Color me impressed.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 12:53 pm

The Egyptians won.
Interesting times.

guitargeek · Post by **guitargeek** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:26 pm

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:34 pm

The army won. Not necessarily the same thing.

goose · Post by **goose** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:42 pm

stepping down and allowing your appointee to run the show seems real close to a lateral move to me too.

However, I've been wrong before.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 2:24 pm

If I'm not mistaken, the people have been calling for the military to run the interim government since the beginning of the protests, and this is what just happened.
His appointee was Omar Suleiman, who was specifically not put in charge of the process.

Did I miss something?

Of course, one can always speculate a puppeteering process, with the two running the show behind the scenes, or some other such shenanigans, but on the face of it, it does appear that the people have won.

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:55 pm

While I do love me some juntas, I think the applicable phrase goes "don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

MATPOC · Post by **MATPOC** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 3:56 pm

I might have missed something, but going to the Villa does not mean surrender

calamari kid · Post by **calamari kid** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 4:29 pm

He relinquished power to the military council in a speech, and the Swiss have frozen all of his assets. I'd say he's pretty definitively out. Now we just wait and see if the military folks actually move forward with real elections.

MATPOC · Post by **MATPOC** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:32 pm

Wow, last I heard was NPR this morning saying he was taking a weekend off on the beach and refusing to give in to "influence form outside".

Hope military has good plan.

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:42 pm

About that military council, the man in charge of Egypt right now, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, is the guy Mubarak picked for deputy prime minister, and is known in some circles as "Mubarak's poodle."

CBC wrote:A 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, released by Wikileaks, discusses mid-level Egyptian officers "openly expressing disdain for Tantawi," and referring to him as "Mubarak's poodle." The officers complain that Tantawi is incompetent and "reached his position only because of unwavering loyalty to Mubarak," according to the cable.

I guess that beats Omar Suleiman, "torturer-in-chief."

Post by **Beemer Dan** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 5:59 pm

rolly wrote:While I do love me some juntas, I think the applicable phrase goes "don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

In this case I'd say "don't count your chickens before they come home to roost". This is going to be interesting indeed, as the Egyptian army is a big player in business and real estate, as well as being pretty woven in to the mubarak regime. It's going to be delicate from here on out, I hope that the people will keep on doing their thing and make a real democracy out of things, so far so good!

Oh, and I hope they can trick mubarak into coming back home... long enough to lock him up, try him for war crimes against his own people and deliver on his wish to be buried on Egyptian soil.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 8:11 pm

rolly wrote:About that military council, the man in charge of Egypt right now, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, is the guy Mubarak picked for deputy prime minister, and is known in some circles as "Mubarak's poodle."

CBC wrote:A 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Cairo, released by Wikileaks, discusses mid-level Egyptian officers "openly expressing disdain for Tantawi," and referring to him as "Mubarak's poodle." The officers complain that Tantawi is incompetent and "reached his position only because of unwavering loyalty to Mubarak," according to the cable.
I guess that beats Omar Suleiman, "torturer-in-chief."

Ahh, there's the puppet I was talking about.
That's a bummer.

guitargeek · Post by **guitargeek** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:31 pm

Bill Maher wrote:It's a beginning! It's a beginning. We hope the rest will go easier than this part because this Mubarak, he is harder to get rid of than an Irish house guest! It's like when you try to get Grandpa to give up the keys and stop driving!

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 2:16 am

I'm chatting on facebook right now with a friend in Egypt.
They know who they are dealing with. No one with a half a brain believes that the struggle is over.

One of their large points of curiosity is how the outside world actually sees them. Their main source of info has been state TV, and state TV has them as violent criminals, or whatnot.
He has passed on messages from folks around the world (including mine) to many Egyptians. They are obviously pretty stoked that most of the ordinary people of the world seem to have their backs.

MATPOC · Post by **MATPOC** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 4:58 am

Back in the Soviet supported days many Egyptians were educated in CCCP, including military, the "old school" army is not so much US friendly, hope not many of them left in charge. In the last 30 years US army trained a whole new generation of officers that are hopefully gonna do the right thing.

When I was in grade school there was an Egyptian girl who's dad was studying or working in Russia and his whole family was living in my city, they were the only foreigners I new at that age. I think they wen back as relations with Russia got worse.

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 11:41 am

I'm not saying it's all gloom, just that it's not over yet. They've got rid of a bad government, but they haven't got a good government, not yet. A lot of old men are now busily grasping at all they can while everyone is patting themselves on the back. If the people of Egypt allow themselves to think that they've won, then they've lost. If they know that this just beginning, then they can still win.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:47 pm

I know there are many who feel that way. Now it's time to wait and see what the masses do.
From everything I've read, it's so fucked up over there from top to bottom that the glaring shortcomings will be in people's faces for quite sometime to come. Hopefully that keeps them catalyzed into action.
Fortunately, at least as of about nine hours ago, there were still large groups of people who planned to keep the vigil going in Tahrir Square. Looks like they know what's up.
I guess that, in at least one sense, oppression and corruption are a luxury: when you have those, your enemies and your paths of action are clear. Once you get to the sort of freedom and luxury we are afforded in places like the U.S., the people screwing you over, and taking it all away from you one bite at a time, are kept safe by having a populace that is used to the distractions of wealth and is essentially un-unifiable.

FastCat · Post by **FastCat** » Sat Feb 12, 2011 10:36 pm

Well, according to Glen Beck, the commie-socialist-muslim-asian-trade-unionist-enemies-of-america won.

...so I figure it can't be *all* bad.

WeAintFoundShit · Post by **WeAintFoundShit** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:00 am

Before I go to sleep tonight, I'm going to masturbate to a fantasy of Glen Beck getting his eye sockets fucked for all eternity in hell.

guitargeek · Post by **guitargeek** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:43 pm

rolly · Post by **rolly** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 6:12 pm

That is an awesome cartoon.

guitargeek · Post by **guitargeek** » Mon Feb 14, 2011 1:48 am

Sarah Palin wrote:And nobody yet has, nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak and no, not, not real enthused about what it is that that’s being done on a national level and from DC in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt. And, in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings, we know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need to know what it is that America stands for so we know who it is that America will stand with. And, we do not have all that information yet.

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