Friday News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-02-11/friday-news-roundup-hour-2
Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak resigns on the 18th day of protests. A suicide bombing in Pakistan kills dozens. And Sudan's president says he'll accept referendum results and allow the South to secede.
Guests
Blake Hounshell
managing editor, Foreign Policy magazine.
Elise Labott
senior State Department producer for CNN.
Michael Hirsh
chief national correspondent, National Journal magazine; author of a new book, "Capital Offense: How Washington's Wise Men Turned America's Future Over to Wall Street."
Nadia Bilbassy
senior U.S. correspondent, MBC TV -- Middle East Broadcast Centre.
Comments
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It's past time for President Obama to openly demand that Mubarek step down immediately. After Mubareks delusional psychopathic speech last night it is clear that he's lost his mind. Mubarek seems ready to protect his status at the cost of an Egyptian civil war.
All it would take is for a some of his loyal palace guard to use their weaponry to slaughter hundreds, if not thousands, of tightly massed people. It is now conceivable that, in Mubarek's delusional state, he thinks that the ensuing chaos would be an environment conducive to his clinging to power with the "rationale" that he was duty bound to restore "order and stability".
Last night's fiasco was the last straw. Whatever credit Mubarek got for being a "friend" to the peace process has been more than used up.
It is in the national security interests of the USA to get on the right side of history and of common human decency now.
Using our influence to encourage and support a secular democracy in Egypt can drain the swamp of rage, injustice and discontent which breeds terrorism. You can be sure that Al Qaeda and similar groups are pulling for the secular pro democracy movement (throughout the Muslim world) to fail in the bloodiest manner possible. That outcome feeds them, strengthens them and spreads their toxic memes. The global military-industrial-"security" complex also profit$ from a failed transition.
The 70 or so billion that Mubarek and Co have stolen over the last 30 years must be found, disgorged and returned to the people of Egypt!
Deposing the dictator without cleaning up the system that supports him is like treating a systemic infection with a local antibiotic.The president needs to do the morally and politically right thing and that is to publicly condemn Mubarek's refusal to step down and to publicly support the clear and unambiguous will of the Egyptian people.
Supporting common human decency is not only a morally right, it's politically smart.
It looks like President Bush's efforts to bring democracy to the Mideast are succeeding. The models of Iraq and Afghanistan have spread to Egypt.
I am not as wildly optimistic as others regarding the revolution under way in Egypt. Do I need to remind all on your panel of the current absence of democratic institutions in Egypt, the powerful forces within and without that country that might desire only their own version of "democracy," however suppersive that might be of human rights, and the entire region's history? I once cheered the Iranian revolution. I refuse to cheer this one--yet.
pjnuge on February 11, 2011 @ 11:46 am wrote: "It looks like President Bush's efforts to bring democracy to the Mideast are succeeding. The models of Iraq and Afghanistan have spread to Egypt."
Why the half-baked praise? Haven't you noticed that the sun rose this morning, that the tides are regularly going in and out (with "never a miscommunication", to use O'Reilly's inane and incomprehensible phrase), and didn't I just hear a news report about lions lying down peacefully with lambs?
The events in Egypt have as much to do with Bush's megalomaniac delusions as they do with Obama's call for democracy in Egypt, in his 2009 Cairo speech. The Egyptian people alone deserve credit for these events.
Meanwhile, I note how wonderfully "democratic" the regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq are proving to be: as corrupt as Mubarak's was. Maybe those countries should follow the "Egyptian model" instead.
I suspect that the Egyptians saw those with purple dye on their fingers a few years ago and watching people vote to actually have a say in their future. That is what made them realize that they too could influence their own lives. The timing is interesting, why didn't the Egyptian do this ten years ago? The same principals that Bush stood for are the same ones espoused by the young Egyptians.
The Russian people in 1917 also thought the change they were creating would be a good one. Unfortunately, it was not. Their revolution was hijacked by an equally oppressive group. Current comments about the Egyptian people being "free" now are overly optimistic. They are merely without Mubarak just as the Russians were once without the tsar. Great danger lies ahead. --Linda Radosevich, Orlando, FL
To Mike Costanza, writing on February 11, 2011@ 11:47 am:
I agree that cautious optimism is called for, but that's all the panel said. They repeatedly pointed out the potential pitfalls, and that the story is far from over.
