dagblog - Comments for "Can we finally call it a coup?"

Your last paragraph might be

Peter — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 17:08:56 +0000

Your last paragraph might be less offensive if this " western democracy" wasn't actually a farce and tragedy itself. The reason the MB government had to go was that it didn't conform to the controlled, groomed and neutered democracy we enjoy.

It's a shame that you suffer

Peter — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 16:46:10 +0000

In reply to Skimmed it but then my eyes

It's a shame that you suffer the same attention disorder that many Amerikans share Art. Skimming a real analysis of the Egypt tragedy and replying with tweets is telling. The real questions here go far beyond Morsi's failures and should be directed at the forces of counter-revolution in Egypt and wherever the US projects it's power.

It must be the people who

Beetlejuice — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 16:07:05 +0000

In reply to Strangely (not > cynicism

It must be the people who debates and decides what the Constitution will say, not political Advisers ... so I have doubts with what he's says ... sounds like some serious political maneuvering is going on to look legit

I'm not a social media fan so twit's are more gossip than facts for me

Skimmed it but then my eyes

artappraiser — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 07:15:11 +0000

In reply to For a more detailed look at

Skimmed it but then my eyes started to glaze over at the infinite complexity of this conspiracy. I'm not impressed. Geez I was half expecting the JFK assassination to pop up in there somewhere. It's like this: if you see Bandar cited one day, it's got to be a conspiracy, and you just have to follow the Bandar to start writing it. Scour the Arabic language web sites for stuff that fits the conspiracy narrative we are building, start a web yourself, map it all out, soon you'll have a spiderweb so intricate that even John Forbes Nash Jr couldn't compete. There is so much stuff in there that he couldn't possibly know unless he was Prince Bandar of Darkness his royal self (who also has been known to weave a complextale or two) and also had every middle east potentate bugged to max, where he could give the NSA a real run for their money.

So I didn't like the looks of it, nope, sorry, and I look up Al-Amin, he looks to be a self-promoting type and self-labeled "expert", very resourceful in that, and also in conspiracy building, with few actual credentials that he is proud of. This is all he could offer as a bio to Jaddilya when he did an interview with them about his only book The Arab Awakening Unveiled: Understanding Transformations and Revolutions in the Middle East.:

Esam Al-Amin is a writer and an expert on the Middle East and US foreign policy. His work appeared on many websites and publications. His articles on the Arab Spring and Middle East politics have been translated into French, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Turkish.

and that book was not published by a actual book publisher but by this American pro-Palestinian lobbying group.

Yes, there's a lot of facts in that article, but they are all tied up with all kinds of stuff that is very dubious and presented in a very messy manner, it's not even a tight conspiracy, it's just throwing all kinds of shit and hoping it strikes fear and loathing and hopelessness about the world today into Counterpunch users about the evil powers that be. He sounds like a combo of some Firedoggers as well as a bit of the late career Howard Beale, and these two Tweets I just saw surfing, from Egyptian journalist:

Outraged by imagined foreign plots, Egypt tears itself apart, resulting in carnage equal to that feared by imagined foreign plots.
— Abdel-Rahman Hussein (@ElFoulio) August 16, 2013

My country's future is on the brink. Why? Because people believe in conspiracies. It's amazingly and madly that simple.
— Abdel-Rahman Hussein (@ElFoulio) August 15, 2013

By the way, Hussein also has a blog, I checked out, here's his second last post on it, March 10: Despair is Betrayal, where he's trying to buck himself up about his despair about what Morsi's been doing, stuff like this, sounds familiar, don't it:

The Interior Ministry can kill, maim, torture scores more as it has been doing a lot of recently and that will not restore it’s corrupted luster or sense of power. It’s just not going to happen. The same applies to the army, or the government. The top officials from Morsi downwards can bleat on all they want about dealing with events with a firm hand, an iron will and a callous heart, it will not restore whatever it is they deem worthy of restoration [....]

Morsi has not finished his first year in office and it is already clear that from him and the Brotherhood – and their cheerleaders both domestic and foreign – there is not just an absolute failure of vision, of leadership and of any morality whatsoever but also a disconcerting comfort with all this death. They join the ranks of Mubarak’s coterie, the military and the police as ones who have betrayed this country and its people [....]

So somehow he's got to be part of Al-Amin's conspiracy, I guess? Or just a dupe of The Conspiracy's anti-Morsi agitprop happening in March?

Well, you did it, congratulations, you got me wasting time talking to you about precisely the grand guignol debates I wanted to avoid. And looking at and wasting time countering Counterpunch agitprop. Which I have never found productive even though giving it a chance many many times since circa 2002. No more, thanks but no thanks.

