Posted on 07/14/2013 12:03:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
That’s a lofty title, but bear with me. I know the country—not just through being Egyptian, but through empirical and academic knowledge as well.
The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, an elementary school teacher. The organization’s stated aim was to overthrow British Imperialism and establish an Islamic state in Egypt—a state that would eventually encompass the Arab world. Although the British have since departed, the remaining goal has never changed.
The Muslim Brotherhood initially cooperated with the “free officers” of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, which overthrew King Farouk and eventually the British. But from that moment on, the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Army switched from cooperation to rivalry. It was a matter of “who will swallow whom.” President Gamal Abdel Nasser imprisoned most of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, tortured others, and put some to death.
Many years later, Hosni Mubarak, the third successor to Nasser, came to power. Mubarak, head of the Egyptian Air Force during the 1973 war with Israel, took over in 1981 after an Egyptian Islamic Jihadist assassinated his predecessor, Anwar Sadat.
In dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood, Mubarak implemented what could be called a “bait and switch.” Sometimes he arrested their leaders (including recent president Mohammed Morsi). Other times he allowed them to occupy up to 25 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament—all along knowing that he couldn’t trust their deadly ideology.
But in January 2011, when the young college-educated masses took to the streets in Cairo, Alexandria, and other cities, the Muslim Brotherhood had to figure out how to respond. At first they stayed on the sidelines, fearing that if those “democracy ideologues” failed, then the Mubarak regime would come after them. But after the secularly-educated young adults succeeded (after paying a heavy price) in ousting Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood then jumped on the bandwagon, claiming the revolution as their own.
And who was there to encourage the Muslim Brotherhood? None other than the American administration.
The rule of the Egyptian Army during the sixteen months following Mubarak’s departure turned out to be a disastrous experience for Egyptians. So under pressure from the American administration, they then conducted a so-called “free and fair election.”
There is reason for my cynicism in describing the election that way. You will never learn from the Western media what my friends in Egypt experienced during that “election”.
The contest was between a former head of the Air Force, General Shafik (also a one-time prime minister under Mubarak) and a third-choice Brotherhood candidate named Mohammed Morsi. During the election, thugs took over many of the polling stations, particularly in Upper Egypt. They told Christians that if they wanted to live, they better not go inside and vote. Incidentally, they did the same thing during the referendum on the new constitution, which the Islamists concocted as a prelude to Sharia.
People who can do simple math will discover that less than 15 percent of the population voted “yes” on that referendum. But that’s not the entire story.
According to documents discovered after the recent June 30th Revolution, Morsi actually lost the election by more than 200,000 votes. But the American ambassador in Cairo, Anne Patterson, who was carrying the wishes of her bosses in Washington, pressured the military counsel (English Translation) to declare Morsi the winner. The reason? To avoid bloodshed.
That is the nub of it all.
Ever since September 11th, American politicians on both sides of the aisle have developed this narrative that says: “we should fight Islam with Islam.” Meaning: “If Islamists are allowed to rule and are allowed to taste the nectar of power for which they have longed for decades, they will turn away from terrorism. Let the Islamists rule, and we all shall live in peace.”
Well now we know how that American experiment turned out.
Twelve months of Islamist rule have proved to Egypt’s vast Muslim population that the misguided policy of naïve American politicians has only kicked the can of terrorism down the road.
Immediately after taking office, Morsi began replacing moderate Muslim professionals within the government with Brotherhood cronies with no knowledge of how to govern.
During the ensuing twelve months, the economy tanked, poverty rose to an all-time high, and the Brotherhood’s business brokers took all incoming foreign money—whether for business or aid—and distributed most of it among themselves. They then passed on a few crumbs to their followers, some of whom are still demonstrating against the popular uprising and the removal of their sugar daddy. One Egyptian news anchor claimed that Morsi’s net worth had risen from nothing before the election, to nearly 2 billion Egyptian pounds today.
No wonder that 30 million people—mostly Muslims (many of whom voted for Morsi in an effort to reject the Mubarak dictatorship)—took to the streets. They realized that they had just replaced a beneficent dictator with a far worse fascist one.
Of course, now the Muslim Brotherhood is promising a reign of terror to include killings and suicide bombings. So much for avoiding bloodshed.
To add insult to injury, Morsi would not allow the police or the court to prosecute known Jihadists in the country. And to top it all off, when 3000 Jihadists from Afghanistan and Libya made their home base in the Sinai Desert, he told the Egyptian Army not to interfere with them in spite of the repeated attacks and killings of Egyptian soldiers by these foreign Jihadists.
But I have no doubt that the people of goodwill in Egypt will prevail. They have learned that freedom and Islamist rule cannot co-exist. Something that the Western media and the U.S. government would be wise to finally figure out for themselves.
Thanks for posting.
The lesson of history is that Muslims will be democratic and non-totalitarian only to the extent that they disregard their religion. The USA had better discard the prevailing notion that every belief system that calls itself a religion is entitled to Constitutional protection.
