Bloodbath in Egypt

[Packlife]

Personally I never really saw it as a classic military coup, which if I understand it right is a small group of a military that want to seize control of the power for them selves. This was the more a big majority of the Egyptian people who were fed up of watchin Morsi drive Egypt into destruction. 1 person described it as they only had working utilities for a few hours a day, the economy was the worse it had ever been, thats just a few examples. When people are saying your worse the Mubarak you know you suck at being the leader. The MB have been trying for 80 years to gain power/control an they are not going to just say ok you win we lose. But the "security forces" have kinda went off the deep end with their crack downs, if people want to sit in their little tent towns let them. But if they start killing an bad stuff like that then yeah do something about it. A lot of people were worried about the radical branch of the MB the jihadi MB members who have no problem going full blow Iraq insurgency. The funniest thing was people were saying "Oh but Morsi was democratically voted in" yeah an Hitler was voted in too, these guys had their shot at doing the right thing. An instead they started locking up political opponents an ramming a phony constitution through that nobody liked but them. I guess in the end the people an the military had 2 choices sit back an watch your country fall apart or do something about it.

Packlife. Could you tell me how the dictatorship said it instantly "solved" the utilities problem people were protesting about?
Then could you explain that problem solving in a way that has any scrap of credibility?
When you are unable to explain the problem solving can you give any thoughts on how to create the problem in the first place?

[Wolferz]

It's Bush's fault.


/grabs hat and runs.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Packlife

Personally I never really saw it as a classic military coup, which if I understand it right is a small group of a military that want to seize control of the power for them selves. This was the more a big majority of the Egyptian people who were fed up of watchin Morsi drive Egypt into destruction. 1 person described it as they only had working utilities for a few hours a day, the economy was the worse it had ever been, thats just a few examples. When people are saying your worse the Mubarak you know you suck at being the leader. The MB have been trying for 80 years to gain power/control an they are not going to just say ok you win we lose. But the "security forces" have kinda went off the deep end with their crack downs, if people want to sit in their little tent towns let them. But if they start killing an bad stuff like that then yeah do something about it. A lot of people were worried about the radical branch of the MB the jihadi MB members who have no problem going full blow Iraq insurgency. The funniest thing was people were saying "Oh but Morsi was democratically voted in" yeah an Hitler was voted in too, these guys had their shot at doing the right thing. An instead they started locking up political opponents an ramming a phony constitution through that nobody liked but them. I guess in the end the people an the military had 2 choices sit back an watch your country fall apart or do something about it.

The MB has attacked and burnt down over 50 Christian churches and had its snipers shooting without aim into groups of residents to create a higher body count so that the West yells louder. They tortured prisoners to death and murdered others. You could not let them sit in their tents and say "let them". These are thugs that know that the West is assisting them the more the higher the body count becomes, and so they do their share to push it as high as they can. Such scum you do not want to share governmental power no matter whether it got there by elections or otherwise - such scum you want under tightest possible control.

A coup it is when the military revolts against a government supported by the majority of people. When it rises against a government that the majority of people wants to get rid of, when it rises after the people explicitly demanded it to do so and to help the people, then it is not so much a coup, but a revolt or revolution. The MB has had over one year to prove itself - and like I expected, it just managed to let fall its mask, delivered nothing but its stoneage barbarism and conspiracy with Islamic terrorism, and it showed that it is incompetent to run the administrational challenges of everyday government. Medieval tyranny - that is what is to come from the MB, nothing else. Instead of improving Egypts status and the situation of its people, the MB cared more to get better financed by certain Gulf states to boost jihad, and it widened cooperation with Palestinian terror groups. That may be the reason why today I read in the newspaper Saudi Arabia has encouraged Egypt'S military to play hard on the MB, by assuring them that if Egypt would be punished by the stupid Westerners by having financial aid cut or suspended, Saudi Arabia would fully compensate Egypt for the financial losses.

Not that the US would cancel its military aid, Egypt is too important for them, with the Suez channel being just one factor.

Also, it would help to have a basic understanding of the historical record and development and role-defining of the Egyptian military. It is a bit more subtle than just painting black-white stereotypes here. Egyptians are apparently aware of that, and the current revival of Nasser may be an indication for that. That Nasser is becoming that popular again cannot be calming or comforting from a Western POV - it should be a warning on how alienated Egyptians already are by Western visions of what Egyptians should do. I recommend we leave that decision to those who know better than us what they want - the Egyptians themselves.

The situation right now in no way compares to the Algerian drama in the first half of the nineties. We were in Algeria short after the historical climax of the turmoils there, it was the most dangerous place I ever have been, for the situation was totally unpredictable and could not be assessed, for half a dozen factions, sides and intel agencies were stabbing and shooting at just everybody else. Compared to the death tolls they had in Algeria, the massacres, the villages being wiped out, the pogroms, the events in Egypt are nothing, absolutely nothing. The talking about an Egyptian civil war is clueless hysteria so far that the MB propagates to help its cause, the West propagates to gets its will of a formally democratic but in reality terrorist and deeply racist regime, and the occasional observer watching it while sitting on the fence most likely does not know what he is talking about.

