Breaking News & LIVE THREAD- Egypt and Middle East

Various on the internet | 28 January 2011

[SE Mom]

From FOX:

DEVELOPING: Loud explosions and gunfire were heard in the Egyptian capital of Cairo Friday, as protesters demanding the removal of President Hosni Mubarak defied a curfew, Al Jazeera reported. Egyptian television reports the ruling party headquarters in Cairo are on fire.

From TWITTER:

WashingtonPost: Clinton: We urge #Egypt authorities to allow peaceful protest, reverse unprecedented steps it has taken to cut off communications less than 20 seconds ago

[GonzoGOP]

This is Iran part two. The Muslims will have their popular uprising, and immediately the radicals will take over.

And if they do Israel is toast. Egypt has a massive army equipped with top of the line US equipment and commanded by Western trained officers. It won't be plinking old T-55s this time. Israel will have to face close to half a million troops armed with over a thousand M1A2 MBTs and another 2000 older M60A3 and upgraded soviet tanks. Worse they have the factories to build M1 MBTs so if they change sides we will have lost our entire weapons technology advantage over Iran and it's allies.

Israel doesn't have the manpower to take on a modern equipped Syrian and Egyptian army in a conventional war. This isn't 1973 where Israel had a big time advantage in quality. They still have an advantage, but not as big. And in 1973 the us pulled out all the stops to keep Israel supplied with ammo and replacement aircraft and tanks. That isn't going to happen under an Obama regime.

And if Israel can't win a conventional war thing could get "unconventional". And that scares the heck out of me.

[montyspython]

If we take Bosnia as an example... don’t count on it. You can thank the Saudis for that.

[Never on my watch]

... the military basically joining the protesters....

I'm hoping this happens when Obama order troops to suppress a Tea Party event.

[dfwgator]

Very real possibility of Civil War. Israel better be on full alert.

[r9etb]

Palin’s Fault

Cute.... but a responsible person might ask, "Is Sarah Palin the sort of person we want to deal with this kind of situation?"

"Hell no," is my answer.

[JimSEA]

Dow has been down 150, now down 130. I would expect more as well.

[mewzilla]

Won’t the outcome depend on what the Egyptian army does? Is the army made up of Islamists?

[Lessthantolerant]

Listen to the media on CNN, they seem excited that the islamic radicals are taking over.

Seems our liberals have a absolute death desire.

This bodes very poorly for Western Civilization.

[dfwgator]

And if they do Israel is toast

And every Arab capital will be toast. If Israel goes down, she is taking the entire Middle East with her.

[Minus_The_Bear]

I guess you support funding weapons that get smuggled into Gaza. I don’t.

[t-dude]

The alternative to Mubarak will be much worse.

The Shah of Iran was much better (for us, the region, hell the whole world) than the Ayatollah.

This is not good.

It could lead to war with Israel. It could lead to gas shortages and exploding commodity prices, there are so many potentially bad outcomes.

This is scary.

[luckystarmom]

She’d be better than Obama, Biden, and Hillary.

[b4its2late]

Vey series!

[mewzilla]

Here's an FR thread from May....

Islamists gaining influence within Egyptian Army

[dfwgator]

And we have those Wikileaks punks to thank for all of this.

[Jedidah]

Kinda like the Shah of Iran in 1979?

You do know how that turned out, right?

No good answers here.

[silverleaf]

Gaza gets just enough to make it look like the Egyptians are supporting them and to satisfy hardliners on both sides that the struggle against Israel is continuing

- and just enough to stave off a total takeover of the cause by Iran

Egypt may be a SOB but it is “our” SOB, since 1976 we bought and paid for it. It is the SOB we and Israel know. Next up could be the SOB neither of us knows and who do you think will buy and pay for it?

[b4its2late]

If we take Bosnia as an example... don’t count on it. You can thank the Saudis for that.

And you can probably thank them for this in some way or another.

[Uncle Ike]

” Israel better be on full alert. “

Yes, that is the “Dog that didn’t bark”, here, isn’t it??

The few comments I’ve seen from the Israeli side have been pretty mild and non-committal - if they’re calling up reserves and going on alert, as they should have already done, they’re *really* low-keying it....

[Fishtalk]

I can’t believe even on here some think this is good.

First, I can only speak for myself. But I have read the sentiments of others on the thread and myself, as well as what I've read, do not seem to think that any takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood would be "good".

But I find it damn hard to allege that leaving that awful Muburak in charge would be much better.

I know, I know, maybe for America, which would not have to deal with such as this major foreign policy matter that the politicos could concentrate on forcing social health care nobody wants down our throats.

I believe, that with some determination and leadership, we could somehow have gotten Muburak the hell outta there long before now. I don't know how, I'll admit, but the USA has a lot of power and a lot of money.

I believe that we didn't have the leadership to do what had to be done. And so life went on, we filled Muburak's swiss bank accounts as he brutalized people for yay many years.

When will America ever learn that supporting despots and dictators will eventually blow up in our faces?