[Peace-discuss] Mubarak Clings On... What Now For Egypt?

[E. Wayne Johnson]

I was poorly prepared, overlooked the parasiti, and elided and eluded 
the critical i.

the plan is clear though  (if you read a little further)

-/ inpinguasti in oleo caput/.

fry 'em in margarine till they're "Kaput".

in polite company they call that "marginalizing the opposition".




On 2/11/2011 10:58 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> I had to look up Quorum Sensing to see how clever this punning is.
>
> Fisk's original use of "bacillus" implied a disease-causing organism 
> (hope he's OK), so I hope you noticed the continuation of the  image 
> in the next line of the psalm:
>
> / Virga tua et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt: parasiti in 
> conspectu meo mensam adversus eos qui tribulant me./
>
> "Your rod and your staff have comforted me" - bacillus means a little 
> rod, and Fisk says Mubarack was "sealed off from his (staff) like a 
> bacillus" -
>
> "but the parasites in my view are those who make trouble for my Smart 
> Guy"  [mensam - I suppose that means Suleiman]...
>
> The complaint may be more general, so to speak, if "mensa" be taken as 
> "organizational chart" [see "staff," above]...  --CGE
>
>
> On 2/11/11 3:14 AM, E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>> "sealed off from his ministers _*like a bacillus*_"
>>
>> (like a bacillus???)
>>
>> Not sure that I can verify the verisimilitude of the simile but it is 
>> worth a smile.
>>
>> Mu Barak always did remind me of some sort of single cell lifeform 
>> but I would have
>> thought him more like an Amoeba or maybe a Giardia.
>>
>> This probably accounts for the lack of Quorum Sensing?
>>
>> "Virga tua et baculus tuus ipsa me consolata sunt."
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/11/2011 11:05 AM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>> Here is Fisk's report of the happenings on Feb.10, 2011. He says 
>>> "/Yet for Mubarak's opponents, today will not be a day of joy and 
>>> rejoicing and victory but a potential bloodbath."/
>>> Everyone is holding their breath.
>>> --mkb
>>>
>>>
>>>   As Mubarak Clings On... What Now For Egypt?
>>>
>>> The fury of a people whose hopes were raised and then dashed
>>>
>>> February 11, 2011
>>>
>>> By *Robert Fisk*
>>> Source: Independent
>>>
>>> Robert Fisk's ZSpace Page 
>>> <http://zcommunications.org/zspace/robertfisk>
>>>
>>>
>>> To the horror of Egyptians and the world, President Hosni Mubarak – 
>>> haggard and apparently disoriented – appeared on state television 
>>> last night to refuse every demand of his opponents by staying in 
>>> power for at least another five months. The Egyptian army, which had 
>>> already initiated a virtual coup d'état, was nonplussed by the 
>>> President's speech which had been widely advertised – by both his 
>>> friends and his enemies – as a farewell address after 30 years of 
>>> dictatorship. The vast crowds in Tahrir Square were almost insane 
>>> with anger and resentment.
>>> Mubarak tried – unbelievably – to placate his infuriated people with 
>>> a promise to investigate the killings of his opponents in what he 
>>> called "the unfortunate, tragic events", apparently unaware of the 
>>> mass fury directed at his dictatorship for his three decades of 
>>> corruption, brutality and repression.
>>> The old man had originally appeared ready to give up, faced at last 
>>> with the rage of millions of Egyptians and the power of history, 
>>> sealed off from his ministers like a bacillus, only grudgingly 
>>> permitted by his own army from saying goodbye to the people who 
>>> hated him.
>>> Yet the very moment that Hosni Mubarak embarked on what was supposed 
>>> to be his final speech, he made it clear that he intended to cling 
>>> to power. To the end, the President's Information Minister insisted 
>>> he would not leave. There were those who, to the very last moment, 
>>> feared that Mubarak's departure would be cosmetic – even though his 
>>> presidency had evaporated in the face of his army's decision to take 
>>> power earlier in the evening.
>>> History may later decide that the army's lack of faith in Mubarak 
>>> effectively lost his presidency after three decades of dictatorship, 
>>> secret police torture and government corruption. Confronted by even 
>>> greater demonstrations on the streets of Egypt today, even the army 
>>> could not guarantee the safety of the nation. Yet for Mubarak's 
