Mubarak Resigns!
It sounds like the military finally forced Mubarak out. Suleiman announced Mubarak’s resignation with a statement.
CAIRO – Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday, bowing down after a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. “The people ousted the president,” chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.
Several hundred thousand protesters massed in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square exploded into joy, waving Egyptian flags, and car horns and celebratory shots in the air were heard around the city of 18 million in joy after Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement on national TV just after nightfall.
Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soliders stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building.
Tags: Egypt
Watching on TV. Amazing coverage.
This could be one of those “Be careful what you wish for” things. Military juntas don’t have a great track record.
True enough. The transition must be to a free and democratic election and constitutional law, rather than the law of Suileman or the military. So this is an important first step, not the last.
Nemski – If the army wanted to rule like the junta in say Burma, they could have staged a coup, crushed the revolution and arrested Mubarak 2 weeks ago.
Egypt will never find peace until they resurrect the ebb and flow of the Holy Nile and succumb to the benevolence of their god-king, the Pharaoh.
Bring back Cleopatra!
As I stated under yesterday’s “Egyptians Win!” missive, let the power vacuum begin. Or as one Cassandra preciently reminds us, laughably:
“If the Egyptian Army is making the announcement of an appearance by Mubarak, I’d say that the odds of a “power vacuum” are fairly slim.”
Are you on crack?
To wit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/11/AR2011021103048.html?hpid=topnews
Delaware Dem wrote:
“Bring back Cleopatra!”
Once an asp-kisser, always an asp-kisser:
“With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch.”
—Cleopatra, Act V, scene II
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
Not on crack, but clearly better in the reading comprehension business than you, NH. Just linking to a WaPo article that has one word of what you previously claimed and proclaiming victory isn’t exactly demonstrating any capability to hold your own over here.
There is a difference between a power vacuum (your words — meaning an internal crisis of government or control) and the political vacuum ( essentially a collapse of US influence or counterbalancing in and from Egypt) that the WaPo discusses. It is clear as a bell that there is no power vacuum since the Army is in charge. And it should have been clear as a bell since this business started that the role the Egyptians played in advancing/protecting US interests in the region is definitely at risk if not gone. Certainly the Israelis and their mouthpieces have been banging on this theme for some time…
“free…democratic…constitutional…” Are you nuts, DD? This is Arabia. They have no roots in a Magna Carta, or Rome, or the Greek City States, philosophy or Judeo-Christianity as we know it. They don’t know democracy and never will. Probably never should. Your last President wasted a lot of lives and a huge fortune in the name of the same thing in Iraq. Never happen. Should’ve left Saddam in there. Mubarek had to go and had no choice, but that was their own domestic issue.
Delbert, that sentiment is incredibly racist. First off, my last President? I have not now, nor ever, nor will ever, support George W. Bush. He wanted, according to him,to install democracy by force. I think that was the 50th justification for the war on Iraq. I never supported it and I never will. I condemned him then, and now. Egypt proves how wrong he and all Republicans and conservatives everywhere were in their assine pronouncements about democracy in the Middle East. Democracy must come from within. And now, hopefully, it has.
Secondly, to say that democracy is only a western or judeo-christian idea is, as I said, racist. The largest democracy in the world is not ours, or is it located in Europe or Israel. It is in India. They are Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim there. Indonesia, the largest Muslim country on the planet, is a democracy. Turkey, another muslim country, is a democracy. Japan, also not a Christian or western country, is a democracy.
You are the one who is nuts.
Yeah! Those dirty Muslims can’t govern themselves. They need to be wrangled by a dictator. They’re animals!
Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? Did you mean to be that racist or was it a mistake? Those dirty Muslim seem to do OK in Turkey. They’re not Arab, that’s true… But do you really think Arabs can’t be democratic because there’s no Judeo Christian tradition? Do you have to be Anglo to use the Magna Carta as a guide? Actually, is anything you listed even a necessary prerequisite for democracy?
Great comment, Delbert, very thoughtful and reasoned. Way to really think it out.
I don’t think it was a mistake, DG. This is what Delbert views as ‘Merican Exceptionalism – insult everyone and hope it makes him look special.
Nice to see you back, DG. Missed your intellect and wit! 🙂
I mention that a culture has no history of Democracy, and all the sudden I am a racist and against Muslims. Your points on India, Japan, and Turkey are taken into consideration. I never knew the Japanese were Muslim.
Turkey had to fight the Western democracies to dismantle Ottoman rule and create its own democracy, in a war of independence not unlike America’s.
Delbert has a point though, and it is not 100% fair to assume he is racist. There is such a thing as cultural memory. Our cultural memory in the West includes wrenching anti-authority movements such as the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the centuries of bloody European wars that ended with the overthrow of the monarchies and the establishment of the modern democracies.
The Muslim world was not experiencing the march toward democracy during those centuries. Their cultural memories of democracy are much more recent. They are certainly capable of building their own democracies starting now, on their own terms as Turkey did, but it is fair to point out the background.