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While Cairo Burns, Obama Parties
Keith Koffler
says the Washington A-List was out in force Saturday night at the
farewell party for senior adviser David Axelrod, with a roster of guests
featuring Cabinet secretaries, big shot journos and -- Barack Obama.
As revolution threatened to sweep Egypt and possibly other allies --
with the horrifying prospect of Islamism replacing reliable friends --
Obama was on view partying with the IN crowd.
The skepticism
beyond the Beltway about whether Washington is just one big Love-In
certainly gets fed by the sight -- as conveyed by the press pool report
-- of reporters like ABC’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Chuck Todd, National
Journal’s Major Garrett, and John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times
emerging from a bash with Obama that was held to toast his chief
political fixer and leading spinmeister.
I understand why
reporters would do this -- other than the admittedly pathetic notion
that, gosh, it’s fun to party with the big guy! It is pretty good for
building sources and getting inside dope. But man, it ain’t easy
smacking the White House with tough stories all the time if you’re
getting invited to their exclusive parties, now is it?
Also on
hand were Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Education Secretary Arne
Duncan, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The party was at the
Washington residence of Linda Douglass, the former hard-hitting ABC
reporter who dropped out of journalism to spin the health care bill out
of the White House. She’s now a VP at Atlantic Media.
So we
have an official with a journalism outfit -- Atlantic Media -- hosting a
party for the usurper and his consigliere.
Michelle stayed home.
Good for her. Maybe she was monitoring the situation in Egypt.
It looks like Obama took the
day off. He spent the morning
watching his daughter play basketball.
The man does
have his priorities.
Obama’s Egypt Position Is Becoming
Ridiculous
Alana Goodman
says the corner that the Obama administration has boxed itself into
on Egypt is growing increasingly cramped and awkward by the hour.
As Leon Wieseltier noted at the New Republic website yesterday, the
U.S.’s position is "strategically complicated: since Mubarak may fall,
it cannot afford to alienate the protestors, but since the protestors
may fail, it cannot afford to alienate Mubarak."
The end result
is like watching a tight-rope walker swaying dangerously from one side
to the other. It’s stomach-churning. First, it looked like the
administration would throw its full support behind Mubarak, with Vice
President Biden asserting that the Egyptian leader was no dictator.
Then the U.S. position appeared to lurch sharply to the other side
during Robert Gibbs’s Friday press conference, where he announced that
Obama hadn’t even tried to contact Mubarak. And then, just when it
looked like the administration was about to tip to the side of the
Egyptian people, Obama’s public address made it clear that he wasn’t
ready to throw "President Mubarak" under the bus just yet.
The
equivocation is becoming increasingly uncomfortable to watch.
Mainly because it’s so plainly obvious -- to both the people saying it
and listening to it -- that it’s equivocation.
But now that the
administration has set out on this strategic high-wire, it’s following
it to the end. On Fox News Sunday this morning, Hillary Clinton
noted that the Egyptian people "have legitimate grievances and are
seeking greater political freedom, a real path to democracy, and
economic opportunity."
She then added that this democratic change
could come about under the current regime. "[W]e see a dialogue
opening … that has the concrete steps for democratic and economic reform
that President Mubarak himself said that he was going to pursue," she
said.
From a logical standpoint, this is an impossible position.
You can’t support both the will of the people and Mubarak. Yes,
the people want democracy, political freedom, and economic reform.
But, more plainly, they don’t want Mubarak -- and they could not have
made that more obvious over the past few days.
As Max wrote
earlier, the Obama administration needs to make a decision. The
current balancing act isn’t fooling anybody.
Obama's 3 AM Moment
Nancy Morgan
says one of the issues raised in the run-up to our last presidential
election was the question, "Which candidate is best qualified to handle
a '3 AM moment'?" America now has a partial answer. It isn't
Barack Obama.
