People-power topples Egyptian dictator

This is reminiscent of the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines some years ago.  Would that it happened more often, frankly.  Let's all hope it's not a case of:  "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Has there been any mention of the Egyptian people receiving back the $70 billion Mubarek stole?

Live feed of Egyptians celebrating:

 

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Comments

[Hypatia]

The US foreign policy team has not covered itself in glory, I fear. I was particularly distressed by HRC's performance. I love the lady but she displays a certain lack of vision and daring in foreign policy that is sad (and with her vote for the Iraq war, did much to lose her the nomination of her party and the presidency). Of course, Obama has done little better in regard to Egypt and likely McCain would have been worse. Anyway, cheers to the Egyptian people.

[John Petty]

The United States mostly stayed out of it, which seems to have worked pretty well.

As I sometimes point out to people, billions of the world's citizens manage to carry on their lives without thinking much about the United States one way or another.

[Hypatia]

I don't think the US stayed out of it so much as lagged behind events. "Ineffectual" isn't quite the same as "hands off." Stating publicly that Mubarak should go "now" isn't exactly staying out of it, and the US made a choice in not threatening to cut off the money we funnel to the Egyptian army to buy weapons they mostly use on the citizenry. I'm not saying that was the wrong choice, but the US was hardly inactive.

I do feel some sympathy for HRC as it looks as if now that it's mostly over the Administration promptly threw her and Wisner under the bus via the Times. As if Obama has nothing to do with what his SecState and hand-picked envoys say and do.

[John Petty]

Keep in mind that Israel was taking a basically pro-Mubarek stance--weird, kind of, but true.