Mubarak & Sons…
…are now in prison (sons) and hospital detention (father).
I can’t help but think that the message received by dictators around the world is that it’s much better to be a US enemy than a US friend.
Here’s more about what might be going on in Egypt:
The arrest of Mr Mubarak has been a key demand of protesters. Many analysts believe the latest moves against the Mubarak family are a politicised bid to mollify angry demonstrators, who have recently shifted their attention to the titular head of the military, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, a long-serving Mubarak-era minister.
”I seriously doubt that after all this the Mubaraks will be released,” said Ragia Omran, a human rights lawyer and pro-change activist. ”There’s been a lot of anger in the Egyptian street over the demands of the revolution not being met, and the ruling generals have arrested the Mubaraks in an effort to calm the people. To let them go now would be political suicide.”
It will be interesting to see how the new government shapes up in terms of revenge against the former regime. Will there be a Reign of Terror? Or amnesty? Or something in-between?
Another message might be that it makes little sense to resign.
The Shah, the Mubaraks, the South Vietnamese; really what do you gain from being our friends but knife in the back. Especially when the President is a Democrat. It’s understandable why Maliki and Karzai keeps their distance. We demand loyalty but offer none in return.
Does it seem to others out there that Democrats talk a lot about desirable outcomes but don’t understand incentives?
Or is it just me?
Hong,
Karzai is a product of our stupid and futile ‘nation building policy’. The same pertains to Iraq. We knocked down the Taliban and pulled Saddam out of his spider hole, and then we went PC and allowed Afghanistan & Iraq to determine their political structure. What we should have done in Afghanistan and Iraq was impose martial law and dictate exactly what sort of political structure would replace the defeated enemy. ‘Nation building’ requires a heavy hand. A limp wrist just won’t do.
We showed decades ago in Vietnam we were no longer the same people who imposed our will upon Japan & Germany. (Everybody knows we are a paper tiger, including Qaddafi.) Either we believe the ways of Western Civilization are superior or we get all fuzzy with multi-culturalism. The first is victorious, the latter defeatist.
“The arrest of Mr Mubarak has been a key demand of protesters. Many analysts believe the latest moves against the Mubarak family are a politicised bid to mollify angry demonstrators, who have recently shifted their attention to the titular head of the military, Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, a long-serving Mubarak-era minister.
”I seriously doubt that after all this the Mubaraks will be released,”
Wasn’t there once a very terrible and heavy handed Tsar somewhere who was allied with Great Britain and the U.S., who was then arrested by a “moderate” progressive and provisional government and later …
Well, I can’t remember the rest of the story.
@ Parker
America leadership was PC long before we pulled Saddam out of a spider hole in Iraq.
Remember President Bush declaring that Islam is a ‘Religion of Peace’? If that’s not progressive liberal spin against the facts of reality and history then I’m living in the land of Oz.
Sorry, but Superman is dead! We no longer fight for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”. People cry out that we must fight for truth – but then mimmic Pilate (ref. John 18:38).
There will be horrific blow-back in KSA over this fiasco.
We are creating die-hard Sharia compliant islamist states all over the ummah — starting with the oil patch.
Hard to believe a president could leave us dead in the water so quickly. Have to admit it happened.
Democrats know how to buy votes and accrue power. It looks like that’s the extent of their interests.
. . . And Madame DuFarge keeps knitting her scarf.
It’s the Shiite extremist push, throughout the Middle East. When they’re united behind Iran, look out.
Unfortunately, the “message” is that they will have to be more brutally repressive. The lesson is that they will have to be more like China (Tiananmen Square) or Iran. Mubarak was too tolerant and that’s why he lost power.
We can “hope for change”, but it is out of our control. Especially since the current regime has ceded “Leadership of the Free World” to France and Britain. And when you hear Mrs. Clinton say that Assad of Syria is a “Reformist”, you realize that that there are no adults in charge of US foreign policy.
Pray for our children.
Meanwhile, back here at the ranch, Shari’a advances and conquers all before it: see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ErzxOz3Dzv8
Ahh, Egypt, the rule of law, and pro-change activists. It is all very comforting, having community organizers do their things here and abroad.
This archived article by Glenn Reynolds from 2002[!] predicted the collapse of the ME regimes.
He talks about “preference cascades,” the phenomenon whereby people suddenly realize it’s okay to express a certain belief or feeling because more of their neighbors share it than they thought. That dictatorships spend a huge amount of effort making sure the dissidents feel grossly outnumbered and alone — until they don’t, and the whole thing collapses.
http://web.archive.org/web/20030910002544/http://www.techcentralstation.com/031302A.html
He was talking about the sudden blooming of American flag displays amongst the faculty of his college after the 9-11 attacks, and theorized that the teachers may have been patriotic before but afraid to show it.
In the end, power comes from the barrel of a gun. And in how many people you can personally order executed and have it done within a day.
That is as true in Africa as it is true in America. Some people worked to make it otherwise, but it always comes back to the age of power