When the situation approaches what they have had in Algerian bloodshed and chaos in the early 90s - then I start thinking about a terminology including terms like "civil war".

Allah is our objective, the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader, Jihad is our way, death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations. - Motto of the MB. Still wanna shake hands with them? Handfeeding a shark sounds like a good idea to you, eh?

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

It's Bush's fault.


/grabs hat and runs.

Well it is Bush's fault, as well as the fault of every president going back to Carter. We have had this foolish notion that transplanting our ideal of western liberal democracy to the region was going to not only ensure peace, but ensure that the type of leaders that we would like to deal with will rise to the top. That simply hasn't been the case, but we continue to put our hands in the fire thinking that our flesh will outlast the flames.

A coup it is when the military revolts against a government supported by the majority of people. When it rises against a government that the majority of people wants to get rid of, when it rises after the people explicitly demanded it to do so and to help the people, then it is not so much a coup, but a revolt or revolution.

A coup is a coup, you cannot simply make up your own definition to fit your agenda.
Even making up your own definition you fail badly.
The major groups which were demanding a change of government are now protesting against the dictatorship. Something about them already having had a revolution to get rid of the military dictatorship

That may be the reason why today I read in the newspaper Saudi Arabia has encouraged Egypt'S military to play hard on the MB, by assuring them that if Egypt would be punished by the stupid Westerners by having financial aid cut or suspended, Saudi Arabia would fully compensate Egypt for the financial losses.

You only read that today??????
Is this them crazy wahabis you are always warning people are the "true" muslims which are the real danger?
And now you are backing them and their proxies in the dictatorship.
I suppose you had to shut your eyes very tight to avoid your wonderful little dictatorship claiming the MB are a Jewish conspiracy.

I recommend we leave that decision to those who know better than us what they want - the Egyptians themselves.

Make your mind up, you are supporting the fundamentalists from the Gulf and what they want in Egypt

[Skybird]

The chief of the MB, Mohammad Badie, has been arrested in Cairo.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Packlife

Personally I never really saw it as a classic military coup, which if I understand it right is a small group of a military that want to seize control of the power for them selves.

The term for this is a Guardian Group, which is when someone, ex the military takes over to protect the country from the government. In some nations this is actually one of the assumed duties of the military.

The funniest thing was people were saying "Oh but Morsi was democratically voted in" yeah an Hitler was voted in too, these guys had their shot at doing the right thing.

Why do people keep saying that?

Actually Hitler was appointed Chancellor, he lost the election of Reichspräsident (President) to von Hindenburg. von Hindenburg appointed him to be Chancellor as a way of appeasing the Nazi party which had some 30% of the vote in that presidential election. On the death of von Hindenburg Hitler abolished the presidency, an illegal act which no one in the government opposed making him de facto leader of Germany.

[Skybird]

Von Papen and von Schleicher, the two chancellors before Hitler, had managed to cause rifts and conflicts with the Reichstag, while the Reichstag was pretty much blocked by communists and the dominating national socialists, and thus unable to act. Hitler promised Hindenburgh to free him from the burden of needing to govern with "Notstandsverordnungen". Hindenburg also needed to solve the impasse of the - mind you, national socialistically dominated - Reichstag, and a chancellor needing to govern against the Reichstag again was no option. So he decided for Hitler. A law saying that the head of the strongest party must be appointed, did not exist.

So, precise it would be to say the people voted for the national socialists . A direct election of Hitler for chancellor was not possible.

[Oberon]

/thread

[eddie]

Oh boy! Court orders the release of Mubarak!!

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2...id=msnhp&pos=3

[Oberon]

Expect clashes on Sunday, marches have been called for apparently, so there'll be more bloodshed.

The old Sykes-Picot agreement is really being torn up isn't it?

[Skybird]

Who needs a democratic Egypt anyway?

te]In the big marble halls of Washington, in the slow ambling pace of summer cocktail parties where veterans of the political establishment still shake their heads at the fall of the Graham dynasty and the sale of the Post to a parvenu dot comer, the second favorite topic of conversation is how to make Egypt fall into line.

All the cocktail party guests, the senators, their aides, the editors and editorial writers, the heads of foreign affairs think-tanks and generals angling for a lobbying gig with a firm that just might want to move some big ugly steel down Egypt way once all the shouting dies down, haven’t had much luck.

Or as the New York Times, the paper that has displaced the Washington Post as the foreign affairs leak hole of the administration, put it, “all of the efforts of the United States government, all the cajoling, the veiled threats, the high-level envoys from Washington and the 17 personal phone calls by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, failed.”

