Egypt | Army Ousts Mursi govt, violence erupts | News & Discussions

[Frogman]

Egypt can't make any relations with Syria currently, they fear the west, gcc aid will be cut...

Or simply don't want to get involved in unsanctioned interventions.

 

[Jihad_]

Insightfull lecture from the enemy's perspective. It also shows that the zionists knew a revolution would happen months ago. This gives more reason to think this was pre planned. No IMF loan so the hungry people would rise up.

and

The Protest Movement in Egypt: “Dictators” do not Dictate, They Obey Orders

 

[MooshMoosh]

Pro morsi Egypt plans mass protest on Sunday which is soon.

Rival protests planned Sunday following Morsi's ouster by military - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online

 

[iranigirl2]

Egyptian protesters thrown from the roof top in Alexandria

Egyptian protesters thrown from the roof top in Alexandria - YouTube

 

[iranigirl2]

Morsi Supporters beaten and killed.

 

[Ceylal]

He's gone nuts.

what the thing with the shoes?

 

[iranigirl2]

confused?

 

[MooshMoosh]

Second revolution had begun in Egypt! Pro Islamist protesters are huge outside! I repeat, MILLIONS all over EGYPT!

Can't wait to see General El Sisi's reaction haha

 

[Solomon2]

The Princess and the Brotherhood

For nine decades, Egypt has fled modernity.
By Mark Steyn

Anti-Morsi signs in Tahrir Square.

Mark Steyn

After midday prayers on Wednesday, just about the time the army were heading over to the presidential palace to evict Mohammed Morsi, the last king of Egypt [link] was laying to rest his aunt, Princess Fawzia, who died in Alexandria on Tuesday at the grand old age of 91. She was born in 1921, a few months before the imperial civil servants of London and Paris invented the modern Middle East and the British protectorate of Egypt was upgraded to a kingdom, and seven years before Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood.

A long life reminds us of how short history is: Princess Fawzia outlived the Egyptian monarchy, and the Nasserist fascism and pan-Arabism that succeeded it, and the doomed “United Arab Republic” of Egypt and Syria, and the fetid third-of-a-century “stability” of the Mubarak kleptocracy. And she came within 24 hours of outliving the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief, disastrous grip on power. In the days before her death, it was reported that 14 million people took to the streets of Egypt’s cities to protest against Morsi (and Obama and his ambassador Anne Paterson). If so, that’s more than the population of the entire country in the year Princess Fawzia was born. The Mubarak era alone saw the citizenry double from 40 million to 80 million, a majority of which live on less than two dollars a day. The old pharaoh was toppled by his own baby boom, most of whom went for Morsi. The new pharaoh was toppled by his own stupidity. The Muslim Brotherhood waited 85 years for their moment and then blew it in nothing flat.

And so the “Arab Spring” ricochets from one half-witted plot twist to another. Morsi was supposedly “the first democratically elected leader” in Egypt’s history, but he was a one-man-one-vote-one-time guy. Across the Mediterranean in Turkey, Prime Minister Erdogan could have advised him “softly softly catchee monkey” — you neuter the army slowly, and Islamize incrementally, as Erdogan has done remorselessly over a decade. But Morsi the “democrat” prosecuted journalists who disrespected him, and now he sits in a military jail cell (next to Mubarak’s?). And so the first army coup in Egypt since King Farouk’s ejection in 1952 is hailed as a restoration of the idealistic goals of the “Facebook revolution,” although General Sisi apparently has plans to charge Morsi with “insulting the presidency.” That’s not a crime any self-respecting society would have on its books — and anyway the Egyptian presidency itself is an insult to presidencies. Morsi’s is the shortest reign of any of the five presidents, shorter even than the first, Mohamed Naguib, who was booted out by Nasser and whose obscurity is nicely caught by the title of his memoir, I Was an Egyptian President.

In the 2011 parliamentary elections, three-quarters of the vote went to either the Muslim Brotherhood or their principal rivals, the Even More Muslim Brotherhood. So, statistically speaking, a fair few of the “broad-based coalition” joining the Coptic Christians and urban secularists out on the streets are former Morsi guys. Are they suddenly Swedish-style social democrats? Human Rights Watch reports that almost 100 women were subjected to violent sexual assault over four days in Tahrir Square, which suggests not. The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick argues that the coalition that’s supplanted the Muslim Brothers will wind up controlled by neo-Nasserite fascists.

