The sight of POTUS was enough, a lithe, athletic figure by a dumpy little old lady
By Robert Fisk
"......Only when I left did I see the Egyptians behind the police lines, old ladies with birds in wooden cages, a broken cripple with a wooden stick, Dickensian urchins without shoes, scarved girls licking ice-creams. And I began to have my suspicions. These people were no threat to the POTUS and the little American lady. Indeed, I felt sure they would have been grateful for that strong handshake which is so willingly bestowed upon safe, blue-eyed Germans and Brits.
And I rather suspect the POTUS would like to have met these poor people. It was the police who would have disapproved. Not to mention the President of Egypt. So the POTUS had been – to use Churchill's fine description of Lenin as the Germans passed him through their land to infect Russia with Bolshevism – sealed off like a bacillus.
The POTUS wasn't being protected from danger, I was sure. He was being protected from the words these Egyptians might utter, from their views of the Arab world, of Egypt, from their views, perhaps, on the nature of democracy amid all these cops and security lads. They might have spoken of corruption and nepotism and violence. But the POTUS never saw them. Anyway, he had too tight a schedule: there were words to utter across town, about human rights and justice in what he called "the timeless city of Cairo". Timeless yes. And its people silent."
By Robert Fisk
"......Only when I left did I see the Egyptians behind the police lines, old ladies with birds in wooden cages, a broken cripple with a wooden stick, Dickensian urchins without shoes, scarved girls licking ice-creams. And I began to have my suspicions. These people were no threat to the POTUS and the little American lady. Indeed, I felt sure they would have been grateful for that strong handshake which is so willingly bestowed upon safe, blue-eyed Germans and Brits.
And I rather suspect the POTUS would like to have met these poor people. It was the police who would have disapproved. Not to mention the President of Egypt. So the POTUS had been – to use Churchill's fine description of Lenin as the Germans passed him through their land to infect Russia with Bolshevism – sealed off like a bacillus.
The POTUS wasn't being protected from danger, I was sure. He was being protected from the words these Egyptians might utter, from their views of the Arab world, of Egypt, from their views, perhaps, on the nature of democracy amid all these cops and security lads. They might have spoken of corruption and nepotism and violence. But the POTUS never saw them. Anyway, he had too tight a schedule: there were words to utter across town, about human rights and justice in what he called "the timeless city of Cairo". Timeless yes. And its people silent."
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