Re: Egypt
Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 11:52 am
Another day in the Universe
https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/
https://www.onthenatureofthings.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=39
Because Erdogan says so? lolHeracleum Persicum wrote:Looks like, Mosi will be back
So you want to impose your fantasies on them through violence. You aren't just as bad as the Muslim Brotherhood, you are worse. The Muslim Brotherhood were democratically elected religious ideologues. You are a religious ideologue willing to use violence to force your religious views on people regardless of popular votes. You are a dangerous and violent religious zealot.Endovelico wrote:Islamists, like Christian fundamentalists or Jewish zealots, must be made to understand that they will not be allowed to impose their fantasies on non-believers.Ibrahim wrote:So let the military that's been torturing and killing people for 50 years shoot them all and then hand-pick the people they want? How is Islamism worse than fascism? There seem to have been more purges and massacres after the coup.Endovelico wrote:Democracy, as understood by Islamists, is not exactly what we have in mind when referring to the concept...
If people wanted to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood they should have let them government for another 3 years, now they aren't going anywhere.
Egypt showered with Gulf billions in show of support for army
Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry, CAIRO / Reuters
Gulf states showered Cairo with $8billion in aid on Tuesday, showing their support for the Egyptian army's move to push the Muslim Brotherhood from power, a day after troops killed dozens of the movement's supporters.
Military-backed interim head of state Adli Mansour named a liberal economist as acting prime minister and announced a faster-than-expected timetable for elections in six months.
Mansour's army backers are under pressure to plot a path back to democracy less than a week after they overthrew Egypt's first freely elected president, the Brotherhood's Mohammad Mursi.
The country is now more divided than ever in its modern history after 55 people were killed when troops opened fire on Brotherhood supporters in the capital. The movement says the victims were praying in peace; the government blames the Islamists for provoking the violence by attacking the soldiers.
Mansour, a judge installed as acting president when the military removed Mursi, named Hazem el-Beblawi as interim prime minister. He served briefly as finance minister in 2011. Former U.N. diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, now a liberal party leader, is to be deputy president responsible for foreign affairs.
Importantly, the choice of Beblawi won the acceptance of the ultra-orthodox Islamist Nour Party - sometime ally of Mursi and the Brotherhood. Nour leaders have been courted by the interim authorities to show that Islamists need not be marginalized.
Monday's bloodshed has raised alarm among key donors such as the United States and the European Union, as well as in Israel, with which Egypt has had a U.S.-backed peace treaty since 1979.
Wealthy Gulf Arab states, long suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood, have shown fewer reservations. The United Arab Emirates offered a grant of $1 billion and a loan of $2 billion. Saudi Arabia offered $3 billion in cash and loans, and an additional $2 billion worth of much-needed fuel.
In a further demonstration of its support, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed visited Egypt on Tuesday, the most senior foreign official to arrive since Mursi's removal.
Ibrahim wrote:I hope everybody who supports the Egyptian army rounding up/gunning down "Islamists" knows who is helping to pay the bills.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/busines ... -army.html
Egypt showered with Gulf billions in show of support for army
Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry, CAIRO / Reuters
Gulf states showered Cairo with $8billion in aid on Tuesday, showing their support for the Egyptian army's move to push the Muslim Brotherhood from power, a day after troops killed dozens of the movement's supporters.
Military-backed interim head of state Adli Mansour named a liberal economist as acting prime minister and announced a faster-than-expected timetable for elections in six months.
Mansour's army backers are under pressure to plot a path back to democracy less than a week after they overthrew Egypt's first freely elected president, the Brotherhood's Mohammad Mursi.
The country is now more divided than ever in its modern history after 55 people were killed when troops opened fire on Brotherhood supporters in the capital. The movement says the victims were praying in peace; the government blames the Islamists for provoking the violence by attacking the soldiers.
Mansour, a judge installed as acting president when the military removed Mursi, named Hazem el-Beblawi as interim prime minister. He served briefly as finance minister in 2011. Former U.N. diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, now a liberal party leader, is to be deputy president responsible for foreign affairs.
Importantly, the choice of Beblawi won the acceptance of the ultra-orthodox Islamist Nour Party - sometime ally of Mursi and the Brotherhood. Nour leaders have been courted by the interim authorities to show that Islamists need not be marginalized.
Monday's bloodshed has raised alarm among key donors such as the United States and the European Union, as well as in Israel, with which Egypt has had a U.S.-backed peace treaty since 1979.
Wealthy Gulf Arab states, long suspicious of the Muslim Brotherhood, have shown fewer reservations. The United Arab Emirates offered a grant of $1 billion and a loan of $2 billion. Saudi Arabia offered $3 billion in cash and loans, and an additional $2 billion worth of much-needed fuel.
In a further demonstration of its support, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed visited Egypt on Tuesday, the most senior foreign official to arrive since Mursi's removal.