Last Friday was Day 4 of the ongoing uprising in
Egypt, where tens of thousands Egyptians took to the streets to demand
the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. As the situation reached a
flash point, with a mounting death toll and Egyptian tanks in the
streets of Cairo, Obama maintained his silence. Well, not quite.
He did Twitter, by proxy.
Around noon Friday, White House
spokesman Robert Gibbs issued a 22 word statement on Twitter: "Very
concerned about violence in Egypt -- government must respect the rights
of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet."
The White House also informed the media that Obama had received a 40
minute briefing on the situation. Phew!
After the U.S.
markets tanked Friday, a full 4 days after the beginning of the Egyptian
crisis, Obama finally addressed the nation. As usual, Obama first
absolved himself of any blame, stating that if only Egypt has instituted
the reforms he had been suggesting for the last 2 years, the crisis
could have been averted. He then went on to make a bold statement
about human rights, "...and the US will stand up for them --
everywhere." Period.
By Saturday, the uprising in Egypt had
spread to other countries, with waves of Arab protests in Tunisia,
Jordan and Yemen. Saturday night, Obama partied. "The
Washington A-List was out in force Saturday night at the farewell party
for senior adviser David Axelrod, with a roster of guests featuring
Cabinet secretaries, big shot journos and Obama."
On Sunday, with
the protests turning into a conflagration, the only word from the White
House was that Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, was heading to
Haiti to "mediate the political crisis." That's right, Haiti.
Meanwhile, the only information available to Americans comes from
talking heads and the few journalists not hung-over from Saturday's
rollicking good time at the White House. The only "official"
information so far from the White House was Joe Biden's statement on Day
3 of the protests. Joe said that President Hosni Mubarak should
not step down. He then proceeded to downplay the protests
spreading across the Mid East as generally unconnected.
The
world is left wondering what position America, the world's former
superpower, will take. The only stance our administration has
taken to date is a generic plea for an end to the violence and the
oft-repeated call for human rights. Meanwhile, the world teeters
on the brink as a global crisis with profound geopolitical implications
for the U.S. continues to unfold.
Obama's 3 am moment has come.
And gone. Obama was noticeably AWOL. America is now
officially bereft of leadership, at least until the latest polls come
in.
Under Obama's leadership, the US has voluntarily ceded its
authority as the world's super power. After all, according to
Obama, all countries and cultures are equal. America's voice
should be but one of many. This is now becoming a reality.
Egypt continues to burn. And Obama parties and Twitters by proxy.
Welcome to the new world order.
The Battle Of The Bridge
On several occasions, you can
clearly see the water cannon vans indiscriminately running over
people.
At 3:25 you can see that the march is being led by a
cleric.
Beginning at 9:25, police lose finally control of the
bridge, and a cleric leads a prayer on the captured side.
Democracy movements are rarely led by Islamic clerics.
Meanwhile, Obama continues to call for a peaceful and orderly
transition.
Egypt Protests
The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that the
American government secretly backed leading figures behind the Egyptian
uprising who have been planning "regime change" for the past three
years.
The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident
attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to
keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.
On his
return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an
alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President
Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.
He
has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the
demonstrations.
The crisis in Egypt follows the toppling of
Tunisian president Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, who fled the country after
widespread protests forced him from office.
The disclosures,
contained in previously
secret US diplomatic dispatches released by the WikiLeaks website,
show American officials pressed the Egyptian government to release other
dissidents who had been detained by the police.
Kara Rowland is reporting that Obama praised
embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak‘s decision not to stand for
re-election in September and urged the nation’s military to "ensure that
this time of change is peaceful."
But even as Obama rejected any
role for outsiders to determine Egypt‘s leaders, he laid out several
conditions that he said a transitional government should meet.
"An orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it
must begin now," he said in a brief statement from the White House just
hours after Mubarak announced he would not run for reelection in
September. "The process must include a broad spectrum of Egyptian
voices and opposition parties. It should lead to elections that
are free and fair, and it should result in a government that is not only
grounded in democratic principles but that is also responsive to the
needs of the Egyptian people."
