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purejuiceCleaning Tahrir Square
So it is on the BBC and lower down in this story, I predict, where the true source of Mubarak's change of mind from Thursday night's I'm stayin' to Friday noon's skedaddle is touched upon.
It is a split in the generations of the army. The tantalizing possibility is that defense minister Tantawi, 75, who now is in charge of the transition and the country, and his septuagenarian generation of Mubarak cohorts, trained by the Soviets, were outflanked by the sexagenarian, and younger, generation of chief of staff of the armed forces Enan, 63, trained by the Murricans.
Also emerging in this story is the possible actual value of the huge Wikileaks info dump -- an early assessment for the west of Enan as the younger, smarter, second in command.
Tantawi is committed, according to non-Wiki sources, to the status quo, Mubarak, and resisting social, econ, poli, and military reform. Petraeus, via Wikileaks, found him committed to 1967-era loser standards of military preparedness -- ground forces and tanks -- rather than the regional atomic threat of Ahmadinejad, which Enan, seen as brighter and more innovative, is fixated upon. The Wikileaks support Tantawi's authoritarian Mubarak's poodle pronunciamentos.
So now we have the military council, meeting sometime between Mubarak's speech Thursday and his departure at noon on Friday, for only the third time in history. At this meeting there would be Tantawi and Enan both, as the burgeoning and increasingly angry crowds surround and topple the state TV station, which turned in hours from libelling the protesters as foreign agents to interviewing "martyrs", in a bloodless coup, and are said to be marching toward the presidential palace.
Enan has been on the phone to DC, making it clear his troops would not fire on the protesters. As the leader of the army in which every Egyptian man must serve, it is perhaps Enan who understood best that the army must support the people, not Mubarak.
I wonder if it was he who led the split in the army now referred to low down on inside stories, the split which seems to me -- if real -- was the engine both of Mubarak's delusional resistance -- "B-B-but Tantawi's army will support ME" -- and the engine of his final quick despatch -- Enan's army supports, and indeed, is, the people, and fires upon them at its peril.
So it is on the BBC and lower down in this story, I predict, where the true source of Mubarak's change of mind from Thursday night's I'm stayin' to Friday noon's skedaddle is touched upon.
It is a split in the generations of the army. The tantalizing possibility is that defense minister Tantawi, 75, who now is in charge of the transition and the country, and his septuagenarian generation of Mubarak cohorts, trained by the Soviets, were outflanked by the sexagenarian, and younger, generation of chief of staff of the armed forces Enan, 63, trained by the Murricans.
Also emerging in this story is the possible actual value of the huge Wikileaks info dump -- an early assessment for the west of Enan as the younger, smarter, second in command.
Tantawi is committed, according to non-Wiki sources, to the status quo, Mubarak, and resisting social, econ, poli, and military reform. Petraeus, via Wikileaks, found him committed to 1967-era loser standards of military preparedness -- ground forces and tanks -- rather than the regional atomic threat of Ahmadinejad, which Enan, seen as brighter and more innovative, is fixated upon. The Wikileaks support Tantawi's authoritarian Mubarak's poodle pronunciamentos.
So now we have the military council, meeting sometime between Mubarak's speech Thursday and his departure at noon on Friday, for only the third time in history. At this meeting there would be Tantawi and Enan both, as the burgeoning and increasingly angry crowds surround and topple the state TV station, which turned in hours from libelling the protesters as foreign agents to interviewing "martyrs", in a bloodless coup, and are said to be marching toward the presidential palace.
Enan has been on the phone to DC, making it clear his troops would not fire on the protesters. As the leader of the army in which every Egyptian man must serve, it is perhaps Enan who understood best that the army must support the people, not Mubarak.
I wonder if it was he who led the split in the army now referred to low down on inside stories, the split which seems to me -- if real -- was the engine both of Mubarak's delusional resistance -- "B-B-but Tantawi's army will support ME" -- and the engine of his final quick despatch -- Enan's army supports, and indeed, is, the people, and fires upon them at its peril.
