Category Archives: Middle East

UPDATED: Morsi, The Military: Egypt Is A Hot Mess (The Size of Discontent)

Democracy, Elections, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East

There are perhaps two not entirely unhappy conclusions to take away from the events underway in Cairo, Egypt. This week’s WND column, “Independence And The Declaration of Secession,” lamented that America has become a nation “of deracinated, fragmented and demoralized people, managed to their detriment by a despotic State.” (Updated here.)

The Egyptians, on the other hand, still have a redeeming quality, and it is a profound contempt for power. “Son of 60 dogs” is an Egyptian expression for a political master. This quality should serve them well.

The other thing I took away from listening to the more enlightened Egyptians of Tahrir Square is that many want what Americans once had thanks to their founders. Modern secular Egyptians are articulating a wish for a republic that safeguards minority rights, and not for a raw democracy in which those rights are subject to the whims and wishes of the majority, and where few are the issues that are not adjudicated by a national majority.

Moreover, while Americans have a hard time understanding the difference between a democracy and a republic, I get the impression that some Egyptians are hip to these distinctions.

Those who’ve been misled into believing that Morsi is not democratically legit, for what that’s worth, ought to be reminded that the Democratic Alliance for Egypt, “a coalition of political parties,” the largest party of which was the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party,” won the 2011-2012 election with 37.5% of the vote.

The runner-up was the Islamist Bloc, the “second largest political bloc in the parliament.” It was even more devout than The Brotherhood. It won 27.8% of the vote.

The nature of democracy and humanity is such that it is quite possible that their former supporters no longer back these parties. These supporters have realized, as Benjamin Barber put it, that “politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians”:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends.

Economic Policy Journal (EPJ) quotes Ron Paul’s on the Egyptian mess:

“A military coup in Egypt yesterday resulted in the removal and imprisonment of the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, a closure of media outlets sympathetic to him, the house arrest of his advisors, and the suspension of the constitution. The military that overthrew Morsi is the main recipient of the $1.3 billion yearly US aid package to Egypt. You could say that the US ‘owns’ the Egyptian military that just overthrew its democratically-elected leader. The hypocrisy of the US administration on these events in Egypt is stunning …”

“Let’s review US policy toward Egypt to see the foolish hypocrisy of the government’s interventionism,” write Paul:

“First the US props up the unelected Hosni Mubarak for decades, spending tens of billions of dollars to keep him in power. Then the US provides assistance to those who in 2011 successfully overthrew Mubarak. Then the US demands an election. The Egyptians held an election that was deemed free and fair and shortly afterward the US-funded military overthrows the elected president. Then the US government warns the military that it needs to restore democracy – the very democracy that was destroyed by military coup! All the while the US government will not allow itself to utter the word “coup” when discussing what happened in Egypt yesterday because it would mean they might have to stop sending all those billions of dollars to Egypt. ”

UPDATE (7/8): We now have some idea of the size of Egyptian discontent: “22 million …—a large number considering Egypt’s estimated population of 93 million people.” We got those numbers from revelation of a “signature-gathering campaign called ‘Tamarod’ or ‘Rebel.'”

I will write more, however, on western delusions of representation (my book already does this http://www.ilanamercer.com/newsite/into-the-cannibals-pot.php) in a future post. Suffice it to say that the Egyptians have a better idea than we in the West of how to remove their rulers. Game. Set. Match, Egyptian people.

McCain’s Murderous Muhammadans Behead Syrian Catholic Priest

Christianity, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Jihad, John McCain, Literature, Middle East, War, Welfare

Today came terribly sad news. John McCain’s murderous Muhammadans beheaded a Syrian Catholic priest, to the cheers of local villagers, children too.

The senior Republican senator from Arizona recently crossed enemy lines to cavort with these Syrian rebels, the type of chaps who lunch on enemy lungs. He, Lindsey Graham—another senior Republican Senator—and many of their Demopublican colleagues can’t wait to supply the noble savages of the world with rations, their exotic tastes and murderous proclivities be damned. The US Constitution these politicians have spent a lifetime trashing.

