“And how are things in crosshair country?”, I asked.

Radioactive 53 Comments

Uri Goldflam replies via email,

What I find most amazing is the speed in which Europe and Obama drop-kicked Mubarak, the dictator they’ve been supporting and funding for the past 30 years, and embraced the “young forces of democracy and freedom” – not really considering that the only organized and well disciplined alternative who have an extremely broad based popular support are the Muslim Brotherhood.
I mean, seriously, lets say there are 250 thousand 20-30 somethings – educated, jobless, pro-western – that understand the democratic process. What about the other 79,750,000 ??? Does anyone really believe that they will weigh the options and choose one of the opposition parties?
They will go to the lowest common denominator. the “Oneness”. The Quran.
So this is what we have to look forward to – a hegemonic Iran, a radicalizing Gulf (where al Jazeera comes from), a wahabi Saudi Arabia, a fundamentalist Suni Egypt, a destabilized Jordan, a radical Syria, and a Hizbullastan in Lebanon.
Since America is considered weak and unreliable (thank you BO!) the Arab world will turn to China and Russia.
And Obama still thinks his biggest problem is a Jewish kindergarten in the West Bank…

53 Replies to ““And how are things in crosshair country?”, I asked.”

  1. Trouble! We’ve got trouble, right here in River City! (Nile) And that starts we “T” and that rhymes with “B” and that stands for “Brotherhood” (Muslim, that is)

  2. you had written about chief delbert wapass a few years ago well it has happened again what a f’in crook.

  4. Fiddle. I disagree.
    Obama hasn’t thrown Mubarek over; if he had, Mubarek ought to have left NOW…but apparently he’s staying on until the fall. And has merely announced, generously, that he won’t seek ‘re-election’. Heh – as if he was ever elected. Mubarek won’t go easily, and he’ll try for a replacement that moves him simply into a BackRoom Gang role. And Obama is enabling that.
    I totally disagree that the Egyptian people will opt for fundamentalism. The MB is not necessarily identical to Al Qaeda. As an opposition, and an ideological one at that (ties to Qutb etc)..and never a pragmatic or ‘actual opposition’, the MB is hypothetical. It hasn’t achieved political power in any of the ME states. So, we can, as the author of this thread has done, posit all kinds of ‘If-Then’ scenarios about them.
    No, the Qur’an is not the ‘lowest common denominator’. Not in an industrial economy. The Qur’an, if you read it, is a sociopolitical tract about a besieged non-industrial tribal population. It cannot operate an industrial economy. Fundamentalists (of any type) can only exist as parasites within a robust economy; they can’t support large populations on their own.
    The majority of the Egyptian population are living within an industrial economy – dependent on redistribution of goods and services from the statist govt, more than half in poverty, unemployed ..
    You can’t have a primitive agricultural ideology (Islam) operating an industrial economy..if you can’t support your population.
    So – what’s going on in Saudi Arabia and Iran? They are dictatorships and are able to maintain that rule by OIL. Iran’s Islamist theocracy is maintained by oil; same with Saudi Arabia. There is very little of a private sector economy – confined to small corner stores etc.
    The problem in Egypt is that their population is growing exponentially – the largest in the Arab world, and..their income comes primarily from the Nile – agriculture and the canal. And tourism. No oil.
    Oil, for example, is essentially run by foreigners in the ME – it was Britain and the US who set up the oil, who process it, who ship it..for these countries didn’t have the technological ability to do this. And still, the oil is heavily run by foreign technologists. So, you can get your Oil Revenues..and force the population to be subservient within fundamentalist Islam..
    But in Egypt, this split isn’t possible. There is, instead, a massive population who require sustenance..and there’s no oil to support them and ‘keep them quiet’.
    What I find so astonishing is the sense, among so many here, that ‘Arabs (and Persians?) must be constrained. You constrain them by dictators. Otherwise, they will go beserk.’
    This perspective of them as a set of sub-humans is rather akin to the view of blacks in the 19th c, and the view of women (as necessarily constrained by men); and the view of Jews (necessary to constrain them because of their innate greed for gold and blood)…well, it’s quite something.

