Mohamed ElBaradei: 'Mubarak is now a "dead man walking"'

[seafan]

Dead men walking, with license to kill

February 4, 2011
Asia Times


Pepe Escobar writes:

.....

It was just a matter of time before Mubarakism unleashed its thugs and goon squads to try to smash people power. ..... if, as opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei has coined, Mubarak is now a "dead man walking", what about his zombie army, straight out of The Return of the Living (Dead)?

The regime put on quite a production. Rent-a-mobs; organized convoys in pick-up trucks; bused-in machete-wielding gangs; agent provocateurs throwing Molotov cocktails from rooftops around the Egyptian Museum; thugs invading Tahrir Square to beat up people, some on horseback and even - a cheap Orientalist trick worthy of a Z-movie - riding camels and brandishing whips.

.....

And then, in the dead of night, came pure, unmitigated, state-provoked terror - Mubarakism rearing its real ugly head. Sporadic heavy gunfire; the unmistakable sound of sniper fire; the tanks that were surrounding Tahrir Square as protection eerily gone; the protesters under siege and under machine gun fire, encircled by masked Mubarak goon squads.

This is an extremely ominous development. Even without employing the army - which seems to have "dissolved" just as the police did over the past weekend - Mubarakism is able to mobilize an immense flotsam and jetsam who depend on the regime - from the 1.5 million-plus repression apparatus of the Ministry of Interior, including an army of informers, to the three million registered members of Mubarakism's National Democratic Party (NDP). This mega-mob is terrified of losing the crumbs thrown by the dictatorship in the form of a steady government job and a few connections.

.....

From the point of view of those protesting with their life, it's clear the Obama White House has failed to grasp the current sense of historical inevitability, and has been eaten alive by the revolutionary dynamics.

.....

A typical regime black ops to shift the narrative - and spook the West for good - would be to shoot dead a few protesters and blame it on the Muslim Brotherhood. It is alarming in itself that this "takeover by fanatic Islamists" plot is already being spun to death by US corporate media. The CNN website is now openly warning about "the risk of democracy in the Middle East". And Fox News sounds like Mubarakism propaganda, frantically spinning the risks of "instability".

A widely circulated Fox News opinion piece - crammed with factual absurdities - is shaping the master narrative that will be repeated ad nauseam by Zionists, neo-conservatives, Zio-cons, the assorted far right, evangelists and Tea Party nut jobs; it accuses the Muslim Brotherhood ("the Godfather of radical Islam") of being ready to enter "war against Israel", close the Suez Canal and force Egypt to "stop the flow of natural gas into Israel".

.....

Since the start of the protests, the Repulsive Ideology Trophy has got to go to former British prime minister and Iraq invader Tony Blair in his interview with CNN's Piers Morgan. For Blair, democracy for the Middle East may be a good thing; but "we" have to manage it; and that means compromising with Mubarakism. Blair simply can't understand that if Mubarakism survives with a facelift, blowback will be cosmic. And it will come from all sectors of Egyptian society, the young, the apolitical, secular and Islamists alike, and from the whole Arab world.

.....

And then, Escobar points out the core of the truth, around which all of the chaos rages:

Very few in the US and Europe are connecting the dots that the rise of radical Islam in the Arab world has been directly connected to Western-supported autocracies and dictatorships such as Mubarak's smashing the secular left.

With thanks to the bravery of journalists such as Mr. Escobar and those with Al Jazeera, more and more people in a very insulated America are connecting these dots.

[Drale]

1. I agree if he had just given up at the beginning

he would have been able to live the rest of his life in exile, but now that he fights the inevitable he has sealed his fate.

[Kennah]

2. I think he will still end up living out his life in exile

[peace13]

3. How is this different than what * and Blackwater did in Iraq?

I need to understand why people look to Obama for a resolution here when our own government has sponsors its own 'camel riders' and still does as we speak? We need to stop our own illegal wars and then talk about the rest of the world.

[BeFree]

4. The US shares a great deal of responsibility

There are no two ways about it. Our government hand a big hand in the way this has come about. Obama leads this country and it remains to be seen just where he is leading us.

[cutlassmama]

5. Well, we've propped up Mubarak for 30 years, well before Obama.

It's not Obama's fault. He told Mubarak it was time to go. What else can he do? This isn't U.S.'s fight.

[BeFree]

7. Since you bring it up...

...what would Obama do if we did actually fight?

[Cleita]

6. I just ran across a blog where the participants are

discussing storming the palace and dragging him (Mubarek) out of it. I won't post the link and I did what I could to delete it from my ISP but the protestors or some group any way is thinking about it. :scared: He should leave.