Those who know “McMussolini” know that the only time John McCain will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn’t led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

Oh, he’ll also wrestle a crocodile for an illegal alien. Or, rather, get his beefy dumbo of a daughter, Meghan McCain, to do the wrestling for him.

The complaint McCain and his posse level against Obama for not becoming as entangled in Syria as they would have liked is remarkably sophisticated (NOT): Had Obama intervened in Syria earlier, they assert without proof, we’d be dealing with the purest of rebels, and not with the McCain mongrels, who’ve been diluted by Jihadis.

Rubbish.

A quip by a character in one of the great Oscar Wilde’s plays (not to be confused with wonderful Oscar-Wood) comes to mind. “She thought that because he was stupid he’d be kindly, whereas kindliness requires intelligence and imagination.” I paraphrase Wilde, but this applies in spades to McCain, a career Republican malevolent fool, who took to Fox News Sunday with his buddy Chuck Schumer to promote more war (in Syria) and more welfare (the Oink-Filled Immigration Omnibus).

For Christians, rule by Alawite minority is by far the more civilized of the options facing them in this country. This, unfortunately, is the reality. But does the US ever learn from the Anglo-American calamity in Iraq or Afghanistan? In the words of Frederick Douglass, “To ask the question is to answer it.”

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Is The Big Dog Wagging The Dog?

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Lebanon, Middle East, War, WMD

Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama administration is crying “WMD” at a convenient time in the course of the catalogue of Obaminations it has been inflicting on us.

The same lying “intelligence community” that has been spying on millions of us, “‘estimates that 100 to 150 people have died from detected chemical weapons attacks in Syria to date; however, casualty data is likely incomplete,’ Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said in a statement released by the White House.”

Needless to say that CNN, whose website and TV infotainment hours have never headlined with the AP, IRS or NSA stories—is in its element.

Jessica Yellin is yelling, “Barack is back.”

BBC News fails to offer independent verification of the Sarin news, repeating US talking points about this brief being based on a thing called, in Orwellian speak, “a high confidence assessment”:

Mr Rhodes said US intelligence agencies had concluded Mr Assad’s forces had used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, based on battlefield reports, “descriptions of physiological symptoms” from alleged victims, and laboratory analysis of samples obtained from alleged victims.

It would appear that nothing much has changed on the ground, except in the US. Is the Big Dog wagging the dog?

All I can say is that you must keep your eye on the Snowden story. Don’t let it die (it’s also the topic of my new column).

On The War Path With Samantha Power

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, John McCain, Just War, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Paleolibertarianism

“On The War Path With Samantha Power” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“… By far the more dangerous of the two Obama Amazons is Samantha Power. Susan Rice, in a sense, has been neutralized by scandal; she’s under scrutiny. And if you’re wondering what a U.S. ambassadors at the UN could possibly do by way of taking the country to war, think of John Negroponte. He pushed for the Security Council resolution “that President Bush eventually cited in going to war in Iraq.”

If they play rough, Republicans will lap up the ladies’ foreign-policy antics, starting with the Senior Republican Senator from Arizona. John McCain recently crossed enemy lines to cavort with Syrian rebels, the type of chaps who lunch on enemy lungs. He, Lindsey Graham (another senior Republican Senator), and their colleagues can’t wait to supply the noble savages of the world with rations.

The only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn’t led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).

In all, white progressives like Power derive an erotic rush from swooping down to save The Unknown Other, whether he likes it or not. The coolest place from which to keep this hot thrill going is the global geopolitical scene.

To expect someone like Power to care about her homies first is a lot like expecting Angelina Jolie to adopt a poor white baby (an Afrikaner living in a shantytown , for example). How unglamorous! There’s no chic value in that. In Jolie’s defense, it’s her money. It’s hers to do with as she pleases. In a public servant, however, Power’s proclivities amount to treason.

Edmund Burke certainly thought so. …”

The complete column is “On The War Path With Samantha Power.” Read it on WND.

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