Not that I disagree with Mubarak's prosecution and sentence...we would all like corrupt and murderous politicians who get rich off foreign aid meant to improve social conditions and who oppress people for one's own aggrandizement to be exposed and brought legally to account.

But not too long ago, this Mubarak was the U.S.'s BFF. He was almost like family to the Clinton's. Do you believe we were really shocked and surprised to learn of Mubarak's devious corruption? How can we explain giving this guy billions over decades, knowing full well what he was doing with it? Aren't we complicit?

And isn't the same thing going on with Karzai in Afghanistan? With Pakistan? When Afghani's rise up and rail against Karzai, will he suddenly become --surprise!--officially corrupt?

We're bankrolling these corrupt leaders with huge amounts of foreign aid, monies that are denied for our own U.S. citizens in the form of social security, pensions, health care, improved infrastructure.

I don't get this.

Mubarak could have taken that "little pill", as Hitler did, so he will not suffer in prison. He truly loved his Country, the least dangerous of all in the Middle East/N. Africa.

Now America can no longer deal with 1 Dictator in these Regions.

No one would ever know. His life ended when he was pushed out of office. Being removed from Kingship, would kill; his heart wanting to die.

Mubarak. Egyptians/ The Military/Opposers or Protesters did not know how good they had it. The Muslim Brotherhood taking over means Egypt's future could be equal to Syria.

Hitler used toothpaste.

Similar to other friend of US, Shah of Iran, Carter did the same as Obama did to Mubarak. It is really disgusting.

He didn't take billions out of the Egyptian economy. that's just inflamitory rhetoric. Mubarak was dealing with a land of few resources and a lot of population and poverty. With the money he had, he built roads and infrastructure. Egypt has a reasonable road system. He promoted tourism to take in foriegn capital. Mubarak rebuilt the library at Alexandria in honor of the original. Mubarak stayed in power too long, that was his downfall.

The Muslim brotherhood will bring Egypt down to a pithole.

Hammerhead--do you know how much money we gave Egypt over the years? Do you realize it was designed to improve social and economic conditions but that it went instead to Mubarak's swiss bank accounts and other corrupt politicians? People who are content don't simply risk their lives rising up if their leader is doing everything he can to improve the country. I'm sure all those starving people appreciated that he focused so many resources on Alexandria's library.

If Mubarak was being unduly prosecuted, I'd expect his powerful U.S. friends to step in and defend him. But the U.S. sided with the protesters.

Who the Egyptian people elect is their business. They can elect Humpty Dumpty if they wish; it's a sovereign country. I don't see anyone telling us who not to elect.

Keen....The US did not side with the protestors....Obama did though. I dont think that the public would have voted for this to happen or for us to support the radicals there who are coming into power....This is just one more colossal Obama mistake that is detrimental to the world and our country....So many of the leftist sheep just follow Obama and the leftwing press and have labled Mubarak as evil....Unthinking leftist sheep...

KeenInsight

There were no "starving" people in Egypt as you say. The government managed a safetynet food program for the poor, and it worked reasonable well (with some corruption as there always will be). As far as spending money on the very impressive library, Mubarak was building a temple and resource to local education. His contracts paid division laborers and material suppliers and factories money instead of giving it out as welfare which is what you would probably want. He bought books, supported publishers and built a respecable and useful edifice that the Egyptians could be proud of.

Welfare states are money drains, and that was what Mubarak was trying to avoid with his building programs.

Clearly, you've never visited Egypt. The poverty is appalling. Mubarak ruled for 30 years, during which he got richer while the Egyptian people mostly stagnated in their pool of poverty. The only welfare that was going on was with Mubarak, who enriched himself on the coffers of the U.S. and used the funds to build a supportive patronage system. To rhapsodize on the good works of Mubarak is sickening--he was building a legacy for himself alone.

Since the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) took over the reign of power in the country in February of last year promising a transition to democracy, the struggle has been between two conflicting visions for Egypt. The revolutionaries, who comprise large segments of Egyptian society including Islamic and secular groups, aspire to a new democratic Egypt, raising the slogans of freedom, dignity, and social justice. On the other hand those who benefited from the corruption of the Mubarak regime including influential politicians from the now-banned National Democratic Party (NDP), crooked businesspeople, and the beneficiaries of the security state, called in Egypt, the fulool or remnants of the former regime, long for the days when they ruled and ripped off the country with total impunity.

