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Friday, January 28, 2011 - 3:44pmSanction this postReply
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Radical Islam is the component in the demostrations in Egypt and Tunisia that I watch the most closely. These are two of the most secular of the Islamic states in the Middle-East.

Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood is putting out the call to take to the streets from Cairo's Mosques. They pull out more of the idealistic college students who rightfully want to see an end to the violation of rights that exist under what is in many ways a police state. And they cunningly watch for a parade that they can get in front of to claim as their own. And any demonstration becomes a ready vehicle to express rightful angers of all - be they political, economic or just an angry belief that life is unfair.

The sad thing is that the success of the radical islamists would result in an Egypt with far fewer individual rights - as is the case in Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran. (Who are conspicously not demonstrating right now) Even if radical Islam proves to be a minority force in this turmoil, it may end up as a majority benefactor.

This is a form of the top-down, bottom-up, inside-out revolutionary strategy. The demonstrators are fueled by the anger from police state tactics, but also from economic problems. The street leaders of the demonstrations want to bring about the top-down responses - the crushing of the demonstrations to fuel even more energy till the tipping point is reached. The only part that is missing, compared to what we see in America is the inclusion of 'progressives' inside the government who create structures that can be expanded and changed to facilitate the 'inside-out' phase. Egypt is being subjected to the the Marxist form of revolution rather than the American progressives' form of 'transformation.'

Paying too much attention to 'balance of power' - a concept that became the national goal under Metternich in Austria of the early 1800's and gained new fame under Secretary of State Kissenger - can make nations lose track of principles and mistake true self-interests. But if you look at the current situation in the Middle East we are seeing a real shift in the balance of power - Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisa, and Yemen are now all moving towards Iran. Iraq is unstable and in a few years could become the next causualty in the march to a Caliphate. Pakistan is divided and may bow to Mecca before Iraq. Barbarism is on the rise.

We hope for the best to arise from chaos and violence, that individual rights would be recognized by government and implemented at the same time that support for radical islam would diminsh at the grass roots and be rejected by those who fight for change. Egypt could go anyway, or stay the same. But the pressure from radical islam will stay the same.
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President Obama's response was stunning. He admonished Egypt's president to refrain from violence, to turn the internet and communications back on, and spoke about the right of people to assemble and the freedom of speech.

He was right! But what a shift from his reaction to the same things when they occurred in Iran. And he spoke clearly about the government's obligation to pay attention to the will of the people - which in my mind I could not help but to contrast with his arrogant attitude towards the tea party and the last elections. Oh, well, at least he is mouthing the proper principles.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 - 5:13pmSanction this postReply
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Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, even Algeria...

The unrest spreading through Arab nations has been described as a key road-sign in a great cultural race. On one side of this race are the young men and women in Arab dictatorships who want more freedom and increased access to the modern world. Their opponents are the adherents of fundamental Islam who want Sharia and the Caliphate. In many ways, strong man Mubarak is less significant from this view, like an accidental, temporary focal point, a roadblock that will shortly be put in the past. The real question is, what will happen when this is past and he is deposed. Will it be a more modern, and a freer Arab nation, or will it be another Iran. The young start out as impatient in all countries, but there are real reasons for some urgency - if they do nothing they suffer more than the continuing loss of civil rights, more than the continuing economic suffering that comes from the dictatorships... they also risk a future of life under fundamental Islam.

Obama made a big mistake not strongly supporting the demonstrators in Iran in 2009. That was a safe bet. Not so easy this time. There may be no safe path forward.
(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 1/29, 5:30pm)


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Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 12:44pmSanction this postReply
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Tracinski (you need to subscribe) is, as always, optimistic.  He says the Muslim Brotherhood's reputation as Iran-style totalitarians is just a line put out by the Mubarak regime to discredit them.  We'll see.

