GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

MUBARAK'S SEPTEMBER DATE, AMERICA SHOULD RATHER HELP HIM KEEP IT.

After a careful analysis of possible scenarios that might be at play following Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's sudden exit, Icheoku came to the conclusion that it will be more cost effective and a better option for America and its allies as well as Egyptians, instead of the current stand to forcefully push the Egyptian reject off the cliff, to simply cajole him into keeping that date with history. This process will gradually ease him out from power and thereby make it easier for his psyche and ego to accommodate and deal with.

Thirty-five years in office (five as vice president and 30 as president) is such an investment for Mubarak to just walk away from without a fight; which in the long run might not be beneficial to both Egyptians and America. A fractured and rife Egypt is not a good bargain for Mubarak's departure right 'NOW' and it would be better if the six months he is asking for is treated as a six-months transitional period, during which necessary political structures would be established and Egyptians tutored in the art of electoral democracy to enable them successfully complete the transition from the Mubarak's era to a peoples driven governance. Icheoku says the six months extension is a walk in the park for a people who have been forced to put up with such rabid autocracy for the past 30 plus years of and from hell. Igbo people of South East Nigeria have a popular aphorism which goes thus - the tortoise was once locked up in a putrid cell following a seven day prison sentence. After serving six days of his sentence, he was to be set free on the seventh day; and while processes were being formalized for his final release, the tortoise shouted to his rescuers to please make haste as he cannot stand the stench of the cell? This is a tortoise that has been with the stench for the previous six days but can now not stand it for a few hours or minutes?

So Egyptians, your voices have been heard not only by America's President Obama but the world at large as well as your soon to be former President Hosni Mubarak; and he agrees that your call for him to quit is legitimate and only asks for a few months to tidy up his affairs and prepare his handover notes? Icheoku says Mubarak is not asking for too much and should be obliged. The imperative here is that President Hosni Mubarak will finally call it quit with an office in which he has been around for nearly half a century and this in itself is humongous. Egyptian people, your protest is a success - you conquered your fear, you are free and you can now assemble as well as express yourselves publicly, your president fired his cabinet on the strength of your protest; he also appointed a vice president for the first time in the thirty years of his being in power on the persuasion of your protest and finally, he has accepted that you won and that he lost and he will step down. His only plea is not to be rushed out of town in order to enable him midwife a smooth transition to another government. Icheoku believes this request is reasonable as a leaderless society s prone to anarchy as well as other unforeseen eventualities. A life in Baghdad immediately following Saddam Hussein's fall is not worthy reliving in Cairo; neither is the lawless Somalia's or the Taliban bastardized Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

Icheoku says  Egyptians should cut their leader for thirty years some slacks and allow him an honorable passage into retirement. He asked for six months and Mubarak should get his six months - it is not too much for President Mubarak to ask of the proud people of the River Nile. A veteran of several Egyptian wars who somewhat equally served Egypt fairly well by developing the country's infrastructure, judging from what we could see on the streets of Cairo does not deserve any less. However this should not in anyway be read as a somersault or that Icheoku is now holding water for the dictator of Cairo; no, just that a smooth orderly transition is always a preferred alternative to a wild-wild west like alternative which may see some unpalatable elements of the society hijacking a peoples effort and converting same into their own parochial agenda-driven achievement. This is the only concern that is molding our current position on the matter of President Hosni Mubarak regarding his exit timetable.

Icheoku must also commend President Hosni Mubarak for not going the route of most dictators, who when backed to the wall always reacts with a vengeance; as they wreck the final havoc before leaving or being hung like a dog by an angry populace. Some world dictators would have first expelled all foreign media hounds from the country; then impose a total and complete media blackout in the country before unleashing his dogs of war to mow down as many still standing protester as they could point their machine guns and dump their bodies in a mass grave or use them to feed some hungry African wildlife. Afterall Mubarak is 82 years old and before the processes of his indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague would be completed, he would have already assumed cold-room temperature. A Tienanmen Square could have been replicated in Tahrir Square but Mubarak wanted better for his Egyptian people; hence the men in steel helmet were seen freely bantering with their protesting brothers and sisters.

