About that Muslim Brotherhood...

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Excerpt from a lengthy article written from Egypt:

Today the Egyptians are scared. They have been given a glimpse of hell and they don't like what they see. Contrary to Al Jazeera's propaganda, the Egyptian masses are not demonstrating anymore. They are protecting their homes and families. The demonstration last night had 5,000 political activists participating and not 150,000 as Al Jazeera insists. At this moment, no one outside of those political activists cares less now if the President will resign or not. They have more important concerns now; security and food.

So where are we today? Well the answer is still not clear, yet a couple of conclusions are evident.

1. The Gamal inheritance scenario is finished.

2. Mubarak will not run for another Presidential term. His term ends in October and either he will serve the rest of his term or will resign once things cool down for health reasons, which are real. He is dying.

3. The army is in control now. We are heading back to the "golden age" of army rule. The "kids" are no longer in charge. The "men' are.

4. Until the economy fails again, the neo-liberal economic policies are over. Forget about an open economy for some time.

Immediately the task of the army is to stabilize the situation and enforce order. The security forces have been ordered to reappear in the streets starting tonight. The next task will be to deal with the political activists and the Muslim Brotherhood which now dominates the scene. It is anyone's guess how that will be done, but in a couple of days the Egyptians will probably be begging the army to shoot them. Third stage will be to return to normal life again with people going back to their jobs and somehow food being made available. Later on however will come the political questions.

The long term challenges are numerous. First you have a huge economic loss in terms of property destroyed. The minute the banks will be reopened, there will be a run on them and capital flight will be the key word in town. It is of course quite natural that for some time no one in his sensible mind will invest in Egypt.

Politically, the army will aim at returning to the pre-Gamal ruling formula. People will be appeased by raising salaries and increasing subsidies with the hope of silencing them. Will it be enough? That is doubtful. The Egyptians have realized for the first time that the regime is not as strong as it looked a week ago. If the army did not stop them, how will they ever be silenced? Moreover they are greatly empowered. Egyptians today feel pride in themselves. They have protected their neighborhoods and done what the army has failed to do. This empowerment will not be crushed easily.

Security wise the situation is a disaster. It might take months to arrest all those criminals again. Moreover no one has a clue how the weapons that were stolen will ever be collected again or how the security will ever regain its necessary respect to restore public order after it was defeated in 4 hours. More importantly, reports indicate that the borders in Gaza were open for the past few days. What exactly was transferred between Gaza and Egypt is anyone's guess.

You seem to wonder after all of this where El Baradei and the Egyptian opposition are. CNN's anointed leader of the Egyptian Revolution must be important to the future of Egypt. Hardly! Outside of Western media hype, El Baradei is nothing. A man that has spent less than 30 days in the past year in Egypt and hardly any time in the past 20 years is a nobody. It is entirely insulting to Egyptians to suggest otherwise. The opposition you wonder? Outside of the Muslim Brotherhood we are discussing groups that can each claim less than 5,000 actual members. With no organization, no ideas, and no leaders they are entirely irrelevant to the discussion. It is the apolitical young generation that has suddenly been transformed that is the real question here.

Where Egypt will go from here is an enigma. In a sense everything will be the same. The army that has ruled Egypt since 1952 will continue to rule it and the country will still suffer from a huge vacuum of ideas and real political alternatives. On the other hand, it will never be the same again. Once empowered, the Egyptians will not accept the status quo for long.

On the long run the Egyptian question remains the same. Nothing has changed in that regard. It is quite remarkable for people to be talking about the prospect for a democratic transition at this moment. A population that was convinced just two months ago that sharks in the Red Sea were implanted by the Israeli Intelligence Services is hardly at a stage of creating a liberal democracy in Egypt. But the status quo cannot be maintained. A lack of any meaningful political discourse in the country has to be addressed. Until someone actually starts addressing the real issues and stop the chatterbox of clichés on democracy, things will not get better at all. It will only get worse.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/the_story_of_the_egyptian_revo.html

 

[vrosej10]

And shit goes round again and never ends. I think humans must have some kind of burning desire for self destruction.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

And shit goes round again and never ends. I think humans must have some kind of burning desire for self destruction.

We compete to survive...

 

[vrosej10]

We compete to survive...

Sometimes it seems more counterproductive than productive even given the long view.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Sometimes it seems more counterproductive than productive even given the long view.

We're still here and our numbers are still growing, so we must not be all that good at violence...

 

[vrosej10]

We're still here and our numbers are still growing, so we must not be all that good at violence...

And that in and of itself is a problem. Worse since you lot cut back your space program. No one is picking up the slack and we're too small to do much...