  5. Yeah, I bet the Chinese are just salivating over the opportunity to “manage” the canal for their new best buds, the Islamic Republic (Har Har) of Egypt.
    I’m sure they won’t play favorites with the single most important waterway in the world.

  8. I think perhaps the Muslim Brotherhood gets a bit of a bad rap. It’s really a series of organizations which differ in different countries; & the International Muslim Brotherhood [bète noir of the Eurabia theorists], is not much of a reality, from what I read. Sort of like the Socialist International, which includes the Labour Parties of the UK & Australia, the New Democratic Party of Canada AND Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. [wiki]
    The only place that has declared it a terrorist organization is Russia, presumably because of Chechnya.
    This text is from the first chapter of the following book —
    Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World
    Bruce K. Rutherford 2008
    WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE ARAB WORLD?
    For the first time in the region’s history, there are strong indigenous demands for democracy backed by significant international support. These pressures have not yet led to democratic transitions […]
    The following volume applies this analytical framework to Egypt. This country is a particularly insightful and important case for understanding the prospects for democracy in the Middle East. All three conceptions of political order that compete for preeminence in the Arab world—liberal, Islamic, and statist—have deep historical and institutional roots in Egypt.
    […]
    The analysis of Egypt begins in chapter 2, which studies the emergence of liberal constitutionalism. It examines the historical foundations of Egyptian liberalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and observes that this conception of governance became tightly integrated into the development of the legal profession. As a consequence, lawyers and judges became the most dedicated advocates of liberal reform. The Bar Association played a leading role in promoting the liberal cause for most of the twentieth century. However, changes in its membership and steady regime repression eventually fragmented the Bar and undermined its effectiveness. The judiciary, in contrast, has retained a strong sense of liberal identity and has developed a robust conception of liberal constitutionalism. In order to understand this approach to law and politics, the chapter studies the decisions of Egypt’s major courts (the Supreme Constitutional Court, the administrative courts, and the Court of Cassation). It uses this body of jurisprudence to analyze the judiciary’s views with regard to four core elements of constitutionalism: the rule of law, constraints on state power, protection of basic rights, and public participation in governance.
    Chapter 3 examines the development of Islamic constitutionalism, which is based in the Muslim Brotherhood. The chapter begins by studying the re-emergence of the Brotherhood since 1970 and the political pressures that have pushed it toward a moderate conception of Islamic governance. It then analyzes the writings of four contemporary thinkers who play a critical role in defining the Brotherhood’s view of constitutional order: Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Muhammad Salim al-‘Awwa, Kamal Abu al-Majd, and Tariq al-Bishri. The analysis focuses on their positions regarding the same four aspects of constitutionalism discussed in the previous chapter: the rule of law; constraints on state power; protection of civil and political rights; and public participation in politics.
    Chapter 4 begins with a concise summary of the statist conception of political order that underlies Egypt’s current autocratic regime
    […]
    Then there’s the Muslim Sisterhood

  10. Horsefeathers….
    The muslim Brotherhood as a non-violent, moderate entity…since the 60’s according to it’s apoligists…….
    ………Then there was the MB assasination of Anwar Sadat which lead to Mubarack’s elevation……an inconvenient truth.
    The MB is Islamofacist…..a fringe group prior to Nazi support by men, weapons and money. Postwar Jordan employed British officers for it’s Arab Leagion while Eygpt used X-Wehrmacht as officers/instructors. Both were crushed by the IDF……
    Amin Al Husseini….the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem spent WW2 in Germany as a close associate of Hitler….retired to Eygpt. His grandson Yassar Arafat…reinvented/renamed himself a “Palestinian”.
    90% of Eygptians are illiterate….a plaything of the MB. Not exactely an industrial society.
    The army puts an emphasis on literacy….in the process elavating it’s recruits into a higher class…….
    However, one thing 911 taught us is that illiteracy and poverty are not the sole source/cause of islamic fanaticism.

