The Middle Ground

Egypt Terrorism Watch: Bin Laden's Message and Mujihadeen Network Carries Threat to Egypt

2011-05-19T09:46:00.000-05:00

As suggested yesterday, all signs are pointing to Al Qaeda looking to either join forces with organizations in Egypt and the "Levant" or simply move the next phase of their operations into that area.

Bin Laden's latest, posthumous audio message just released largely concentrated on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, congratulating the people on over throwing their dictators. At the same time, he notably left off any mention of the democracy movements, giving most of the praise to the "lions" in Tahrir square.

"Tunisia was the first but swiftly the knights of Egypt have taken a spark from the free people of Tunisia to Tahrir Square," said bin Laden, adding: "It has made the rulers worried."

He barely mentions Syria or Yemen nor Bahrain. Bahrian's lack of mention is obvious. This is a Shi'ite revolution with potential connections to Iran, though this may only be a chimera in order to make it look like Iran has more political power than they do. Still, it would be unlikely that Al Qaeda would make any attempt to support a Shia' rebellion against a Sunni government.

What is more telling is the continued references to Egypt, not only this from bin Laden, but also Zawahiri's last several messages. What has been even more interesting is the selection of al Adel, an Egyptian, not Zawahiri, to be the "interim" head of al Qaeda. It isn't completely surprising as the Egyptian contingent has held the largest number of seats on the Shura or Quetta council. However, as suggested yesterday, this may not be just a political move for the general al Qaeda organization.

Egypt Terrorism Watch: Al Qaeda Returning to It's Roots

2011-05-18T12:27:00.001-05:00

In a piece at Al Arham Online, Brad Nelson writes The Real Test For Al Qaeda

We can safely say 2011 has not been good for Al-Qaeda. First, the organisation witnessed people power movements throughout the Middle East, which have damaged the organisation’s credibility and relevancy on a number of levels.
For instance, these pro-democracy uprisings clearly showed that Muslims prefer to live in freedom rather than in a harshly repressive politico-religious straightjacket. Moreover, Egypt and Tunisia debunked the Al-Qaeda-propagated myth that political change can only occur through violence.

Additionally, the uprisings are the biggest series of events in the region in decades, yet Al-Qaeda was only an observer. It contributed nothing to the ouster of Mubarak and Ben Ali. Even worse, the leaders of Al-Qaeda did not foresee the uprisings, nor were they prepared to address them. The best Al-Qaeda could offer has been a few dated, rambling and incoherent statements that appeared to be composed before the fall of Mubarak.

And now, with the fall of Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda has suffered another major blow. Bin Laden is irreplaceable. He had the skill and charisma to recruit people into the organisation and inspire his followers into committing violence and destruction. Plus, under Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda popularized suicide terrorism, which is the ultimate form of loyalty and sacrifice to the organisation and to Osama himself.

The interim leader of AQ has been appointed, Saif al Adel, an Egyptian though the Iraq AQ has already publicly declared or al Zawahiri, also an Egyptian. As Bergen notes abou al Adel, Baya, or an oath of loyalty was to Bin Laden himself, not to the cause and one of the key issues will be who, if anyone, can inspire the same loyalty. The Saudi and Egyptian contingents have been at odds over the leadership of Al Qaeda from the beginning and these two groups have been even further at odds with the local organizations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Information War: Rueters Photoshoped Golan Heights Image May 15

2011-05-15T12:04:00.000-05:00

Don't know how long it will last but Reuters is using a photo-shopped image for it's headline on the Golan Heights protests. Check here. The guy is holding up a "key", his upraised arm is obviously photo shopped (see white line along grey shirt) and he is amazingly un-smokey considering the tire burning behind him.

Gotta love when the media buys obvious propaganda as the real thing. I did read on twitter that tires were being brought up and burning, but thinking now that this is agitprop along with the twitter post.

Egypt, Syria, Israel and Palestine: Revolutionaries Selling Their Freedom Cheap and Their Top Bidder is Syria, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas

2011-05-15T11:30:00.000-05:00

It is becoming very clear that the revolutionary youth in Egypt are determined to throw away everything they earned to act as proxies for the Muslim Brotherhood and their subsidiaries, Hamas, in the Gaza Strip. The second runners up for the bid for cheap revolution are Hezbollah and Syria.

Egypt Terrorism Watch: Jail Breaks and Explosives

2011-05-14T12:33:00.000-05:00

Contractor holding 15 bombs arrested in Giza (headed to Helwan, location of Tora Prison)

The contractor tried to pretend he was innocent bystander:

The suspect said he found the handbag in the street and on opening it discovered a mobile phone number on a piece of paper. He called the number and the man who answered asked him to bring the bag to a place near Tora in the Helwan governorate.

The prosecutor ordered that Mohamed be detained for four days pending investigation.
According to a security official, Mohamed was arrested in a taxi when a police officer stopped the driver to examine his license and noted the suspect’s confusion. Mohamed then tried to escape when the officer asked to search his bag.

Since the beginning of the revolution, jailbreaks are becoming pretty normal. The revolutionaries believed that this was the regime trying to set criminals among them to scare them, but the reality is, as a friend pointed out, the majority of prisoners in Tora Prison are "political" and among those, mainly Islamists. The same people all of the protesters believe are some form of at least "legitimate" party in Egypt (if not honest brokers, Wael Ghonim being one of those who have insisted that he has "looked into their eyes" as Bush said of Putin, and found only decent Egyptians who wanted to be free).

Meanwhile, calls for marches of unity against sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians were drowned out by the MB and Islamist screams for martyrs to march to Jerusalem.

Middle East Revolutions: The Coming War For "Arab" Independence and Israel

2011-05-14T12:02:00.000-05:00

There is among western nations a strange idea that the settlement of the Israel-Palestine issue into two, viable states will extinguish at least one of the complaints of the "Islamists" and general "Arab on the street". An idea that this is the cause of "extremism", or one part of it, and a necessity to reduce the tensions between east and west.

This is probably the most naive concept to ever have taken root in the great foreign policy think tanks that have influenced state policy. The formation of Israel is a matter of history defined by each side of the question. Some basic information researched by this blog can be found here (Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII.)

The reality of this conflict comes down to two points: the war that never ended and the spirit of anti-colonialism that has never left the Arab constituency. This is the war that has simply been put off for generations. Largely because, no matter how often someone attempts implement Lawrence's idea of Arab Unity and an Arab Greater Nation, the desires and demands of the tribes, Shayks and political trends continuously drag them apart. Because, while their may be a general designation of "Arab" among the population, it can never overcome the great divides within the entire community.

As with the Egyptian revolution, where the case for unity revolved around ousting Mubarek and was almost instantly gone, unity is only over singular ideas and moments. The Revolution in Egypt is quickly being overcome by the Muslim Brotherhood, the reality of sectarian divides and the weakness of all other parties. The only idea that is bringing any sense of unity back to the greater polity is now "Palestine".

While secular Egyptian movements had intended to mobilize millions of Egyptians on Friday in order to support national unity and condemn attacks on Christians in Egypt, Islamist forces succeeded in turning the protest in support of what is referred to as the "Third Palestinian Intifada".

It seems true freedom will be sacrificed once again to the driving political ideologies of others. This is, as with the failure of the Arab contingency to take what was about to be handed to them on three other occasions in the early twentieth century and turn it into a battle they are destined to lose. Again.

The current interim government of Egypt is blocking the movement to the Sinai. They at least recognize that Egypt and the surrounding nations are hardly in a position to confront Israel directly. While the marchers were chanting "millions of martyrs to Jerusalem", the reality of a "peasants' crusade" would, indeed, result in millions of martyrs that would result in Arab states attempting to go to war on behalf of the martyrs and, once again, failing. That is, if they can convince Jordan to allow them to cross the territory or can figure out how to cross the narrow Sinai peninsula in great enough numbers not to be completely slaughtered and pile up in the hole as most attempted breaches in history have shown.

As with the last war with Israel, Jordan was coerced by it's association with the Arab League. The Arab League is quickly becoming a farce, being replaced by things like the Gulf Cooperative Council and Egypt and Iran jockeying for political position in the region.

As Syria is torn in half by unknown forces that are similar to Egypt. The Brotherhood, liberals, leftists, etc all looking to make it their own fight.

What is more than likely is that the end state of the status of Israel and anything that could be called Palestine will come at the tip of a gun and missiles. Not necessarily because the MB wants a greater war. They would prefer to do it the slow way, the same way in which they have been Islamacizing Egypt, taking over by population density. That is the purpose of pushing for the "Two state" plan to have Palestine recognized as a state with the 1967 agreed upon borders. At that point they can allow in a greater part of the "refugees" for a population boom that would attempt to mirror Israel.

The obvious points of insisting on the right of return for "Palestinian Arabs" is to take over Israel by dent of population and, if it is not allowed to take that position, a continuous cause for war. This last purpose is the most likely. So long as there is some "enemy" that it can point to as the "cause", they can continue to consolidate their hold over the general populations of the Middle East, bringing their ideology into the main by slow degrees. It is very ironic to read from the "liberals" (left, center left largely) that the US is looking for the next enemy to confront as it is "perpetually at war". No one has examined that the perpetual theme of war is the status of any entity in power or coming to power because someone always wants that power. People who think that there is a future of "sharing" or "social justice" washes greed (capitalism) away and creates peace. It isn't "greed", it is power and the thirst for it will never end. It is a matter of how that power is used and to whose benefit.

The liberals are being broken slowly by their inability to be anything separate except whether to implement a minimum or maximum wage or a taxation program. They want a different education program but the MB has already taken that ministry through negotiations with SCAF. They will get different, but it will be about on par with that offered by the previous administration except with the inclusion of more Islamist bent educators and any religious or "humanity" education will be from their perspective. Of course, leftist ideology will remain the main theme when it comes to "social justice" because this is the most acceptable aspect for the Islamists.

The enemy of liberalism and democracy in Egypt is not the United States. It is entirely Egyptian made and they are willingly throwing freedom under the bus. Continuously there are posts that insist that the Islamists are part of Egypt and must be given their place at the table. There is no perception of history that shows that the intellectuals and free thinkers consistently giving ideologies "space at the table" and then finding themselves the first to be oppressed, imprisoned and killed.

The warnings fall on deaf ears and those ears will be followed by muted voices.

The Brotherhood has shown again and again that they have the power of the street. The NAC (National Association for Change), April 6 and various others called for a "unity march" in Tahrir while the Islamists issue a call through the mosques for a march to Palestine to remember "Nakba", the catastrophe, when Israel declared State Hood, May 14, 1948.

The Islamists have shown their power. The Liberals and the Leftists will get what is left over if there is much of anything as the Islamists slowly push the entirety of Egypt towards confrontation with Israel.

Syria Revoltion: Who is Fighting Nobody Knows

2011-05-14T11:20:00.001-05:00

Golan Druze Perspectives On The Syrian Uprising

via Michael Totten Everybody is in the propaganda business:

So when the opportunity recently arose to join a tour to the area with a group of foreign journalists unable to currently get visas to enter Syria, I too went along to hear the next best thing; the perspective of the Golan Druze - most of whom who have friends and family in Syria - on the uprisings there. As so often is the case in the Middle East, not least when talking to the Druze, attempts to peel back the onion-like layers to get to the facts raised many more questions than they provided answers.

The office of the Al Marsad human rights organisation in Majdal Shams is located near the village square, high up on the breezy slopes of Mount Hermon. A little prior research had shown that Al Marsad's concept of human rights appears to be limited to writing reports and briefing foreign visitors exclusively on one subject: how awful the lives of the Druze residents of the Golan are under Israeli rule. At least one of its reports indicates that it has associations with the Hamas-linked 'European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza': the outfit which organises the flotillas, including the one last year which ended in extreme violence initiated by its IHH participants, and which was founded in 2007 by the Muslim Brotherhood's European branch – the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe.

Read the rest here

Iran's Unwanted Revolution?

2011-05-11T11:17:00.001-05:00

We're talking about the Khamenei and Ahmadinejad going head to head for awhile. This author says that we should be rooting for Khamenei because the cleric led government, as distasteful as it is, is some how more reasonable then the nationalist Ahmadinejad.

Is it too much to ask that they continue clawing at each other until they both bleed to death?

And the beat goes on.

United States - Pakistan Relations: The Pretense of Ignorance

2011-05-11T10:59:00.002-05:00

After reading a considerable amount on the subject, I can barely muster the outrage that the public face of both governments are showing.

Is the United States saying that it didn't know? After the numerous visits by politicians and military leaders to urge Pakistan to do more and the well known history of that government with extremists, it is difficult to believe that the US did not have some idea that the Pakistanis, or some elements within, were double dealing.

At this moment, the US government is sounding considerably like the wronged mistress who complains loudly that "he said he was going to leave his wife and marry me." Ridiculous and, if true, unbelievably naive.

I don't buy it. The US knew that something was up or would not have been playing the same game.

Obviously, the public outrage is for cover. For Pakistan, for the US government to it's constituents who, if they are to believe the government, would be equally naive. We have not traded billions of dollars to get one terrorist, nor to buy Pakistan's weak assistance. We have used billions of dollars to get inside the largest state sponsor of terror, make contacts and discover exactly how far within and without the Pakistani government this endeavor goes.

Who has been supplying the millions of dollars to buy fighters and weapons? This isn't all drug money or from Saudi Arabia. Has no one wondered where all of the Russian and Chinese AK-47's and RPGs are coming from? The explosives to make IEDs? As much as Pakistan may or may not be officially directing some aspect of the Afghanistan Insurgency/Terrorist network, there is much money and duplicity running around the globe.

Ignorance is bliss, they say, but it is hard to believe this pretense of ignorance. What is more important is the message that is being sent that, strangely enough sounds like Bush's "you're either with us or against us". A short term strategy that will shake the pillars of Pakistan, shake some people and information loose, but will not have them collapse. Instead, the US will get a new bargain for the next billions spent or Pakistan will discover that the US knows just a little bit more about their internal workings.

If there is one thing that Pakistani politicians and military leaders understand, it is survival. They have many examples of what happens inside Pakistan to those who can no longer pay the headsman to put off their turn at the block.

On that, there can be no pretense of ignorance.

Update: Seven al Qaeda have "surrendered" to Saudi authorities after bin Laden's death while others flee to Yemen. The Saudis say that the men are with their families and their cases are being considered.

Pretense of ignorance.

Egypt Sectarian Clashes: The Root of All Evil Is Not Money, It is Ignorance

2011-05-11T08:33:00.000-05:00

Nadia el Awady sent this via Twitter yesterday. I thought it was an excellence explanation of the casual bigotry that occurs.

The truth about Muslim-Copt Relations in Egypt

I finally settled in Egypt in 1986 when I started med school at Cairo University. It took only one year for my Muslim friends to teach me about what was proper in Muslim-Coptic relations in the country.

I remember befriending Mariam who had come from New York. She had the dark black hair of an Egyptian but an uncanny New Yorkan accent. It was nice to meet someone who came from a background similar to mine. Quickly my Muslim friends explained I could not befriend her. She’s Christian, I was told. So what, I asked. In Egypt, it’s not all right, was the answer.

By the end of that same year I had heard my Muslim friends say it was yucky to drink out of a cup a Copt had drank from; they explained that the way to identify a Copt was by their odd smell and their oily hair; and I saw them secretly sign to each other if someone speaking to them was a Copt by making a cross on the inside of their wrist or by whispering the word “Kuftis”, a word Egyptians use in place of Copt, stupidly thinking the Copts don’t know that’s what they mean.

Read also Nadia on the Hijab and Sarrah's World about being a "halfie" or "half blood" in Egypt

My grandmother once told me that the root of all evil was money. I have since learned that the root of all evil is actually ignorance.

Sectarian Clashes in Egypt: Bad Romance, Honor and Religion

2011-05-10T07:34:00.001-05:00

Days after the events of May 5, 2011 in the urban enclave of Imbaba, Cairo, Egypt, the truth was hard to come by, but it eventually will come out.

Sectarian clashes have been occurring in Egypt for a very long time. However, with the fall of Mubarek and the general extinguishing of his dreaded police state, the security that at least kept a lid on it is now gone and the actors seem more free than ever to push the boundaries. Which they have been doing since right before the events of January 25. Some of those events can be read here.

As with most stories, it seems that both sides involved in Friday's events can share the blame. The basic facts can be found here. The rest of the story can be best related to Western readers by invoking either "Romeo and Juliet" or, better yet, "West Side Story". Is it true? We don't know. The young woman in question sent a video to an Islamist website that was then sent to Egypt Today, a local newspaper, that printed the "interview" whole. She later "phoned in" an interview to TahrirTV, the Muslim Brotherhood's new Satellite television station. Why she has not contacted one of the other "liberal" or less biased papers or stations is unanswered at this time.

It begins with a young woman named Abeer Fahkry(arabic).

First Al Iraq al Qaeda First Affiliate to Acknowledge Zawahiri as Head of Al Qaeda

2011-05-09T12:16:00.000-05:00

Iraq's Qaeda Pledges Allegiance to Zawahiri and Vows Revenge

In a statement posted on an Islamist website forum on Monday, the caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISC), Abu Baker al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi, mourned bin Laden's death.
"I tell our brothers in al Qaeda organisation and on the top of them Sheikh Mujahid Ayman al-Zawahiri ... be merry, you have faithful men in the Islamic State of Iraq who are following the right path and will not quit or be forced out," he said in the statement.

