Hosni Mubarak, the evil Egyptian dictator who warns of chaos, is busy deploying agents provocateur to create the chaos himself.
Looters included undercover Egyptian police
Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.
Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was "unexplainable" that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.
Mubarak likes to claim he's the sole "guarantor of the nation's stability," yet that couldn't be further from the truth. Not only has he sent his goons out to pick fights and loot antiquities, he's released thousands of prisoners too.
"They are trying to create chaos," said Mohamed Ahmed, one of the Cairo protesters, "This is what Mubarak wants."
Usually, it's the revolutionaries who deliberately instigate disorder. In the early 20th century, the Russian revolutionaries even had a slogan: "The worse, the better."
But in Egypt there's been a role reversal. In the main, the protesters have shown restraint. The Atlantic's Graeme Wood reported that Tahrir Square in Cairo "reminded me of Burning Man," with children getting their faces painted, and protesters clearing up the trash.
Instead, it's the regime that deliberately instigated disorder. The police were withdrawn from the streets of Egypt. Rumors were rife of official encouragement for looting and vandalism.
And then the regime hurled an army of thugs and camel cavalry against the protesters -- Tiananmen Square meets Mad Max. One witness to the violence said: "Mubarak lit the world on fire."
What theory might lie behind the chaos? What could the regime possibly hope to gain?
[T]he anarchy is designed to delegitimize the protesters -- the "turbaned clerics, businessmen from wealthy suburbs, film directors and well-to-do engineers."
The regime hopes that Egyptians will blame the malcontents for the ongoing violence.