 

[off2bed]

We compete to survive...

"It's nature's way."

(A little Steve-O lingo for Rosie )

 

[off2bed]

And that in and of itself is a problem. Worse since you lot cut back your space program. No one is picking up the slack and we're too small to do much...

China will pick up the slack. India already is.

 

[vrosej10]

"It's nature's way."

(A little Steve-O lingo for Rosie )

I get a quite a bit of Steve-O-Lingus usually; hubby's name Steve

China will pick up the slack. India already is.

We really need to either slow our breeding down as a species or make plans to expand our territory. Two hundred years from now, we'll all be speaking mandarin if we don't lift our game. The Chinese are sticking it to all of us.

 

[off2bed]

So your husband's a cunning linguist? Lucky sheila!

You've got plenty of desert down there you can irrigate. Just get rid of the rabbits and frogs.

 

[vrosej10]

So your husband's a cunning linguist? Lucky sheila!

You've got plenty of desert down there you can irrigate. Just get rid of the rabbits and frogs.

Damn straight. Damn cane toads. They make excellent coin purses though and there's been talk of using their mangy hides in upscale leather goods. They were a damn stupid idea in the first place. They were imported to get rid of cane beetles; cane beetles hang out at the top of the cane, toads at the bottom. The only fucking beetles they ever eat are the ones that are already dead!

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

And that in and of itself is a problem. Worse since you lot cut back your space program. No one is picking up the slack and we're too small to do much...

You cannot do great things when your goal is to focus on the "needs*" of the voter.











* wants, bribes, comforts, pick one...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

‘My name is Khalid Islambouli,” the assassin thundered. “I have slain Pharaoh, and I do not fear death!” This was at an annual state parade in Cairo on October 6, 1981. Islambouli, swelling with a delirious pride, had just strafed the reviewing stand with bullets, killing Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and hurtling his nation into chaos.

That was the plan. Islambouli, like several of his coconspirators, was a Muslim Brotherhood veteran who’d drunk deep the incitements of the Ikhwan’s martyred leader, Sayyid Qutb, but lost patience with the organization’s Fabian approach to revolution. He’d joined Islamic Jihad, one of several splinter groups that would later be folded into al-Qaeda by another Brotherhood alum, Ayman Zawahiri.

They’d hoped to trigger an Islamic upheaval by “cutting off the head of the snake” and seizing power in the ensuing chaos. But apart from murdering the president, the plot failed. Power passed seamlessly to Sadat’s vice president, Hosni Mubarak, who cracked down brutally on the terrorists.

The story is worth remembering as chaos grips Egypt yet again. In the drama three decades ago, one tie beyond citizenship united all the major players — the villain, the victim, the heroes who put down the uprising, and the bureaucrat who emerged from obscurity to grab the autocratic reins he has yet to relinquish: They were all members of the Egyptian military.

With events on the ground shifting even faster than the Obama administration’s positions on them — though not quite as quickly as the sudden proliferation of Egypt experts — received wisdom holds that the one anchor of stability in the unfolding crisis is the military. It is said to be the only solid ground in Cairo’s cataclysm. Otherwise, the scene at Tahrir Square, depending on who is doing the describing and who is projecting which hopes and fears, is alternatively a tea party, a human-rights riot, or an explosion of Islamist rage.

It’s true enough that Egypt’s highly professional armed forces constitute the most revered institution in the country. Their professionalism has been purchased at a cost of nearly $40 billion from U.S. taxpayers since 1978, when Sadat made the peace with Israel that drove the jihadists to kill him. Thus, when analysts herald the stability of Egypt’s military — fortified by a generation of training and cooperative relations with U.S. warriors — the implication is that this will be to our benefit. Their patriotism will prevent Mubarak’s worst excesses and usher him out the door, and their pro-Western bent will guard against that worst of all worlds: the very sharia state Khalid Islambouli and his fellow jihadists sought to impose 30 years ago.

Even if everything we’d like to believe about the Egyptian military were true, the dream of secular stability would be very difficult to realize. Thanks to the West’s conflating of democratic processes with democratic culture, the crisis is careering toward a premature “settlement” by popular elections, to be held no later than September. Unfortunately, that is years before civil society — stunted by the powerful influence of fundamentalist Islam, the constant threat of terrorism, and Mubarak’s iron-fisted rule — can evolve sufficiently for real self-government.

A transitional military coup would be best for all concerned, but it is very unlikely to happen. The democracy fetish of transnational progressives won’t allow it. That opens the field for the most organized, best disciplined faction, the Muslim Brotherhood. With the administration having finally decided to shove Mubarak under the bus, the Brotherhood and its beard, Mohammed ElBaradei, are hovering.

Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that Egypt’s armed forces are capable of thwarting the Islamist rise. The question is: Will they?

Khalid Islambouli was a first lieutenant in the army. This station enabled him to be assigned to the parade held that fateful day — an annual event at which the nation celebrates its great “victory” in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. (Yes, the same war the home team lost to Israel; this is Egypt we’re talking about.) How, you may wonder, does a jihadist terrorist become a military officer and get close enough to kill the Egyptian president, widely known at the time to be a marked man?

Very simple: The Egyptian military is a reflection not of its American trainers but of Egyptian society. Its popularity in the country owes in large part to the fact that almost all able-bodied men are conscripted to serve for one to three years. Its uppermost ranks, from which rose Egypt’s presidents — Mubarak, Sadat, and modern Egypt’s founder, Gamal Abdel Nasser — are today largely pro-American. The rank and file, however, have always included thousands of Muslim fundamentalists and radicals. Unquestionably, military service is a leveling experience, creating a common bond that unites different social strata. We should not overstate its effect, though. The military features all the complexity and divisions of Egypt at large.

Since spearheading Nasser’s coup over a half century ago, the military has followed more than it has led. Nasser dragged it from the British-backed monarchy into the Soviet orbit. Sadat moved it into America’s column. Under Mubarak, it has maintained a cold peace with Israel, but it would be foolish to think new leadership could not shift the military back to hostilities with a nation millions of Egyptians revile — a nation with which Egypt fought four wars between 1948 and 1973.

In the last 20 years, two former Egyptian military officers have come to prominent attention in the United States. The first was Emad Salem, a pro-American Muslim, who volunteered to infiltrate the New York terror cell formed by Omar Abdel Rahman, the Egyptian “Blind Sheikh” who had issued the fatwa authorizing Sadat’s murder, who called incessantly for the killing of Mubarak, and whose followers bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. Without his help, the FBI could not have disrupted these jihadists, several of whom were arrested in June 1993 while mixing explosives for a planned bombing spree against the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations complex, and a number of U.S. government targets.

The second was a contemporary of Salem’s, Ali Mohammed. He infiltrated the American military on behalf of Islamic Jihad, stealing sensitive files that he took to New York, where he used them to help train the Blind Sheikh’s cell. Later, he became al-Qaeda’s top security specialist, helped bin Laden move his headquarters from Sudan to Afghanistan, forged the terror network’s East African cells, and drew up the plans those cells later used to bomb the American embassy in Nairobi.

In Cairo, the Egyptian military is our last, best hope. We shouldn’t be overconfident.

Andrew C. McCarthy
NRO

 

[Lancecastor]

Yes, absolutely.

Your reading assignment http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1235

Still think the protests in Egypt are about freedom and democracy?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Yes, absolutely.

More about food and jobs than any yearning for "Democracy."

 

[Lancecastor]

More about food and jobs than any yearning for "Democracy."

Short-term, sure...those are also the Two Most Important Things to the Average American right now in every national poll.

But long term, this is all about being free from foreign government control via puppet dictators.

If Obama had been installed by the Brits 30 years ago, you'd be doing the same thing.

Or at least, your Founding Fathers did...maybe you'd stay home and grouse on a porn board.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Short-term, sure...those are also the Two Most Important Things to the Average American right now in every national poll.

But long term, this is all about being free from foreign government control via puppet dictators.

If Obama had been installed by the Brits 30 years ago, you'd be doing the same thing.

Or at least, your Founding Fathers did...maybe you'd stay home and grouse on a porn board.

It might be about being free of the US, but like Germany, this is groups of different flavors of Socialism jockeying for power in Egypt and controlling the resources to their own ends...

They don't want "Democracy," they just want elections, each faction feeling it will win control and be able to control the Brotherhood which basically proves what a naive lot we have in action, reporting, and diplomacy.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

From his notorious Cairo speech to the present, President Obama speaks, and disaster follows. Some commentators believe that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are so utterly naïve as to make themselves unable to understand what will happen in Egypt as a result of their undermining of the Mubarak regime.

The question is justifiably asked: Do they truly believe that the next regime that comes to power will have the interests of the U.S. and the West at heart?

My fear is that Obama is not naïve at all, but he instead knows only too well what he is doing, for he is eagerly promoting Islamic power in the world while diminishing the West and Israel, however much innocent blood will flow as a result.

Inevitably, sooner or later, the Muslim Brotherhood will take power, usher in a barbaric Islamist power in Egypt that will control the Suez Canal, and show no mercy to its own people or its perceived foes.

So now we see what the present incumbent in the White House has wrought, and so can our few remaining allies. They must now wonder what confidence they can ever have in any future alliance with the United States.