It’s not yet clear whether
Mubarak‘s announcement will be enough to satisfy throngs of rowdy
protesters in the nation’s streets. But it’s surely welcome news
for Obama and his team, who have struggled to grapple with the
fast-moving crisis, which has forced them to balance competing
objectives of backing a key Middle Eastern ally while staying true to
principles of freedom and human rights.
Obama urged Mubarak not
to seek another term, according to a report in the New York Times
Tuesday. Frank Wisner, a retired U.S. diplomat whom the White
House dispatched to Cairo, personally delivered the message to the
longtime ruler.
Obama, who spoke with Mubarak for about a
half-hour Tuesday afternoon, said he "recognizes that the status quo is
not sustainable and that a change must take place."
Related:Obama & Muslim Brotherhood
Agree: Mubarak Must Begin To Transition Power Now
Obama Encourages Muslim Brotherhood In
Egypt
Barack Obama may embolden the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt in the Brotherhood’s effort to overthrown a
pro-American dictator, President Hosni Mubarak, renowned conservative
commentator Dinesh D’Souza
tells Newsmax.TV (video at link).
Egypt’s political situation presents an
irony for the United States, says D’Souza, president of The King’s
College in New York City and author of the recent book, "The Roots of Obama's Rage."
"In Egypt, you have a democratic wave. In some ways that seems to be
what America has always wanted. We stand for democracy," he says. "Yet
in Egypt, democracy may result in the rise to power of a group, the
Muslim Brotherhood, which is the inventor and largest representative of
Islamic radicalism."
So democracy might
ironically result not only in an Egyptian government detrimental to
Israel, but also to U.S. foreign policy, D’Souza says.
"This puts
Obama in an interesting bind. It’s not surprising that he’s been pretty
coy, saying almost nothing. I think he’s trying to decide how to come
out on this."
In Obama’s view, the United States is a
neo-colonial power occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, D’Souza says. "He
sees the Muslims fighting against America as freedom fighters. This
gives him a somewhat romanticized view of Islamic radicals."
As a
result, Obama may not view the Muslim Brotherhood as a problem.
In his eyes, they may be "good guys trying to liberate Egypt from this
horrible dictator Mubarak, supported by us, the rogue nation," D’Souza
says.
"So Obama might encourage the democracy movement, not
because he’s an idealist about democracy, but because he might approve
of the overthrow of a pro-American dictator and a reduced footprint for
America in that region."
Related:U.S. open to a role for
Islamists in new Egypt government
Flashback:Muslim Brotherhood to Attend
Obama’s Speech in Cairo
Egypt’s Blood Is On Obama’s Hands
The Washington Times
believes the White House is fanning flames of Islamic revolution,
and Obama is signaling the Egyptian opposition that their time has come.
In a terse statement last night, Obama announced a "moment of
transformation" had arrived in Egypt, "the status quo is not
sustainable" and a new government must begin to form "now." An
administration official later reiterated, "the key part of the statement
was 'now.'" Today the formerly peaceful protests in Egypt turned
violent. It turns out that words do have consequences.
Egypt is at a crossroads, a time of suspense when change could come
gradually and peacefully, or quickly with maximum instability. The
White House has chosen to back the latter course, which will play into
the hands of the best organized, most radical factions, which in this
case is the America-hating Muslim Brotherhood.
The Obama
administration is strangely adamant that Muslim religious parties have
to play a key role in the new government, and U.S. officials reportedly
are reaching out to the Muslim Brotherhood behind the scenes.
White House wishes aside, an Islamist government is not in Egypt’s
interest and certainly not in the interest of the United States.
The Muslim Brotherhood seeks to increase the influence of Shariah
worldwide and reverse the progress Egypt has made in becoming a more
Western, more secular state. Its foreign policy was succinctly
summed up by brotherhood leader Muhammad Ghannem, who said the Egyptian
people should "be prepared for a war against Israel." None of this
will be good for America, the Mideast or the world.
