You all remember how, in the first flush of the so-called Arab Spring, a veritable flood of praise from the Obama White House and the usual media suspects did their very best to tell us how wonderful the new Islamist rulers were.
They were not fascists, but ' pragmatists' who were all about democracy and freedom. Of course, there were some of us who caught a quite different smell in the air, one they recognized from the recent past, and it wasn't the smell of spring flowers. And of course incidents like the Lara Logan gang rape, the sacking of the Israeli embassy while Egyptian police stood by and did nothing and the strident call by Egypt's new Islamist president for America to free Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, AKA The Blind Sheik who was one of the planners of the first World Trade Center bombing raised a few eyebrows, but overall, the Happy Talk in the Obama Administration and among the usual suspects in the press continued unabated.
Even as recently as a month ago, Obama functionaries like Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta were telling us all how wonderful it all was and bypassing Congress to fund the Islamists, particularly in Egypt.
But now that Egyptian Islamist President Mohammed Morsi has fired the military commanders and ministers who were part of the junta that ruled Egypt, the Islamists are consolidating their control and revealing that they're not exactly the paragons of democracy they were painted to be.The next step is the press.It's never been exactly free, but what few glimmers of opposition there were are being viciously stamped out.
The leading Egyptian newspaper, the state owned al-Ahrum reports:
New issues of privately-owned daily Al-Dostour were confiscated from the paper’s offices. . . .
A number of complaints have been filed against the newspaper’s chairman Reda Edward and editor-in-chief Islam Afifi, accusing the newspaper of insulting president Mohamed Morsi and inciting sectarian strife in Egypt. . . .
Hassan Badie managing editor of Al-Dostour accused the Muslim Brotherhood of being behind the charges and the decision to raid the offices. Al-Dostour newspaper is known for its anti-Brotherhood coverage. . . .
Although many revolutionaries and activists are deeply critical of the editorial policies of Al-Dostour, they are also critical of the judicial moves being taken against the paper. Ibrahim Eissa, Al-Dostour’s former editor-in-chief, sacked in 2010 for his anti-Mubarak views, described the confiscation of the newspaper as a return to “the time of one-party rule.”
Al-Dostour's principles have been accused of sedition and of “harming the president.”
And that's not all. The Shura Council, Egypt's upper house of Parliament just named changes in the editorial staffs and management for the country’s 55 state-run media organizations. And they are all Islamists who can be counted on to toe the party line.
And the new minister of information, Salah Abdel Maksoud is a hardline Islamist veteran of Muslim Brotherhood publications and media who has openly said that the Egyptain's media's job is to support the new regime and its decrees. One of his first decisions as minister was to ban state-run media from broadcasting comments made by Israeli analysts.
One TV station critical of the Brotherhood, Al-Faraeen, a television channel owned and largely hosted by media personality Tawfik Okasha was taken off the air and as inthe case of Al-Dostour , criminal charges of sedition have been filed.
Just last week, a Muslim Brotherhood mob involved in protests against several television programs critical of the new regime assaulted and beat Khaled Salah, the editor of al-Youm al-Sabei, a newspaper critical of the Islamists.
No one could ever have characterized Egypt before as a free country, but the whole point of President Obama's support for the Muslim Brotherhood was that it was going to rule over a new, democratic Egypt.
The Islamists are already beginning to prove what a silly idea that was and will prove it even more over time. What President Obama actually put his weight behind was not democracy, but a democratically elected Islamist dictator.
We will not like the end result, I promise you.
3 comments:
George Friedman at Stratfor specualtes that Morsi's move from a few days ago against SCAF leaders "is all part of an agreement between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood that gives Morsi the appearance of greater power while actually leaving power with the military."
http://tinyurl.com/94mdyss
Do you think this is likely at all?
Hi Altalena,
Thanks for dropping by.
Unfortunately, to answer your question, I don't think so.
Just as with the press, Morsi has put Islamists in charge of the military, or at least people more than willing to go along with the regime.
This is exactly how Khomeini handled the Iranian military once he took over.
It is the Islamists and Salafis who will write Egypt's new sharia-licious 'constitution' and who now control the country.
You should also be aware that according to my sources, Morsi's takeover was fully supported and engineered by the Obama Administration.
The original deal was that the Army would retain some prerogatives,but Morsi's recall of the Islamist parliament, his sacking of the SCAF leaders from the military and his appointment of Islamists to their positions shows that it's no longer in force.
Morsi would not make these moves unless he knew he could pull them off successfully, and part of that is his assurance that the Obama Administration is going to keep the aid flowing and will help in getting Egypt an IMF loan.
Chash Dam,
Rob
Thanks, Rob.
To add a point to your argument, it seems illogical to speculate on hidden reasons when the known facts give a good enough explanation.
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