UTMC

This will certainly look good for the rest of the muslim world:
http://twitpic.com/3u6gvc

So, first Tunisia, now Egypt, and they are also protesting in Jordan now.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middl ... 09196.html

I have a feeling this might be one of those moments in history when it could go one of two ways, but will in any case end up with a fundamental change. Like the end of the eastern bloc twenty years ago. The people have tasted the sweet freedom of kicking out their oppressors. We could see actual democracies emerging in North Africa and the muslim world, or we could see new theocracies arising (I shure hope the first happens rather than the latter).
As long as it doesn't end up like Hungary in 1956 or the Prague Spring, but since there isn't a vast soviet army ready to quash the uprisings, I don't think a return to the old ways is very likely for either Tunisia or Egypt.

I want to see the west ushering in unqualified support for the popular movements in these countries. "Do whatever, we respect what you want!". If this turns out like Iran in 1979, that would be bad, for the people in the countries concerned, and not much better for the rest of the world. But if the west ends up supporting the autocratic regimes of the past or protesting muslim influence in these uprisings, a lot of people will surely feel they have to turn to the extremists.

Egypt has the tenth largest military in the world, around 1 million personnel, out of a population of 79 million. Enough to crush the uprising? Depends on how tolerant Egyptians are to getting to shot. They did try to turn off the internet, I wouldn't put it past them to burn the village to save the village.

rolly wrote:Egypt has the tenth largest military in the world, around 1 million personnel, out of a population of 79 million. Enough to crush the uprising? Depends on how tolerant Egyptians are to getting to shot. They did try to turn off the internet, I wouldn't put it past them to burn the village to save the village.

According to wikipedia, they have 450,000 active personell, so a million including reserves sounds reasonable.
But it's also a conscription army, which makes it more likely that soldiers might refuse to shoot protesters.
Iran had an impressive army in 1979.
Romania had 140,000 men in it's land forces in 1989, two thirds of whom were conscripts.

A conscript army is more likely to side with a popular uprising than a professional army simply because the conscripts are not that far removed from the general population. It's possible they might quash it, but it's equally likely many units will stay in their barracks.

As I get caught up on the latest, it looks like the army has been acting like peacekeepers and not doing much against the protests, so I think you may be right about where their sympathies lie. There are reports of the army putting themselves between the police and protestors, and reports that the police are shooting to kill.

Interesting times.

since the protests started i've been hoping that this is another one of those major world events...

Whose ever side the egyptian army is on, they definitely seem to be on the side of Egypt, the historical nation:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/internatio ... 143354.ece

Soldiers detained about 50 men trying to break into the Egyptian National Museum in a fresh attempt to loot some of the country’s archaeological treasures, the military said on Monday.

Snipers were stationed on the roof of the building, and dozens of troops patrolled the grounds of the famed antiquities museum amid fears that the chaos sweeping Cairo could engulf the nation’s heritage. Some of the most intense anti-government protests in the past week happened near the museum.

The Egyptian government has decided, as we all know, to shut off the internet...but they didn't expect the resourcefullnes of their geeks:
http://emuconsoleexploitnews.blogspot.c ... ss-in.html

Also, India is starting to simmer...is this thing travelling East?
http://skynews.com.au/topstories/articl ... 70911&vId=

forget the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, or 1968, or 1956.

i'm thinking its the Arab world's 1848.