Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

Re Bush, he might have been right that taking out Saddam was a way to spread democracy through the region, and history might well write that he was correct. However, it will not be able to excuse the corruption, the lying to the American people in the sales job, the failed military occupation, and that the endeavor was not worth $2 trillion that we don't have and a few thousand American lives. I think Bush and his people are delusional for thinking that the last few months vindicates them.

WASHINGTON — Last Saturday afternoon, President Obama got a jarring update from his national security team: With restive crowds of young Egyptians demanding President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate resignation, Frank G. Wisner, the envoy who Mr. Obama had sent to Cairo only days before, had just told a Munich conference that Mr. Mubarak was indispensable to Egypt’s democratic transition.

Mr. Obama was furious, and it did not help that his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Wisner’s key backer, was publicly warning that any credible transition would take time — even as Mr. Obama was demanding that change in Egypt begin right away.

Seething about coverage that made it look as if the administration were protecting a dictator and ignoring the pleas of the youths of Cairo, the president “made it clear that this was not the message we should be delivering,” said one official who was present. He told Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to take a hard line with his Egyptian counterpart, and he pushed Senator John Kerry to counter the message from Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Wisner when he appeared on a Sunday talk show the next day. More

A million people have died, countless children sick or born deformed form US/UK WMDs, countless people lives ruined, untold numbers of injured, traumatized people. And that's just Iraq!

Mr. Obama was furious, and it did not help that his secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Wisner’s key backer, was publicly warning that any credible transition would take time — even as Mr. Obama was demanding that change in Egypt begin right away.

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian leadership announced Saturday that it planned to hold presidential and parliamentary elections by September, apparently a response to the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt calling for greater democracy and government accountability.

The decision was announced in the West Bank city of Ramallah after a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which oversees the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, is also the chairman of the P.L.O.

At the same meeting, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian peace negotiator with Israel, submitted his resignation and Mr. Abbas accepted it. A subcommittee was formed to look for a successor as well as to consider restructuring the negotiations unit.

The Islamist Hamas faction rejected the plan for national elections, saying Mr. Abbas had no legitimacy to call for them since he was serving beyond his term.

The Palestinians have not held elections since 2006, when Hamas won a majority in the parliament, leading to a year and a half of uneasy power sharing and a brief civil war in June 2007. Since then, Hamas has governed Gaza and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has controlled the West Bank.

A major offshoot of these events will likely be a profound rethinking of policy by the Israeli government

The blockaid to which you refer affects only Gaza, though Israel has indeed made things hard for Palestinians in the former West Bank

Merely facilitating the rearmament of Hamas in Gaza won't accomplish anything positive

No one said the road to democracy in Egypt would be a piece of cake, Finn.
It's still early days, as you know.
But to assume the worst will happen is not necessarily correct, either.

It is far too early to confidently forecast the results of the transformation in Egyptian government that we have recently witnessed. However the indicators so far are certainly encouraging, as are the effects of contemporary communications in thwarting the controls that authoritarian governments impose on their people. The demographics of most Muslim countries, including prominently Saudi Arabia and Iran, favor such transformations in that, as a result of high fertility in past decades, there are a large cadres of young people reaching maturity.

Given all the many complicating factors, ranging from needed private economic development to the general lack of independent political institutions, historical legacies of old conflicts, including that with Israel, and the forces of radical, backward-looking Islam, it is hard to see a quick escape from them. However, it may occur. Let us hope.

A major offshoot of these events will likely be a profound rethinking of policy by the Israeli government. Israel has since the 1967 war exploited Arab intransigence and the U.S. shield to pursue short sighted territorial gains instead of creating a model for peaceful, mutually beneficial coexistence with its neighbors. To a large extent this is a result of the failure of moderate Israelis to deal with the internal political power of extremist Zionists who, in their stated aspirations and policies, are hardly distinguishable from their Muslim counterparts. It is hard to forecast how these internal political struggles will play out on either side, but the new situation created by the revolution in Egypt offers better prospects for long overdue transformations than the world has seen in a long time.

