Holy cow, Egypt!

[Archangel]

God fucking dammit! I can't beat Marik to anything, not even world news...

Anyway yeah, just saw the news

[rockmanj]

Kind of an interesting piece on this whole thing: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/its-free-b...gypt-protests/

[Kraco]

So, now the country's under a military junta (and the military being heavily influenced and funded by the USA).

[rockmanj]

So, now the country's under a military junta (and the military being heavily influenced and funded by the USA).

Basically...

[poopdeville]

That's actually not a bad thing. The Egyptian military is broken up into two forces: the Egyptian version of the Republican guard (i.e., a paramilitary force loyal to the president) and a normal military force made up of average Egyptians, and loyal to the Egyptian population. There is no "monied military class". The military has sworn to bring real western-style democracy to Egypt. Elections will (probably) be held soon. It might not be as quickly as the protesters want, but it should happen. Mubarak has even stepped down as president.

Iran is shitting their pants right now. Their Republican guard is full of a religious and ethnic minority. The general military is full of conscripted Persians, who strongly dislike the Arab minority in power, and are known to be unwilling to attack Persians (just like the Egyptian military, but even more divided)

Anyway, a military junta is (almost) always "in charge" after a revolution. Somebody has to do the fighting in order to win it.

[Kraco]

So, you are hopeful and think they will go down Turkey's way? The military being enlightened and ensuring undesirable elements won't rise to power using democracy? (I'm, of course, speaking in practical terms here, not in virtuous terms.)

[poopdeville]

Yes, I think so. I think we saw a bit of evidence of that. The military publicly said they would support a free election in September, and apparently pressured Mubarak to leave, privately. Mubarak literally left Egypt. A lovely victory for (mostly) peaceful change. There's still a lot to be done, but I am rooting for the Egyptians.

[Xelbair]

So Egypt will either turn into totalitarian country ruled by military, or a country with fake democracy and a figurative president who will be guided by military. Remember what's important in military - chain of command - so don't expect real democracy even through most soldiers are average Egyptians - top brass will probably try to rule.

[poopdeville]

Or it will turn into a real democracy...

It is not as though the "revolution" is over. It has merely just begun. The UN has already said it will sanction free and fair elections. If they don't happen, the revolution will continue, and the "top brass" will face the same problem Mubarak did: the average soldier won't attack Egyptians over this issue.

Your cynicism doesn't go far enough. The top brass only has power because of the work and fighting ability of the average soldier. A general without an army is just a man in a pretty uniform and stupid hat. Both know this, and the politics of that situation dictate what will happen.

[Kraco]

Since we are talking about a core Islamic country, I would be far more worried about islamists eventually disposing of democracy than the military. Unlike the military, the fundamentalists actually have a way of keeping what they gained for an eternity. It's the very thing the Turkish military always feared and thus toppled governments occasionally, ironically enough gaining disapproval from the old democracies, who apparently would have been happier with another giant theocratic country if it was born democratically - no matter if it's upheld tyrannically like they always are.

Democracy has the great weakness of only continuing as long as everybody (significant) inside it wants it to continue.