Jane Mayer reports that the new #2 in Egypt is pretty much the same as the old boss.
Larison finds an old Jeane Kirkpatrick paper and uses it to point out the incoherence of Obama’s supposedly conservative critics:
It can’t be stressed enough that many of the people faulting the Obama administration for not doing enough to undermine Mubarak and other authoritarian allied rulers are the same people who insist that he has been betraying and undermining allies for the last two years. Of course, Obama hasn’t been betraying any U.S. allies, and the administration still seems to understand that encouraging Mubarak’s downfall would be and would be seen as a strategic blow and humiliation for the United States. Americans should want to get out of the business of empire and power projection in the Near East, but there is no way that having a client government overthrown or actively encouraging its overthrow does anything but harm legitimate U.S. interests along with harming misguided hegemonist policies. If the U.S. didn’t insist on having a huge role in the region and meddling in its affairs, we wouldn’t need an alliance system that leads us to support such authoritarian governments, but very few of the people urging the administration to help wreck a major alliance want the U.S. to disentangle itself from the Near East.
Here’s the Guardian’s summary of the events of the last few hours.
Southern Beale
This is why I just haven’t bothered to pay attention to any of these critics. It’s so obvious their biggest complaint is that Obama is a DEMOCRAT. That’s it. It’s partisan politics, 100% political powermongering. If a Republican were president they’d be saying freedom is spreading across the Middle East just like Bush promised.
Their arguments are so obviously colored by political partisanship that they lack all credibility so I just ignore them.
JPL
Al Jazeera Cairo was taken off air earlier but is now but online. Jets are buzzing protesters in the square. link
rachel
Here’s what Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy has to say.
Baud
Let me explain how this is going to go down.
If Mubarak stays in power, Obama’s an enemy of democracy because he did not support the protesters.
If Mubarak goes down and an Islamic group takes control, it is because Obama is a weak and inexperienced leader (and possibly a radical Muslim himself).
If a full-fledged representative democracy takes hold in Egypt, it is because George W. Bush had the foresight and courage to invade Iraq.
matoko_chan
@rachel: Abu Aardvark nails it.
Egypt represents the field lab for the failure of strongman theory.
And very bad juju for Israel. Whichever way you slice it the Gaza blockade is OVAH.
Heres an egypt link for you mistermiss.
Some truly epic cudlip-ease from Cole himself.
wallah.
well, at least that group will be EGYPTIANS.
after 128 years of western colonial occupation and western propped-strongman puppet rulers how could the MB be any worse?
GTFO Big White Christian Bwana.
GregB
Candy Crowley is font of beltway shitheelism.
Cat Lady
Ain’t it great that we can’t get any credible information from a US owned media source? I guess they’re all waiting for a Palin tweet, or to get an exclusive interview with Joe Lieberman. Whatever happens, it’s still all great news for John McCain.
Maude
What’s going on in Egypt is not about the US. The Righties have it all wrong.
They are deparate to attack Obama and making themselves look foolish as they try.
The museums, as far as it is known seem to be intact, but there are some antiquities that have been looted or harmed.
matoko_chan
@GregB: well Fareed is reporting that elBaradei is proposing Mubarak leave in 3 days, and that an interim gov be installed for one year to transition to free UN monitored elections.
elBaradei also volunteered to head it.
debbie
What’s really ironic is that these conservatives are in effect onesing for intervening on behalf of a bunch of Muslims. I can’t help but remember how Reagan, Bush I, and all their followers stood aside, doing nothing, while Muslims were being slaughtered in what was left of Yugoslavia. Talk about political expediency.
Alex S.
Larison points at the reason why Joe Biden doesn’t call Mubarak a dictator. Biden is too invested in that cardhouse of alliances the US has been building since the Cold War. It’s probably not bad if that alliance system finally collapses because the Cold War ended 20 years ago and all the cold warriors morphed into neoconservatives with the agenda of controlling the middle east. On the other hand, China doesn’t need to pay attention to ideologies, or how it affects Israel. Their foreign policy is much more effective in this new economic age. This is how realignments happen…
J.W. Hamner
The Other Cole has some good writing on this subject… as you might well expect.
gnomedad
@Baud:
You win the internets for today.
Southern Beale
@Baud:
DING DING DING! Thank you for playing!
That is exactly right. Heads they win, tails we lose.
It’s total, utter bullshit. It’s not worth our time. It’s certainly not worth broadcasting across the media on every Sunday bobblehead show.
But there it is.
Linda Featheringill
This uprising is beginning to look like a revolution.
The thing about revolutions is that they behave like living animals. They go where they want to go and they do it the way they want to.
Revolutions are not controlled. It doesn’t really matter what the US or any other country says or does. We just aren’t that powerful. We can’t cause one and we can’t stop one.
The Righties seem to hold an optimistic estimate of the US power or US influence. They might honestly think that we could cause events to move in this direction or that direction. But they are mistaken. We can’t.
Probably the best thing for the US to do right now is be calm and speak in platitudes, in peaceful sounding words that don’t really mean anything. And that is what the US is doing.
This particular uprising is of, by, and for the Egyptians. We will just have to see what they make of it.
matoko_chan
@Linda Featheringill: WE CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT ANYWAYS.
128 years of western sponsored repression, colonialism, imperialism.
the rage is palpable.
Big White Christian Bwana GTFO.
Violet
Well, the US is now advising it’s citizens to leave Egypt. A bunch of other countries are doing the same thing. Clearly they don’t think this is going to settle down quickly.
I wonder what’s going to happen to Egypt if the tourism industry is badly affected. That’s one of their major sources of income.
WarMunchkin
Maybe it’s just me not being in the U.S. at the moment but — does anyone actually care more about the events in Egypt than about the current economic and employment situation, or is it just what the media is spoonfeeding the public today?
rachel
@matoko_chan:I’ve been wondering; What do you think “wallah” means? Is it more pseudo-Japanese, like your nym, or what?
Cat Lady
@WarMunchkin:
This event is historic on par with the Berlin Wall coming down and the release of Nelson Mandela. We can walk and chew gum sometimes.