As for those who want to again blame Obama for everything they disagree with, there is a govt and state department in place whose views were well publicized. Obama et al. in fact held back from disdaining Mubarak, much to the dismay of the democracy movement, until Mubarak decided to kill and torture protesters, putting the U.S. in an untenable position.

The only welfare that is going on governmentally in obscene amounts is corporate welfare. And that's shown to be ineffective in producing any jobs, anywhere. Could you be referring to the measly pittance of unemployment benefits that perhaps saves a person from starving death while applying for a job a day? Would you be referring to food stamps that helps keeps kids fed and in school during tough times? Are you referring to a tiny $20 weekly extra from a payroll tax cut that was gulped up by the oil companies in the form of increased gas prices even before it was announced?

Sure, best we keep the foreign welfare going so that leaders like Mubarak and Karzai have a large pension for themselves and their families.

Give me an effin break.

Charles the Hammerhead is correct. Mubarak ruled with an iron fist, but because he knew the instability to the country that the brotherhood would create he stiffled them and stuffed them. Many languished or 'disappeared' into Egyptian prisons. But there WAS stability; and what he showed to the West was someone who compromised, who could lean on some of the palestininan groups and deny their weapon shipments passage through the Sinai from West Africa.

He certainly must have been shocked and sickened when the West turned against him after twenty years of patting him on the back for being in their club, buying Egyptian long-staple cotton by the ton and advocating his country's tourism. I don't think anyone told him that the rules had suddenly changed, but then, it wouldn't be the first time that the West was so fickle after supporting an Egyptian ruler....

JA we must be living in a different country then. In mine everywhere I asked, talked about it, and read about it nearly everyone supported the protestors in over throwing Mubarak, and this was in Arizona. There were thousands of people in the comments sections of the articles supporting or not supporting them.

Just because your personal circle likes dictators does not mean the whole country does.

Geowil...Your problem is that you blindly believe all the propaganda from Obama and his media. Many ppeople questioned his whole middle-eastern policy and attitude and as time goes on they are seeing the proof of the inability of obama to understand even the simplest situations....Anyone who accepts the Obama attutude in relationship to the world is way behind in what is really going on in the world... I believe that we will have no choice other than completely getting out of that area....while watching them kill each other for a generation or two....It has gone past the point that anyone could expect reasonal thought and action in that area.....And, Egypt was one of the more stable progressive countries....and that is over....

It's time we stop putting the blame on Obama. Obama didn't betry Mubarak. He simply supported the idea of 'people's right to choose their government'. Mubarak stayed in power too long and the cronie system began to ossify Egypt. Mubarak himself was not a bad person, nor did he have mal intent for the Egyptians. He loved his country, but as his popularity began to seriously decline, and he was forced to use more drastic measures to hold onto power. But in the end he restrained his hand and abdicated.

If you have a negative view of the boss, try running your own company. The pressures can be huge.

The thing I admire most about the American political structure is that we get to have a peaceful revolution that overthrows the government every 4 to 8 years. people seem satisfied with a power structure that is never set. Mubarak simply lasted in power too long, but he deserves retirement and not prison.

Charles, the whole world watches what the US does and says. Obama did not limit his statements about that area, he openly supported the protestors and the radicals. He encouraged their boldness. They knew that he would not be against them and that possibly he might just bomb and fire rockets as he ordered in Libya. He did come out and support the radicals....He just lied to the american people about it and his actions there. Obama had to know that the radicals and militants would take over any country there if he supported them....They are going to the radicals one country after another...Many of the people there dont like the direction that area is going....but, they are facing that change...or death...

You've got to get over this notion that people do things based on the U.S. You act like President Obama is responsible for the uprising in Egypt! That's a grave insult to the Egyptian democracy movement that planned and persisted in this movement that had been building for years. Whether you like it or not, Egypt is a sovereign nation and Egyptians have a right to choose their own path. It was only when Mubarak started killing and torturing protesters that the U.S. and other countries had to rebuke him. After all, the United States does support human rights in this world. And we do support democracy (ostensibly the reason Bush decided to bomb Iraq to smithereens and take over the country, to give the people a more democratic form of govt).Governments change. Nothing stays the same forever.

JA, you seem to have an inside line on how the president conducts foreign policy and on how Egyptians feel. I suppose the best way to gauge their feelings is to look at how they vote, which they are finally able to do after 30 years of Mubarak's military dictatorship (aka oppression).

But no matter what I or anybody else points out to you, I see you're not letting go of your theory that radicals & militants are taking over the world and that the president is their covert leader.

