To the above Just watched live footage of someone from the crowd going to the soldiers delver to them sandwiches and water.

Israeli TV saying that is Mubarak's plan is trying to protect most important government building by putting the soldiers there, chilling ,and the elite that ruling the country is a military elite and they too depended on Mubarak,and if he goes they go.
So it all far from over according to them.

chief spy (Omar Suleiman) is now vice president in egypt

http://yfrog.com/h0jfugkj

Al Jazeera Egypt: The youth perspective

Pretty good outlook to Egypt.
Edit:and by pretty good i'm mean excellent.

Just heard on MSNBC that wealthy people's homes are being looted and people are having to arm themselves with sticks and the like to protect their property. So I googled Egyptian gun control.... some of the strictest in the world, almost impossible to own a firearm.

Gun control FTW, right?

That's bound to placate them.

Obviously comparisons between gun control in autocratic police states and western liberal democracies are pointless.

Anyway, is it really clear that the situation ion Egypt would be better if the populace was armed to the teeth?

FWIW Iraqis in Ba'athist Iraq owned a lot of weapons, so do Yemenis today (second behind the United States in firearms per person according to wikipedia), so do Saudis today (7th in the world in firearms per person).

An armed populace is a good defense against tyranny amirite?

While I sort of agree with you, at the same time it would be some scary stuff right now if these protesting crowds had reasonable means to be armed with guns.

looters don't need guns to take what they want, and guns won't protect a place from looters. Not when they are more than a few looting. Either they run out of ammo, or get jumped trying to reload.

Guns are overrated. Ain't you guys seen V for Vendetta?

Seeing the people of a country stand up and demand freedom is awesome.

cables on Omar Suleiman

http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1349.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2009/04/09CAIRO746.html
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2007/05/07CAIRO1417.html

http://totallycoolpix.com/2011/01/the-egypt-protests/

lots of amazing pics


some are very graphic (NSFW)

Military Prevents Confrontation between Protesters and Police in Cairo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQD-X9G9xfk

FYP.

iknowright? Instead you just have protesters being shot and killed

Yeah, I'm sure no one would have been shot and killed if the protestors had weapons to defend themselves... Who ever heard of two armed groups in conflict descending into massive bloodshed... The world does not often work how the NRA says it does. More guns in volatile situations does not always "prevent tyranny" or "make people more polite" because of some weird MAD type interpersonal theories.

Seems kinda likely that more protestors would have been shot and killed if they were armed with guns, no? The army and police are trying to keep order, and have resorted to live fire in a number of cases. Pretty easy to believe that if the protestors were armed the security services would have resorted to live fire a lot sooner, and would have employed it with much greater intensity in order to retain control. An armed populace and a resolute security services would like have turned Cairo into Mogadishu by now.

silly me for thinking that it doesn't all come down to a bodycount.

So what does it come down to?

This is a very good article which expands a lot on what I was saying before about it not being realistic for Obama to completely abandon Mubarak in public speeches, but how the US can still play a positive role in helping the Egyptians make real gains in democratic change in their country.

nimn, you remind me of Lloyd bridges in Airplane! , picked a wrong week to self ban.

Yeah, if Egyptians could own guns the Coptic Christians would be armed to the teeth. The only thing that would unite the army, the Muslim Brotherhood, the protesters, and the regime would be putting down a secessionist revolt by infidels.

This isn't one of the "revolutions" USA has been staging around the world for decades, it's a genuine real full blown revolt of citizens that are fed up with tyranny.
A beautiful thing to see and about time.

If Mubarak stays stuborn and doesn't wake up he will end up like Chaushesku in the 80's.
He should run while he still can.

This is insane.

Ben Bernanke did this.

And USA is really afraid that radical Moslems will come to power in Egypt. Mubarak was considered as an ally. But Bernanke can not stop printing money. As a result all commodity prices rise (oil, food). And poor people become poorer.

Protests were inevitable but Bernanke thinks only about his narrow interests
"Bernanke, when questioned about taxation policy, said that it was none of his business, his exclusive remit being monetary policy, and said that fiscal policy and wider society related issues were what politicians were for and got elected for."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Ber...Economic_views

So if he continues printing money not thinking about consequences revolutions will happen all over the world.

lol