Can’t turn on Egyptian allies

by YankeeJim | January 29, 2011 at 12:27 pm

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We will find our allies in the people fighting for freedom.

Joe Biden was way off the mark in suggesting the US should continue to support Mubarak. Where is Mrs. Clinton on the subject?

You can’t have perpetual dictatorships and support free people at the same time. Mubarak filled a void that should have been over in four to eight years, not 24 years of strong-armed corruption.

So here we are again way behind the foreign diplomacy eight ball. That is your responsibility Mr. President and that of your Secretary of State.

My take on Biden is that he has outlived his usefulness in office too. Where is the change we can believe it?

I hope Egypt’s Number 2 is better than ours.

“Egyptians Defiant as Mubarak Appoints a No. 2
State television announced that he had named Omar Suleiman, his right-hand man and the country’s intelligence chief, as his vice president. Until now, Mr. Mubarak, who was vice president when he took power after the assassination of PresidentAnwar el-Sadat, has steadfastly refused to name any successor, and the move stirred speculation that he was planning to resign.

His grip on power was further challenged Saturday as the military that he had deployed to take back control of the streets showed few signs of suppressing the unrest, and in several cases the army took the side of the protesters in the capital and the northern port city of Alexandria.

In the most striking instance, members of the army joined with a crowd of thousands of protesters in a pitched battle against Egyptian security police officers defending the Interior Ministry on Saturday afternoon.

Protesters crouched behind armored trucks as they advanced on the ministry building, hurling rocks and a few Molotov cocktails and setting abandoned cars on fire. But the soldiers providing cover for the advancing protesters refused their pleas to open fire on the security police, while the police defending the ministry battered the protesters with tear gas, buckshot and rubber bullets. There were pools of blood in the streets as protesters carried a number of wounded back out of their ranks.”