Blue....Whenever a person mentions "Egyptian democracy movement" I know that you are sold on the Utopia theory or that you just dont have a clue about that area....."The US supports human rights in that area" so apparently you think that human rights are going well in places like Iran...and Iraq before the war and you believe that the new radical movement will respect human rights in Israel. They of course will respect the human rights of all their local christians, jews or any group that isnt radical muslim, right?.... Of course they will support the human rights of their women, as long as they dont show their faces, go into a public place alone, drive a car or get a job....If they do their style(your style) of democracy advocates that they be stoned to death. Of course you think that all who dont believe the Utopia are nuts....but, you could be wrong you know.... Obama is a novice to real politics and American values and customs. He has surrounded himself with various communists and socialists his whole life and he has freely admitted that he sees little about our country to admire.....He doesnt have a clue and I think that the next election will reflect that most of us know him too well.

JA, like so many Americans you exhibit the same kind of gross ignorance that is so typical of the American public. The United States of America has never practiced the democracy and the freedom that you and the others talk about. I suspect that you cna read. Please, take a look at the America history and tell me when it ever practiced the democracy that you talk about.

America has never given Egypt any money to improve the lives of the people. Only the ignorant and the deceitful would make any such claim.

America and Americans have killed tens of millions of men, women and children, more than any other single country. And while you "giving" freedom to other people, nearly quarter of American citizenscould not live where they wanted or visited certain neighbourhoods.

What I would like to know is: when will George Bush and the other mass American mass murderers be brought to the international court to stand for the their killing prees across the world?

Before you and other of the class of the ignorant begin to point your crooked fingers at other people, it may want to look at the horrors that America and Americans have created in the world.

Allan, do you really enjoy being an Anti-American radical?? You live in a small closed minded hate America world...beyond reason and knowledge. There is more to life than your unhappy hate....

I think it'd be pretty easy to fake a coma, especially if you had help from the staff. He certainly has the incentive.

THX, not really. In order to be in a coma your brain has to literally shut down to the point where there is no cognitive response. The only way to fake a coma is to enter into one. It can be physiological or medically induced though.

WHO ------Obama?

No, Mubarak. Instead of having the balls to accept what his people wanted him to do he fought against them and he lost. A lesson for all politicians, if you go against the will of your people be prepared to get roasted in the fires of discontent. This is something that the SOAP-leauge knows all too well as well, except they did not learn anything from it.

My thoughts also. Seems too ironic to be real. Fiction being more bizarre than reality.

My thoughts also. Fact is stranger than fiction.

It's perfectly reasonable to argue that Mubarak was better for Egypt than the alternative. You, however, are taking it a step too far with this, "He never left his beloved land behind" business. This is not a good man we are talking about.

Their allah is our Satan!

Nazarite,

except that Allah is our God. Allah is the Arabic word for God. The Torah, Qu'ran, and the Bible all worship the same God just under a different name with different myths and deities. This is historical fact. The distortions come into the picture later when the leaders of the various religions started twisting their religions in order to make political statements.

I still find it incredibly pathetic that most religious people fail to learn about their religion and instead take some old fogy's word that this is how it is (priests and/or the Pope). They are more then happy to be told what to believe instead of learning for themselves what they are to believe by reading the Bible and doing research on what is contained therein and of what Jesus personally though.

You will not find many of Jesus' thoughts and beliefs in the Bible. Jesus was against all forms of violence, he also believed that everyone was equal and should be loved as equals no matter if they were his followers or not, no matter how they lived their lives. Even when Judas betrayed him he did not seek vengeance, he did not retaliate. He accepted the outcome and allowed himself to be killed. Jesus was a much better person then many of the Christians we have in America today.

Jesus is perfect. Christians aren't perfect...just forgiven.

Man's righteousness can never even come close. That's why there's Jesus.

Mav,

it does not take much to live a Jesus lived. You just have to let go of your hate and discrimination. I have always tried to live a life as diplomatic as possible; no fights, no discrimination, none of the things that the Vatican and other Church's do. It was part of the reason I stopped being a Methodist. If a religion causes more harm then it does good it should be abandoned. That goes for any religion, not just Christianity.

All I have to say is Nuns on a Bus to make my point.

Can only hope.....

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

Your vast level of expertise on the history of Egypt and the middle east must be awesome. Please share with us your knowledge of the slaughtering that President Mubarak had done.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in Egyptian civil rights, this could get real ugly.