To a large extent this is a result of the failure of moderate Israelis to deal with the internal political power of extremist Zionists who, in their stated aspirations and policies, are hardly distinguishable from their Muslim counterparts.

Quote:

To a large extent this is a result of the failure of moderate Israelis to deal with the internal political power of extremist Zionists who, in their stated aspirations and policies, are hardly distinguishable from their Muslim counterparts.

Extremist Zionists are hardly distinguishable from extremist Muslims?

Please tell me you don't actually believe this.

Insiders, officials say Mubarak defied nearly all of Egypt in last attempt to cling to power

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press

CAIRO (AP) -- Hosni Mubarak was supposed to announce his resignation on Thursday. The Egyptian military expected it. The new head of his ruling party pleaded to him face-to-face to do it. But despite more than two weeks of massive demonstrations by protesters unmoved by lesser concessions, the president still didn't get it.

Mubarak's top aides and family - including his son Gamal, widely viewed as his intended successor - told him he could still ride out the turmoil. So the televised resignation speech the rest of Egypt had expected became a stubborn - and ultimately humiliating - effort to cling to power. It only enraged protesters. On Friday, the military moved decisively.

On Saturday, insiders in Egypt gave The Associated Press an initial picture of what happened in the hours before Egypt's "unoustable" leader of nearly 30 years fell. Some of them spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Their account portrayed Mubarak as unable, or unwilling, to grasp that nothing less than his immediate departure would save the country from the chaos generated by the protests that began Jan. 25. A senior government official said Mubarak lacked the political machinery that could give him sound advice about what was happening in the country.

"He did not look beyond what Gamal was telling him, so he was isolated politically," said the official. "Every incremental move (by Mubarak) was too little too late."

The military, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly impatient with the failure of Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, his newly appointed vice president, to end the protests. The unrest spiraled out of control Thursday and Friday, with demonstrations, strikes, sit-ins and even gunbattles engulfing almost the entire nation.

Insiders spoke of fighting among Cabinet ministers over how great a threat the demonstrators posed, and of deliberate attempts by close aides, including Gamal Mubarak, to conceal from the president the full extent of what was happening on the streets.

The insiders who spoke to the AP include a senior Egyptian official, editors and journalists from state newspapers close to the regime who have spent years covering Mubarak's presidency, retired army generals in contact with top active duty officers, senior members of Mubarak's National Democratic Party and analysts familiar with the machinations of Mubarak's inner circle.

Their account of the events of the past three weeks shows that the military became concerned soon after the protests began. They said it was the military that persuaded Mubarak to appoint Suleiman as vice president - the first since Mubarak took office in 1981 - and place him in charge of negotiations with opposition groups on a way out of the standoff.

Suleiman failed on that score - on Tuesday he was reduced to threatening that a coup would replace the negotiations if no progress was made. Leaders of the protests vowed not to negotiate until Mubarak was gone, even after he said he would not seek another term in September and promised reforms to reduce poverty, end repressive emergency laws and make Egypt more democratic.

By Thursday, nearly everyone had expected Mubarak to resign, including the military.

Hossam Badrawi, a stalwart of Mubarak's National Democratic Party, met with Mubarak on Thursday and later told reporters that he expected the Egyptian leader to "meet people's demands" - read that stepping down - later the same day. After Mubarak did not, Badrawi, who had been named the party's secretary general a few days earlier, resigned in protest, according to two party insiders.

Meanwhile, the military's highest executive body - The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - met without its chairman, commander-in-chief Mubarak, and issued a statement recognizing the "legitimate" rights of the protesters. They called the statement "Communique No. 1," language that in the Arab world suggests a a coup was taking place.

Insiders said Mubarak's address Thursday night was meant to be his resignation announcement. Instead, he made one last desperate attempt to stay in office after being encouraged to do so by close aides and especially by his family, long the subject of rumors of corruption, abuse of power and extensive wealth.

