Palestinian Pundit

Suleiman meets with Israeli president Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv, November 2010 [Getty]

On January 29, Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s top spy chief, was anointed vice president by tottering dictator, Hosni Mubarak. By appointing Suleiman, part of a shake-up of the cabinet in an attempt to appease the masses of protesters and retain  his own grip on the presidency, Mubarak has once again shown his knack for devilish shrewdness. Suleiman has long been favoured by the US government for his ardent anti-Islamism, his willingness to talk and act tough on Iran - and he has long been the CIA’s main man in Cairo.


Suleiman the torturer
In October 2001, Habib was seized from a bus by Pakistani security forces. While detained in Pakistan, at the behest of American agents, he was suspended from a hook and electrocuted repeatedly. He was then turned over to the CIA, and in the process of transporting him to Egypt he endured the usual treatment: his clothes were cut off, a suppository was stuffed in his anus, he was put into a diaper - and 'wrapped up like a spring roll'.
In Egypt, as Habib recounts in his memoir, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn’t, he was repeatedly subjected to electric shocks, immersed in water up to his nostrils and beaten. His fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. At one point, his interrogator slapped him so hard that his blindfold was dislodged, revealing the identity of his tormentor: Suleiman.


As people in Egypt and around the world speculate about the fate of the Mubarak regime, one thing should be very clear: Omar Suleiman is not the man to bring democracy to the country. His hands are too dirty, and any 'stability' he might be imagined to bring to the country and the region comes at way too high a price. Hopefully, the Egyptians who are thronging the streets and demanding a new era of freedom will make his removal from power part of their demands, too.

By Eric Margolis

".......This writer reported last April that the US had selected Egypt’s then intelligence chief, Gen. Omar Suleiman, to replace President Mubarak. Washington’s hope was for an orderly transition, but the popular intifada
derailed that plan.

While unsure which way to move for the time being, Washington is hoping that General and now Vice President Suleiman will assume full leadership of Egypt with the backing of the ministers of defense and interior, and senior army generals. While the US clearly wants this outcome, most Egyptians just as clearly do not....."

The Egyptian upsurge: why we never saw it coming

A VERY GOOD PIECE

by Justin Raimondo, February 07, 2011

"The Obama administration has veered all over the map when it comes to the Egyptian uprising, beginning with Vice President Joe Biden declaring his fulsome support for his dear friend Hosni Mubarak, and refusing to characterize him as a dictator. That Obama’s crew were asleep at the wheel – delegating their response to a figure whom no one in Washington takes very seriously – was painfully apparent as the Cairo revolt showed every sign of becoming a full-scale nationwide revolution.

They are being chastised, however gently, for this, but the reality is that their blinkered vision comes with the territory. The Obama-ites, after all, are the inheritors of a global empire, the structure of which was determined long before any of them were born. The idea that they could separate themselves from this context, and see the world objectively, is a hopeful delusion many liberal critics of interventionism continue to entertain. The administration’s awkward stumbling in the face of the Egyptian protests should permanently disabuse them of this notion......

The Obama administration pretends to sympathize with the Egyptian people and the protesters in the streets, but in reality they are appalled – and frightened. The sight of masses of people upending a government friendly to the US has them shaking in their boots. What scares them the most is that they never saw it coming – just as they won’t see it approaching if and when it happens closer to home. They think the repressive apparatus of the State is invincible, and imagine their fortress of power to be impregnable – but so did Mubarak."

Analysis: Since the 1970s, the Brotherhood has tried to position itself as a centrist religious mainstream political movement

By Fawaz A Gerges

".....Since the 1970s, the Brotherhood has tried to position itself as a centrist religious mainstream political movement. It entered the last election against the wishes of other members of the opposition and now has also entered talks with the regime. This is all part of a goal to enter mainstream politics, as the ban remains in place. It is seen by many other members of the opposition as opportunistic and capable of back-door deals. Even with the hated Mubarak regime."

Obama scrambles to limit damage after Frank Wisner makes robust call for Mubarak to remain in place as leader.

By Robert Fisk in Cairo

"Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government.

Mr Wisner's astonishing remarks – "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy" – shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama's judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a "personal capacity". But there is nothing "personal" about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US". Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials – nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent....."