  11. Re: Egypt and the MidEast political cesspool: without petroleum supply control, these socially/politically retarded Mideast states would be unnoticed 3rd world backwaters. They are wise enough to realize this and they are also wise enought to know as long as they play ball with the real global power brokers (sorry kids that ain’t your elected western NATO puppet governments or the shaky regimes in Beijing or Moscow) by not nationalizing oil production and supply, they really couldn’t care less if the ME had a cartel of Hitler clones running it.
    Thus it is with Egypt. I suspect the replacement leader was chosen by the CFR-RIIA operatives months before their agents sparked the current insurrection. He’ll play ball with London and Wall Street speculators just as his predecessor did. Moscow and Beijing won’t change that because they are reliant on these same global fiscal oligarchy for their stability as the ME is.

  12. joey – I’ve seen the PEW polls; I don’t consider them reliable. They don’t provide the specific questions or provide information about the nature of the respondents (rural/urban; age; education; occupation)…and I’ve seen PEW polls where questions that are essentially similar but differently worded – come up with opposite results!
    Caution about Mubarek. He’s saying that he won’t run again (as if he was elected freely in the first place)..and note: he says he’ll remain to ‘oversee the next government’ to ‘ensure’ they are doing things properly. What?
    Is he seriously planning to remain until September, and then, move into acting as a BackRoom Gang..who runs the govt behind the scenes?
    Obama’s inability to understand the fragility of the ME…the fact that a tribal political system is dysfunctional in an industrial economy, and his narcissistic view that all that needs to be done regarding Islamic fundamentalism..is for Him to Talk To Them…that’s a bigger danger than even the MB! Obama is setting up a situation where the US and the West will be hated, even more, because he’s enabling Mubarekk to hang on..

  13. WE worry about Iran or Egypt, as Pakistan is slowly being taken over by Islamists. They have a hundred nukes. Guess where their first thought of aiming them will be?

  14. Mubarak wants to stay on for a few more months to facilitate an appropriate amount of raiding the treasury and preparing his retirement next on a big honkin yatch in the Mediterranean or some such.
    He likely didn’t expect to be given the bum’s rush.
    All muslims are scum from top to bottom. I hope Israel has it’s nukes ready because they are only going to get one shot before they are over run by the filth of the earth and it’s maniacal religion.
    We will be next the by the by.

  15. The Muslim Brotherhood’s mandate is to destroy the west and Israel you might want to soft soap that ET but most of us get the fact that the MB is the worlds largest and richest Islmofacists Organization. If the Brohood is what the people of Egypt want to govern them I can live with that fact as long as the west retract any and all aide. It’s bad enough we sit and do nothing whilst the ME becomes one giant arm of the Brotherhood but at least don’t make us pay for it.

  16. I think that this is the best outcome that could have been hoped for. It does provide time for an orderly transition. Egypt does have the mechanics for democracy and free gov’t in place. Mubarek’s corruption just outlawed anyone or group from running.
    Mubarek, was a loyal friend to the Americans for a long time. He probably improved the lot for most Egyptians over the last 30 years and this improvement probably led to his own demise. He had to go.
    Obama has no choice but to allow the MB to participate because otherwise it would show that he was all talk and did not really mean what he said in his earlier speech in he ME. The ME needs to see this and it will probably help the US in dealing with other ME countries and the terror groups. In fact, this probably weakens the appeal of the MB.
    We are now seeing rumblings in Jordan. China has banned news on Egypt (they don’t want to give their own people any ideas).
    It’s hard to guess what will transpire over the next few months but this outcome is still incredible.