Of course, they can still pull off a bombing or two, but they can't do anything like they did in 2005-6.

This seems to be the first acknowledgement of Zawahiri as the leader of Al Qaeda though AQ itself remains quiet on the subject, making announcements as the "leadership" without official or specific names.

Information War: Al Qaeda's Devolution and Zawahiri the Divisive Leader

2011-05-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

Two good articles on the status of al Qaeda and Zawahiri as the next leader of Al Qaeda:

Al Qaeda Is It's Own Worst Enemy

After 9/11 and the destruction of al-Qaeda's headquarters in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda fractured into a moving target, a global cadre of autonomous cells which enabled it to continue to both elude and fight its enemies. However, with the globalisation of his jihad, bin Laden's authority was at once far-reaching and fragmented. Ceding command-and-control to self-defined "al-Qaeda" franchises brought enormous setbacks.

Al Qaeda: Bin Laden Assassination Inside Job? and the Next Battle Front - Egypt

2011-05-09T09:29:00.001-05:00

This is an incredibly good read about how Al Qaeda has failed to do as it had intended at that it's decentralized structure, meant to insure survivability in an intelligence driven war, has probably hastened the demise of the organization and ideology. Although, I would not count them out yet as you will read further down. There is likely at least one more grand battle to come.

The second is a report linked by Bryan Preston of Pajamas Media that suggests that Zawahiri may have provided the information to find bin Laden as part of an internal power struggle. While that may sound far fetched to some, it is not outside the realm of possibilities nor would it be out of character for the organization that, like any outlaw group, deals with contention inside the organization with swift and bloody retribution.

Historically, there are several instances where the removal of a rival, either ideological or in the direct line of command, have provided the opportunity for others to move up or consolidate their own power. In the case of Zawahiri and Al Qaeda, the first suspected "deniable assassination" of a rival was the death of Abdullah Yusef Azzam. Several other local militia leaders were also assassinated either by unknown entities or by ISI and other intelligence agencies. Many of the local organizations suspected that it was a plot by the "foreign", (ie, Saudi and Egyptian) contingent to take control of the groups and bring them into their larger organization.

Both Zawahiri and bin Laden left Pakistan at that time under a cloud of suspicion and did not return until they were expelled from Sudan in 1998 after the notorious embassy bombings in Kenya and Nairobi. By then, Zawahiri had firm control and confidence of bin Laden, his money and power base.

On This Day: Names I Choose to Remember

2011-05-02T15:52:00.000-05:00

In ancient (and now modern day Egypt), there was a practice of removing the Pharaoh's cartouche from all official mention. I am going to follow that tradition by putting up names of people whose names I choose to remember:

Rick Rescorla: He didn't die for a cause. He just did what he had to.

Todd Beamer: Facing sure death, he chose to fight until the end, he did not hide waiting for death to find him.

Rafael Peralta: A man who sacrificed so others might live, not a man who sacrificed others for his ego.

Capt. Brian Chontosh: He ran towards the fight to save his men, he did not hide behind his men to save himself.

Sgt Maj. Brad Kasal: He refused to leave until all of the wounded were extracted, he did not leave his men behind to be massacred while he escaped.

Michael P. Murphy: Broke cover to save his men and exposed himself to the enemy, he did not hide behind fifteen foot walls or a defenseless woman to save his own skin.

Sal Giunta: Actually spent fifteen months clinging to side of mountain without running water or a bathroom and ended up fighting off overwhelming odds to save his friends, he did not spend his days at leisure inside a million dollar mansion, taking lunch on a shaded patio in comfort while most of his men lived in caves and mud huts.

Father Mychal P. Judge: Spent his life spreading the message of God's eternal love dying as he gave benedictions for rescuers saving lives and last rites to the dead and dying, he did not issue religious messages condoning murder and spreading hate in the name of God.

These names will continue to be listed until the Pharaoh's name is erased from memory.

9/11 We Did Not Forget

2011-05-02T04:57:00.001-05:00

The only thing I have to say is that it was twenty two years too late. If you don't understand that, you never will.

Sharia Law v. Civil Law, Civil Law Must Prevail

2011-05-01T04:20:00.000-05:00

My views on religion as a governing idea or power in the state (note, not faith as guiding principles of morality, but religious laws based on dogma), are clearly: no religious laws. As this is occurring in my state, I want to make clear that, whatever people decide to do in their private lives is their own, but when it comes to matter of the law, it is the state law, not religious law that must prevail.

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Richard Callahan, assured Muslims on April 29th that “the Obama Administration would likely step in on behalf of Sharia law should any state try to ban it.”

Much depends on what a state law actually does. If parties to a judicial proceeding agreed freely and contractually to be bound by arbitration, the court concludes that they did so and that the arbitration procedures do not contravene requirements under state law, then it’s probably acceptable for the parties to be governed by their arbitration agreement. However, significant problems can arise when a judge has to analyze the suitability or findings of an arbitration proceeding — or for that matter anything else — under Sharia Law. With no background or training in Sharia Law, he would have to rely quite heavily on the expert testimony of “Islamic scholars.” In the event of disagreement between two experts, how could he decide which if either might be right? Both might be right or both might be wrong.

He goes on to use an example of child custody which, under many interpretations of Sharia law, leaves custody to the husband or some other male relative. However, state law makes that decision based on what the judge determines is in the interest of the child's safety and well being, not on religious doctrine.

One other thing that is mentioned is that some aspects of Sharia law are interpreted differently among the many sects and schools of jurisprudence. Not to mention that there are many who choose to give Sharia law a more modern interpretation re: rights, marriage, etc. What he does not say directly is that there are simply too many "interpretations" for it to become good law governing a wide variety and swath of people. On that ground alone it should be rejected.

Islam as a faith is each individual's choice. Islam as the law, separate or part of any laws of a civil state, cannot exist because it expressly sets a different standard and does not, under many circumstances consider people to be equal before the law nor insure the protection of the parties. Therefore, Sharia as any form of law besides private guidance cannot be accepted. Unless we are willing to accept Catholicism as the law when deciding cases for Catholics, etc, etc, etc.

Read the rest here

Anti-Business and Dangerous

2011-05-01T03:58:00.001-05:00

Via Hotair

Thoughts on Liberty: Knowledge, the Great Liberator

2011-04-29T11:25:00.000-05:00

It has taken some time for me to decide whether I should write down my thoughts on Liberty. As a person who has prided themselves on being an avaricious reader, it comes to mind that writing any ideas on the subject may be moot as it has been written about so often and so many times before by authors of much greater intellect. It requires some form of ego to imagine that anyone has anything better or greater to say on the subject. On the other hand, I have found that the best method to obtain some kind of reasoning on my own part is to write ideas down. I have also determined that the only manner to obtain a better understanding of events, ideas and perceived truths is to put it into the open and allow it to be challenged, even if those challenges cause me some unease or frankly disabuse me of an idea I might have perceived as my own infallible truth.

We live in extraordinary times. Knowledge, the great liberator, is only a keystroke away. That knowledge has led to real acts of liberation around the globe. At the same time, liberty is under attack. Nations long ruled by dictators attempt to turn it off and suppress knowledge. Fanatics expressing decidedly illiberal ideas and oppressive ideologies are rampant. The only saving grace of their liberal use of the great liberator called the internet is that society may now examine their ideas up close and compare them to their own ideas. That is not to say that these ideas are all discarded.

It must be noted that, even as many embrace the liberty of knowledge, too many are still influenced towards ideas that are full of bigotry and fear. That cannot be unexpected. Historically, every time knowledge exerts it's power to liberate, great swaths of society seem to instantly withdraw into a more conservative and less free conglomeration. Even those who would dub themselves "liberal" are easily persuaded into an almost fanatical rejection of ideas that challenge the thinking of the group. In both cases of the so called liberals and conservatives, it is often militant rejection. In many instances, regardless of who professes to be the guardians of liberty, they often express oppressive ideas.

The hardening of these positions seems all the more wretched when viewed against the great back drop of the liberation of knowledge.

What must be feared most is that history suggests, whenever the liberation of knowledge pushes forward, there is almost always some form of regression into both ignorance and fanatical superstition. Most often this has been brought about by two catastrophes: the end of security by a large armed society enforcing some form of order and the destruction of technology. This typically leads to the suppression of knowledge and the institution of religious dogma as the governing force of society instead of the natural laws of association.

The institution of religion cannot be confused with faith and spirituality. Religion demands strict adherence to rules and dogma, requiring abeyance to a hierarchy of leaders selected from among a few as the chosen representatives of whatever gods or God that may be presented. Religion insists that there is a knowledge of greater power that can only be obtained through the abeyance to the chosen hierarchy and clinging to the institutions and rituals. Faith and spirituality must insist that no one can know All things, but that there is a higher reason for existence. To seek out this reason is the highest form of faith.

Religion stifles, while faith pushes for self examination and the search for truth without the insistence that everyone else must believe religious dogma or be labeled a heretic. Sometimes religion masquerades as political ideas and political ideas masquerade as religion. In either case, neither can accept or sustain any form of inquiry because they would both be found fallible being shaped as they are by men who are anything but perfect.

What must be considered the most egregious are those who claim to know God's will and believe it is their right and duty to enforce these ideas upon others with penalties for failure to adhere to the ritual and dogma, most often presented as blasphemy and heresy, those penalties ranging from ostracizing to prison to even death. Those who claim to be the arbiters of God's will are the heretics and blasphemers because they have placed the All Mighty at the service of some men when He is the All Knowing and All Powerful over all men and nature, things seen and unseen. Whatever He wills, will be and it has never required the active participation of men to make it so. Whenever men suppose that it does require their action it is only the stretch of ego assuming they have been given a mission and a power far beyond their place in nature, not the will of God.

For those who do not see the All Mighty in nature or mankind, but instead see nothing but the force of Nature itself, then they must also know that Nature is infinite in it's design. Whatever we may discover about it or whatever we may harness for the use of mankind is but a grain of sand compared to the intricate, various and yet practical design of Nature.

What we can determine as truth is that God and Nature have given men the ability to think, to learn and to reason. Not all men possess the same skills or have used this gift to their advantage, but it still exists. The thinking mind, one that demands inquiry and searches for answers, is not the creation of some evil force, but of Nature itself. If it was not meant for the purpose of inquiry and obtaining knowledge, then mankind would have been given the brain and instincts of an ant that only knows that it must collect sustenance, seek protection within the colony and service the queen in order to reproduce

Instead, for thousands of years, from the most primitive times until this moment and into the future, man has used his powers of reason and his intellect for inquiry. He has used this ability to harness the basic provisions of nature to provide food, shelter and clothing among the least of things as well as medicine, language, writing and mechanics to improve upon his existence and society. He has used it to seek knowledge of the universe, of God and of Nature in all of their vastness. If this was not the will of God or the design of Nature then it would not exist. .

From that we can suppose that any inquiry and subsequent knowledge that leads to challenging religious, political and even social dogmas is the will of God and design of Nature. All of that can be surmised to mean that to do so is the purpose of knowledge and meant to improve upon mankind's existence, making man closer to God and Nature, not further away. Those who resist inquiry and knowledge are not doing the will of God or acting in Nature, but are resisting only their own loss of power over some part of society by their control of religious institutions and its governance of a population. When instead, doing the will of God or following the design of Nature would be to foster inquiry and propagate knowledge among the faithful so that they may fulfill their reason for existence.

It is unfortunate that after thousands of years of existence and the great leaps in technology that expands the power of inquiry and provides an infinite library of knowledge that mankind must again assert his right to free inquiry and freedom of conscience. Yet, man is forced to acknowledge that religious and political dogma still exists insisting that all that was worth knowing was written and established long before and any inquiry beyond that or demand for the liberating power of knowledge is heresy, evil and treason.

Therefore, it is up to mankind to resist being pulled back into the darkness of ignorance and superstition. To insist that it is in fact the will of God and the design of Nature to pursue knowledge and make inquiries into all ideas and sectors of life. No idea must be considered too sacred to be challenged or too necessary to the common good of any part of society to resist it. The obtaining of knowledge and its service to mankind is the Great Liberator. Where God and Nature have created the rational mind and given the gift of knowledge, the Great Liberator, then Liberty itself must be the will of God and the design of Nature.

To deny knowledge and liberty is it's own form of heresy.

If tomorrow security fails and technology falls bringing about the next lengthy decline into darkness and superstition, we may take comfort in knowing that God and Nature, in their infinite wisdom, have provided mankind with the power to once again raise a torch and the light the way. That torch is man's rational mind and undying thirst for inquiry that leads, once again, to seeking knowledge, The Great Liberator.

John Stuart Mills: Tyranny of Majorities and Society

2011-04-29T00:52:00.000-05:00

John Stuart Mills - On Liberty

Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation: and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.

Fight of the Century: Keynes v. Hayak on Controlled or Free Markets

2011-04-28T10:33:00.001-05:00

via Instapundit

From Econostories, a great music video on the Fight of the Century: Keynes v. Hayak - Controlled Economics v. Free Market

President Obama, United States Foreign Policy, Current Events: In Search of Princpled Policy

2011-04-28T08:40:00.000-05:00

This article was titled:

How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy

It should have been titled "How World Events Make You Spin on Your Head and Do Incomprehensible and Contradictory Things When You Lack Defining Principles".

This spring, Obama officials often expressed impatience with questions about theory or about the elusive quest for an Obama doctrine. One senior Administration official reminded me what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said when asked what was likely to set the course of his government: “Events, dear boy, events.”

Obama has emphasized bureaucratic efficiency over ideology, and approached foreign policy as if it were case law, deciding his response to every threat or crisis on its own merits. “When you start applying blanket policies on the complexities of the current world situation, you’re going to get yourself into trouble,” he said in a recent interview with NBC News.

The appropriate response to that is when you do not have a set of principles to guide your policies, you are going to get yourself into trouble. Principles do not make "blanket policies". Principles are the foundation on which good policy is made. "Events" may require policy reviews, but principles, not ideologies, invariably lead to the right policies.

Read the entire article. It is a tour de force of what happens to an administration and, thus, the United States, when policy is based on being determined "to break free of the old ideologies and categories" (ie, hope and change) instead of principles. President Obama, thus, the United States, is being pushed and swayed by the various events, being forced to react to every event instead of doing what he believes he is doing, threading a course for stability and strength. Those who know history and complimentary foreign policy know that when you are forced to react to every changing event you are the weak link and "you’re going to get yourself into trouble".

Right policies are founded on good principles. What are the principles that have historically led to "right policy" in the United States?

Middle East Revolutions:Technology Trumps Tyrants

2011-04-26T15:48:00.000-05:00

This is a video of protests in Damascus, Syria. The lights are cell phones.

Egypt Terrorism Watch: The Salafi Dynamite in Egypt's Pocket (Gaza)

2011-04-26T10:58:00.001-05:00

As Egypt meets with a Hamas delegation from Gaza, Fatah al Islam and various Salafi Islamist adherents are challenging Hamas rule in the tiny sand pit of misery (video).

The Salafi movement and Hamas have had several collisions in the last four years.

If the claim is true, Fatah al-Islam joins a long list of radical Islamist groups that have popped up in the Gaza Strip in recent years. They include Hizb al-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), Fatah al-Yasser, Qaida al-Islam, Army of Islam, Suyuf al-Haq (Swords of Justice) and the Nasser Eddin Brigades.

This report outlines the different groups and their history in Gaza.

The jihadist firebrands, who probably number only a few hundred, are divided between three main groups ideologically aligned with al-Qaida -- Jaish al-Islam, or Army of Islam; Tawhid wa'al-Jihad, or Monotheism and Holy War; and Jaish al-Umma, or Army of the Nation.

"Their ranks may be modest in number but their capacity to shape events inside Gaza and beyond is clearly on the rise," the Financial Times observed following the slaying of Arrigoni.

Jihadist groups emerged in Gaza after Israel's unilateral withdrawal in September 2005. They expanded during the subsequent fighting between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas' cease-fire with Israel following the invasion of Gaza by 12,000 Israeli troops in late December 2008 in a 22-day invasion that killed some 1,400 Palestinians, mainly civilians, has incensed the jihadists, as has Hamas' efforts to break out of its international isolation.

As the report adds, as Hamas is unable to provide basic government services or get any recognition from the international community, more and more young people are turning towards the Salafi groups.

What gives the growing jihadist presence even greater menace is that many recruits are former members of Hamas who say Hamas has betrayed its origins and abandoned the war against Israel.

The jihadists are believed to be responsible for many of the recent rocket and mortar attacks on Israel that have raised tensions to 2008 levels.

Ratcheting up tensions with Israel and possibly dragging Egypt into a conflict it is in no position to act on. Plus, there is the possible reciprocation of jihadist activity in Egypt.

Cairo claimed in January, before the pro-democracy uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, that Jaish al-Islam was responsible for a Jan. 1 suicide bombing of a church near Alexandria that killed 21 Christians and wounded 100 others.

The Army of Islam denied that. But a senior Israeli official alleged in December that hundreds of militants, mainly from Yemen and including some trained by al-Qaida, have infiltrated Gaza from Egypt through smuggling tunnels under the border.

