This trial of Mubarak has done one thing, it as ensured that no other Middle East dictator will step down peacefully. Anyone who does not think that Assad is looking at what is happening to Mubarak and saying to himself why would I ever step aside is completely naive. If the ruler knows that if they step aside they will be out on trial an executed what incentive do they have to step aside. This was a huge mistake. Mubarak was not a monster and not a brutal ruler. In fact by Arab standards he was a fairly moderate, fair minded ruler. The fact that he outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood was because he did not want to see the religious intolerance and the violence that goes along with it tear Egypt apart. It as not about preventing anyone from worshiping their faith as under Mubarak all Egyptians were free to worship as they wished. What was bout was keeping a radical political organization from fomenting unrest and tearing apart the country with false promises and extreme interpretations of Islam. I think that if you took a poll of Egyptians today most would agree that their lives were far better under Mubarak than they are today. They would also tell you that Egypt was a far safer and more peaceful and prosperous place under Mubarak than it is today. This trial was a huge mistake and has lead to the violence in Syria caused by Assad trying to hang on to power in order to avoid the same fate. Unlike some other brutal dictators who truly did deserve to be tried for their crimes, Mubarak was actually doing what he thought was best for his country, not just himself personally. His attempt to put down the rebellion was because he recognized who was behind it and did not want to see his country fall into the hands out Islamic fanatics, not because he was trying to repress the people as a whole. Mubarak should have been allowed to either quietly drift off into obscurity or, if they wanted him out of Egypt, to self exile himself to another country to live out his years.

Hussein was a criminal, Gaddaffi was a criminal, Assad is a criminal and will end up like the other two. I agree on Mubarak. Being a leader of a country whose population has a heavy concentration of Islamists, Muslim, Brotherhood, etc, is not an easy job. He did his best for his people.

Notice how Obama distanced himself from Mubarak, with whom he broke bread more than once. Obama abandons all his former cronies when it is not PC or go good for his campaign, like Reverend Wright.

I do feel bad for Mubarak, and the Egyptian people.

Feel sorry for Mubarak? Phht. Make me sick. Do you know how many people were tortured by his regime? We dealt with him as the lesser of two evils, but when the people rose up we supported the right side this time. Good riddance to Mubarak and his corrupt cronies.

Will you still see it as the right move if the Brotherhood wins and establishes what is essentially a Sunni version of Iran with no rights for minorities or women and every officeholder vetted to see if they are "Islamic" enough, and a hotbed of anti-Western activity, only far closer to the West?

The Kent State massacre involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

President Nixon got re-elected two years later. Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes got re-elected four years later.

Suck it up Egypt.

Would Nixon have gone away when he did if he thought that he was going to prison? One wonders if he didn't at least have some inkling that he would not, if not an out-and-out deal. As bad as many people thought that it was at the time, it was probably less damaging that way (not good for the Jerry Ford political career) than if the U.S. had gone through something similar. Think that it would've tanked the economy, which was already poor at the time (but not as bad as now). Sometimes you have to let the guilty get away for the greater good. (Guess people weren't too crushed by the massacre since Rhodes got elected to another term, eh?)

Let's examine what the results really are...

The judge convicted Mubarek. He stated that he was finding him guilty in spite of not having been shown any evidence of guilt. This was because Mubarek 'did nothing to stop the violence'. So justice in Egypt means that you can be found guilty in spite of there being no evidence of your guilt.

And the people think that the justices are corrupt? They well may be, but they are corrupt on the protesters side. And the protesters want those found innocent to be tried again - and this time to be convicted. Again - Egyptian justice on display. Being innocent is not a reason for not being convicted and killed.

So the new Egyptian government starts by condemning an innocent 80 year old to prison. With this type of justice, the USA should stop funding the new Islamic Fundamentalist dictatorship in Egypt.

We should not have stopped Israel from invading Cairo back 40+ years ago. If this country would have been a conquered nation under Israeli rule, none of this 'third world justice' would have happened.

Learn what? How to convict people, the evidence notwithstanding? How to demand "double jeopardy"? How to end the idea of women's or minority rights?

bicfj

Good for the Egyptians.

