Amid rumors that he was potentially fleeing the country, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak made a late night television appearance, lauding his own crackdown on dissent and chiding the “criminal” behavior of protesters in what is being compared conversely to President Obama’s State of the Union Address and the Iranian Shah’s last public speech before his ouster.
There may have been vague mentions of changes in the future, but no concrete promises of changes, beyond a cabinet shuffle amongst powerless Mubarak loyalists that few really had a problem with in the first place. Aimed at calming the revolt, the Mubarak speech actually seemed to spark a new flurry of late night protests demanding his ouster. Then President Obama called.
US officials had denied he had any contact with the Egyptian government so far in the course of the protest (constrasting Egyptian reports that Obama had repeated reassured Mubarak of his support during that time). But once the call was made, a second round of lip-service to “meaningful dialogue” cropped up, again with no specifics.
Perhaps most insultingly, President Obama termed the protests, the mass censorship, and the brutal crackdowns by the US-backed dictator “a moment of promise,” even as officials make it abundantly clear that there is no American appetite for any serious change inside Egypt and the best officials can say is they support “the basic right to use social media.”
Promise of change from Obama still as fraudulent as ever.
Sickening to see the USA on the wrong side of this, well for the last 30 years…
Now what is important for Eng(king)land is to create a street giving it a name Kings Street and for the USA is to make way for street called Presidents Street……Coz they are all coming there and will need a residing lot in those both nurturers of these Torturers of The Muslim World.One by one they will be soon exported..
Obama should call for Mubarek to resign rather than uttering platitudinous bull crap about peace.
If the situation weren't so serious and people were dying, these fools who call themselves President of the US, Secretary of State, etc. would make me laugh.
Is it not remarkable that the people of Iraq never revolted against Saddam ? The recent revolts in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt (and I can think of other countries) show us that when a regime is bad, cruel and corrupt the people of such countries eventually rise and remove that regime themselves. Saddam's regime was not ideal, however the standard of living at the time (before the 1st Gulf war) was the highest of all the Arab countries. We have been told a lot of exagerated lies about Saddam's regime. Human rights could have been improved by sending in teams to control prisons and police conduct instead of searching for illusive WMD.
both should ride off into the nite
The hypocrisy of the FedGov is boundless and is not going to be expiated by "chiding." The fact of the matter is that the US government as currently configured is completely beyond the pale, insofar as the Arab world is concerned. The predictably maudlin – and completely hypocritical – efforts of the FedGov and its supporting NGOs to "champion" the average Arab all of a sudden aren't going to change anything, despite what Raimondo thinks over at the Antiwar.com blog. The only decent thing left for the US to do is to get out and stay out. Its desires and opinions are not wanted.