On Tuesday,
embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak acknowledged it was time for
change and promised to step down in the autumn, a pledge intended to
defuse the tension Obama seeks to ramp up. The Egyptian Army, the
best organized and most pro-Western force in the society, is for the
moment siding with the established government. With a transition
period stretching into the fall, more opposition groups will have time
to organize and more political parties would bring more choices for the
Egyptian people, as well as more opportunities for the United States to
influence events in a positive way.
Obama, however, is intent on
throwing this opportunity away. His administration doesn’t have a
strategy, only preachy rhetoric. Its actions will only inflame
this delicate situation and give radical voices the upper hand.
Sen. Barack Obama showed no such inclination to support regime change
during the George W. Bush administration. Obama made no such call
for change when Iranians took to the streets to protest against their
hardline Islamist theocracy. In the summer of 2009, when power was
in the streets of Tehran, Obama chose to make only lukewarm statements
about how Iran’s ayatollahs needed to listen more. When it comes
to a 30-year partner of the United States, a man who has helped keep
peace in the region and been a durable ally in the war on terrorism,
Obama is quick to toss Mubarak under the bus.
Pushing for
immediate regime change in Egypt is not in American or Egyptian
interests. Cutting the legs out from an already tottering regime
could easily lead to widespread violence. If so, some of Egypt‘s
blood will be on Obama’s hands.
Related:Egypt official: White House
demands contradictory
Obama Empowers Radical Islam
The Washington Times says Obama likely may have
lost Egypt. If he has, it will be one of the most dramatic and
devastating foreign policy defeats for the United States in decades.
It also will be a significant victory for the forces of radical Islam --
a blow that threatens to undermine American interests across the Middle
East.
The regime of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak is teetering
on the brink. He is a spent force. He will be out of office
by September, if not much sooner. His son Gamal, who was groomed
to be his successor, has fled to London. The rampaging mobs in
Cairo and Alexandria dominate the political landscape. They
represent the future, Mubarak the past.
The downfall of the
Mubarak regime should come as no surprise. He has led a corrupt
police state for decades. Egypt‘s political system is closed.
Its statist economy is sterile. The security services imprison and
murder dissidents. Mubarak came to resemble an ancient Egyptian
pharaoh: a power-hungry dictator insulated by the luxury and wealth of
his lavish court palace. As he grew fat and old, the people
bristled under his harsh rule.
The authoritarian status quo was
unsustainable. Yet Washington’s foreign-policy establishment --
wedded to the illusion of "stability" -- propped up Mubarak‘s regime.
America has sent Egypt more than $1.2 billion in annual military aid.
Washington provided Mubarak with the weapons -- and support -- he needed
to suppress political opposition and violate human rights. The
United States became an accessory to an unpopular, brutal dictatorship.
This is why the mobs on the streets of Cairo hate America. We are
paying the price for our pact with the devil.
Years ago,
Washington should have encouraged civil society and political reform.
America could have fostered a secular democratic opposition.
Instead, by blindly backing Mubarak, the United States enabled the most
militant, unified and organized Islamist party to take advantage of the
growing discontent: the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is the
Brotherhood‘s supporters who fill the ranks of the protesters. The
Muslim Brotherhood very likely will join a national unity government and
eventually seize control. Its goal is to erect a Sunni version of
Iran‘s Shiite theocracy. It champions the hatred of America, war
with Israel and a global jihad against the West. It supports Hamas
in the Gaza Strip and other terrorist groups. In short, the
post-Mubarak regime most probably not only will be anti-Western but will
have ties to al Qaeda and Iran‘s mullahs.