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RT: Why this sudden generosity from the Gulf states, they are not famous for giving something for nothing? Or do they just want to help stabilize the country?
Afshin Rattansi: While people are thinking that it was America-backed coup, obviously the US were involved Susan Rice and Kerry talked about it. We now realize it is much more a Saudi-backed military coup. And as for this General al-Sisi, who is a former military attaché in Saudi Arabia, he is Saudis man. Saudi Arabia, they’ve taken over the largest country in the Arab world.
And as for President Obama, he is just dragging his heels over it– he doesn’t want to use the word coup because he doesn’t want to stop being able to subsidize the Egyptian military to the tune of so many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
RT: By tendering these loans, are they endorsing the interim president as in some way the country's legitimate leader?
AR: We certainly know that Mr. Mansour and Mr. Beblawi, the Prime Minister, they are puppets of course of Saudi Arabia. If they speak one word out of line, if they criticize Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, the way it’s killing its people or UAE – both of them will go. As for Beblawi, why he is interesting he is a near-liberal economist, so presumably if he stays on, because he just started career after the fall of Mubarak, he’ll keep on near-liberal policies, he will privatize things, there’ll be increase of austerity, and at the same time the people won’t stand for it, which means it will have to be more power to the army given and supported by the US and Saudi Arabia.
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. . since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi, life has somehow gotten better for many people across Egypt: Gas lines have disappeared, power cuts have stopped and the police have returned to the street.
The apparently miraculous end to the crippling energy shortages, and the re-emergence of the police, seems to show that the legions of personnel left in place after former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2011 played a significant role — intentionally or not — in undermining the overall quality of life under the Islamist administration of Mr. Morsi.
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And as the interim government struggles to unite a divided nation, the Muslim Brotherhood and Mr. Morsi’s supporters say the sudden turnaround proves that their opponents conspired to make Mr. Morsi fail. Not only did police officers seem to disappear, but the state agencies responsible for providing electricity and ensuring gas supplies failed so fundamentally that gas lines and rolling blackouts fed widespread anger and frustration.
“This was preparing for the coup,” said Naser el-Farash, who served as the spokesman for the Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade under Mr. Morsi. “Different circles in the state, from the storage facilities to the cars that transport petrol products to the gas stations, all participated in creating the crisis.”
Working behind the scenes, members of the old establishment, some of them close to Mr. Mubarak and the country’s top generals, also helped finance, advise and organize those determined to topple the Islamist leadership, including Naguib Sawiris, a billionaire and an outspoken foe of the Brotherhood; Tahani El-Gebali, a former judge on the Supreme Constitutional Court who is close to the ruling generals; and Shawki al-Sayed, a legal adviser to Ahmed Shafik, Mr. Mubarak’s last prime minister, who lost the presidential race to Mr. Morsi.
But it is the police returning to the streets that offers the most blatant sign that the institutions once loyal to Mr. Mubarak held back while Mr. Morsi was in power. Throughout his one-year tenure, Mr. Morsi struggled to appease the police, even alienating his own supporters rather than trying to overhaul the Interior Ministry. But as crime increased and traffic clogged roads — undermining not only the quality of life, but the economy — the police refused to deploy fully.
much more @ link
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Islamists have painted black X’s on Christian shops to mark them for arson and angry mobs have attacked churches and besieged Christians in their homes. Four Christians were reported slaughtered with knives and machetes in one village last week.
The attacks have hit across the country, in the northern Sinai Peninsula, in a resort town on the Mediterranean coast, in Port Said along the Suez Canal and in isolated villages in upper Egypt.
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Speaking at a military graduation ceremony broadcast on state television, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in full uniform and wearing dark sunglasses, called on Egyptians to take to the streets on Friday. “Come out to give me the mandate and order to confront violence and potential terrorism,” he said.
His words hint at a broader, harsher crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which has staged an ongoing sit-in in Cairo and large protests around the country since Mr. Morsi's ouster, demanding he be reinstated and refusing to negotiate until he is. It also raises questions about the military's influence over Egypt's interim government.
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On 30 June 2012, President Mohammed Morsi took over as the Mubarak successor in Egypt. However, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Muslim Brotherhoods’ victory last June, 2013, Professor Samir Amin, Egyptian philosopher and economist, who also serves as the director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, spoke to the Italian journalist, Giuseppe Acconcia, on a wide range of issues. A month after the interview, ironically, Mohammed Morsi was removed from office by the Egyptian military and bloody clashes broke out in popular protest. Here, Professor Amin reflects on the last year in Egypt with the Brotherhood in power.
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Acconcia: What do you think about the Tamarod’s campaign?
