There was a terrorism 'expert' on Fax who suggested obama keep his mouth shut. LOL!
Posted on 02/02/2011 3:33:17 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
President Mubarak’s supporters have decided to instigate violence against the anti-government protesters. This ugly turn of events underscores why Mubarak must leave sooner rather than later. The longer he hangs on to power, weakened but not gone from the scene, the worse everything in Egypt will be. That is why the Washington Post is right in its editorial criticizing the president’s response last night to Mubarak’s statements as “ambiguous.”
“He said he had told the Egyptian president in a phone call that ‘an orderly transition must be meaningful, must be peaceful, and must begin now’ — but he did not object to the strongman’s plan to remain in office,” according to the Post. “Like Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Obama did not go far enough.”
It’s worth comparing what is happening in Egypt with what happened in the Philippines during the Reagan presidency.
In his book An American Life, Reagan writes about how Ferdinand Marco had stolen an election and that an uprising of Filipinos on behalf of Corazon Aquino, the legitimate winner, was inevitable.
On February 23, Reagan was at Camp David and told that Marcos and a loyal general, Fabian Ver, had amassed a force of tanks and troops to attack army units of two military leaders who had resigned from the Marcos government and given their support to Aquino. Ver’s tanks were turned back by hundreds of thousands of civilians — “but the next time,” Reagan wrote, “the result might be huge casualties.”
Reagan drafted an appeal to Marcos not to use force and attended a meeting in the Situation Room on February 23, 1986. “We agreed that it was inevitable that Marcos would have to give up power,” Reagan wrote. “He no longer had the popular support to remain in office. … Everyone agreed that we had to do everything possible to avoid bloodshed in Manila; we didn’t want to see it come down to a civil war. I also wanted to be sure we did not treat Marcos as shabbily as our country had treated another former ally, the shah of Iran. At the same time, I knew it was important to start off with a good relationship with the new government of the Philippines.”
Reagan’s diary entries from the period are even more interesting. On February 23, the day of the Situation Room meeting, Reagan wrote, “It was a long meeting with no disagreement but lots of frustration. President Marcos is stubborn and refuses to admit he can no longer govern. I made the point that a message from me must appeal to him on the grounds that if there is violence I’ll be helpless to continue support for the Philippines.”
On February 24, Reagan’s diary reads: “The situation in the Philippines is deteriorating. … We’ve agreed that he [Marcos] should be told I’m recommending he step down and we’ll take the lead in negotiating his safety and offering him sanctuary in the US. He says he wants to live out his life in the Philippines. Well, we’ll try to negotiate that.”
On February 25, Reagan’s diary entry reads this way: “The call this morning was at 6:45. President Marcos and his family and close circle I was told are in our Clark Air Force Base.”
Now the situation in Egypt compared with that in the Philippines is different in important respects. Among other things, there was an obvious successor to Marcos, while there’s no obvious successor to Mubarak. And Reagan admitted that he didn’t want to push Marcos too hard. “We should lay down the facts and let [Marcos] make the decision we wanted him to make” is how Reagan put it.
The point is that, within 48 hours of Reagan’s laying down the facts, Marcos was gone. This development wasn’t the result of Reagan’s charm; it was the result of Reagan’s steel.
What happened to Marcos in the Philippines has to be to our goal with Mubarak in Egypt. Time is of the essence. The Egyptian dictator must leave. And it falls on President Obama to do what needs to be done to get him to exit, sooner rather than later, in a matter of hours or days rather than weeks or months. Otherwise Egypt might explode.
If Egypt was 90% or whatever Catholic, no one would really worry
An immediate step down by Marcos was an acknowledgment that Aquino (sp?) had won the election - and a tyrant gave way to a democratically elected government.
An immediate step down of Mubarak would be an acknowledgment that the Jihadists had won through demonstrations and the Wests aversion to violence against mobs in the street - and a secular tyrant will give way to a Islamic tyrant.
Hardly analogous. The Philippines still is, and will remain, a US ally. Egypt is a beneficiary of our aid and sometimes a cooperative partner. The MB Egypt will be a belligerent exporter of jihad and anti-Americanism.
The two situations are entirely different though. The writer implies that Obama should exactly as Reagan had done, but Egypt is several orders of magnitude more crucial to our immediate interests than were the Phillipines, and there was no reason to believe that an enemy sworn to our destruction waiting to sieze power as soon as Marcos bailed wheras in Egypt we have the MB.
Excellent point.
As for the rest - the “one” is no Reagan. Not even remotely close.
Excellent point.
As for the rest - the “one” is no Reagan. Not even remotely close.
There was a terrorism 'expert' on Fax who suggested obama keep his mouth shut. LOL!
Interesting how the Obamists suddenly want Reagan’s mantle.
The more he is compared to Carter by the conservatives the more Reagan-like he will be portrayed by the media.
I agree. Suggesting the two situations the same primarily ignores the fact that there is no legitimate opposition leader in the wings and secondarily is but an attempt to diminish regional national security interests and throw any concern for stability and the plight of Israel under the bus.
There is no-one in the wings who is our ally, now. If we were to pick a winner, making it clear that our support depended on reciprocal friendliness, then an opposition leader elevated to national leader might feel gratitude for our help. I’m afraid that time is quickly passing, and we have another Iran on our hands.
Carter ii
Carter ii
allmendream is correct sir. I wish I had said it first myself. I will add that we are now a nation of pansies. At every opportunity we achieve peace for our time. We reflexively commit to any Short-term success, even in the face of the decision being a long-term mistake. We prostrate ourselves to avoid the slightest violence even if genocide is the natural consequence.
Devil says: We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds, as liberty is slowly choked to her death.
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