WarMunchkin
@Cat Lady: If you have time, could you please explain that statement? I don’t see the significance, at least not in that scale.
Chris
@Baud:
This.
Conservatives are out in full force claiming either one of two things; One, this is Bush’s wave of democracy spreading and he should get the credit; Two (PJM’s line), this is terrible because democracy will bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power and Obama should get the blame. Which of those two becomes the conservative party line depends on who wins, but either way they get to say “I told you so.”
Of course, if they want to claim that they knew all along democracy was a bad idea because it’d lead to islamism, someone should probably ask them, “then why were you ever on board the ‘democracy in the Middle-East’ train in the first place?” And if they, conversely, want to claim credit for the wave of democracy spreading through the Middle-East, someone should probably ask them “so are you also taking credit for Hamas taking over Gaza on Bush’s watch?” But I don’t foresee too many people having the balls to ask that.
If you want to be honest, of course no one knows how this is going to end or what to do about it, not the Obama administration and certainly not the Goopers in their ivory tower think tanks.
Joey Maloney
@matoko_chan:
Most likely nonsense. What, do you think Mubarak and the Egyptian army have been maintaining the blockade for all these years because they’re an Israeli client? No, it’s because they look at Hamas and see pretty much the same thing Israel does when they look at Hamas (which is pretty much the same thing that a lot of Gaza’s inhabitants see) – dangerous lunatics. They may be useful at a distance, and it may be useful to look the other way at just-enough-but-no-more smuggling to keep the people from absolute starvation and to keep Hamas in power, but allowing them into Egypt, where they can become another power center agitating against the current regime is the last thing they want.
And no matter how things shake out, whether the new government is a Muslim Brotherhood Islamic “republic” or an enlightened secular republic or anything in between, they’re not going to want a bunch of dangerous lunatics with a foreign power base and funding sources competing with them for influence.
The border may open up for a bit while everyone is distracted, but – speaking as someone who has absolutely no idea what’s going to happen in Egypt tonight or tomorrow or next week or next month – I’ll bet that in six months the blockade won’t be much different than it is today.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cat Lady: I am not disagreeing with you per se, but I would phrase it as “potentially historic” at this point. This could be, and likely is, huge, but it still could fizzle out or simply lead to a “meet the new boss” scenario. Time will tell.
GregB
Without a doubt, this is the awakening of the last region on earth that hasn’t come out from under the old order.
The Arab Middle East and North Africa are finally having their spring.
There are only a handful of holdouts left.
Cuba, China, Belarus, Burma, North Korea.
Any others, Bueller?
Kryptik
I find myself disheartened, as it feels like since the start of the thing, the attitudes of I’ve seen around as well as online have shifted from ‘Eh? Egypt?’ to ‘Yeah, people taking power against a dictator’ all the way back to ‘EEEEE, SCARY MOOSLIMS, KEEP MUBARAK, JUST SAVE US FROM TEH SCARY MOOSLIMS!’
The fear of the brown overrides any fucking sense in this country fucking ever.
Boudica
@rachel: I believe it’s an anglicization of Voila (which Americans tend to spell as Viola).
Linda Featheringill
@WarMunchkin:
A lot of us view the Egyptian uprising as very significant in the course of world events and history. A turning point, perhaps.
At any rate, it is very interesting. We are fascinated. And we fear for the safety of the demonstrators. Some of us have participated in demonstrations and feel a kinship for those in Egypt.
On the other hand, yes we are concerned about the economy and whether I can manage to hold on to my job and stuff like that. But we can worry about more than one thing at a time. We are good at worrying. :-)
Chris
@WarMunchkin:
No, it’s me too. But the Middle East is my area of interest and I actually lived in Egypt for a couple months, so that’s the interest for you.
Also, American politics are so depressing that this is actually a welcome break.
Omnes Omnibus
@rachel:
@Boudica:
I’ve think she is using it in this sense.
Cat Lady
@WarMunchkin:
You don’t see the significance of the sudden chaotic end of 50 years of authoritarian rule which has been a keystone of US foreign policy in the world’s most volatile and strategically important region? Which may be spreading to Saudi Arabia? Srsly?
Chris
@Kryptik:
Yeah, and I love how they think they can control this shit indefinitely just by leaving an illegitimate dictator in power.
me
John Bolton on Fox News paraphrased, “Israel and dictator good, will of people bad.”
Anya
I’ve been watching Al-Jazeera live streem almost all morning and I was just wondering what’s behind major cable providers not carrying Al-Jazeera? If they are driven by profits, alot of people will subscribe to it, so why they blockade?
matoko_chan
@rachel: im a revert that studies arabic.
i KNOW what wallah means.
you can think of it as the muslimah version of AMG!
i generally use french, japanese and arabic words in an english language matrix.
also slang, argot, l33tspk and chanese.
my nic is a tribute to the Major.
chan is the japanese honorific for young person, young lady in my case.
Violet
@Anya:
Al-Jazeera = Scary Mooslims. That’s why US providers aren’t carrying it. They’d be targeted by wingnut groups and it would be a PR disaster and they made the decision that the money they could make from it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. When/if that equation changes, they’ll carry it.
matoko_chan
and here is somemore 21st century vocab for you juicers.
im on my way out to buttermilk, for some 1080s, 720s, double corkscrews and cripplers.
bye.
Kryptik
@Chris:
It’s upsetting too due to the perverted concept of American Exceptionalism this mindset takes too. Obviously, Mubarak is good because we support him and we never back anyone bad. Therefore, all those proles trying to run him out on rails are psychotic terroristic jihadists. They have to be, otherwise why would they want to get rid of an American Ally?
They don’t care that the guy’s essentially been a dictator. They just see ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ involved somewhere and lose their shit, and it becomes ‘DEM MUSLIMS CAN’T RULE THEMSELVES, THEY JUST GONNA WANT SHARIA LAW AN’ WE CAN’T HAVE THAT!’ YOu know, without proof that this is gonna outright end up with ‘Islamists’ rising to power in the vacuum and imposing theocracy.
