‘The litany of complaints against Mr. Mubarak is well known to anyone who has spent time in any coffee shop or on any corner chatting in any city in Egypt. The police are brutal. Elections are rigged. Corruption is rampant. Life gets harder for the masses as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer. Even as Egypt’s economy enjoyed record growth in recent years, the number of people living in poverty actually grew,’ Michael Slackman writes in the NY Times.

“Brutal” is another word for “torture” – and for many years the West couldn’t care less about torture and police brutality in Egypt.