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“Why such inaction in the Senate? Why do the Senators sit and pass no laws? “Because the barbarians are to arrive today. What laws can the Senators pass any more? When the barbarians come they will make the laws…. Why don’t the worthy orators come as always to make their speeches, to have their say? “Because the barbarians are to arrive today; and they get bored with eloquence and orations.” – -Constantine P. Cavafy, “Waiting for the Barbarians.” (1904) Who better to sum up the situation than the great Greek poet of Egypt who wrote of the Christian decline there....

In the history of physics, the “unified field theory” was an attempt to bring together an understanding of all forms of energy in a single explanation. Albert Einstein tried and failed to discover this. I don’t know much about physics but I know about Middle East policy. So here’s an effort to bring together all of Obama’s regional policy into a single analysis and explaining everything in 1100 words. The first point is that the Obama Administration’s behavior must be divided into two phases. They overlap and feature the same kind of thinking but they are also quite separate. Phase...

Charlie:: “You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.” Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, `Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’….I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda...

Much of the mass media seems to be saying, to paraphrase John Lennon and Yoko Ono, “All we are saying is give the Muslim Brotherhood a chance.” There are three arguments supporting this policy that are worth discussing in large part because the Muslim Brotherhood’s advocates don’t have any others. The first, which one hears everywhere, is that the Muslim Brotherhood is full of factions that are moderate and hip young people who want real democracy. If this were true it should be easy to prove. Here are some of the ways to do that: Who are the leaders of...

Obama’s foolish policy of forcing Mubarak out of office precipitously without giving non-Islamist parties time to organize has resulted in Islamists achieving a sweeping victory in the first round of parliamentary elections. Strength by the Muslim Brotherhood was expected, but the extremely hard line Salafists had a very strong showing.

Since last February I have predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would win elections in Egypt. People have thought me very pessimistic. Now the votes are starting to come in and…it’s much worse than I thought. But my prediction that the Brotherhood and the other Islamists would gain a slight majority seems to have been fulfilled and then some. According to most reports the Brotherhood is scoring at just below 40 percent all by itself. Why worse? For two reasons: First, the votes we now have come from the most urban areas of the country. If there are Facebook sophisticates they’re...

Marc Ginsburg, a former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, is claiming that Egypt’s military leadership has been secretly providing financial, food, and security support to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and its allied Salafist parties. According to a report in the Huffington Post: Posted: 11/23/11 06:49 Despite protestations of its purported political neutrality Egypt’s besieged military leadership has been secretly funneling financial, food, and security support to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and its allied Salafist parties in the run up to next week’s parliamentary elections.The assistance takes the form of “walk around” money, clothing and food giveaways secretly funneled to the coffers of the...

Yet it looks as if that is what is happening. I tried to tell you. "Christians worry Egypt being hijacked by Islamists," by Sami Aboudi for Reuters, May 26 (thanks to Kamala): CAIRO (Reuters) - Last January, Nazih Moussa Gerges locked up his downtown Cairo law office and joined hundreds of thousands of fellow Egyptians to demand that President Hosni Mubarak step down. The 33-year-old Christian lawyer was back on the streets this month to press military rulers who took over after Mubarak stepped down to end a spate of sectarian attacks that have killed at least 28 people and...

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CAIRO, May 7 (Reuters) - At least five people were killed in a sectarian clash in Egypt on Saturday over a Christian woman who allegedly had converted to Islam, according to officials. Interfaith relationships often cause tension in Egypt, where Christians make up about 10 percent of its 80 million people. The strife represents another challenge to Egypt's military rulers who are trying to restore law and order after President Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down in a popular uprising in February. Witnesses said some 500 conservative Islamists known as salafists gathered at the Saint Mina Church in the...

While it strives for respectability, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) has a dark side. For example, a 2007 report by the New York Police Department describes MSAs as "part of a growing trend of Salafi-based radicalization." The report lists MSAs as an example of "Salafi Influences and Incubators," stating: "Extremists have used these university-based organizations as forums for the development and recruitment of like-minded individuals - providing a receptive platform for younger, American-born imams, to present a radical message in a way that resonates with the students." But the organization's role in radicalizing other Muslims is just part of the...

BOSTON - A pharmacy college graduate conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday. But their plans — in which the men used code words like "peanut butter and jelly" for fighting in Somalia and "culinary school" for terrorist camps — were thwarted in part when they could not find training and were unable to buy automatic weapons, authorities said. Tarek Mehanna worked with the men from 2001 to May 2008 on the...

~~~snip~~~ ....Men caught repeatedly smoking have their index fingers rammed into metal pipes and then snapped, while cigarette shops have been torched. The rules have often been taken to absurd extremes. Greengrocers in the “caliphate” told The Times that they had been ordered not to sell bananas in public because they were deemed obscene, while cucumbers could not be sold next to tomatoes, which are deemed to represent femininity. At the most extreme, shepherds have been ordered to cover the nether regions of their goats to avoid offending strict Salafist sensibilities. ~~~snip~~~

In an article titled "Al Qaeda finds new partner: Salafist group finds limited success in native Algeria" (The Washington Post, October 5, 2006) by Craig Whitlock, Western sources, including French and American, assert that the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (originally a local Algerian group) has become global by joining with al Qaeda. While the article is very interesting and informative, the analysis of the International Salafi movement by Western sources and expertise shows a continuous misunderstanding of Jihadism and its strategies. For in the essence of the article there is an assertion that the Algerian Salafists were restricted...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi security forces killed 15 terror suspects and arrested nine in a raid on Haifa street in central Baghdad, Defence Minister Hazem al-Shaalan told reporters. "You have all heard about the notorious Haifa street, where there are criminal cells of salafists (Islamists) and those loyal to the previous regime," said Shaalan, flanked by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib. "A joint operation by the national guard and elements of the defence ministry led to the killing of 15 people and the arrest of nine." He said those arrested provided information and intelligence which "led...