I guess it could go either way... but Iran thinks they know.

Iran: Riots sign of Islamic awakening

Supreme leader Khamenei satisfied with Egypt uprising. 'The echoes of the Islamic Revolution are being heard. It is an earthquake and defeat for the US policy, and the Zionists are more concerned than anyone else,' he says during Tehran sermon.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...023909,00.html

This was an interesting assessment as well....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020306882.html

Oh please don't post links to the Daily hateMail. It's fucking embarrassing.

I didn't know you called them that. There were other sources and it has been going around on numerous news sources.

I'll be honest i didn't even check the link :P

It's a different Daily Mail. This one's in Charleston, West Virginia.

Also, Chris Matthews saying Panama instead of Suez is on par with Fox's graphics intern problem.

Chris Matthews has an excuse - he's ADD. :p:

I agree completely... But look how quickly people jumped on it with the aim of attacking Fox News. MSNBC is certainly no better. And people have failed to divide out news commentary and opinion from raw news. That is a big failure. If you can listen carefully you can weed out a lot of the spin during a broadcast.

I don't think verbal missteps rate quite the same. But they are both very embarrassing.

I think differentiating between news coverage, commentary and opinion is made more difficult by the 24 hour nature of the news channels. There's a tendency, I think, to blur the edges. News is sexier if it comes with an opinion and opinions carry more weight if they have the respectability of news.

Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. And many of them are full of shit.

And sadly many people just jump on the nearest bandwagon without a single fact in sight.

Media rarely report just the news because then people would need to form their own opinion and that could be dangerous. So keep the sheep in line and in the dark and feed us our daily bullshit.

America's public response is the best we could hope for. How do we know? Wacko extremists and Fox News are attacking it. Same people who also attacked Muslims in Manhattan. Same people who will say anything to inspire hate - especially of the Muslim Brotherhood.

From what is reported by those in country and who are also talking to the insiders, Obama, et al are saying the right things. And doing what Americans must do. Maintain a public low profile. Talk to all parties. And encourage the country to do only what its people want. If that is Muslim Brotherhood, well, time to avert that was back when George Jr was instead encouraging hate, torture, and physical attacks on anyone who did not tout his party line.

Let's not forget how much influence was destroyed by wacko extremism in the 2000s. American popularity went from 80% approval ratings down to around a 20% rating. A strongest American ally - Turkey - went from 90% to 10%. And wackos said this was good.

Time to reap what we have sown. Muslim Brotherhood has good reasons to not like America. Torture, international kidnappings, public lying, and harm to innocent people in the name of a political agenda says why so many distrust America. Why America has lost so much credibility and influence everywhere. And why so many are now talking about the end of the American Century - a country of has beens.

It’s not like this is new to anyone here. Problem was well defined by insiders when the problem was being created: Are you safer today?

We know Obama is not doing what stupid leaders did. He is talking even to people who might be our enemies. Wacko extremists cannot (and the George Jr administration refused to) do that because a political agenda (and Cheney and Limbaugh) said so. Because their political agenda rather than intelligence was more important.

We may be seeing a new Egyptian government containing or dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Time to face a reality that may have resulted from events in and around 2006. Only wackos think we should act to stop that. Intelligent people understand how to have the greatest influence. Go with the flow. Talk to everyone. Especially those that wackos ‘know’ are enemies. Only wackos always have a long list of those we must attack, not talk to, and subvert. Also called hate.

Why did so many Al Jazeera news offices get 'accidently' attacked by Americans? We must now live with a legacy created before 2008.

The American public response is obviously correct because American wacko extremists do not like it. And because reality and intelligence says so. And because America must live with the international credibility disaster that was created from 2001 to 2008 when George Jr even did what the Norwegian Foreign Minister said he would do - destroy the Oslo Accords. It will take decades to mend those fields of diplomacy. A disaster created by the same wacko extremism that also made Katrina such a disaster. Who even destroyed America's manned space program. Who had lawyers rewrite science papers to agree with the political agenda. And ... well no reason to again define disasters we now live with due to those eight years of stupidity.

We know Obama is talking to all parties - quietly. That is the only thing America can do considering the now poor state of American credibility due to wacko extremism.

Egypt VP Target of Assassination Attempt That Killed Two Bodyguards, Sources Tell Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02...tell-fox-news/

Obama's Flip Flop Policy has not helped things....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...nd-more-fears/

Well.....maybe.

No Attempt

What would you have suggested he had done? I personally believe that fence sitting was the best response for this situation. No need to stick our heads into another bad situation and piss people off even further.