JPL
@Anya: Since al jazeera was linked to by a kind soul on this site, I also have been watching it. Unlike the propaganda that I had been fed, I find it similar to the early days of CNN before they hired the screamers.
Ash Can
Word salad, not nearly as bright as she thinks she is… Now I get it. Matoko-chan is Balloon Juice’s very own Sarah Palin.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: It was posited yesterday that she is 14-15 y/o. I think that is probably right.
Dekk
Larison writes: “there is no way that having a client government overthrown or actively encouraging its overthrow does anything but harm legitimate U.S. interests along with harming misguided hegemonist policies”.
The use of “legitmate” and “misguided” in that quote makes Larison look like a Meet the Press wannabe.
Whenever the U.S. acts badly in the world, it is because the U.S. had “legitimate” interests but, in a “misguided” (oops!) way, happened to make bad decisions that ended up (oops!) resulting in “hegemonist” (hegemonic?) policies.
Well, darn the luck. But I guess the fault lies as much with Egypt for being so temptingly legitimate an interest.
me
David Gregory is talking to the Mustache. If Mark Halperin were there it would be the Hindenburg of journalism.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dekk: The US does have legitimate interests, and those interests can be harmed by misguided policies.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
“how could the MB be any worse?”
By picking an unnecessary fight with Israel.
Not saying that they will, but if they do, that is unambiguously bad.
Chris
@Kryptik:
From what I read on PJM this morning, they’re perfectly aware that Mubarak (and the Shah before him) suck, they just find him preferable to the Muslim Brotherhood, just like they found the Shah preferable to Khomeini. (And they make the same argument when comparing the Shah to Mossadegh, even though that guy was democratically elected, secular, and pro-American).
Essentially, to them, a legitimate government is one that follows their ideology (and that doesn’t require democracy), and an illegitimate one is one that doesn’t… you’ve probably noticed that in the way they react to Democratic administrations in the last twenty years. It’s anti-democratic, but hey, somehow I’m not too surprised.
Alison
@Omnes Omnibus: But I bet she has a very old soul.
rachel
@matoko_chan:
No wonder you only make sense by accident.
inkadu
@me: The Mustache? My introduction to that guy was after 9/11 when he was recounting how he explained the impact of the collapse of the Two Towers to an Egyptian colleage: It’s like if someone flew airplanes in the great pyramids!
How was Mr. Friedman today? Did he advocate waiting a period of 4-6 months for anything?
Violet
@me:
Oh, The Mustache. I accidentally read his column last night. It’s the usual, “I was talking to a bricklayer in Kuala Lumpur” nonsense (this time it’s a primary school teacher in Singapore), but this bit stood out.
Ah, yes. The classic Mustache Extrapolation. Pick any random statement or occurrence anywhere in the world, preferably from a hard-working type, and turn it into a metaphor for whatever you want to say. Our politicians need to be more like Singaporean school teachers? Huh?
burnspbesq
@Cat Lady:
I don’t think any major US media actor has a permanent presence in Cairo. NPR may be the only US net with an Arabic speaking reporter on scene (Soraya Sarhadi-Nelson).
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB:
I can name one:
The United States of America.
NobodySpecial
Obama’s team is right now trying to figure out the exact correct moment to drop Mubarak like a hot potato and get him the hell out of town. Once an authoritarian regime like this one gets to the point of street demonstrations like this, it’s got two choices: Fold or Tiananmen. Obama can’t be seen backing a massacre, so the question is only when they convince Mubarak to leave and what assurances they give him if the whole thing falls apart that they’ll support his return if needed.
Violet
@burnspbesq:
Richard Engel with NBC is in Cairo. He lived there for quite awhile and speaks fluent Arabic.
me
@inkadu: He didn’t say much of anything other then how panicked they are in Jerusalem. He was in Davos and probably had some party to get back to.
Jay C
@matoko_chan:
Y’know it might be helpful (‘tho it would make for less flame-ful BJ blogposting) if you had maybe read up a little on (modern) Egyptian history before posting stuff like your #s5 and 16: “Western colonialism” actually got the boot in Egypt in 1952, after Naguib and Nassers’ “Officers Revolution” – The “Big White Christian Bwanas” – whose influence had been, btw, on the wane in Egypt for years – had pretty much already G t F O by the mid-50’s (check out Suez Crisis 1956). The big hoo-ha in the ’50s and ’60s, in fact, was that Egypt had cozied up to the Soviet Union (especially as arms clients) too much: it wasn’t until after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that they began any kind of thaw with the “West”: which didn’t become solidified until after the Sadat-Begin Camp David Accords in 1977. Where Jimmy Carter recognized that peace was peace, whether you could get it free, or had to buy it. And it’s still a bargain – even today.
vtr
I overslept and missed Spongebob Squarepants, and so turned to the WaPo to read Elliot Abrams explain clearly that Tunis and Cairo prove Bush was right to invade Iraq. This has been touched on before, but Abrams is such a funny guy.
Cat Lady
@burnspbesq:
I understand that. They’ve all decided that reporting isn’t as profitable as opining or entertaining. American news is the Cheetos of journalism.
Uloborus
Can anybody tell me how to get a pie filter? I’ve resisted the desire for everyone else, but I’ve gotten completely tired of being lectured about things any idiot can see by a child who thinks she’s solved the world and thinks that digging up slang other people don’t know makes her smarter than them.
I’ve walked one intelligent but fantastically foolish child through this stage, and I don’t feel like doing it again with Makoto.
burnspbesq
@matoko_chan:
“128 years of western sponsored repression”
That’s either history fail or arithmetic fail. Construction of the Suez Canal began in 1859, which is 152 years ago. Not sure what event in 1883 you could be referring to, but as a practical matter Egypt became a puppet when De Lesseps put the first shovel in the ground in what is now Port Said.
Anya
Did Glen Beck blame Soros for this revolution, yet?
burnspbesq
@Violet:
NBC still does news? What a pleasant surprise.
Omnes Omnibus
@Uloborus: There is a link in the lexicon under “pie.”
