And the thing is, it's hard to decide what is it that bothers me, because of the magnitude of the visit. I mean, while I thought it made perfect sense for egypt to get chosen, arabs still make like 20% of the entire muslim population, which means that it might not be the wisest location to deliver such a speech, especially in the light of extreme arab chauvinism, when it comes to nonarab muslims anyway. It's an honor, no doubt about it. And a nod towards an old and fading leader ( i am talking Egypt as the middle least leader, not Mubarak): That its support still matter, even when reality says it doesn't that much anymore.

I guess I am annoyed because of the ruckus the government is causing over his visit. The entire country is on high alert. Cairo is on lockdown. The streets are cleaned and repainted, the cars removed from all main streets, whether he will pass by it or won't. Helicopters flying over downtown every 4 minutes. The old buildings in el saydah are being coverd by scaffolding to hide them from Obama's sight. People are arrested left and right all over the city. Kefaya
activists were cracked down on in a matter of minutes when they tried to stage
an Obama protest. Residents are warned to stay home. The streets are expected to be so clear of people, the joke is that the 6 of April kids will call for another national strike and call the day a success. Employers are giving
employees vacations. Al Gezira club members warned not to go to almost 70 % of
the club that day, because this is where Obama will change between his speech
suit, and the shorts he is bound to wear on his way to the pyramids (it’s
fuckin hot, man). People in manial that we know had to give state secuirty their names and their IDS because their house sees that University Bridge. Coffe shops in downtown closed from 6 pm tonight, and the people told to stay home tomorrow. Oh yeah, and the polishing they have done to the University. Holy Crap. That dome now shines from cleanliness, and it was last cleaned in 1954. It's fuckin ridiculous shit.

But on the other hand, the people are excitied. I saw people interviwed on the street on TV, and they are genuinely excited to see Obama speak. Many talking about how he will bring peace and prosperity with him. The most apathethic people on earth are actually excited about the visit of a US president. This is some unusual shit. At the very least, it's definitely worth a glance. So maybe I should get over my disdain over the fact that I will have to wear formal wear on a freakin hot day, which is really the reason i am pissy about going of you really want the truth. I wanted to wear a polo shirt or something, but everyone else is bringing their nice cloths to play, and I was planning on going in jeans anda shirt. Grrr…

So, yeah, fine, I admit it, maybe it is exciting to have him visit  after all. Await tomorrow's post about it.

Obama is coming to EGYPT. Nyanyanyanyanyaaaa! Fuck you Jordan, Fuck you Indonesia, Fuck you Malaysia, Fuck you Morocco, Fuck you Qatar, Fuck
you Saudi, AND especially Fuck you Turkey! Go suck Dicks!

Sorry, had to get this off of my chest.

Now, this is of course good news to Mubarak and to his regime, and a sign that the current regime is responding to the heavy courting that they have been engaging in for a few months now (The Ghaza offensive position, ending the crisis before the inaguration with one day, freeing Ayman Nour). This makes Mubarak happy, because its a nod to Egypt's once prominent regional weight, and the egyptians happy, because we are chauvinistic fuckers, and we love that shit. Everybody's happy..well… not everybody.

Lots of democracy activists are not happy, especially leftists ones. They are considering the visit as cowering to a dictator and giving him undeserved prominence. This is incredibly funny to me personally, because I always thought their position on America's push for democracy and rights in Egypt as "unwanted imperialistic interference in Egyptian affairs, and anyone who wants it is a tratorous stupid ignorant zionist jew spy dog". At least this was the case the Bush years. How time changes things. The people on the right, well, they are not really outraged, because they always knew that this would happen with Obama's election, and have been preparing themselves for it. Reaching out to countries that are run by dictators involves turning a slightly blind eye to their activities. That's the cold hard realpolitik and I am not sure we can blame him for that. I am sure many of you will do that anyway. Honestly, not my concern at the moment. I am more curious about other things.

