Of course, the US is now trying to capitalize on the situation and to feign identification with Egyptian popular sympathies when in reality the US has supported AND funded every crackdown on the Egyptian people since 1975. That won't change. The US [wants] to control change and replace a puppet with another puppet (preferably someone with a better hair dye). But there are limits to US ability to control: Tunisia and Egypt will be undergoing a revolutionary process. Tunisia a year from now will be very different from what it looks like today. You have to [be] a Jeffrey Feltman, or a toddler, to think that Tunisia will freeze in time as it is today. And the people's pressures will produce demands for free elections (something the US has thus far NOT called for for obvious reasons -- the US never favor[ed] free elections -- or it did until Bush discovered that people favored Hamas to his puppets in Palestine). And elections in Tunisia and Egypt are not as easy to control as they were in Lebanon with the sectarian factor. I read that Kenneth Pollack was talking about the Egyptian army (and he knows about the Arab military), and that he said that top rank of the Egyptian Army are all loyalists who favor Egyptian foreign policy or words to that effect. But Pollack needs to realize that loyalties are so easily shifted and radically altered [e]specially after a regime change. Are you aware how many of the top rank of the Egyptian revolutionaries in 1952 had expressed loyalty to King Faruq in previous years (I am sure that comrade Kamal would provide me now with names and details). The US, if it is led by intelligen[ce] experts on the Middle East and Shapiro at the NSC [National Security Council] and Feltman at the State Department are far from that, to put it mildly and charitably, would realize that there are limits for US imperial powers at a time of revolutionary transformation. Things will change in a way that would surprise the US, and would surprise you and me too. Now there is a race between the various political factions to assert control. Expect to hear of new groups that we have not heard of before.
I am reminded of the syndicalist expression, "Violence is not necessary when, united as a class, all that workers need to do is fold their arms to gain the world." In other words, stop participating in that which you don't condone, and support others in doing the same.
Sometimes we forget how simple this can be -- or how effective. But the good news is that even when we forget, others will be there to remind us.
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