The liberal pundits continue to celebrate the liberation of Egypt from 60 years of Pharaonic rule while the news no one wants to believe filters back. Censorship by omission is in vogue again because of a reluctance, bordering on paralysis, to recognize there is no law and no order.  Radical Islam has once again found a comforatable abode via a resurgence and new legality for the Muslim Brotherhood, and so begins a renewed enslavement of the population.   Some Examples:

• There are no police on the streets — and no security.
• Roadblocks have been set up — by thugs to steal valuables.
• State security offices in five cities were broken into on the same day at the same hour. Their staffs were bad enough but no security was even worse.
• All former security personnel are now guilty until (maybe) proven innocent.
• New ministers are talking up sequestration as the economy continues to shrink.
• Higher taxes, central planning and state socialism a la Nasser are back in vogue.
• Lawlessness, not lack of tourists, persuaded six leading operators in the tourist sector to close shop.
• The Egyptian State Security headquarters in Cairo’s Nasr City is a maze that goes down eight floors, replete with prison cells and torture rooms with metal prods and electric transformers and filing cabinets.
• In their panic to escape the wrath of the population, security personnel torched their own files before fleeing. But thousands of fragments were collected for future prosecution.
• Tapes of screams and dogs barking were played as if coming from adjoining cells to frighten prisoners to confess.
• Torture wasn’t the exclusive domain of Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years in power. It was also common security practice under Gamal Abdel Nasser (1952-70) and Anwar Sadat (1970-81).

The breakdown of law and order in the wake of Mubarak’s resignation, and the torching of a Christian church in Helwan near Cairo, rekindled a violent past between Coptic Christians (10 percent of Egypt’s 82 million) and Muslims. Thirteen people were killed and 140 injured in one clash. Ambulances didn’t respond and the wounded were taken to hospital in garbage trucks.

With no police around, several hundred youth poured in to Liberation Square shouting pro-Mubarak slogans as they groped and insulted International Women’s Day activists. The army, firing into the air, quickly rounded them up and shipped them out of town where they were dumped in the desert and told to walk home.  Nothing to see here, move along, move along….

There is also a settling of accounts at many different levels of government. And the media splashes a major “scandal” a day, claiming these are dug up by their intrepid investigative reporters. More likely, these are the work of jealous individuals getting even.

To wit: The man who was for 40 years the head of Egyptian antiquities is alleged to have given Suzanna Mubarak, the former president’s wife, on her birthday a historic antiquity necklace that once belonged to the Queen mother of King Farouk (deposed by Nasser in 1952).   Zahi Hawass, once portrayed as the Indiana Jones of Egypt, is now dragged through the media as a common thief, which he heatedly denies.

Hawass, director general of Antiquities, was promoted to minister of antiquities in the last Mubarak government. And Egyptian media are piling on with stories about the theft and sale for countless millions of dollars of at least seven priceless pieces of Pharaoh treasures to private collectors among his friends in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

If there are any libel laws, they don’t seem to deter Cairo newspapers. It’s open season on Egypt’s successful entrepreneurs.  The editorial staff of the pro-government newspaper Al Ahram camped in Editor Osama Soraya’s office to make sure incriminating financial documents weren’t removed. Soraya said his editors and reporters never complained about the newspaper’s editorial policy.

Until the bitter end, Soraya, interviewed by a wide variety of foreign TV reporters, insisted the million-plus protesters on Tahrir Square were “traitors” and “radical Islamists.”   He also spiked an apology from some 500 reporters and editors working at Al Ahram and its sister publications. The next editor, the staff decided, is to be elected by the editorial staff, not appointed by the powers that be.

Another pro-Mubarak editor was slapped by his foreign editor and frog-marched out of the building. In banks and state-run or sponsored institutions, pro-government executives found their offices barred.

Hundreds of imams assembled at the Sunni world’s largest religious learning institution to demand the expulsion of Al-Azhar University’s principal sheik, soccer club executives were locked out of their offices, accused of loyalty to Mubarak and of trying to organize demos in his support when it was already clear he would have to step down.

The transition under military martial law toward elections and democracy is scheduled for six months. But Cairo is a city of 18 million virtually without police. And the army cannot patrol every street. So civilian vigilante groups took over. The Muslim Brotherhood is in charge of the majority of those vigilantes.   Ain’t that a peach ?

Meanwhile, bloody bellwethers are growing in number throughout the Arab world:

To the west in Libya, where Moammar Gadhafi appears to be winning militarily against pro-Western rebels. A Gadhafi victory could spell the beginning of the end to the Arab spring of democratic protest.   The European contingent initially led by England’s Prime Minister David Cameron, and France’s Sarkowsy are backpeddling on their previous interventionist cries.   The Chinese and Russian reluctance to support any ouster of Quackdaffy, summarily stopped any significant action from the United Nations.  The fallback alliance of NATO gnashes its irrelevent teeth with more meetings and announcements while daffy rolls out the gallows and begins the process of timing his punishment for the pesky “freedom fighters” (Pantsuits descriptive).

