Via Professor Reynolds and Gateway Pundit, have a look at some of the pictures of Egyptian plainclothes cops beating the shit out of protesters in Cairo today. As the AP reports:
Police and Egyptian government supporters beat dozens of opposition activists with batons, sometimes kicking them as they lay on the ground, during a protest Saturday against President Hosni Mubarak days after he announced his bid for re-election promising greater democracy in Egypt.It would take a lot of effort for the average American to tear himself away from stories of missing party girls and whatever other salaciousness that sells and pay attention to the rumblings on the "Arab street," but it's going on, anyway.
Several hundred men and women were still gathering to begin their march toward Cairo's main square when men in plainclothes descended on them, swinging billy clubs and assaulting the demonstrators.
Circles of burly government supporters surrounded activists sprawled on the pavement, kicking them in the head and ribs and tearing at their clothes. Others lifted protesters in the air by the arms and legs, hauling them off to police trucks. One elderly man wandered in a daze, his head bleeding.
And guess what. The movements in the Arab world may be attributed to the will of the people themselves, but behind their hopes is the greater will of a small handful of men of vision. What George W. Bush and Tony Blair do today will outlast their own lifetimes. That is the fullest measure of human success and we are witnesses to it, witting or not.