In Tahrir Square, Christians and Muslims link hands in common cause and suspicion of US motives in backing ex-security chief

Chris McGreal in Cairo
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 February 2011

"....Many were wary of the apparent deal being cooked up between Washington and Suleiman, with European backing, for the old regime to oversee the transition to democracy.

"If Mubarak is still president, nothing will happen. If he will leave, then Omar Suleiman, no problem if he meets our demands," said Amr Mahmoud, who has spent 12 days in the square with his wife, Reem. "But Suleiman was part of the old system. We want a new system."

Mahmoud was among many pro-democracy demonstrators suspicious of US backing for Suleiman's plan to control the transition. After all, Suleiman was head of the intelligence services that played a commanding role in suppressing political dissent and free speech.

He also served the US in co-operating with its rendition of alleged terrorists, some of whom were interrogated under torture on behalf of the Americans in Egyptian jails.

"Why does America want to work with this man?" asked Mahmoud. "He has not been good for Egypt. He has not been good for us. He has served Mubarak and he has served America. We do no trust him and if they have chosen him, then we do not trust America. We will stay here until we get what we want."...."

If the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system.

Mark LeVine
Al-Jazeera

"....
A most modern and insane revolt

The following description, I believe, sums up what Egypt faces today as well as, if not better, than most:

"It is not a revolution, not in the literal sense of the term, not a way of standing up and straightening things out. It is the insurrection of men with bare hands who want to lift the fearful weight, the weight of the entire world order that bears down on each of us - but more specifically on them, these ... workers and peasants at the frontiers of empires. It is perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.

One can understand the difficulties facing the politicians. They outline solutions, which are easier to find than people say ... All of them are based on the elimination of the [president]. What is it that the people want? Do they really want nothing more? Everybody is quite aware that they want something completely different. This is why the politicians hesitate to offer them simply that, which is why the situation is at an impasse. Indeed, what place can be given, within the calculations of politics, to such a movement, to a movement through which blows the breath of a religion that speaks less of the hereafter than of the transfiguration of this world?"

The thing is, it was offered not by some astute commentator of the current moment, but rather by the legendary French philosopher Michel Foucault, after his return from Iran....Foucault was roundly criticised by many people after Khomeini hijacked the revolution for not seeing the writing on the wall. But the reality was that, in those heady days where the shackles of oppression were literally being shattered, the writing was not on the wall. Foucault understood that it was precisely a form of "insanity" that was necessary to risk everything for freedom, not just against one's government, but against the global system that has nuzzled him in its bosom for so long......

Mad as hell

Whether Islamist or secularist, any government of "of the people" will turn against the neoliberal economic policies that have enriched regional elites while forcing half or more of the population to live below the $2 per day poverty line. They will refuse to follow the US or Europe's lead in the war on terror if it means the continued large scale presence of foreign troops on the region's soil. They will no longer turn a blind eye, or even support, Israel's occupation and siege across the Occupied Palestinian territories. They will most likely shirk from spending a huge percentage of their national income on bloated militaries and weapons systems that serve to enrich western defence companies and prop up autocratic governments, rather than bringing stability and peace to their countries - and the region as a whole.

They will seek, as China, India and other emerging powers have done, to move the centre of global economic gravity towards their region, whose educated and cheap work forces will further challenge the more expensive but equally stressed workforces of Europe and the United States.

In short, if the revolutions of 2011 succeed, they will force the creation of a very different regional and world system than the one that has dominated the global political economy for decades, especially since the fall of communism.

This system could bring the peace and relative equality that has so long been missing globally - but it will do so in good measure by further eroding the position of the United States and other "developed" or "mature" economies. If Obama, Sarkozy, Merkel and their colleagues don't figure out a way to live with this scenario, while supporting the political and human rights of the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa, they will wind up with an adversary far more cunning and powerful than al-Qa'eda could ever hope to be: more than 300 million newly empowered Arabs who are mad as hell and are not going to take it any more."

Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 6 February 2011

"The greatest danger to the Egyptian revolution and the prospects for a free and independent Egypt emanates not from the "baltagiyya" -- the mercenaries and thugs the regime sent to beat, stone, stab, shoot and kill protestors in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities last week -- but from Washington.