>>> opponents, today will not be a day of joy and rejoicing and victory 
>>> but a potential bloodbath.
>>> But was this a victory for Mubarak or a military coup d'état? Can 
>>> Egypt ever be free? For the army generals to insist upon his 
>>> departure was as dramatic as it was dangerous. Are they, a state 
>>> within a state, now truly the guardians of the nation, defenders of 
>>> the people – or will they continue to support a man who must be 
>>> judged now as close to insanity? The chains which bound the military 
>>> to the corruption of Mubarak's regime were real. Are they to stand 
>>> by democracy – or cement a new Mubarak regime?
>>> Even as Mubarak was still speaking, the millions in Tahrir Square 
>>> roared their anger and fury and disbelief. Of course, the millions 
>>> of courageous Egyptians who fought the whole apparatus of state 
>>> security run by Mubarak should have been the victors. But as 
>>> yesterday afternoon's events proved all too clearly, it was the 
>>> senior generals – who enjoy the luxury of hotel chains, shopping 
>>> malls, real estate and banking concessions from the same corrupt 
>>> regime – who permitted Mubarak to survive. At an ominous meeting of 
>>> the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces, Defence Minister 
>>> Mohamed Tantawi – one of Mubarak's closest friends – agreed to meet 
>>> the demands of the millions of democracy protesters, without stating 
>>> that the regime would itself be dissolved. Mubarak himself, 
>>> commander-in-chief of the army, was not permitted to attend.
>>> But this is a Middle Eastern epic, one of those incremental moments 
>>> when the Arab people – forgotten, chastised, infantilised, 
>>> repressed, often beaten, tortured too many times, occasionally 
>>> hanged – will still strive to give the great wheel of history a 
>>> shove, and shake off the burden of their lives. Last night, however, 
>>> dictatorship had still won. Democracy had lost.
>>> All day, the power of the people had grown as the prestige of the 
>>> President and his hollow party collapsed. The vast crowds in Tahrir 
>>> Square began yesterday to move out over all of central Cairo, even 
>>> moving behind the steel gates of the People's Assembly, setting up 
>>> their tents in front of the pseudo-Greek parliament building in a 
>>> demand for new and fair elections. Today, they were planning to 
>>> enter the parliament itself, taking over the symbol of Mubarak's 
>>> fake "democracy". Fierce arguments among the army hierarchy – and 
>>> apparently between Vice-President Omar Suleiman and Mubarak himself 
>>> – continued while strikes and industrial stoppages spread across 
>>> Egypt. Well over seven million protesters were estimated to be on 
>>> the streets of Egypt yesterday – the largest political demonstration 
>>> in the country's modern history, greater even than the six million 
>>> who attended the funeral of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the first Egyptian 
>>> dictator whose rule continued through Anwar Sadat's vain presidency 
>>> and the three dead decades of Mubarak.
>>> It was too early, last night, for the crowds in Tahrir Square to 
>>> understand the legal complexities of Mubarak's speech. But it was 
>>> patronising, self-serving and immensely dangerous. The Egyptian 
>>> constitution insists that presidential power must pass to the 
>>> speaker of parliament, a colourless Mubarak crony called Fatih 
>>> Srour, and elections – fair ones, if this can be imagined – held 
>>> within 60 days. But many believe that Suleiman may choose to rule by 
>>> some new emergency law and then push Mubarak out of power, staking 
>>> out a timetable for new and fraudulent elections and yet another 
>>> terrible epoch of dictatorship. The truth, however, is that
>>> the millions of Egyptians who have tried to unseat their Great 
>>> Dictator regard their constitution – and the judiciary and the 
>>> entire edifice of government institutions – with the same contempt 
>>> as they do Mubarak. They want a new constitution, new laws to limit 
>>> the powers and tenure of presidents, new and early elections which 
>>> will reflect the "will of the people" rather than the will of the 
>>> president or the transition president, or of generals and brigadiers 
>>> and state security thugs.
>>> Last night, a military officer guarding the tens of thousands 
>>> celebrating in Cairo threw down his rifle and joined the 
>>> demonstrators, yet another sign of the ordinary Egyptian soldier's 
