204 replies to this topic

[OmegaBolt]

AFAIK they don't want the President to do anything except leave. No amount of changes will quell this if he remains in position, it seems.

[duke_Qa]

Wasn't that 1973 war considered a victory for both sides? Israel got the military victory by taking over a lot of Egyptian desert, and Egypt got a moral victory in that they managed to surprise the Israelis with a military attack on their "Christmas"? war can be a strange thing if both sides manage to get something out of it.

Anyway, things are moving along in interesting directions. Mubarak had an interview with ABC yesterday where he said that he was tired and would quit right away, if it wasn't for the risk of chaos, so that's some concessions there... Personally I feel that Mubarak is an tired old man with a lot of underlings doing all the work for him right now, if he quits theres no guarantee that change will come.

It also seems that the US and Egyptian vice-president Suleiman are discussing a way for Mubarak to resign right away, which might help them avoid the worst confrontations that are coming during this friday. This is certainly going to be the day of reckoning.

Edited by duke_Qa, 04 February 2011 - 09:12 AM.

[Thats me!]

I assume you are from Israel by the"which we won comment", I always wondered how some of the people of Israel are feeling about the local "events."

no,i am from Egypt,and we won the 1973 war and took sinai back from Israel.

Is not the government supposed to represent the people and what the people want?

"supposed",the old gov didn't do anything,however the new PM was The aviation minister,and he was one of the few ones who did his job very well.
There are elections in august or September,even if he resigns now,there will not be any elections before July,so why can't they wait a little?

I don't think the government wants them to protest

i didn't say that.no gov wants that anyway.

This is beyond western interests, this is a political uprising that wouldn't have happened if there wasn't injustice. To say things are better when people get kidnapped, tortured and oppressed to vote for the ones in charge, you have to say "Oh well, it's better than what the nazis did to the jews! This is better than fighting the battle of Stalingrad. Be quiet you, live on your knees and don't die on your feet! there's some fine mud down here too..."

there was injustice,i don't deny that,and the people had enough,especialy after the last parlament elections,however the president changed alot of things,there is a "half"-new government,alot of people who unfairly in the parlament elections will be gone,and the law about president-elections will change,and he promised to go in September,and thats really enough.

Give the gov time,if they are bad like the old one,the tahrir square will stay here,it won't move away,and then they can come back again,and this time they will be alot more people,and if i will be in egypt(probably not,i have to return to Europe,i was here for rest and then this happens,blah),i will be with them,because then they will be 100% right.
just give the new gov some time.

AFAIK they don't want the President to do anything except leave. No amount of changes will quell this if he remains in position, it seems.

and if he leaves they will want something else,and then another thing,and then and then.....
they can't have everything.

Wasn't that 1973 war considered a victory for both sides? Israel got the military victory by taking over a lot of Egyptian desert, and Egypt got a moral victory in that they managed to surprise the Israelis with a military attack on their "Christmas"? war can be a strange thing if both sides manage to get something out of it.

well Israel won in 1967 and took alot of The Egyptian desert,however in 1973 we(Egypt)took it back,and the in the 80s the peace treaty has been made(bad english?).

Anyway, things are moving along in interesting directions. Mubarak had an interview with ABC yesterday where he said that he was tired and would quit right away, if it wasn't for the risk of chaos, so that's some concessions there.

if he quit there will be chaos ,because then the islamists will try to control,i know you said this was a youth revoled,but don't forget that the islamists are the best organized opposition here,and they are good at brainwashing,and they are dangerous,so they will be a risk.
unconfirmed reports say that 60% of the ones in tahrir now are islamists,and it seems they won't give up because they think its a chance to control,and a huge chance at that,and if the president resigns now,and someone the youth choose control,then the islamists will have it easy,because mubarak was to strong for them,now he is weaker,much weaker,and they want to take this chance to come to power,as i said before.

Personally I feel that Mubarak is an tired old man with a lot of underlings doing all the work for him right now, if he quits theres no guarantee that change will come.

well,the old underlings are the people who make it look like this,alot of them were really bad.

Hopefully today will end peacefully.

Edited by Thats me!, 04 February 2011 - 03:22 PM.

[duke_Qa]

"supposed",the old gov didn't do anything,however the new VP was The aviation minister,and he was one of the few ones who did his job very well.
There are elections in august or September,even if he resigns now,there will not be any elections before July,so why can't they wait a little?

There are probably good men in the government as well, and I presume that if they are men of merit they will be able to rejoin the new government and help change the country for the better. It is true that it will take time to get a new election running, but the demonstrators needs proof that Mubarak will not turn back on his promise, and the best way he can do that is to resign now and let his VP take control until the elections.

