Egypt's Mubarak resigns as leader

Mubarak has ruled Egypt for 30 years

Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down as president of Egypt.

In an announcement on state TV, Vice-President Omar Suleiman said Mr Mubarak had handed power to the military.

It came as thousands massed in Cairo and other Egyptian cities for an 18th day of protest to demand Mr Mubarak's resignation.

Protesters responded by cheering, waving flags, embracing and sounding car horns. "The people have brought down the regime," they chanted.

Mr Suleiman said Mr Mubarak had handed power to the high command of the armed forces.

"In the name of God the merciful, the compassionate, citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country," he said.

"May God help everybody."

The military high command is headed by Defence Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi.

Mr Mubarak has already left Cairo and is in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh where he has a residence, officials say.

Read Full Article

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Save 30% on our Deluxe tax filing package when you file at CompleteTax.com

Global Gulag: Hosni Mubarak and American Foreign Policy

SARTRE, Contributing Writer

Activist Post 

The sands of time sweep once again over the Egyptian kingdom. Hosni Mubarak is just one more in a long line of autocrats. A Pharaoh he is not. A tin horn dictator, beholding to the regal Yankee, is a more apt description. It is difficult to embrace or have sympathy for a regime that traded rendition torture for a steady flow of military and foreign aid. Mubarak, like all favored despots, has no qualms of conscience when it comes to following orders, from a higher imposing force. Now he is paying the price of being a collaborator of the American Empire.

Doubt this assessment - Wikipedia cites the linkage. In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteranMichael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally — including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.'


The Muslim Brotherhood or pro Mubarak secret police camel jockeys create great theater in the public square of Cairo. But the true nature of the revolt is less important than the benefactors or those in peril from the staged revolution. Pulling the plug on the internet was not a surprise. Then a timely return to service, smacks of tactics out of a pys-ops playbook. With all the speculation, predictions and forecasts for the future of Egypt, it might be best to understand that the past represents a clearer vision for the land of the Nile, than the media gyrations of orthodox political analysts. The Egyptian sphinx, a benevolent guardian flanking the entrances to temples is weather worn. The colors pealed, the nose broken off and sand poised to bury the lion human. The only exodus Mubarak will lead is a retreat into exile. Like the Shah of Iran, so much for the fate of American puppets. None other than the syndicated columnist Richard Cohen, for the Washington Post sums up the conventional view. 

Things are about to go from bad to worse in the Middle East. An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is nowhere in sight. Lebanon just became a Hezbollah state, which is to say that Iran has become an even more important regional power, and Egypt, once stable if tenuously so, has been pitched into chaos. This is the most dire prospect of them all. The dream of a democratic Egypt is sure to produce a nightmare.

My take on all this is relentlessly gloomy. I care about Israel. I care about Egypt, too, but its survival is hardly at stake.

Implied in this last statement is that Israel’s existence could be at risk from an Islamists regime. In the slang of the colloquial meaning, it is kosher to judge events in light of the benefit or harm to the Zionist state. No better example, seldom seen on television aired on the Fox News Network. Stunned NeoCons went ballistic. The ever courteous and insightful Michael Scheuer, dared state the unmentionable. Viewing the video infallibly demonstrates why America foreign policy is held hostage to a tyrannical government that fosters a victim culture, while practicing a pretender democracy.



The last hundred years witnessed the repudiation of the core reasons why the American Revolution was a bona fide conflict. Lost in today’s arrogant and destructive foreign policy is a perverse devotion to an imperium empire. Anointed elites of the corporate/state routinely sacrifice authentic national self-interest. The harebrained rationale used by the State Department to shape foreign policy has a long history of anti-Americanism. During the 18th and much of the 19th century, the United States acted mostly in a consistent manner that allowed for internal development and economic independence. When "A Splendid Little War", was manufactured against Spain, the die was cast that led to the Theodore Roosevelt imperial "Great White Fleet". Woodrow Wilson condemned the nation to the whims of Internationalism with his hypocritical entry into World War I. What emerged after Teddy’s fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt deceitful entry into World War II was a worldwide empire. Hosni Mubarak is destined to a less than a ceremonial boot from his countrymen. To whatever degree the spirit of legitimate revolution is in the air of the Middle East, our own citizens should hear the lesson and support any meaningful self-determination impulses. How can the U.S. government earn any sort of credibility or respect in the region, when the State Department operates as if they take their instructions from the Knesset?

