The Egyptian people have definitely made a statement. I hope Hosni heard them and hauls his ass out of Egypt.

Doesn’t sound like he did.

Is this live or pre-recorded? There are rumors of Mubarak fleeing to Switzerland.

He must be deaf.

listening to Mubarek now.

Translation is a bit rough, but it sounds a whole heck of a lot like “Trust Me”.

No backing off, and no convincing-sounding concessions as to reform.

the word “toast” keeps coming to mind….

How long has he been talking? 10 – 12 minutes? He’ll designate a new government tomorrow. That’s it.

Deaf and insane. That’s not a good combination.

It’s live on Nile TV and being streamed on Al Jazeerah English. So it appears rumors of Mubarak’s departure are premature.

Mubarak hanging on.

Mubark steps down

Al Jazeera reporting

Shorter Hosni Mubarak: Apres moi, le deluge.

AJE sums it up… Mubarak asking government to resign, but he plans to stay.

I agree with M’s statement being tone deaf. Way too little, way too late.

Too bad he didn’t slink out.

no, he asks the gov’t to resign but he’s hanging around.

and good luck with that one, Hasni.

Scapegoats everyone but himself. LOL.

Since power is totally in the hands of the prez in Egypt, sacking the cabinet is meaningless from Egyptian population POV.

I think there’s a follow up due out soon, where he stands, arms linked with Obama, saying, “now is not the time to look back”

I have a feeling Mubarak’s solution to the problem will not satisfy the protesters.

No kidding.

He’s not going to win this one, I think.

There sounded like a lot of threats – that he won’t tolerate chaos – he’ll protect the security of the people. That sounds like he said he won’t tolerate more demonstrations.

So, he just sacked the defense folks who just left the US?

Amazing.

hes a Palin/teabagger GOOPER,who knew?

Head of military & interior (secret police, etc) have been in place for over a decade. Wonder if they’ll go lightly into the night.

707

unreal
— it’s like he’s setting the stage for a Ceausescu moment

Yeah, it sounded there for a moment like he was going to go down fighting. The military might not be with him, though.

So is this the second step in a toppling of N. Africa?

Who does the U.S. have in place to step in?

(seems like a fairly relevant question)

LOL, that’s why he’s looking forward to a new government…

This should put to rest any suggestions that Obama and Mubarak have not been in close contact. I imagine the conversation went something like this:

Mubarak: Crap! What do I do? I’m not stepping down, I’m dictator for life dammit!

Obama: No problem dude, here’s what you do, repeat after me, “look forward, not backward, look forward, not backward”. Got it?

Mubarak: You can’t be serious.

Obama: Worked for me!

Protesters after M’s speech still shouting ‘down with Mubarak.’

Well, this shit is going to get very real very fast now.

If he’s hanging on, he must have gotten assurances from his military/security that they can restore order.

I.E., they’re going to start getting serious.

If there is a God, then please help those souls in the streets. Cause they’re not going to get any help from anywhere else.

He better fly, cause this ain’t gonna fly with the people.

hint to Hosni
TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN bebe

That was odd. The rioters were looking up at the camera chanting. When they thought they were off screen they disbanded?

It look staged.

Mubarak Obama

It very much reminds me of what happened in Soviet satellites after Berlin Wall fell. They all crashed of their own weight, and each one virtually overnight after the uprising started.

I didn’t want to go too far into that analogy too soon, because the countries are entirely different. But maybe not so much.

Mubarek Hussein Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGZufk4HFs

anyway!

How much has Obama been offering the generals to support Mubarek?

He’s sacking head of military who’s been in charge for over a decade, so how much assurance could he have gotten? And from whom?

tinpot despots pretty similar,always tone deaf

Kind of sounded like an Obama speech..

Blitzer saying maybe he thinks he can ride this out with only a couple hundred protesters outside a building…Um

Mubarek offering to replace his entire government – with the exception of himself.

Nope – not gonna work, dude – you’ve got it way backwards.

Unless, of course, he’s received some sort of U.S. guarantees…

which, at the moment, and from the tone of Hillary’s speech today, I very much doubt. The guy is going down.

On edit:

A lot depends of the allegiance of the army.

Agreed. If the army sides with the protesters as happened when Yeltsin confronted Gorbachev, Mubarak is toast.

Smart dictators should be like smart gamblers, you have got
to know when to fold them!

Mubarak is clearly in denial.

CNN saying he has the support of the army…really?

they are all praying for that,no wonder Obie is non commital

Army doesn’t even need to take sides. Just refrain from cracking down on protesters.

Typical dicktator

DA NILE

Concur.

But one interesting thing from the Intro to Islam threads by the GorillasGuides: speaking truth to power is one of the best/highest forms of Jihad/struggle, per The Prophet.