Give the gov time,if they are bad like the old one,the tahrir square will stay here,it won't move away,and then they can come back again,and this time they will be alot more people,and if i will be in egypt(probably not,i have to return to Europe,i was here for rest and then this happens,blah),i will be with them,because then they will be 100% right.
just give the new gov some time.

I can sympathize with those that want things to go back to normal. But I somehow doubt the demonstrators even could stop now, even if they got Mubarak out. They are relatively safe in large numbers, the secret police and pro-mubarak elements can't get their hands on them when they are gathered up like this. Once you lose this momentum, the police will march from house to house with lists that they have made the last week and pick people out one by one.

The only way to make the demonstrations livable is to allow them to make camp on Tahrir square, reinforce the area so people can't drive vehicles into it or otherwise make a mess. Egypt won't stop if a few thousand demonstrators are allowed to keep peaceful demonstrations in Tahrir square?
Then, the secret police must be neutralized. The mobs that are attacking the demonstrators are no doubt connected to them. They are the tool of the autocrat, and with them gone things will become a lot smoother and the demonstrators can feel safer.

Also remember, if Tahrir square gets emptied, you can be sure as hell that the riot police will instantly show up and retake it. The military might also refuse to let the people come back inside again... Then everything falls apart, and the secret police with their lists will come and clean house.

and if he leaves they will want something else,and then another thing,and then and then.....
they can't have everything.

That will most likely happen, because if Mubarak steps down and leaves the power to his VP, not a lot has changed. As the demonstrators gets more insight into who is still sitting with power in the Egyptian government and are abusing it, popular anger will start targeting them as well. But this is a part of the reform, in the end people will start coming into grey-zones where they can compromise.

well,the old underlings are the people who make it look like this,alot of them were really bad.

Hopefully today will end peacefully.

Yes, and it is a bit problematic that the demonstrators are mostly focusing on Mubarak, he is not as dangerous as other younger and more motivated/corrupted men. Mubarak might have been a Lenin that succeeded in stopping Stalin from taking over.

I hope this day moves Egypt in a positive direction. Many have already lost their lives, the best we can hope for is that it does not drag out and kill more innocents than necessary.

[Hostile]

I assume you are from Israel by the"which we won comment", I always wondered how some of the people of Israel are feeling about the local "events."

no,i am from Egypt,and we won the 1973 war and took sinai back from Israel.

Baited and caught. I assumed you were from Egypt.

Let's get history straight here. Israel advanced into the Egypt after having siezed the canal. They were within one km of the major Cairo highway. It wasn't till the Soviet Union threatened direct military intervention that the UN declared a cease-fire and the Israelies accepted. They took all thier toys and went back to Israel. Egypt clearly did not win anything. After that another cease-fire was issued and Israel gave back the territory they captured from Syrian back to the 1967 border.

In ten days of fighting, Israel pushed the Egyptian army back across the canal, and the IDF made deep incursions into Egypt. On October 24, with Israeli soldiers about one kilometer from the main Cairo-Ismailia highway and the Soviet Union threatening direct military intervention, the UN imposed a cease-fire

After several months of negotiations, during which sporadic fighting continued, Israel reached a disengagement agreement in January 1974, whereby the IDF withdrew across the canal and Israeli and Egyptian troops were separated in the Sinai by a UNEF-manned buffer zone. Israel signed a similar agreement with Syria on May 31, 1974, whereby Israel withdrew to the 1967 cease-fire line in the Golan Heights and a United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) occupied a buffer zone between Israeli and Syrian forces.

http://www.onwar.com...mkippur1973.htm

The Arab forces won an initial advantage, but the Israelis, fighting from interior lines in two separate theaters of operation, managed to recover and gain the initiative before superpower and United Nation's intervention imposed a cease-fire on 24 October 1973, prior to any clear-cut military decision on the battlefield.

http://www.globalsec...1997/Jordan.htm

I like to keep the facts seperated from the fiction.

[Thats me!]

however the new VP was The aviation minister

i meant prime minister not vp,anyway,

the demonstrators needs proof that Mubarak will not turn back on his promise, and the best way he can do that is to resign now and let his VP take control until the elections

well,i don't think he is the type to turn back,and a proof is hard to find, but resigning now is not a good idea,because if he resigns,the law the protesters want to change cannot be changed,even if the VP takes control,they will have to wait for a new president,which will be elected under the current law,which the protesters refuse,and so on,or so a expert said.
and alot of people including me think that the president should leave after his period is over(in sept.),and not resigning,because he served this country for more than 60 years,30 as president and more then 30 in the army,so he should end his period with peace and something good,not forcing him to leave while he said he want to die here.
Really,if he only wanted power,he would have already fled like someone did,but he decided to stay here to "repair" the law,the system and the mistakes(most of whom he didn't do) happened in his period,and to protect the country.

