I remember watching Mubarak on U.S. media a few years ago. He was harping, on and on about his special 'Strategic" role. True we are happy with seeing the last of him (we hope), but what about those who sustained him, financed him ($1.3 B/yr) and blithely permitted him to cause havoc for 30 years. There is down side of being too smart for ones own good.

All signs show that this Pharoah has lost his senses and needs help of king David to rescue him with Moses help! How audicious of Uncle Sam
to pay this weasel thrreee billion a year to torture the Egyptain Nation.
I would not be surprised if Tel Aviv and Washington DC decide to cut Egypt in two halves and let their pet run amock in one-half. While they
allow the other half to be ruled by Muslim Brotherhood. Supplying arms to both parties though maintaing relations only with one.

The U.S. has become the most hated country on the planet today because it fostered dictators and murderers all around the world since the end of WWII. In Central and Latin America, in Africa, in Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and in the Middle East, we backed only those willing to murder their own citizens for our support, money and armaments. Now we have to look over our backs, because the world hates us! And we still support Mubarak - clandestinely, hoping that we can fool the Arabs!

I think the president should stop lying, put diplomacy aside, and order the Defense Secretary Mr. Gates to demand form the Egyptian army to fire Mubarak, or cut off all military aid immediately - including parts, supplies, and anything that keeps the Egyptian army functional, period! The U.S. -if it wanted, could oust Mubarak by using the Egyptian army which is depended so heavily on the U.S. And if it refused, then that army would start to become obsolete and dysfunctional before the October supposed departure of Mubarak - if the U.S. cut off parts, supplies and accessories for its U.S. vehicles, tanks, aircraft, navy ships, and batteries for anti-aircraft missiles. That was what happened to the vast Iranian army under the Shah, which turned into scrap metals without maintenance when the U.S. cut off parts and supplies after the 1979 Iranian Revolution

The U.S. policy is a sham and just duplicitous! Mubarak actually has the full backing of the U.S. and Israel, and his comments that he "will not take any 'diktat' from outside was a ruse to make the U.S. look like his adversary. And this ruse was intended to minimize anti-U.S. hostility in Egypt, and in the rest of the Arab world, by portraying the U.S. as an ally of the people -not on its brute puppets in power. Fact: The U.S. and Israel have built all their policy and war issues in Middle East in the last 30 years with Mubarak as their cornerstone, and he is too indispensable to both of them to discard. And with the Muslim Brotherhood the biggest and most respectable party in Egypt, the specter of another Iran next to Israel is a nightmare without Mubarak or Suleiman at the top. Plus, the U.S. and Israel have just lost their influence in Lebanon when their ally regime of Saad Hariri was ousted by Hezbollah. They cannot allow it to happen in Egypt too, a pivotal state that may also have a domino effect on other unpopular pro-U.S. puppet regimes.

The U.S. has used its clout with foreign armies to change governments of depended allies, beginning in 1963 when John F. Kennedy asked the Vietnamese president Ngo Diem to resign and he refused. The U.S. instigated a military coup by General Nguyen Van Thieu and Air Force Marshal Nguyen Van Cao Ky who overthrew him from power. Diem, and his brother-in-law, Ngo Nu, director of the Secret Police, were assassinated in the process. And the U.S. did it again when it forced it Philippine puppet dictator Ferdinand Markos to leave Manila in 1986 after widespread demonstrations against his rule - similar to those in Egypt today. And did it again last year with the ouster of Honduran president Manuel Zeleya.

I don't have any doubt that Obama can repeat history and push Mubarak out easily -if he wanted. But the Israelis keep howling at Obama to allow Mubarak to stay until his henchman Omar Suleiman solidifies his control in Egypt and continue Mubarak's policy. And Obama is afraid what the Israeli lobby might do to his re-election next year - if he push MUbarak and Suleiman out! Egypt is like Pakistan, which is heavily depended on the U.S., and the U.S. controls which leader gets the nod, and who gets the boot in either country! Hillary Clinton said yesterday "My priorities in Egypt are to protect the security and interests of the United States." And the only person in Egypt who can give that guarantee to the U.S. is Hosni Mubarak and his henchman Omar Suleiman. The U.S. therefore supports them fully, but is case something happens as Mubarak is 82 years old, the U.S. plays the friend of the Egyptian people to keep the anti-American hostility as low as possible. It is a duplicity game that some times catches even allies by surprise. The late Ronald Reagan Secretary of State Alexander Haig once called the British Foreign Minister Lord Carrington "a duplicitous bastard" over a U.S-British dysfunctional issue.

This U.S. policy on Egypt may look ambivalent and dysfunctional to many experts in the political spectrum, but it isn't. It is just generic and foolish, and it is based on the stereotyping of Arabs either as corrupt souls that can be bought with a bribe, or as possible Muslim jihadists masquerading as people with democratic ideals. And it is no brainer that Obama is ready to sacrifice the 80 Egyptians both for "securing the U.S. interests" -as Hillary Clinton said earlier, and for securing the IPAC and the Jewish controlled media support for his 2012 re-election campaign. Nikos Retsos, retired professor

Mubarak has been a bad, bad guy for a long time. The Egyptian revolution didn't just happen in one day. It's been a long time that 50 percent of the men in Egypt have no jobs, while Mubarak's own family and close friends have net worth of billions.

I am not surprised that tons of anti-Mubarak articles are turning up, but I am surprised that these articles are turning up now and not decade before. Most of the recent articles started to expose Mubarak as a bad dictator only after his fall became inevitable. The justifications as to why Western governments have been supporting Mubarak for so long is also almost completely absent, as if Western governments and its media has been behind the Egyptian people all along.

"While gender equality is a concern in plenty of countries -- even plenty without repressive regimes -- there are reasons to be particularly worried about women's rights in Mubarak's Egypt, where reports of sexual abuse, harassment, and assault against women by government security forces are rampant."

Are you implying that what's gonna come next is gonna be any better? Yeah, I'm sure the Muslim Brotherhood will do right by women! Or the military stepping in? Who can change 80 million attitudes about women? OK, it's been bad, but do you have answers that will really change lives for these women living in a repressive culture (not just a repressive gov't)?