pardon me, but i'm a whole lot more concerned about the mubarak regime trying to shut down the international press and human rights organizations while at the same time rhetorically making some ridiculous separation between the demands of some wholly abstract opposition and the "destabilizing role" played by "outside agitators" in tahrir square---prelude to massacre?-----than i am in engaging in some tedious rearguard action about the public rhetoric of the bush administration in 2011.
why dont you start your own "why the bush administration was better" thread and talk to yourself there, ace.
the complicated question in real time, in the context of stuff that matters in real time, is at what point does the international community intervene? if it is clear that a massacre is taking shape---and the potential is there----is it incumbent on the international community to do something? is this a rwanda-like situation wrapped in the guise of a civil war?
only the pro-mubarak thugs have guns--this largely because the police/internal security/interior ministry is organizing them.
btw----mubarak is taking a page from the conservative book of demonization strategies. here's a good little analysis:
Mubarak Defies a Humiliated America, Emulating Netanyahu | Informed Comment