So I wouldn’t discount the devout/Islamic factor in telling such truths to such corrupt powers.

Having said that, though, just because it conforms with the concept of Jihad, doesn’t necessarily mean what the uninformed think Jihad means.

CNN completely worthless always

You should have warned us.
I laughed so hard I spit milk and Triscuits all over my keyboard.

Yes, which they have already done, apparantly.

Wait until daybreak. Rumors were that he had left. When those who went home to sleep find out he’s staying….

Just as an aside, I really really like the fact that the anchors on AJE rarely appear on screen. It’s as if they realize that they are not the story. Imagine that.

Most dictators usually are in deep denial. Mubarak will hang on for as long as he thinks he can greedily rip off as much as possible. Follow the money trail… probably the Great Pretender offered him a bribe er “helping handout” to stay or something…

Agreed, but I would argue that not cracking down would be implicitly taking the protesters side.

Richard Engel now reporting on the disparate nature of the wealth in Egypt being a huge cause of the fight.

Sound familiar?

“2011-01-28 Cable: Egypt action against poet, bloggers, novelist and journalists” (Submitted by GeorgieBC on Fri, 01/28/2011 – 22:28)

Milk and Triscuits? Dude. It’s supposed to Mountain Dew and Cheetos. We’ve gotta uphold our image, here.

sounds like Old Mubarak did not plan for retirement.

all good things must come to an end.

Mubarak you hurt and terrorized your people for 30 years, most dictators the USA prop up don’t make it this long.

one day these USA dictators “PUPPETS” are going to learn, you can’t trust the USG, when things go bad, Mubarak better leave town ASAP

its good cept the reporter keeps calling SUEZ…Sewage

wow… that IS hard to imagine. I’ll have to check it out sometime.

Excellent point, it is almost 1 a.m. there.

Yeah: who’da thunk something like *that* would cause so much ruckus?

Although Muslims prolly are better acquainted with Islam than Christians are with Christianity. *g*

Commentator on alJ called speech ‘least common denominator.’

Cairo Bob http://bit.ly/fJotn7

oh my…no trickle down there either

Mubarak labored for days, and all he could come out with, in the face of historic events, is a small fart.

Commentator on alJ called speech ‘least common denominator.’

I don’t think that it’s the “least common” that’s in the streets.

M does sound like W in talking about ‘freedumb.’

come 12am east coast USA time, Me Thinks Egypt will again be on fire

Mubarak needs to head to Air Port, before his country men wake up, and hear his crazy speech!

Even if the army sides with Mubarak, it’s only a matter of time.
Over half the population under age 30.
It’s just a matter of how awful it gets before Egypt overthrows this mess. Mubarak posing as a ‘reformer’? Hahahahaha…

lol

Eating cheetos in their pajamas in their Mom’s basements?

LOL… sounds just like his “cousins” over here in “we’re number one” USA!

There seem to be an element of “always the last to know” among dictators, tyrants, and presidents….

the old power brokers never wanto shut up and sit down

They cling to power & MONEY until the last bitter attempt fails… some die and some get out. Seen this movie before.

Ahme Chalabi isn’t doing much these days, is he?

Certainly he could claim, among his man countries of residence -> Egypt (??)

Yep. He was prolly reviewing W’s speeches for all those days. He even had the ‘hard work’ line.

Earlier today ( mid morning PST), I was in a place with multiple tv monitors on. Fox was hawking FEAR!! MuslimBrotherhood=AlQuaeda – be TERRIFIED!!

CNN was relatively sane in the sense of reporting (at that time, anyway) army personnel in ?Suez not moving against protestors.

MSNBC was Andrea Mitchell, (God help me!). But there was a spot with Richard Engel who actually speaks Arabic, and therefore might have a clue how to figure out what’s going on.

I figure that Fox News, like Dougie Feith, doesn’t ever hire anyone who speaks Arabic. So all they have to ‘report’ (cough, cough) is neocon bullshit and hysteria. But it was bizarre to see the three networks all compared. Looking at those 3, MSNBC had it hands down, since they actually had a reporter who can speak Arabic.

“Mubarak Speaks, Dissolves One Crony Government, New Crony Government To Be Named Tomorrow” (by Tyler Durden for ZeroHedge.Com on 01/28/2011 17:17 -0500)

From “http://www.cbe.org.eg/ Not Responding: Has The E(gyptian)CB Been Plundered?” (by Tyler Durden on 01/28/2011 16:22 -0500):

We were doing some diligence on Egyptian (now historic) gold holdings but unfortunately the following link no longer seems to work:http://www.cbe.org.eg/ To those who guessed correctly that this is the web site of the Egyptian Central Bank, you win whatever is held in the vaults of said building. Which we are willing to bet against all that is held in our own tungsten warehouse in Kentucky, is absolutely nothing. To any potential readers in Egypt, may we recommend you go politely enter the building at 31 Kasr El-Nil Street, Cairo, go to the basement and check on the precious metal inventory. There should be 75.6 tonnes of gold.

