New boss same as the old boss?
by David Atkins
plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose:
Egyptian security forces stormed the offices of 17 nonprofit groups around the country on Thursday, including at least three democracy-promotion groups financed by the United States, as part of an investigation that the military rulers say will reveal foreign hands in the recent outbreak of protests.
In Cairo, heavily armed men wearing the black uniforms of the central security police tore through boxes, hauled away files and computers and prevented employees from leaving the offices of the two American groups, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which are affiliated with American political parties and financed by the United States government. The security forces also raided the offices of Washington-based Freedom House.
The raids were a stark escalation in what has appeared to be a campaign by the country’s military rulers to rally support by playing to nationalist and anti-American sentiment here.
The military has the money and guns in Egypt. When the people gathered en masse in Tahrir Square, the military eventually found it more convenient to dump Mubarak than to keep him.
I honestly don’t see how this resolves well. Certainly, history tells us that military juntas do sometimes end without the need for external war, civil war or bloody revolution. But they tend to stay in power for a long time once they’re created, and there’s not a whole lot the people can do about it.
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