Egypt is not some
strategic backwater; it is not Yemen, Tunisia or Jordan. Rather,
it is the cultural linchpin of the Arab world -- the France of the
region. For centuries, Egypt has been a trendsetter. In
literature, art, radio, cinema, industrialization, nationalism and mass
politics, it was Egyptians who showed the way for other peoples of the
Middle East. If the land of the pharaohs should go Islamic, it
will reverberate across the entire region. The balance of power
will tip irreversibly into the hands of Muslim hard-liners.
Obama
is repeating the fatal mistake of President Carter in 1979. Carter
dithered about whether to back the shah in Iran. Although a
ruthless despot, the shah was a pro-American strategic ally.
Carter eventually withdrew U.S. support in the face of massive street
protests, delivering Iran to the apocalyptic ayatollahs. Iran‘s
clerical rulers have proved to be much more murderous and repressive
than the shah ever was. Moreover, the Iranian regime is the
greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world. It is a fanatical
anti-American, anti-Semitic state that is on the verge of acquiring the
nuclear bomb. Carter‘s decision not only condemned the Iranian
people to an Islamic fascist theocracy but allowed a mortal enemy of the
West to seize power.
History is repeating itself. By
publicly standing with the demonstrators -- albeit belatedly -- Obama
has betrayed a key U.S. partner whose collapse likely may usher in a
gang of medieval Islamist butchers. The cause of human rights and
democracy will be set back even further under the Muslim Brotherhood --
buried under the corpses of religious cleansing. After ignoring
Egyptian secular-opposition activists for his entire presidency,
Obama now decides to throw in his lot with militant Muslims.
Administration officials already have reached out to top leaders of the
Muslim Brotherhood to discuss an orderly transition to power.
The Washington Times
says Obama's policies are pushing volatile region to the brink.
The Obama administration is pressing a reset button to return the
Middle East to the bad old days of open Arab-Israeli warfare.
Obama is requiring participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in any
prospective new Egyptian government, while the brothers themselves are
telling their countrymen to "prepare for war." The current crisis
in Egypt and Obama’s maladroit response are forcing strategists to
consider conflict scenarios that had been mothballed since the 1970s.
The Camp David Accords have formed the bedrock of U.S. security
policy in the Mideast region since they were signed in 1978. The
strategic logic behind the accords was that no coalition of Arab states
could have a chance of waging a successful conventional conflict against
Israel without including powerful Egypt. Subtracting Cairo from
the equation would mean no new Arab-Israeli wars.
The
possibility now looms that Egypt could be back on the bad side of the
ledger. Rather than reaching out to progressive, secular,
Western-oriented dissident groups, who are more sympathetic to the
United States and not virulently anti-Israel, Obama is inexplicably
placing his weight behind "important non-secular actors" such as the
America-hating Muslim Brotherhood. A new government dominated by
these Islamic extremists would almost certainly seek another round of
conflict. The brothers have not only threatened war against Israel
but also have a long term objective of "eliminating and destroying the
Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by
their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and
God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions."
If
Egypt falls under the sway of this band of religious zealots, it will
quickly move backwards culturally, economically and politically.
This revolution will empower and embolden radical Islamist groups
seeking to destabilize other pro-Western regimes in the region.
Actively promoting the fortunes of the Islamist parties makes neither
strategic nor moral sense.
The Obama team maintains that giving
prominence to the religious parties will "give Egypt a strong chance to
continue to be [a] stable and reliable partner." This is nonsense.
Empowering Islamists will promote regional instability and drive Egypt
away from the United States and towards Iran, which is loudly promoting
the Muslim Brotherhood’s cause. One of the first items on the
agenda of a new hard-line Islamist government will be to renounce the
Camp David accords and the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Next will be to lift the Egyptian part of the Gaza embargo and open a
channel for arms flowing to Hamas. Iran will do its part by
sending increased aid to Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, and generally
foment violence when possible.