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Post 3

Sunday, January 30, 2011 - 6:06pmSanction this postReply
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I'm no expert on the Muslim Brotherhood, but is what I understand:
  • They worked closely with the Nazis through the thirties and into the forties,
  • Founded Hamas in 1987 - to which they remain closely tied. The Hamas Charter (or Covenant), issued in 1988, outlines the organization's position on many issues, and identifies Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors." [from Wikipedia]
  • Newsweek journalists Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff reported connections between al-Qaeda and Brotherhood figures Mamoun Darkazanli and Youssef Nada,
  • The Financial Times found financial links between Al Qaeda and the Brotherhood
Here is a quote translated from their guidelines for the North American Muslim Brotherhood: "The Ikhwan [member of the top council] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."


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Monday, January 31, 2011 - 5:19amSanction this postReply
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Having not read Tracinski's article, and I'm unwilling to pay to read it, I don't know what he says. But if Peter is correct and Tracinski says they are not jihadists, then Tracinski doesn't know what he's talking about and is being very naive. There's ample evidence as Steve pointed out that they are linked with jihadists.

Post 5

Monday, January 31, 2011 - 8:06amSanction this postReply
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What started out as a largely peaceful protest against an authoritarian dictatorship, with broad support for a move towards democracy and freedom, quickly lurched into near chaos and anarchy, with festering oppression venting itself along class warfare lines in their political context.

What ultimately comes out of that is still up for grabs. Only some of that is potentially very positive for the rest of the world. As in the past in Egypt, it is largely going to depend on what the military supports in Egypt's unequal trilateral government (the military, the police state, and the political class currently supported by the military.)

Egypt was an original target of OBL, along with Spain, in his campaign to restore the Caliphate. What has thwarted OBL in Egypt, to date, has been the brutal tactics of Egypt's police state, uncomfortably backed by the US. Everything is made in China these days, except, inconveniently, the munitions used by Egypt's police state on its own citizens...

The word 'rendition' is/has already quickly cropped up in regards to Mubarek's Egypt...





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Monday, January 31, 2011 - 11:57amSanction this postReply
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I find myself agreeing with those who say that Mubarak has to go, but that it can't be now - not in the middle of demonstrations and chaos. Instead there has to be an orderly transition. The transition has to provide the individual rights that have been ignored and fill in the missing blanks in the Egyptians' civil rights.

They need to use this state of change to put up a very strong wall separating religion from state, ensuring that individuals have free choice in the area of religious worship, and reaffirming, or even strengthening the laws against the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist-linked organizations - taking away this kind of chaos as a future tool and eliminating any ambiguity as to why changes are being made. When they open the country to increased democracy, they need at the same time to limit governments power - this is the time to do that. They should put constitutional amendments on the same ballot that will have the presidential candidates.

The Army seems to be respected and it is the only real power at this time; they should hold a joint news conference with Mubarak, and his new VP, and lay out a time-table that starts the moment the demonstrations end. The time-table would describe the recognition of rights and the time for the elections. Mubarak should mostly sit silent, his VP doing most of the talking, and the Army asking for the peoples help in protecting their nation from looters. The subtext message would be that the Army will back the time-table and holds the power.

Even if they achieve short-term success stopping the demonstrations, and even medium-term success in a transition the majority of people like, there will be no nirvana - the population is overwhelmingly young, mostly unemployed, and largely illiterate. If they turn to the academics for guidance, they'll be hearing a lot from socialists and Islamists. And Jihad will still we be a global threat.

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Monday, January 31, 2011 - 1:57pmSanction this postReply
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"The Obama administration has courted Egyptian Islamists from the start. It invited the Muslim Brotherhood to the president’s 2009 Cairo speech, even though the organization is officially banned in Egypt. It has rolled out the red carpet to the Brotherhood’s Islamist infrastructure in the U.S. — CAIR, the Muslim American Society, the Islamic Society of North America, the Ground Zero mosque activists — even though many of them have a documented history of Hamas support. To be sure, the current administration has not been singular in this regard. The courting of Ikhwan-allied Islamists has been a bipartisan project since the early 1990s, and elements of the intelligence community and the State Department have long agitated for a license to cultivate the Brotherhood overtly. They think what Anwar Sadat thought: Hey, we can work with these guys."

