Mubarak Apparently to turn over reigns of power in Egypt to Military and V.P. Tonight

[Jan Klimkowski]

Tim Marshall, Sky News' Foreign Affairs Editor, explicitly stated on air that, after Mubarak's rambling and incoherent "I'm staying" last night, the American government ordered the Egyptian military to get Mubarak to stand down. Putting the military in charge of the country.

Also, whilst I welcome Peter Lemkin's post above suggesting Mubarak's Swiss bank accounts are frozen, that alleged $70 billion belongs neither to Mubarak nor the bankers: it belongs to the Egyptian people.

I suspect Andrew Gavin Marshall in the piece on the previous page has called American intentions towards this revolution fairly accurately:

The aim is not to promote an organic Arab democracy of the people, and for the people,' but rather to promote an evolutionary "democratization" in which the old despots of American strategic support are removed in favour of a neoliberal democratic system, in which the outward visible institutions of democracy are present (multi-party elections, private media, parliaments, constitutions, active civil society, etc); yet, the power-holders within that domestic political system remain subservient to U.S. economic and strategic interests, continuing to follow the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, supporting America's military hegemony in the region, and "opening up" the Arab economies to be "integrated" into the world economy. Thus, "democratization" becomes an incredibly valuable strategy for maintaining hegemony; a modern re-hash of "Let them eat cake!" Give the people the image' of democracy and establish and maintain a co-dependent relationship with the new elite. Thus, democracy for the people becomes an exercise in futility, where people's participation' becomes about voting between rival factions of elites, who all ultimately follow the orders of Washington.