Since the Camp David accords, Egypt accepted a vassal provincial submission to the American War Party imperious dictates. Have common Egyptians or Americans benefited from the "so called" stability which quarters and facilitates the expeditionary forces that occupy the region?

The unremitting threat and escalation of conflict designed to attack Iran did not bring any substantial stability for the unemployed Egyptian youth. Promoting the doctrine that democratization of the Middle East is a sacred mission is reminiscent of the pardon for sins granted by the Church for trespasses committed in the pursuit of conquest.

So what are our sensible interests with Egypt? Keeping the Suez Canal open for commerce is certainly the primary objective. Trading among nations is a positive endeavor when conducted in a fair and mutually beneficial manner. The actions of Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Suez Canal crisis are instructive. Professor Peter L. Hahn provides this appraisal.

Eisenhower sought to isolate Israel from the canal controversy on the fear that mixture of the volatile Israeli-Egyptian and Anglo-French-Egyptian conflicts would ignite the Middle East. Accordingly, Dulles denied Israel a voice in the diplomatic conferences summoned to resolve the crisis and prevented discussion of Israel's grievances about Egyptian policy during the proceedings at the United Nations. Sensing a spike in Israeli bellicosity toward Egypt in August and September, Eisenhower arranged limited arms supplies from the United States, France, and Canada in the hope of easing Israeli insecurity and thereby averting an Egyptian-Israeli war.

Contrast this approach with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s video and note the subtext that explains the actual meaning of her remarks. If this is a spoof, protect us from the reality.  Kevin Carson submits this perspective on the net results of the internationalist foreign policy.

The clear assumption is that there is some commonality of interest between the American people and the state that claims to represent them. But in reality, we’ve got about as many interests in common with "our" government as the Egyptian people have in common with Hosni Mubarak.

The U.S. government may pursue "interests" in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, but they’re the interests of the coalition of class forces that controls the American state. The interests promoted by the U.S. government are those at the commanding heights of the corporate economy.

Over a century of benign neglect towards an informative and educated concern about our original purpose for a sound foreign policy, has created a population void of influence and understanding. The best objective lesson regarding the internationalist agenda for global empire is that our lives back home are destined to mirror the unemployed youth on the streets of Cairo.

A proper function of a military is to defend our own borders. America was a great country because our own revolution sought to promote individual liberty. Involvement with foreign entanglements diminishes responsible domestic security. The global model for unending intervention is a recipe for internal prostration on our knees to a New World "of the Pharaoh" Order. Mubarak is a thug.

Egyptians need to sort out their own fate and ruling institutions. "Let my people go that they may serve me" applies not just to the Hebrews but to everyone. Serving me is not a worship of the global empire. Self-determination and worship of God is His plan. The America First argument is banned from major media reporting plainly is the solution. The global gulag that drives the aggressive post-industrial colonization foreign policy of our own rogue empire is un-American. The public strives to maintain a disconnect from foreign affairs. The popular expatriate pundit, Fred Reed explains a major reason. His point applies to Egypt just a well at to south-central Asia. "Moreover, human beings are intensely local animals. Afghanistan is not very local, being intensely Somewhere Else. It has little to do with getting the kids through school, planting the flower garden, shoving the software project out the door on time, or getting drunk at Bobby-Lou’s Rib Pit". The NeoCon nonsense and the State "of the empire" Department disinformation that the domino theory is back in vogue, with more Arab countries ready to fall begs the true issue. The legitimate objective of an honorable foreign policy needs to protect the American people, not the viceroys of the corporate conglomerate or the Khazar sociopaths who want a greater Israel.