Ever since the Egyptian uprising began on 25 January, the United States government and the Washington establishment that rationalizes its policies have been scared to death of "losing Egypt." What they fear losing is a regime that has consistently ignored the rights and well-being of its people in order to plunder the country and enrich the few who control it, and that has done America's bidding, especially supporting Israel in its oppression and wars against the Palestinians and other Arabs....

By coming to the streets in their millions, by sacrifing the lives of some of their very finest, the Egyptian people have said that they and they alone want to decide their nation's future. Mubarak as a person is already irrelevant. The confrontation is now between the Egyptian people's desire for democracy and self-determination on the one hand, and, on the other, US insistence (along with its clients in Egypt and the region) on continuing the old regime. Let us offer whatever solidarity we can from wherever we are to help the Egyptian people to win."

This is What Omar Suleiman Does to All Prisoners, Egyptians and Palestinians: Electric Shocks TILL DEATH!

"أكد أيمن نوفل القائد في كتائب عز الدين القسام الجناح العسكري لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية (حماس)، أن اعتقاله لدى الأمن المصري لثلاث سنوات كان ورقة ضغط على حركته لإجبارها على تقديم تنازلات.
وكان فلسطينيون معتقلون في السجون المصرية تمكنوا في غمار الثورة الشعبية المصرية من التحرر من الأسر والوصول إلى قطاع غزة كان آخرهم نوفل الذي وصل إلى مسقط رأسه مخيم النصيرات وسط القطاع مساء السبت.
....
تعذيب وحشي
وقال إن "جميع المعتقلين من غزة في سجون مصر تعرضوا لتعذيب شديد باستخدام الكهرباء وشتى أنواع الذل والمهانة على يد المحققين".
....
أرقام لا أسماء
وعن قضية العضو في حماس يوسف أبو زهري وشقيق الناطق باسمها الذي قتل في سجون مصر، قال نوفل "قابلت أحد الشباب الذي كان موجوداً في غرف التحقيق عند الجهاز المركزي لأمن الدولة وهو المسلخ المشهور في مصر وأخبرني بأنه كان يسمع صوت يوسف وهو يعذب بالصعق بالكهرباء".

وقال هذا الشاب وفقا لنوفل "سمعت صرخة الموت وخيّم نوع من السكون على المكان وبدأ المعتقلون في السجن بالبكاء حتى إن أحد المحققين قال لهم أنتم عندي كأرقام، كل واحد له رقم ولا يوجد لكم اسم، وكل واحد يموت أدفنه".
....."

By Helen Warrell and David Blair in London

Financial Times

"Omar Suleiman, the new Egyptian vice-president championed by the Obama administration as central to an orderly transition, is a long-time ally of Washington, whose diplomats have repeatedly dubbed him President Hosni Mubarak’s "consigliere".

Dispatches from the US embassy in Cairo, obtained by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, consistently refer to the one-time general who until recently headed Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, as key to the bilateral relationship.

He is described as a man with "the full confidence of Mubarak" and commended by Margaret Scobey, the current US ambassador, as a "pragmatist with an extremely sharp analytical mind".[and an extremely painful electric shock when he administers it to the genitals of Egyptian prisoners]...."

An American envoy's praise for Mubarak has raised the question once more of what Washington really thinks

By Julian Borger
The Guardian

"Frank Wisner's apparent love song to Hosni Mubarak has left confusion behind him. Speaking on a video link-up from New York to the Munich Security Conference, Barack Obama's special envoy to Egypt veered wildly off-message in seemingly fond remarks about the Egyptian autocrat.....

Telephone conversations with Suleiman in the past 48 hours have given European leaders the impression that the transition is already underway. He has impressed them with a laundry list of planned reforms and his brisk determined manner. European officials believe that power is shifting out of Mubarak's hands, but they cannot be sure.
A lot of options are being discussed. Mubarak could delegate powers while taking sick leave or writing his memoirs in Sharm el-Sheikh, to allow the constitution to be changed. In other words, he would be able to stay in office at least formally. But Wisner's comments will reinforce an impression on the streets of Cairo that Washington's heart really belongs to Mubarak, rather than the Egyptian people."