MikeJ
@Uloborus: For Firefox: At Cleek’s place.
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/?p=2149 is the original post that has a working link. He also has a post dated Jan 16, but the link in that post is broken.
For chrome: click on my name.
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: i dont think they will do that. i think Egypt covertly or overtly opens the border….the border becomes porous….and arms and supplies flow in. blockade over.
probably this is already happening during the protests.
the MB is very savy i think. the surest way to get America ropelining into Cairo is to look like they are running the protestors because of American paranoia over the Islamic Revolution.
Egypt is 90% muslim. the islamic parties will dominate any free elections.
the MB will be lowkey until democratic elections are scheduled.
then they will go all
Hamasmedieval on watever gelded secular parties the Americans are able to front.Violet
@burnspbesq:
Heh. Good point. But Richard Engel is pretty good. They don’t give him that much time, but when they do, he tends to do good stuff. He’s lived all over the Middle East and is very knowledgeable about the region. Speaking Arabic, plus several other languages, has to help that. He’s in Cairo now, and I’d trust his knowledge more than others. From his wiki entry:
WarMunchkin
@Cat Lady: I think it’s newsworthy, just not as big as people are making it sound. Overthrow of U.S. supported authoritarian regime is a headline I’d hotkey to my keyboard if I were a reporter on foreign affairs, I guess.
I’m not saying it isn’t noteworthy, just not worthy enough of wall-to-wall live coverage, especially since so much of what I see is something like “we need to show solidarity with the protesters!” when in reality that’s not that much different from turning your blog green. Meh.
Mnemosyne
This bit from the Guardian’s report is pretty amazing:
Some people have been speculating that the movement was triggered by Muslims protecting Coptic Christians as fellow Egyptians. I could see that.
Chris
@me:
The Israelis correctly anticipate that no matter what government takes power in Egypt, any government reflecting the will of the people will be less sympathetic to Israel and much more to the plight of the Palestinians.
Frankly, there’s no way around that. For the last thirty years we’ve expected Arab governments to put Israel ahead of their people’s wishes and ahead of their own self-interest – that’s not going to last forever. Expecting neighboring Arab nations to get along with Israel while it continues to not modify its behavior, is as unreasonable as expecting the black African nations to get along with Apartheid South Africa, and just as unrealistic.
Jay C
@Violet:
Actually, I’ve noticed that Al-Jazeera’s (well, AJ English anyway) coverage of the Egyptian (and Tunisian) uprisings has been pretty free of “editorial” commentary – or at least, it’s been relegated to “editorial” columns and identified as such: but unfortunately, I think you’re right about the US media’s attitudes – there is, I think , still a lot of residual piss-off remaining from 2003, when AJ was conspicuously not a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion, and AJ was easy to dismiss as being little better than “Al-Qaeda TV”. And of course, they had the temerity to be more vastly popular than the US Gov’s lame-ass attempt at trying to set up an Arabic-language
propaganda millnews network of its own (anyone remember “Al-Hurra”? Are they still on the air?). Too bad.Violet
@Chris:
Yep, exactly. I suspect Israel is freaking out right about now.
GregB
Has The Mustache of Understanding advised Husni Mubarak to tell the people of Egypt to suck on this?
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: meh. read Juan Cole. when the western powers werent actively dooooing eeet the bankstahs and the global oligarchs were.
i should say, Big White Christian Capitalist Bwana GTFO.
your tears are delicious.
this is the end of the myth of American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism was never anything more than soulessly, rapaciously farming the third world for cash, power and the assaugement of euro-amero holocaust guilt.
Kryptik
@Mnemosyne:
What this obviously means is that the Muslims want to crucify Christians as soon as the Muslim Brotherhood completes their vicious coup, and shows the folly of ever allowing those dirty brown folk to rule themselves without our express concent.
…again, I find myself trying to snark and end up with what’s probably going to be the GOP mainline in a week or so.
me
@Chris: Well, they’ve made their bed. How long have they had to make some deal with the Palestinians? Instead, despite being surrounded by hostile Arab populations if not governments, they’ve continued to act as if they can do whatever they want without any concern about blowback.
matoko_chan
@Jay C:
epic language fail on name there.
arabic speakers universally called al-Hurra the “kitten network” because hurayrah means kitten in arabic, and because it was a propaganda mill, totally emasculated of content.
epic waste of US taxpayer dollahs.
:)
scav
m_c is essentially a myna bird repeating Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity after a quick pass though a James Joyce Jargon Jenerator. She’s clever enough to learn terms but utterly lacks curiosity so I’m not comfortable calling her intelligent. She also can’t distinguish being an irritant with making a contribution so it’s probably better she spout off here because in any sane physical world she’d be pounded to a pancake.
Chris
@Kryptik:
Oddly enough, Christians appear to be in the street supporting this demonstration.
Punchy
Just dont let those fucking looters in/around the damn pyramids.
Jay C
@burnspbesq:
1882 is a well-remembered year in Egyptian history: and not in a good way. That was when the British (with help from the French) sent troops in to overthrow a reformist, nationalist Government in Egypt on the (usual) grounds that they feared the Egyptians might repudiate their foreign debts (owed mainly to Britain and France, of course). The Brits installed a puppet ruler, and kept Egypt as a “protectorate” (a virtual colony) for many decades.
So maybe m_c’s “history fail” isn’t complete…
PIGL
@Joey Maloney: Dangerous lunatics, huh? Well, I see why the Israeli’s might wanna just kill them all, in that case. I mean, why the hell not? We short horses, don’t we?
Ash Can
@WarMunchkin: If the shifting of the entire balance of power in the Middle East isn’t worthy of wall-to-wall coverage, I don’t know what is. If the Egyptian government falls, it’s about an 8.5 on the political Richter scale. History is being made before our eyes. You’re right, it’s not “as big as people are making it sound.” It’s bigger.
NobodySpecial
@Cat Lady: I have stolen that for my FB post. That comment is brilliant!
matoko_chan
@scav: ??? im a special relativity grrl that is flirting with holographic multiverse theory. if you are going to parrot me at least get it right.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@matoko_chan:
Whatever.
