To my fellow blogger Pygalgia who at least has a rudimentary understanding of Arabic here is the original link in Arabic:
Friday Lunch Club
Watching the rioting in Cairo last night was an unusual sight. But something struck me as odd. As the crowd of protesters rushed back and forth at each other chanting and throwing molotov cocktails at each other the damage appeared minimal. Nobody was setting buildings on fire. No body in the crowd appeared to have guns except the military and even they weren't firing directly at anyone. As the over night fighting continued into the wee hours until the sun came up this looked more like a school yard fight than a national riot. Yes I realize that several people were killed and many more were injured but this could easily have been a slaughter. For a supposed angry mob the protesters were quite civil in all this as was the military.
More later...
8 comments:
Jeez, doesn't anyone know how to protest/clapdown these days? Mass slaughter, dammit!
Too true Randal, where's Hizzonor Da Mayor when ya need him?
You know the shit's getting serious when granny's toting her rolling-pin.
Great pic Mr DeMeur.
Thanks for the link. Very interesting blog, although I wish that the blogger posted a profile so I could have a better sense of his/her veritas. Quite prolific, if nothing else.
While I am inclined to think that the strategy memo is authentic, there is no verified sourcing so the usual internet caveats should apply.
I have an Egypt post up, if you're interested.
What kind of rioting do you expect in a country where everyone doesn't own semi-automatic firearms with military length clips? Can you imagine this battle fought on the streets of any American city?
Well, I guess that if you're going to have a protest it should be a goofy protest. So the average joe hasn't got much for weapons over there? Well that sucks, pretty hard to take down a government that way.
The Civil War started out in much the same low key manner. The longer it goes on the higher liklihood the violence will step up to new levels. Cooler heads can only keep a lid on this type of crap for so long.
I'm marveling at the same thing. It really flies in the face of neocons' demonization of Muslims as violence-prone.
A newsman on NBC or MSNBC this evening told how, when he was confronted by a group of Mubarak's hired thugs and they were getting violent, protesters surrounded him and told him not to worry. The protesters pushed the thugs out of the way and took the reporter to safety.
I guess it would be hard to fight a battle with computer mice and blackberrys. You could strangle them with the cord but blackberrys would only leave a small mark when hurled.
I think even if Americans didn't have their guns we'd be far more creative with our tactics. Think pipefitters, ironworkers and carpenters armed with nail guns and catapults.
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