  17. sasquatch and Rose are right. On the Glen Beck show this afternoon he listed the many organizations around the world, including in North America, that belong to the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella organization.

  18. a large portion of Egypt is young, thus idealistic and gullible, and this factor will be a large factor in determining the final out come, which I believe will not be good.

  19. joey- perhaps I didn’t explain it, but I’m aware that SA and Iran, as I said, are dictatorships. They repress their people by force – military and theological force. And, they are able to do this because they have oil revenues – for both sets (military and theological) and to redistribute to the people. Egypt doesn’t have this economy.
    Meanwhile – As Fouad Ajami has pointed out (he’s a professor at John Hopkins, on CNN) – Obama, with his support of Mubarak rather than the people/democracy…is setting up a scenario where the US will be even more hated by the Arab world. Remember, that Obama did the same thing in Iran – he utterly ignored the demonstrators – who wanted democracy ..and Obama supported the dictators.
    Wait – Obama has just made a speech where he supports the ‘Egyptian people’ and their desire for freedom and democracy. About time. But, Mubarak should leave, now.
    Oh, and this Ajami, who seems to know the ME very well, says that the basic agenda of these people is for democracy, freedom, a better economic and political life. He’s very critical of Obama
    Check out F. Ajami, The Obsolescence of Barack Obama (the url is too long to post here and I forget how to shorten it).
    Another thing – notice that these demonstrations were peaceful. They weren’t riots, they weren’t vicious – and every age group and both genders took part. That’s important. And they all said the same thing: enough corruption, Mubarak must leave, and the people want freedom and a chance to make their own lives.

  21. To believe in a good outcome, you have to think good thoughts about Obama-Biden, Egyptian public opinion, and Islam.
    Any takers?

  22. The mistake some are making here is the belief that a democratic election in Egypt would be fair and clean. Hardly, it will just as corrupted as the so-called democratic election in Iran in 2009-it is not hard to rig an election as we have seen occur time and time again. The free world stood by and did nothing when the Iranian people protested in the streets and were killed because they knew the election had been rigged.
    I mean seriously, do you think a group that beheads it’s own members, kills their own wives and daughters, not to mention blowing up themselves for Islam are going to let a little thing like an election get in their way?

  23. rose – don’t move into the fallacious tactic of ‘appeal to the majority’, i.e., your statement ‘most of us get the fact’. That appeal doesn’t validate your comment.
    Actually, I don’t consider the MB fascist, while I consider Al Qaeda to be fascist. The two groups are not similar; if they were, they would have joined together, and it is interesting that they have not. Al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda leading figure, has openly derided the MB.
    I consider MB to be orthodox – rather similar to the Hasidic orthodoxy in Judaism. I consider Al Qaeda to be both fascist and terrorist, in that its agenda is to destroy and use force over a population. I also consider Islamic fascism to be directly caused by the lack of democracy in the Islamic states.
    cconn- Mubarak didn’t improve the life of the Egyptian people; that’s what the demonstrations are all about. As for his being loyal to the US – well, if you rely on 4 billion in aid per year from the US – that’s not loyalty; that’s extortion. And don’t think that he lifted a finger to assist Israel or the Palestinians. He played both sides – for money.

  24. Obama mentioned the Egyptians’ hope for a better tomorrow for their children and grandchildren. The only hope for that is to move to the US. Egypt has no hope for the future. They just destroyed their tourism industry, they have no oil, they couldn’t grow a dandelion, and 70% of the young men are unemployed.
    As for democracy, I don’t remember seeing any signs calling for democracy in Egypt. I don’t remember seeing any during the demonstrations in Iran. We just make an assumption that oppressed people are always hungry for democracy. We’ve been conditioned to believe this by our own experience, and education. We learn about the struggle of our ancestors, and assume the entire world is simply waiting their turn to mimic our ascention to a higher station.
    The reality is, the ME was molded into a totally different form. Most of the demonstrators only know what they don’t want. They don’t want to be poor, and they don’t want to be brutalized by the police. Other than that they have no clue how to bring this about. They believe the west is evil to the core, and have no desire to follow our model. They believe democracy allows too much freedom to non-believers, and perverts(which is hard to argue). They just don’t have enough information available to make a choice.
    Islam will always control their information, through the education system. Islam will always have control of their decisions.