Democracy isn’t easy. It’s not cheap. And just as we saw in Palestine, it’s not going to always mesh with universal goodwill. That’s the cost of free elections.
But I will say this. Saying that the “reason” the Muslim Brotherhood’ll take over is because “Egypt is 90% Muslim” is Just Plain Dumb. It’s like saying that because America is 90% Christian, Pat Roberson was likely to win the GOP Presidential Nomination when he ran.
Hamas, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and so many others aren’t just people who incite violence, and do horrible things in the name of “freedom” (and the MB is much less so than the other two). They support the poor with food and supplies and a host of other actions and activities.
Indeed, they act a LOT like the reality of the KKK — and I say this as a African-American who grew up and still lives in the South. As much as the KKK is synonymous with horrors that make me cry and scream with anger, the people they claim to protect know they as a social and defense organization against groups that are violently opposed to “they way of life.”
And that support is also around supporting other members, even people who are not members. They, also, have and do support the oft-poor people who are the “core” of the KKK’s rural backbone, above and beyond the hateorade so many of us rightly decry them over. That breeds a loyalty that’s built on more than just raw hate of The Other — be they Black, Jew, whatever.
If the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies “win”, it’ll be far more because they’ve built that grassroots loyalty than simply because “they’re Muslim”.
Islam is complex. Egyptian religion is complex. Treating it as a zero-sum game is exactly the kind of mistake we Westerns keep making. You know, the kind you keep declaiming.
The others are right. You might know a few words of Arabic, which is awesome, but you seem to know nothing but a pretty standard Western-based “Progressive” script about who the Egyptians are, what they’ve gone through, and what’s happening on the ground right fuckin’ now.
Grow the fuck up.
Chris
@me:
Yeah, pretty much, which is why I have so little sympathy for them and at this point think it’s not our problem anymore. We can’t continue to subordinate our entire Middle-Eastern policy to their whims when the consequences keep piling up like this, or when they refuse to show similar concern for our interests.
(Yeah, yeah, I’m an antisemite, I know).
junebug
@Mnemosyne:
Here’s a link to an article about that event. It was moving. I believe there is also a connection to harassment and killings by police becoming more and more intolerable by everyday people.
matoko_chan
@Mnemosyne: wishful thinking. here is the point of origin, from dougj’s link. social media. wikileaks contribututions: Tunisia and other diplocable revelations. The Tunisia model may set the whole ME on fire.
Egypt is 90% muslim and al-Azhar Cairo is the base of islamic jurisprudence in MENA. One out of 4 arabs live in Egypt.
When there are free elections islamic parties will sweep.
Most analyst agree that if Egypt goes islamic Yemen, Jordan, and possibly KSM will follow. OBL will get his wish, the Saud monarchy overthrown.
i keep saying, islam is EGT immune to proselytization in situ.
Defense against proselytization is the most successful CSS on the planet right now.
Face
So exactly how does all this affect Israel? Because, honestly, the answer to that question is the blueprint for how our gov’t will act, yet again.
Punchy
@matoko_chan: Acronym overload. Can I get this in English?
Violet
Meanwhile, back in Tunisia:
WarMunchkin
@Ash Can: What are the important aspects of Egypt in the context of balance of power in the Middle East?
matoko_chan
??
sowwy, but you’re retarded. so much fail.
the MB is the father of Hamas, and the father of al-Q.
like i said,
you should get a clue, lol.
no, its like saying because America is 70% christian only a christian can be president. catholics are nominally christian.
In free DEMOCRATIC elections, the MB will win majority seats.
So difficult for Americans to uncouple democracy from judeochristianity, isnt it?
One might say impossible.
:)
NobodySpecial
@Punchy: She seems to think that because the majority of residents take Islam as their religion, that they’re all religious robots and will live in Glorious Islamism forever. Of course, you might ask a 20 year old in Iran about that sort of thing, but she’s got her narrative.
amk
@Baud:
Nailed it. I’m stealing that with your permission.
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan:
This is almost McCardlesque in the sheer volume of foolishness packed into five sentences. I am amazed.
matoko_chan
@WarMunchkin: oooo! ooo! i can answer that!!
1 out 4 arabs lives in Egypt.
and al-Azhar is the center of islamic scholarship and its in in Cairo.
also too…..the Gaza border. who ever takes over, the blockade is finished.
the Israelis will have to find another way to starve/decimate the Palestinians into submission.
Ash Can
Both the Guardian and Al Jazeera are reporting that El Baradei has arrived in Tahrir Square. I’m thinking this might be the turning point.
@WarMunchkin: ::blinks:: OK, never mind.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: lol! and its all true, isnt it, OO?
refute it or stfu.
hahaha
Joey Maloney
@PIGL: Personally, I prefer to tall horses rather than short them.
Look, I know people who live in Gaza and on the West Bank. They’re not political, they’re just ordinary schmucks like me trying to have as good a life as they can under impossible circumstances. And these are the people who describe Hamas as dangerous lunatics. You know why?
Because they are.
They’re every bit as dangerous to the health and safety of my acquaintances as the Jewish fanatics that are stealing and despoiling their land, and the Israeli government that protects them.
rachel
Does the pie filter work in Opera?
matoko_chan
@Punchy: read the book
or google.
the Book is excellent though.
matoko_chan
@Joey Maloney: truedat.
Hamas is opportunistic and exploitive, just like Hizb’.
Hamas doesnt want to end the blockade, because the blockade gives them power.
The Israelis are stupid though.
the blockade is going to end worse for them than the Summer War with Hizb’ did.
In the end all Israel got was bad press, more undying Arab enmity, more dead Israeli soljahs, and a newly minted Hizb’ majority in the Leb parliment.
Hizb’ got Sameer Kuntar anyways, which is all they wanted from the start.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@matoko_chan:
Congrats for MISSING THE FUCKING POINT.