Samir Amin: The Tamarod’s campaign for the Morsi dismissal is magnificent. Millions of people signed their names after giving deep political consideration to what they were doing: something totally ignored by the international mainstream media. They represent the majority of all the electoral constituencies, but they do not have any voice. The Muslim Brothers wield political power and like to think they can control 100% of the votes. Thus, they ensured members of the movement in every public sector. Their way of managing the country is informed by a type of crony capitalism, which simply does not leave any room for the opposition figures, and technocrats who had some power even in the Mubarak era.
A: This is happening during the worst economic crisis of recent decades
Samir Amin: There is more than an economic crisis. Islamists have only ultraliberal answers to give to the crisis: they have replaced the capitalists’ bourgeois cliques that were Mubarak’s friends with reactionary businessmen. Moreover, their goal is quite simply to sell off public goods. The Brotherhood is hated by Egyptians because it continues with the same policies as its predecessor.
A: Maybe worse in the case of the Islamic Finance Bill?
Samir Amin: It is theft to attach derisory prices to goods that are worth billions of dollars. These are not the usual privatizations that reactionary regimes indulge in, selling off goods at their economic value. This is pure fraud more than a privatization.
A: Recalling the stages of this year with the Brotherhood in power – Morsi won after eight days of uncertainty and finally the elimination of the Nasserist, Hamdin Sabbahi, in the first round. Were the 2012 presidential elections manipulated?
Samir Amin: There was massive electoral fraud. Hamdin Sabbahi could have passed into the second round, but the US Embassy did not want it. European observers listened to their American diplomatic counterparts and turned a blind eye to the fraud involved. Moreover, the five million votes for Sabbahi were squeaky clean and highly motivated. On the other hand, the five million votes for Morsi came from the most wretched part of the population, devoid of political conscience: the votes of people willing to be bought off for a piece of bread and a glass of milk.
A: But would you agree that the sharpest clashes between the presidency and demonstrators broke out last November as a consequence of the presidential decree that extended Morsi’s powers?
Samir Amin: Morsi got going with a few weeks of demagogic speechifying, promising to listen to the other political contestants. After that, it soon became clear the extent to which the President was a puppet with the Gulf countries pulling the strings out of sight. He became a mere instrument of the murshid’s will – that of Mohammed Badie, Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A: The historic support to the Palestinians had been shelved as well?
Samir Amin: The Egyptian Muslim Brothers support Israel, like the Gulf countries and Qatar do. They have always adopted an anti-Zionist discourse, but this was just an ongoing deception. The Qatari Emir, for example, is quite used to saying one thing and then doing the opposite, given the complete absence of public opinion. Now Egypt is supporting the worst type of opposition in Syria, as do the most reactionary western powers. The end result is that the majority of the western weapons furnished to the rebels are being used to finance the very worst outcome in Syria.
A: Is this why Morsi supported the creation of a Free Trade Area in the Sinai, favouring an economic relationship with Israel?
Samir Amin: This is a huge loss to Egypt. The effects of the new Free Trade Area will not be the imagined industrialization of the region, but the perpetration of a huge fiscal fraud. This will strengthen small mafias and the dismantling of public assets. In the end, the Brotherhood would accept all the conditions of the International Monetary Fund and the expected loan will accordingly come to fruition despite the fact that corruption and financial scandal have spread all over the country.
A: So how do you see the acceptance of the Constitution written by the Muslim Brotherhood, last December?
Samir Amin: This is a dictatorship of the majority. However, judges put up the strongest and indeed an unprecedented fight against the ratification of the constitutional referendum results. But it is clear that the ultimate goal of Freedom and Justice (the political party of the Brotherhood) is to build-up a theocracy on the Iranian model.
A: To conclude is there anything left to preserve in this year of Morsi’s presidency?
Samir Amin: The lumpen proletariat is easily manipulated, and a fortiori would not obtain anything by the upheaval Morsi’s overthrow will bring. Moreover, the division of power the Brotherhood has with the army who is behind the scenes, ready to intervene, is full of ambiguity. The military personnel, as a class, are corrupt – a corruption guaranteed by American help, and carefully composed of segments of different classes, divided into political currents, many of them close to the Brotherhood and the Salafists.
However, with normal elections, with a period of democratic preparation, the Brotherhood will be beaten. But if this is not going to happen, next October there will be a more repressive climate and the vote will be manipulated by widespread falsification as happened on the previous occasion.
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Egypt's Brotherhood stands ground after killings
CAIRO (Reuters) - Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters stood their ground near a Cairo mosque on Sunday, a day after at least 72 were shot dead by Egyptian security forces, braced for a move against them by the army chief who ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made his first appearance since Saturday's bloodshed, smiling before television cameras at a graduation ceremony for police recruits in starched white uniforms.
He received a standing ovation and was hailed by Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim as "Egypt's devoted son". Fawning coverage in state and private media reflected Sisi's rising political star, in a country ruled by former military officers for six decades before Mursi's election in 2012.