For my part, I would bet Egypt’s fate will be largely driven by its fiscal ruin. Morsi is a good example of what happens when full-blown Islamic rule is put into effect in a country without the benefit of oil. He’s your go-to guy when it comes to ramping up the clitoridectomy rate, but he’s not so effective when it comes to jump-starting the economy. In February, the government advised the people to eat less and cut back the food subsidy to about 400 calories a day — which even Nanny Bloomberg might balk at. Amidst all the good news of the Morsi era — the collapse of Western tourism, the ethnic cleansing of Copts, the attacks on the Israeli embassy, sexual assaults on uncovered women, death for apostasy, etc. — amidst all these Morsi-era success stories, even a Muslim Brother has to eat occasionally. Egyptians learned the hard way that, whatever their cultural preferences, full-strength Islam comes at a price. Egypt has a wheat crisis, and a fuel crisis, and the World Food Program estimates that 40 percent of the population is suffering from “physical or mental” malnutrition. For purposes of comparison, when King Farouk was overthrown in 1952, Egypt and South Korea had more or less the same GDP per capita. Today Egypt’s is about one-eighth of South Korea’s.

Washington has spent six decades getting Egypt wrong, ever since the CIA insouciantly joined the coup against Farouk under the contemptuous name “Operation Fat F***er.” We sank billions into Mubarak’s Swiss bank accounts, and got nothing in return other than Mohammed Atta flying through the office window. Even in a multicultural age, liberal Americans casually assume that “developing countries” want to develop into something like a Western democracy. But Egypt only goes backwards. Princess Fawzia is best remembered in the Middle East as, briefly, the first consort of the late shah of Iran, whom she left in 1946 because she found Tehran hopelessly dull and provincial after bustling, modern, cosmopolitan Cairo. In our time, the notion of Egypt as “modern” is difficult to comprehend: According to the U.N., 91 percent of its women have undergone female genital mutilation — not because the state mandates it, but because the menfolk insist on it. Over half its citizenry subsists on less than two dollars a day. A rural population so inept it has to import its food, Egyptians live on the land, but can’t live off it.

Ninety years ago, Fuad I’s kingdom was a ramshackle Arab approximation of a Westminster constitutional monarchy: Even in its flaws and corruptions, it knew at least what respectable societies were supposed to aspire to. Nasser’s one-party state was worse, Mubarak’s one-man klepto-state worse still, and Morsi’s antidote to his predecessors worst of all — so far. You can measure the decay in a tale of two consorts. After she left the shah, Princess Fawzia served as the principal hostess of the Egyptian court. In tiara and off-the-shoulder gowns,

she looks like a screen siren from Hollywood’s golden age — Hedy Lamarr, say, in Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945). Sixty years later, no Egyptian woman could walk through Cairo with bare shoulders without risking assault. President Morsi’s wife,

Naglaa Ali Mahmoud, is his first cousin, and covered from head to toe. If you were a visiting foreign minister, you were instructed not to shake hands, or even look at her. If you did, you’d notice that the abaya-clad crone bore an odd resemblance to the mom of the incendiary Tsarnaev brothers. Eschewing the title first lady, she preferred to be known as “first servant.” Egypt’s first couple embodied only the parochial, inbred dead end of Islamic imperialism — what remains when all else is dead or fled.

This week, the Brotherhood was checked — but not by anything recognizable as the forces of freedom. Is it only a temporary respite? Certainly, in the age of what Caroline Glick calls “America’s self-induced smallness,” Western ideas of real liberty have little purchase in Cairo. Egypt will get worse, and, self-induced or not, America is getting smaller.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is the author of After America: Get Ready for Armageddon. © 2013 Mark Steyn

 

[Solomon2]

Quick news from EoZ:

An explosion hit an Egyptian pipeline on Saturday...A priest was killed at one checkpoint by a group of militants...

An investigation says that the Muslim Brotherhood recruited Syrian refugees and Palestinian Arabs to shoot at anti-Morsi protesters.

A Cairo prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Al Jazeera'S news channel director in Egypt, saying that the network was "threatening public peace and national security through broadcasting incendiary news."

