Endemic poverty, oppression, censorship, corruption, and illiteracy (especially among women) are the hallmarks of decades of socialist rule in Egypt. The National Democratic Party chaired by 82-year old Soviet-educated dictator Hosni Mubarak is a nationalist, socialist, defacto one-party regime and also a member party of the Socialist International. There are three reasons why the fall of the Mubarak dictatorship might trouble me: 1) Mubarak has been an ally (albeit well-paid) of the US; 2) Mubarak has been if not friendly at least not hostile to Israel; and 3) it could be worse.
Here’s Michael Ledeen’s take:
Egypt’s destiny will be determined by a fight among Egyptian people, some of whom wish to be free and others who wish to install a tyranny worse than Mubarak’s. That’s the opposite of freedom. Think about the free elections in Gaza that brought the Hamas killers to power.
Here’s Richard Fernandez’ take:
“The Obama administration is ramping up pressure on President Hosni Mubarak to address the grievances of the Egyptian people and said the government’s response to protests may affect U.S. aid.”
But there were also signs that the Obama administration was looking past Mubarak — to the Muslim Brotherhood, “a hard-line, but nonviolent, Islamic” group. Not only was the president taking both sides of the argument, he was looking to buy insurance for the future.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal:
Arabs perceive Mr. Obama as de-emphasizing democracy promotion after George W. Bush tried to make it a centerpiece of his second term, Mr. Hamid said.
Expressions of “concern” should be condemnation and outrage, Mr. Hamid said. “We are watching history, and Obama is on the wrong side of it.”
Here’s GOP Rep. Thaddeus McCotter’s statement on the crisis:
The Egyptian demonstrations are not the equivalent of Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution. The Egyptian demonstrations are the reprise of Iran’s 1979 radical revolution.Thus, America must stand with her ally Egypt to preserve an imperfect government capable of reform; and prevent a tyrranical government capable of harm.
For if Egypt is radicalized, all of the reforms sought by the Egyptian people and supported by the United States with them – including consensual and constitutional government; free elections; open and unbridled media; and Egyptian control of their natural resources – will be lost. Nascent democratic movements in the region will be co-opted and radicalized. The world’s free and open access to the Suez Canal’s vital commercial shipping lanes will be choked. And the Sinai Accord between Egypt and Israel – which must be protected as the foundation and principal example for Mideast peace – will be shredded.
…Inexcusably, this crisis has been hastened and exacerbated by the U.S. Administration’s refusal to whole-heartedly embrace Iran’s truly democratic 2009 Green Revolution. Make no mistake: strategically and cynically, freedom’s radicalized enemy is exploiting a real religion to undermine liberty and true reform just as Soviet communism posed as a secular creed to obtain the same illegitimate ends.
Hillary Clinton was right about one thing: President Obama is not ready for a 3 AM phone call.
Kinda of interesting in the all the coverage I’ve seen so far, (the Telegraph, Al Jareeza, Tehran Times, the noisy box in the next room) haven’t seen any faction claim responsibility or leadership.
Now I wonder where the Sixth Fleet’s gators are. Will need them for the inevitable bug out, aid and assistance to the new fledging (soon to be not to be) democracy, etc.
“Endemic poverty, oppression, censorship, corruption, and illiteracy (especially among women) are the hallmarks of decades of socialist rule in Egypt.”
I wish y’all would make up your mind about the defintion of a socialist government. The defintion above certianly doesn’t describe President Obama or his administration.
Allow me to provide some fair and balanced analysis to the discussion.
Egypt is a democracy in name only. President Mubarak has been an important ally in the region. It would be super-unhelpful if he was replaced by an Iran-style regime hostile to America. We’ve invested a lot of money in Egypt — it’s one of our top recipients of foreign aid. So that’s your hard-earned money at stake right now. President Obama has to walk a narrow tightrope so now is not the time for petty, republican, partisianship.
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2011/01/egypt-what-you-should-know-why-you-should-care/#
I am amazed – I thought the libs were always against the idea that America had an interest in making sure that other countries remained relatively stable. When we went into Kuwaitt and Iraq, they hated Bush I and II for getting involved. But now we need to stand back and let the Democrats have their way on this without any “petty, Republican, partisanship .” Nice try.
You’re damn skippy we hated it when Bush Jr. sent our troops to Iraq based on dead wrong intelligence to look for WMD without body armor that was NOT there and without an exit plan. Sure did. And no we don’t need petty, partisian politics now. We need to stand behind the President of the United States of America, just like we did when Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. were the Presidents. Or is it just too much to ask republicans to stand for America?
