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BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#18126: Oct 6th 2013 at 4:39:51 PM

I wonder how many of those MB members actually did anything wrong.

Well, obviously there's also the (possibly unrelated) question of whether those who were killed had done anything wrong...

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Joesolo Indiana Solo Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Indiana Solo
#18127: Oct 6th 2013 at 4:47:14 PM

eh. it's a pretty bad organization in and of itself. Not sure how to feel on that.

I'm baaaaaaack
Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
Joesolo Indiana Solo Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Indiana Solo
#18129: Oct 6th 2013 at 5:16:17 PM

on the people killed, yea, that's not good. I meant about the arrests, I should have been more specific. people dying from participating in protests should just straight not happen.

I'm baaaaaaack
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#18130: Oct 6th 2013 at 5:18:42 PM

Perhaps I, too, should have clarified that I didn't mean to imply that anyone deserves to be wrongly imprisoned, let alone killed.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#18131: Oct 7th 2013 at 12:57:23 AM

I wonder how many of those 200 arrested people are actual members of the MB and not just ordinary people who became MB sympathizers after the coup and/or massacres.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#18132: Oct 7th 2013 at 4:26:44 AM

The way I see it:

For all I despise the new regime, I can't bring myself to actually sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood. I sympathize with Egypt; given it has a choice between "fascists with uniforms and fascists with Qu'rans", which is no choice at all. I sympathize with the murdered protesters, because they were exercising a basic human right and were murdered by representatives of the state. But the Muslim Brotherhood was a terrible movement. It fought UN initiatives against violence against women. It argued that calls for the recognition of women's dignity as human beings were Western plots to return Egypt to a pre-Islamic statenote . It's constitution was in many respects an abomination. They failed to undertake the duty of a government to protect the rights of minorities (disgracefully, it was to a great extent right-wing news sources in the West who documented the plight of Egypt's Christians).

But they did not destroy democracy. They permitted internal opposition and they did not entirely suspend civil liberties. Ultimately, what we have seen in the last few months is a military crackdown. The military government has carried out a coup. They have usurped a democratically elected - in a real election - government, the only one in Egypt's history. They have sent tanks and soldiers into the streets - where they have no business - in order to attack people exercising their right to protest. The Muslim Brotherhood, bad as they were, did not oversee such an authoritarian crackdown. They did not arrest the leaders of the secular opposition, and they did not slaughter the protesters of Tahrir. They were very grey, but the military is blacker than black.

It is semi-possible that the military will uphold its new promises to hold new elections in spring. They may even permit Muslim Brothers to win them. But any subsequent government - the "secular liberals" or the MB - will know and fear the power of the military. The Egyptian people may yet govern themselves, but they will do so with a gun to their head. But frankly, I think the new elections will more likely follow the Iranian, Chinese, and Burmese pattern: you can vote for whoever you want, so long as it is one of these picked and vetted candidates who are champions of the military-ideological oligarchy.

What can be done, is for the USA and EU to call a coup a coup and suspend aid. It's a pretty grim state of affairs when Egyptian democracy's best friend in the West is John McCain.

edited 7th Oct '13 5:39:22 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#18133: Oct 7th 2013 at 12:51:00 PM

The EU can suspend aid. The US can't. The peace between Egypt and Israel is contingent on that aid, and the last thing the region needs is yet another war...

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#18134: Oct 7th 2013 at 12:56:00 PM

[up]

This is true, though I think the Egyptian military know that they can't win a war with Israel, and I'm not sure the Egyptian people would necessarily fall for the obvious ploy of fighting Israel to try and unite the nation.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
BestOf FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC! from Finland Since: Oct, 2010 Relationship Status: Falling within your bell curve
FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC!
#18135: Oct 7th 2013 at 1:08:40 PM

the Egyptian military know that they can't win a war with Israel

I'd think that'd depend on whether Egypt could get other countries on its side, and whether the US or others would go all the way for Israel.

Egypt alone vs Israel alone would be a conflict the winner of which would be hard to predict.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#18136: Oct 7th 2013 at 1:20:07 PM

I'm not sure Egypt is capable of defeating Israel militarily. Bear in mind the Israelis hold all the advantages; they have little chance of being take by surprise, they are defending, and the Egyptian military's most modern systems are American, and thus their capabilities will be well known to Israel's most likely ally.

Even if the United States didn't go the distance for Israel, it still seems likely that it would halt military exports to Egypt, thus making Egyptian resupply very hard. Egypt would likely have a hostile populace too, the military is already resented for its gangsterism and repression; dragging the country into a war with Israel is not likely to make them more so.

This isn't to say that war with Israel should be risked - it should be avoided in all circumstances - but it seems fairly likely that Israel would win any such war.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Greenmantle V from Greater Wessex, Britannia Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: Hiding
V
#18137: Oct 7th 2013 at 1:24:55 PM

Fairly likely, but not impossible — the Israelis are undergoing rather severe Defence cuts at the moment.

Keep Rolling On
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#18138: Oct 7th 2013 at 2:38:30 PM

Did not mean to start a derail, which this is starting to become.

Anyone hear anything from Syria or Sudan or Yemen?

Quag15 Since: Mar, 2012
#18139: Oct 7th 2013 at 2:46:16 PM

Yemen could be close to reaching a consensus on the southern issue.

Apart from that, not much. Negotiations were in a stalemate, so the conclusions remain to be seen.

johnnyfog Actual Wrestling Legend from the Zocalo Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Actual Wrestling Legend
#18140: Oct 7th 2013 at 3:19:52 PM

I'd think that'd depend on whether Egypt could get other countries on its side, and whether the US or others would go all the way for Israel.

Israel trumps everything by definition.

edited 7th Oct '13 3:20:16 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#18141: Oct 7th 2013 at 4:54:00 PM

Why not withdraw from that powder keg already and let it explode?

@Shinra: This isn't a derail. If renewed conflict in the Middle East is a potential outcome of us tearing up the existing bribery structures as a result of the coup, then it's on topic.

Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#18142: Oct 7th 2013 at 6:47:15 PM

My question is: who backs the military amongst the general populace? Every dictatorship has a "base" much like political parties

DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#18143: Oct 7th 2013 at 6:53:33 PM

[up] People who don't like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016
Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#18144: Oct 7th 2013 at 6:59:21 PM

Not so, since the liberals like the military only insofar as it can depose the MB. Ergo, all MB foes are not the military's political base.

Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#18145: Oct 7th 2013 at 9:48:36 PM

The military's "base" is what's left of the Mubarak old guard, along with secularists who prefer a brutal secular dictatorship to a brutal Islamic dictatorship, and who realize that "liberal democracy" in the Middle East is essentially an oxymoron.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#18146: Oct 8th 2013 at 5:53:34 AM

[up]And people who have been simply cowed into submission.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Joesolo Indiana Solo Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Indiana Solo
#18147: Oct 8th 2013 at 5:57:56 AM

nm

edited 8th Oct '13 5:58:04 AM by Joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack
demarquis (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#18148: Oct 8th 2013 at 9:30:00 AM

The military has always been rather popular in Egypt, as it is in Turkey. I agree with Achaemenid, the MB were terrible at governing, and were not really trying to promote true democracy in good faith, but they didn't shoot people in the street, either. The secular left is divided (no big surprise) between a faction who dislike the MB more than the military and a faction who dislike the military more than the MB. The latter are probably more numerous (remember that the rank and file military actually backed the protesters several times in 2011).

I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
FFShinra Since: Jan, 2001
#18150: Oct 8th 2013 at 3:37:14 PM

And they have brigades making ceasefire deals with local SAA units. Pragmatism on all sides.


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