One insider said Gamal, his banker-turned-politician son, rewrote the speech several times before the recording. It was aired at 11 p.m., several hours after state TV said Mubarak was about to address the nation. It showed brief footage of him meeting with Suleiman and his Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.

The address was clearly prepared in a rush. It had rough cuts, and Mubarak was caught at least once acting like he was between takes, fixing his tie and looking away from the camera.

Information Minister Anas al-Fiqqi was there at the studio alongside Gamal Mubarak, according to two of the insiders. State TV quoted him in the hours before the broadcast saying that Mubarak would not resign. On Saturday, al-Fiqqi announced his own resignation.

Mubarak said in the address that he was handing over most of his powers to Suleiman but again rejected calls for his resignation. He vowed to introduce genuine reforms, prosecute those behind the violence that left scores of protesters dead and offered his condolences to the victims' families. He said he was hurting over calls for his removal and, in his defense, recounted his record in public service. He was not going anywhere until his term ended in September, he said.

He had hoped that putting Suleiman in charge would end the protests and allow him to remain in office as a symbolic figure, a scenario that would have seen him make a dignified exit.

The address betrayed what many Egyptians suspected for years - Mubarak was out of touch with the people.

Mubarak, said a senior Egyptian official, "tried to manage the crisis within the existing structures and norms. That was clearly too late. The incremental offers of reform also were clearly insufficient."

The insiders differ on whether Mubarak's address that night was made with the consent of the military, whether it represented his last chance to take back control of the streets. Even if the military's patience wasn't exhausted by the speech, it ran out as the protests grew more intense.

On Friday, the military allowed protesters to gather outside Mubarak's presidential palace in a Cairo suburb - but by that time Mubarak and his immediate family had already flown to another palace in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, 250 miles away. The soldiers also allowed protesters to besiege the TV and radio building in downtown Cairo. Two days earlier, the military stood by and watched as protesters laid siege to the prime minister's office and parliament. Shafiq, the prime minister, could not work in his office and had to work out of the Civil Aviation Ministry close to Cairo's airport.

By early afternoon, millions were out on the streets in Cairo, the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria and a string of other major cities. The crowd outside his palace was rapidly growing. Only a few meters and four army tanks separated the protesters from the gate.

Suleiman, Mubarak's longtime confidant and a former intelligence chief, announced that Mubarak was stepping down. In a two-sentence statement to state television that took 49 seconds, Egypt's history changed forever. Source

And how many did Saddam kill? Are we really worse than he was in your opinion? Saddam killed a couple hundred thousand with just one vanity war with Iran!

United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

The United States supported Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War as a counterbalance to post-revolutionary Iran. This support included several billion dollars worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, non-U.S. origin weaponry, military intelligence, Special Operations training, and direct involvement in warfare against Iran.[3][4]
Support from the U.S. for Iraq was not a secret and was frequently discussed in open session of the Senate and House of Representatives, although the public and news media paid little attention. On June 9, 1992, Ted Koppel reported on ABC's Nightline, "It is becoming increasingly clear that George Bush, operating largely behind the scenes throughout the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence, and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into" the power it became",[5] and "Reagan/Bush administrations permitted—and frequently encouraged—the flow of money, agricultural credits, dual-use technology, chemicals, and weapons to Iraq."[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war

Another 150,000 kurds with gas. Down south near Basara he not only actively killed but he also drained the marshes so that they could not feed themselves and then starved them to death...and installed his boy Udday to make a sport of terrorising the survivors to keep them in line.

On May 25, 1994, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee released a report in which it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."[30]
The report then detailed 70 shipments (including Bacillus anthracis) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the UN inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."[31]
Donald Riegle, Chairman of the Senate committee that authored the aforementioned Riegle Report, said:

U.N. inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs. ... The executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq. I think that is a devastating record.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent Iraq 14 separate agents "with biological warfare significance," according to Riegle's investigators.[32]

[Ibid]

Your ability to judge is seriously suspect.