In Tahrir Square they have created a real democracy with real activism.

No they haven't, at least not yet. When someone gets elected by the majority in a democracy, we don't go into revolution mode, we cope with it until the next elections.

We could learn from them.

Yeah right.

The corruption charges against his family got lost in the wash. How are the Egyptian government ever going to get title to all those expensive luxury pads all over the West?

This is the key issue in such a situation. If someone thinks he is going to be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for his acts as head of state after stepping down, he is unlikely to do so peacefully. However, what message is sent if you can do anything to your people with impunity? That, too, says that you can do whatever you feel is necessary to maintain your power.

It's pretty easy to act old, sick, and feeble when you're his age. I'm sure his life will hardly be like that of the general prison population and that his sentence will be commuted to "house arrest" when and if they think that they can get away with that without sparking a second revolution or at least extremely violent protests.

Thank God we don't do that to our presidents, but I guess if you like that kind of stuff you could always go live in Egypt, Syria, or other similar countries.

And how is this great news anyway? the man stepped down voluntarily, contrary to Ghadafi, Assad, and many others. And you wonder why dictators don't step down ...

PSHCheesehead,

How about 25 years counted as life for President Obama for his role in setting up the no-fly zone in Syria where the NATO bombed that tiny country back to the stone age, and killing thousands of innocent and not innocent Libyans in the process?

He also could not plead innocence to the crime of summary killing of the captured Muammar Gaddafi, as those responsible for Gaddafi's death became victorious because of NATO's round-the-clock bombing as ordered by Obama.

Have you forgotten President Obama's tireless campaign to convince the world that unless something was done, and done quickly, 70,000 Eastern Libyans will be massacred ifGadafi carried out his threat to search door-to-door for his opponents?

Pat Buchanan (of Morning Jo fame) dismissed Obama's warning as speculation, saying: "..even after 6 months of see-sawing battles, there was no reports of massacres by Gaddafi or his loyalist troops; and most, if not all, western reporters on the ground are anti-Gaddafi, or pro-the-rebels."

NATO as of 6/4/2012 hasn't bombed one square inch of Syria, let alone "back to the Stone Age", so your statement is ludicrous; it appears as if you don't know Syria from Libyia, which is ironic given your "handle". And don't get me wrong, I hope that we don't, I don't see our compelling national interest. Qadhaffi just got his payback for all of his years of anti-Western actions and agitation; while Bashir has been a constant disappointment to the West, given his London education, what has he ever really done to us as opposed to Lebanon and Israel? What guarantee do we have that his would-be successors would be any more in our interest? How can we be reasonably sure that they aren't Sunni extremists interested in setting up essentially a Sunni version of Iran as opposed to the fact that Alawites, as a relatively tiny minority themselves, have always been at least somewhat sensitive to the concept of minority religious rights?

Under Nasser, Egypt and Syria merged into the United Arab Republic in 1958. By 1961, Syria figured out that they would always be the (very) junior partner in this relationship and opted out, although Egypt retained the "U.A.R." name for years afterwards, and there were some attempts at co-ordination in the runup to the Six Day War with Israel in 1967. I think that the Egypt-Israel treaty really hurt their relations afterwards, because it resulted, eventually, in Egypt getting all of its former territory in the Sinai back whereas Israel still occupies the Golan Heights till now.

It will improve immensely next week. I'm arriving in Cairo on the 6th. Their problems are solved!!!

Investment opportunity? Employment? Surely you didn't just happen to pick now to see the pyramids!

Uh, Hussein built a genocidal campaign against the Kurds and at least 200,000 were slaughtered. He invaded an innocent, sovereign neighbor (Kuwait) "just because". And I could go on. Furthermore, Bush had vast international support to go into Iraq, as well as congressional approval by a vast majority. Get your priorities strait, and stop being selective about what historical facts you choose to consider before making dumb comments based on ignorance and unwarranted hatred.

Mike:

Love your brother Alan's movies. Watch them all of the time. He is a GENIUS! ;-)