.......
Also remember, if Tahrir square gets emptied, you can be sure as hell that the riot police will instantly show up and retake it. The military might also refuse to let the people come back inside again... Then everything falls apart, and the secret police with their lists will come and clean house.

well of people already said the idea about the camp on tahrir,but the problem(in my point of view)that it is in the center,everybody who wants to do anything in cairo needs to go there,be it shopping,paper work,or,or...
i don't think the police will do that,the new interior minister is not like the old one(who is being held by the army),and the PM promised the protesters that nothing will happen to them,and if the police will arrest anybody of them everybody in the world will know about it,and the people will protest again,and the police want be able to do anything like last Friday,were the police fled because they didn't want to kill the protesters,they got the orders from the old minister to shoot the protesters,but the police didn't want to.
The army can't refuse to let the people inside,because the army doesn't have anything to do with politics,and the army could have stopped them but they let the people protest,a spokesman of the army said that the army won't stop people to protest aslong as they are peaceful.
and i think the army will return to its place after this is over.

But this is a part of the reform, in the end people will start coming into grey-zones where they can compromise.

however you can't compromise with some who want to have all of the things they want happen,they already got most of the things they wanted,but they insist on everything,and this isn't how it should be solved.
however it seems their is some light,as some of the pro and anti are trying to talk to each other and make everybody go home and make things go back to normal.

I hope this day moves Egypt in a positive direction. Many have already lost their lives, the best we can hope for is that it does not drag out and kill more innocents than necessary.

Amen to that.
until now it seems everything is peaceful pro- and anti-mubarak are both protesting,but they are protesting in different places,so clashes didn't happen.

edit:
@hostile:i won't argue with you on that because i don't have any facts,but i have been told in school and history lessons is that we have won the 1973 war and took allmost all of sinai back,and proved the saying "Israeli's army is invincible"wrong.
that said i don't want to argue with you on that before i get strong facts and proofs.

Edited by Thats me!, 04 February 2011 - 04:44 PM.

[Elvenlord]

Well of course you were taught in school you won, here in Texas we're taught we just decided to leave Vietnam just because and there's no mention of the protests or even why we were there in the first place. Yet we all know how that really went

[Puppeteer]

Well of course you were taught in school you won, here in Texas we're taught we just decided to leave Vietnam just because and there's no mention of the protests or even why we were there in the first place. Yet we all know how that really went

Though I'm not actually surprised, this is rather funny! I can't think of anything so biased in my school (and we're studying both Indian Independence 1857-1947 and the Cold War).

[Ganon]

Who's making americans look bad now?

It was a joke puppet.

[Vortigern]

Honestly a lot of the history I got taught in school really made England look pretty bad. The majority of us aren't really very nationalistic, the BNP, EDL and UKIP excluded.

Ganon: was it really a joke, though? Were you taught in Texan school? One thing we definitely get taught about over here is Johnny Scopes and the Monkey Trials, which strongly suggests that what gets taught in some schools bears little relationship to observable fact.

[Puppeteer]

Who's making americans look bad now?

It was a joke puppet.

Still you.
And it's Puppeteer, to you.

Honestly a lot of the history I got taught in school really made England look pretty bad

If anything, our bias rests on self-deprecation now... typical British attitude.

[partyzanPaulZy]

I don't like the role religious groups have in this series of revolutions. Like Romanul said it's the same domino effect like in the eastern block some 21 years ago and these revolutions led to privatization with massive larceny and frauds. Many companies have bunkrupted in 1990's or grew weaker (in the favour of western corporations, in the unnatural way). These revolutions were also full of lies and naivity. We were promised to have German wages, Scandinavian level of democracy, corruption eradicated... guess what have we got.

That's the reason I don't like this, there's a suspicious level fanatics are involved in this...

Edited by partyzanPaulZy, 05 February 2011 - 02:56 PM.

[Námo]

I don't like the role religious groups have in this series of revolutions.

Sadly, they may have support among a majority of the population in Egypt:

In a rigorously conducted, face-to-face interview survey by University of Maryland/WorldPublicOpinion.org, 67% of those interviewed in Egypt desired “To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate”, and 74% wanted "Strict application of Sharia Law in every Islamic country":

Also, many of the protesters calling for "freedom" - hurriya in Arabic - may put a very different meaning into this word than the secular western concept ... BigPeace has a very interesting article on the Arabic view of freedom:

Andrew G. Bostom: Egypt: Sharia and Hurriyya (Arab ‘Freedom’)

The article has a lot of valuable links on this subject. Chilling info ...

Edited by Námo, 05 February 2011 - 08:02 PM.

