Civil Discord in Egypt this past week...

[Husar]

You can't handle the truth, I am not 100% sure it's real though

http://files.abovetopsecret.com/imag...a40b4342fd.jpg

A shark with an UFO latched onto it's head?

[Fragony]

A shark with an UFO latched onto it's head?

I knew it. Floating Unrecognisable Object would be better though, sharks float, bet it looks too much like FU. It isn't perfect yet though, it can't control it's emotions yet it killed a GERMAN tourist

question everything

[Fragony]

That's it, tourists being hauled out. 50 euro a week I think I'm going there, in for a little trouble Hax? I felt so helpless during the green wave let's show a little bit of solidarity.

[Subotan]

A Parliamentary regime would work best. The Arab world desperately needs to move away from the idea that power can and should be vested all in one institution, and one man. We need an anti-de Gaulle to establish the Fourth Republic!

[Ronin]

I´m for whatever solution makes oil prices go down and not have some religious nut come into charge.
I have realized a long time ago no good solutions ever come out of that area......only stable or unstable ones.

[Furunculus]

Frankly, it is up to the people to not only demand change, but to keep on demanding change until they achieve a permanent political settlement is acceptable to them.

Otherwise the inevitable result is one-man, one-vote, one-time.

If the Egyptian people seriously want a modern representative parliamentary democracy then they have my full support, even if they have to spill rivers of Egyptian blood to achieve it.

It is their right to have the opportunity to live their lives as legally responsible adults, it is their responsibility to achieve it.

I'll back them to the hilt, literally.........

[Hax]

Will the Islamic Brotherhood accede to power, and if so what does that mean for the Middle East and for the West?

Initially, no. There is a Dutch specialist in the Middle East who said that the Muslim Brotherhood aren't as extremist as we make them out to be. They are Muslim-democrats in the sense that as of this moment, they are not so much interested in the restoration of the Caliphate or the creation of an Islamic state as they are in the creation of a democratic state in Egypt. Afterwards, we'll see. However, if there are free elections and the Muslim Brotherhood would gain a sizable part of parliament, they'd still have to let some of their statements go in order to create a coalition. But who knows what they'll do? They've already said they're not interested in being in the next government, should Mubarak's reign collapse and free elections would be held.

The problem is that there are other emerging and re-emerging powers who are all too willing to prop up strong men around the world. Speaking as an American, standing for democracy and human rights is all well and good, but not if it leaves the United States at a strategic disadvantage in a critical region.

This is the crux of the matter. If you ask me, America is lucky that the protesters haven't aimed their guns at the US, but at Mubarak. Seriously, and now you're going to say "Well, if they pick the wrong party, we should just overthrow the government/declare war/(fill in statement here)". You remember Iran, 1953? You know what happened in '79? Yeah, direct result of Operation Ajax. And now look at Iran, don't they just love the US.

Egypt was a key ally against the Soviets and later against Islamic terrorism. Hopefully this unrest will yield a secular, democratic state that embraces Western values (lol), but President Obama needs to be prepared to deal aggressively with whoever comes to power to keep Egypt in the US' corner.

Not a chance. Egypt is a largely Muslim country, of course Muslim values will play a large role in how the country is organised. Is that a threat to the United States? Rashid al-Ghannoushi is the leader of the Tunisian Islamist party, but listen what he has to say about certain things:

Rashid Al-Ghannushi represents a progressive strain in Islamic reformism, and continuously stresses the need for innovation against social injustice. He underscores the importance of local culture, and an Islamist movement based in the needs of Tunisians and not in "the obscure theories of Sayyid Qutb". He has sided with worker's rights, unionism, and women's education and rights, though those rights are based in Islam and not Western liberal feminism.[2]

Would you rather deal with a al-Ghannushi or a al-Zawahiri? You tell me. The best part of his party? They're non-violent.

but President Obama needs to be prepared to deal aggressively with whoever comes to power to keep Egypt in the US' corner.

Why don't you first wait and see what those "Islamist" parties have to say and what they do before we bomb Egypt into a glass crater, y'know, just in case.

A Parliamentary regime would work best. The Arab world desperately needs to move away from the idea that power can and should be vested all in one institution, and one man.

Wonder where they got that idea from.

[Kagemusha]

Its all up to what standing will the army take. As of now the army seems to be acting calm and they dont seem to have any wish to take a violent measures against the protestors.It could be that they will simply not support Mubarak and so his show is over.