"There is a very good chance we are about to reap what they’ve sown. We ought to be very afraid."


Fear the Muslim Brotherhood by Andrew C. McCarthy
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The administration pushed the idea that this was a middle-class demonstration early on, despite the fact that Egypt hardly has a middle-class. And they have quietly implied that everyone should have a seat at the table, even the Muslim Brotherhood. What is it with this administration's love affair with the politically active wing of Islam?

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Post 8

Monday, January 31, 2011 - 5:51pmSanction this postReply
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Ron Paul on the Crises in Egpyt - "$60 billion dollars down a rat hole"


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Post 9

Monday, January 31, 2011 - 6:09pmSanction this postReply
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If there is anything we can do to encourage Egypt to recognize their people's rights without giving a toe-hold to the Islamists, we should be doing it. But this is just a temporary situation and in the long run, no matter how this turns out, we should follow Congressman Paul's good advice.

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Monday, January 31, 2011 - 6:28pmSanction this postReply
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Sorry to stir up a hornets nest here, but before I do I want to make clear I agree that 60 billion dollars went down a rat hole. My complaints about the Middle East for a long time is that we help prop up dictatorships, a foreign policy that does not serve our long-term interests.

But Steve, Ron Paul doesn't even appear to agree with you that there should be any kind of encouragement, even the kind that you speak of that promotes individual liberty. So I don't even think you are on the same page with Ron Paul.

Also, suppose Islamists do take over Egypt and seize control of the Suez canal. A canal that is vital to the economies of Europe, North Africa and the Americas. I get the feeling Ron Paul would say we shouldn't do anything about that should that come to pass and would instead opt for economic suicide.

I like Ron Paul on so many things, he almost gets all the issues right, but on this he just falls short.





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Post 11

Monday, January 31, 2011 - 8:03pmSanction this postReply
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John,

I'm not sure you're right that Ron Paul would oppose any attempt to influence a transition of the sort I mentioned. You'd have to provide me with a quote. What I've suggested would not involve continuing support for a dictator, spending of our treasure, or military involvement and would make it more likely that individual rights were recognized more rather than less. And would be be a way of moving away from involvement (in a responsible fashion).

In any case I find myself somewhere between what I suppose is your position and what I see as Ron Paul's position. I'm not so worried about the Suez canal as I am the establishment of a Caliphate which would bring many, many horrors - many of them far worse than closing the Suez. That's what I see coming and down the road. And when it is large enough, it becomes like a new cold war - ever threatening a massive WW-III fought on religious grounds - mind you, I'm not predicting all of this like I had some kind of magical, crystal ball. I'm just saying that this appears to be the logical end of a continuing trend.

By far our greatest danger is that we will be broke. That takes away our ability to respond... either in wars, police actions, or economic self-defense. Our greatest weapon is economic self-defense and building a strongly limited federal government - those two being tightly tied together. The more we live our founding principles the less the rest of the world will be a threat and the more we will once again become the envy of the world.

There are only three players in this drama - the Islamists who promise justice and morality, the corrupt dictators who have proven to be the enemy of the people, and us - and we have been the ones keeping the dictators propped up. In this drama, because we aren't the nation of principles we once were, the people don't have an uplifting lead to follow and are left with only the lies they hear at their pulpits.

The dictators have keep them poor and angry, the Islamists offer change, and decades ago we turned out our shining light they would otherwise have followed.

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Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 2:26amSanction this postReply
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"Even if they achieve short-term success stopping the demonstrations, and even medium-term success in a transition the majority of people like, there will be no nirvana - the population is overwhelmingly young, mostly unemployed, and largely illiterate."

Where do you get your idea of literacy in Egypt?

