Mubarak's gone and I am up ten bucks. Those who doubted my laser-like insight into world affairs are now awestruck and humbled. My supporters rejoice and laud my prescience. My detractors are cowed, licking their wounds in ignominy.
Applying business school case study methodology to the progress of a small bet about current political events sheds some light on rational and irrational thinking. I've been writing this piecemeal over the past few days. As planned, I am releasing this as soon as Mubarak stepped down or I had lost my bet.
My diatribe on the developments in Egypt, Mubarak must go!, got some people going. A cantankerous lodge brother responded.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011 at 15:59
Mubarik[sic] is not going. His military is not going to dump him for fear that the Muslim Brotherhood may fill the leadership vacuum. They will take an anti-American and anti-Israeli stance, and the entire balance of power will shift to what??? More conflict and another possible war with Israel? Will they forfeit American aid money?? Better to stick with a known commodity Mubarik.
I couldn't let that go unchallenged.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011 at 17:14
Wanna bet? Talk to me at lodge tonight. His surname is Mubarak, no "i". (The name is related etymologically to "Barack", our president's given name. It's the same word, but with the prefix "mu", which, as I recall from my study of the Arabic language, means, "the thing that....")
That evening, we got into a heated discussion where I held to my expectation that Mubarak would be gone by the following Saturday, 5 February. He asserted that Mubark would hold on until the scheduled election in September, then step down as promised. We made a wager on the question, with the dividing line for deciding who won or lost set at 15 February, two weeks hence. Once the bet was on, our communication began to reveal exactly why Brother J could see the events transpire as I did, yet come to a completely different prediction about the immediate future.
Wednesday, 2 February 2011 at 20:17
It does not matter how you spell his name. As long as the military is standing behind him, his citizens can wreck the country but he will continue to sit in his comfortable seat of power until his term is up and a peaceful organized election takes place.
J's view of political power had nothing to do with popular sentiment. To him, having some troops with guns and tanks meant that whatever a strongman wants, he gets. Arguably, that been pretty much true, everywhere, in the short term.
It's not true, however, in the long term, anywhere. Revolutions occur when the people are oppressed to the point where an adequate number of people would rather die than continue living as they do. They stand up, demand change, and prudent tyrants hightail it out of town. Those who don't end up like Mussolini, murdered and hung upside down in a public square. I had expected something similar to Tunisia's kleptocrat, who, having bagged up as much gold bullion as he could carry, skedaddled to Saudi Arabia. I also assumed that Mubarak's promise to "die in Egypt" was merely defiant bluster rather than a vow to fight to the death. It seemed more likely that he planned to die in his country, but of old age, comfortably retired to a rural villa after shrewdly stepping down just before an angry mob took him out.
I felt compelled to explain my view to my betting partner at length.
Thursday, 3 February 2011 at 13:35
Stop watching Faux Nooz and switch to MSNBC, or al-Jazeera, which have continuous live video coverage of Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. At lodge, I noticed that you were parroting the hysterical corporatist line that is only being touted on Fox. It's rotting your brain and making you say absurd, ridiculous things. Stop watching them now!
In our discussion Tuesday and just one paragraph, you got several points completely, utterly wrong. I know you heard this crap on Fox, so don't deny it. Here's the scoop.
- No one outside Fox is having a shit fit about the Muslim Brotherhood. Their support in Egypt is about 10%, no more. They haven't even wholeheartedly gotten behind the protests trying to get Mubarak to step down. No one is even touting them as a major player in Egypt after Mubarak. No one cares about the Muslim Brotherhood. Really.They don't run the army, or the government, because those two entities have been working to suppress the MB for a half a century. Let go of the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood is going to take over Egypt if Mubarak leaves. It's just not true.
