A LONG NIGHT IN CAIRO /// "We were detained by the Egyptian army. Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It's the regime that arrested us."

UPDATE (2/15) /// Lara Logan Assaulted: Notes from the Night Before >>

Lara Logan has, so far, not been declared insane. This despite arriving in Cairo today, just as President Mubarak was leaving, just a week after her driver was beaten there and she — a CBS News reporter, one of America's most visible foreign correspondents — was detained and interrogated in secret along with her crew, by the army, in an undisclosed location, and told to leave the country, post-haste. Because Mubarak was about to step down, and chaos would break out anew. And yet, a voice comes on in the background over the phone Thursday night: an airline pilot reminding Logan and her fellow passengers that they're in for what should be a smooth, overnight flight to Egypt.

But Lara Logan, you see, is not afraid. "There's no doubt in my mind that the situation we were caught in before, we are now arriving into again," she tells The Politics Blog. And about that situation, which resulted in Logan and her crew's widely reported secret detention for a night: What the hell happened? For starters, the government flipped the circuit breaker on standard procedure and started using checkpoints that foreign journalists could breeze through, in order to interrogate them. This change took place over the course of a day. "Those suddenly became like running the gauntlet," Logan says. She excuses herself, she bumped into someone. On the jetway. "They searched the journalists until they found the cameras. My producer got through that checkpoint because he didn't have any cameras with him, but I was with one, and when they found the cameras, that was it."

"It" being the start of a very bad way to end one's business trip. She continues: "One guy got in our car, then the next check point they climbed all over the car, then the next check point we went higher and higher and higher up the chain. They don't tell you what's going on because they don't want you to have any defense. They don't want you to be able to help yourself."

And just so we're clear, who are "they"? Are "they" the mobs in city squares of thousands? The police we first saw in clashes? No, Logan fumes. Try again. Try the same group that is about to take control of the thirteenth largest country in the world. "We were not attacked by crazy people in Tahrir Square. We were detained by the Egyptian army. Arrested, detained, and interrogated. Blindfolded, handcuffed, taken at gunpoint, our driver beaten. It's the regime that arrested us. They arrested [our producer] just outside of his hotel, and they took him off the road at gunpoint, threw him against the wall, handcuffed him, blindfolded him. Took him into custody like that."

And if that's not enough of a reason to go back to Egypt, then the luxurious accommodations of her — Lara Logan, the stunning CBS News correspondent, that same person — surely are. Because this is Egypt. An American ally! There's nothing savage about this government, clearly. Except for the blindfolds. And the vomit.

"We were all blindfolded," Logan shuffles a bag into an overhead bin, shuts it. "They blindfolded me, but they said if I didn't take it off they wouldn't tie my hands. They kept us in stress positions — they wouldn't let me put my head down. It was all through the night. We were pretty exhausted." And then what? They let Logan go. She's an American journalist, not an enemy of the state. American journalists don't spend much time in conditions like this. Even Al Qaeda can get along with these guys. American journalists kidnapped by the Taliban were treated with dignity and respect. That's just how it goes.

Except that didn't happen in Egypt, either. "We were accused of being Israeli spies. We were accused of being agents. We were accused of everything." Not exactly turndown service. "I was violently, violently ill. I'd been ill for a few days — I hadn't mentioned it to anyone at CBS." So they gave you medical attention, this American ally? "Not at first, until I vomited so much that they did have a medic see me at this secret facility — they wouldn't tell us where we were. Then I was begging for an IV, and at first they wouldn't," as in, wouldn't give Lara Logan an IV, but then, "I vomited up everything that the medic gave me. I vomited all over the interrogation cell. I vomited all over this office they put me in after that, and so eventually they put me on an IV." And now you know what it takes to get a hydration IV in the middle of a regime upheaval in Cairo, and that's if you're an American and a journalist.

Logan has to get off the phone. She apologizes profusely. We want to know, one last thing before we wish her Godspeed, and safe travels, and all the things insane people should be wished before they do insane things: What don't we know? What doesn't the world understand about this situation that isn't being articulated in the news right now?

Before we can finish the question, Logan fires back: "The army as an institution is not on the peoples' side. The army is on its own side. They want to be with the winners. That's who they're going to stand with. If it looks like it's going to be the people, they're with the people. If it looks like it's going to be Mubarak, they're with Mubarak." That can get ugly, quickly. "Oh, it can. There could be a military coup on the way and we don't even know it at this point. The army's playing to win." Lara's gotta go. Cell phones off. Besides, Logan knows, as we touch upon a last point: She'll need that thing where she's going. "This is the Tiananmen Square of the cyber age. There's no question." She's doing the duck-and-answer on the plana, the one where you avoid a flight attendant on the prowl for deviants like her. We can't help but get one more question in: Is CBS insured for this shit? Are you insane? "You know," Logan smiles — probably a psychotic one simultaneously charming and otherworldly opaque — "I don't worry about things like that," she says. Among other things, like a cozy desk job, sane decisions, punditry, reluctance, and other luxuries she doesn't really have time for, "that's fortunately not in my lane."

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