A very interesting article writen by an Egyptian on what actually may have been happening in Egypt.
No rational person, least of all the Western oriented secularists, would want a government run by the Brotherhood or political Islamists. Hence the coup has been widely applauded in the West. However it is a strategic political error to ignore the fact that political Islam holds a major influence over most of the Egyptian population. Most of Egypt’s population is rural, poorly educated, impoverished and firmly Islamic. The Western oriented secularists are usually urban and the people that interact with Western media, businessmen and diplomats. They of course are friendly and appealing but form a minority of the population. What’s more the rural majority is not politically unorganized and can be mobilized for whatever the Brotherhood leadership deems necessary including civil disobedience and even violence. Like it or not there will be no peace and progress in Egypt until a working consensus is reached between these two opposing groups. This coup makes that consensus which was always a remote possibility at best even more unlikely. Yet without it, Egypt already poor will become destitute. Many of those secularists will eventually leave along with many of the impoverished and uneducated. What’s more America will ultimately be blamed for whatever happens in Egypt. The US is the paymaster of the Egyptian military and thereby cannot escape responsibility. IMHO deposing Mursi, just as he had been politically checked by the massive demonstrations, was a huge strategic blunder. Now he is a martyr and icon. The Brotherhood obviously will not retire gently. Its hard to be optimistic about Egypt’s and the entire regions future.
I’m very glad I saw this; thanks for posting it.
Ever since September 11th, American politicians on both sides of the aisle have developed this narrative that says: “we should fight Islam with Islam.”
Like it or not there will be no peace and progress in Egypt until a working consensus is reached between these two opposing groups.
With all due respect - there can be NO consensus with Islamists. Theirs is an all or nothing world-view that not only lacks respect for the belief of others - it preaches hatred towards all who believe differently.
This is a major flaw in your thinking. We cannot “co-exist” with radical Islam. Period. Such a state requires mutual respect from both sides. We can exists with Muslim nations that are not radicalized or bent on destruction of others. This requires a leader and government that won’t tolerate radical behavior. We had an ally like that once in Egypt and this administration stabbed him in the back much like a former President from Georgia stabbed another ally in the back. Both of them were flawed men without a doubt, but they represented the best hope for peace. We will likely pay heavy consequences for both decisions as will/have millions of people.
Nearly every married woman in Egypt has suffered mutilation. One third of all marriages are between cousins. The actual unemployment level is 40 percent.
The vast majority of Egyptians are illiterate. And, the country can’t feed itself because of the government socialistic approach to managing land, water and property rights.
They need to elect an Israeli government. They made the desert bloom.
I don’t disagree, Egypt is a mess. However, the one man who struck the best possible balance for our strategic goals and interests as well as the rights of all Egyptians to exists was the man we stabbed in the back.
There can be little doubt that the former regime would/did do more to improve the situation than the Muslim Brotherhood. We betray our long-term ally and now protect a man who can accurately be described as a radical Islamist?
If you assume that Obama’s goal is to help establish a regional Caliphate in the Middle East that is a major global power equal to the USA or China, Morsi was a good pick, and we can expect more shenanigans by this administration seeking to give the Muslim Brotherhood another shot at power in Egypt. The only thing Obama didn’t expect was that the Egyptian population had the guts to throw the bums out.
I thought that was well known. Code Pink, the media, and other American fascists were there coaching them. One American reporter was raped.
Like it or not there will be no peace and progress in Egypt until a working consensus is reached between these two opposing groups.
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Let me guess: You have been drinking the State Department’s “For-the-love-of-Jihad” Kool-Aid?
Nearly every married woman in Egypt has suffered mutilation. One third of all marriages are between cousins. The actual unemployment level is 40 percent.
The vast majority of Egyptians are illiterate. And, the country can’t feed itself because of the government socialistic approach to managing land, water and property rights.
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Great post. However, I would beg to differ with your statement, “Nearly every married woman in Egypt has suffered mutilation.”
In fact, would it not be more accurate to say that the vast majority of Muslim females in Egypt above the age of six have suffered mutilation?
That means they do not consider themselves to be mutilated. Mutilation is not a proper description of the procedure
If you assume that Obama’s goal is to help establish a regional Caliphate in the Middle East that is a major global power equal to the USA or China, Morsi was a good pick, and we can expect more shenanigans by this administration seeking to give the Muslim Brotherhood another shot at power in Egypt. The only thing Obama didn’t expect was that the Egyptian population had the guts to throw the bums out.
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Excellent post, . . . And, tragically true.
I think it’s very GOOD news. In spite of our treasonous usurper the Egyptian people are rejecting the Sharia. Same with Turkey.BECAUSE Zero was on their side the BAD guys can’t use the US as an excuse for their actions.(Not successfully anyways). Perhaps the people living under Islam will finally realize Islam itself is the problem.
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