Radicalization in Palestinian areas and refugee camps has been on the rise with Fatah al Islam battling it out with the Lebanese Army in 2006. There is suspected collusion between Al Qaeda and Fatah al Islam as well as Syria and Fatah al Islam. Syria, who in turn, is a client state of Iran.

How often does Iran, a Shia majority theocracy, get mentioned in relationship with Sunni Salafi terrorist groups? Too often.

Iran is not a friend to Egypt. It does not want Egypt to be a potential rival power. Iran would like Egypt to be one of the Emirates in their version of the revived Abbasid Caliphate.

Middle East Revolutions: GCC Negotiating Deal for Saleh in Yemen To Step Down - analysis

2011-04-26T09:57:00.000-05:00

Saleh Stepping Down in Yemen, with Immunity

April 25, 2011

by John F Moore

It is indeed true that the Yemeni people are denied some justice by this plan, but politics is, as they say, the art of the possible, and it should have been clear to all that Saleh would not leave willingly without immunity. Riding off into the sunset?

This is another development in a kind of crisis-behind-the-crisis: if leaders are subject to ill-treatment on their downfall, will their neighbors take notice and hold on to power with all their might? Saleh has seen Hosni Mubarak thrown in jail (again, justly) in recent days, and surely wishes to avoid a similar fate. The bloody crackdowns in Syria are the efforts of another tyrant to keep himself in power and out of the slammer. The Saleh deal is thus a positive step, in that it shows other troubled rulers that golden parachutes are available. However, it has a downside–the masses are still energized against the regime, because their demands have not been met. Will the elections sate them if they end up empowering a Saleh ally? Will the opposition parties be able to outmaneuver their uncompromising bases and enter the legal political game? If both of these questions are answered with a “no,” then Yemen runs a serious risk of civil war.

There is considerable questions as to whether this deal will actually go through. The "protesters" are insistent that Saleh go now and go all the way along with any remains of the regime. There is also the issue of the military which Moore suggests will not result in a military coup because the military is split.

Jane Novak at Armies of Liberation has the report from BBC that Saleh refuses the deal saying that he will "not be subject to minorities", suggesting that the protesters do not represent a majority of Yemenis. Her analysis of the situation is here.

Yemen is already suffering from “a security vacuum” and political and economic paralysis. Thirty days from now, the economic, political and security landscape is going to be much more bleak, with a level of damage that is nearly irrecoverable in the mid-term. The western consensus is that the protesters demands are immature and unrealistic, but they have it right. Saleh has to go immediately and be brought to trial for his many crimes. The requirement for a perfect transition plan prior to the executive’s departure was not applied in Egypt or Tunisia or contemplated in Libya and, like a war plan, won’t survive first contact with reality. The issue here is damage control. But any future state that is built on the crimes of the past will contain inherent triggers of conflict.

Middle East Revolutions: Iran's Proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon Foreing Minister Demands UN Representative Refuse UN Statement on Syria

2011-04-26T09:41:00.000-05:00

Shami Calls on Salam Not to Approve Security Council Statement on Syria

Caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Shami called on Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations Nawwaf Salam to reject the Security Council's expected draft statement on the developments on Syria. The U.N. will discuss Syria later Tuesday.

Lebanon, Syria, Libya & Hizballah- Abu Muquwama at CNS

Boy, I would love to hear Hassan Nasrallah give some morally sanctimonious speech in which he explains why Gadhafi must be driven from office but that conspiracies against Bashar al-Asad are a Anglo-Zionist plot. And I suspect I am going to get that opportunity.

Lebanon (controlled by Hezbollah/Hizballah) had the rotating seat on the Security Council and used it to vote to get a no fly zone, condemn Gadhafi and make a statement that Gadhafi must go. Now they aren't as interested in seeing the same for Assad. Hmmmm...Goose meet Gander.

Egypt and Democracy: Future Relations with United States

2011-04-25T12:09:00.000-05:00

Egypt in the Middle of Arab Cold War:

Domestic and foreign policy are related in another way. As Egypt’s leaders struggle to deliver on economic and political reform, the temptation to grandstand on foreign policy only grows. International relations scholars call this the “diversionary theory of international conflict”—the notion that foreign conflict is initiated to divert attention from mounting problems at home. Young democracies, newly confident and eager to distance themselves from their predecessors, are particularly susceptible.

But as much as Egypt wishes to chart a new course on foreign policy, it is still bound by old constraints. Egypt remains vulnerable during a difficult phase of transition. It can afford to irritate its Western allies—but within limits. The U.S. and the European Union, as Egypt’s most important donors, will play a critical role in supporting the country’s economic and political revitalization. One obvious red line is the peace treaty with Israel.

How can Egypt be both independent, serve the region and remain an ally with the US? The writer suggests Qatar as the model:

Somehow, for instance, Qatar has figured out a way to both host the world’s largest pre-positioning U.S. military base and hold joint training exercises with Iranian frontier guards. And somehow, it’s worked—pushing the tiny gas-rich emirate into the ranks of the region’s most influential nations.

Libya and Syria Still on Fire with Iran in the Background

2011-04-25T11:45:00.000-05:00

Misurata, Libya Monday, April 25, 2011 - Rebels believed to be on brink of crushing victory. Libya's army seems to be made up of foreigners, children and whatever riff-raff or desperadoes are willing to trade their lives for what is becoming, literally, blood money (here if you tube won't load).

Check the Egyptian Chronicles for multiple videos from Syria including artillery and tanks being moved in to Daraa. Reports official for 25 dead, but other reports suggesting that the number of dead are greater, they just can't be picked up off the street due to sniper fire. Fog of War.

On Syria and Iran:

For Iran, its ties with Syria represent far more than just a rare friend in a region dominated by Arab suspicions of Tehran's aims. Syria is Iran's great enabler: a conduit for aid to powerful anti-Israel proxies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Should Assad's regime fall, it could rob Iran of a loyal Arab partner in a region profoundly realigned by uprisings demanding more freedom and democracy.
"Iran and Syria represent the anti-US axis in the region. In that respect, Iran wants to ensure that Syria remains an ally," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. "The problem is that Iran's foreign policy has become quite inconsistent."

In the meantime, Iran is under another cyber attack and they are not nearly as good as the Chinese or the US at managing those attacks.

Free Speech: Terry Jones Jailed For "Peace and Security of Community"

2011-04-23T09:59:00.001-05:00

Free Speech For ME But Not for THEE!

Terry Jones spent one hour in jail for refusing to pay a $1 fine. He was charged with disturbing the peace. What did the public prosecutor argue?

The public prosecutor argued that the protest had nothing to do with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and at stake were security and peace in the community.

The judge fined each of the pastors involved a "symbolic" $1. The amount doesn't really matter. While the judge may have determined that this was the best way to signal he did not want to stifle free speech, any ruling against it on the grounds argued by the prosecutor suggests that free speech is, in fact, harmful, similar to some other act like destruction of property or assault.

United States Foreign Policy: On Libya, Liberty and the Flight From Leadership

2011-04-23T07:58:00.001-05:00

In a response to a post and commentary at Castle Argghhh! on the current efforts in Libya.

Part of post in question:

It no longer matters how we got here. We intervened, and that changed everything.

By attacking armored columns with the “No Fly Zone” aircraft, we ensured the survival of the poorly-equipped-and-untrained rebellion in Libya against the much-better-armed-and-trained loyalist forces. That’s the world we live in, and those are the conditions we must deal with.

Whether or not the US, and to a lesser extent NATO, could have gotten the same in terms of strategic interests by doing nothing, by buying off or threatening Kaddafi, whether this was of a high enough order of national interest to do when balanced against the risks/means available/stratcomm incoherence is no longer the question. It has become “What do we do with the new conditions?

To which John only added:

My closing thoughts - I'll reiterate one of my philosophical problems with US military power (stated from the perspective of a practitioner of same) - the danger of making it too easy to kill people, means you are too likely to kill people. If it isn't worth dying for, it isn't worth killing for. The point is not that I object to making war less lethal to the people we put in harm's way, or even more lethal to the target of our war making, it's that making it safer for us to kill has made us more likely to kill. Our doctrinal and policy analysis and frankly, fundamental ethics on the issue aren't anywhere near as advanced and refined as our technical ability.

My response follows:

Freedom and the Fruits of Labor

2011-04-22T12:10:00.000-05:00

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, 1816

Egypt and Democracy: Economics - Setting a Minimum Wage

2011-04-22T07:03:00.001-05:00

During a short conversation on twitter, a debate occurred over the viability of setting a minimum wage in Egypt. It is commonly understood that 43% of Egypt survives on $2/day. Most of these are what is also commonly referred to as "day labor" wage earners. In short, laborers who pick up work on a daily basis instead of being full time employees of a company or have even short to mid-term contracts for stable employment.

At the same time, 23% of Egypt's workers belong to some form of union or syndicate that proposes to work for members' rights. These have, in the past, been subject to government interference that included almost arbitrary acts of either minimal appeasement of demands or outright strike busting, either through police action or by government interaction/threats/co-opting union leadership.

Around 2% of Egypt's citizens/employed are either wealthy businessmen/land holders/investors or related top managers of firms. Many of whom have had close relations with the last NDP regime or were basically co-oped by government due to it's high regulation, corruption, nepotism and various other problems that required some form of collusion in order to simply do business in Egypt.

Then there is an official 9.7% (appx) that are "unemployed" though this number could include those who work within the informal "day labor" sector having exhausted all other attempts at regular employment and, consequently, can be a higher or lower percentage during any economic drive or slump without registering any officially recognized radical change of "unemployment". With a 43% day laborer employment sector in a down turned economy, the real unemployment rate is likely closer to 18-20%. This leaves a regularly employed, non-union employment sector between 17 and 22% of the employable population (43mil employment age means 7-10 million).

An interesting aspect of the revolution is the convergence of the middle class, educated revolutionaries with the very large underclass to bring down the regime. Many of the underclass were called down into the streets with shouts about the cost of bread (and cucumbers, tomatoes, etc) and wages. This isn't unusual for most historical revolutions. Economics, where there is a rising middle class who are eager for political participation and a still majority working poor underclass, have played a role in almost every revolution. The issue that faces each of these revolutions is how to funnel that energy into both political and economic reforms that serve both of these factions' demands while not decimating the capital/growth sector.

One of the issues currently being discussed, in some cases as if it was THE economic plan, is the setting or raising of a minimum wage. The current figure discussed is $1200LE (Egyptian pounds)/month. At the current rate of exchange that is approximately $200 US, $6/day or three times the current average wage of 43% of population.

Middle East Revolutions: Massacre in Latikye, Syria April 19

2011-04-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

Reported video of deadly shooting of peaceful protesters, Latikye, Syria, 19 April, 2011:

Michael Ledeen reports:

The Syrian killers probably thought nobody would be able to get it on video at night. But they were wrong. An amateur videographer was filming the demonstration, and was just about to go down to the street and join in, when the gunshots broke out. A young girl behind him started to scream, he pushed her down…

Egypt and Democracy: More on Women's Rights - Freedom of/from the Hijab

2011-04-20T05:33:00.000-05:00

An excellent blog post on the right's of women to choose...to wear the hijab or not to wear the hijab.

Societies overpowered by a headscarf: it's time for a change:

The struggle of the veiled Muslim woman in Europe has reached the hearts and minds of Muslims all over the world, including mine. Her struggle is their struggle. A woman has the right to choose, we all shout. Muslim women do not wear the headscarf/face veil out of oppression, we explain. In so many cases, they wear it as a matter of choice.

A woman, we shout, has the right to choose.

But do we Muslims really believe this or do we use this argument when it suits us?
Do women in Muslim countries – or for that matter do women living in Islamic communities all over the United States and Europe – truly have the right to choose? Does a woman truly have freedom of choice if the societal impacts of that choice have the potential to devastate the very core of her existence?

Nadia el Awady goes on to talk about the social and familial pressures that go on when women choose to "doff the hijab".

These women are immediately analyzed to their faces and behind their backs. Their original reasons for wearing the hijab were the wrong reasons. Her faith is weak. She has been moving in circles of friends who have tainted her soul. She has no proper understanding of the Islamic faith. She has opened too many doors to the devil and this is the result. The list goes on and on. And the snobby advice does as well. We’ll pray for you, dear sister. Remember to keep up your five daily prayers. That will save you. Be careful because you have started down the slippery slope to hell. We will pray to God to protect you and give you guidance.

Read the rest here.

Also, the Sharia Glass Ceiling

Egypt and Democracy: Women's Rights in a Democratic Egypt and the Sharia Glass Ceiling

2011-04-20T01:23:00.001-05:00

Valantina Cattane wrote in Egypt's Al Masry Al Youm about the struggle for women's equality in the new democratic Egypt: Path to Women's Equality Passes Through Constitution.

The 1971 Egyptian Constitution, currently suspended, includes articles that ostensibly ensure equality and outlaw discrimination based on gender, ethnic origin, language, religion or belief. But according to Egyptian gender experts, the situation is far more complicated -- and discriminatory -- than a quick reading of the old constitution suggests.

And if women’s rights are to be guaranteed in post-Mubarak Egypt, the new version, written by a committee selected by the parliament elected in September 2011, will require substantial changes on laws regulating gender.

She points out that Article II of the 1971 Constitution was included as part of the amendments for referendum on March 19. Article II is the section of the Constitution that states that Islam is the state religion and that Sharia law is the basis of law in Egypt. Article II was also the contentious section that had various Imams in mosques across Egypt calling on their congregations to go out and vote on the grounds that a "no" on the referendum would vacate this article and endanger Islam and Sharia in Egypt.

Middle East Revolutions: Iran's proxy Hezbollah Supports Assad and Threatens Lebanon "Security"

2011-04-19T05:22:00.005-05:00

Michael Ledeen and Michael Totten have done excellent jobs in outlining the various connections between Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Michael Totten's new book, Fatima Gate, is an expose on Hezbollah in Lebanon and the counter-revolution that thwarted Lebanon's Cedar Revolution. Even as the Syrian's were forced to pull back, they provided material and monetary support to their co-tyrants in Hezbollah to take effective control of the country. This is effectively Iran's "covert" war (if it can be called that) against Israel.

Monday, Hezbollah issued a statement of unwavering support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and basically threatened what little "security" and peace Lebanon can claim:

"Today, we stand yet again by our sister Syria ... and by Syria's leaders who have refused to give into pressure or ... to conspire against the resistance," said Hezbollah MP Nawwaf Moussawi, in reference to the Shiite militant group.

"We are certain Syria will overcome this passing phase," he added. "There is no stability in Lebanon without stability in Syria, no security in Lebanon without security in Syria."

Moussawi was basically echoing the Syrian Ambassador who had already threatened that:

any harm done to Syria will also harm Lebanon with the same magnitude or even more"

Lately, all of the "old revolutionaries", who have been in positions of power now for the last thirty or forty years, have all been claiming to be protecting the revolution from counter revolution. Refusing to accept that, once the revolutionaries have taken effective control of the reins of power and institutions of government, they are no longer the revolutionaries. They are the establishment:

Moussawi's spoke at a press conference entitled "In solidarity with Syria against the American-Zionist-Western plot to undermine its national, pan-Arab and resistance role," attended by pro-Syrian Lebanese politicians of all faiths.

There are two main themes going on here.

United States Foreign Policy: Increasingly Out of Step

2011-04-18T08:59:00.001-05:00

Michael Ledeen points out the ongoing battles for freedom and democracy in various countries in the Middle East:

You can barely see it in the popular press, but the global insurrection is going great guns, despite the fecklessness of the so-called Western world. And it’s going great guns in our enemies’ countries, not just in those of our (at least erstwhile) friends.

In Syria, for example, the anti-Assad demonstrations are getting bigger and are explicitly calling for regime change. In Iran, there are ongoing strikes, violent anti-regime demonstrations in the oil regions in the west, adjoining Iraq (think Basra), and continued sabotage of the country’s gas pipelines.

He goes on to list out the many ways that people inside these countries are resisting. Then there is this gem:

So what does our government do, when faced with a splendid opportunity to advance the cause of freedom, strike a blow at the world’s leading supporter of terrorism, and perhaps even convince waverers around the world that American support is worth something after all?
We tell the Syrian opposition to take a hike, that’s what. As Eli Lake tells us,
The Obama administration has turned down a plea from Syria’s democratic opposition to step up diplomatic pressure on President Bashar Assad, who has violently repressed peaceful anti-government protests
Please read that again and notice that the Obama administration turned down a plea for DIPLOMATIC pressure on poor Assad.

There is a serious problem with our foreign policy. It is completely out of step with current events and, for some reason, refuses to acknowledge that all of the aspirations of the United States for the spread of freedom and democracy are continuing to be met. There is an ideological war being fought. Not just outside the borders of the United States or within Islam, but within the State Department and various other departments and institutions responsible for advising and designing US foreign policy.

The Mid-East Revolutions, the Internet and Greek Mythology: God Killers

2011-04-12T03:55:00.001-05:00

I've been contemplating the on going debate about the power of the internet in organizing and supporting revolutions. Any number of people suggest that the power of social media is over stated. That, even without it or with minimal access, revolutions still manage to organize and that a revolution on the internet must follow the dictates set out by Mao in "On Guerrilla War": in short, they must eventually organize and go into the street.

While this is true, my own thoughts suggested that, regardless of this fact, without the internet and the speedy flow of information into once repressed environments, modern revolutions would not have occurred. Not at the speed that they were able to destabilize and reduce existing regimes.

