Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Grimes Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 12:55 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Excellent article on Egypt
``...the Egyptian military has felt collectively a growing sense of national
duty, and has developed a sense of embittered shame for what it considers its neutered masculinity: its sense that it was not standing up for the nation's people. The nationalistic Armed Forces want to restore their honor
and they are disgusted by police corruption and baltagiya brutality. And it seems that the military, now as national capitalists, have seen themselves as the blood rivals of the neoliberal crony capitalists associated with Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal who have privatized anything they can get their hands on and sold the country's assets off to China, the US, and Persian Gulf capital.''
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Yes it is a good article. It explains a lot of what is going on today. The central security stations hiring local gangs to outsource repression and criminal activities goes to explaining who these so-called pro-Mubarak gangs
come from. The current speculation is also that they come from Mubarak's political party whose HQ was burned down. So there are a combination of police, gangs, and political people. One woman in Tahrir said today, these are the elements who are used to intimidate opposition during elections. She
continued, so now you see [what we are up against].
Most of what I watched early this morning (pst) taking place were street battles in afternoon in a narrow side street by the national museum. The army tanks were loosely positioned behind the pro-M lines. Yesterday the army and the anti-M groups were checking ID specifically to prevent what happen today. I've been speculating there is somekind of split in the military.
``Thus we can see why in the first stage of this revolution, on Friday 28 January, we saw a very quick "coup" of the military against the police and Central Security, and disappearance of Gamal Mubarak (the son) and of the detested Interior Minister Habib el-Adly. However the military is also split
by some internal contradictions. Within the Armed Forces there are two elite
sub-branches, the Presidential Guard and the Air Force. These remained closer to Mubarak while the broader military turned against him. This explains why you can had the contradictory display of the General Chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammad Tantawi, wading in among the protesters to show support on 30 January, while at the same time the chief of the Air Force was
named Mubarak's new Prime Minister and sent planes to strafe the same protesters. This also explains why the Presidential Guard protected the Radio/Television Building and fought against protesters on 28 January rather
than siding with them.''
This really helps.
Anyway, during the rock battles one man on the anit-M side said they were trying to stop his side from returning rock battles, just blockaid the street. And that's what I saw later, where they were using sheet metal roofing to block the rocks. (written around 5:00a here)
So this article helps a lot. AJE has pretty much reached its limit of understanding Egypt because they haven't presented enough background. The anchors keep asking the same dumb question, who are the pro-M side? They keep getting the same answer: central security, gangs, political people. Another annoying habit is the anchors keep talking about violence without identifying the source. Part of the problem here is that AJE hasn't seen what looks to me like a titanic version of occupation, like those tiny ones of my past. The dynamics of violence in the occupation side is self-defense.
Throwing rocks has to be part of the tactic if needed, but that is about all. Better is to use numbers to out power the other side. So oddly, the more numbers the less violence. Following that, I hope Tahrir can keep their
numbers high. They need to organize re-enforcements in a recycle system, and
a system to replenish their ad hoc `infrastructure'. I suspect they are doing this, or trying to. They also need to set up their communication system independent of AJE to places, organizations, located away from Tahrir
so they can physically and psychologically support the occupation. This keeps Tahrir from becoming a trap...
In solidarity
CG
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