Quackdaffy knows how to carve up the rebellion slowly and moderate his brutality to insure his action does not provide any excuse for actual physical intervention.  He is empowered with the knowledge that Obama is a weak pragmatist willing to stand by and wait for the EU to take any lead.  Combine that understanding with the real face of Daffy’s control on oil exports to Europe, the blithering reluctance for any blue helmet team to shed blood without the protective umbrella of the United States military, and the Arab nations only modest support for western intervention, and what you have is an empowered dictator who can bide his time in regaining control.

Quackdaffy will slowly but surely place the shadow of his granite fist back into place.  Sure he might have to shed some blood in the Eastern Libyan front, but he will slowly encircle Benghazi cutting them off, choking them for several days/weeks before he launches an all out assualt so fast the western supporters will not have enough time to form another “strongly worded” resolution.   Then ‘presto’ its all over.  Daffy wins and Libya is back under his facist rule.   Other middle east leaders will use his strategy, and any uprising will think twice after they see the mass burial graves of rebels in various out of town locations.   Once control is re-established Quackdaffy knows the European Union will come groveling back toward him on their economic knees, with hats in hand, begging once again for his favour of oil to power their Peugots’, BMW’s, and Renault diesels.

Toward the east in Bahrain, where anti-Western, anti-royalist Shiite have the pro-Western royal family on the defensive.  Pro-democracy activists in the Gulf state of Bahrain have been on the streets of the capital Manama for four weeks, but have yet to win the kind of dramatic results achieved by their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia.

At first their demands were for constitutional reform and a reduction of the powers of King Hamad and the al-Khalifa ruling family, but opinion hardened after an attempted government crackdown in the first days of the protest saw seven demonstrators killed at Manama’s Pearl Roundabout.  Although the army then withdrew and the regime began calling for dialogue, many protestors now want an end to the monarchy altogether.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that while the ruling dynasty is Sunni, the majority of the population and many of the protestors are Shia, and have long complained of political persecution.  With the US, which sees Bahrain as a key ally, and nearby Saudi Arabia and Iran all having a strategic interest, stakes are high.  But with a positive outcome from the Quackdaffy regime putting wind in their sails, the rubber bullets should be able to halt any significant uprising.   The monarcy may offer some false concesssions, but will certainly raise the brutality stakes toward dissenters.

In Yemen, where a despised pro-Western president was losing ground with newly minted anti-Western credentials, the pushback from government has become increasingly violent. Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s president, has promised to put a new constitution to a referendum this year and move the country to a “parliamentary system” but opponents say the move fails to meet the demands of anti-government protesters.

The Yemeni president said on Thursday that the new constitution would guarantee the separation of legislative and executive powers and prepare for the holding of new general elections that would assure an effective parliamentary rule.  “Firstly we will form a new constitution based on the separation of powers. A referendum on this new constitution will be held before the end of this year,” he said.  “I’m already sure that this initiative won’t be accepted by the opposition, but in order to do the right thing, I am offering this to the people and they will decide,” Saleh said.

Anti-government protests in Yemen could come to a head in the coming days, as president Ali Abdullah Saleh competes for tribal support with the scion of one of the country’s most powerful families.

Saleh has long been adept at manipulating Yemen’s complex tribal dynamics to preserve his decades-old grip on power. He is the head of a vast nationwide patronage network, handing out money and other rewards to loyal tribal chiefs, who then redistribute some of those resources to members of their tribes.  Just last week, Saleh reportedly distributed new cars and more than 20 million Yemeni rials ($93,000) during a meeting with tribal chiefs.

But his support is beginning to erode: Hussein al-Ahmar, a chief in the Hashid tribal confederation – Yemen’s most powerful (though only its second-largest) – announced on Saturday that he was resigning from the ruling party, the General People’s Congress. Al-Ahmar announced his resignation at a rally in the northern Amran province, which was attended both by members of the Hashid and the Baqil, Yemen’s largest tribal confederation.   This one could go either way and depends significantly on the capacity of the CIA psy-ops team to assist the current  Saleh regime.   The entrenched positive view toward Al Queda in this country, and the severe anti-western sentiment has been brewing far longer than the Tunisian kickoff.   Yemen has been on the brink of radical change for years.   This might just be their moment to push over.

The first signs of trouble in Saudi Arabia’s minority Shiite population (close to Bahrain); with a Saudi “Day of Anger” tweeting its way through Facebook.   Protests are outlawed in the kindom and have been squashed with extreme prejudice in the past.  However, last week several large protests were permitted to assemble so long as they stayed away from the major circuits of commerce and transportation.

Saudi Arabia is the most significant ally with the United States, and this is one with severe economic influence.   Saudi Arabia can litterally close the gap on any oil shortage caused by disruption in any other area, their capacity for production is near limitless.   The Saudi Kings, Princes and families are furious at Obama for turning his back on Mubarak in Egypt.  They saw Obama’s weakness as placing a risk to themselves.  They were right.  However, Obama will definately “bow down” to any request from the Saudi’s.   In public the Kingdom will insult Obama, the administration, and ultimately the United States.  However, they also enjoy the Western ‘way of life’, and desperately want to remain in power, so ultimately a back room/close door alliance will always exist between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.   We will cover their back, and as they insult us we will thank them for the privilege of being insulted.