The debate over that power rages on. Watching a recent panel at the Middle East Institute, Courtney Radsch insisted (paraphrasing) that the amount of internet penetration could not be evaluated without noting the penetration of cellular phones. In essence, modern communication makes revolutions in repressive states more than possible, it makes it inevitable. That pressing "like" isn't just a risk averse manner of participating as Gladwell insists, incapable of translating to the risk necessary to counter the power of real force, but can act as a social power of its own.

Her counter on the panel took Gladwell's position, insisting that the internet was only a tool and that the real organization necessary for a revolution took place on the streets, in the Mosque and among existing or created organizations. The debate was interesting, but the two points seemed to be missing the point. Even Gladwell, writing for a magazine who posted his thoughts on their "e-mag" website, ironically, missed the point.

It wasn't social media, blogs, facbook or twitter, that presaged revolution. It was the internet period, regardless of the app. The internet itself is one giant "killer app", a "God Killer" that only myth and legend dared to suggest would come to exist. Well, only myths and legends if you discount Nietzsche.

Two Greek myth's portend the power of the internet. In one myth, Zeus, who has just deposed his father Kronos, is given the same prophecy that had prompted Kronos to eat his own children. One day a child of Zeus and Metis would depose Zeus and destroy the gods. Metis was pregnant with Zeus' child. Taking this prophecy seriously, Zeus swallows pregnant Metis. Years later, suffering from a horrible headache, Zeus calls for Hephaestus to bring his hammer and open Zeus' head. Zeus' head splits open and out pops Athena, goddess of wisdom, fully armed and full grown.

Through out Greek mythology, Zeus is constantly on the look out and battling other gods who he deems are threatening his position on the throne of Olympus, who may carry out the old prophesy. In the meantime, Athena remains one of his favorites. He gives her his aegis or shield with the head of Medusa as it's insignia. She takes as her own symbol the "wise old owl" and she gives to man kind various gifts, including the olive tree.

Athena is the closest thing to a favored child of Zeus. The entire time, Zeus is nurturing his own destruction and the destruction of the gods at his bosom. It is not Ares, the god of War, nor Apollo, the shining one, not Artemis nor Aphrodite. Not even Poseidon or Hades, two of Zeus' brothers who seem constantly jealous of his position. Even Hera, who in retrospect in attempting to belay Zeus' continuing liaisons producing offspring, is attempting to maintain the status of the gods and Olympus by forestalling the prophesy.

It is wise and thoughtful Athena, the goddess of Wisdom, the daughter of Metis/knowledge, who will eventually destroy the gods because it is the proliferation of knowledge and wisdom that makes the gods obsolete. When men understood what made the rains come, the rivers flow, the earth to turn, the sun to rise and the moon to shine; when he understood the passions that ruled man, created machines and built structures that would serve generations and could write down his own words that would be passed down through all the ages, man would no longer require the gods

The story of Prometheus, who steals the fire of the gods and gives it to man kind is a similar story. At the end, however, Prometheus is punished by being chained to a rock where a giant eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back and start all over again. Of course, the punishment is too late. The cat, as they say, was out of the bag. The fire of the gods was not just the power of warmth, but of light even in the darkest places. It meant that mankind no longer had to cower in the night from whatever evils lurked. With the power of fire, mankind could create new and powerful tools that could rival the power of the gods.

These are essentially prophecies foretelling the power of the internet, the power of knowledge and information to destroy modern day "gods". Zeus never really suspected Athena, goddess of Wisdom, would be his down fall. Largely because she was not stingy with her power, but gave her wise advice freely to gods and mankind alike. Like Zeus, modern rulers of even repressive states are forced to embrace the tool, the weapon that will eventually destroy them, because it is the device by which the "gods", rulers of nations, must now conduct their business and organize the power of their growing states.

However, like Athena, the internet is not stingy with it's power or wisdom, providing it to "gods" and the common man alike. Whoever seeks wisdom and knowledge can easily find it on the net. It is the modern day Agora, the Greek Forum, where all ideas are weighed and debated. Wherever rulers attempt to control this information, users find a new way to obtain it. Work arounds, dial ups, satellites and mobile devices that keep the flow of information moving in and out of even the most repressive regimes.

What Greek idea most often wins the debate? Democracy, literally people's government. The internet, the super highway of information, has become the God Killer of modern times.

It does not even have to reach every human to provide this power. However few are exposed in one area carries that knowledge and power out to the rest. That is the real power of the internet, itself a "killer app". Promethues' fire, lighting even the darkest corners of the world. It is freedom writ large, the torch of liberty as never conceived.

Like Prometheus, there is a tale of caution for those who have provided this killer app to the world: no good deed goes unpunished. Information necessarily flows both ways. Whatever power, whatever flow of information goes out of the United States and the "west", something will return to cause it continuous torment.

The internet has broken the borders of ideas. That means that even bad ideas can return in the form of individuals such as those who become "self-radicalized" and commit or attempt to commit terrorism in the name of an ideology that is no longer confined to the nether lands of remote nations. Such ideas cannot be contained any more than the "fire" of freedom and democracy. Fortunately, the Greek ideas of democracy and god killing remain the dominant idea in the agora.   The first gods to go will be those who refuse to share their power and attempt to control Athena, goddess of knowledge and wisdom, the flow of information.

Still, there is a warning for those gods, the creators and distributors of the fire and wisdom of the internet, Athena's intellectual children and would be Prometheus: go with the flow or become a victim of the God Killer

There is reason to hope the political dynamics in developing countries have changed such that hundreds of millions will now find they can push against an open door into political emancipation. However, the story need not end there. Better communication technology might just help those of us in the West who think that we, too, could use some relief from the dead hand of the state.

Tax collection is set to become more difficult, as business oozes across traditional national and sub-national borders. Traditional borders evolved long ago in such a way that a government could monopolize almost the entirety of a person’s life within them, but communication technology is expanding each of our commercial spheres beyond them. And so we see a location-based bookstore (Borders) going into Chapter 11 bankruptcy while Amazon expands into more and more product lines....

The same applies to income taxes when work is atomized in the ways described above. Therefore, we see an inexorable decline in business taxes across the world and high-taxed welfare states in Western Europe unconvincingly moralizing about the “tax havens” as their revenues slowly seep away. Communication technology is changing the game in favour of individual liberty by spreading our commercial lives beyond the pens that governments drew for us in more technologically stable times.

The events in North Africa and the Middle East are complex in their causes. Nevertheless, one condition necessary for their occurrence is the proliferation of ever cheaper electronic communication and the dispersive, ungovernable networks they create. The rise of these networks has a neat physical explanation that applies just as much in the West as it has there. If I am right, then the effect of this great decentralization will be a great force for liberty here as it has been “over there.”

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/What+Moore+meant+Egypt+will+mean+Western+liberty/4596935/story.html#ixzz1JIAFcIXv

The Spectre Haunting Egypt: Counter-Revolution

2011-04-11T03:25:00.006-05:00

Several weeks ago, SCAF made an announcement that it was enacting curfew rules and banning protests in order to protect Egypt's revolution from a counter-revolution. From that moment on, every Egyptian is looking for these invisible forces of counter revolution. Every act of every individual or group is a threat. Egyptians are running from one situation to the next to counter the counter revolution and with every new march, every crazy idea that floats through the air, they are losing their way.

A relative calm had come over Egypt, even as small protests continued. The referendum had passed and parties were gearing up to participate as quickly as possible, but even the relatively quick pace for elections in September and presidential elections come November, the pace is not fast enough to set Egypt back on the path to relative stability.

The people still want Mubarek's head on a platter, figuratively or literally, whatever way they can get it. They want all of his cronies standing in the docket/gallows with him. SCAF, even with a facebook page, is not very transparent. They are stuck in a hard place, trying to run a country where the only people who have been running it or have the experience to manage day to day workings of the structure are either NDP or have NDP relations. The appearance of which makes every Egyptian believe that the old regime is still in place. Largely because it is to an extent that any technocrat with any knowledge remains at the controls. No Egyptian accepts that there are not others that could or should be running these bureaus.

Second, SCAF is simply not able to control every aspect of the situation. They can barely control their own forces who have apparently not imbibed the idea that being "one hand" with the public means not using physical force against every citizen under every circumstances.

Friday, the Jacobin wing of the revolution, angry at the laws forbidding protests that they consider now to be the epitome of their first amendment rights and angry that sixty days later Mubarek et al remains at large, went into the square and held a mock trial of Mubarek. In the mean time, seven army officers that the media was portraying as "former" (retired? every male in Egypt is required to join accept under waiver). went on youtube and proclaimed they had every intention of joining the revolutionaries in Tahrir. They demanded that Tantawi step down, the regime members be put on trial and a civilian council take it's place.

Their appearance in Tahrir was all the rage and the protesters were determined to protect them. Through out the day, with close to or above 100,000 in the square, the army stayed back. That night the mutinying officers remained in the square, asking for protection by the protesters. They were placed in a tent and surrounded by people. As curfew arrived and the crowds thinned, the military police waded in ostensibly to disperse the crowds.

Chaos ensued. Protesters attempted to resist the MP's from coming in. The MP's used billy clubs and fists to respond. More protesters rushed forward. The MP's opened fire. It appears most of the shooting was in the air. However, at least two were shot dead and several others were wounded by gun fire. Most of the other injuries appear to be contusions, abrasions and broken bones. Several of the protesting officers at the square were arrested. One may have been killed at the site with doctor's at the local morgue reporting at least one "soldier" dead, possibly two.

The military issued a statement saying that they did not attack the protesters first, that they only shot into the air to disperse crowds and that the army was using rubber bullets. Later, two groups of men were seen entering Tahrir with machine guns, also reported on twitter. The men appear to have quickly dispersed, but no one knows who they were or what they were doing. SCAF is suggesting that the events may have been perpetrated by three men associated with Ibrahim Kamel who was alleged to be responsible for the January 28 "camel attack".

The military may be telling the truth that they did not shoot directly at the protesters, but shooting into the air is just as dangerous as shooting at people. Bullets go up, must come down. In ME countries, there are untold numbers of people who die or are injured (head and upper body wounds) from this phenomenon. A video circulated purporting to show one person being shot or killed. They were a considerable distance from the main area.

In the background, machine gun fire was heard constantly and repetitively. With that amount of fire, if they were aiming directly at protesters, there should have been more GSW (gun shot wound) than the eight others reported. That doesn't mean that one or two soldiers did not aim directly at some of the crowd. Fear can over ride discipline when confronted with an angry mob.

The military said that it used rubber bullets. That seems not to be the case. Or, at least, not everybody was shooting rubber bullets. It is possible for even rubber bullets to cause penetrating wounds at close range. That would not account for the man shot at a distance. Whatever the issues, it is clear that someone is not telling the truth. Whether that is the officers in charge of the raid who were not truthful in their reports to the command chain or SCAF trying to save face after making a serious miscalculation. The last possibility is that there were two or more men in civilian clothes with machine guns, as reported on twitter and as suggested by the military who opened fire on the crowd to stir unrest and insurrection.

The problem comes down to the protesting military officers, whether former or current. They were not just calling for the regime remains to be arrested or removed. They were insisting that Tantawi had to go in order to speed up the process and put a civilian council in charge.

As one Egypt watcher noted via Facebook, this was a challenge that the military was guaranteed not to ignore. Nasser came to power in 1952 after the the Free Officers Movement had deposed King Farouq. He and several officers forced Gen. Naquib to step down and Nasser took control. Tantawi is definitely old enough to have been in the military or to simply recalled. The officers in the square were obviously attempting to incite mutiny within the army. The protesters either didn't care or didn't realize how serious that event would be.

In the midst of this event, a small group of approximately 1,000 protesters marched to the Israeli embassy and demanded that their flag be removed and the ambassador expelled. The military arrived and surrounded the embassy, keeping the protesters back. The Israeli's lowered their flag, but the ambassador and his staff remained.

These two events split the revolutionaries who were busily tweeting demands as well as accusations.

Then came Mubarek's slow, but insistent speech Sunday morning. Reminiscent of Nixon's famous "I am not a crook" speech, Mubarek insisted that he and his family did not have assets outside of Egypt and that he had to respond to the accusations damaging their reputation. Almost instantly, the messages began to reflect the one unifying theme that had brought the different parties into Tahrir Square on January 25: Mubarek must go.

Within an hour, Egypt's Attorney General issued a demand that the Interior Ministry arrest Mubarek and members of his family. Two other requests for arrests quickly followed and were carried out. Aside from Ibrahim Kamel, three "big fish" received summons to appear for "interrogations" on Tuesday April 12. These include:

[Safwat] El-Sherif is widely considered to have been Mubarak’s top enforcer in corrupting the nation's political life. When Mubarak took office on 14 October, 1981 one of his first decisions was to appoint El-Sherif as minister of information.
In 2004 El-Sherif was promoted to chairman of the high consultative committee of the Upper House, which made him by default the chairman of the influential Political Parties Committee and the Supreme Press Council – two watchdogs in charge of licensing political parties and appointing chief editors and board chairmen of state-owned press organisations.
That wasn’t enough for El-Sherif, though. In 2002 he was appointed secretary-general of Mubarak’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), becoming the leader of the regime’s machine...

Like El-Sherif, [Fathi] Sorour is accused of using his postion as Speaker of Egypt’s Parliament for 20 years for personal gain. Sorour, 79, is also thought to have amassed a large portfolio of prime real estate, villas, and apartments. The IGO is currently investigating his wealth and he is expected to be summoned soon to face charges.
Sorour, however, faces a plethora of charges of political corruption. A case in point is that he exploited his job to help certain cabinet ministers fend off embarrassing criticism in Parliament. One of these is Ibrahim Soliman, a former minister of housing, whom opposition MPs held responsible for misappropriating public funds by selling large plots of land to NDP crony businessmen and construction magnates at below market prices and offering Sorour and other heavyweight officials a number of luxurious villas in Marina resort.

On 7 April, Zakaria Azmi, 73, was put into custody for 15 days pending investigation of charges of illegal profiteering levelled against him. Azmi is widely believed to have used a number of businessmen as “henchmen” to secure illegal gains. One of these is Mamdouh Ismail, a business tycoon whom Azmi helped to monopolise maritime passenger transport between Egypt and Saudi Arabia across the Red Sea. In 2006 Azmi is thought to have helped Ismail escape Egypt after one of his ships – Al-Salam 98 – sank into the Red Sea drowning more than 1300 Egyptians.
Azmi is Mubarak’s closest confidante, having a wealth of information about his secret life and business deals. He was appointed Mubarak's chief of staff in 1989. His job included preparing Mubarak's daily agenda of meetings and visits.

Other details on the three men can be found here.

In fear that the revolutionaries are serious and plan to march on to Sharm el Sheikh Monday, security around Mubarek's palace is reportedly being increased. How this will play out to the revolutionaries is anyone's guess.

In the mean time, Tahrir has turned into Egypt's barb wire protected agora, the forum where everything is debated, even the merits of the continuing revolution, the role of the military, their actions and many others. What may be an epitaph for this stage of the revolution:

Many simply wanted the barricades lifted and traffic to begin following normally. Others, standing near the two burned-out military vehicles, demanded that the youth use their energy to clear the square of all its rubbish and debris - especially the vehicles which had been turned into a refuse dump.

For all the looking into nooks and crannies, eye balling every act or actor as the instigator of the counter revolution, the real counter revolution will begin right under the revolution's nose:

Egypt's revolution blights 2011 tourism revenue

Food prices increase Egypt's inflation beyond expectations

Egypt's risky economy is making investors think twice

Egypt Terrorism Watch: The Salafis in Egypt's Closet

2011-04-06T13:51:00.001-05:00

While many in the west focus on the Muslim Brotherhood as the predominant strain of Islamists in Egypt's religious and political life, another strain of Islamist, more fundamentalist and more violent, is rearing it's head again inside of Egypt.

Coptic Christian churches are bombed. Six Christians and a Muslim police officer are gunned down in front of their church after a religious holiday celebration. These are not new experiences for Coptic Christians in Egypt. Under the Mubarek regime, these incidents were investigated and suspects brought to trial, but justice was hard to find.

In the case of the men arrested for the Christmas shooting, two men were acquitted and one sentenced to death for premeditated murder during the height of the Egyptian revolution. There is no mention of their religious or political attachments.

Today, other religious buildings and icons are under attack even as assaults against Christian Coptics are growing. In the last month, since a major part of the police and security have disappeared from the streets, sixteen historic mosques belonging to the Sufi order of Islam have been damaged or destroyed. A shoot out occurred in a small village south of Cairo when a band of men attempted to burn down a wine and tobacco shop. Another man, working on a farm in southern Egypt, was killed by his fellow employee for not rising to pray the morning prayers.

In Egypt, there is becoming little doubt as to who is behind these attacks even as many express surprise at how prevalent it has become. On a recent twitter feed, a young woman wondered where this sectarian violence had come from as it was not her Egypt. A young man proclaimed: the Salafis are everywhere in Alexandria.
(click title to read more)

Observations on the Egyptian Paradox: The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Umma, Unity and the Non-Islamic Islamic State

2011-04-04T14:40:00.000-05:00

Continuing Observations on Egypt's Paradox...

