Post-revolution polls in Egypt

Oh, it's a Military Coup. The sad thing is it is a toss up which is worse:A Military Coup of a descent into Egypt becoming an "Islamic Republic".
 
dudalb said:
Oh, it's a Military Coup. The sad thing is it is a toss up which is worse:A Military Coup of a descent into Egypt becoming an "Islamic Republic".
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It's going to take an awful lot to justify this: 51 protesters dead. Did anything this bad happen under Mubarak or under Morsi?

On several floors of Cairo's Health Insurance hospital, room after room was filled with bloodied, moaning protesters, many of them waiting to be treated. Supporters queued up to donate blood as doctors rushed more wounded past them on stretchers. Security officials screamed at journalists to leave; families of victims implored them to stay.

By the end of Monday at least 51 protesters had died and more than 400 had been injured in one of the bloodiest incidents in Egypt's recent history.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/08/egypt-clashes-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-military
 
ANTPogo said:
Can I have the time I wasted on doing that back now, please?
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I assume it's the usual "We are at war with Islam. We have always been at war with Islam" drivel that's emerged after the Cold War folded.

I suppose for young people this might seem reasonable, but I'm approaching 60 and remember when Islam evoked a simple "Huh?" from most Westerners. We're supposed to have missed this implacable foe in our midst despite its intent, strategy, and (dare I say?) protocols being laid out clearly in the Koran (the huh?). I don't think so.

It wasn't until '79 that Islam came into affairs, and that was related to Iran (soon neutralised by a long war of national survival) and to the medievals being armed against the Soviets in Aghanistan. We were at war with the Soviets then. We had always been at war with the Soviets.
 
CapelDodger said:
I assume it's the usual "We are at war with Islam. We have always been at war with Islam" drivel that's emerged after the Cold War folded.

I suppose for young people this might seem reasonable, but I'm approaching 60 and remember when Islam evoked a simple "Huh?" from most Westerners. We're supposed to have missed this implacable foe in our midst despite its intent, strategy, and (dare I say?) protocols being laid out clearly in the Koran (the huh?). I don't think so.

It wasn't until '79 that Islam came into affairs, and that was related to Iran (soon neutralised by a long war of national survival) and to the medievals being armed against the Soviets in Aghanistan. We were at war with the Soviets then. We had always been at war with the Soviets.
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There was this thing that happened. 9/11. Maybe you missed it. Was a pretty big deal.
 
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Egypt Descends Into Chaos

Monday's violence demonstrated the peril of the military's decision to remove Mr. Morsi, the first freely elected president in the history of the Arab world's largest nation. Despite its relative stability, Egypt is flirting with what several analysts have until now seen as a worst-case scenario—the kind of armed conflicts that have roiled other countries in the so-called Arab Spring of uprisings.

. . .

"I don't know what the generals were thinking," said Omar Ashour, a senior lecturer on Middle East politics at Exeter University in the U.K. "They thought that they would topple a president who 12 million people voted for—part of whom are hard-core supporters—and that they would get away with it."

Mr. Ashour said the situation in Egypt recalls Algeria in 1992, when that country's military leadership took control just as an Islamist party neared electoral victory. The result was an eight-year-long uprising in some 100,000 Algerians died.
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dudalb said:
Oh, it's a Military Coup. The sad thing is it is a toss up which is worse:A Military Coup of a descent into Egypt becoming an "Islamic Republic".
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Basically anything is better than an Islamic republic. Not a hard call to make.
 
Iran says overthrow of Egypt president improper

Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday criticized the Egyptian military's toppling of the nation's Islamist president, calling the move improper in its first official reaction.

"We do not consider proper the intervention by military forces in politics to replace a democratically elected administration," said ministry spokesman Abbas Araghchi, according to the official news agency IRNA.
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Because who knows more about democracy than the government of Iran, right?
 
ANTPogo said:
Iran says overthrow of Egypt president improper



Because who knows more about democracy than the government of Iran, right?
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Maybe so, but I think some of us should hold our breath on whether or not the military coup was a good idea.

Just yesterday the military government committed an atrocity of the like that would have usually outraged any of us. Certainly no one here would have said of Assad, ah well, martial law against Islamists is no bad thing.