Israel, the lone stable democracy
and America’s most reliable ally in the Middle East, will then have
openly hostile neighbors to the north and south, a weakened Jordan to
the east, and uncertain support from the west. Israeli leaders
already are wondering whether the current occupant of the White House
would rush to the aid of the Jewish State in time of war or simply make
a few speeches deploring the violence but leaving Israel to fend for
itself.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton insisted the
United States is "not advocating any specific outcome." Some
outcomes, however, are much worse than others. One of the worst
would be a new coalition of radicalized, Islamist, anti-Western states
facing off with Israel and working against U.S. interests in the region.
Unlike previous such coalitions, this time they would be able to count
on support from Iran, which may soon add nuclear weapons into the mix.
Obama is in over his head with this crisis and may end up
helping dismantle the only positive and lasting achievement of Jimmy
Carter’s administration. The Obama team could not have better
orchestrated a looming existential crisis for Israel and the Mideast if
they had tried.
Egyptian VP Says There Will Be No Regime
Change
Jim Hoft
asks, is it any wonder then that the Obama Administration has
alienated all sides in Egypt?
Last Tuesday the Obama Administration asked
Hosni Mubarak to step aside. On Wednesday they said about
transitioning power "now means yesterday." On Saturday morning
the Obama Administration said Mubarak must stay. On Saturday
evening the Obama Administration said Mubarak should step aside.
On Sunday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Mubarak must stay
in power. Monday the Obama Administration said that political
reform will be a gradual process.
And, on Tuesday, in another blow to the Obama
administration, Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman told reporters
that there will be no regime change in Egypt, and that Mubarak is not
planning on leaving office anytime soon.
Salon is reporting that
Vice President Omar Suleiman warned Tuesday that "we can't put up with"
continued protests in Tahrir for a long time, saying the crisis must be
ended as soon as possible in a sharply worded sign of increasing regime
impatience with 16 days of mass demonstrations.
Suleiman said
there will be "no ending of the regime" and no immediate departure for
President Hosni Mubarak, according to the state news agency MENA,
reporting on a meeting between the vice president and the heads of state
and independent newspapers.
He told them the regime wants
dialogue to resolve protesters' demands for democratic reform, adding in
a veiled warning, "We don't want to deal with Egyptian society with
police tools."
At one point in the roundtable meeting, Suleiman
warned that the alternative to dialogue "is that a coup happens, which
would mean uncalculated and hasty steps, including lots of
irrationalities. We don't want to reach that point, to protect
Egypt."
Pressed by the editors to explain the comment, he said he
did not mean a military coup but that "a force that is unprepared for
rule" could overturn state institutions, said Amr Khafagi,
editor-in-chief of the privately-owned Shorouk daily, who attended the
briefing. "He doesn't mean it in the classical way."
I Am An Arab Warrior, Not A Community
Organizer
Kathryn Jean Lopez
says this is a huge lesson in political culture. It also shows
just how bad the media coverage has been. Mubarak is not
resigning. He's managing the "reform" process. He is
appointing a committee to study constitutional changes. He will decide
when there are elections. He is going to "consider" changing the
emergency law. He basically said: I am an Arab warrior, not a
community organizer. That speech should be required reading for
anyone who wants to understand the Middle East.
This is not over
yet. There has been no revolution so far, but the protesters are
going to freak out. If Obama has been interpreted as applauding
real and major change, either he didn't know what Mubarak was going to
say or he is going to look like a total fool.
When Mubarak said
he won't accept outside advice, that was a direct slap at Obama.
Can you imagine the expression on Obama's face as he watched the speech
after being told by his intelligence that Mubarak resigned? After
he made a speech about how the youth had forced change? If I had
to summarize it, tabloid-style, I'd say: "Mubarak to Obama: Drop Dead!"
The regime is not giving in -- Mubarak will leave office, perhaps in
September, but the regime will fight on. The speech was the
equivalent of Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood saying: Come and get me!
Of course, we should not forget that this is a dictator refusing to
step down. Mubarak and the army knew that this would inflame the
crowd. The army would not have agreed to this unless it was
willing to deal with the consequences.
