Egypt News: McNamara Ground Ops Lunchroom, Detroit

After the occupation of Maidan Tahrir on January 25th and the resigning of Mubarak on February 11th in the face of mounting protests, including strikes in Textile and Steel, and the formation of neighborhood committees, Egypt is open to a wide debate on the future goverment for the first time. As apparently directed by the Pentagon, the Egyptian Armed Forces are letting people vent their steam, hoping to keep a bourgeois government and the private sector strong, corrupt, and wealthy, while the country suffers from poverty and impossibility to export and produce because of the Israeli blocade--the Israeli Navy, and the very existence of the state blocking normal land travel between Egypt and the rest of the Arab World and Europe.

Although the Army and Police, by saying they are now "with the people" have got cars moving through Tahrir, women in large numbers are protesting in front of various ministries and the Egyptian TV does phone interviews with what seem to be commettees of self defense in Arish, with arms, which have not yet submitted to the be coordinated by the Army "calming" forces.

General Tantawi, the Army head of Command, on Egyptian TV,calls for all strikes to cease and production to return to normal so that the country can eventually hold democratic elections. It is strange to see the Army so overtly in control. The TV is quite sophisticated in showing outspoken demonstrations and demonstrators, and at the same time, giving the biographies of the Generals and broadcasting the commanding voice of Tantawi. Doubtless the Pentagon and Obama are watching how they do this, taking notes from the Egyptians on how to do it when Americans start resisting the cut-backs, unemployment, high cost of food and poverty here. There is no mention of the outside world, just Egypt and the "wonderful" Army. That is how the US ruling class will do it too. "We're all Americans, rebuilding real democracy" under an Army Command--the command and the Army and Police that saved us from the makers of Baluch rugs in Afghanistan, who were going to "get us" with their flying carpets, I suppose--?












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