Rug Burn Junky on 29/1/2011 at 17:21
Back to the real subject, let's just get this out of the way:
The whole situation in Egypt is Ben Bernanke's fault, and what Egypt really needs is a round of tax cuts to help with unemployment.
Turtle on 29/1/2011 at 21:51
Also a good song.
SubJeff on 29/1/2011 at 22:55
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
The whole situation in Egypt is
Ben Bernanke's Mossad's fault
fixxed
:p
demagogue on 29/1/2011 at 23:01
I blame The Bangles.
SubJeff on 30/1/2011 at 00:57
Blame them all you want but you know you would. Except that one, yeah you know.
PeeperStorm on 30/1/2011 at 02:55
Tut tut now.
CCCToad on 30/1/2011 at 05:37
Gotta say, my alma mater's timing on this one was impeccable.
They announced an exchange agreement with Alexandria Univeristy literally the day before the riots broke out.
Muzman on 1/2/2011 at 22:13
The Daily Show did a funny little comparison of the US Gov's reaction to Tunisia and Egypt.
One was "Go Tunisia! For Freedom! Democracy! Etc! Probably our positive influence"
The other was " Hmmm, well... you know... I mean... Careful. That spirit of Liberalism's not a toy you know."
Take home message, as ever; feel free to throw off the shackles of oppression so long as our business pals aren't the oppressors. But hey, no one's talking about moving in a 'restoring order' just yet. The difference was amusing, as the show framed it anyway.
It's got the potential flavour of olde worlde tension this. Is the Suez as relevant as it used to be?
demagogue on 1/2/2011 at 22:38
It's not about the Suez (edit: not entirely anyway; it's one factor of many). It's because Egypt is by far the largest Arab country, the trendsetter in the entire Arab world (culture-wise), the most important 3rd country in controlling the Palestinian issue, it's the 2nd largest recipient of American financial & military aid (2nd only to Israel), etc.
But anyway the American position is already changing and is going to be changing more as things develop. It was easy to be very pro-democracy in Tunisia because the president was already kicked out and it was all retrospective; and there was less worry about reactionary elements seizing power. But in the case of Egypt it wasn't clear (until recently) that the pro-democracy group would actually win and Mubarak would get out. And how great is it for the US to push for Mubarak's ouster, only for him to stay in another 10 years? (As opposed to pressuring Mubarak to do good on the reforms.) But now it's much more likely that Mubarak's days are very numbered, so the US position will have to evolve with it because it will have a new government to work with soon. They're letting the Egyptians take the initiative on the ground and evolving with it. Now the main US position is to call for a stable process for the transition.
Muzman on 1/2/2011 at 23:01
The idea was, if the wrong people got into power it could be about the Suez (among other things), if it's still a big-ish deal these days. Just like old times.
But indeed, there's been a remarkable amount of stuff blowing up in Egypt the last decade or so (probably longer. I forget when that busload of people got taken hostage) . You really wouldn't want it tipping over into the hands of those types. Obama telling Mubarak not to run is a good move (and Mubarak concurring). The rioters seem to want something a little more immediate though.