For example. where will he hold his speech exactly? My preferred choice would be The Manssah, where Sadat is buried. It would be very symbolic to have the chosen one do his speech in front of the grave of the Hero of war and peace, which would be also a nice nod for peace in the middle-east and a rebuttal to the islamic extremists who killed him. Another good location is AlAzhar itself; talk about reaching to the islamic world. Another question I want to ask is , what will happen if rumors that Obama is really a muslim start running wild in Egypt? Having him as a muslim President who has to hide it because of the Jews that control AMERIKKKA is a very plausible conspiracy theory for the conspiracy-theory-loving egyptians. I wonder if they start calling him President Hussen Obama in the newspaper after that. And finally: do you think that the leftists activists who are very pissy about Obama's visit will actually do something about it? Like, will they start a demonstration maybe? Man, I think I will roll on the floor laughing the moment I see an "Obama is Bush" poster. Oh, and I promise to take pictures!;)

Conspicuously, no one can deny that Obama is a strong and charismatic president, who stepped into the White House with a highly unprecedented number of votes from Americans who love and respect him. Though, the Zionist lobby will indefatigably grope for what they want and will not spare any effort and capabilities in steering each and every end to the Israeli benefit. In other words, if Obama is not all eyes and ears to their malevolent blackmailing, he will be doomed to John Kennedy’s fate. This explains the heavy security cautions adopted at his inauguration.

Yes, First Black man to ever get elected president in a country with history of racism and lynch mobs, and the heavy security cautions must be to protect him from the zionist assassins! You know, the ones who killed JFK!

Brilliant!

The United States, Israel's main ally, had initially been expected to voted in line with the other 14 but Rice later became the sole abstention.

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

Just saying!

Well, 10 people weighed in, and many of them did a whole "the cultural, political and spirtual ties" argument to justify supporting the alliance, but the only real cold analysis of the alliance came, interestingly enough, from two voices who thought such an alliance is not worth its trouble. First there is Michael Sheuer:

Israel is not only an unnecessary and self-made liability for the United States, it is an untreated and spreading cancer on our domestic politics, foreign policy, and national security.  America has no genuine national security interests at stake in either Israel or Palestine; if they both disappeared tomorrow the welfare of Americans and the security of their country would not be impacted a lick. The Arab-Israeli religious war is a war that properly belongs solely to Israelis and Arabs; let them fight each other to the death with no interference in favor of either side from the United States. The continued, automatic, and idiotic identification of U.S. national interests as identical with Israel's made by our bipartisan political elite, the media, and those U.S. citizens who prefer Israeli to American security is only earning Americans deeper hatred and more wars with Muslims. There is no question that Israel has every right in the world to militarily defend itself to whatever extent it deems necessary, but neither Israel, the United States, nor any other nation has a "right" to exist. Nation-states survive if they can vanquish their enemies. The democratically elected Israeli govermment is right to try to vanquish Hamas; and the democratically elected Hamas regime has every right to try do the same to Israel. The point to keep squarely in view is that it does not matter to America's security who emerges the winner. 

And the other opinion comes from the previous principal officer in the US military intelligence relationship with Israel, and he had this to say:

It is not possible to "set aside the emotional and religious anchors of the US-Israel alliance." Those are the principal bases of the alliance. Israel’s welfare is a self assigned interest of the United States. That does not make that interest less real, but it renders the interest a "duty" of a spiritual and moral nature rather than the kind of thing that a British PM meant in the 19th century when he supposedly said that "countries do not have friends or enemies. They have interests." That kind of interest confers an advantage militarily, economically, geographically or in some other material way. The US interest in Israel’s welfare does none of those things and it costs a lot of money. The Israelis have been careful to separate "things" into neat groupings. They have operated on the basis that their things are their things and US things are their things. I was the principal officer in the US military intelligence relationship with Israel for many years. That was how the relationship worked. It was not a truly two-sided arrangement. The products of Israeli intelligence are sometimes valuable but often do not reach the standard of the legend concerning them. The reverse is not true. US military operations have not been benefited by the relationship with Israel. Israel does not want to be a military client of the United States. Our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been based in or logistically supported from Israel. Israel has never functioned as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" for the United States and it does not wish to do so. Aside from providing useful liberty ports for the Sixth Fleet’s sailors and marines, and an occasional venue for small military maneuvers, it is hard to see what Israel does for the US in the military field that is worth the trouble that the relationship causes diplomatically with the surrounding states. Israel does not contribute to the well being of the US economy. In fact, in many high tech fields Israeli companies are competitors of American companies. I will not dwell excessively on the USS Liberty and Pollard incidents. Those events speak for themselves and most Americans have long ago forgiven the offenses and chosen to forget.

No, in the end, the US/Israel alliance is an affair of the heart. Such affairs are not to be analyzed too closely on the basis of mere material interests.

What do you think?