Esam Al-Amin writes:
On Saturday Jan. 29, The National Security Council advised the president to ask Mubarak in no uncertain terms to immediately step down. However, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whom the president consulted, strenuously objected and pleaded for time to allow Mubarak to stay in power at least until he finishes his term in September.
Openly criticizing Obama, former Israeli Defense minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, a longtime friend of Mubarak, said, “I don’t think the Americans understand yet the disaster they have pushed the Middle East into.” The Israeli lobby and Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir went overdrive and intensified their lobbying efforts in Congress in order to exert immense pressure on the administration. Reluctantly, the U.S. president relented.
Meanwhile, the last touches of a crude plan to abort the protests and attack the demonstrators were being finalized in the Interior Ministry. In the mean time, the leaders of the NPD met with the committee of forty, which is a committee of corrupt oligarchs and tycoons, who have taken over major sections of Egypt’s economy in the last decade and are close associates to Jamal Mubarak, the president’s son. The committee included Ahmad Ezz, Ibrahim Kamel, Mohamad Abu el-Enein, Magdy Ashour and others.
Each businessman pledged to recruit as many people from their businesses and industries as well as mobsters and hoodlums known as Baltagies – people who are paid to fight and cause chaos and terror. Abu el-Enein and Kamel pledged to finance the whole operation.Meanwhile,the Interior Minister reconstituted some of the most notorious officers of his secret police to join the counter-revolutionary demonstrators slated for Wednesday, with a specific plan of attack the pro-democracy protesters.
About a dozen security officers, who were to supervise the plan in the field, also recruited former dangerous ex-prisoners who escaped the prison last Saturday, promising them money and presidential pardons against their convictions. This plan was to be executed in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez, Port Said, Damanhour, Asyout, among other cities across Egypt.
RE: “The Israeli lobby and Saudi Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir went overdrive and intensified their lobbying efforts in Congress in order to exert immense pressure on the administration.” – Esam Al-Amin
FROM FIREDOGLAKE: Please sign our petition to Congress to immediately vote to cut off any American military aid to the Egyptian government. – http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/egyptfunding
Perhaps the present regime will usurp the protesters, with the blessing of the U.S. & other western powers, but it too will be short lived. The longer this goes on, the less successful & short lived the regime will be. I read this as the Israeli’s as well as the Saudis seeing that they will be next in line for the same type of events taking place in Egypt today. Unless the Egyptian Army resorts to crushing the protest, then there is no way to stop the changes to come. Last desperate gasps of the old order are being heard, some will perhaps become violent, but that’s already taking place. The saying; “you reap what you sow” has never been more alive than it is today. What these Governments can’t see, is that freedom is universal, not to be only for the few. To keep invoking the boogieman, well, it doesn’t work any more. Change has always come at a price, some peacefully, others through violence. How this will turn out. . . . . . . .?