In an ironic twist, the Muslim Brotherhood - which was registered as an NGO a few months ago even though it is as political as any organization can be - may become illegal under the same provision that allows the state to dissolve NGOs...

From MEMRI:

Islamists throw opponents off roof:

Celebration in Egypt's TV studios:

Pro-Morsi demonstrators threaten military with suicide squads:

"...or else those masses will blow Egypt up."

 

[Solomon2]

Egypt’s today is the Turkey of yesterday… hopefully
Saturday, 6 July 2013

Ceylan Ozbudak

In Turkey, we have a recent history, which is full of military interventions. Still to this day, I remember waiting to hear how the generals and admirals would be analyzing a political speech. We had a recent history when we all knew the names of lower ranking generals better than the members of our cabinet. This has always been our shame, we don’t appreciate coups or interventions.

We did not like the coup in Egypt either. It was condemned by all political parties and thought leaders. Turkey used the word “coup” for this intervention starting from the first day. With the toppling of Morsi's government in Egypt by the military, everyone started looking for someone to blame. In traditional Muslim circles, US and European countries were blamed for disliking Islamists, planning this coup just to take the rule from a Muslim organization and being intolerant to Islamic regimes. The West may not be a fan of Islamic organizations or today’s’ Islamist regimes but who is? At this point, the finger of blame turned upon itself. As Muslims, are we learning from our mistakes?

I see many analysts trying to draw parallels between the Gezi protests in Istanbul recently and the military coup in Egypt and I have to admit, they are not entirely at fault. But if we are to draw any parallel between the recent history of Turkey and Egypt, 28th February coup in 1997 ranks first in resemblance.

Many of my Arab friends and those interested in Middle East politics will remember Necmettin Erbakan, the first Islamist prime minister in the secular Turkey. In 28th February 1997, a coalition government led by a conservative party leader, Erbakan, was overthrown by the military. Today, we can cite many reasons leading to this intervention, but the real reason was purely his IMAGE.


Holding on to the throne
Even though Erbakan only spent one year as the Prime Minister, he reformed Turkish economy immensely transforming GDP growth. Between 1996-1997, Erbakan created an economic growth of 7.5% and created a pool system between the governmental organizations. To be fair, as far as public service goes, he delivered.

Difficult to believe but impossible to reject; despite his good record in service, Erbakan could not hold on to the throne of Turkish cabinet because of his image. His party reached its political peak before the elections by him appearing in public with dolled-up female models, non-Muslims, fundamentalist Muslims with turbans, people from all walks of life –reassuring Turks that he was inclusive- and then he hit rock bottom when he invited sheiks to the Prime Minister’s residence for an iftar dinner. Ask any Turk who remembers those days, none of us can forget the flashing lights of the cars carrying sheiks to the residence, governmental officials opening doors to religious leaders. The military ended up confronting then Prime Minister Erbakan, with many secular liberals standing aside because although they despised the secular authoritarians, they also felt nervous about the ambitions of Erbakan and his entourage to implement their lifestyle on the Turkish public.

Any sound politics that project to culture, giving satisfaction, and voice to the people in a fashionable manner gives power back to the politician. Today’s so called Islamists in Turkey did not repeat the mistakes of the Erbakan government. They were much more inclusive in their approach. Erdogan's government, although sincerely believing in traditional Islamic values, never undermined the minorities in Turkey. Erdogan has been the first Prime Minister of Turkey who gives a monthly salary to Alawite religious leaders, rebuild the ancient synagogues and churches, building new ones despite the stable number of minorities. After coming to power, the AK Party made some serious judiciary reforms, have been much more flexible, liberal and pragmatic than Erbakan government. Like one general at the time of 28th February intervention stated, Erbakan government put forward a beautiful show case before the elections but did not keep the show case in place after the elections. Erdogan did. He sang popular songs with singers wearing revealing clothes and only in his time the modern Turkey saw a non-Muslim governor, while the President Morsi was busy appointing a member of Gamaa Islamiya as the Governor of Luxor. Egypt’s Islamists need to learn from Turkey.