You keep saying it’s just because Egypt is Muslim. Which is bullshit. It’s exactly as I said — the MB built goodwill, built a grassroots movement, and has been doing so for decades. If they hadn’t, if they had just been Muslim — you are aware there are a LOT of religious-oriented political groups in Egypt, right? The MB is just the biggest and most well-known, and also the one that (not incidentally) does the most on-the-street support of the people.
Indeed, ElBaradei — who knows a fucking lot more about their role in Egyptian politics than almost anyone else blathering on about it here, including myself — just said today to directly compare the Muslim Brotherhood, in fact, to the Christian Fundamentalist groups in American. Do you claim he’s wrong? Or naive about the situation in his own damn country.
Stop treating the Egyptian people like they’re a bunch of religious idiots, determined to blindly vote for the group that “represents their religion”. I’m not saying the MB won’t get voted in, as I said at the very fucking beginning of my comment! I am saying that the reason are more complex, more real-word than what you’re implying.
And, most of all, that saying the only reason they’ll get voted in is that “they’re Muslim” (also, scary) is fuckin’ Islamophobic and ignorant. I’m no fan of the MB, yet I try to be aware of the totality of who they are, and why they are so powerful.
(And, y’know, I’m pretty aware of the history of Fundamentalist groups in the Near East. Telling me the MB “grew” the others is beside any actual point I made, and just underlines how you’re throwing out data to try to convince people that you have knowledge.)
Joey Maloney
My point was – and I haven’t seen anything to convince me otherwise – that no matter what the next Egyptian government looks like, it’s not going to be in their interest to end the Gaza blockade. More importantly, it’s not going to be in the Egyptian Army’s interest to end it.
Therefore, I very much doubt it’s going to end.
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: We will just start with “catholics are nominally christian.” Okay? Catholicism was the only form of Christianity in Western Europe until the Protestant Reformation. It is not nominally Christian. It is Christian. Some Protestant denominations may have serious doctrinal differences with Catholics, but that does not make either group non-Christian. Sunni and Shia have differences; would you say that one is only nominally Islam? Think before posting.
junebug
@matoko_chan:
You are oversimplifying this.
Read here and explore the additional reports from this past year.
While you and David Gregory might this all this is some sort of twitter revolution, I’m pretty sure the people of Egypt and Tunisia would disagree.
matoko_chan
@Joey Maloney: in a free democratic election who will be the majority party?
the MB.
part of their platform is the end of the blockade.
and even if it remains official policy, the border will get porous. people will look the other way. it will fall eventually.
Israel should jump ahead of the wave and try to salvage something.
but they wont, because they are STOOOPID.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: true statements you need to refute or stfu.
1. America is 70% christian.
2. catholic is a subset of christian.
3. America can only elect christian presidents.
Punchy
@matoko_chan: Or just tell me what CSS and EGT mean. Really, is that so hard?
Baud
@amk: Theft is the highest form of flattery. Permission granted.
matoko_chan
@junebug: not just me! also, Mark Lynch, Juan Cole, and many other analysts .
social media is a contributing factor.
the match to the accumulating puddle of gasoline if you like.
the Arab spring of 2005 was triggered by new media– the advent of satellite tv.
there has been a critical mass of revolutionary fervor accumulating under arab autocracies for a while.
we will see if it spreads.
matoko_chan
@Punchy: EGT evolutionary games theory
CSS culturally stable strategy.
amk
@Baud: LOL. Thanks.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for that — I was so busy being pissed off about the overall insanity of the comment that I completely forgot to touch on the Catholic comment.
Indeed, it’s important to point out that the statement that “al-Azhar Cairo is the base of islamic jurisprudence in MENA” only applies to ONE SECT. Which is another fail in this so-called analysis of the situation.
Joey Maloney
@matoko_chan: Repetition doesn’t make it true.
And even if you were right, which you are not, let me also point out to you that the GOPs platform includes the recriminalization of abortion, but no Republican president has made a serious effort to bring this about. The same dynamic applies.
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: Do you know what nominally means?
The US can elect anyone as President. It is unlikely that, in the near future, the US will elect a non-Christian as President.
Of course, none of this has any bearing on the fact that you manage to stuff 10 lbs of foolishness into a 5 lb bag in the majority of your posts. Take a look at what Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill has posted above to get an idea of what a less simplistic analysis of a situation looks like.
matoko_chan
@Joey Maloney: i dont think its the same. the GOP makes LIFE part of its platform, but actually doing something about it is not costviable for them.
1. they know it cant be done, and 2. it removes an issue for them to demogogue the base with.
The MB actually believes the blockade should fall, like nearly all muslims do.
Most Egyptians hate Israel. In a free DEMOCRATIC election the border goes porous, sry.
@Omnes Omnibus: i already did slash ignore on woodrow, sry.
Omnes Omnibus
@matoko_chan: Stay safely wrapped in your bubble. Ignore contrary data. Refuse to read analysis that might not fit your preconceived viewpoint. That doesn’t sound like a really good plan, does it?
matoko_chan
i wrote my own filter.
slash ignore renders commenters that dont meet my IQ gradient mute, and drops a virtual safe on their virtual heads, black sun bouncer style, so i dont even see that they comment in the future.
you only get one chance with me.
then nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! BAAAAMMM!
i never see you again.
Pococurante
@Joey Maloney:
Not to mention, propping up Hamas, an oppressive kleptocracy that used elections to eliminate opposition, is a very bad way to earn credibility as a truly democratic nation.
matoko_chan
@Omnes Omnibus: if you relly want me to fisk whatever he said you can quote him.
but that might lead to my
dropping a safe on you tooignoring you too, and i would truly miss our interactions.Ed Marshall
@matoko_chan:
You are just ignorant. You clog up, balloon-juice with idiotic nonsense (The Muslim Brotherhood will destroy all, because Egyptians are Muslims! Muslims hate this! Muslims do that!) Do you know any Muslims in real life? Ever been to the Middle East? You have made up a rather, repulsive caricature of what Muslims are (well, that’s not fair, it’s more or less the American/Israeli caricature) except you have decided to identify with a stupid bogeyman.
rachel
@Ed Marshall: She claims to be a Muslim. She seems to know as much about them as she does about the Japanese language, though. Are there Muslim anime? That could explain her.