- The young people in the square are not MB. If anything, they are mostly secular, modern Muslim intellectuals and professionals who don't want the MB to control the country. (The MB is strong only among less educated, more religious people.) When reporters talk to the protesters, they always speak English fairly well and make their wishes known clearly: Mubarak must step down now! They've only had someone from the pro-Mubarak protesters on camera a couple of times and they were both barely able to choke out some anti-American slogans in fractured English. They are not the educated elite of Egypt; the protesters are. Who do you think is going to run things when Mubarak goes?
- The army is not "behind Mubarak" at all. You obviously reject my thesis, which is evidenced by their statements and their generally passive stance for the last few days, that they are neutral in the power struggle. They want to preserve their favored position with the populace at large. They (the generals) are wary that if the people get the idea that the army is "against the people", the mob will start to attack them, and they will be forced to withdraw or do exactly what they have promised not to do, fire on the protesters. Duh. They've got no choice here and they are not going to massacre their own people. Right now, the army is doing its best to prevent the mob from killing the Mubarak goons. There is plenty of evidence to support my contention that the army will shepherd Mubarak out when that becomes the only way to preserve peace. There is absolutely no evidence to support your notion that they are "behind Mubarak" and have any intention of keeping him in power. What is your basis for that idea? It's not based on what you see, objective reality, but perhaps what you want to be. My guess is that you heard it on Fox and are just repeating it. Examining your reasoning before you say anything that silly again.
- It's not the protesters, your "citizens", who are provoking the confrontation and instigating violence; it's Mubarak's secret police and hired thugs. If you had MSNBC on, you could watch what is really happening, in real time. The cameraman is on the balcony of a hotel room overlooking Tahrir Square. It looks like they are about 10 floors up. The protesters are milling around in the square, not attacking anyone or doing anything violent. The Mubarak agitators are between the camera and the square on a raised motorway, overlooking the square, but well below the camera crew. The goons are lighting Molotov cocktails and throwing them down at the protesters. They are also throwing a few to either side of their group to make it look like the two groups are exchanging flaming missiles. They are not. There are no Molotov cocktails coming up from the crowd.
- Mubarak is finished. He's resorting to shameless theatrics to support the pretense of popular support. Yesterday, five minutes after Mubarak finished his speech, organized platoons of secret police agents in plain clothes, supplemented by irregular, civilian goons, got off buses and trucks that had transported them to Tahrir Square and began to march on the protesters and attack them. (Unlike the genuine protesters, they had commercially printed signs, not the hand made placards carried by the real protesters.) They had a few guys on horseback and one on a camel who charged into the crowd of protesters. They rode into the mass of people like Cossacks, whipping at them with their riding crops. Some of them were dragged from the saddle and beaten by the crowds. I'll bet they don't try that again. The thing that convinced me that this is a desperate move by Mubarak is the report that participants in the pro-Mubarak demonstration were paid $8 in cash when they boarded transport to the "spontaneous rally". This is what dictators all over the world do. It's completely staged. Don't be stupid and think that there is any popular support for Mubarak, any at all. The people hate him and want him gone now.
Again, I implore you. Don't watch Faux Nooz; it fills your head with misinformation and leads you to draw weird, stupid conclusions. It also warps your judgment, prompting you to make sucker bets. President Obama is now urging Mubarak to step down immediately and the buzz in Cairo is that a huge rally and protest will occur tomorrow after Friday prayers. They intend to march on the presidential palace and demand his immediate resignation. Remember, my prediction last week was that he would be gone by this Saturday. That's the day after tomorrow, and it's still looking good for that. Our bet is that he would leave before the 15 February. Watch some of al-Jazeera's English coverage, live from Cairo, and weep. You will see how your chances of winning that wager are rapidly dwindling.
I heard Omar Suleiman, Mubarak's torturer-in-chief and recently-appointed vice president, say on al-Jazeera that they were going to investigate who incited the violence yesterday and that he didn't know who was responsible. We all know who ordered the goons in to attack the protesters; he did. This kind of hypocrisy isn't lost on Egyptians. They know who did what and why. Only people who watch and believe the claptrap on fascist propaganda outlets would think that "citizens" were causing the violence.