A question of legitimacy
Erdogan has been inclusive and kept the highest interests of the state a priority to the point where he partnered with secularists on the Kurdish, Armenian and Cypriot issues. Erdogan gave importance to economic and military ties with Israel, the United States, Russia, China and the European Union. With 3% growth in the first quarter of 2013 Turkish economy outpaced all Eurozone countries but this could not save Erdogan from protests and he faced stern criticism about his IMAGE on the Gezi protests. Neither Erdogan, nor Erbakan were looked down upon because they failed at economy or public service. They created unease amid the public when the skepticism arose whether or not they would try to impose their image on the masses. And let’s let the elephant in the room free, even though they both were hard workers, their image is not awe-inspiring.

Did Erdogan lose legitimacy in the Muslim circles because his image is more liberal compared to Erbakan? Of course not. He is still regarded as ‘Islamist’ as much as Erbakan. He learned the results of not being inclusive, the hard way. The unmoulded masses of Egypt will decide not only what they do not want but also what they do. And the masses in Turkey will use the Egypt experience to learn what they should not do. We heard the saying “democracy is not only elections” many times lately but free elections are the main tools of democracy. Democracy does not mean using the army to correct our mistakes at the ballot box. If there is a group, which is favored by a great majority, it will prevail even after an intervention. The thinking that the Muslim Brotherhood will stay in the dusty pages of history boks after this is wrong. The Muslim Brotherhood is an organization, which flourished under oppression, they defied Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak and they will defy Sisi too. But there is only one way they can be in power in a future Egyptian scenario, and that goes through implementing a secular constitution where they sincerely embrace all the diversities of Egypt. Of course the first step to democracy in Egpyt, wouldn’t be the last one. Like Turkey, Egypt started its run to democracy with a tutorship regime where the politics were controlled by the military and judiciary justifying the intentions of military. The Turkish experience offers the example of the only way to have a free and democratic society. At some point, the threat of the military coup must be removed, and replaced by the will of the people. Leaders must be removed by ballot boxes, not bullets.
__________
Ceylan Ozbudak is a Turkish political analyst, television presenter, and executive director of Building Bridges, an Istanbul-based NGO. She can be followed on Twitter via @ceylanozbudak

 

[Hussein]

Naglaa Ali Mahmoud was living a long in USA and her sons are all US citizens.
It is her choice to dress like this. It is a mistake to blame choices of people .

Anyway nice article. About princess Fawzia
“Venus” – Part II – The Life and Times of Princess Fawzia [2005] | Kafkaesque

 

[darkinsky]

Second revolution had begun in Egypt! Pro Islamist protesters are huge outside! I repeat, MILLIONS all over EGYPT!

Can't wait to see General El Sisi's reaction haha

is this second revolution or third?

 

[Alshawi1234]

This doesn't look good, I really hope all the parties in Egypt stop the escalation before it turns into a civil war, Some Islamist groups already have dictated the Egyption army and the anti-Morsi protesters to be a legitimate target. Some Army checkpoints have been attacked.

The US has expressed their dismay with the removal of their puppets in Egypt.
McCain calls for suspension of U.S. military aid to Egypt - Alarabiya.net English | Front Page

 

[Solomon2]

is this second revolution or third?

Good Riddance to Brotherhood’s Fake Democrats

By Jeffrey Goldberg Jul 4, 2013 12:56 PM ET

A few months ago, King Abdullah II of Jordan told me about his meetings with Mohamed Mursi, the now-deposed president of Egypt. The king wasn’t fond of Mursi, both because the Egyptian was a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and because Abdullah found Mursi exceedingly stupid.

“I see a Muslim Brotherhood crescent developing in Egypt and Turkey,” the king said. He despises the movement, partly because it is revanchist, fundamentalist and totalitarian, and partly because in Jordan it seeks his overthrow. “The Arab Spring highlighted a new crescent in the process of development.”

The saving grace in Egypt, he said, was that Mursi seemed too unsophisticated to successfully pull off his vision. “There’s no depth to the guy,” he said of Mursi. The king compared him unfavorably to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist prime minister of Turkey. Like Mursi, the king asserted, Erdogan was also a false democrat, but one with patience. “Erdogan once said that democracy for him is a bus ride,” Abdullah said. “Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off.”
Unlike Mursi, however, Erdogan was masterful at manipulating a system that didn’t trust him, the king said. “Instead of the Turkish model, taking six or seven years -- being an Erdogan -- Mursi wanted to do it overnight.” Recent events in Turkey, including the government’s miscalculated response to mass protests, have shown that perhaps even Erdogan isn’t an Erdogan anymore.

