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Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now: “The United States, so far, is essentially following the usual playbook. I mean, there have been many times when some favored dictator has lost control or is in danger of losing control. There’s a kind of a standard routine—Marcos, Duvalier, Ceausescu, strongly supported by the United States and Britain, Suharto: keep supporting them as long as possible; then, when it becomes unsustainable—typically, say, if the army shifts sides—switch 180 degrees, claim to have been on the side of the people all along, erase the past, and then make whatever moves are possible to restore the old system under new names. That succeeds or fails depending on the circumstances. …”

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Interviewed by The Real News, Mohammed Ezzeldin is pro-democracy activist and a graduate of political science from Cairo University. Now working on his masters’ degree in history at Georgetown University, he was in Egypt ten days ago.

Flashpoints features interviews with: Hossam el-Hamalawy, Egyptian activist, journalist, and blogger based in Cairo. Alex Ortiz, American University, Cairo eyewitness accounts of the Cairo uprising and the use of Facebook, livestreaming and other social media and Jack Shenker, Guardian reporter, beaten and arrested (sound from Guardian).

Democracy Now reports: “Police have arrested up to 1,200 people, including a number of journalists. Among them was Guardian reporter, Jack Shenker. He was arrested and beaten by plainclothes police on Tuesday night and shoved into a truck with dozens of other people. He managed to keep his dictaphone with him and recorded what was happening as the truck carried them outside of Cairo.”

Said Shenker: “There are big protests planned for tomorrow. Today is slightly a lull in the storm, although there’s a lot of violence still going on in Suez, which is a big city to the east of Cairo. In the capital itself, though, today has been a bit quieter. Activists are preparing for tomorrow. …

“There have been criticisms, rightly or wrongly, that ElBaradei has spent too much time out of the country, he hasn’t spent enough time on the streets with Egyptian protesters, where he could offer them protection through his fame. And there was a criticism, as well, because his initial response to these protests was quite lukewarm. He said that he didn’t want to see a Tunisia-style explosion on the streets of Cairo, and he would rather use existing avenues, including a petition, which he’s been—he’s collected almost one million signatures, for political reform. And obviously that doesn’t feel radical enough for a lot of the people who have been brought down to the streets in recent days. …

NPR: “Before President Reagan urged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘tear down this wall,’ and even before President Kennedy told Americans to ask ‘what you can do for your country,’ President Dwight D. Eisenhower coined his own phrase about ‘the military-industrial complex.’ …

Andrew Bacevich is a retired career officer in the U.S. Army and professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

Bennis is director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. Her books include Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN; Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power and a series of primers on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the U.S.-Iran Crisis and the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

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Rowley, whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. She recently co-wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed titled “WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if? Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.”

McGovern was for two years an Army infantry/intelligence officer, then a CIA analyst for 27 years. He now serves on the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence nominating committee, which is giving this year’s award to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.