This is the spin planned for the papers tomorrow, crowds with honest disagreement "clash," so pols can call for "calm" and imply Mubarak has significant support. Thank God for Kristoff this needs to be all over the web today ahead of the news cycle to expose the lie.
The New York Times' incredibly courageous Nicholas Kristoff is bearing witness to what the Egyptian protesters already know and are telling the world, that the "pro-Mubarak" crowds attacking peaceful protesters are government-sponsored thugs. I am so goddamned proud to be his mere Facebook friend that my eyes are a bit moist right now.
He just posted at his Facebook:
I was in Tahrir today, and I must say that "clashes" is the wrong word for what happened. This was a violent government-sponsored crackdown using thugs.
Turning to Nick's blog he reports:
Today President Mubarak seems to have decided to crack down on the democracy movement, using not police or army troops but rather mobs of hoodlums and thugs...
I’ve been spending hours on Tahrir today, and it is absurd to think of this as simply "clashes" between two rival groups. The pro-democracy protesters are unarmed and have been peaceful at every step. But the pro-Mubarak thugs are arriving in buses and are armed — and they’re using their weapons.
In my area of Tahrir, the thugs were armed with machetes, straight razors, clubs and stones. And they all had the same chants, the same slogans and the same hostility to journalists. They clearly had been organized and briefed. So the idea that this is some spontaneous outpouring of pro-Mubarak supporters, both in Cairo and in Alexandria, who happen to end up clashing with other side — that is preposterous.
The army from all reports is standing by doing nothing, and indeed letting the hoodlums through, a move which now implicitly sides them with Mubarak.
AP 20 minutes ago:
"Why don't you protect us?" some shouted at soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home. "The army is neglectful. They let them in," said Emad Nafa, a 52-year-old among the protesters, who for days had showered the military with love for its neutral stance.
In this police state the security forces outnumber the regular army 2 to 1, so there it's a safe bet that Mubarak has instructed his police to take off their uniforms.
ABC News 2 hours ago:
"Members of security forces dressed in plain clothes and a number of thugs have stormed Tahrir Square," three opposition groups said in a statement.
Protesters saying they should have stormed the presidential palace yesterday and driven Mubarak out, gotten it over with. This is what comes of the US buying Mubarak more time, this is how he "leads" an "orderly transition."
The lifeline of the Mubarak regime, the $1.5 billion in US military assistance, has yet to be revoked by the Obama administration, and is now your tax dollars at work on the streets of Egypt.
Michael Scheuer, former head of the Bin Laden unit at the CIA and outspoken critic of US Middle Eastern policy, wrote of the contradiction between our purported values and our support of Middle Eastern regimes like Mubarak's, in "Imperial Hubris":
We have nothing in common with the regimes; the tie is based overwhelmingly on the West's obsession with cheap oil. Break the link and we are free of associations that earn us only hatred and violence in the Muslim world.
Please call your own congressmembers now if you desire to take any action in support of the Egyptian people. The military must receive an unambiguous message on where the US, and the American people, stand: NO MORE MILITARY ASSISTANCE TO MUBARAK GOVERNMENT, MUBARAK OUT. Aid to Mubarak is delivered in installments. The next one is coming up.
Capitol switchboard, US Congress (operator will connect to proper office upon giving zip code):
202-224-3121
The White House
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Democratic Members of Senate Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, which must approve appropriations to Mubarak government:
UPDATE- A DailyKos commenter brings to light what is alleged to be a police ID captured from a pro-Mubarak thug by anti-government protesters. This is the first physical evidence I have seen which buttresses Nicholas Kristoff's report that the attackers are on the government payroll, either criminals released and paid to commit violence or police forces out of uniform. Since the security forces outnumber the regular army 2 to 1 they easily have the numbers to make up the size of the pro-government contingents being reported. Image here, with requested Arabic speaker commentary from Facebook.
Larger:
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/...
Facebook Arabic-speakers:
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can't see what it actually says, but it is a police id card of egypt, and those can't be tampered easily...
6 minutes ago · LikeUnlike
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Well, on the right-hand side you see the number, his name etc. The left-side is unreadable, but he certainly wears a police-type cap, that's not a regular civilian ID. Also it seems that one of the categories says: Raqm al-Shurta (Number of police), but I'm not completely sure because of the blurriness of the picture.
UPDATE 2: Translation reads: "- The Arab republic of Egypt The Interior Ministry Police Number 2003/1/3//2003/0007503 Department General Sub-division/22 Name Kareem Ahmed Al-Sayed Ahmed Card Number (blurred, maybe 1501120) civil file m/al-qanater al-khayria/ (unclear) expiry date 2012/03/01 Below picture: director of general directory of (unclear) (signature) Lewa (police rank) Mr Mohammed Saleh"
Subject is an officer.