Saturday's dawn killings, following a day of rival mass rallies, fuelled global anxiety that the most populous and influential Arab nation risked broader conflagration.
The European Union said it was sending foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to meet on Monday with Sisi and the interim president he installed, as well as officials of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing.
Ashton said she would press for a "fully inclusive transition process, taking in all political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood".
The Brotherhood accuses the military of reversing the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, and demands that Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected president, be reinstated.
Mursi has been in army detention since his July 3 overthrow and the military-backed interim government has placed him under investigation on charges including murder. Authorities also say they will move soon to clear the Brotherhood's tent vigil.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.Ibrahim wrote:http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/i ... 1Z20130728
Egypt's Brotherhood stands ground after killings
CAIRO (Reuters) - Thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters stood their ground near a Cairo mosque on Sunday, a day after at least 72 were shot dead by Egyptian security forces, braced for a move against them by the army chief who ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made his first appearance since Saturday's bloodshed, smiling before television cameras at a graduation ceremony for police recruits in starched white uniforms.
He received a standing ovation and was hailed by Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim as "Egypt's devoted son". Fawning coverage in state and private media reflected Sisi's rising political star, in a country ruled by former military officers for six decades before Mursi's election in 2012.
Saturday's dawn killings, following a day of rival mass rallies, fuelled global anxiety that the most populous and influential Arab nation risked broader conflagration.
The European Union said it was sending foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to meet on Monday with Sisi and the interim president he installed, as well as officials of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political wing.
Ashton said she would press for a "fully inclusive transition process, taking in all political groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood".
The Brotherhood accuses the military of reversing the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, and demands that Mursi, Egypt's first freely elected president, be reinstated.
Mursi has been in army detention since his July 3 overthrow and the military-backed interim government has placed him under investigation on charges including murder. Authorities also say they will move soon to clear the Brotherhood's tent vigil.
So yeah, this is where we are at now. The Egyptian military, backed in small part by the US, and in large part by the Gulf States, is just gunning down protesters and people staging sit-ins in support of a democratically elected government, the leader of which the military has arrested and spirited away. Yet some how a few people still have the lack of shame to call this a good thing. Because if you call somebody an "Islamist," then you can do anything you want to them, even if they haven't specifically done anything to provoke it.
Oh, and worth pointing out that the coup backers are useful idiots for th House of Saud. Why are the UAE and Saudi Kingdom backing the Egyptian military at the rate of $10 to every American dollar? Because the MB model is the most direct threat to their own. A Sunni Islamic democracy is the greatest threat to the Wahhabbi monarchies.
Anyway if you follow any Egyptian journos on Twitter they are all talking about seeing groups of civilians carted into hospitals with double-tap bullet holes, one to the face and one to the chest. People are being disappeared overnight, detained without any notice of charges, and if history of the Egyptian security services is any indication, tortured or executed. Remember the early, happy days of the coup when all they did was shut down all the TV channels and newspapers? Who saw this coming? Oh wait, everybody who knows f__ all about the Middle East.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.Ibrahim wrote:https://twitter.com/Earth_Pics/status/3 ... 20/photo/1
Muslims protecting Christians in Egypt during mass.
El Baradei is done, looks like straight mass-murdering military dictatorship from here on in. Doubt the US gov't has the decency to stop backing the coup this late, but it wouldn't matter anyway since 10x the money comes from Saudi Arabia. Egyptian and Western "liberals" backing the army are a joke. Don't feel like posting dozens of pics of people shot by the army. If you hate Arabs and/or like it when civilians die this is another good day for you.Egypt declares state of emergency
Announcement comes amid security crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters that has left at least 149 people dead nationwide
Thank You Very Much for your post, Ibrahim.Ibrahim wrote:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 51214.htmlEl Baradei is done, looks like straight mass-murdering military dictatorship from here on in. Doubt the US gov't has the decency to stop backing the coup this late, but it wouldn't matter anyway since 10x the money comes from Saudi Arabia. Egyptian and Western "liberals" backing the army are a joke. Don't feel like posting dozens of pics of people shot by the army. If you hate Arabs and/or like it when civilians die this is another good day for you.Egypt declares state of emergency
Announcement comes amid security crackdown on pro-Morsi protesters that has left at least 149 people dead nationwide
Thank You Very Much for your post, Nonc.Nonc Hilaire wrote:The US now prefers fiscally manipulable political factions over monarchies. "Muslim Brotherhood", which is neither Muslim nor a brotherhood, is a convenient label. If there is a connection between the MB in Syria and in Egypt I would love to hear about it.
If they ever do get together, Israel is lavendered.
From what I have read about the Syrian MB, they are Muslims of the Looney Sunni flavor, may or may not be brothers, but are definitely hoods....."Muslim Brotherhood", which is neither Muslim nor a brotherhood,
Maybe........If they ever do get together, Israel is lavendered.