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Post 13

Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 3:46amSanction this postReply
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Yes - young and unemployed - because they educated too many and no jobs for the graduates... hardly illiterate...

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Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - 4:14amSanction this postReply
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LOL! What are you guys talking about? They have a very high illiteracy rate. Their literacy rate is ranked at 148th, at 66.4%!!! Most industrialized nations have literacy rates upwards of 97% and higher.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate



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Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 12:59amSanction this postReply
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"LOL! What are you guys talking about?"

I wondered where the 'largely illiterate' claim came from. Steve hasn't answered yet, and maybe he won't -- he certainly doesn't need to. The implication in the phrase is that more Egyptians can't read than can, which implication is not true. I will now get back into extreme lurking. No harm, no foul.

Loll away.


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Post 16

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 2:46amSanction this postReply
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If you go back to 1996, the percentage of illiteratacy was almost 30% higher - Egypt has been making a massive effort but things are still really bad.

99 nations have literacy rates of 90% or better. That makes Egypt's literacy rate of 66.4% awful.

Only 2 out of every 3 people in that nation can read. More than 2 out of three women can not read. Almost 2 out of every 3 in Egypt's rural population can't read. I'd call that "largely."

Technically, you can say that one meaning of "largely" in most dictionaries implies greater than 50% (although there are other accepted meanings, you know) - but here is what struck me: Why is that the only comment a person comes up with after reading the post?

Think about it. The middle east is on fire; governments are collapsing; this may be a move towards a Caliphate; there is a danger of a massive, global economic collapse from large increases in the price of oil which this might generate; Israel might be at greater mortal risk than we've seen in decades... but it is the word "largely" that became Willlam's focus - that's seems strange :-)

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Wednesday, February 2, 2011 - 8:24amSanction this postReply
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Largely means more than half? It just means a big quantity. And 1/3 of the country being illiterate is a lot.

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Friday, February 11, 2011 - 10:35amSanction this postReply
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What exactly are people in egypt trying to change/improve about their government?

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Friday, February 11, 2011 - 12:18pmSanction this postReply
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Different people want different things. There are some people who want Mubarak to stay because they feel that would protect something (the status quo, their personal economic status, no Sharia, etc.) But among the protesters the vast majority want him gone.

The Muslim Brotherhood people want a Caliphate with global Sharia. Some of the protesters want to implement socialism or communism. Some of the protesters want change in their economic well-being (more jobs, better pay, cheaper food, etc.), some of the protesters want their civil and individual rights recognized (things like being able to field a candidate for office and vote for him, an end to torture, the right to not be jailed at whim, freedom of speech, of assembly, and of press. Some people want an end to corruption, and some people want to return to a state of war with Israel.

Mubarak has become the target (and for many good reasons). They project the anger and the frustrations of their lives on him and his leaving is seen as the doorway to what they want, and an end to what is wrong with their lives. For others it is a calculated means to an end and their hatred is for Capitalism and representative democracy - their agenda is hidden from sight, but Mubarak-as-target works just as well (they need chaos and immediacy to shift to their real agenda).

By focusing on this single concrete - "Mubarak, go away!" they can all unite despite totally different end-goals.

The army remains the key. If they manage to hold the country together, without chaos, with a minimum of immediate change, so as to allow for a stable structure - but one that provides more protection of rights, less corruption, and time to implement fair elections - things will be good. Egypt's history indicates it will use a figure-head to work through. If they impose military-controlled totalitarianism to avoid chaos, they are just postponing the revolution. If they don't act, or suffer a severe internal split - and chaos results, we will see a different sort of totalitarianism - either straight-up socialism, or more likely Islamic Socialism, or, down the road, an Iran-style theocracy. And it is even possible that the revolution in Egypt can trigger sister revolutions and launch the formation of a middle-eastern Caliphate.

I don't think we can tell from where we are now whether we are looking at what will become a minor event in history, except perhaps for the Egyptians for a time. Or, if it is one of the major turning points in world history.

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