In Bostonese, Mubarak told Obama to
"take a Dudley."
World-Wide Islamists Attend Muslim
Brotherhood Ceremony -- In Egypt
MEMRI blog
is
reporting that a ceremony to inaugurate the new Muslim Brotherhood
headquarters in Cairo was attended by thousands of Islamist movement members and
political activists from Egypt and across the world.
They
included representatives of Al-Azhar, Egyptian political party leaders,
Egyptian presidential candidates Amr Moussa and Hamdadin Sabahi, Hamas
representative Amin Taha, and delegations from Muslim Brotherhood and
Islamist movements in Jordan, Somalia, Malaysia, Sudan, Turkey,
Afghanistan, and Australia.
Expat Cairo
adds, the ceremony was attended by officials from a Turkish Islamist
party.
The chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, Dr. Mohamed Badie,
who presided over the opening of the headquarters, said the group’s aim
was "to have a civilian government with a reference to Islam."
But Obama's brain-dead Director of
National Intelligence, James Clapper,
told a congressional hearing that the Muslim Brotherhood was a
"secular" organization:
"The term Muslim Brotherhood is an umbrella term
for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very
heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence
and has decried al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam."
Badie? The chairman of the Muslim
Brotherhood is named "Badie?" Now, that's what I call truth in
advertising.
Meanwhile, ousted dictator Mubarak, an evil bastard,
but one who kept the lid on the Islamic crazies, is
to be tried on charges related to the shooting deaths of protesters
during the country's 18-day revolt. The charges could carry the
death penalty.
Egypt Declares Muslim Brotherhood Legal
News.com
is reporting that Egypt has declared the Muslim Brotherhood
political movement legal, ending a ban on the group that had been in
place for decades.
The organization is one of the country's best
organized political groups. Egyptian state media announced the
government's decision, which clears the way for the
Muslim Brotherhood to
field candidates in parliamentary elections set for September.
In May, the Brotherhood announced it had formed a new political entity
called the Freedom and Justice Party. A spokesman said the party
would contest about half of the parliamentary seats in the upcoming
election.
The Muslim Brotherhood ran its candidates as
independents in previous parliamentary elections. The group
controlled about one-fifth of Egypt's lower house after 2005 elections
but was virtually shut out of parliamentary elections last year.
Egyptian authorities, under former President Hosni Mubarak, arrested
hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters ahead of that voting.
Egypt will have a Sharia-centric
government before Obama leaves the White House.
Goal Is Islamic State
According to a report in Al-Masry Al-Youm, the
Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have formed an electoral
coalition. Their goal is making Egypt an Islamic State.
Pamela Geller
asks, who is surprised by this? Who is surprised by Obama's
colossal failure to use American hegemony, power, money and influence to
effect a different outcome. Instead he supported the Brotherhood
from the very first. The Muslim countries under revolt are secular
regimes that outlawed religious parties. You think Mubarak was
bad? Next to what is coming, he was Mother Teresa.
Back in
February, top members of the Egyptian government said they felt betrayed
by Obama, charging that he is acting against American interests.
Such subterfuge is without peer. It wasn't hard to know. I
called it from day one.
When America elected a hostile agitator
to the most powerful office in the world, we inflicted not just America
with this danger, but the free world.
What fresh hell awaits the
US troops Obama intends to put on the ground in Libya (without the
sanction of the Congress or the American people) fighting alongside
al-Qaeda and devout jihadis? This is madness, people.
And
where are the media lapdogs for Islamic supremacists? Democracy!
Freedom! Annihilation! Gender apartheid! Where's their
24/7 coverage of these events?
Related:Christian girl being sexually
abused to make her convert to Islam in Egypt (Warning: graphic)
Can't be right.
Obama's Director of National Intelligence told everybody that the Muslim
Brotherhood was a "mostly secular organization."
."