In the run up to the referendum, the MB pushed it's supporters to vote "yes" for the referendum, largely to push the elections ahead so that they could maintain their advantage. However, their reasons to their general mass was to "protect Article II" which states that Islam is religion of the state and Shariah the basis of law.

In a nation that is at least 83% of the population, this may make some sense, but as usual the MB's reasons have little to do with the general consensus of the people and more to do with their agenda which is to institute and Islamist government. They do not want to be seen enforcing this over the will of the people or going above the law. A common tactic by past undemocratic forces who use the democratic process to take power then use the devices of law and democracy, along with claims that they need to secure the population against crimes such as general "thuggery" and criminal behavior. Criminal behavior as defined by the ruling power. In this case, the hope of the Muslim Brotherhood to take power in the People's Assembly.

Egypt and countries the world over have seen this all before.

They are consistently framing their arguments that the "liberals" want to destroy Islam in Egypt. That is it's own paradox. In a nation that is 83% Muslim and managed to remain so even under the auspices of the past regime, it is difficult to imagine how any force inside Egypt could manage to wipe out the faith of some 65 million Egyptians by removing the phrase "Islam is the official religion of Egypt" or even by removing Shariah as the basis of law.

Surely, in such a nation with such a Muslim majority, the people elected to represent the citizens will be a majority of Muslims with a Muslim reference to culture and law. Meaning that most laws would likely reference Islamic society and laws. If the nation enacted laws protecting the rights of the citizens to freedom of religion and freedom of speech, the practice of Islam as a faith could not be eradicated. It would have the room to proselytize and minister to it's faithful without interference from the state.

That, however, is not what the Muslim Brotherhood wants. This isn't really a matter of protecting Islam in it's extensive, universal and singular teachings nor the great body of Muslims within Egypt or anywhere else. Because, while the five pillars of Islam may be universal within the religion and the Qu'ran never changing and infallible, the beliefs of all Muslims are not "singular". They are multi-dimensional. Not just between the observant Muslim and the back slider or even between the Shia, the Sunni and Sufi, to name a few, but the very schools of jurisprudence that guide the various Imams and the message within the mosques.

Within Sunni Islam there are four schools of thought, or jurisprudence, depending on what scholar of what era in what scholarly university in what ever emirate of the existing caliphate at the time such a scholar lived in and wrote. Such frames of reference obviously influenced each of these great thinkers on Islam in deciding which haditha and sunna were important or to be considered to abrogate any other. Influencing Imams who attended the religious universities that supported one of the schools of thought, thus perpetrating multiple trends within Sunni Islam alone. Much less the Shia with their twelve rightly guided Kalifas and various schools of thought.

Casual readers of the Iraq and Iran situation might not know that there is a battle going on between the Shia school of thought in Qom, Iran and the school of thought, currently headed by al Sistani, in Najaf, Iraq. They are both "twelvers", believing in the twelve rightly guided Kalifas, but the Iranian version believes that the Mahdi is returning any day now and the Najaf school does not.

That is the reason that al Sadr, the Shia militant that plagued Iraq nearly as much as the Al Qaeda Salafi brigades, went to Qom to finish his religious studies when he had not done so under Sistani's Najafi school. Sistani had instructed the Shia to remain calm and participate in the elections while the Iranian backed al Sadr was all afire with fighting the invaders. That is the reason as well that al Sadr's militia referred to themselves as the Mahdi Brigade. He was not only a "twelver", but a student of Qom that has been infiltrated by the apocalyptic strain of Mahdi-ism that the current "president" of Iran, Ahmedenijad, is an adherent.

What does Iraq and Iran have to do with Egypt? The same issues are at play under the cover of political triangulation and the revolution. The Muslim Brotherhood really isn't interested in a pluralistic Islam, much less a pluralistic civil state.

The Muslim Brotherhood "old guard" and the MB Youth have been struggling over the ruling that MB members could only join the newly formed Freedom and Justice Party. A young Brother suggested, politely, that the Brotherhood should remain an organization that focused on teaching the "right way" of Islam and leave the politics to the individual's conscience.

It is the teaching of "right Islam" that is concerning the Muslim Brotherhood and has been their concern for many decades, stated in their charters and various papers. It has been the focus of most of the strains of Islam throughout the history of the faith. Most occurred under the guise of political struggle for control of the caliphate beginning with the death of Mohammed (PBUH). Today it is a struggle between various organizations and even states. All of them claiming to be the strain, sect, organization or state that practices "right Islam". All of them attempting to dominate the space that is Islam and the Islamic Umma (Muslim People) through whatever methods available. Mostly da'wa or proselytizing, but also through state control and propagation of religion.

As is the case in Saudi Arabia where they not only control the selection of Imams and Grand Sheikhs, the building of mosques, the religious education in schools and even the decisions made by the Grand Sheikhs, but they spread their message far and wide with copious amounts of money, building mosques and sending preachers all around the globe. That is exactly what the Muslim Brotherhood would like to accomplish in Egypt. Not quite as heavy handed, but through a similar fashion of controlling the state, retaining Islam as the official religion and Shariah as the law. Gaining control of the mosques through retaining government control and subsidizing.

They are not interested in protecting and propagating just any Islam, nor the monolith that is greater Islam, but the Muslim Brotherhood's strain of Islam based on the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The power over the ministry and departments that over see the building of mosques and the appointment of Imams or preachers insures that it is the Brotherhood's ideology that will be propagated, regardless of the leanings or strains of faith within Egypt's Muslim Population.

No one is supposed to talk about these schisms. Muslims are all Muslims, part of the monolith that is Islam and the Islamic Umma. There is an insistence that Islam, a religion boasting one billion adherents around the globe and growing, is constantly under attack from forces outside. Thus, the demand for a "unity". A demand that is supposed to keep the Islamic Umma silent about these divisions even as the struggle to gain dominance of one sect or strain over the teaching and practice of Islam plays out in the public sphere.

Witness the Salafis in Alexandria and other areas of Egypt becoming more outspoken and more active attempting to achieve hisbah, or forcing Muslims and non Muslims to adopt to their socio-religious beliefs. They are burning down liquor stores, accusing women of being prostitutes if they are out alone or without at least a hijab (they would prefer a niqab), and murdering other Muslims for not praying when they should. They are burning down Sufi shrines and Christian Churches. At this rate, they may well be planning to go into any of the other mosques in Egypt and plant their own "right thinking" Imam, by force, as they have attempted to do in several other countries. Particularly in times of upheaval.

Qaradawi, a Muslim Brotherhood associated religious leader, recently called the Salafi strain "stagnant" and "extreme". Qaradawi, though widely revered among the Brotherhood, is not exactly a main stream Imam. Further, the Brotherhood is showing it's displeasure with the Salafi groups in small ways. The MB recently canceled a debate at a university with a Salafi scholar. The University claimed that it was to avoid a confrontation between the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi youth. The question left unasked and unanswered is why there would be a confrontation between these two groups?

A Salafi leader recently claimed that all of these acts do not represent the Salafi and that the media, headed by some unknown "liberal" kabal, is orchestrating an attack on the Salafi to discredit the group. It is interesting that this is the same argument that is being used by the Muslim Brotherhood. Not only are the "liberals" and "media" organizing attacks against the Brotherhood, but attacks against Islam and Muslims in general. Even as the Brotherhood is orchestrating virtual and verbal attacks on the Salafi. No violence between the groups has been reported.

Apparently, reporting each groups' activities, meetings and their own words is "an attack".

The Salafis are only one visible aspect of this struggle to dominate Islam, Sunni Islam, in Egypt. The Salafis are an easy target as they are both reviled and feared by the west as well as many Muslim Egyptians. The Salafis and these unnamed, faceless "liberals" are a useful tool in gathering the rest of the Egyptian Muslim population under the Brotherhood's banner. They are using the age old cry for "unity" and a good dose of fear to silence any internal opposition within their organization and the Umma and cover their actual intent. An intent that is not only to impose some form of Islamic State on Egypt, something that a recent poll suggested would not be opposed by many Muslim Egyptians, but to impose the Brotherhoods ideology, their strain of the Hanafi school, on the rest of Egypt's Sunni Muslims.

Whether this intent to control the mosque through the government is apparent to the rest of Egypt's multi-dimensional Muslim population is the question. This is the same tactic that the previous regime used to control religion within Egypt. It is the same tactic that Gaddafi used in Libya, the one used by the Khomeinis in Iran and the same in Saudie Arabia. That is only a few of the obvious states, none of them "free" as Egypt is attempting to become. By controlling the religious institutions and the strain of Islam that is being preached, the Brotherhood, through the auspices of government agencies, would seek to control the conscience of the majority of the people. That would bring the majority of Egyptians under the Brotherhood's political and religious control insuring their domination for years to come.

How the Brotherhood would manage to set up this scenario would be by easily winning an uncontested, solid block within the People's Assembly. They do not need to win a majority of seats as El Erian recently pointed out. A position of 30 to 35% of the parliament seats against untold numbers of parties in any other seats who refuse to unite to form the governing block, would leave the Brotherhood in control. They would be the party that would either select the Prime Minister and members of his cabinet or they would have the final approval if some other group did manage to form an alliance.

Any compromise would likely see the Brotherhood in charge of the cabinet posts and ministries that over see these institutions as they will be the party with a vested interest.

Not only religious institutions, but education institutions where religious scholarship is taught giving the Brotherhood control of religion from the instruction of a preacher, to approving buildings of mosques, to appointment of Imams and even the messages that are preached. Edging out any other strain or school of jurisprudence and changing the practice of Islam for millions of Muslims forever within Egypt. All under the disguise of protecting Islam in Egypt by maintaining Article II.

This is why the mixing of religion and government, not just "politics" and "political parties", is dangerous. It is not only dangerous to Christians, Shia, Bahia, "liberals" or any other minority group who may be forced to adhere to laws that are contrary to their faith or conscience. It is dangerous to millions of Muslims who do not currently worship or practice Islam under the Brotherhood's strain of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. The retention of Article II in the constitution and any ministry that is responsible for organizing any aspect of religion in Egypt, will give the Brotherhood a power that is the power of dictators and kings, not the power of a free people living in a truly free democracy, finally governing their own conscience.

While the Brotherhood speaks the words of Freedom, insisting they believe in the freedom of religious choice, the people most under threat by this constitutional article and government control of religion are the millions of non-aligned Muslims who may find themselves dispossessed of their faith. Not by an outside force or unnamed "liberals", but by the very people who are presenting themselves as the guardians of Islam and Muslims in Egypt: the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, no one can speak about this issue in Egypt. Even the liberals and the Coptic Christians must be silent because any mention of the dangers of mixing religion and state has already been framed by the Brotherhood as an attack on Islam. The revolutionaries are so concerned about maintaining their own "unity" that any liberal aspect within the movement has been unable to discover or articulate this danger, selling themselves, minority religions and their fellow observant Muslims down the river. Politicians from every corner that are not the Muslim Brotherhood and who are not interested in imposing religion, are rushing forward to proclaim they are not against Islam underscoring the fact that the Brotherhood still controls the argument over religion and state.

At the recent launch of the Free Egypt Party, Naquib Sawiris, head of Orascom and FEP founder stated that he would rather die than fight a Muslim. Rather he should have said that he would die to defend the right of every Muslim to practice their faith as they see fit and according to their own conscience. Every Muslim has the right to choose what mosque they will attend, what Imam they would follow and what message they would receive without the interference of the government in the personal choices of a free people. That is the promise of freedom to all people in Egypt.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the Egyptian Paradox, the Non-Islamic Islamic State of Egypt...

A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood recently said that the MB did not support an Islamic State like Saudi Arabia and Iran. Meaning of course that they do want an Islamic state in Egypt. Islamic lite? One wonders who then can explain the head of the Muslim Brotherhood's Shura Council advocating for a Modesty Police along the lines of Saudi Arabia' Vice and Virtue Police.

A "police" force that in recent history forced fleeing girls back into a burning school because they were not wearing a hijab. Many of these girls died and their families were understandably distraught, demanding answers from the government and the king. The government responded by insisting it was the wrong application of a right practice and that the police were understandably confused.

The Saudi government did not apologize, instead giving each of the angry families blood money and quietly instructing the Vice and Virtue Police to not be as strict in an emergency situation. Even Mohammed, (PBUH) did not insist on maintaining restrictions in an emergency. The problem here is that any citizen and human being had to be instructed to place their humanity above their religious beliefs or perceived orders instead enforcing "death before dishonor" on young girls who couldn't possibly understand why they had to die for lack of an hijab.

Durba insisted that:

"The new police must have a department with limited authorities to arrest those who commit immoral acts,” Durbala told the newspaper.

As if, after thirty years under a police state, what Egypt needed was another security force running around, wasting Egyptian money on "modesty police" when he people can barely afford to buy bread and intruding in every aspect of their lives which they had just escaped when Mubarek resigned. When what Egypt really needs is a police department trained in modern investigation, chain of evidence controls and respecting basic human rights. What Egypt needs is an economic plan that will allow investments and employment opportunities for all Egyptians. What Egypt needs is a better education system that provides education and opportunities to all Egyptians instead of leaving high percentages of illiteracy among the crowds.

Those are things that Egypt needs. Egypt needs a Vice and Virtue squad like it needs a whole in its head.

Egypt and Democracy: Observations on the Egyptian Paradox - Political Rights v. Individual Rights, the Meaning of Freedom and Martyrs of the Revolution

2011-04-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

As events in Egypt continue to unfold, there are interesting paradoxes emerge between what the people say they want and what they are actually working, or not, to achieve.

For instance, reading about El Baradei doing his best to begin campaigning for president. He spoke at a charitable fund raising event on Friday. What did the media report that he said?

...vowing to continue his struggle until all the goals of the revolution have been achieved. At the ceremony on Friday, organized by the Egyptian charity Resala, ElBaradei said he had hoped that change could take place without the loss of lives. He said that these lives will not be wasted, and Egyptians must realize the objectives of the revolution to pay them tribute.
The former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has called for clear steps to achieve a peaceful democratic transition, to revamp Egyptian media and to remove corrupt officials involved in the killing of protesters.

A necessary triangulation, the "goals of the revolution" since it is the Revolutionary Youth that makes up the majority of El Baradei's followers. What are the Revolution's demands and goals? Here is a report listing twenty six demands in the form of questions.

Were these the main objectives of the Revolution? In some ways, they are understandable as subject to the specific time and experiences of Egypt. Probably necessary if Egypt wants to get to a place where the government is of, for and by the people.

On the other hand, the one thing that I do not hear or read very much about is what this "peaceful democracy" means. There is really no discussion about individual rights, the basis of any really "free" democracy as opposed to a "peaceful" democracy. The Mubarek Regime retained a facade of "democracy", but it was extremely lopsided and had little respect for individual rights. Even Iran says it has a democracy, but anyone with even a rare experience of reading about it understands there is no protection of individual rights. That means no real freedom.

Without a true understanding of these rights and how they apply in a free democracy, government becomes "mob democracy" or the "democracy of the majority". Just because a majority agrees on an action, any action including discrimination against minorities or enforcing a religion, does not make it right or a "free" nation. Mob rule based on it's own confluence of reasoning can become as destructive and oppressive as the rule of a dictator even when it starts out as a benign force.

One of my favorite lines comes from the movie "The Patriot" and sums up this issue nicely. The fictional character, debating the colony of Virginia's declaration for independence and joining the American Revolution, asks: "Why should I change the government of one tyrant three thousand miles away for the government of three thousand tyrants one mile away?"

In other words, what is more dangerous? One man, all be it with the power of state, over "there" and largely concerned with his own issues, making an appearance here and there through government branches, subject officials and a small, but efficient security apparatus attempting to enforce his rules from a distance, is less dangerous than three thousand "neighbors" who live right down the road, able to visit and enforce their oppressive laws twenty four hours a day, seven days a week with an inescapable force of the majority.

I do not see these discussions about how or what kind of government should be formed beyond "peaceful democracy" nor any insistence on or discussion of what constitutes a free people. There are no discussions of individual rights. No discussion about how to protect the rights of the people from the power of a majority rule. Protection that is necessary in a democracy.

There is a demand for investigations into torture and abuse with the prosecution of the guilty, but no one adds to that the declaration that a free man has the right to be secure in his person and papers. He cannot be forced to give evidence against himself. The state cannot inflict cruel and inhuman punishment. There can be no taint of blood (ie, family and friends cannot be arrested, persecuted or dispossessed simply for having a relationship with the accused or to coerce a confession).

There is a demand for all remaining political prisoners to be freed, but no where is the declaration that a man has the right to legal representation. He has the right to a speedy trial and cannot simply be held for years without reason or trial. He has a right to face his accusers and bring witnesses on his behalf. He has the right to free speech which means that he has the right to speak his opinion, to criticize the government without fear of persecution or prosecution.

The list of demands go on and on, but so to could the declarations of individual rights that support these demands. It is as if the revolutionaries expect that once these demands are met, their individual rights will simply fall into their hands and that no one would dare to infringe on these here to for invisible rights in the near future as it would be "counter-revolutionary". As if every person who reads their demands and agrees with the demands in body, completely understands the spirit. The basis of which is freedom and individual rights.

Neither is there any mention of these rights in context to the soon to be written constitution or soon to be seated parliament. In fact, what is spoken of more often in relationship to these upcoming events and the recently passed referendum are citizens achieving their "political rights". Voting in an election, allegedly fair and representative, has superseded individual rights. The freedom to run for political office is more important than the freedom to simply live, think and pursue happiness unmolested from government.

