Update (15:20 ET) The Washington Post: The People of Egypt Have Spoken In an address from the White House, President Obama said the “people of Egypt have spoken, their voices have been heard and Egypt will never be the same.” He likened the relatively peaceful ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to the fall of the Berlin Wall and to the advances of the American civil rights movement. Invoking...

The state of Mississippi wants to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest with a commemorative license plate.

WARNING: This post qualifies for the coveted R.D.S. ALERT Award. First, a disclaimer. I have not read, nor intend to read, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir. I know that “reviewing” or discussing a book without reading it is the epitome of arrogance, ignorance and so many other “ances.” However, please indulge me because as the magnanimous person that I am, I will make up for...

militaryphotos.net/ titled there as Egyptian special forcesThroughout history, dictators have had a hard time of it in at least one way: There is no security for them, no peaceful sleep really, no true protection other than iron-fist reaction to uprisings. A dictator traditionally, as in the case of the Romanovs, Joseph Stalin, various European Emperors, and others who left the populace to rot, had to fear...

I’ve often wondered what Nicolae Ceausescu , the former and cruel dictator of Romania who enslaved the Romanian and Swabian people post-Uncle Joe (Stalin), literally selling human beings as slaves to other countries, thought when he came to his balcony one day, and saw the streets crammed with demonstrators demanding his resignation. And more. Much more. Ceausescu too, like Mubarak, tried to mollify the...

Guest post by Aaron Scheinberg In a region where over 70 percent of citizens still depend on subsistence farming to survive, and where the number of people living on less than a dollar a day has increased fifty percent over the last 15 years, any barrier to growth in farming and agro-business can literally kill millions. And who is to blame for strengthening this hideous poverty trap? Certainly, some blame lies...

Is he an American citizen who shot two Pakistanis to death in cold blood, or an American official with diplomatic immunity who shot and killed two men attempting to rob him? The story hasn’t made news in our mainstream media, but in Pakistan, it’s almost all people have discussed for days, since it once again seems like American overreach into Pakistan sovereignty. Ex-U.S. consulate staffer Raymond...

Do Arabs, particularly people living in states alongside Egypt, have a right to be skeptical of claims that America is a defender of democracy and human rights? Americans may not like to hear it – but there is massive suspicion that the U.S. does and is doing everything it can to extend the rule of Hosni Mubarak and other friendly dictators. According to one of the leading commentators in the Maghreb,...

The Mansfield, Texas, Independent School District got a federal grant to set up Arabic studies programs in several schools in that district. Here is how the local CBS affiliate wrote the story (and that link will now take you to a Page Not Found — the local affiliate took the page down):

When it comes to our troops and veterans, I am an equal opportunity zealot. I railed against the Bush administration when the shameful facts of the “Walter Reed scandal” unfolded. Today, under a new administration, we read about another scandal in the making—one that is affecting thousands of our troops at our Warrior Transition units. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports on a nine-month investigation...

What chance is there that Arab militaries will give up the power to choose who rules to those now protesting in the streets? Columnist Issa Goraieb of Lebanon’s L’Orient Le Jour warns of the unlikelihood such a thing, particularly in Egypt, and also cites his native Lebanon in cautioning Arab protesters to consider what will happen when some form of democracy is finally achieved. For Lebanon’s...

The sense that the Egyptian people have reached a watershed and are finally going to insist on greater influence over their leaders is palpable in this article from Amal al-Oumma, the newspaper of the Muslim Brotherhood of Alexandria. The author, Reem al-Masry, writes of what the Egyptian uprising means to him and what it has taught his people about Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled that nation for 30 years. For...

Are social networks like Facebook and Twitter the cause or a symptom of events taking place around the globe? O Globo columnist Risoletta Mirand argues that despite their growing centrality to modern humanity, they are more like channels for society as it is, rather than protagonists in themselves. For O Globo, Risoletta Mirand writes in part: “It’s a fact that social networks are, indeed, an...

Is the violence in the streets of Cairo destined to worsen? Rafiq Khoury of Yemen’s Al-Wahdawi warns that – whatever the outcome – there is little doubt that those protesting against Hosni Mubarak are about to confront a far more harsh reaction than they have until now. Explaining why Egypt is no Tunisia, for Al-Wahdawi, Rafiq Khoury writes in part: No noise is louder than the sound of change...

Yesterday morning, Pres. Obama addressed the Great Annual National Public Display of Religious Piety in Washington, D.C. The GANPDRP (aka The National Prayer Breakfast), as we all know (or should, as informed political junkies), is sponsored by The Family, an organization that has been associated with support for venomous anti-gay legislation in Uganda (which would make it a capital offense to be openly gay...

What follows is a notable dressing down of Washington from Kuwait, a nation America saved from Saddam in the First Gulf War. And it starkly shows how frightened Gulf Arab leaders are about events in Egypt. In all the years we’ve been translating articles from Kuwait, in particular by Al-Seyassah editor-in-chief Ahmad Al-Jarallah, I recall nothing so strongly critical of American policy. It is a staunch...

In this age when Internet has extensively intruded our public and private space, a literary event last evening held at the Alliance Française, New Delhi, marked a wonderful start to a new forum “Written Word, Etc.” A packed auditorium comprising young students as well as elderly folks, were in for a memorable treat. They listened with rapt attention the celebrated Indian author Vikram Seth in...

Does it make any sense for the Iranian regime to encourage ‘people power’ uprisings across the Arab world, only months after a its own sham election and the suppression of its own people? Sensible or not, this article from Iran’s state-controlled Tehran Times encourages Arabs in Egypt and elsewhere to continue to rise up against their oppressive rulers, but warns them not to play into the...

It is interesting how people, events and places—and snafus—can have a confluence under the strangest and most ironic circumstances. Take the ongoing conflict in Egypt and the fears by some that serious violence could effectively close the Suez Canal. Add to this the recent claim by Chris Matthews that Egypt “of course has the Panama Canal.” Then we have the never-ending claims by the “birthers”...

I don’t think so.

Geopolitical analyst company Stratfor has a great release on the history of the Muslim Brotherhood.

UPDATE: According to Daily Kos, now that the Veterans of Foreign Wars are fighting back, Bachmann is backing down on her $4.5 billion “suggested” cuts in veterans benefits: “One point on my discussion list was a $4.5 billion proposal that would affect payments made to our veterans,” Bachmann said in a statement. “That has received a lot of attention and I have decided that it should be...

Update: 11:00 ET, Feb 4 With signs of fracturing within Egypt’s ruling elite, hundreds of thousands of people packed Cairo’s central Tahrir Square on Friday, chanting slogans, bowing in prayer and waving Egyptian flags to press a largely peaceful campaign for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak. Read more here UPDATE: 19:00 ET The New York Times reports that the Obama Administration is discussing a plan...

When it comes to Egypt, is it time for the United States to stop hedging its bets? According to columnist Thomas Spang of Austria’s Salzburger Nachrichten, without actively asserting its waning influence, Washington risks the worst imaginable outcome for the Western world: an Egypt governed by Muslim fundamentalists. For the Salzburger Nachrichten, Thomas Spang writes in part: A sober analysis of the...

Call it a Cold War hangover or a broken deal with the Devil – but according to columnist Stefan Kornelius of Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Egypt shows that the era of paying off potentates regardless of how they treat their citizens and mistaking stagnation for stability is over, and the will of the people will no longer be denied. For the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius writes in part: For...