  25. The MB has now brought out a press release from one of the top spokesmen, Muhammad Ghannamen, on Al-Alam the Arabic-language Iranian News Network on Monday and have called for the closing of the Suez Canal, and the supply of gas be shut off so no oil can reach Israel. He is calling for a war and then the elimination of the State of Israel. He is calling for the people of Egypt to prepare for war with Israel.
    ET, what was all that drivel you were spewing about the MB not having any organizing power and authority in the Muslim world?
    They want Israel and all Jews dead. This is what the world is not getting in the language translation according to what is being said in Arabic. Are the news agencies in the West not able to hire anyone to interpret what our enemies are really saying about us? How hard can it be?

  26. Caroline Glick:
    RIGHT NARCISSISM
    Distressingly, the answer is that indeed, the US has no idea what it is doing. The reason the world’s only (quickly declining) superpower is riding blind is because its leaders are trapped between two irrational, narcissistic policy paradigms and they can’t see their way past them.
    The first paradigm is former president George W. Bush’s democracy agenda and its concomitant support for open elections. Bush supporters and former administration officials have spent the last month since the riots began in Tunisia crowing that events prove Bush’s push for democratization in the Arab world is the correct approach.
    The problem is that while Bush’s diagnosis of the dangers of the democracy deficit in the Arab world was correct, his antidote for solving this problem was completely wrong. Bush was right that tyranny breeds radicalism and instability and is therefore dangerous for the US.
    But his belief that free elections would solve the problem of Arab radicalism and instability was completely wrong. At base, Bush’s belief was based on a narcissistic view of Western values as universal.
    LEFT NARCISSISM
    Like the pro-democracy paradigm, the anti-colonialist paradigm is narcissistic. Whereas Western democracy champions believe that all people are born with the same Western liberal democratic values, post-colonialists believe that non-Westerners are nothing more than victims of the West. They are not responsible for any of their own pathologies because they are not actors. Only Westerners (and Israelis) are actors. Non-Westerners are objects. And like all objects, they cannot be held responsible for anything they do because they are wholly controlled by forces beyond their control.
    Anti-colonialists by definition must always support the most anti-Western forces as “authentic.” In light of Mubarak’s 30-year alliance with the US, it makes sense that Obama’s instincts would place the US president on the side of the protesters.
    SO THERE we have it. The US policy towards Egypt is dictated by the irrational narcissism of two opposing sides to a policy debate that has nothing to do with reality.

  27. I think ET is right. This is a Tea Party with adrenaline. What the outcome will be I don’t know but there will be a lot of people try to exploit it.
    These are the young educated that have no future. The rest of the country has no future either and aren’t as well dressed. A mere change of government isn’t going to do the job of fixing, at worst 70-80% unemployment.