No one is articulating the idea that political rights are what are given and taken away by whatever government system or governing group is in power. As was the case under Mubarek where people could try to run for office, but only if given approval by Mubarek's government. Where people could try to vote, but only if they were allowed into the polling station, had the right political persuasion or, if not, have their votes discounted or changed in favor of the tyrant and his government. A government that routinely abused the people's individual, natural and unalienable rights. Where people simply gave up trying to assert their "political right" to vote or have a say in their government, choosing instead to "suffer while such evils are sufferable".

Whereas individual rights, natural and unalienable rights, belong to mankind regardless of what system of government or what people are in power. That government of the people must be designed to protect these rights to insure that there is no future where an oppressor can rise nor use the law and lack of recognized, protected rights against the people. No oppressor, neither an individual nor a group of people claiming to represent the consensus of the majority or even a powerful minority.

This lack of a cohesive and universal message being sounded over and over again throughout the revolution and after is what is allowing the "revolutionaries" and their ideas to be painted by such organized forces as the Muslim Brotherhood and, worse, the Salafis as dangerous. "Liberals" without religion or faith, bent on the disparagement and destruction of Islam. A cohesive and universal message that appeals to a great majority of Egyptian citizens who have just spent their lives living in fear of being "too Muslim" in case it drew the scrutiny, reaction and oppression of the last regime. Who also believe that the entire world is set against them.

To these accusations, if they are responded to at all, the Liberals seem to stamp their feet and yell, "No, we're not! We want to give everyone freedom." An ethereal idea that has many connotations. The Islamists continue to say, "Freedom to do what? Become not a Muslim? We know because..." pick a reason. Whatever the non-aligned Muslims and liberals do, it is always an indication that this small, but thriving minority is dangerous to the existence of the Muslim majority.

So, the revolutionaries and the liberals within it continue to be pulled down into the Islamists' message, instead of coordinating a cohesive, universal message that bridges the gap, talks over the noise and speaks directly to the fears of the people. The fear that some other group will come to power and repress them again under the guise of "liberation".

Somewhere, between the Revolutionaries in the Square and the Islamists on the political soap box, is a huge "silent majority", who are largely non-aligned Muslim Egyptians, who did not even come to vote on the referendum (some where between 14 and 18 million registered voters), but instead, are waiting to see how this whole thing plays out. What do the Revolutionaries really want? What new form of government will endeavor to organize their lives while they endeavor to avoid it? Will there even be a government or will it simply blur into chaos and sectarianism? Are the Islamists correct that this new government will be just as intrusive as the last, seeking to take away one of the few things they have been able to call their own these past decades: their faith?

In the end, these are the people that must be convinced. Those who are not Islamist in nature nor even particularly liberal, but are waiting to hear the answers. The people who must know the difference between political rights and natural, individual and unalienable rights that enable them to do exactly as they wish: to live unmolested and largely free of government interference in their lives. These are the people that must receive the message.

These people do not give a damn about the demands of the revolution. While they may nod their heads at the notion of Mubarek and cohorts being prosecuted for their past actions, Mubarek could fly to the moon so long as they could get on with living. It is these who the blessings of freedom and the protection of their individual, natural and unalienable rights most represent. To simply live and to be without someone else coming along to tell them how they should do it. A future that is at risk if the Islamists win the war of ideas in the newly free market place of ideas.

The realization of that paradox has stymied the revolution and stagnated it into a list of demands. Demands the revolutionaries constantly marching in the square shout out amongst other calls as they interfere with the attempt of these ordinary Egyptians to simply live. That is not to say that they do not have the right or should not be there, but that they are "losing the crowd", as they say in politics, because their "demands" do not resonate with every day life. The revolutionaries are too proud of their revolution to actually explain what it means beyond these "demands" and the never ending protests. Or, how realizing these demands translate into the protection of the ordinary Egyptian's right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".

El Baradei, speaking at the ceremony to honor 42 of the hundreds who lost their lives in the Jan25 revolution said,

these lives will not be wasted, and Egyptians must realize the objectives of the revolution to pay them tribute.

Then went on to list a few of these objectives including a peaceful democracy, a free media and prosecution of "corrupt officials" responsible for killing the protesters. As if they will ever be able to discover who of the hundreds of men in these positions gave the order, or even had to considering the condition of the security services and their inherent adherence to what can be only cynically referred to as 'casual and routine violence' against the people. Actions that cannot be changed until the idea of individual, natural and unalienable rights permeates throughout society.

That is one of the great paradoxes. Here is the man, El Baradei, who drew these forces around him and gave them a center around which to organize after the death of a young man who was exercising his individual rights. El Baradei who wishes to represent the "youth" and the revolution as the first president of this new era. A man who does not really know why these young people went into Liberation Square, withstanding the cold, the hunger, the thirst, the tear gas and the fear, some giving their blood and others their very lives.

Or, at least, he cannot articulate it.

They did not stand and die so that Mubarek could be arrested and put on trial. They did not stand and die so that the hated State Security could be dismantled. They did not stand and die for some washed out version of a "peaceful democracy" where new laws could be written that pervert and destroy the very reason they went out into Liberation Square, depending on which staid old man with his own agenda can pander to the public and get elected.

These things, in the end, are meaningless and without value when compared to the noble and priceless gift that they paid for with their suffering, their blood and their very lives. The achievement of these "objectives" will mean nothing unless the gift of their sacrifice is realized. A gift that is in danger of being lost amongst all the noise of demands, rowdy protesters and triangulating politicians.

That gift is Freedom. Freedom that is not protected by "democracy" or "political rights", but is obtained through the promotion, understanding and protection of individual, natural and unalienable rights. It is these rights that guarantee a free people, the political rights of participation and a responsive democratic government. A government for the people, of the people and by the people that provides the opportunities, space and security for the people to achieve their hopes and dreams. None of these can exist without freedom and freedom cannot exist without the protection of individual rights.

On January 25, 2011, when the protesters marched into Liberation Square, there was only one thing worth dying for: freedom.

Speak it. Live it. Be it.

Separation of Religion and Government: Protecting Religion, Defense Against Abuse of Power

2011-03-31T10:42:00.000-05:00

Separation of Religion and Government: Protecting Religion, Defense Against Abuse of Power

One of the main arguments used to forward the idea that religion should be separated from government is the protection of the freedom of religion for minority religious populations in Egypt. Among them, Coptic Christians, Shia and Sufis as well as the accommodation of the many schools of jurisprudence of Islam. A diverse civil society must be able to protect the rights of all citizens.

This is only one argument and not even the first argument for the issue of division of religion and government.

Many believe that the call to separate religion from the government is only a call to reduce the role of Islam in Egypt and the Islamic identity of the Egyptian people. This is a fear that is unfounded. The majority of citizens in Egypt are Muslim. The strength of the faith and the long relationship of the majority of the people with their Islamic heritage remains unchanged, regardless of the governments that have existed. It will remain unchanged in a society where freedom of religion is protected and the people may practice their faith as they see fit.

This fear is not surprising when a people have been living under an oppressive regime that used government power and money to control the mosque, the selection of Imams and to influence the message. If someone belonged to a religious group or made public religious sentiments that the government found threatening, the group could be attacked and the people put in prison for a very long time, often times tortured and killed.

The Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar recently announced that he would give back his salary provided by the government because corruption has spread within the institution. Other leaders staged a protest against the corruption born of government interference, payment of bonuses and other devices used to extort responses and control the Ulema.

By these acts the Mubarek regime wished to control the conscience of the people, preventing them from voicing their concerns about the government and the leaders. Acts that are all too familiar in oppressive nations.

What is surprising is that people who have experienced this repression and point to this corruption are so willing to consider the continuation of this same construction of religion and government. All with the apparent belief that this time it will be different.

Egypt and Democracy: A New Coat of Paint

2011-03-31T05:20:00.000-05:00

'Freedom Painters' bring new life to Nasr City walls

Groups of young people, armed with paints and brushes have been running around, painting the "new graffiti" of Freedom. One gentleman suggests:

“Imagine a mural running the length of the corniche,” he suggested. “Or government facilities bearing artistic logos and murals -- it would be a vast improvement on the depressing buildings we have now,” he said, claiming that these government institutions are not only old-fashioned and “sick-looking,” but remnants of “an age that has been brought to its long-overdue end.”

“It wouldn’t cost much,” he reasoned. “Paints, brushes, art supplies -- those things aren’t that expensive. A single generous businessman could sponsor such an effort independently.”
“It makes sense,” he insists. “A new coat of paint for a new beginning.”

That was after he complained that most of the writing was in English, that Egyptians spoke Arabic and the art should be for Egyptians. Then he changed his mind. Freedom is Freedom in any language.

Middle East Revolutions: Everybody Wins - Al Qaeda Says It's Good News

2011-03-30T06:56:00.001-05:00

Al-Qaeda hails "Tsunami of change" in Middle East

Western and Arab officials say the example set by young Arabs seeking peaceful political change is a counterweight to al-Qaeda's push for violent militancy and weakens its argument that democracy and Islam are incompatible.

But Yemeni-U.S. cleric Anwar al-Awlaki argues , in an article published online on Tuesday entitled The "Tsunami of Change", that the revolutions are good news for Islamic extremists and said the removal of anti-Islamist autocrats meant Islamic fighters and scholars were now freer to discuss and organize.

This comes as no surprise from those in the west who have been saying that the potential for Islamists to emerge as a controlling power or major influence in politics and culture in the Middle East is all but assured.

The issue is whether these populations will succumb or be forced to adhere. In reality, the Salafi Wahabi strain of Islam is Islam's and, to a greater extent, the Arab's problem to resolve. Salafis v., for instance, Egyptian Muslims, it is a war between modern Islam and regressive Islam. The United States and the West, however much they are attacked, are the side show.

From the outset, Al Qaeda's goal, formulated by their Salafi Wahabi ideology, has been to force Muslims to choose between Dar al Islam (the house of peace; within "correct Islam" as they see it) and Dar al Harb (the house of war; outside of Islam). While the original intent was to establish the geographic boundaries of Islamic controlled states v. other states, Al Qaeda and it's fellow travelers have gone even further to suggest that Dar al Harb includes Muslims who are not "Islamic" enough (do not follow Salafi practices).

This is one of the reasons that Al Qaeda and it's fellow travelers feel that they have a free hand in attacking and killing Muslims. If they are outside of Dar al Islam (bad Muslims), they are bad Muslims or kufar or takfiri who deserve to be punished. If they are "good Muslims" that die as collateral damage, then they, as martyrs, are assured an eternal life of pleasure in paradise.

The other issue is that Salafis believe they have a right and an obligation to enforce Islamic law by force or "Hisbah". That is what appears to be going on some areas of Egypt where Salafis reportedly broke into a home and accused a local woman of being a prostitute as well as harassed women on the street. They have also protested outside of a Christian Church and recently tried to enforce their ideology in a local village outside of Cairo where an armed conflict broke out after the Salafis tried to shut down liquor stores and coffee shops. Obviously, the locals are not going to follow along quietly.

For Salafis, the reason that Muslim's have fallen from grace is the presence of outside influence, largely western, in the Muslim Arab world. Obviously, since the Qu'ran is the infallible word of Allah and Mohammed the Rightly Guided Prophet, then Islam itself is blameless and no Muslims can be faulted for this decline except that they are tempted as all men are from the grace of Allah. It has to be some greater evil. The west becomes, in essence, the scape goat for all of the ills the Salafis find.

This evil is not just political or military, it is commercial in nature since every western product is imbued somehow with these ideas and is subversive by nature. Aside from attempting to degrade the United States' economy as the driver for it's military power, the attack's on 9/11 were aimed at the World Trade Center was basically a two for one event. Not only did it hope to impact the amount of money the US would have to support it's military, but it would also severely hamper the ability to export these bad influences on the Muslim world.

In that moment, of course, their over all goal was to provoke the US into an act of aggression against Muslim's in general that would force Muslim's to decide whether they are Dar al Islam or Dar al Harb. In essence, Muslims would have to take sides. In their eyes, Muslims had to choose between being "rightly guided" by Salafi principles or be forcefully converted or die. The struggle, as they see it, to convince Muslims of their "correct path" is on going.

Now Al Awlaki says that the Salafis have been given an "in" by the presence of democracy and the ideas of free speech (ideas that, if they were in charge, would go right out the window). This is true. However, as he points out, these things tend to work both ways. Now, whatever the Salafis say can be countered, in the open, in majority Muslim country. They get a chance to make their case, but they can also be rejected.

Of course, the Salafis and Al Qaeda types do not take well to being rejected. The likelihood of Muslims coming under even more violent attacks rises with every step a Muslim state takes away from rejecting democracy and and away from accepting Salafi Islam. The war then returns full circle from where it was born and Muslims will be, once again, on the front lines in both the ideological and physical war.

Egypt and Democracy: Political Parties to the Left, Political Parties to the Right, Egyptian's Stuck in the Middle Again

2011-03-30T05:24:00.001-05:00

The political situation in Egypt is shaping up to be a "Night of a 1000 Parties".

SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces - Egypt) has made several announcements. The first was the provisions for the creation of political parties. The amendment to the laws is actually fairly liberal. First, it takes away the provision that parties can only be formulated if their platforms differ from any existing party. This one rule alone was used by the Political Activities Committee to disqualify numerous parties from coming to exist. Other rules are being discussed. Such as the PAC will now be an independent body made up largely of the judiciary, with three judges at the head as opposed to the previous committee that was completely made up of Mubarek appointees that included the Interior Minister and various others.

There is concerns that the rule requiring 5,000 signatures/members across ten of the twenty nine Egyptian governorates. Several groups are concerned that this is an impossible burden to meet. Even the MB has issued a statement suggesting that this is an unnecessary limitation.

There is an obvious calculation here that is not necessarily bad, even as some Egyptians see it as limiting their political activities. For the MB, having a hundred parties vying for the 70% of the seats they won't control, would be a gift from heaven. Particularly as any individuals or small parties will be insistent on maintaining their own identities and affiliations.

For SCAF, this may be about helping out the NDP by reducing the field they would have to compete with, but it is more likely a calculation to force the multiple competing parties to form two to four major parties. Two to four major parties are easier to manage than twenty. On the other hand, forcing the liberals, leftists, socialist workers and national socialists to form a few representative parties actually would help them campaign and obtain enough seats to create a real secular opposition block in parliament.

There are questions coming from several members about the rule requiring the party to publish "the founding members" names in "two widely circulated" papers. One activists suggests that this requires all 5,000 member's names in two papers would cost over LE 2 million (appx $400k US). This seems to need clarification as the intent of the law seems to have been to publish the "founders" or heads of the parties.

The new amendment prohibits the creation of "religious parties" and expressly forbids discrimination based on gender, origin (ie, European decent, etc), religion or creed. This seems to be a direct blow to the Muslim Brotherhood who put in a petition to form the Freedom and Justice Party, stating that no member of the MB can form or join another party along with it's political platform that states it against women or Christian's for president of Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood continues to experience internal fractures. A former member of the Guidance council has resigned and will form his own party, Nahdat Masr after rumors abounded that Abouel was planning to form a party from within the MB, insisting that the MB's rules that members could only join the MB's Freedom and Justice Party was incorrect. Apparently, the current guidance council prevailed and Abouel Fotouh resigned in protest.

Among other issues facing the Brotherhood is the disenchantment of the MB Youth with the stagnant MB elderly leadership. The younger members contend that the old rules should be re-evaluated including allowing women a more prominent role in leadership roles. There is also considerable discussion about whether the MB should be forming a party at all since the organization has "loftier goals" of educating Muslims internationally on the right practice of Islam which would be compromised by the MB's participation in politics.

This seems to be a polite way of suggesting that the old guard is out of step with the new reality of the young, liberal Islamists who went on to suggest that the new guidance council for the MB should be divided up proportionately with a percentage for the "youth", for women and for those "over 65" since the youth and women make up the majority of the party. This is also a rather polite suggestion that the old men are, frankly, too old to be leading, at least, alone, in the new reality of democracy.

To which the Muslim Brotherhood responded, "conference, what conference?" The Muslim Brotherhood did not have a conference on Saturday, March 27. A clear suggestion that these MB Youth were outside of the MB and had no significant role or impact on the organization.

In a cynical move meant to comply with the recent law against political parties, the leader of the MB "invites Copts to join" the Freedom and Justice Party. The party's council is apparently still meeting to formulate the final platform, probably in an attempt to eradicate any parts of the platform that do not comply with the law. Whether any Copts will actually feel welcome in the party is another question.

The Christian Copts had announced the formation of their own "secular" party in early March, Free National Coalition party. The Coptic church says it will not recognize any religious party claiming to represent only Coptic Christians as this would promote sectarianism. A spokesman for the FNCP pointed out that their party was open to anyone to join and that the head of their party was a Muslim legal expert.

Meanwhile, the "more Islamist than the Brotherhood" groups are beginning to appear. One such group is the banned "Islamic-oriented Labor Party" whose leader Magdi Hussein is declaring himself a candidate for president because, in his words, no one else actually meets the criteria set by the new amendments (ie, Egyptian, born of two Egyptians, married to an Egyptian, etc, etc, etc). The Salafis, Jamaa'a al Islamiya and al Jihad groups are discussing participating in politics, even as the leader of Jamaa'a al Islamiya has indicated he is stepping down.

