Free Republic

Egypt's new de facto pharaoh, General Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, is a man of mystery. Is he an Islamist, or a nationalist? Is he a person of high principle, or a lowly opportunist? And in a land which has known five thousand years of mainly centralized, one-man rule, with limited experience of democracy, when have we seen his type before, and where will he lead the troubled, ancient nation now? These questions are crucial to knowing how the U.S. should react to al-Sisi's removal of Egypt's first "freely elected" president, Mohamed Morsi on July 3 in answer to overwhelmingly massive street protests...

USA Today reports from Cairo at least 10 killed, hundreds wounded in Egypt today on the Muslim Brotherhood's (Ikwhan) "Day of Rejection" of the Egyptian military's removal of President Morsi from office this week after a popular uprising.Twitter photoMeanwhile, the U.S. State Department admitted Secretary of State John Kerry was indeed on his yacht in Nantucket on Wednesday as the revolution in Egypt succeeded:CBS News photo via Twitter(Live Thread) Egypt: American Killed During Violent Clashes (Egypt about to blow up)Live Thread: Egypt Revolution 2.0

Egypt's Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim has survived a bomb attack that targeted his convoy in Cairo. Hours later, he appeared unharmed on state TV to denounce the attack as a "cowardly assassination bid". Security guards and a child were among the injured in the attack, which took place near his home in Nasr City. No-one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. Muslim Brotherhood leader Amr Darrag said the group "strongly condemned" what happened. Mr Ibrahim heads the police force which has carried out a crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protests in recent weeks. Nasr City is a stronghold of the...

The U.S. government has decided privately to act as if the military takeover of Egypt was a coup, temporarily suspending most forms of military aid, despite deciding not to announce publicly a coup determination one way or the other, according to a leading U.S. senator. In the latest example of its poorly understood Egypt policy, the Obama administration has decided to temporarily suspend the disbursement of most direct military aid, the delivery of weapons to the Egyptian military, and some forms of economic aid to the Egyptian government while it conducts a broad review of the relationship. The administration won’t...

Newark, New Jersey (My9NJ) - Is 27 the new 18 when it comes to living at your parents' house? According to the US census Bureau, at least 1 in 4 N.J. adults, ages 18-31 live at home and 42% are 24 or older. Experts call it an "epidemic" of millennials leaching off their parents, but does a bad economy and student loan debt crisis justify the situation? A new survey from Coldwell Banker says parents in the Northeast region are more lenient on this than anywhere else in the US on children moving back home. But, according to the survey,...

Speaking in Egypt's embassy in a Mayfair townhouse, Mr Kholy compared the one-year rule of Mr Morsi to the Islamist takeover of the Iranian state after the 1979 revolution and said that, like Nazism, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology sought to dominate Egyptian society. "Morsi was elected president and held office for one year but in that time he tried to make everything Muslim Brotherhood controlled. Egyptian culture over 5,000 years is a mix of religions and civilisations in which the Islamic religion is one ingredient of the Egyptian character," he said. "The Muslim Brotherhood are like a Nazi group that...

•EGYPT VICE PRESIDENT ELBARADEI ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION: AFP •MURSI BACKERS SHOOT, KILL 4 POLICEMEN IN CAIRO STATION: REUTERS More on the resignation of the long-suffering ElBardei: Egypt's interim vice president, Mohamed ElBaradei, resigned on Wednesday after the security forces violently broke up protest camps set up by supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Mursi.

The rise of the “mostly secular” Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has had a decidedly non-secular effect: Persecution of Egypt’s Coptic Christians is on the rise. In the latest bout of civil unrest, the Brotherhood torched three churches. Copts are a minority in Egypt. They don’t control the military government any more than they controlled Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood government. But notice how AFP characterizes the burnings.Supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi torched three churches in central Egypt on Wednesday in reprisal attacks as police dispersed demonstrations in Cairo, reports said.“Reprisal attacks”? They’re attacking Christians, who are largely powerless in Egypt,...

"I warn Egypt's military that Egyptians are a great and freedom-seeking nation. Do not suppress them," said Rouhani in a speech in parliament broadcast live on state TV. He condemned what he said was army "brutality."

Sen. Rand Paul is hammering his fellow senators for keeping billions in financial aid flowing to Egypt's military -- even as Cairo's security forces massacre anti-government activists. "This is something that those who voted in Congress are going to have to live with," Paul told The Cable on Thursday. "The question is: How does their conscience feel now as they see photographs of tanks rolling over Egyptian civilians?" As the official Egyptian death toll climbs to 638, the legislation the Kentucky libertarian is referring to was an amendment to suspend aid to Egypt until the country holds free and fair...