  29. glacierman – please provide a link. The name, as you have it, doesn’t come up anywhere. And so what? There are Israelis who publicly call for the extermination of all Arabs; there are people here, who call for the ‘nuking’ of all Arabs. There are others who call for the takeover of the US by ..whoever and whatever. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean actualization.
    As for his nonsense about ‘closing the Suez canal – heh – that would bankrupt Egypt and the result wouldn’t be the peaceful demonstrations we are seeing now but massive riots from a starving people. And if you think the army is interested in a war with Israel- you are living in fictional land.
    There are plenty of others who call for economic ties and collaboration. What matters is that the Egyptian people want to move out of repression and poverty – and into freedom.
    A global economy cannot have parts of that global economy ‘out of sync’ economically and politically with the rest of the world. There can be slight deviations and differences – and that’s all to the good – but you cannot have a global community…where a major proportion of that community are unable to fully and freely participate in that economy. OK?
    And with the ME peoples living in tribal dictatorships and unable to function as a middle class – and fully engage in this global reality – the result is…first, Al Qaeda, which is an attempt by the Islamic national dictators to DIVERT the anger from their own dictatorships…to the external West.
    And second, finally, the explosion WITHIN the Islamic nations, where the people have finally realized that their repression and poverty is due to their dictatorial leaders.
    me no dhimmi – No, I think the Glick article is a bit too contrived. Narcissism is an individual not collective psychological problem.
    As for democracy and capitalism being ‘western values’ – I dispute that. They emerged, first, in the West, because the population growth that required moving from a tribal (feudal) mode to a civic mode began in Europe. Why?
    Because the European ecological biome is the richest on the planet..and enabled massive population increases. These increases required new technologies to provide for the population (new farming technologies, new crops)..and the notion of the market..and individual enterprise. So the civic model began in the West but it’s not a ‘western’ ideology.
    The civic democratic model MUST operate whenever a population reaches a certain size, and the economic mode is industrial (not agricultural). Nothing to do with the west; everything to do with the ‘organic structure’ of an economy and its population.

  33. Egyptian democracy. Ummm, yeah. “What we really need is democracy, with a totalitarian party to vote for.”
    Posted by: Kate
    Nicely summed up.

  34. Al the fish in MB, I believe this was also referenced on Hannity on FoxNews this evening. I thought at the time that this, the destruction of Israel and the eventual establishment of a Caliohate, is exactly what this is all about.
    Kate, I agree with the Rev that it is simply amazing how you are able to sum up the issue in one short phrase. Two stars for you on the blackboard today.

  35. al the fish – I didn’t say the article didn’t exist; I said that the name he posted couldn’t be found. And, he had mispelled the name. It isn’t Ghannamen; it’s Ghannem. Makes a difference to google. So, I suggest less snarkiness and more facts.
    And what the article says – is rather different than glacierman’s wording. The focus is on getting rid of Mubarak. Not Israel. Mubarak. He’s angry with Israel and the US for supporting Mubarak. The agenda, in the article, is that he wants Mubarak out.
    I repeat – so what? He’s free to comment. I don’t have my ‘head in the sand’. I’m supporting the Egyptian people’s desire to get rid of an oppressive regime. They do not want totalitarianism, despite Kate’s comment; they’ve got totalitarianism right now. They want to get rid of it.
    My concern now, is not the MB, but Mubarak. I’ll bet that he’s going to try to incite violence on the streets, create riots…so that he can claim martial law and move in his thugs and consolidate his regime. He might not, himself, be the upfront president..but..he wants to remain there and work behind the scenes. Already – there are Mubarak people in the crowds, and the people on the streets are worried that they will incite violence.
    These demonstrations are remarkable; they are peaceful, focused, and on-the-ground organized to prevent violence and conflict. My concern is that Mubarak will cheat on the people, move his thugs in..and try to incite violence. What I hope – is that the army will reject this attempt, and not support Mubarak.
    What is needed is for Mubarak to leave. Now. And for a transitional govt to set up, with a clear time frame and limits on what they can do, to reform the constitution and set up free elections.

  36. Interesting post on American Thinker.
    http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/the_story_of_the_egyptian_revo.html
    “Today the Egyptians are scared. They have been given a glimpse of hell and they don’t like what they see. Contrary to Al Jazeera’s propaganda, the Egyptian masses are not demonstrating anymore. They are protecting their homes and families. The demonstration last night had 5,000 political activists participating and not 150,000 as Al Jazeera insists. At this moment, no one outside of those political activists cares less now if the President will resign or not. They have more important concerns now; security and food.
    So where are we today? Well the answer is still not clear, yet a couple of conclusions are evident.
    1. The Gamal inheritance scenario is finished.
    2. Mubarak will not run for another Presidential term. His term ends in October and either he will serve the rest of his term or will resign once things cool down for health reasons, which are real. He is dying.
    3. The army is in control now. We are heading back to the “golden age” of army rule. The “kids” are no longer in charge. The “men’ are.
    4. Until the economy fails again, the neo-liberal economic policies are over. Forget about an open economy for some time.”
    That’s one point of view, but at least it’s from the inside.