Of course, you never participated in an anti-war protest during the Vietnam era and don't get the notion of a police riot. That's where armed goons with shields and billy clubs charge into a group of peaceful protesters, beat them into submission, and arrest them for resisting arrest. Later, the fascist news organs report how many protesters were injured or killed in the "riot". They find that one clip of the one guy stupid enough to shove back or take a swing at a cop, then they play it over and over. That's all you see. You don't see the four cops mercilessly pummeling the guy on the ground, Rodney King style, just short of death.
Stop looking at world events through the pinhole of the Republican propaganda machine. If you said what you wrote to me to an Egyptian, he or she would laugh at you, thinking you were joking. No one who has any realistic notion of what's going on there thinks that Mubarak has anyone left who wants him to run the country. Remember, it's not what you want that shapes reality, it's what is. Watch the live coverage and see it.
I thought that would hold J for a while, but I was wrong.
Thursday, 3 February 2011 at 15:00
I do not watch Fox news. Our bet is still on and I am sure that I will be $10.00 RICHER in less than two weeks. You have to have a period of time to organize a fair election. Men have to form their parties and do their speeches and get their funding, and advertise themselves on the media, organize the polling places and etc. etc. September is just about right to do a free and fair election.
What a dreamer J is! He acts as if Egypt were like Sweden or Japan or some other civilized country where civil processes can take shape peacefully. He actually thinks that the Egyptian people will quietly go home and wait for a "fair election" in the fall, even though I gave some good reasons why I was sure they would not. In pondering why he would think that, I realized that he was basing his prediction on his feeling that that's the way it should be! J's normative rather than perception-based reality is unshaken by any line of reasoning that contradicts it. Despite my efforts to explain why I think the people will not be placated, or that the army will not remain loyal to their president, he restates these beliefs as fact and asserts, as a foregone conclusion, that Mubarak will hold power until he wants to relinquish it.
J is oblivious to any news that suggests a result contrary to what he foresees, or wants, which are pretty much the same thing. He doesn't watch or read news that makes him feel uncomfortable, like al-Jazeera or some other independent international news organ that doesn't follow the global corporatist party line. Note that he doesn't contradict anything I say that was instigated by something I saw on such a news source, nor does he even report that he has looked at any of these news sources. He won't and he can't. The idea must make his head hurt. He ignores what I discuss that originated there just as he ignores the sources themselves. If it doesn't fit into his preconceived notions, then it's not real. I've laid out a very detailed set of reasons that suggest Mubarak will be gone soon, but J holds onto his feeling that Mubarak won't go quickly for, as far as I can tell, only two flimsy reasons.
- Mubarak says he won't go.
- The army is loyal to Mubarak. (This is a false premise that J will not discuss even though I have presented several compelling arguments that suggest why is not so.)
J also jumps at the smallest crumb of information that might support his view, while blithely ignoring all other events that occur. Bear in mind that he wrote this to me after about 3000 thugs openly attacked the protesters in an assault executed with military precision, were repulsed, and the army had started to disarm and curb the pro-Mubarak forces while leaving the protesters pretty much alone.
Saturday, 5 February 2011 at 10:02
If you have noticed Mubarak is digging in his heels and is going nowhere. You are out $10.00.
After dinner, he engages in a little premature gloating.
Saturday, 5 February 2011 at 18:01
Your bet with me is looking bad for you and very good for me. With all your superb intelligence, this street boy from Brooklyn is looking better and better as far as interpreting foreign affairs than you with all of your degrees.
I didn't respond only because the time period for the bet had not yet expired. I didn't take this snipe as a personal offense, but I was troubled because I didn't think this bet should be a contest of wills or intellect, which, perhaps, J may even equate. What I was trying to do was see what was actually happening, and predict the likely outcome with better accuracy than news media pundits, whom I largely despise. I was trying to discuss Egypt with as many people as possible and refine my thinking by assimilating new information. Instead, this was turning into a pissing contest. That wasn't my intent.