Let me also remind you that the birth of our own democracy was no sure thing. There were many who wanted America to create a monarchy of its own, and when the Constitution was being debated there were those who feared the Presidency would be a vehicle to monarchy.
In the end our own freedom exists because, as John Adams observed, the real American Revolution wasn't in the battlefield, but in the hearts and minds of the American people. We demanded democracy, and jealously guarded the liberties, and legal principles, we inherited from Great Britain. Hopefully, Egypt's people will undergo the same revolution.
Time will tell.
pjnuge on February 11, 2011 @ 12:06 pm wrote: "The timing is interesting, . . . ."
Indeed, it is: right after a similar uprising in Tunisia - sparked by the Wikileaks revelations (if the punditocracy and commentariat are to be believed, always a dubious proposition). Sorry, but for Bush to deserve any credit this should have happened years ago. And in case it's escaped your notice, the people marching in the streets of Egypt are of all ages.
If there is any former President who deserves credit, it's Jefferson. The words of the Declaration of Independence ring down through the years, and continue to inspire the fight for freedom.
Let us all hope that Egypt does not follow the models Bush created: unstable, corrupt, and weak governments that would probably collapse without the constant support of our money and blood!
laradose on February 11, 2011 @ 12:06 pm wrote: "Great danger lies ahead."
True, but so does great hope. Change can always be good or bad. There were many who opposed revolution, fearing anarchy and disaster; fortunately, they weren't heeded in 1776!
Meanwhile, I hope anyone who still believe in what I call "the romantic notion about militias" pay attention to the caller who pointed out how Egypt disproves the claim that we need to "bear arms" to prevent tyranny.
If the U.S. ever truly became a dictatorship, does anyone really believe a rag-tag band of "weekend warriors", even armed with 30 bullet clips automatic handguns, could overthrow a government armed with tanks, cruise and predator missiles, and thermonuclear bombs? If there's anyone who does, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you - cheap!
Great danger? It was the status quo that was dangerous as it could have given us 80 million terrorists had it been allowed to continue indefinitely. Linda, how would YOU feel if you could be picked up without a warrant and then held incommunicado and tortured and/or killed with impunity? Do you think living with that terror for decades just might get you a little upset?
Yes, there is alway risk in life.....but the risk of having this non violent revolution succeed is far smaller than that of allowing the status quo to continue.
Mongering fear is toxic. It tends to CREATE and feed the very "monsters" it claims to oppose.
Re the uprisings, I listen to Chris Hedges. I hope against hope for something better than what he cautions about, but try to adjust to the likelihood that the hegemony blowback is gonna bite us you know where right at the worst time (but it was coming some day).
Hope it's ok to change the topic. In this excerpt below...I'd just like to say that it was good to hear Welna bring up the basic philosophy angle. I think things should stay right there and dwell on it a little. Argue bk and forth re when/why Keynes is still relevant (as I think). But it's like to do this is only something Tom Hartmann can do (though I doubt he does it). A big taboo. Why? Colmes won't do it either. What's the deal? The stingy hawks are wrong.
I've been ticked off at my isp (prepaid), so I didn't pay last time (have gone 21 days). Might not be able to respond quickly if a TPer tries to say I'm deluded.
Seemed like it was just the tempo (or something) that got things off the sort of theoretical economic angle(s)...with the response from Sweet.
"WELNA 10:43:30 It would also be the elimination of many, many, many jobs at the time of high unemployment. I think this really is coming down to an argument over whether government intervention, government spending is helping the economy or hurting the economy. And economists generally say that government spending at a time like we're in right now actually is keeping things from getting worse. Republicans insist that its government spending is the cause of the problems right now.
SWEET10:43:57That is a core argument that the Obama administration is making. I went to a briefing this week with Transportation Secretary LaHood, who is talking about the money poured into road and transportation construction as the biggest jobs program in the United States. "
I can imagine that Diane had a word with her producers after the show on Friday. I am sure it was a surprise for her to learn only from her guest in the field in Cairo that Mubarak had resigned. Oops. :)
On the other hand, it was a very interesting discussion. I do think economics played a role but not in the way that the panelists mentioned. It's quite right that ordinary Egyptians are not worrying too much about the money being lost during the protest, but the army *was* certainly concerned. They own or control a large part of the economic wealth of the country, including the suffering resorts along the seacoast just as we head into the heaviest part of the tourist season.