We should be aware of what endemic Islamic violence has wrought in the past. For example, assassinations of Arab leaders are not an infrequent occurrence. After the 1948 Arab-Israel War, the King of Jordan, Abdullah, was murdered by followers of the Muslim fanatic, the Mufti of Jerusalem.

The Egyptian prime minister, Nokrashi Pasha, was also struck down. The forces behind the killings were elements of both Arab socialist movements and the Muslim Brotherhood. Today, in the streets of Cairo, we have an unholy alliance of the current radical left with the same Muslim Brotherhood.

The Suez Canal is a major lifeline for the economies of Europe and the United States. It has been the source of political disruption in the past, as it may well be in the near future. And the Muslim Brotherhood may soon control it. As always, the past is our guidepost to the future.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/obama_well_knows_what_chaos_he.html

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Egyptian VP targeted for assassination:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/0...empt-killed-bodyguards-sources-tell-fox-news/



History is like a "classic" free TV sitcom rerun on Ut00b...

 

[Lancecastor]

Whatever they ultimately decide amongst themselves for themselves is their business.

The days of assuming that the USA Knows Best are over, just as the days of the British Empire, Roman Empire, etc....are over.

Egypt has the right of self-determination.

If they wind up wearing dunce caps because of their ultimate decision or wind up worse off....that's their business, not yours.

It might be about being free of the US, but like Germany, this is groups of different flavors of Socialism jockeying for power in Egypt and controlling the resources to their own ends...

They don't want "Democracy," they just want elections, each faction feeling it will win control and be able to control the Brotherhood which basically proves what a naive lot we have in action, reporting, and diplomacy.

 

[HB1965]

Your reading assignment http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1235

Still think the protests in Egypt are about freedom and democracy?

Wow what an extremely prejudicial and propaganda ridden website. I stopped when I saw they do advertising for David Horowitz. Got a less biased sourced somewhere?

Well here's something a little more balanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

Interesting I can see why you think them a threat, but since the military seems to hold the cards right now in Egypt and they are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood I doubt a take over by them is possible right now.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Wow what an extremely prejudicial and propaganda ridden website. I stopped when I saw they do advertising for David Horowitz. Got a less biased sourced somewhere?

Well here's something a little more balanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

Interesting I can see why you think them a threat, but since the military seems to hold the cards right now in Egypt and they are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood I doubt a take over by them is possible right now.

That's naive. We've chronicled their history and it is steeped in the blood of their enemies. The military might hold the cards, but the Brotherhood is in the military too, much like what we see in Pakistan where the security forces are allied with the Taliban...

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Whatever they ultimately decide amongst themselves for themselves is their business.

The days of assuming that the USA Knows Best are over, just as the days of the British Empire, Roman Empire, etc....are over.

Egypt has the right of self-determination.

If they wind up wearing dunce caps because of their ultimate decision or wind up worse off....that's their business, not yours.

That's the exact attitude that lead to the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Mullahs. It's the same argument that would have left Saddam in power AND destroys the legitimacy of what Obama is now doing in Afghanistan; Karzai wanted to broker a deal early on with the Taliban and bring them into the government but Obama was having none of that.

And it IS our business since we are divesting ourselves of the ability to get to our own energy, once they are in control of the canal, then our economies crash again and the settlement of the Jewish issue is on and once again, the guilt of a genocide will be on us, because they sure as hell won't feel guilty over it, it's their Stairway to Heaven.

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

Wow what an extremely prejudicial and propaganda ridden website. I stopped when I saw they do advertising for David Horowitz. Got a less biased sourced somewhere?

Well here's something a little more balanced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood

Interesting I can see why you think them a threat, but since the military seems to hold the cards right now in Egypt and they are opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood I doubt a take over by them is possible right now.

I wonder how "impartial" and "fair" Wiki was towards Hamas prior to their elections and the subsequent violence towards Israel?

 

[HB1965]

That's naive. We've chronicled their history and it is steeped in the blood of their enemies. The military might hold the cards, but the Brotherhood is in the military too, much like what we see in Pakistan where the security forces are allied with the Taliban...

Not naive at all. The military right now is pulling a classic maneuver and if you fuckers fail to see it that's your problem. Mubarak has stayed in power because the military kept him there. Now that he's a focus for the angst of the people he's conveniently dumped by them and will be replaced by someone else who will manage things better but still under the watchful eye of the military. The Muslim Brotherhood have no place in that. They will be given some room to play but ultimately they will be kept to the sidelines by the military.

Egypt has been and will remain a military state trying to pass itself off as some form of democracy.