If I Were the Germans, I Wouldn’t Be Sending Old Girl Back…
Mubarak is going! Mubarak is going!
…According to an earlier debkafile report, Egyptian and Arabic internet sites were reporting Wednesday that Hosni Mubarak’s son and chosen successor as Egyptian president secretly took himself and family out of the country Tuesday by way of the military airfield in West Cairo at the peak of anti-government riots in Egyptian cities.
Twitter also carried an unconfirmed report that Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt’s first lady, was identified by airport workers on arrival at Heathrow airport, London. No source was cited.
If confirmed, Gemal Mubarak’s defection would attest to deep cracks in the 82-year old president’s regime, the reverse of the prevailing view in the West and Israel that the regime is in no danger of being overthrown by the protest movement sweeping the country.
IF Mubarak skeedaddles safely out of Egypt (via Instapundit), who takes over for him? WHO ~ or, God forbid, WHAT ~ fills the void in the interim? Pagan cities of the dead, statues and monuments in the desert? (Untold treasures sitting in the museums in the middle of the city?)
Anything that doesn’t have a Koran in its pocket and a burqua in the dryer better have a boat of reeds at the ready for the exodus, my friends.
As for the “glories” of Egypt’s past, ask the Taliban how Muslim fundamentalists handle those heretical building blocks. What’s one more crater in the sand?
Or the storied plains of Egypt filled with them.
Humanity...or the Lack Thereof, World Stuff | tree hugging sister | 
January 26, 2011 1:05 pm
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Look on the bright side – that’s 3 bil in International Bribes we no longer would have to pay.
I don’t know that it follows that the Islamic terrorists will take over. Since I can’t do anything else, and our communist president is likely uninterested in good government there, we can hope that the Egyptian people will do what is right.
Because we won’t be able to do anything else.
Maybe not Islamic terrorists per say but a good chance Islamic fundamentalists will. The Taliban weren’t a terrorist group when they were blowing up ancient Buddhist monuments because they considered them idolatry. It’s not a stretch to think that if fundamentalists got control of Egypt they would destroy their antiquities. It would be stupid and tragic as it would cripple the tourist trade but look who we’re talking about.
I don’t think you will have much of a tourist trade even if the fundies dust the antiquities every day and pat them on the head each night before prayers.
The whole area is beginning to unravel and there is not an adult in sight. Maybe Mr. Smart Diplomacy can get over there and do Cairo-2. That should help. To borrow from an economics term, the inelasticity of command.
“Miss me yet?” I’m certainly beginning to.
I wasn’t even thinking in terms of tourists, Yo. Just the incredible cultural wealth of the various civilizations that have risen and flourished in the Nile Valley staggers the imagination.
I just see some mysogynist asshole taking a hammer to Nefertiti, then Tut’s funerary dishes, and then going home to beat his 13 year old wife.
Oh I couldn’t agree more, THS. That would be a tragedy beyond words. My point was that even under the most benign of circumstances that place would be closed to tourism. No matter what faction/sect/whatever that prevailed wouldn’t be pro-western.
Sis, I think that the ruins of yet another civilization are about to be left in the Nile Valley.
Let’s just hope that the decay doesn’t spread too far from there.
I remember how the Greeks complained about the British having the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. But if they’d been left in Greece, they would have been looted and destroyed, lost to the world forever. No way should Germany return the Nefertiti bust. These treasures belong to all humanity, not the current government of the geographical area where they were produced 1000s of years ago.
How can they allow him to leave the country? Instead of being held responsible for the situation in his own country he is travelling around the world without any problem just as the Tunisian president did a few days ago.
Oh, I dunno about that. The Sandmonkey’s involved and that young man ain’t no Islamist. Tends a bit anti-islamist, in fact.