Edit to add: I'll grant you that Juan Cole has gone celubu-prof over the years, goes for the crowd pleasing antics a bit too much. But he still has a scholarly background and training and I personally think it still shows. I think using a comparison like Waco would be a good thing, a great tool, if you were teaching a class on this topic, so why the heck is it a bad thing when you're writing a popular blog? Ain't much wrong with being a thought-provoking teacher.

Paul Bremer, US Chief

NCD — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 03:01:38 +0000

In reply to Fascinating but frustrating

Paul Bremer, US Chief Administrator of Iraq, 'on principle' fired all Iraqi military, security, and intelligence personnel, and disbanded the associated infrastructure within hours of his arrival in the nation.

It got a whole heaping amount of worse from there. Even with a trillion dollars spent, and a couple hundred thousand US boots on the ground.

It just may be the Egyptian Army/police know more about Egypt and Egyptians than we do, and it may be Egypt isn't ready for western democracy, maybe it never will be.

More: Tamarod aims to ban

artappraiser — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 00:59:09 +0000

In reply to And apparently doing so would

Tamarod aims to ban US aid and cancel Camp David peace treaty
By Fady Ashraf, Daily News Egypt, August 17, 2013

New campaign “to revive national sovereignty”

The Tamarod (Rebellion) campaign joined the Emna' Maouna (Ban the Aid) campaign to stop the US aid to Egypt, on Saturday, according to their official website.

Tamarod said this is in response for the unacceptable US interference in Egyptian political affairs, and their support for terrorist groups.

Tamarod issued another statement on their website, entitled, No to Aid, in which they demanded that the Egyptian regime hold a referendum banning US aid, cancelling the 1979 Camp David peace treaty with Israel and rewording security-related treaties to allow Egypt to secure its borders.

The Tamarod campaign, which played a major role in the ousting of President Mohamed Morsi, stated that these actions are aimed at reviving national sovereignty, “after it was broken for many years.”

Mai Wahba, Tamarod’s media coordinator, said the campaign will gather signatures from the people, as the primary method to push for the referendum. She added that there is no timeframe for the campaign yet.

State-owned Al-Ahram reports that the Emna Maouna campaign started on 1 August, and was responsible for the electronic occupation of US President Barack Obama’s Facebook page.

For a more detailed look at

Peter — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 21:34:08 +0000

In reply to Fascinating but frustrating

For a more detailed look at the players, roles and timeline of this staged counter-revolution read Esam Al-Amin's Counterpunch article, The Grand Scam.

Fascinating but frustrating

acanuck — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 20:52:52 +0000

In reply to Can we finally call it a coup?

Fascinating but frustrating discussion, though any kind of discussion beats murdering each other in the street. Many early commenters took the rhetorical question in the head too literally, focusing on whether the U.S. should bite the bullet and cut off aid. That wasn't what I was asking. What I meant was: Can "we" -- rational, thinking, moral people, Americans or not -- open our eyes and recognize what is really going on in Egypt: a brazen, cynical bid by the military-dominated "deep state" to reassert its absolute control?

Arguments over "losing our leverage" are ludicrous; the U.S. no longer has any over any side in Egypt. John Kerry tossed it away when he declared (after Morsi was deposed but before this week's massacres) that the army had stepped in to fulfill the will of the people. The White House tried to walk that declaration back, but the generals saw their green light, and acted. Denying the Egyptian junta a billion or so isn't going to prompt it to moderate its violence, but I think Obama should do the right thing even if brings zero political advantage. It's called principle.

Issandr al-Imrani has a nice analysis I concur with. Some of the comments are interesting, too:

http://arabist.net/blog/2013/8/14/it-only-gets-worse-from-here

Strangely (not > cynicism

artappraiser — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 19:28:19 +0000

In reply to " ... Democracy is more than

Strangely (not > cynicism allowed), I just saw this, that this guy apparently knows exactly what you'd like to hear from him:

#Egypt presidency adviser switches to Eng in mid of Arabic remarks to say: The constitution will be by all Egyptians, for all Egyptians
— Rawya Rageh (@RawyaRageh) August 17, 2013

Possible Saudi effects

artappraiser — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:25:45 +0000

In reply to Can we finally call it a coup?

Possible Saudi effects forthcoming:

Most prominent Saudi Islamist public figures have completely ignored King Abdullah's call to support Egypt military.
— Marc Lynch (@abuaardvark) August 17, 2013

also to consider in that light, Arabist's response here:

@Eikonur @AliAbunimah it’s stupid to think us needs Egypt for Israel’s safety. It needs Egypt for the al-Sauds’ safety.
— arabist (@arabist) August 17, 2013