>>> growing sympathy for the democracy demonstrators. We had witnessed 
>>> many similar sentiments from the army over the past two weeks. But 
>>> the critical moment came on the evening of 30 January when, it is 
>>> now clear, Mubarak ordered the Egyptian Third Army to crush the 
>>> demonstrators in Tahrir Square with their tanks after flying F-16 
>>> fighter bombers at low level over the protesters.
>>> Many of the senior tank commanders could be seen tearing off their 
>>> headsets – over which they had received the fatal orders – to use 
>>> their mobile phones. They were, it now transpires, calling their own 
>>> military families for advice. Fathers who had spent their lives 
>>> serving the Egyptian army told their sons to disobey, that they must 
>>> never kill their own people.
>>> Thus when General Hassan al-Rawani told the massive crowds yesterday 
>>> evening that "everything you want will be realised – all your 
>>> demands will be met", the people cried back: "The army and the 
>>> people stand together – the army and the people are united. The army 
>>> and the people belong to one hand."
>>> Last night, the Cairo court prevented three ministers – so far 
>>> unnamed, although they almost certainly inc-lude the Minister of 
>>> Interior – from leaving Egypt.
>>> But neither the army nor Vice-President Suleiman are likely to be 
>>> able to face the far greater demonstrations planned for today, a 
>>> fact that was conveyed to 83-year-old Mubarak by Tantawi himself, 
>>> standing next to Suleiman. Tantawi and another general – believed to 
>>> be the commander of the Cairo military area – called Washington, 
>>> according to a senior Egyptian officer, to pass on the news to 
>>> Robert Gates at the Pentagon. It must have been a sobering moment. 
>>> For days, the White House had been grimly observing the mass 
>>> demonstrations in Cairo, fearful that they would turn into a 
>>> mythical Islamist monster, frightened that Mubarak might leave, even 
>>> more terrified he might not.
>>> The events of the past 12 hours have not, alas, been a victory for 
>>> the West. American and European leaders who rejoiced at the fall of 
>>> communist dictatorships have sat glumly regarding the extraordinary 
>>> and wildly hopeful events in Cairo – a victory of morality over 
>>> corruption and cruelty – with the same enthusiasm as many East 
>>> European dictators watched the fall of their Warsaw Pact nations. 
>>> Calls for stability and an "orderly" transition of power were, in 
>>> fact, appeals for Mubarak to stay in power – as he is still trying 
>>> to do – rather than a ringing endorsement of the demands of the 
>>> overwhelming pro-democracy movement that should have struck him down.
>>> *Timeline...*
>>> *11.00* As demonstrators mass in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the Foreign 
>>> Minister warns of a military coup if protests continue
>>> *15.15* The Egyptian Prime Minister, Ahmed Shafiq, tells the BBC 
>>> Arabic Service that Mubarak may step down
>>> *15.20* The secretary general of the ruling NDP party, Hossan 
>>> Badrawy, says he expects Mubarak to make an announcement that will 
>>> satisfy protesters' demands
>>> *15.30* An Egyptian army commander tells protesters in Tahrir Square 
>>> that: "Everything you want will be realised"
>>> *15.45* Egypt's military council releases a statement saying it is 
>>> in continuous session and the army will take necessary measures to 
>>> "safeguard the homeland", in the clearest sign that Mubarak will be 
>>> on his way out soon
>>> *16.04* The Information Minister, Anas el-Fekky, says Mubarak is in 
>>> fact not stepping down and remains Egypt's President
>>> *16.15* Al Arabiya television station carries an unconfirmed report 
>>> that Mubarak has travelled to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh 
>>> with his army chief of staff
>>> *17.11* A senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the biggest 
>>> opposition group, says he fears the army is staging a coup
>>> *20.50* Defying expectations Mubarak speaks on state TV, giving no 
>>> indication that he will step down soon
>>> Source: The Independent 
>>> <http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-as-mubarak-clings-on-what-now-for-egypt-2211287.html>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
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>>
>>
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