When asked if he considered Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, to be an "authoritarian ruler" prior to the popular movement that ousted him from power, the United States' President Barack Obama replied that he tends "not to use labels for folks", called him a "stalwart ally in many respects to the United States", and claimed that Mubarak "has been a force for stability and good in the region", something American journalist Jeremy Scahill criticized. Scahill also claimed that "the day before US missiles began raining down on ... Libya ... security forces under the control of Yemen's US-backed president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, massacred more than fifty people who were participating in an overwhelmingly peaceful protest". The Obama administration has since called for Saleh to hand over power to his vice president and commit to a transition to plural democracy for Yemen, but its comparative sluggishness in supporting the Yemeni protest movement versus its swift backing of Libyan protesters and rebel fighters faced some criticism. American academic and investigative journalist Nir Rosen also criticized the U.S. government for more than doubling military assistance to Yemen between 2009 and 2010.