Denial Really Is A River In Egypt

Lot of stuff this morning on Egypt to discuss.  First, President Obama has made his official statement on the matter, saying "All governments must maintain power through consent, not coercion."



Second, a report from the UK's Telegraph newspaper indicates America has been secretly backing regime change in Egypt for the last three years as part of the trove of WikiLeaks State Department cables.

In a secret diplomatic dispatch, sent on December 30 2008, Margaret Scobey, the US Ambassador to Cairo, recorded that opposition groups had allegedly drawn up secret plans for “regime change” to take place before elections, scheduled for September this year.

The memo, which Ambassador Scobey sent to the US Secretary of State in Washington DC, was marked “confidential” and headed: “April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt.”

It said the activist claimed “several opposition forces” had “agreed to support an unwritten plan for a transition to a parliamentary democracy, involving a weakened presidency and an empowered prime minister and parliament, before the scheduled 2011 presidential elections”. The embassy’s source said the plan was “so sensitive it cannot be written down”.

Ambassador Scobey questioned whether such an “unrealistic” plot could work, or ever even existed. However, the documents showed that the activist had been approached by US diplomats and received extensive support for his pro-democracy campaign from officials in Washington. The embassy helped the campaigner attend a “summit” for youth activists in New York, which was organised by the US State Department.

Cairo embassy officials warned Washington that the activist’s identity must be kept secret because he could face “retribution” when he returned to Egypt. He had already allegedly been tortured for three days by Egyptian state security after he was arrested for taking part in a protest some years earlier.

Finally, protests continue today as demonstrators are not happy at all with Mubarak remaining in power in any way.

Thousands of anti-government protesters clashed with police in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria on Saturday after President Hosni Mubarak spurned demands that he end his 30-year authoritarian rule.

A Reuters witness said police used teargas and live ammunition against demonstrators in Alexandria. Protesters also gathered on a main square in the capital Cairo in defiance of military orders for them to disperse.

The fresh unrest broke out as Mubarak clung to power, replacing his cabinet in an effort to appease angry Egyptians, complaining about poverty, corruption and unemployment.

The president ordered troops and tanks into Cairo and other cities overnight and imposed a curfew in an attempt to quell the protests that have shaken the Arab world's most populous nation, a key U.S. ally, to the core.

Despite dozens of deaths in clashes on Friday, Egyptians said they would press on with protests until Mubarak quits.

"We are not demanding a change of cabinet, we want them all to leave, Mubarak before anyone else," said Saad Mohammed, a 45-year-old welder who was among about 2,000 people gathered in Cairo's central Tahrir Square.

Needless to say, things are getting deadly and quite serious in Egypt this weekend.  I'll continue to keep an eye on the news.