Above all else, I was trying to engage in reality-based thinking. I was fully prepared to conclude that the Egyptian protesters were setting themselves up to be massacred if it started to look that way. As much as I want them to be free and throw off the chains of oppression, I was resolved not succumb to wishful thinking. Pie in the sky is for tea-baggers and sandal-wearing utopians, not me. I need the cold, hard weight of probabilistic analysis to convince me.
While I am very skeptical about the chance that moral rectitude could easily overcome military force, I was also mindful that, in the end, people with correct, humane, moral thinking eventually prevail over despotic oppressors. Hungarians took a stab at freedom in 1956 and failed. The Czechs and Slovaks got slapped down hard by the Soviet Union in 1966 when they demanded autonomy, but the people in both these countries (now three) eventually got the last laugh when the Soviet Union crumbled and withdrew its forces from its client states in eastern Europe.
The term Realpolitik was coined by German writer and politician Ludwig von Rochau in the 19th century. He intended it to mean being pragmatic and rational, in the sense of dispassionately weighing the import of all forces that operate in society. The most important idea he promulgated, "the law of the strong" (i.e., "might makes right"), has been seized upon in modern times, dubbed "power politics" and mistakenly equated with the notion of Realpolitik as a whole. That's something of a distortion.
The opposite of Realpolitik is what von Rochau saw as the irrational forces in relations within and between nation states throughout history, like differences in language, religion or culture, past conflicts or national hubris. Ludwig rejected basing decisions on factors such as those because doing so leads to failure has little to do with what really controls outcomes. He favored confining one's considerations to what one could rationally deduce as being operative dynamics in the matter at hand.
Regardless of the perfunctory or possibly apocryphal nature of my analysis of von Rochau, it's clear that his thinking was the natural extension to politics of scientific principles put forth during the Age of Reason. He must have thought of himself as something of a physicist of human interaction. Indeed, he even likened his "law of power" to gravity, an inexorable force whose importance cannot be ignored and must not be minimized.
This foregoing digression is intended as an explanation of why I thought, on 30 January, that Hosni Mubarak was dead meat and couldn't last more than a week. It seemed obvious to me that regime change was inevitable anyway, and that popular sentiment was so strong that it had to happen quite soon. The Realpolitik I was groping for is that an overwhelming consensus of national will cannot be denied. It cannot be forestalled or delayed indefinitely, regardless of the "power politics" of a heavily armed police state cadre.
This line of reasoning was bolstered by the position taken early in the uprising by the army. They vowed not to fire on the protesters. I thought that this was a slam dunk for crowds to surround the presidential palace and hoot Mubarak into oblivion.
As it turns out, my thinking contained a major miscalculation. The promise that the military would not directly confront protesters meant more than that there was nothing standing between Mubarak and the people, and that he would be forced out soon. By promising not to shoot anyone, they also gave Mubarak's secret police thugs and political stooges free reign to attack the anti-Mubarak protesters with impunity.
As we saw, organized gangs of professional, paramilitary ass-kickers set upon the crowds of unarmed, peaceful citizens with whips, rocks, truncheons and Molotov cocktails. The real protesters, as opposed to the pro-Mubarak fake protesters attacking them, did the best they could under the circumstances to defend themselves. They desperately tore up and hurled cobblestones, just like the mobs in the French Revolution, which shows how they had not expected to confront a counter mob. They had no other weapons. They had expected their collective will to prevail peacefully, or to die as martyrs. They hadn't planned on, and didn't know how to, duke it out with a bunch of goons.
I was struck by the marked disparity in combat skills between the protesters and Mubarak's thugs. The goons charged in and viciously attacked people. Hundreds were injured. When you watch videos of these clashes, you can easily tell which side is which.