Further, backed into a corner and feeling wounded, Mubarak could also have revoked the peace treaty with Israel and started a war to distract the people but he did not. Any crumbling emperor could also have called America's bluff and told the White House to go to hell, with the Palestinian peace process as a bargaining chip; or even threatened to cross over to the Iranians or the Chinese or even the Russians and it is deja vu cold war days. A desperate Mubarak could also have fired any of Egypt's army commander that refuses to obey his orders to carry out the massacre of those protesting Egyptians and replaced them with gun-ho types, but he did not. There are just several ways Hosni Mubarak could have escalated the situation; but instead he listened and accepted his fate; and asked the people to grant him just six months of extension of presidency to facilitate a new government. Icheoku says, this is a rational request that Egyptians should grant their president to enable him save his face and keep his honor. As for America, they should tag along and must not be seen to be dictating to the proud people of the River Nile as they chart their future post Mubarak.

Egyptians are matured enough and should not be treated as suckling infants that must be minded every time. President Barack Obama and his government has done their part by recognizing the rights of the protesting Egyptians to fire their government; but they must desist from being perceived as meddling in a purely internal affairs of the Egyptian people. At worst, they can withhold whatever aid they have been giving to the Egyptians prior but Icheoku believes that Egypt still has some aces in Suez canal, Palestinian peace process as well as other hot-button Islamic issues still lingering in various parts of the world to merit their paycheck. Finally Mubarak could ginger a fierce pan-Arabianism including Saudi Arabia to play the oil joker against what he might see as an impetuous West, trying to dictate to him; unlike Tunisia's Ben Ali who had practically no bargaining power to hang unto or trade.

Icheoku says, so now that President Hosni Mubarak has given his words with a date fixed in the future for his departure and it is just six months, we all should indulge him and continue to nudge him towards keeping that date. Let us all try to ease him out but not push him, as transition connotes a process rather than an event and six months is not unreasonable time. Mubarak deserves some dignity in departure in order not to leave in his mouth, some sour taste of regretting his friendship with America; wondering what manner of a friend that deserts a friend in need in his hour of greatest need, when he expected and needed their affirmation most but not rebuke or ordering around. Is it possible that Mubarak may be wondering today why he did not pursue nuclear weaponry program, which like Iran, would have bought him some much needed respect at this fork on the road? Icheoku remembers during the Iranian peoples attempted revolution that Washington said they do not want to meddle in Iran's internal affairs and we wonder if Egypt is now America's 51 state?

So the West should not rev the tempo rather too much and over-humiliate Mubarak in the process; they should instead help to ensure that the emerging government in six months time meets their expectation and that like all Egyptian who seek freedom now, that women and other religious Egyptians will have an Egypt that guarantees their freedoms and that some mullahs will not hijack the new freedom and in turn deprive other Egyptians their own freedom from either the bukah, clothing or life-style choices as well as the freedom of worship and religion. In addition, the West should ensure that Egypt will retain its secular status; but should not unnecessarily try to hurry off the great grand-pa as if the heavens will fall if he does not go right now. Mubarak has earned the right to an honorable exit from power after 30 years therein and let the six months transition period be his final parting gift both from Egyptians as well as the America led West. 

And lastly, Israel's sudden feeling of being surrounded by possibly unfriendly foes and governments might persuade them to speed up the peace process and make final and lasting peace with Palestine. A Palestine which may now be chaperoned by more aggressive Arab countries since we have not yet seen the final of this tornado blowing through the Arab world. But what kind of cold-peace even existed when $1.3 billion annual aid, mostly in military equipment, is being given to Egypt by America and Israel also receives about same if not more? Anyway, that is by the by as we are here concerned with creating a somewhat decent passageway for President Honsi Mubarak to make his final exit after 35 years of perching in the highest echelon of the Egyptian society. The American led West should also in addition to considering the interest of the protesting mob, also take into consideration the interest of the millions of other non-protesting Egyptians as well as the Egyptian elite who might fight back should their goose that lays their golden eggs be knifed in such cavalier manner that gave them no fall-back. All these anomalies can be avoided once President Mubarak is indulged his six months transition and Egypt can then push their reset button as we watch their understanding of democracy. 

No comments:

Post a Comment