Jamaa'a al Islamiya (white washed somewhat in this article), is the group that sponsored Sadat's assassination and is the ideological group that Ayman al Zawahiri joined after leaving the Muslim Brotherhood. The group was smashed by Mubarek's regime, imprisoned and tortured, leading them to change their stance from violent jihad to political while al Jihad's transition has been more cosmetic. They are still on the "list" as a terrorist sponsoring organizations in the US.

Else where, the Salafis are beginning to make their presence visible. Salafi groups confronted members of the CYR (Coalition of Youth Revolutionaries) March 25 at a rally to commemorate the martyrs of the revolution in Alexandria. Sunday, March 28, Salafi activists handed out anti-democracy fliers, urging people to "Be a Salifi" and reject a government of men and man's law over God's law. On the internet, a young activist claimed via tweet that the Salafis had "taken over Alexandria".

In response to these party formations, the NAC (National Association for Change) that is El Baradei's support organization, called for a "coalition against 'religionizing' politics". They are asking all liberal groups to put aside any minor differences and form a larger liberal party.

The Liberal parties are beginning to see the light.

In a press conference Tuesday evening, the Egyptian Democratic Party announced its merger with the Liberal Egyptian Party to form a new party called the Egyptian Social Democratic Party.
Expressing the need for separate secular parties to unite, Amr Hamzawy, political analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called on the country’s secular liberal groups to follow suit.

However, they are trying to reform their argument for a "secular state" as one that does not threaten Egypt's Islamic religious "order".

“The word secular needs to be properly defined and should represent what it really is. It [secularism] does not oppose religious views condoned by Egypt’s current political order.” “Instead of saying this party wants a secular state, it should be said that it has a desire for an Egypt that includes all Egyptians.”

Through out this process, the CYR (Coalition of Youth Revolutionaries) are actively discussing politics, but are resisting forming a party from within as the coalition is made up of youth from every different organization. They maintain that their coalition has loftier goals and wishes to keep the attention on the aims of the Revolution such as the removal of all hold outs from the Mubarek regime, the creation of a new constitution and the assurance of political rights.

Al Wafd and Al Ghad, the two oldest liberal parties, have announced that they will become partners with the Democratic Front in order to win the most seats possible in the upcoming parliament elections, but then the partnership will be dissolved after the elections. This is another example of the liberal parties trying to hold on to their own identities even in the face of a potentially solid block from the MB.

It is unclear if they understand exactly how parliament will work and the dangers of presenting multiple fronts that can be exploited by any larger block whether that is the remnants of the NDP, the MB or the socialist labor block. It is also unclear how they expect to obtain voter loyalty when they have already announced that any cooperation will go out the window once the elections are over. This may play well to their base, but it will thwart any wider attempts to obtain votes.

They may be counting on a change in the parliamentary election structure. SCAF will be announcing the new constitutional process sometime today or Thursday. According to some sources, the elections may change from voting for one candidate to represent one district to proportional seating of candidates. Proportional seating means that each party will be allotted a number of seats to fill based on the percentage of over all votes it achieves in the elections. The participating parties would provide a list of candidates, very likely to require distributional candidacies. For instance, 25% must be women and they must be every fourth candidate on the list. Candidates listed from one to a hundred would then be seated in the order they appear on the list.

This could be a boon for the liberal parties as most of their constituency resides in the larger urban areas such as Cairo, Alexandria and Egypt. While the Brotherhood is more represented in the boroughs and conservative rural areas where the population is thinner However, this would also be a major change to Egypt's current election system and one that, in the past, was rejected as not consistent with the existing constitution. On the other hand, it is widely believed that SCAF will be making an announcement that basically discards the old 1971 constitution, per the demands of the revolution, and lays down interim laws and regulations for guiding government institutions and elections until the new parliament is seated and the constitution is written.

The left and labor movements are not to be left out. While groups like Arpil 6 Youth Movement seem to sticking with el Baradei. A group called the Popular Alliance has emerged from the merger of several leftist, socialist parties. The aims of the group are to create a party that would be acceptable to both the workers' parties and the "intelligensia".

This may be the move that other labor parties have to make as the new law governing parties also prohibits discrimination based on "class". One leader argued that this precluded labor parties from participating as all of the members would be "working class". The issue is not what the make up turns out to be based on those who flock to it on its platform, but whether any party has by laws that prohibit anyone else from joining the party such as non-union members.

In other news, Taggamu, the Democratic Peaple's Union Party, is seeing a number of defections, even as it seeks to consolidate it's position as the leader of a heavy union presence in Egypt. Many have resigned from the party due to Refaat al Saeed's association with the old NDP. Taggamu was widely seen as giving too many concessions to the Mubarek regime to end the last serious strikes.

The Communists has come out of the dark. How big their party is, is questionable.

Finally, as to be expected, there are numerous reports that former NDP are stepping forward claiming that they supported the aims of the Jan 25 Revolution. These claims are being viewed with a jaundice eye as several of those stepping forward held rather high positions. Ignoring the possibility that he will be indicted with the rest of his family or former presiding ministers of the regime, Gamaal Mubarek supporters come out of the wood work to announce their own party,"al-Sahwa al-Arabiya (The Arab Renaissance)". The party is not only nationalist, but is unabashedly Pan Arabist, even in the face of Egypt's current desire to focus on its own problems.

Egypt's next election cycle is shaping up to be one of the most interesting and, possibly the most important, any country has seen in recent decades. While Tunisia is going the slow route, writing it's constitution before going for elections, Egypt is rushing forward to pave the way.

Egypt and Democracy: Why the Muslim Brotherhood Is Supporting El Baradei for President

2011-03-28T08:57:00.000-05:00

While there is yet to be an official report on the matter, according to the rumor mill on twitter, it is believed that the Muslim Brotherhood will throw it's support behind El Baradei in the upcoming presidential elections.

Viewers in the west won't be surprised. From the outset, El Baradei has appeared to be the Muslim Brotherhood's front man. The smiling, nonthreatening face of liberality and psuedo-western attitude and political knowledge that the Brotherhood wanted to use to belay the idea that the revolution and the MB were a threat to the west.

In Egypt, El Baradei had two more roles. For the "revolutionary youth" he served as a rally point. Someone who said all the right things about democracy, freedom and Egypt's future as a free state. El Baradei is intelligent and capable, a "deep thinker" that appeals to Egypt's middle class, educated youth. Others have viewed him as a "Johnny Come Lately", an opportunist who had spent the last ten years in and out of Egypt, like a tourist, while they were the ones who suffered under Mubarek's regime.

It is difficult to assess El Baradei's true position. He continues to speak "above the noise" talking about democracy in Egypt, even as some supporters express concerns that he is still to detached from the Egyptians on the street. In an odd split from the MB's support of El Baradei, the MB went on the record as supporting the amendments to the Constitution in the March 19 referendum even as El Baradei rejected the amendments and the rush to elections.

He stated that the political parties in Egypt needed time to organize and present candidates. Many of the "revolutionary youth" supported this approach, fearful that the only parties organized and funded well enough to contest the upcoming elections successfully were the remains of the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood. Regardless of their objections, the referendum was passed by an overwhelming 77% 'yes'.

Now the Muslim Brotherhood is apparently considering El Baradei as their candidate of choice for President. Some of El Baradei's liberal secular supporters wonder if the MB is trying to sabotage El Baradei's chances by peeling off liberal secular supporters. That is probably not the MB's calculation.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been playing very smart politics throughout the revolution and post Mubarek regime, even as it has seen some internal struggles to define and move the party forward. It remained in the background as a whole organization even as the MB Youth went into the streets with the revolutionaries. To some this appeared that the MB was hedging it's bets against the possibility that the revolution would fail. The loss of some of it's young members would have been hailed as the participation of martyrs in the eternal struggle even as the MB attempted to negotiate with the ailing Mubarek regime.

In the end, the revolution prevailed and the MB was able to denounce these conferences as individuals taking their own initiative. The MB as a whole did not even appear in the streets until the revolution had been assured ascendency.

It is this ability to play to more than one side while finding their own path to power that puts them behind El Baradei. The only other viable candidate at this time is Amr Moussa, previously Egypt's ambassador to the Arab League. When he re-appeared in Egypt, there were many reports that his posting to the League had been a move by Mubarek to distance a potential trouble maker and reformist from the NDP and presidency. Others disagree, insisting that Amr Moussa is still a stalwart NDP man and connected to the Mubarek Regime. The MB would be hung out to dry by it's opposition in the revolution if they showed any real attachment to Moussa.

Moussa's support seems to come from the part of Egypt that is wary of the radical shift in politics and the instability caused by the revolution. They seem to be looking for a familiar face who has some idea what it means to work with other countries in the region and garner support.

Aym Nour is far too liberal and has the taint of a conviction against him, even as he wears it as a badge of honor, insisting that he was a victim of political jury rigging. Batawasy, a judge and a known reformist who was mildly persecuted by the previous regime, seems to be the choice of the intelligentsia. He is a high minded individual who speaks in very broad terms. His focus in general has been the reformation of the judiciary as an independent body. A noble and necessary step on a subject that has concerned many Egyptians that saw the judiciary as nothing but a puppet of the regime.

However, this is not the stuff a presidential bid. In fact, his focus and position as a judge who has made a career of the law may make him a danger to the MB as much as or more so than Moussa. It would be likely that Batawasy would attempt to insure the presidency remained within the letter of any law of the constitution proscribing the president's powers and those of the Assembly when signing any law into being or using the presidential powers to enforce any law.

El Baradei is much less dangerous to the MB. First, the main coalition supporting him is disorganized and politically weak. Their ability to capture any significant numbers of seats in the parliament is questionable by the MB's standards as well as analysts in the west. For any presidency to be strong enough to resist potentially popular, but detrimental laws, he would need a good base of support in the Assembly and Shura counsel. Enough support that they would be able to soften or modify any laws presented by the MB before they came to his desk and forced him to either make an unpopular decision to veto it or forced him to fall in line with the populists to the detriment of Egypt.

The MB's assessment of El Baradei's political weakness is not only a matter of his disorganized support, but the outcome of the referendum. El Baradei called not only for a 'no' vote, but was asking for an entirely different procedure to be in place for the interim government and writing of the constitution. A process that would have given the liberal/secular groups at least an equal power to formulate the document and the future law of the land. El Baradei's voice was practically drowned out in the cacophony of joyous rush to the polls. To the Brotherhood, this would be a sign that El Baradei does not enjoy popular support. At least, not without them behind him. Without support in the assembly nor popular support in the greater body politic of Egypt, El Baradei's term as president would be incredibly weak.

Second, without strong, liberal allies in the assembly, El Baradei would be much more open to persuasion. Due to the nature of the previous regime and the power of the presidency, a power that remains intact until the constitution is written, El Baradei would be much more likely to limit his use of presidential powers. There would be no decrees that would thwart the MB's plans. The presidency under El Baradei in the interim period would be considerably weaker than the power of the Assembly. Especially, if El Baradei was reluctant to use even the balancing power of the veto.

Worse, El Baradei has no real connections to the military. The military, for better or worse, are playing the role of the broker in Egypt's nascent democracy. For now, possibly for the future, the military represents the real power structure in Egypt. Without allies in the military, El Baradei would find himself caught between a rock and a hard place. A position that would likely find him leaning towards the Brotherhood for support, strengthening their position.

Third, the interim period of governing and creating a workable constitution will be messy and dangerous. The person that sets on top of this process is not likely to be viewed as a savior by anybody at the end. The process is going to require compromise and caution, neither of which any part of the Egyptian polity is very willing to accept if the 'yes' vote on the referendum is any measure to go by. That will make even the most adroit politician practically unelectable for the next presidential election.

El Baradei may be the candidate most likely to help push the constitution along and achieve "unity" for the Egyptian people. The issue here is that, in the end, he will likely be seen as an obstructionist by the Islamist/MB camp and a sell out by those who supported him because he compromised on an issue near and dear to their hearts.

The Muslim Brotherhood is playing politics like the very old hands that they are. They know that the election to win today is the upcoming vote for assembly representatives. The next assembly will write the constitution. All of Egypt's future laws will flow from this document. It will set the tone for Egypt's political future for decades to come. It will also be the document that lays out the powers of the various branches and offices of government.

In the future, the role of the president may be greatly inhibited by this document. That reduction in power would be likely supported by the people who are justifiably leery of a single person having too much power. If Iraq and other parliamentary governments emerging from dictatorship are anything to go by, most of the power granted by the constitution is likely to fall into the hands of the assembly and the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister is not elected separately, but is chosen by whatever party or coalition of parties is able to constitute a governing majority out of the elected assembly members. If the MB is calculating right, they likely believe that they will either have this majority in hand or will have enough of a presence to form a coalition with several weaker parties, even Salafists or leftists, who will be in no position to field a candidate for approval from the assembly nor be able to thwart the MB's selection.

Once the writing for the constitution is achieved, the presidency will likely be a non-issue. A position that the MB might not even attempt to obtain as it will get much of the country's umbrage and very few perks. They will then be secure in their positions in the Assembly, always forming at least part of the governing coalition, close to the seat of prime minister and filling numerous cabinets with the power to control the apparatus of government along with making the laws.

In the end, if the Muslim Brotherhood announces their full support of El Baradei for the presidency, it won't be because they see him as an "honest broker", but because he is the least dangerous to their aspirations.

In the end, the liberal/secular focus on the presidency instead of the assembly elections will be their down fall. The presidency will mean nothing without adequate support in the assembly and definition by the new constitution. This will not be an all powerful presidency ruling over the assembly, but a presidency that is either subservient to the will of the assembly or, if the position has a stroke of luck, an equal partner, depending on how the constitution is written.

Any hopes of a truly free and equitable Egypt with a limited Islamic bent will depend not on the presidency, but on the first parliamentary elections for the People's Assembly. The first parliament writes the constitution. After that, it will be a matter of Egyptians trying to live under those rules for a very long time.

American Foreign Policy: Kaplan Right and Wrong on Morality in Foreign Policy

2011-03-28T05:46:00.000-05:00

Robert Kaplan wrote a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that hit some right notes on Foreign Policy, but also broke loose a few stinkers. The Middle East Crisis Just Begun.

The good:

Our most important national-security resource is the time that our top policy makers can devote to a problem, so it is crucial to avoid distractions. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the fragility of Pakistan, Iran's rush to nuclear power, a possible Israeli military response—these are all major challenges that have not gone away. This is to say nothing of rising Chinese naval power and Beijing's ongoing attempt to Finlandize much of East Asia.

To his he adds:

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power.

This is reasonably true. He goes on to list out or recent interventions in the Balkans, etc and why Libya intervention doesn't hurt the US and giving up leadership in that role leaves us free to concentrate on our other problems. He does not list out any activities prior to the 90's as if Fukuyama was correct and it was, indeed, the end of history when the USSR fell. However, it is part of our foreign policy history that, during this time, the US made most of it's decisions on who to support under the aegis of "bad and worse". Worse, during the Cold War, was always Communism. Therefore, the US made it it's business to support anyone who was not Communist, despite the fact that many regimes were definitely oppressive and autocratic.

What the US understood at the time was "help yourself, before you can help others". The US had to survive as the strongest free nation, however it could, or it would be unable to support or defend any other free nations, much less the United States. It did support freedom and democracy where it could, but, when it came down to a choice between populations where Soviet influence was strong or attempting to enter and a ruling dictator that could be influenced by the West, the US would choose the dictator.

The 90's, as Kaplan points out, was about maintaining the "status quo". That the US does better where the world is stable, even if half of it is controlled by tin pot dictators. Investment capital, imports and exports flow, keeping the US economy and GDP rising at a steady pace. This was important, per Kaplan, because the USSR did not represent the last enemy of the United States. Hence his discourse on Iran, China and the ever growling Bear of Russia.

However, this is where Kaplan begins to advocate for the "status quo" as the best hope for the United States to remain on top and not dragged down into every event that represents some form of democracy. He points out that democracy (democrateyya) in Pakistan would be a crazy idea, as if anyone was advocating that the land of the Taliban and their various fellow travelers, replete with nuclear weapons, was a candidate for real freedom and democracy.

No one has been calling for democracy, inside or out of Pakistan for Pakistan. Not even the revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia or the burgeoning event in Syria. Even these democracy minded people don't believe that democracy is what Pakistan would get should military rule disintegrate. That is a red herring and Mr. Kaplan is wise enough to know that. Yemen is the great unknown. The US knows that Saleh was basically a career criminal keeping all the other career criminals and jihadists down on the farm. That does not mean that there are not some forces inside of Yemen who are not criminals and jihadists.

There has been a long standing low key civil war with inter-tribal conflict as a highlight. Democracy, whatever its form, is likely to be short lived. That is if it can remain a single state at all. The likelihood of Yemen becoming "Balkanized", breaking up into small states with hostiles in the north and south going into internecine civil war, is all but inevitable. Interesting that Kaplan suggests that the US "stay the course" and not intervene on anyone's behalf. As if the US was interested in doing so.

His point worth repeating here is:

We should not kid ourselves. In foreign policy, all moral questions are really questions of power.