[duke_Qa]

What role do these religious groups have? I have seen no proof of any more religious affliction here than some American yelling "Thank God" or something generic like that. The muslim brotherhood is after what I've read the antithesis of the Iranian Islamic fascism, they do believe in Sharia in a indirect ethical way but they also say they want people to have free elections and choice.

Asking a Muslim living in a autocratic regime what their personal preferences for governance is... would perhaps also give you some sort of bias in the numbers? I bet the Burmese people are not always speaking their mind during surveys, the same with North-Koreans.

Give the Egyptians a chance to be equals. It would be a disgrace to intervene just because our own complacency has gotten to the point we rather want slaves under control, than equals that might have something to say in both directions. This might even be the beginning of the solution to the Palestinian situation. If we get more Secular and democratic nations like Turkey around Israel, something good has to come out of it. One of the main bonuses would be that democratic regimes don't need to use hostile rhetoric to keep their people busy looking for Western conspiracies.

[Phil]

In a rigorously conducted, face-to-face interview survey by University of Maryland/WorldPublicOpinion.org, 67% of those interviewed in Egypt desired “To unify all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate”, and 74% wanted "Strict application of Sharia Law in every Islamic country":

Amazing how you can take unbiased research and just show the single snippet that supports your preconceived opinions. And then not give a link to the original source! (Unless, of course, it's a reputable site like JihadWatch.org, BigPeace.com or BombAllMuslimsToKingdomCome.net... ridiculous.)

For those of us who prefer to read numbers in context, this is the original article: Muslims Believe US Seeks to Undermine Islam.

About the numbers Námo quoted, the article's analysis says:

Equally large majorities agree with goals that involve expanding the role of Islam in their society. On average, about three out of four agree with seeking to "require Islamic countries to impose a strict application of sharia," and to "keep Western values out of Islamic countries." Two-thirds would even like to "unify all Islamic counties into a single Islamic state or caliphate."

But this does not appear to mean that the publics in these Muslim countries want to isolate themselves from the larger world. Asked how they feel about "the world becoming more connected through greater economic trade and faster communication," majorities in all countries say it is a good thing (average 75%). While wary of Western values, overall 67 percent agree that "a democratic political system" is a good way to govern their country and 82 percent agree that in their country "people of any religion should be free to worship according to their own beliefs."

[duke_Qa]

There was just a good article on a local newspaper about how Christian Egyptians encircled and protected the Muslim demonstrators as they had one of their daily prayers. Here's a link to one article on the topic.

I'll just translate some parts of the interview

[...]Someone whispers to us that Wadiyeh is Christian, and the muslims telling us this are overjoyed that Christians and Muslims are standing together.

- The Christians defended the Muslims while we prayed. The mob outside did not care about praying, and the rocks and the molotovs flew. But the Christians protected us, one man tells us.

A few dozen others that have arrived, nods and tells the same story. It is clear that the Christian Shielding during the important prayer left an impression. One man throws himself over Wadiyeh and kisses him. Everyone is yelling:

- Look, Christians and Muslims are standing together. This is the people's revolution and it is peaceful. It is the dog Mubarak that have caused problems. Now he will be thrown away, they shout.

[Soul]

Most excellent story you found Duke .

[Hostile]

Egypt's emergency laws were imposed by Mubarak when he took office in 1981 and they have been in force ever since. The laws give police far-reaching powers for detention and suppression of civil and human rights. Lifting the laws has been a longtime demand by the opposition.

http://www.foxnews.c...lks-government/

At least the regime appears to be allowing a lot of opposition groups to begin asking questions of the government openly and in unison. There really isn't anything the outside world could/should do but watch and support freedom. Egypt is a really large and important nation in the region. I hope it sets a good example.

[duke_Qa]

Yeah, it seems to be moving along fine without any direct influence beyond what we already are seeing. Also, it seems that the Muslim brotherhood are giving Mubarak the benefit of the doubt and saying it is wise for him to be in charge for now. I am a bit ambivalent, but it seems that Suleiman is more or less running the show anyway, We'll see what happens.

[duke_Qa]

One might say that the regime has had some success in keeping the revolt under control. The argument that there will be chaos if Mubarak leaves have so far worked for them. Combined with the apparent neutrality of the military and things trying to get back to normal, things were looking like they would fall back to the way things were.

But then Wael Ghonin got released (google marketing executive in Middle east, started one of the first facebook groups for the demonstrations) from imprisonment and the demonstrators got a face and a voice, causing a massive increase in the demonstrators on tuesday with his emotional speeches. He is now turning into an icon, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing.


And now, one more fact that can change the situation has come up. the Military is not as neutral as they claim to be, and have apparently been imprisoning and torturing hundreds if not thousands of demonstrators, activists and lawyers that they have caught near Tahrir Square. I don't know what the demonstrators can do about it, but knowing this will make the military's stealth-oppression harder