Jordan Islamists
I haven’t spoken to King Abdullah since Egypt’s military overturned the results of the election that brought Mursi to power, but I imagine he’s quite pleased today. That’s not only because No-Depth-Mursi is gone and events have underscored the king’s analytical acumen, but also because Abdullah’s main rival for power, the Islamic Action Front, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s Jordan branch, is now on its back foot. So are Islamist political parties across the Middle East. “Islam Is the Solution,” a common slogan among these parties, will be heard only infrequently in the coming days.

There are so many good reasons to be happy and grateful for the latest turn of events in Cairo. Women, as well as the 10 percent of Egyptians who are Christian, should be quite pleased. The Brotherhood’s most vicious war was on women. It has also been working assiduously to marginalize, and even terrorize, Egypt’s Christian minority.

Luckily, Mursi, as King Abdullah suggested, was a thoroughgoing incompetent, who fulfilled few of the Brotherhood’s promises, including its most vindictive ones. It is almost comical now to remember that among Mursi’s more banal pledges was his vow to solve Cairo’s impossible traffic, a mess exacerbated in recent days by the presence of millions of anti-Mursi demonstrators on the streets and in the squares.

The millions of people who rallied against the deposed president were infuriated by his pinched vision of Egypt’s future, as well as by his mishandling of the economy (a truly apocalyptic situation) and public safety. They couldn’t abide by Mursi’s fateful decisions, backed by his masters in the Brotherhood, to concentrate power in the presidency and deny positions in his Cabinet to figures from the political opposition. This last decision, to exclude Egyptians of differing opinions from any role in governance, could have been undone through pressure by the U.S. and its ambassador in Cairo, Anne Patterson. Patterson, however, together with her indifferent bosses in Washington, chose not to exert pressure on Mursi. They seemed to believe, for reasons still unknown, that he and the Brotherhood were firmly ensconced in power. (I wrote about Patterson’s troubles here).

Democratic Setback
And yet, while Egypt’s military coup represents a victory for progressivism, it is also a defeat for democracy. Mursi was freely and fairly elected. If the anti-Mursi demonstrators had exhibited the patience the president lacked, they would, theoretically, at least, have had their chance to remove him at the ballot box. They would also have exhibited a maturity about the processes of democratic governance.

Had the military not intervened, though, the Muslim Brotherhood may have tried, over time, to make sure that Egypt’s first free and fair election was also its last. A number of Egyptian friends have written me in the past day, arguing that what the Egyptian people did -- or, more to the point, what the Egyptian army, responding to the will of the people, did -- was to forestall the rise of a new Hitler. If the Germans, who chose Adolf Hitler in a democratic election, had turned on him a year later, well, you know the rest. The analogy is overdone for so many reasons, but it is absolutely true that the Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian cult, not a democratic party.

Which suggests one other potentially disastrous consequence of this week’s coup: The Brotherhood will not go quietly into obscurity, or into jail. Its members and leaders are true believers. In particular, they are true believers in martyrdom. Had they been turned out of office by voters at the end of Mursi’s term, the opportunities for martyrdom would have been limited. Now that they have been removed by force and are being arrested in large numbers, the opportunities are many.

The Middle East analyst Reuel Marc Gerecht told me that the coup has forestalled the Muslim Brotherhood’s “self-immolation through the ballot box.”

“This will keep the Brotherhood strong and make them, I suspect, meaner and nastier and less public,” he said. “They will grow popular again: Hell, they might still win parliament in a free vote. Who knows? But the military has just guaranteed their livelihood and humbled, if not killed, the democratic process.”

As Tamara Cofman Wittes, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy, says, “My greatest worry is that this coup, if followed by undue repression against Islamists, will drive the creation of a new generation of Islamist terrorists in Egypt. Egyptians have suffered enough from terrorism already.”

Egyptians have suffered enough from everything already. The hope, as outlandish as it sounds, is that this coup finally sets their country on a different trajectory.
(Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist.)

To contact the writer of this article:
Jeffrey Goldberg at goldberg.atlantic@gmail.com