Monday, February 14, 2011

Mubarak: "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!"

A good read over at the blog of Pater Tenenbrarum, pseudonymous "blogfather" to Mike Shedlock, on the latest capers in Egypt:
One day later – poof! – no more Mubarak. He's gone - and with him, his loot. As some enterprising journalists and bloggers have in the meantime found out (estimates for the total he 'earned' for his family have by now been raised to 'between $62 and $72 billion', which seem nicely spread over all the places where tinpot dictators these days like to keep their plunder), the total amount appropriated by the Mubarak clan is roughly similar to the entire US 'aid' Egypt has received in the period since it has become a US client state, courtesy of unwitting US tax cows.

Phew! What a relief! Dear US tax cows, you may breathe easier now. Your money did not, after all, finance a tyrannical regime of torture and terror. Instead you merely financed Mubarak's personal piggy bank! They did the rest all by themselves. Any disquietude that may have invaded your minds, any slight stirring of the conscience upon hearing that Egypt was not the nice place you thought it was – it can all be safely sent back to the deep slumber it was in previously.

Meanwhile, Egypt's military has taken over the State apparatus in Egypt, has suspended the constitution entirely and is promising elections within six months. We'll see what becomes of that, won't we? As we related previously, the Egyptian army is in the main a business. It runs resorts, it has its fingers in manufacturing, in fact it has business interests all over the show. Whatever happens next, the army will want to protect these interests.
My thoughts exactly. I am glad Robert Wenzel has been working hard to point out to EPJ readers that the fate of the average Egyptian going forward is going to be complicated because they have no real, consistent freedom ideology to replace the power vacuum left by their recently departed strong-arm dictator.

I'm no fan of written constitutions by any means but I find it kind of strange that no one seems all that concerned about the Egyptian army suspending theirs-- wouldn't one be able to accurately call the "anything goes" legal environment that follows such an act a military dictatorship? It's not like the military in Egypt has a monopoly on angelic intentions and kind governance. Mubarak, after all, originally hailed from that storied institution.

As Gob Bluth might say, Egypt appears to be returning from whence it came.

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