Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Egypt. Show all posts

Monday, August 19, 2013

Juan Williams finally makes some sense

Juan Williams, a liberal commentator who was driven from NPR to Fox News a few years ago, was on the 6 PM Fox news roundtable.  They were discussing Egypt and what should be done.  Juan said that of the two sides in the Egyptian "disturbances" we ought to be backing the Egyptian Army against the Muslim Brotherhood.  Juan got that 100 % right.
  The Army may be a little heavy handed, but the Muslim Brotherhood are Islamist crazies.  The Army has majority support of the Egyptian people in turning out Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government.
  All we can do in Egypt is pick a side.  The Army, which we have been training and paying for 20 years, is much more sympathetic to our point of view than the Brotherhood, who assassinated Anwat Sadat.  

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Does John McCain know anything?

John McCain was on NHPR this morning calling for cancellation of US aid to Egypt.  I don't  agree.  Egypt's population decided they had had enough of the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi, they staged protest demonstrations bigger than the ones that deposed Mubarak, the Egyptian Army took the hint and showed Morsi the door.  Morsi and the Brotherhood had managed to throw most Egyptians out of work, ruin the tourist trade, and were getting ready to provoke a war with the Israelis.  
   And, you gotta understand who the Muslim Brotherhood is.  They are an underground Islamist revolutionary movement that got started in the 1920's, with the objective of throwing the British out of Egypt.  They were so violent that the British, Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak had all outlawed the party and threw every brother they caught into jail.  They are the best organized political party in Egypt, having had the last hundred years to get organized .  The Brotherhood founded Al Quada, Abu Nadal, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  The Brotherhood killed Anwat Sadat.  Osama bin Laden started his political career with the Brotherhood. They are dangerous and they want us dead.  There is no way we are gonna change their minds, we cannot kiss and make up, we have to oppose them.
    After the "Arab Spring" demos last year, Obama helped throw Mubarak out of power.  The Brotherhood moved right into the vacuum thus created and managed to  gain a majority in the legislature and elect one of their own to the presidency.  They have spend the last year driving the county underwater. Good work Obama.
   Last week we had a stroke of pure unadulerated luck,  the second Arab Spring, and the Egyptian Army has removed Morsi and the Brotherhood from power.  The army was able to do this because it have been receiving sizable American money ever since the Camp David Accords back in the Carter Administration.  This enabled the Army to pay the troops, buy rations, ammunition, spare parts and fuel, without having to pay off the Egyptian politicians.  We made training spaces available in all the US military schools so most of the Egyptian officer corps has done schooling in the US.  Some of our ideals have rubbed off on them.  In short we have built the Egyptian Army up into the most powerful institution in the country, an institution that has the respect of their citizens and is sympathetic to the American point of view.  It wasn't cheap, but right now, it looks like money well spent.
  And the ever clueful John McCain wants to screw all this up by cutting of the money.   Good work McCain.
    
 

Friday, November 23, 2012

Looks like there is political opposition in Eygpt

According to this, the headquarters of  the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the party of president Morsi, were torched by a mob.  Sounds like Morsi has a bit of an opposition.  Question, are we in touch with the opposition?  Even if we like Morsi better than the opposition, we will find Morsi easier to deal with if he has to watch his back. We ought to be giving the opposition a little friendly support.