Mubarak supported US national interests in certain areas for many years and that is why we supported him. That is also why Egyptians tend to be distrustful of the United States. Mubarak obviously needs to go, and Obama should and has supported that opinion, but I have a strong feeling that any further public influence by the United States to steer Egypt's future will only backfire.

As for the Muslim Brotherhood's influence. You could find 100 similarities and 100 differences between Egypt 2011 and Iran 1979. Only hindsight will validate which arguments were stronger.

Given the amount of mis-information coming out of the Egyptian Government at this point I would be more likely to believe it than not. But we will never know at this point.

True dat.

Looks like the military took control of the country. Not surprising from Mubarak's speech last night...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/wo...nted=1&_r=1&hp

That's pretty much the opposite of what I heard on NPR this morning. NPR said the military issued a statement that they support the time line proposed by Mubarek to step down in the Fall.

From the same article -
From what I gather, The military seems to attempting to take control UNTIL elections can be held.

I heard that as well. I think the military will back Mubarek, but if the people riot and get violent then we will see if the military use their might to control the demonstrators. If they do not, then they may be put in a situation where they have to force Mubarek out sooner than he wants. The last thing we need is a vacuum and an opportunity for extremists to take over.

You could also say the last thing we need is to stretch out the elections, which would give the extremists time to hijack the process and take over.

We simply don't know what the best course of action is, and we don't have much influence to control it anyway.

Just checked CNN, Breaking News, Mubarek quits.

YAY! Power to the People, right ON!

Mubarak resigns, hands power to military

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ml_egypt

Good. It was all a big pyramid scheme anyway.

ba DUM dum

*snicker*

Mubarak has stepped down.

Is Hosni Mubarak Still President Of Egypt?

That's what I meant. A temporary control of the country, not a military coup.

The more I read the more I'm leaning that the Muslim Brotherhood will not have a strong influence in the near future. If I remember correctly, I believe they stated that they will not put out a candidate for a presidential bid and there has been a lot of statements (propaganda?) from the Brotherhood that they have the best interests of the Egyptian people in mind and they are non-violent, which seems actually mostly true. There is a reason Al-Qaeda and Iran do not respect them.

I'm guessing that since Mubarek is gone the next ruler might lift the ban against the Muslim Brotherhood. So now they are trying to put up a good front so they can start getting some support from the Egyptian people. Once they get support, then they can start trying to make a large impact on Egyptian politics in a democratic way. If this is true, the worse thing that can happen is a bad secular government gets put into place that fails in five years and everyone starts supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also, if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over, they know they will just become the next Iran. They will lose a lot of trade and aid from Western countries which will probably not help their unemployment problem. I don't think they would last long under those conditions and I'm guessing they know that.

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/201...ypt-and-jordan

The MB has a long history of violent action against various Arab states going all the way back to the 30's and 40's. They aligned with the Nazi's against the UK and carried out actions against Allied forces and governments of Arab states during WW2. They were involved in numerous radical Islamic movements across the Arab world. You can read an extensive free down loaded article on Stratfor's web site here, but I can't post the article according to their copy right statement. Check it out. Save it as a PDF.

Here:
http://www.stratfor.com/memberships/...special-report

Ok, I found it on-line.... and before anyone has a meltdown because it is from Bill O'Reilly's website... it is word for word from Stratfor and the link was via Huffington Post.

http://www.billoreilly.com/site/rd?s...102729924.html


Huff link to above:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t/stra...764927488.html

Algeria is rocking....

Egyptians are doing it for themselves. Some of the opinions above seem a little condescending.

The Muslim Brotherhood will certainly have a voice in whatever new government is established, being that they are one of the only organized opposition groups. They do represent a small segment of Egyptian society and should have a voice.

IMO, the conservative in the US are exaggeration their influence.

There is nothing to suggest that they have widespread support and this was not an Islamic uprising. One of the most telling signs was the shouting down of Islamic slogans by the vast majority of mixed Coptic Christians and Muslims. There were no widespread calls of "death to the US" or "death to Israel" or "death to the infidels" but rather shouts of joy over the simple concept of obtaining basic human rights after 30 years of oppression.

It looks like the military will be in charge during a transition and their interest is in stabilizing the country and the economy, particularly since they control a large portion of the economy.

My hope is that the conservatives in the US will be more circumspect with anti-Islamic rhetoric.

CAIRO – The ruling military pledged Saturday to eventually hand power to an elected civilian government and reassured allies that Egypt will abide by its peace treaty with Israel after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, as it outlined the first cautious steps in a promised transition to greater democracy.