The Mubarak goons are agressive and organized, skillfully inflicting pain on anyone they can get to. Did you see that sortie by men on horseback and one on a camel last week? I watched it several times on al-Jazeera, marveling at the horsemen's ability to whip the people around them at will without being unhorsed and beaten to death. If someone were to try and do that to a large crowd of military people, or even a squad of athletes, you would see something entirely different happen. First, one or more people would grab the bit and reins to stop the horse from moving forward. When a horseman turned to lash people on one side, several others on the other side would haul him down and pound the crap out of him. He would be lucky to survive.
There was a report of one rider being pulled off his horse. I saw one scene where the crowd attacked a lone thug. Maybe that was the unhorsed rider, maybe not. They didn't seem to know how to beat someone up. They were slapping at their victim like babies, apparently having no idea how to throw a punch. The were also trying to beat the man with their fists, but were hammering downward with the bottom of their clenched fists, their strikes pivoting weakly from the elbow. It looked like a fight in a junior high school girls' locker room. They were only able to wail on the guy because there were so many of them and he was trapped under the mass of their weight.
In short, it's clear that the crowd isn't much of a military outfit. I strongly suspect that the pro-Mubarak guys are for the most part. There was a still shot on al-Jazeera of two of the cavalry in the sortie. The leader, the guy in the yellow shirt, is young, strong and buff. He looks tough as hell and appears to be fearless. There's a wild gleam in his eye that portends blood lust. He's clearly in command of the group (tipoff: yellow shirt?), looking all around and assessing the situation and keeping track of his men. My guess is that he's a military officer. He looks like many a swaggering junior officer I encountered bucking to become a major. You don't look like that working behind the counter at the pharamacy. His buddy looks pretty tough, too, but a little older and more cautious. He looks slightly afraid and appears to be trying to make sure that he and his hot-headed superior don't come to harm. This guy is looking only ahead, on guard against danger, and not looking to be a hero, but ready to step up if need be. He looks like every career NCO I ever met in the the army, the U.S. Army, that is, not the Egyptian army. I'll bet those stereotypes hold true in every army, though.
That's the bottom line. The pro-Mubarak protesters were plain clothes military and paramilitary forces whose mission was to hurt people and drive them out of the square. The used every tool and tactic they could to achieve their ends. They didn't shoot guns in Tahrir Square, but riddled the surrounding area with gunfire to intimidate anyone thinking of joining the ant-Mubarak protest. When their efforts fell short, the army eventually kept them at bay and began to work with the protesters to keep secret police infiltrators from getting into the square.
Right after the mounted attack, Suleiman said that he's launching an investigation of the violence to determine how it started and determining who is to blame. Right. Anyone with half a brain in Egypt knows that Suleiman, formerly head of the security forces, sent in the troops. He's not fooling anyone there and that type of mealy-mouthed hypocrisy should be dismissed here as well. He's a liar and everyone knows it.
There was no violence at all until the government's goons showed up, then they blame the violence they initiate and entirely execute by themselves on their victims. I've seen incidents like this before. It closely resembles the antics of the Alameda County Sheriff's riot squad, nicknamed "the blue meanies" for their blue jumpsuits. They used to charge into crowds of Vietnam War protesters on the UC Berkeley campus and elsewhere in the 1960's and 1970's. They came on strong, batons swinging, sometimes wearing gas masks, and beat anyone in their path senseless before other police came in behind them, cuffing and arresting all those unable to flee for, wait for it, resisting arrest and assaulting an officer of the law. Even today, when you tell people about these incidents, they don't fully believe what a police riot is unless they have seen one first hand. If you've watched enough live coverage of Cairo recently, you've seen one.
And now, we get this...
From: V.
Friday, 11 February 2011 at 08:36
Subject: Mubarak resigned
I was six days early in guessing when Mubarak would step down, but my predictive time line played out in real time very closely to the way I called it. We're hearing now that a cabal of military officers went to Mubarak and told him that he had to leave now. That's exactly what I predicted would happen. The moral here is that you don't have to have an advanced degree to be a pundit or a sage. Just read up a little bit on history, pay attention to what's really happening and think about it.