And all the community organizer’s horses and his men couldn’t put the Muslim Brotherhood back together again.

Not even 17 personal phone calls from a man who couldn’t get through his confirmation sessions without becoming a national laughingstock accomplished anything.

Washington isn’t giving up, but its foreign aid card has just been neutralized by the Saudis who have offered to make up any aid that it cuts. And unlike Israel, Egypt isn’t vulnerable to threat of being isolated. Not with a sizable number of the Gulf oil countries at its back and the Russians and Chinese eager to jump in with defense contracts.

Instead of asking how to make the Egyptians do what Washington wants, it might be time for the cocktail party goers to ask what they really want from Egypt and what they really need from Egypt.

The two aren’t actually the same.

We may want Egypt to be democratic, because it fits our notions of how countries should work, but that isn’t something that we actually need.

The editorial writers and foreign policy experts who never got beyond the expat bars of Cairo will try to blame Egypt’s lack of democracy for our terrorism problem, but Egypt’s original unwillingness to bow to the Brotherhood nearly redirected Al Qaeda away from its war against America as the Egyptian faction sought to fight an internal war of the kind that Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria are now fighting.

We need a democratic Egypt about as much as we need sensitivity training from Mayor Filner. A democratic Egypt is unstable, vulnerable and unfriendly. And those are just its good sides.

Our first hint that democracy wouldn’t turn Egyptians into Americans should have been the polls showing that the majority of Egyptians favored the death penalty for adultery and blasphemy. There was no way such an electorate was going to produce some Egyptian counterpart of America.

Of the four major players in Egypt, three are fundamentally undemocratic, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian military and the Egyptian elites of officialdom, often mischaracterized as Mubarak loyalists, and one lightly sprinkled with democracy, the liberals and the left. And that sprinkling is very light indeed.

With an electorate whose idea of democracy is indistinguishable from Islamic law and a political elite that is undemocratic even when it participates in democratic elections, what reason was there for believing that overlaying democracy on them would lead to democratic values, rather than just democratic functions?

Now two undemocratic players and one lightly democratic player ganged up on a ruling undemocratic player. We can call the whole thing a coup or a candy store; it doesn’t matter much.

The process that removed Morsi was similar to the one that removed Mubarak. The same senators abandoning their cocktail parties to demand an end to foreign aid for Egypt because of the C word, were celebrating the same C word that took down Mubarak.

The difference, they will argue, is that Morsi was democratically elected. But so was Mubarak. But, they will say, Mubarak’s election was not truly democratic because it was marred by all sorts of electoral irregularities. And they will say that Mubarak acted like a tyrant. But the same was true of Morsi’s election. And Morsi did act like a tyrant.

The coup position is reduced to arguing that the overthrow of one elected leader by popular protests and the military was a very good thing while the overthrow of another by the same means was a bad thing because one election was somewhat cleaner than the other on a scale from Chicago to Detroit.

Never mind that the first leader was an ally of the United States and that the other was its enemy.

Is the gram’s worth of difference in democracy that we’re fighting for really worth undermining our national security?

I’ve met lawyers who have told me that they would have defended Hitler pro bono because of the principle of the thing. I’ve never entirely understood why the principle of this thing trumps genocide. The application of the pro bono Hitler lawyer clause to the Muslim Brotherhood’s democracy seems even more dubious. And I have a healthy suspicion of people who too eagerly volunteer to be Hitler’s lawyer or the Muslim Brotherhood’s press agent for the principle of the thing.

Are we really obligated to vigorously defend the Muslim Brotherhood’s right to take over a country because the election that allowed it to come to power wasn’t as dirty as the last election? Does the principle that democracy should be implemented here, there and everywhere, even if it leads to a terrorist group taking over the most powerful country in the region, really trump our national security?

Why have we volunteered to be the Muslim Brotherhood’s pro bono democracy lawyer?

The Arab Spring has thoroughly discredited the idea that spreading democracy enhances regional stability and protects our national security. We would have more luck promoting vital national interests by spreading viral goat yelling video memes than by bludgeoning other countries into having elections.

We don’t need a democratic Egypt. What we need is an Egypt that is not too excessively sympathetic to our enemies.

We’ll never be very good friends. A deep and meaningful friendship with a population that believes in chopping the hands off thieves and stoning everyone else was never in the cards. But most alliances aren’t built on enduring love or even mutual affection.

They’re built on something better. Cynical pragmatism.

We had a wonderfully pragmatic and lovingly cynical relationship with Egypt. If Chuck Hagel stops making 17 personal phone calls every hour telling the Egyptian government how not to shoot Muslim Brotherhood terrorists, maybe one day we’ll have a cynically pragmatic relationship with Egypt again.[/quote]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenf...c-egypt/print/

[Oberon]

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[Skybird]

Forgive my ignorance, but that famous poem was by Auden, or Yeats? And the title I never knew anyway, so what is it?