The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark

[Wezil]

This is the US's plan to curb their deficit. The Support Foreign Dictators budget is dropping quickly.

[Arrian]

This (or something like it) is what was supposed to happen in the wake of Iraq (according to the Neocons, setting up a democracy in Iraq would then result in other ME countries rising up and demanding same). Instead, Tunisia kicks it off, with zero US involvement.

It remains to be seen how this will all shake out. All the wondering about how it will effect us seems rather beside the point (though natural for us to do).

-Arrian

[Wezil]

The longer the US stands by Mubarak the more Egyptian radicals they create.

If fundamentalism is the fear then the policy is flawed.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

The very fact that people riot over a $0.50 rise in the cost of bread should tell you that.

Then having commodities such as wheat pegged to a dollar inflated by QE2 was the spark that started the whole mess. Thank you Bernanke.

[giblets]

Poll: Egyptian Public’s Views Toward United States Are Much Improved

January 31, 2011, 9:33 am
By NATE SILVER

Spoiler:

Understandably, there’s been a lot of concern about what sort of regime might replace Hosni Mubarak’s in Egypt, if a new one replaces it at all.

How friendly might a new regime be toward the United States, for instance? No one certainly can predict that.

What does appear to be the case, however, is that Egyptian popular opinion toward the United States has substantially improved over the course of the past 2 to 3 years, to the point that a new leader would probably not gain any points by expressing anti-American sentiment.

The BBC World Service conducts an annual survey in 28 countries, in which it asks participants how they feel about each of the others. The BBC has interviewed Egyptians as part of its survey since 2007.

Egyptian sentiment toward the United States has improved dramatically since the survey began. In 2007, just 11 percent of Egyptians said they viewed the United States as having a “mostly positive” influence, versus 59 percent who said it had a “mostly negative” influence. The numbers were even worse the next year: 16 percent positive, but 73 percent negative.

The election of President Obama created a major change in opinion, however. In 2009, positive opinions about the United States rose to 40 percent against 48 percent negative. And last year — the first survey conducted after Mr. Obama’s well-received June 2009 speech in Cairo — positive opinions became the plurality, at 45 percent, against 29 percent negative views, figures comparable to those for survey participants in the United Kingdom and France. Although opinion about the United States has also improved in most other countries since Mr. Obama’s election, according to the survey, in perhaps no case has the change been quite so dramatic.



The BBC surveys use face-to-face interviews in Egypt, as is common in developing countries. There are places in the world where it can be difficult to elicit honest opinions about political matters, although unless something dramatic had changed in the survey methodology between 2007 and 2010, there is no particular reason to doubt that there has been a significant shift in opinion.

Who doesn’t the Egyptian public like? Israel. In the 2010 poll, just 3 percent of Egyptians had a positive opinion about it versus 92 percent unfavorable; these were the worst grades for Israel of any country included in the survey.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...much-improved/
Yeah, I don't think this is 1979

It really shows how much better Obama is at this foreign policy stuff than Bush

[Arrian]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/31/egypt-poll-negative-views-us-obama_n_816428.html

Competing numbers.

-Arrian

[Lorizael]

Bush was president in 1979?

[Lorizael]

Then having commodities such as wheat pegged to a dollar inflated by QE2 was the spark that started the whole mess. Thank you Bernanke.

[SlowwHand]

This (or something like it) is what was supposed to happen in the wake of Iraq (according to the Neocons, setting up a democracy in Iraq would then result in other ME countries rising up and demanding same). Instead, Tunisia kicks it off, with zero US involvement.

It remains to be seen how this will all shake out. All the wondering about how it will effect us seems rather beside the point (though natural for us to do).

-Arrian

"On their own" is the best part of it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Egyptian protesters

Seems like massive crowds in Cairo and Alexandria today!

[Hauldren Collider]

Muslim Brotherhood
ElBaradei
Hamas

Following from these: Egyptian protesters

[SlowwHand]

Why Egyptian protesters ? I say

[giblets]

Muslim Brotherhood
ElBaradei
Hamas

Following from these: Egyptian protesters

Imperialism

[DinoDoc]

Following from these: Egyptian protesters

To early to say on that point.

[Hauldren Collider]

Imperialism

Hey, I never suggested we annex a rat hole like Egypt. I just don't want to have to deal with another Syria or Lebanon.