  37. Actually, I don’t consider the MB fascist, while I consider Al Qaeda to be fascist. The two groups are not similar; if they were, they would have joined together, and it is interesting that they have not. Al-Zawahiri, the Al-Qaeda leading figure, has openly derided the MB.
    – ET
    ET, I think you’re way off base in not calling the MB fascist. They clearly are. Their objective is identical to Al Queda’s; the only difference is in preferred methodology. Al Queda likes big iconic terror operations; the MB a bit more of a incremental “Fabian” approach. The objective is the same!
    The Muslim Brotherhood wants to FORCE Islam upon everyone, everywhere in the world. They are actively seeking the destruction of western liberal democracies from within, through multiple fronts. That became clear with the discovery of that 10-page memorandum in 1991 outlining it’s operations in North America.
    If the Muslim Brotherhood is not fascist, there’s no such thing.

  38. Et, the thing that the Islamist now have is weapons, supplied by China and Russia, and the technologies to use them and they are itching for a fight which they now believe they are able to win by using them.
    Their collective hate is building, and now that Obama is seen as sympathetic to their cause, they are rolling the dice hoping to come up sevens. They know that Obama is both unwilling and has absolutely no courage to attack his brothers and sisters in the faith. He was trained as a Muslim as a child, he will revert back to that training when the heat gets turned up too high and he goes into reaction mode, instead of using his intellect and the advice from his “trusted advisors”. He will go with what his heart tells him.

  39. @ET all I had to do was search the Iran TV station’s name besides the MB person’s name. Was that too hard for you?
    Not being snarky (“less snarkiness and more facts” ironic statement coming from someone who wrote paragraph upon paragraph with no references to facts!) and you were dismissive of glacerman with your “So what” comment.
    Let me make it simple for you to understand (yes I am being dismissive of you now):
    1)Al-Qaeda, The Muslim Brotherhood, same shit, different pile.
    2)Throwing out a government without a viable replacement creates a vacuum quickly filled by opportunists. (see 1 above)
    3)Still don’t get it? Reread 1) and 2) above or resume head in sand.
    PS- “bankrupt Egypt”- yes the MB wants that- easier to get the poor, uneducated to join the cause- think Russian Bolsheviks.

  40. An internal document of the MB released during the holy land foundation/terrorist funding trial stated that the MB is dedicated in the USA to “eliminating and destroying western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house.” Egypt would be jumping from the frying pan right into the fire if they elect to go with the MB.

  41. Clarice’s post is quite unique. I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand, or out of line.
    There are different lines in the story still.

  42. mitchel- interesting post on American Thinker. As you say – it’s one perspective. The news reports and video show the opposite – massive demonstrations, peaceful demonstrations – and, with the corrupt police in retreat, local neighbourhoods were policing their own neighbourhoods.
    Some reports I’ve seen state that the release of prisoners was deliberate by the Mubarak govt – to incite looting and violence. But the Egyptian people themselves, for instance, set up barriers around the museums to prevent looting.
    me no dhimmi – yes, I can understand your confusion about my refusal to consider the MB as fascist while I consider Al Qaeda fascist. But, I remind you that it’s interesting why, if they seemingly both have the same agenda, why they haven’t joined. And I don’t feel that they have the same agenda. They are quite hostile to each other. Al Qaeda isn’t really interested in Islam, as an ideology; it’s interested in power, in total control over a population.
    Al the fish – no, I wasn’t dismissive of glacierman; I was dismissive of the value of someone talking about war on Israel. As I said, we have lots of people in Israel talking about killing all the arabs – and, in this blog, of ‘nuking them all’. It’s all free speech..and doesn’t transform into actuality.
    And who is suggesting throwing out the govt without a replacement? The suggestion has been to throw out the govt; have a transitional govt in place with limited powers and a specific time limit, while a general election is set up (and the Constitution is reformed to limit terms etc).
    What’s wrong with that????