Carol
@NobodySpecial: He’s 82. He knows he won’t be coming back if he leaves. I also remember hearing rumors that he is also terminally ill, with a year or less to live.
My take on the whole thing:
Aquariusmoon’s White House
Brighton
My 2 cents on why we don’t have riots here despite 25% unemployment: we still worship the rich who have their knives in our backs.
JMC_in_the_ATL
@matoko_chan: We should all be so lucky as to be on your filter.
Carol
@Joey Maloney: Hardly. They may not officially end the blockade, but they may look the other way as long as the traffic doesn’t give them any trouble.
Corpsicle
@matoko_chan: You might want to keep in mind that being smarter than average means shit here. Those with really low IQs are not likely to comment on a political blog like this. Average IQ in the real world is supposed to be 100, but in a group like this average is probably way over 120. In your junior high class you may be a big fish in a small pond, but here you are closer to average, although missing decades of knowledge and experience.
NobodySpecial
@Carol: Then they may be discussing the size of his buyout.
NobodySpecial
@Corpsicle: Ok, can we lose the Mensa-style E-peen shit on all sides? Thanks. There’s a reason I never joined, and M_C looks a lot like it.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
I find it the height of privilege and entitlement that anyone would find our situation and Egypt’s even remotely similar.
Carol
Or where he ends up in exile. Saudi Arabia has already rejected him-and with good reason: there are a million Egyptians there. Thanks to the terrible economic and social conditions, there is a massive diaspora of Egyptians. Add the fact that he has been complicit in the blockade of Gaza, there may be few places he could go.
My guess:
China
The United States
Canada
England
Switzerland
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@NobodySpecial: The Egyptian junta is caught between a rock and a hard place. Crack down too hard and Obama pulls the plug on that sweet sweet American aid. Crack down too lightly and they’re out of jobs – or worse. So they’re trying to weasel their way into keeping power. I’m pulling for the Egyptian people to have none of that.
Corpsicle
@NobodySpecial: I’m not that clever, as I have no idea what you are talking about.
Ed Marshall
@rachel:
Like a convert, who has never been in a mosque?
Violet
@Carol:
He can’t come to the US. That would be catastrophic for our foreign policy. Maybe we could encourage someone like Lichtenstein to take him. Or the Caymans.
Carol
Perhaps we could stash him in one of our Territories, like American Samoa?
me
@Carol: Maybe he could go to Libya and hang with Gaddafi’s hot nurse.
Violet
@me:
North Korea? Would Kim Jong Il take him?
matoko_chan
@rachel: my onetime co-blogger’s Air manga has been featured on MTV. theres lots of muslim manga.
al Hurrah gets used to warn the egyptian military off bloodshed.
matoko_chan
another glibertarian assclown hopes for “a transitional period orchestrated by the military”.
meanwhile, leaders of the banned political party the Muslim Brotherhood are gettin’ busted out of prison.
matoko_chan
you don’t like what i say, but its the truth.
when there are free democratic elections the MB will be the majority party.
get used to it.
and the brothers fuckin’ hate Israel, and they are not Americas friend.
now im going to get some fresh Air and watch the superpipe.
there is a smog of delusional american exceptionalism bullshytt in here.
i can hardly breathe.
JGabriel
@matoko_chan:
The protests have been by secularists, and the protesters that I’ve heard have repeatedly said they want a secular government. The MB didn’t join the protests until Friday, and they remain a minority of the protesters.
ElBaradei compared the MB to the US’s conservative Christian fundamentalists, and I think that’s about right.
I’m not sure why you want to side with conservative fundamentalists in Egypt that you would think are morons in the US, but that’s your call.
I think ElBaradei is the most likely to be the “winner” here, and that he’ll form an interim unity gov’t that gives the MB about 15-20% representation, if that. The border may become slightly more porous due to less attention or priority, but not as a matter of policy. As noted elsewhere in this thread, no Egyptian government will want to welcome Hamas, or any other violent religious fundamentalists, into their country. Egypt’s MB will be tolerated only because they have renounced violence and have significant (though nowhere near majority) domestic support — they won’t rule.
.
Chris
@matoko_chan:
I’m used to getting my opinions misrepresented; I get called a communist or a socialist all the time. This is the first time in ages that I’ve been misrepresented as anything as right wing as an “American exceptionalist.”
I guess both sides really do it after all.
No one’s making you stay, dearie. I mean, you’re welcome to. But I’m just saying, if it’s really that gross, you don’t have to.
Chris
@JGabriel:
Okay, bottom-lining this from what I understand; so far, the protests are a spontaneous popular movement (spurred on by the sight of what’s happened in Tunisia). Christians and secularists and all the rest are in the street protesting alongside with Muslims of all stripes, like you said. There’s no orchestrating power behind this, no ideology or party or really clear agenda, the only thing that unites them is they all want Mubarak gone, because they think he’s a crook, and he is. Okay so far.
Nevertheless, the Muslim Brotherhood has long been the only meaningful organized opposition to the regime. Therefore, if the regime were to fall altogether, seems to me they’d be the ones most likely to step in (if only because there’s no one else).
But no one knows exactly what it would mean if the Muslim Brotherhood were to take over. If the Iranian Revolution’s your model, recall that radicalization was not a given; the hostage crisis (which was not planned by Khomeini) followed by the Iraqi invasion and eight years of war are what allowed him to consolidate power and radicalize the regime into the theocracy we have now. Without those things, no one’s sure exactly how it would have turned out.
Bottom-line; no one knows where this is going (including the Muslim Brotherhood and the demonstrators themselves). That’s why the Obama administration’s approaching this so cautiously, and it’s also why the conservative establishment hasn’t endorsed either of the two narratives (“Yay freedom thank you Bush!” or “ZOMG scary Muslims blame Obama!”) that their voters are running with – they don’t know which story to run with yet, so they’re letting them both run in order to maintain “I told you so” cred.
matoko_chan
@JGabriel: BULLSHYTT.