I don’t think they know how 8-

LOL, well that would certainly explain why they stay off camera ; )

Of course, none of them had alJazeera on.

Yeah, miraculous ain’t it?

how bout this dude?

http://theluxuryhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mohamed-fayed.jpg

And even so, they’ve done an absolutely incredible job! It’s the way the world has been able to know what’s happening. Al Jazeera and FDL.

Sounds like it, doesn’t it? W as a role model? Well Mubarak is just as greedy and incompetent, so…

ok – so I’ve been hella busy today and only tuned in in the last 25 minutes or so.

If N. Africa is falling, what, if anything, is happening in Saudi Arabia ( and yes I know that S. Ara. is not technically part of N. Africa)

Still… that would be whale of a clusterfuck…

Yeah, I thought of that as well. I think they simply have a Comcast package that doesn’t include AJE.

But wow, FDL has turned into a one-stop shop for great info.
(Writing calendar note to donate for this… AWESOME, you server squirrels ;-))

MB head calls for Mubarak to step down.

MB?

Muslim Brotherhood.

Also, a senior member (per Al Jazeera) calls on the Egyptian Army to intervene (on side of protesters)

Having same thoughts; we’re surely seeing the tippy tip of a huge movement. And just to underscore, what we’re seeing doesn’t include Twitter or Facebook.

I gotta say – without getting harrassed around here — Obama and Hilary have one hell of a challenge dealing with this mess. I’d love to know what’s going on behind the scenes, but the sooner the US cuts Mubarak lose, IMVHO.

Saudi Arabia could get crowded.

Analyst earlier on alJ pointed out that ME oil producers have enough money to pay off citizens so dominoes wouldn’t fall that far. For example, head of Kuwait is going to pay every person or family, I forget which, $3,000/month out of his own pocket to offset recent rises in food & energy prices. Saudis could do the same.

The other potential dominoes are Syria and Jordan. Yemen already underway. Maybe Libya, but it also has oil wealth to spread around.

Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently it’s their first public statement. They did not play a role in organizing uprising, but are an important ‘opposition’ party.

I’d love to know what’s going on behind the scenes

Among other things, truckloads of adult diapers pulling up to Foggy Bottom & WH.

that would be cheap,they should take the $ and protest anyway

Ain’t that the truth. They are screwed six ways from Sunday pretty much no matter what they do. Geniuses. Not such a great game plan to trade one’s reputation and principles for oil.

But they don’t have the same grievances. All the real work in those countries is done by coolies from poorer countries. Middle class don’t need to work, or maybe have white collar make-work jobs.

I find it instructive the Mubarek not only closed down the internet and mobile phones, etc, but he also turned off the electricity. That means that not only couldn’t people communicate as they’re used to, but names, phone numbers, addresses that were stored on individual computers couldn’t be accessed.

I’d say it’s important to have hard copy back-ups of important data and possibly generators. Particularly for anyone in a position to be organizing.

‘Zactly. Just like 1991/Berlin Wall, did the CIA see this coming?

A: no.

Not such a great game plan to trade one’s reputation and principles for oil.

Not so sure. That worked very well for decades.

As an economic forecaster, I viewed the whole trick as forecasting the turning points, which was very very difficult. It meant not just THAT it would turn, but also WHEN.

True, but British Petroleum painted Great Britain into a corner in the 1950s. So there is clear historical evidence that it is not a successful long term plan. Back then, Iranians thought the US would save the day. Instead, we repeated the same damn mistakes.

Obama expected to speak shortly.

Kerry speaking live from Davos! Fucking hack.

Obama speaking. He just spoke to Mubarek. He’s hard on my ears. The speech is pitch perfect. However,……

Yup.
What was the last ratio that I heard of US budget disparities between the military vs the DoS?

All that money for ‘security’, and how many Arabic speakers do we have…? I dunno, but probably not enough.

I have friends recently back from Egypt, and they didn’t predict this, but they were definitely unnerved by the sense of security state, the poverty, the sullenness, the sense of culture being strangled. So why in hell Foggy Bottom can’t figure out what tourists going to view the pyramids can detect in a few weeks, God only knows.

I´m reading elsewhere it´s more basic than that: the skyrocketing price of food, which is occuring in places worldwide. There is not a supply shortage. Investors are buying and storing commodities to drive up the price. Depopulating the planet may also have something to do with it.