Day 53: Egypt

[Bacon King]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/eg.html

Discuss.

[phk]

Hosni Mubarak has been around for a long ass time.

[WMS]

One-Party State under rather repressive and highly corrupt old 1960's Arab nationalist-socialists; it's a sign of the Middle East that the Muslim Brotherhood is "the moderate opposition" there

[Cubby]

Mubarak's regime is unpleasant, but the alternative is worse. The Muslim Brotherhood is really just Hamas with less violence.

[Undisguised Sockpuppet]

A corrupt hellhole

[DanielX]

A corrupt hellhole

Err... what did you expect? This is the Middle East we're talking about.... half the freaking countries there are corrupt hellholes...and the other half are violent hellholes .

[opebo]

Excessively religious.

[MODU]

Egypt has come a long way, and has potential to become a sliver of the greatness it use to be as long as it continues to progress and become a more open society.

I remember sailing to Egypt (Alexandria) and travelling the the Suez Canal back in the 90s.  While going through the canal, the Captian would allow one group of merchants to ride aboard the ship selling their local wares.  I enjoyed spending my coffee breaks and lunch breaks with these guys just talking about their country and life style.  Each merchant we carried were very friendly and engaging, and felt free to share their thoughts while aboard.  I remember one guy in particular who grew up outside of Giza and worked in various tourist shops for most of his life before working the Suez canal.  Besides making more money aboard the ships, he said his English had improved greatly from the amount of time he had to just chat with folks rather than try to sell them items.  He wished to move to Europe at some point and bring his family with him.  I wonder if he ever did.

[WMS]

Mubarak's regime is unpleasant, but the alternative is worse. The Muslim Brotherhood is really just Hamas with less violence.

*whispers* Look more closely, and don't let your anti-Muslim attitudes get in the way. There are big differences between Islamists in different countries.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

IIRC, the Muslim Brotherhood were actually the ones that started to popularize Holocaust denail in the Arab world and still hold that as their official viewpoint, plus remember Sadat was assasinated for opening up relations with Israel.

[WMS]

IIRC, the Muslim Brotherhood were actually the ones that started to popularize Holocaust denail in the Arab world and still hold that as their official viewpoint, plus remember Sadat was assasinated for opening up relations with Israel.

A different group I think...there are a lot of different types of Islamists out there. The current batch is from my sources fairly moderate and not hostile to the U.S. - didn't Rice meet with them in addition to Mubarak when she visited Egypt?

There are extremists there, as in every other country. But painting with a broad brush will only make ya miss opportunities...

You're gonna have to ally with some of the more moderate Islamists in the M-E if you ever want to improve anything there...the facade that there is a popular secular European-esque movement waiting to take power in the region should surely be disproved by now.