“Endemic poverty, oppression, censorship, corruption, and illiteracy (especially among women) are the hallmarks of decades of socialist rule in Egypt.” These are the RESULTS of socialism, the undermining of capitalism and the promotion of immorality and marxist dialectic. In Egypt marxists are revolting against a marxist for a reformed form of marxism. In the U.S., decades of pumping marxist ideology into our culture and an undermining of capitalism has done great damage to our prosperity, not to mention the family.
BullPoo B. What done damage to our presperity, not to mention the family is the all war all the time, borrow and spend economic plan of the republican party.
Typo, should read-What’s done damage to our prosperity, not to mention the family is the all war all the time, borrow and spend failed economic plan of the Bush mis administration.
We had peace and prosperity under President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
The Ikwan AKA Moslem Brotherhood are Marxists? Ok, suppose that supports their call for shari’a law and contempt for anything not weapon related from the West.
Also, mildly interesting that neither the Cuban La Prensa or the Chinese papers carry any mention of the revolt of the proletarian class against their exploiters. Guess they think Marxists know such is predicted and don’t need to be told about it.
CITATION NEEDED
It will be interesting to see what BarrySoetoro does with this one – seems like just yesterday he was preparing for the speech that was going to mend all the differences in the Middle East. Now we are getting ready to watch this with no idea where it will end. Kind of scary. At least we don’t have to worry about US involvement. There is no way he will ever send US troops in any capacity where they could possibly harm his Muslim brothers. I guess being the bogus president of the bar review at law school really didn’t prepare him for having to make hard decisions in the real world. Just a little more erosion of the USA’s role as the leader of the free world – nice work Barry. Maybe he can make this our Sputnik moment, sadly I don’t think we come out on top this time, at least if he is at the wheel.
ROTFLMO to keep from crying.
Lame right wing rhetoric by people without a clue about what goes on with BIG stories in the world. It must be hard to get REAL GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES by going to cow college. The riots in Egypt are a people’s revolt — just like we need EVERYWHERE.
If you want real perspectives on BIG NEWS turn to Glynn Wilson at the Locust Fork News-Jounal, the only electronic news site in Alabama vetted by the Columbia School of Journalism News Frontiers Database (unlike the Birmingham noose or al.com hacks).
I’m sure cow college boy will strike this post as soon as he gets done wooing the heffers.
Robin? Seriously?
I think this Glynn Wilson sock puppet needs to adjust the tin foil hat, it’s scrambling sports and news channels broadcast from whackosphere.
Robin – “cow college” graduate Brian didn’t write this post – UAH graduate Reactionary did. If you’re going to attempt to insult someone, at least get that much right…
While our security, and the security of our allies is of course very important, I don’t think it’s so important that we should support the oppression of 80 million Egyptians.
As for Egypt being a socialist state, it’s not. Socialism focuses on governmental redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Much of the unrest in Egypt is due to the government using its power to concentrate wealth among a privileged few.
BL1Y – so why is Egypt a member of Socialist International, if it’s not a socialist state? The socialists think Egypt is socialist, Egypt thinks it’s socialist, the NDP and Mubarak think they’re socialist, but somehow you don’t…
Socialism is the use of taxes and government entitlements to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor.
Can you provide some examples of Egypt doing this?
There are plenty of examples of the government doing the opposite, concentrating wealth among the wealthy.
Is that hard to look up a membership list? Though, I notice a Trotskyite web site among my daily reads, (www.wsws.org) in their scathing, critical write ups always refers to the Egyptian ruling party by name. And it looks like the Chinese papers are now covering the story though what the native Chinese see is unknown.
And it sounds like some one has forgotten (or never learned) about Nasser’s nationalization of the Egyptian economy (including the Suez Canal) in the 1960′s.
BL1Y – are you one of those who argue that they (in this case Egypt) just aren’t applying socialism ‘correctly’?
I’m arguing that their political and economic structure in no way reflects socialism. Mubarak isn’t raising taxes on his cronies to provide universal health care in Egypt.
It doesn’t matter what list you’re on or what you call yourself. What matters is how the government actually operates, and Egypt operates as an oligarchy, not a socialist state.
Would have thought this UNHCR report on Egyptian violations of workers rights would be sufficient to show that Egypt’s National Democratic Party fails as a socialist party. Isn’t the working class the focus of socialism?
I wonder whether the intervention of the Western world is good or not because it may have a damaging impact on the relationship between Egypt and the Western countries. The Egyptian people are clearly fighting for some kind of economic prosperity rather than democracy and this may give them a number of reasons to accuse the West of promising something which is impossible to obtain.
What part of the consistent call for democratic government is “clearly” not a fight for democracy?
I’m with you Heather. The U.S. should stay out of this. Maybe if they had stayed out of Iraq it’s people would have risen up and overthrown Saddam Hussein.