"Consider President Eisenhower. In 1953, the year before the Brotherhood was outlawed by Nasser, a covert US propaganda program headed by the USInformation Agency brought over three dozen Islamic scholars and civic leaders mostly from Muslim countries for what officially was an academic conference at Princeton University. The real reason behind the meeting was an effort to impress the visitors with America’s spiritual and moral strength, since it was thought that they could influence Muslims’ popular opinion better than their ossified rulers. The ultimate goal was to promote an anti-Communist agenda in these newly independent countries, many of which had Muslim majorities.

One of the leaders, according to Eisenhower’s appointment book, was “The Honorable Saeed Ramahdan, Delegate of the Muslim Brothers.”* The person in question (in more standard romanization, Said Ramadan), was the son-in-law of the Brotherhood’s founder and at the time widely described as the group’s “foreign minister.” (He was also the father of the controversial Swiss scholar of Islam, Tariq Ramadan.) Eisenhower officials knew what they were doing. In the battle against communism, they figured that religion was a force that US could make use of—the Soviet Union was atheist, while the United States supported religious freedom. Central Intelligence Agency analyses of Said Ramadan were quite blunt, calling him a “Phalangist” and a “fascist interested in the grouping of individuals for power.” But the White House went ahead and invited him anyway." By the end of the decade, the CIA was overtly backing Ramadan. While it’s too simple to call him a US agent, in the 1950s and 1960s the United States supported him as he took over a mosque in Munich, kicking out local Muslims to build what would become one of the Brotherhood’s most important centers—a refuge for the beleaguered group during its decades in the wilderness. In the end, the US didn’t reap much for its efforts, as Ramadan was more interested in spreading his Islamist agenda than fighting communism. In later years, he supported the Iranian revolution and likely aided the flight of a pro-Teheran activist who murdered one of the Shah’s diplomats in Washington. Cooperation ebbed and flowed. During the Vietnam War, US attention was focused elsewhere but with the start of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, interest in cultivating Islamists picked up again. That period of backing the mujahedeen— some of whom morphed into al-Qaeda—is well-known, but Washington continued to flirt with Islamists, and especially the Brotherhood."

This brand new poll, already responded to by over 1,500, asks a key question:

Do you support the dialog of the opposition with the Egyptian government while the Mubarak regime persists?

70% said no.

By Robert Fisk

"The old man is going. The resignation last night of the leadership of the ruling Egyptian National Democratic Party – including Hosni Mubarak's son Gamal – will not appease those who want to claw the President down. But they will get their blood. The whole vast edifice of power which the NDP represented in Egypt is now a mere shell, a propaganda poster with nothing behind it.

The sight of Mubarak's delusory new Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq telling Egyptians yesterday that things were "returning to normal" was enough to prove to the protesters in Tahrir Square – 12 days into their mass demand for the exile of the man who has ruled the country for 30 years – that the regime was made of cardboard. When the head of the army's central command personally pleaded with the tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in the square to go home, they simply howled him down........

Hosni Mubarak of Egypt appears to be on the cusp of stage four – the final departure. For 30 years he was the "national hero" – participant in the 1973 war, former head of the Egyptian air force, natural successor to Gamal Abdel Nasser as well as Anwar Sadat – and then, faced with his people's increasing fury at his dictatorial rule, his police state and his torturers and the corruption of his regime, he blamed the dark shadow of the country's fictional enemies (al-Qa'ida, the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Jazeera, CNN, America). We may just have passed the dangerous phase.....

If Mubarak goes today or later this week, Egyptians will debate why it took so long to rid themselves of this tin-pot dictator. The problem was that under the autocrats – Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and whomever Washington blesses next – the Egyptian people skipped two generations of maturity. For the first essential task of a dictator is to "infantilise" his people, to transform them into political six-year-olds, obedient to a patriarchal headmaster. They will be given fake newspapers, fake elections, fake ministers and lots of false promises. If they obey, they might even become one of the fake ministers; if they disobey, they will be beaten up in the local police station, or imprisoned in the Tora jail complex or, if persistently violent, hanged......the dictator had for 30 years also "infantilised" his supposedly mature allies in the West. They bought the line that Mubarak alone remained the iron wall holding back the Islamic tide seeping across Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.......

But Mubarak was not ignorant of the injustice of his regime. He survived by repression and threats and false elections.....