  43. Does Obama have an inability to grasp the situation in the Middle East, does he know exactly what he is doing or does he not care?
    I think it is a mixture of all three.
    His “extensive” experience as an affluent, affirmative-action “community organiser” affords him next to no knowledge, let alone experience, in dealing with these matters. His parents were leftist/Muslim. His overtures to Middle Eastern interests (Iran, Islam’s dubious record on science and now the Muslim Brotherhood) have weighed against American interests. Where does this leave his successor? A weakened US on the world stage and an economy dependent on foreign oil and China. This doesn’t matter because he won’t have to clean up the mess.
    The man does not care who comes after him. He mustn’t. Whether his incompetence or deliberate actions left him in the mire he finds himself in now, he doesn’t even have enough grace to at least seem concerned.

  44. @ET “Transitional Government” Do you pick one of those up at the local 7-11?
    The protestors don’t want anyone associated with Mubarak (witness the reaction to the appointment of the new 2nd in command.) So who picks the interim leader? Do they have a show of hands in the public square?
    The only likely source of power to control the country for now is the Army, wait, that’s not democratic, okay then more protests, ferment more anger, more unrest, more economic strife, bingo! Conditions ripe for the MB to put up strawman carpetbagger ElBaradei. He gets such a big play in things because he has backers and protectors right now, the opportunist MB.
    PS “Lots of People” (proof? Who feeds you this dhimmi drivel you repeat?) saying kill arabs is not a valid comparison to an official spokesperson for the MB advocating a war with Israel. That’s like me telling you to drop dead ET (no means, no opportunity), compared to a suicide bomber yelling ALLAH AKBAR just before detonating the bomb (the actual power to act).
    With that vision in mind, goodnight SDA contributors and trolls.

  45. I thin Iran is taking a hell of a chance here..If MB, takes control of Egypt, which looks like it could be happening, Israels finger must be on the “button”, and starting to apply pressure. This moment has been getting and closer for a long time, and for them to wait much longer just means suicide… So Iran knows they must tread lightly,or maybe they are too close to this”Last Imam” bullshit to back away. Not looking good folks, not looking good.

  46. Al Qaeda isn’t really interested in Islam, as an ideology; it’s interested in power, in total control over a population.
    You don’t fly planes into buildings in a grandiose act of self-immolation unless you drank deep and long from the punch bowl. I think it’s a mistake to assign mundane human vice to these people. They’re a special kind of crazy, and it is absolutely fueled by Islam.

  47. I guess everyone now understands why GB went into Iraq and took out Saddam. Awful silence from the MSM.

  48. Peter-7:13… Seems like there are lots of takers, but I certainly am not one of them…

  49. These demonstrations are remarkable; they are peaceful, focused, and on-the-ground organized to prevent violence and conflict.
    GENEVA: As many as 300 people may have died in anti-government unrest in Egypt according to unconfirmed reports, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said Tuesday.
    “Casualties have been mounting on a daily basis, with unconfirmed reports suggesting as many as 300 people may have been killed so far, more than 3,000 injured and hundreds arrested,” Pillay said in a statement released in Geneva.
    Security and medical sources in Egypt said on Monday at least 102 people had been killed in the massive wave of unrest sweeping the country.
    Pillay said she was “deeply alarmed by the sharp rise in casualties over the past few days,” and urged authorities to listen to the demands of the Egyptian people for reforms, human rights and democracy.

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