I sure hope we still have a sensible President when the new Egyptian government is established. Chaney's comments about the "good man" Mubarak shows how thin our pro-democracy veneer is with some and why the Egyptian people don't and maybe shouldn't trust us.

Algeria next to take that walk?

Just catching up here...
... and was wondering - does America have any left leaning newspapers?
I don't mean rabid leftwing toilet paper. I just mean mainstrean NOT rightwing.

The two most quoted British papers here seem to be the Hate Mail which is slightly to the right of Attila the Hun (and often quoted on "loony left" policies or "political correctness gone mad!") or The Grauniad, which is lefty but factual. And I feel a little pride in British journalism every time I see them used as a source.

One would find the LA Times, SF Chronicle to be very left, NY Times and Washington Post to be leaning left.

The majority of large news papers are left leaning. You find the more regional and mid sized city papers reflect the electorate that surrounds them, could be either way.

Seriously, Merc, the majority?
Left as we see left in this country?

Thanks for the info, UT. I'll stop by their websites.

So Egypt wind up with Omar Suleiman soon. Is not good, Omar Suleiman is one big psychotic. Is like torture, is like "extraordinary rendition", is take part in torture himself.

"Psychotic" is right word, yes?

In numerous studies, the majority of reporters lean conservative. But not wacko conservative. So they are often called pinky communists by extremists.

One should never judge a paper only by its editorials. For example, both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times are moderates. One has a very right wing editorial board. The other is closer and slightly left of center. But editorial departments are separate from news department. Which is why the NY Time, LA Times, The Economist, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal all report news from the perspective of educated people - moderates.

You have seen how TheMercenary constantly posts how he wants Obama to fail. And promoted *hate* of Muslim in lower Manhattan (how dare they setup a mosque on holy ground covered in betting parlors and whore houses). Therefore every news source except for Fox News will be pinko lefty socialist.

Back on 4 Dec 2005, the NY Times reported on how bad both GM and Chrysler products were. On 6 Apr 2005, the LA Times provided an even more scathing article on same. So GM started a program to intentionally bankrupt the LA Times. Then the Wall Street Journal piped in noting that GM had also tried to harm them for reporting honestly.

Meanwhile, where was Fox News? Silent. Calling GM what it was contrary to the political agenda. People must be told how to think – not facts.

Today, everyone knows the NY Times, LA Times, etc were 100% correct about crap from those anti-American companies. But only moderate sources reported that news honestly back then.

Two other superb news sources are Charlie Rose (PBS) and Frontline (PBS). The investigative journalism from Frontline, for example, demonstrated the myth and lies that justified "Mission Accomplished". Includes superb investigative reporting from Lowel Bergman among others.

These studies are so numerous it will be trivial for you to cite one of them.

parliament dissolved? constitution suspended? this is progress?

There is plenty more, but you may find this via Wiki worth a look ...
link

Read carefully though - the way the study was done was questioned by both left and right.

Sure is!

The last parliamentary elections, like all for the last 30 years, were fixed for Mubarak's party, the NDP Party, with prohibitions against some opposition parties even being allowed on the ballot.

The constitution provided the legal cover for those fixed elections, as well as the other restrictions on individual rights.

In effect, the Egyptians will need to start from scratch.

"I think there should be more jailed journalists."

Anne Coulter might not be understand what this makes America look like. I am here now a year, I know all Americans are not like this. Other people, maybe not know.

Mubarak make Egypt look like barbarians, with torturing and "extraordinary rendition", and throwing reporters in jail. Now, Egyptian constitution suspended by the army, and reporters still in jail.

Maybe Anne Coulter should go to Egypt, see how she likes it.

Egyptian constitution is not like American constitution. It only works when the army say it works. In America, constitution only works if politicians say it works.

The Washington Post coasts on its "left" reputation from Watergate, and in comparison to the nutty Washington Times, but it is solidly "Beltway Villager" party, which has been center right for a while now.

Mubarak moves vast assets from European banks to Saudi Arabia
Link

And yet its righty political analyst Weigel gets "outed" as hating righties when posting on the Journolist, founded by the WaPo's own lefty whippersnapper Ezra Klein.

Center-righties have plenty of reason to hate the nutcases, expecially when they think they're speaking in private.

Some do it in public and get hammered repeatedly by the extremists on both sides.

That's why I specified "in private". I would guess that lots of center-righties would make in private, but not want the shitstorm that would occur if they did so in public (see all the politicians who have had to apologize for being frank about Limbaugh over the years).

One more reason for throwing Mubarak in the Nile.

Hell yes, it's progress. Throw out ALL of the corruption and start over. Media too, please.

Why the media? Freedom is starting with open communications, yes?