Original article archived at BATR 

SARTRE is the pen name of James Hall, a reformed, former political operative. This pundit's formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce.  SARTRE is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact batr@batr.org 

Recently by SARTRE:

Free Trade Created The Chinese Model

Davos Elites Enjoy The Global Depression 

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Save 30% on our Deluxe tax filing package when you file at CompleteTax.com

Cheney hails 'good friend' Mubarak

© AFP/File Saul Loeb

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Former vice president Dick Cheney late Saturday praised beleaguered Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a "good friend" to the United States, and called for an evenhanded US response to continuing unrest in Egypt.

"I think President Mubarak needs to be treated as he's deserved over the years, because he has been a good friend, not only to the United States but a lot of other folks that we do business with," Cheney said a gathering in Santa Barbara, California to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of late US president Ronald Reagan.

"He's been a good friend and ally of the United States and we need to remember that," Cheney said.


Despite those words of support, on the issue of whether Mubarak can or should hold on to power, the former vice president added: "There comes a time for everyone to hang it up and move on."

"That's a decision only the Egyptians can make," Cheney said.

He made his remarks as US President Barack Obama stepped up a diplomatic effort for a quick transition of power in Cairo.

Obama underscored the need for "an orderly, peaceful transition, beginning now," the White House said in a statement on Saturday as a 12-day protest for an end to Mubarak's 30-year-rule showed no sign of abating.

Some 300 people have been killed since anti-Mubarak demonstrations erupted on January 25.

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Save 30% on our Deluxe tax filing package when you file at CompleteTax.com

No plans to halt US military aid to Egypt: Pentagon

© AFP/USAF/File

AFP/Activist Post

WASHINGTON  - The Pentagon on Thursday said it had no plans to halt weapons deliveries to Egypt in coming months despite a popular revolt against President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

While the US administration was examining its economic and military aid to Egypt in light of political upheaval there, military assistance had not been suspended, a spokesman said.

"There's a difference between halting the aid and reviewing it," said Colonel Dave Lapan.

As senior US officers closely monitored fast-moving events in Cairo, Lapan said Egypt's military continued to display "restraint" in the crisis so far.


"To date we have seen them act professionally and with restraint. Again it's a very fluid situation so we're watching every single day," Lapan told reporters.

The White House has suggested that US assistance for Egypt is under review in the face of a wave of street demonstrations demanding Mubarak step down.

Spare parts for F-16 warplanes, coastal patrol ships and fuses for munitions are among items due to be delivered to Egypt in the early part of this year, Lapan said.

The United States has provided tens of billions worth of arms and training to Egypt over more than three decades, with annual defense assistance at $1.3 billion.

Lapan also said the US military had no immediate plans to redeploy its forces in or near Egypt in response to the crisis, but as always the armed forces were carrying out "prudent planning" for all scenarios.

The majority of the more than 600 US troops stationed in Egypt are part of the multinational observer mission in the Sinai, with the remainder providing security at the embassy or working in a defense cooperation office, he said.

A US aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, a guided-missile destroyer and other warships are currently in the Mediterranean with tentative plans to sail through the Suez Canal on the way to the Arabian Sea possibly later this month.

US ships in the Arabian Sea back up the war effort in Afghanistan, with fighter jets based on carriers running combat missions for troops on the ground.

Mubarak's government has long provided the US military with access to its air space and safe passage for naval ships through the Suez Canal, which Washington has used to supply troops in the Iraq war.

The US military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, on Wednesday spoke to his counterpart by phone and said in a statement that he had "confidence" in the Egyptian army's ability to provide security for the country and the Suez Canal.

US officials and analysts view the role of Egypt's army as crucial in eventually resolving the crisis, and the administration is hoping that longstanding defense ties with Cairo will provide some leverage.

The White House said Wednesday that US contacts with various levels of the Egyptian armed forces had helped rein in possible violence earlier in the week.
© AFP 

Enter your email address to subscribe to our newsletter:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Save 30% on our Deluxe tax filing package when you file at CompleteTax.com