would succeed, but when. Mubarak too had his chance to either violently repress the revolution or to step down peacefully. The first was only tried halfheartedly, largely it seems because the police and hired thugs failed while the army refused, the second was probably never on the cards for him. So tonight the chances have increased dramatically that he will end his days bungling from a lamp post or shot in the streets.

White House envoy has financial ties to Mubarak regime

Life under Capitalism, Real Life Revolutions
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Robert Fisk:

Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama’s envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government.

Mr Wisner’s astonishing remarks – “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical: it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy” – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama’s judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a “personal capacity”. But there is nothing “personal” about Mr Wisner’s connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises “the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the US”. Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

That really makes you have faith in the White House’s interest in reaching the right solution…

You can’t make a sweet drink out of a rotten fish

Real Life Revolutions, US Foreign Policy
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The LBR‘s Adam Shatz on Egypt’s anti-Mubarak protests and its reception abroad:

Despite the Mubarak regime’s efforts to invoke the spectre of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptians aren’t demonstrating for an Islamic government any more than the Tunisians were; they’re demonstrating for an honest government – one that will improve education and infrastructure, reduce poverty and inflation, end the Emergency Law, stop torturing people in police stations, stop doing the bidding of the US and Israel in Palestine, stop rigging elections, and, above all, stop lying to them. And whatever their differences, they are united in the conviction that neither Mubarak nor his son Gamal, who is being groomed to succeed him, is capable of meeting these demands. As one young activist said to me last year, ‘We need a radical shake-up. We have a saying in Egypt that you can’t make a sweet drink out of a rotten fish.’

[…] And so, as police were dispersing protesters in Tahrir Square, Hillary Clinton did her best to scatter seasoning on the rotten fish: ‘The Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.’ Later that day in his State of the Union address, Barack Obama hailed the people of Tunisia, but said nothing about the Egyptians who hoped to repeat their example, and in whose capital city he had delivered a grand speech full of promises yet to be fulfilled.

Once again, it’s the supposedly democracy-loving EU and US that put themselves firmly in the way of actual democratic progress. Imagine my surprise.

Tunesia 2: Mubarak’s family flees Egypt

Real Life Revolutions
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According to the Times of India, Mubarak’s family has fled Egypt:

CAIRO: Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s son, who is considered as his successor, has fled to Britain along with his family, a US-based Arabic website reported.

The plane with Gamal Mubarak, his wife and daughter on board left for London Tuesday from an airport in western Cairo, the website Akhbar al-Arab said.

The report came as violent unrest broke out in Cairo and other Egyptian cities and hundreds of thousands of people reportedly took to the streets in a Tunisia-inspired day of revolt.

If this report is true, things are moving much faster in Egypt than I thought possible even yesterday. No guarantees the protests will unseat Mubarak even so, but it’s a good sign.