Facing condemnation at every hand from the West, Egypt’s military rulers received a powerful shot in the arm from Riyadh Friday, Aug. 16, with an unprecedented public assurance from Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz that the kingdom supports Egypt in the fight “against terrorism” – the military rulers’ term for Muslim Brotherhood resistance. In a statement broadcast by official Al-Ekhbariya TV, Abdullah said Egypt’s stability is being targeted by “haters” and warned that anyone that interferes in Egypt’s internal affairs seeks to “waken sedition.” debkafile and DEBKA Weekly have been reporting since last week that Saudi Arabia and the...

Abu Hafs al Maqdisi, the leader of the Gaza-based Jaish al Ummah (Army of the Nation), today called on Egyptians to wage "jihad" against Egyptian army commander General Abdul Fattah el Sisi. Al Maqdisi, who was released from a Hamas prison in December, also called on Egyptians to overthrow "the tyrant" (el Sisi) and establish an Islamic state. In addition, al Maqdisi said he hoped that one of el Sisi's bodyguards would kill him. Al Maqdisi further stated, according to press reports, that although Jaish al Ummah does not currently coordinate with any Salafist groups in Egypt, it is...

Only capable armed forces can check the violent proclivities of Islamic supremacism. As Egypt began to implode, yet again, John Kerry inadvertently stumbled into something a lot closer to the truth than the delusional “Arab Spring” narrative that has guided Obama-administration policy. The secretary of state, tied in knots by congressional foolishness that mandates terminating U.S. aid when a foreign government is ousted by a coup d’état, rationalized that, quite contrary to a coup, the Egyptian military’s ejection of President Mohamed Morsi was an exercise in “restoring democracy.” None of this was quite right, although that is to be expected....

Egyptian presidential advisor Mustafa Hegazy described them as remnants of “religious fascism” that once governed the nation. The police called them infidels as they cleared a mosque Saturday where they were either hiding or shooting, depending on which side you listened to. Newscasters referred to them as armed gunmen. And on the streets of Cairo, in front of the latest clashes, nearby residents used the terms animals, barbarians, and terrorists to describe supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. It is why so many shrug at word that at least 1,042 people have been killed since June 26, according to...

To add to Stanley’s sage observations (both today and earlier this week), I argue in this weekend’s column that elections are not democracy and, in fact, that popular elections in a sharia culture that inevitably empower Islamic supremacists are innately anti-democratic – which is why our commentariat ought to stop referring to Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s “democratically elected” president. He is (or was) the popularly-elected in an anti-democratic society.

The recent military coup in Egypt has prompted a renewed debate about American aid to the country. Sens. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, have both called for cutting off aid, while the White House has said it’s in no hurry to end the aid. We've taken a step back and tried to answer some basic questions, including how much the U.S. is giving Egypt, what's changed in the two years since the Arab Spring and who is benefiting from all the money. How much does the U.S. spend on Egypt? Egypt receives more U.S....

There’s some soul searching going on in the Obama administration as it ponders how they got sidelined in Egypt as the situation there got out of control in a spiral of violence. As the New York Times details in a post-mortem of U.S. policy, the administration went all out to persuade the military that had overthrown the Muslim Brotherhood to compromise and allow the Islamists to rejoin the government. Among other efforts to cajole them or to threaten aid cutoffs, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel made 17 often-lengthy phone calls to Egyptian General Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi trying to get him to...

Nothing symbolizes the Utopianism of our times like both liberals and some conservatives calling for us to cut off aid to the Egyptian military, because of the widespread killings in what is becoming a civil war in Egypt. Such utter lack of realism from the left is not new, but hearing some conservatives saying the same things takes some getting used to. President Obama's call for the Egyptians to end the violence and form an "inclusive" government, with all factions represented, may sound good to many Americans. But there is not a snowball's chance in hell that it will happen....

Egypt plays a vital role in international energy markets through the operation of the Suez Canal and the Suez-Mediterranean (Sumed) pipeline. These are vital pieces of infrastructure in the global oil market. Last year, about 7pc of all seaborne traded oil and 13pc of liquefied natural gas (LNG) travelled through the Suez Canal, according to data collected by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Russian President Vladimir Putin called an extraordinary session at the Kremlin Saturday to "discuss the situation in Egypt and take the necessary steps to the put Russian military facilities at the Egyptian military's disposal," said an announcement in Moscow, without elaborating. Putin said further that "Russia will arrange for joint military exercises with the Egyptian army." DEBKAfile: Moscow's steps directly conflict with Western condemnation of the Egyptian military's crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. They were taken shortly after President Barack Obama cancelled a joint military exercise with Egypt as a mark of US disapproval.