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Why Did Mubarak's Thugs Ride In On Camels?
The photos of Mubarak's thugs riding in on camels to attack the peaceful protesters with whips is getting worldwide attention:
As CNN notes:
All
at once, about 50 or 60 people carrying clubs and riding horses and
camels charged into the square, beating some protesters. At least one
man was pulled off his horse and beaten.
As a FoxNews blogger writes:
Just seen guys racing in on camels into Tahrir square to join the protests. Amazing sight.
But
the situation is getting very tense. Aggressive pro-Mubarak supporters,
some seemingly organized by the government, are driving into the square
and coming face-to-face with angry anti-regime protesters.The
pro-government groups are much smaller than those calling for change,
who gather in large clusters of 500 or more and then stream endlessly
into the square.
Given that a CNN news crew was attacked, and Anderson Cooper was punched in the head 10 times by pro-Mubarak forces (and see this), it is safe to say that the anti-democracy thugs were not trying to be subtle.
Instead, it is obvious that they were trying to make a statement.
The statement is that there will be chaos unless the protesters go home and agree to let Mubarak stay in power, at least until September's elections.
Indeed, the guy riding on a camel has a very Arab-looking headscarf, and a wildly bright and eye-catching orange camel blanket.
That's a "look at me" get-up if there ever was one.
But why camels - a uniquely Arab symbol? And why such blatantly Arab looking head-covering?
Well, pictures of millions of peaceful protesters wearing largely Western clothing is a universal image of people power.
Mubarak and his backers couldn't have that, could they?
Instead, most Western media is now showing the camel shots and saying "Pro- and Anti-Mubarak forces clash", without providing any explanation that the pro-Mubark forces did all of the attacking.
Moreover, many consumers of Western news will see the camel pictures and think to themselves:
There go those camel jockeys again.
("Camel jockey" is a racist slur for Arabs used by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and their ilk.)
In
other words, people who get their news from Limbaugh, Coulter, Fox News
and the like will see the pictures and decide that the entire Egyptian
struggle for freedom can be written off as dusky Arabs fighting other
dusky Arabs.
Maybe I'm taking it too far. Maybe there wasn't a decision to use propaganda in such a scripted manner.
But
- at the very least - it is important to understand how these images
will be interpreted by many busy people in the West who have no time to
learn the facts.
- advertisements -
winner!
a lot more than one guy was pulled off of his horse and beaten. They caught a lot of them and gave them all a serious beat down. Now they are prisoners of the resistance, good for exchange later on.
I can think of few vehicles more vulnerable to an tight, angry mob than a camel.
Good point. So long as you feed them the camels don't care who holds them, and yes they get a good price down at the market on Sunday.
Of course the guys that were riding them are dog food now.
Maybe riding camels through the crowd is the equivalent of streaking across our baseball field to get a little camera time.
I saw a video clip of people confronting CNN's Christiane Amanpourrrrrrrrrrr and running her out of the square saying they hate America. She is such a sniveling apologist elitist putz. I found it funny.
Now, for Egyptians, is a turning point. They could see improvement in representative democracy or they could be coopted by the radical muslims pulling the strings. they may be jumping out of the dictator pan into the radical muslim fire. I hope not for their sake but they better be careful. As we learned from Obama that "change" itself is neutral, don't hope for change cuz you could be getting change for the WORSE.
If Amanpour is "an elitest" then what is Limbaugh, since he makes about 100 x the salary?
WTF, where is there any evidence of the fundamentalists "pulling the strings"?
What is your definiton of a radical muslim? Someone who wants what is right for his country? The world does not need to worry about this thing called radical islam. that is something the zionist made up for us to worry about as our new boogie men.
Huh? Most people there want to work and provide for their families. They want more freedom by ousting Mubarak. The risk is radical muslims coopt the process and fill the vacuum with something even worse.
so to you ,a radical muslim is anyone who is a rabid nationalist and who wants to put the needs and desires of his country above the needs and desires of israhole? yeh i get what you mean. a radical muslim is anyone who is against the zionist world machine. that is what that means. you can bet on that.
You have a comprehension problem if you read me generalizing all to be radicals. Nothing of the sort.
That's the line of shit the Fox Codgers are being sold - that the Muslim Brotherhood == AQ.
The argument seems to be that the battered woman and her children are better off staying with the drunk old man because they've never lived on their own before.
The Muslim Brotherhood predates AQ by a a whole bunch of decades. It, like AQ, is also a very bad thing for freedom and prosperity, being based on Islam, which in arabic means literally "submission." I.E. totalitarian theocracy in all spheres, political, economic, personal, and family...oh, and spiritual. It turns out Islam is also a religion. As to the results of Islam, this being a financial blog, you'd think the system ought to be an object of derision if only for that one aspect of it, that it generates grinding poverty, prevents capital formation, and so on.
two humped camel... wow...or am i imagining things...pity they didn't lasso them off it
Easy now, don't descend into polar distractions of left versus right.
It's been pretty clear to me watching Aljazeera what is going on.
And if CNN reported what you said above, the message is getting out.
Don't assume that Limbaugh and Colter are callous to the Egyptian people or Democracy in the Arab world - that would be a generalization (unless there is something specific).
Thugs those men are, and if Mubarak had any guts he would have stepped down two days ago. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Pride comes before the fall.
Mubarak said "I will die on Egyptian soil" and there are likely many Egyptians saying "Yes, you will."
Limbaugh and Colter only care about the wants and needs of Israhole.
Wake up: They only care about the wants and needs of their wallets.
I was in Egypt 20 years ago and you could see a lot of camels. But when I was there a few months ago you couldn't hardly find one. The person I went to dinner with never saw a camel. So we asked the taxi driver to take us where we could see a camel. He took us to a shack on the side of the road with a pit out back. The pit had strips of meat hanging from wires, over hot coals. "Camel" said the taxi driver.
Implying something? You betcha.
There are lot of Egyptians thinking that thought right now. They have a lot of history to work from, not all of it great.
Egyptian civilization has more than once vanished into the desert.
Will the public notice the foreshadowing? Or will they gaze dreamily at Danzig with the Starz?
You're not going to believe this...and I mean that !
http://fedupmontrealer.blogspot.com/2011/02/itanimulli.html
Implies that Illuminati = NSA ...at least backwards!