Go Down, Pharaoh

Go Down, Pharaoh

By Jesse Walker
Reason.com
Published: February 4, 2011

What a pathetic old brute Hosni Mubarak has become. Here he is telling ABC that he'd love to give up power, really he would, but he's afraid Egypt would collapse into chaos without his steady hand at the wheel. Meanwhile, the country has been doing a pretty good job of keeping order while Mubarak's state withers away, as neighbors band together to direct traffic, clean the streets, treat the wounded, and protect lives and property. It's Mubarak and his mobs who have been the fountainhead of chaos: Again and again, protesters have captured a looter, a vandal, or a stone-throwing, machete-wielding goon, only to discover he was carrying police ID. If you're looking for violence on the rebels' side, the worst that you can definitively say is that when Mubarak's heavies attacked the demonstrators camped out in Cairo's Tahrir Square, many of the campers fought back. And can you blame them for that?

Nonetheless, Mubarak is posing as the foe of the disorder he did more than anyone else to unleash. He has also sacked some ministers, promised to leave office later in the year, and detained the chief of the secret police. All this as his allies beat and bully reporters and seize or destroy their equipment. It's a disorienting combination of heavy-handed coercion and tentative concessions.

Continued. . .