The demonstrators in Cairo and Alexandria and Port Said, of course, are nonetheless entering a period of great fear. Their "Day of Departure" on Friday – predicated on the idea that if they really believed Mubarak would leave last week, he would somehow follow the will of the people – turned yesterday into the "Day of Disillusion". They are now constructing a committee of economists, intellectuals, "honest" politicians to negotiate with Vice-President Omar Suleiman – without apparently realising that Suleiman is the next safe-pair-of-hands general to be approved by the Americans, that Suleiman is a ruthless man who will not hesitate to use the same state security police as Mubarak relied upon to eliminate the state's enemies in Tahrir Square.

Betrayal always follows a successful revolution. And this may yet come to pass. The dark cynicism of the regime remains. Many pro-democracy demonstrators have noticed a strange phenomenon. In the months before the protests broke out on 25 January, a series of attacks on Coptic Christians and their churches spread across Egypt. The Pope called for the protection of Egypt's 10 per cent Christians. The West was appalled. Mubarak blamed it all on the familiar "foreign hand". But then after 25 January, not a hair of a Coptic head has been harmed. Why? Because the perpetrators had other violent missions to perform?

When Mubarak goes, terrible truths will be revealed. The world, as they say, waits. But none wait more attentively, more bravely, more fearfully than the young men and women in Tahrir Square. If they are truly on the edge of victory, they are safe. If they are not, there will come the midnight knock on many a door. "

"....
يبدأ الأبنوبي (30 عاما) ديوانه بمقدمة غير تقليدية لا تقل صدمتها عن عنوان الديوان، حيث يروي قصة أهالي قرية "ملخنا الدكر" والمعاناة التي يواجهونها نتيجة لورم واحمرار "المؤخرة" الناتج عن كثرة ركوب الحمير بدون "بردعة"، وهي قطعة قماش مبطنة تشبه الوسادة توضع على ظهر الحمار لإراحة راكبه، وهي تقابل السرج لدى الخيل.

وتتطور أزمة أهل القرية تطورا تدريجيا في إسقاط أدبي ساخر، خاصة حينما يجمع الأهالي في نهاية القصة على رغبتهم في دخول "البرادعي" -وهو اسم يطلق في الريف المصري على صانع البردعة- الذي يحمل حلم التغيير ويعد بتقديم بردعة لكل مواطن تنهي احمرار المؤخرة إلى الأبد.
.....
وتعتمد القصيدة -في صورة ساخرة وجاذبة- على الحوار القائم بين التلميذ وأستاذه، حيث يقول الأبنوبي -على لسان التلميذ الذي يطلب منه أستاذه إعراب بعض الكلمات ذات الدلالة السياسية- فيجيب بطريقته الخاصة قائلا:

الظلم يا أستاذُ يرفعُ فاعلاً
والفقرُ حالٌ.. والرقابةُ في شخيرْ
والحلمُ في وطني ضميرٌ غائبٌ
والعمرُ أرخصُ فيه من قرصِ الشعيرْ
والعدلُ مات محلُ إعراب له
والحقُ مكسورٌ وليس له نصيرْ
والحرُ مفعولٌ به وبأهله
بين الزنازنِ ما تئنُ له الصدورْ
أما المضافُ فهاربٌ بدمائنا
وأضف إليه نقودنا حتى يطيرْ
والنشلُ بدلٌ من تسولِ عاطلٍ
وموظفٌ صفةٌ لشحاذٍ فقيرْ
أما الجنيهُ فقد تمنعَ صرفُه
واسأل به الجزارَ أو جندَ المرورْ
تعديلُ دستورٍ فهذا مبتدأ
وانشر له خبراً بتوريثٍ مريرْ
أمريكا جارٌ لا تسلني كيف ذا
أما النظامُ فصار مجروراً حقيرْ
...."

Revolutions happen all the time, sometimes they succeed sometimes fail. We have seen example of both recently: Tunisia and Iran. What is happening now in Egypt is monumental on both the regional and the global level. Egypt is the heart of the Arab world and with Egypt out of the Arab/Israeli conflict since Camp David the Arab world has been lifeless, without hope, with one defeat after another (with the exception of Hizbullah's 2 victories over Israel) The entire history of the past 60 years is riding on Egypt and Tahrir Square now. Israel, Obama , EU , Saudi they all know that it is IMPERATIVE to defeat the revolution. They have given up on keeping the Mubarak clan in power for another quarter of a century but they have not given up on preserving the structure, the base and substance of the corrupt regime who gave us the 2 worst Egyptians ever : Hussni and Anwar.