I think even if Kim Jong Eun and the ghost of Stalin appears to denounce the shootings, it wouldn't make it more acceptable.
 
angrysoba said:
Maybe so, but I think some of us should hold our breath on whether or not the military coup was a good idea.
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I'm not at all convinced that the military overthrowing Morsi was a good idea. However, it was probably the least bad idea.

Egypt might still tear itself apart in a civil war (especially if the military keeps up the heavy hand). But it almost certainly would have torn itself apart had nothing been done and the anti-Morsi protests continued.

Just yesterday the military government committed an atrocity of the like that would have usually outraged any of us. Certainly no one here would have said of Assad, ah well, martial law against Islamists is no bad thing.
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I'm completely torn on this. On one hand, you're absolutely right. On the other hand, I really, really hate the Brotherhood.

Sometimes, it's really hard to just be objective.
 
angrysoba said:
Maybe so, but I think some of us should hold our breath on whether or not the military coup was a good idea.

Just yesterday the military government committed an atrocity of the like that would have usually outraged any of us. Certainly no one here would have said of Assad, ah well, martial law against Islamists is no bad thing.

I think even if Kim Jong Eun and the ghost of Stalin appears to denounce the shootings, it wouldn't make it more acceptable.
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Uh, speak for yourself there.
 
The military, perhaps feeling the eyes of the Egyptian people as well as the world weighing heavily on them, announced their fast-track timetable for revising the Constitution and holding new elections.

The Brotherhood, of course, just as quickly announced that they're having none of it.
 
Childlike Empress said:
The army says they have 42 injured soldiers, eight of them in critical condition, in addition to the one dead.

It's possible that none of the parties are lying. In fact, this was exactly how the tragedy in Syria started. Unknown parties shooting at security AND protesters. One crucial event with comparable victim numbers which enormously escalated the situation happend on April 08, 2011 in Deraa. You can still see the masked sideline shooters in this AP video on the Washington Post website.

Unfortunately at this point it's very easy to fuel the Egyptian fire. Hopefully their announced investigation will be as transparent as possible.
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New Yorker interviewed a resident doctor and eyewitness:

New Yorker said:
[...] “I saw that the Army retreated about ten metres and began to fire tear-gas cannisters, about ten or fifteen of them,” he said. “I couldn’t see if the other side [the protesters] was shooting, but I heard people through megaphones encouraging jihad. Then I saw four to six motorcycles coming from the direction of the Rabaa intersection to the Republican Guard barracks. Some people were still praying, some were not, because the dawn prayer had finished by then. The men on the motorcycles were all masked, and it was hard to see them through the dark and the tear-gas smoke, but they seemed to be shooting, they were coming from behind the protesters, so they were shooting toward the protesters and the Army. Then the Army started firing. And the protestors were firing. I saw firing from both sides.” [...]
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In another parallel to Syria (let's hope they end soon), 22 Al Jazeera Egypt staff left the station in protest.

former Anchor Karem Mahmoud said:
The coverage over the last few weeks was the tipping point – especially the airing of extreme speeches over the last few days, which have added to the crisis Egypt is seeing right now. There has been a strong insistence of airing unacceptable statements by some parties, as well giving much more space and air time to one group over another.
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Childlike Empress said:
New Yorker interviewed a resident doctor and eyewitness:




In another parallel to Syria (let's hope they end soon), 22 Al Jazeera Egypt staff left the station in protest.
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I particularly liked these bits from the doctor:

He said some were quiet and frightened, others were screaming invective, even accusing other protestors of being atheists because they had run away from the Army’s guns. “I told one of them, ‘But you ran away too!’ But he said he had done so because he had no support.”

***​

“I told the soldiers to behave nicely, and with some people they were nice, but some protesters were calling them infidels and traitors. One of the soldiers responded angrily, ‘Did they really tell you that we are infidels? I don’t care who Morsi is, but right now you’re telling me I am an atheist and a traitor!”
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Childlike Empress said:
No surprise there given your recent posts. You like those bits because they justify your ridiculous, immature reaction to the events, namely wishing that "they" will kill each other off so "the problem" will go away.
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I like these bits because they enshrine the "atheist" as one of the worst insults apparently in that society.

And I don't wish them to kill each other off. I only wish the Ikhwan and the other Islamists killed off. That would definitely eliminate a huge problem for Egypt.

But go ahead and personalize the debate further, dearie.
 
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