Hamas is an offshoot of the MB, dumbass.
the MB hasnt taken charge of the protests YET because that is the surest way to get America-fuck-yeah military ops ropelining into Cairo.
but they are there, they are the only organized oppo and free democratic elections will give them control.
sukk on this.
the MB is forming a government WITH ELBARADEI. its delicious to see you guyz scramble desparately for intellectual cover while i shell u with data..
neither Hamas or the Brotherhood recognize Israel.
Hamas identies itself as the MB in Palestine.
is there some reason you blowhards get all puffed up over shit that is stone simple to refute?
YOU WRONG, J Gabriel.
sry if im not polite about it.
Carol
@meNo, according to this blog Quadaffi may be getting nervous himself. He too is an aging despot who is hardly going to welcome someone who could easily take quiet discontent to open discontent.
Mubarak will have to leave the Middle East. I suspect that the end place will be somewhere like China, where there are few Muslims in Beijing, and where the government would be likely to protect him better.
matoko_chan
@Chris: stupid cudlip.
Chris
@Carol:
I doubt it. The Chinese are too smart to alienate public opinion in the Middle East by taking in such an unpopular ex-dictator from such a pivotal country.
No, it’ll be somewhere in the West, maybe Switzerland or France.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Aren’t the south of France and Switzerland the traditional retirement destinations for deposed tyrants?
polyorchnid octopunch
@Violet: Actually, this perspective is one of the big problems with how the US deals with other parts of the world. Some things are more important than money.
polyorchnid octopunch
@WarMunchkin: Tunisia is a bit player in Arab power politics. Egypt most definitely is not.
me
Here’s the full on Israel first view.
Yutsano
@me: Wow. That’s ten pounds of stupid in a five pound burlap sack. But it’s not at all unusual right-wing paranoia from the AIPAC/Israeli perspective. I hate to say Jewish because trust me not all Jews think like that.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Mnemosyne: That was big news a few weeks ago, after a massacre at a church by some Islamists at Christmas. I suspect that there is a connection; the non-crazy people realised how numerous they were compared to the crazies, and when Tunisia happened, they used the informal networks they formed during those demonstrations to set up these ones. I’ve also read that there were rumours that the Egyptian security apparatus allowed the massacre to go ahead with an eye to a ‘divide and conquer’ approach to the street; if they’re fighting each other, they won’t be fighting the state.
Matoko, I know several Egyptians, some of whom live in my city now and some of whom came through on exchange programs. They are not Islamists, and see themselves as Africans, not Arabs, and Egyptians most of all.
me
@Yutsano:
Of course. All you have to do is read Glenn Greenwald and that becomes very obvious. And Issac Asimov is one of my heroes.
polyorchnid octopunch
@matoko_chan: Doesn’t mean America’s going to elect a KKK president.
You really are naive. I’m beginning to think that the folks saying you’re a kid are right.
Yutsano
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Especially your third point. If you call an Egyptian an Arab you’ll be lucky to walk away with your life. They consider themselves the direct descendants of the builders of the Pyramids and the children of one of the most ancient civilizations on the planet. It’s why they preserve their antiquities so well. Hell they moved several whole tombs after the building of the Aswan Dam just to keep it from going underwater, even though true Islamists would say destroy it since it was created before the time of Muhammad.
JGabriel
@matoko_chan:
Oh, my heart! (Clutches chest.) I’m wounded! Wounded to the core!
Seriously, sweetie (hey, if you’re familiar enough to call me “dumbass” then you’re familiar enough for me to call “sweetie”), you could have spared yourself the embarrassment. While there’s plenty of derogative qualities one might truthfully assign me, it’s pretty evident that “dumb” ain’t one of them.
And yes, I’m aware that Hamas regards itself as an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Never said otherwise.
.
me
@Yutsano: I wonder if any of the Islamists think the world is 6000 years old like the US Creationists/Idiots? Then some of those artifacts may date to before the creation of the universe.
matoko_chan
@JGabriel: then do you agree that the MB doesnt recognize Israel?
matoko_chan
@me: actually Sufi scholars postulated Many Worlds theory 400 years before the christians tried to burn Galileo.
:)
there maybe some “islamists” that are young earth creationists, but i guarantee NONE of them believe in the Virgin Birth or the jesus godhead.
:)
JGabriel
@matoko_chan:
I don’t know. I can’t tell from their website (I assume it’s run by the Egyptian branch).
They seem to advocate for a single Palestinian state, though, or at least Tariq Ali does (hey, I have a one or two of his novels!), so it’s a moot point. Whether or not they recognize Israel, they certainly want to topple it’s gov’t and replace it with a Palestinian state.
On the other hand, there are members of MB in the Knesset. One assumes that those members of MB recognize Israel anyway.
.
JGabriel
@matoko_chan: (cont’d) Anyhow, MB’s policy wrt Israel doesn’t have any bearing on what I argued would be the most likely short term outcome for Egypt: an interim gov’t where MB gets about 15-20% representation in the Parliament or whatever they decide to call the legislative branch, and maybe a couple of cabinet seats.
They won’t rule, though they may be part of a unity coalition.
.
THE
@matoko_chan:
So? Ancient Greece already had steam engines and used them to create Star-Trek style, self-opening doors.
That makes the Greeks the world’s first Geeks.
matoko_chan
@JGabriel:
meh. the MB will rule if there is a democratic free election.
everyone acknowleges that, except for a few refuseniks here at bj….they are the only real oppo party. Mubarak neutered all the secular oppos so he could threaten the US with an islam take over.
And the US is wetting its pants in terror.
we will see what the army does tonight.
you arent boring enough yet to drop a safe on…..yet.
and its time for the superpipe.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@JGabriel: Esp. since, again, ElBaradei said pretty much that, today:
And again, back in the real world, the last time they were in a election considered in any way open (2005), the MB got a whopping 20% of the vote:
So your comments have some real points in their favor.
JGabriel
@matoko_chan:
From you, that’s like a declaration of love. Marry me, you impetuous fool! (Swoons.)
.