In Order to achieve that goal , Obama and Israel instructed the regime to engage the people into a war of attrition. They are not giving an inch , they are not going anywhere , they are not going to care or cave in to the demands of the 79 Million Egyptians. While slowly weakening the people and terrorizing them and abusing them. The people have exploded and they have marched and they have sacrificed but I am afraid that is not enough. The Army while being "neutral" has done and played a very sinister role : It is helping the regime by containing the people NOT the thugs or the Mukhabarat. The People must realize the Army is not "Neutral" or as the Late Howard Zinn said "You can not be Neutral on a moving Train"... The train is moving and the people must do something different other than march and bleed to death while the filthy regime stays in power. Obviously a peaceful change of power is not going to be an option, which leaves violence as the only means to change the regime. The people are not armed and the only thing they can do is storm the palaces and the residences of the core of the regime that is their only option. Negotiations , waiting for a new core of the Dhubaat Al-Ahrar from the Army to take charge of take the people's side is almost impossible, The west , Obama all they want is to protect Israel and to do that they will sacrifice millions of Egyptians. The People must take the next step, I am afraid if they don't this uprising will be contained and fail.

On the day the people decided to sever their final links with the days of the pharoahs, the rebirth of a nation began

A GOOD COMMENT

Ayman Nour and Wael Nawara
(Ayman Nour, leader of the El Ghad party, was imprisoned in 2005 by President Mubarak and released on health grounds in 2009)

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 5 February 2011

"25 January is a date that will be forever remembered in Egypt. That was the day when the Egyptian people decided to end the country's last pharaonic dynasty with a people's revolution. Egyptians, it seems, were ashamed that Tunisians did it first and were determined to have their revolution too. Young Egyptians joined the "Khaled Saeed" Facebook group to launch the call for an uprising against tyranny, oppression, torture, corruption and injustice. The group was named after a young Egyptian man beaten to death by police.....

New political facts have emerged from this "revolution". The Egyptian people have demonstrated that they may be patient and peaceful to a fault, but they surely know how to make their voices heard at home and around the world. The way these spontaneous demonstrations took place and maintained a unity of demands, despite the blackout on mobile communication and stoppage of internet service, proves that a new collective conscience has been born in Egypt. In fact, Egypt itself has in these last few days been reborn."

US secretary of state stresses need for orderly transition headed by vice-president

Julian Borger in Munich
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 5 February 2011

"The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today signalled how far the US has swung its support behind vice-president Omar Suleiman [Surprise, Surprise!]and the transition process he is leading in Egypt.

Clinton was speaking at a security conference in Munich today, where the watchword on Egypt was the need for orderly transition [ Code language for a silent military coup.].

In her most striking remarks, the US secretary of state said: "There are forces [Such as the vast majority of the Egyptian people?] at work in any society, particularly one that is facing these kind of challenges, that will try to derail or overtake the process to pursue their own agenda, which is why I think it's important to follow the transition process announced by the Egyptian government, actually headed by vice-president Omar Suleiman."

She was presumably referring ito Suleiman's leadership of the transition rather than the government, but US officials have told their European colleagues that they view Suleiman as increasingly in control [with the torture electrodes and a water boarding kit in his hands!] ....."

White House says suspension of $1.3bn in annual aid to Egypt would undermine push towards a post-Mubarak system

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Friday 4 February 2011

"The Obama administration today resisted calls to cut its massive military aid to Egypt and is instead working behind the scenes with the commanders of the country's armed forces on how to oust President Hosni Mubarak.

The White House sees the Egyptian military as the key [Surprise, Surprise! You mean the Obama "man of the people" would be arranging for a military coup? I am shocked, just shocked!] to removing Mubarak, regarded as a necessary first step towards implementing substantive political and economic reforms. Cutting aid would risk alienating them.

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and other senior Pentagon figures have been in regular contact with their Egyptian counterparts all week....

Mullen has been in contact with Lieutenant-General Sami Enan, a national hero in Egypt. Under one of the options being discussed between the US and the Egyptian military, Enan would lead the transitional process along with the new vice-president, Omar Suleiman, the former head of intelligence who is close to the military, as well as Tantawi.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, spoke with Suleiman yesterday......"