If Yemen goes awry, it would become a hostile neighbor to the Saudi's south and a point of serious problems for trade routes as well as oil distribution in the region. The problem here is that the US actually has few options. It can't really support Saleh in the degree that he would require to stay in power and there are no powerful alternatives that we would like to see in place such as any liberal force in the body politic.

This isn't a question of morality v. power or morality v. status quo. This is an issue of reality that the US is going to have to come to grips with, regardless of the outcome. The same must be said of Saudi Arabia. This is an example of Mr. Kaplan's argument, but hardly states the case for an over all US foreign policy.

The problem is Mr. Kaplan's main point. That the US should, in fact, maintain whatever status quo exists in the Middle East in the face of the Iranian problem and the growing Chinese and Russian problems. He misses several key factors.

Starting with the revolutions, with or without the US, these initiatives were going forward. The US did not start them nor have a hand in them directly. Indirectly, constant interaction with the US and other western nations is bound to have an effect on how people see their own situations and, to paraphrase the president, formulate their own aspirations. Directly, the deposition of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the struggling, though still existent democracy there, put the idea into the people of the region's minds that dictators were not really the all powerful, indestructible, all controlling entities over any people unless the people allowed them to be.

Not to drift off into any ideological meanderings, but the founders of the United States were correct when they pointed out that government comes from the people, even despotic forms, and that people will suffer them as the only form of government they know so long as those "evils" are sufferable. It isn't a new strain of thought. It is that vision writ large when we see any popular revolt, much less ones that are calling for real government by the people in the form of a democracy.

It means that the vaunted "status quo" is only the "status quo" so long as the people in any form of majority go along with it. That means clearly that the US trying to hold on to the status quo does not make itself stronger, but puts itself in a weak position, unwilling and unable to contend with a rapidly changing world. An idea that is woefully ironic considering that the idea of a free people with a free market and free ideas are better suited to responding rapidly to any changes within and without.

Worse, it may be framing the US in the same position we framed the USSR all those decades ago. A power set on maintaining tyrannies all over the world for the sole benefit of maintaining the United State's position at the top of the world. A position that would not be so threatened if the United State's internal policies were not possibly more detrimental to the great "engine of democracy" than it's foreign policy.

Second, for some reason, beyond a brief mention of Al Qaida, Mr. Kaplan skips completely over the events of September 11, 2001. As if to say that event was not a policy changing event or that we should not recognize that it is the Salafist Wahabi teachings of the Saudi Kingdom's pet religious projects internally and abroad that brought about that event. Nor are we to imagine that as a real threat. As if to brush off that event and the problem of our on going association with the Saudis as inconsequential to the greater problem's facing the US today. The worst is that Mr. Kaplan does not even begin to imagine that these terrorist organizations are, in fact, proxies in many degrees of all of those other "larger" threats the US faces.

The rise of this theocratic ideology and it's spread through out the Middle East in conjunction with the Iranian version and the ongoing attempts to take down the control of the Pakistani military government to obtain access to it's arsenal makes it a threat equal to or more imperative than the other three threats. That means that it is imperative for the United States to have a foreign policy that directly counters that ideology. It cannot be war alone. Neither does the support of authoritarian states crush the ideology. It formed full and well beneath the umbrellas of these regimes, regardless of their attempts to crush it.

The single largest threat that the Salafist Wahabi strain of ideology identified to its existence was the spread of freedom and democracy. It is the most powerful threat against any oppressive or authoritarian regime. Every enemy of the United States and free nations around the world identifies it and knows it. It is difficult to comprehend how Mr. Kaplan fails to do the same.

Third, Mr. Kaplan seems to have donned a pair of blinders to the truth of history. Democracy and freedom have been on the rise for decades. The number of states that have risen to throw off dictatorships and tyrannical states to become, in fact, functioning democracies, has increased, not decreased. It is difficult to accept, under that premise alone, that the US should do anything (or nothing as he would have it) to maintain the status quo. Particularly as it is the rise of these states that has provided markets for US products and allies along the way. The challenge here would be for Mr. Kaplan to explain how that has been detrimental to the United States.

Fourth, in that same vein, it was the stated US policy during the Cold War that defense of democracy and freedom abroad meant the extended defensive line for the United States instead of a United States alone and under siege within it's own borders. When it comes to the issue of Iran, Mr. Kaplan seems to insist that all of these impending democracies, such as Egypt, and any changes in countries bordering Saudi Arabia, makes all of those states weaker against Iranian influence and outright hegemony.

The problem with that analysis is the assumption that a democratic Egypt, or instance, would not have it's own national interests to protect. Interests that align more directly with the US and the West in general than with Iran's plan for the Middle East. It also ignores the possibility of Egypt rising as it's own center of influence on the region, against Iranian attempts at influence. Even as a democracy.

No one in Egypt, in act, is calling on the Iranians to help them establish their democracy or invest in their country. Not the MB, the socialists or the liberals. They are not calling for the Chinese to come and help them. Even if, as Mr. Kaplan supposes, these events play into China's hand by the US acting in these events and giving the Chinese direct access, it is incorrect to believe that supporting freedom and democracy as opposed to maintaining dictatorships and authoritarian regimes makes the US weak.

The point here is that, if these democracy movements are tethered to the natural inclination of people to be free and have a voice in their government instead of bought and sold dictatorships, it pushes the boundaries of freedom out. Those types of democracies are by nature western leaning. By fiat, it reduces the boundaries that the Chinese, Russian's and Iranians can ever hope to become a direct or controlling influence because in real democracies, the people are not interested in living in or supporting the types of authoritarian, theological or oligarchic regimes these nations represent.

Mr. Kaplan's main point, that foreign policy is about power and not morality is only partially true. When morality supports the position of power, ie the spread of freedom and democracy makes free nations stronger, then it seems entirely immoral and detrimental, even to a utilitarian foreign policy supported by Mr. Kaplan, to accept the stats quo as the United States' best interest in foreign policy.

Egypt and Democracy: Old Men Tired of Playing Democracy

2011-03-24T10:53:00.002-05:00

Apparently, the "old men" in the "new" Egyptian Cabinet appointed by the military are tired of playing "democracy". In a move that stunned many of the revolutionaries, the Cabinet issued a law, under the still existing "emergency law", banning protests, threatening up to seven years in prison and 500kLE (Egyptian Pounds) equal to approximately $100k US.

The ban is apparently a response to all of the on going protests, a new feature in Egypt's daily life, along with the threat of another massive protest on Friday. The many protests around the country include students at GUC (German University of Cairo) demanding an independent student union as well as at Mansour University and Cairo University. Most are demanding the deans and administrative staff step down because they were appointed by Mubarek and students believe they are complicit in corruption. Also, students believed that the administration had been complicit in fixing student elections.

Further, it appears that the Cairo University had shut down the female dormitories 'for their own safety". The male and female students were demanding that they be re-opened. This may have been an attempt to begin segregating education (a rumor that has been going around for several weeks). Classes at the university had been suspended and the students demanded that they resume. The Minister of Education appeared at Cairo University on March 8 and insisted the students demands would be met. It is unclear whether these demands were actually met. Students continued to protest, but were "detained" and "dispersed" late Wednesday, March 23 by the military after the ban was in place.

Earlier in the day, police protested for better wages and health care in front of the Interior Ministry Building. Early Wednesday morning the Interior Ministry caught fire. Early reports suggested that the protesting police were throwing molotov cocktails, but other media reports and eyewitnesses refuted the report. The fire had broken out on the fifth floor of the building and spread to the eighth. New reports suggest that there may have been a wiring problem in the air conditioning unit, while other reports suggest that employees set the fire. A prosecutor is investigating.

There are multiple rumors that this fire was set deliberately to destroy information. The floors that were burned contained the ministries' department for personnel records.

At the same time, the Egyptian exchange opened and dropped 10% in 10 minutes. The exchange was closed for half an hour then re-opened to stabilize though the Egyptian pound continued to drop against the dollar (now at 5.67LE to $1) and Egypt Air posted a whopping 700 million LE (appx $1.2mil) due to "continuing unrest and earthquake in Japan".

The cabinet may believe that the new law on protesting anywhere that "disrupts business and public life" will help "stabilize" the country to improve the economy and re-assure investors. The cabinet may also feel that it has received some form of approval or mandate from the overwhelming approval of the referendum on Saturday, March 19.

The Jan25 Youth Coalition is calling for a new protest on Friday:

In a statement on Thursday, the coalition said protesters will demonstrate their solidarity with the "assaulted university students and to support workers against intimidation attempts through the use of repressive laws, which should have been used to bring those truly corrupt to justice."

The coalition said the new law is "a serious indicator of a political direction that will act as a barrier against any real democracy, which the people have the right to practice.”

The development of the law banning protests is interesting. It does seem to state some form of western ideas on protesting that suggests that protesters cannot block roads or business right aways, at least, not without a permit. The Egyptian law does not seem to provide a method to obtain a legal permit to protest though law under the previous regime did provide for a permit process. Most of those permits were denied so most Egyptians wanting to protest ignored the process.

While the law seems to suggest that the ruling council or the cabinet (old men) are growing impatient with the continuing turmoil, it also appears that they are somewhat (or very) out of step with the idea of democracy. In this case, protesting as a form of "free speech" is a feature, not a bug. Lucky for Egypt, the protests have almost all been relatively non-violent. The Egyptian people have, for the most part, taken to it like a duck on water.

While the protests might be annoying to some, most of them are causing very little interruption of the larger on going life of the cities and nation. Frankly, based on the foreign coverage of the situation, there is less concern with the protests and more concern with the political process. A type of "wait and see if it is really democracy" with big dollops of hope overlaid with a giant portion of skepticism.

With the stock exchange coming back on line yesterday after seven weeks shut down, the losses seem to be less about perceived instability and more about market adjustment after weeks of being closed. A clue that the cabinet in charge has no real concept about how an economy works and has misinterpreted it's potential future improvement or crash. In fact, several reports indicate that investment in Egypt is going forward. At least on the tech side where a major company has purchased an Egypt based tech on the grounds that obviously the very large youth population is getting into tech in a big way.

In this case, the "old men" have apparently over played their hands, potentially causing more protests and "instability" instead of calming the situation. That seems to indicate that they aren't all that far removed from Mubarek's regime who tried to quail the protests by cutting off the internet and, instead, issued a form of challenge. Now that the revolutionaries have issued their own challenge, everyone will be in a "wait and see" position for their response.

It doesn't appear to be long in coming. Today they issued a statement accepting the amendment to the election laws regarding establishing a political party that seems to actually be very liberal. It still denies political parties established on religion, but it insists that these parties cannot discriminate based on gender, "origin, language, religion or creed". This has been another demand of the revolution.

The religious context seems to be a slap at the Muslim Brotherhood who are attempting to establish the "Freedom and Justice Party", but says that the members must be part of the MB. Obviously, the MB only accepts Muslims. That is an interesting conundrum.

However, the MB has other problems indicating some smaller groups are splintering off as predicted even as the MB begins to field it's parliamentary candidates. It is unclear how they will field these candidates if their party does not meet the new/old guidelines regarding membership. On the other hand, the revolutionaries are talking about protesting while the MB is already preparing for the elections. Strangely though, the cabinet's ban on protesting may have given the revolutionaries a second chance at re-engaging the public about civil rights, reasons for the revolution and the ability to re-confirm some alliances to begin their political process for the up coming elections.

Elections that have become vitally important to the writing of a new constitution. A new constitution that is now assured by the Supreme Council's guarantee that the old constitution will be thrown out and a completely new one written, disregarding the laws that are in place now to insure the political process going forward.

What is extremely bizarre is to watch this back and forth, one minute rushing towards democracy, the next going totally in the opposite direction.

Egypt and Democracy: Winning the Revolution, Losing the Political Battle - Organization

2011-03-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

Now that they've won the revolution (so to speak), what do the revolutionaries need to do? Many realize that they must coalesce into some form of political party to contest the elections, but there is a difference between organizing a revolution and organizing a political movement. There is a big difference between being the revolutionary and governing a state. In a democracy, the popular leader of a revolt may get the first votes in a free election, but it doesn't mean they will survive (politically or physically) to the next election.

What if you have a revolution and no one can claim to be the leader? What if you have a revolution whose main, universal objectives are to over throw the current government and allow open elections?

Basically, they end up where they are now. The most organized political forces own he political battle field and the liberals are wondering what to do next.

Part of the problem is that a main body of the revolution is still acting like revolutionaries. Probably because they do not see the revolution as "won" since the military is still in control and the people appointed to the cabinet are either nominal members of the previous regime or distantly connected to its old apparatus. Further, they see the existence of the old party of the old regime has not been dismantled and the constitution that they believed was the tool of that old system effectively remains in place. Note their demands:

1. The trial of all of the former regime’s corrupt officials and those responsible for deaths during the revolution.
2. Dissolving the former ruling National Democratic Party and confiscating its assets.
3. Dissolving local councils and removing their governors.

That is only their top three. All of them could be achieved once these groups gain political power in the assembly, but they are not the reasons why people will elect representatives to the new parliament.

From the perspective of the current situation, they are going down the wrong path. The Egyptian people have voted overwhelmingly to accept new constitutional amendments. Largely on the basis of hoping to get to the new democratic process sooner rather than later. In doing so, they have set the wheel in motion for the next parliamentary elections. Those elected to parliament will then select/elect 100 members to either write a new constitution or reform the old.

The revolutionaries believe that the process should have been different. Select representatives to write a new constitution then elect parliamentary representatives based on the new laws. It is a procedural issue, but one they believe will allow the many parts of Egypt's newly minted democrats the opportunity to participate in building this constitution where as they fear that groups like the Muslim Brotherhood will have an overwhelming power to shape the constitution.

That is the potential as the MB is set to win a number of seats in parliament. They have recently upgraded their potential for gaining seats from 30% to 35% or more. In fact, they are already acting like the party in power by pronouncing that they will not "maintain an exclusive role". Some believe that this is the Muslim Brotherhood still trying to allay the fears of the more secular organizations and citizens. Never the less, the fact that they issued this statement indicates that they recognize their power in the face of a disorganized opposition.

There are an untold number of organizations, loose groups and individuals who represent the more liberal or secular part of the new opposition. That is the recognition that the liberals must come to realize. The political field is shifted. This is no longer a unified Revolution with all parties supporting a short list of demands to get to a new form of government. In fact, the fissures were present during the revolution when the MB attempted to hedge their bets by sending or allowing some of their members to attempt to negotiate with the old regime.

It is moving even further apart as the Muslim Brotherhood has already had a political platform and is beginning to spread those ideas. More so, they have considerable practice is presenting their ideas in a politically acceptable way. For instance, in their announcement concerning their involvement in the formation of the constitution:

Helmy al-Gazzar, a member of the group's Shoura (consultancy) Council, said the Brotherhood will not create the new constitution alone.
"Excluding the other is a violation of the social pact," al-Gazzar said.
"It is certain that within less than a year, we will have a new constitution that achieves the aspirations of those who backed, or rejected, the amendments," said Saad al-Husseiny, another member.

"Social pact". "Achieves the aspirations of" all Egyptians. The MB already speaks the language of politics while the opposition is still speaking the language of revolutionaries with their list of "demands".

That is water under the bridge. The amendments have passed and, to date, while their have been many demonstrations for this, that and the other thing, the likelihood of the revolutionaries to be able to carry out a two to ten million strong protest to achieve their demands is about zero. They are stuck with the political process the referendum allowed and now they must organize to confront the opposition.

That is the first step towards organization for the liberals on the right, center and the far left. They must recognize that the Muslim Brotherhood is the opposition. The "loyal" opposition as they are Egyptians and were part of the revolution, but they are the opposition none the less. Not simply because they are "Islamists" and the liberals are secular, but because the revolution was meant to obtain the civil rights of ALL Egyptians. By their platform and their organization, the Muslim Brotherhood are exclusionary and do not support civil rights for everyone.

The Muslim Brotherhood have already announced that they do not support either women or Christians (anyone who is not Muslim) for president and hope to have this as a "test" instituted by law within the constitution. Further, they helped to institute a test of birth and marriage for the presidency in order to exclude potential rivals and consolidate their power. Not unlike the previous regime. That does not even touch the difficult path they supported for a candidate to reach for that election through parliament approval in the first place.

Of course, any organization that begins their "official" political life abrogating any individual or groups' rights, however minimal they phrase it, will not be adverse to stepping on anyone else's rights. They will phrase these denial of rights as minimal and reasonable, but they will be a denial of rights. That is the issue that the liberal opposition must take as their position. The liberals must be the party that will protect all of the rights of all the people. The MB and their fellow travelers only want to protect the rights of some of the people. That is not why the people went to the street.

First, the liberals must BE a party. Or even two or three, but they cannot be twenty or thirty parties. Too many parties trying to support too many candidates, spreading too many votes makes for a weak campaign. Those candidates can be beaten by a single candidate with a more organized campaign and support base by winning less than 30% of the votes in a district. In short, it could be an MB candidate with a minority in a district and still get the parliamentary seat.

This is the reason that most "mature" democracies have two or three major parties. In the United States it is two major parties with one or two smaller parties that rarely win even a congressional seat, much less presidency. There are some who believe that this is the worst part about US politics, but politics and elections are about money, votes and organization as much as they are about ideas. A split party or several parties vying for the same set of voters in a similar subset will not get enough votes for any candidate to win against the larger, more organized and centralized party.

For instance, in 1992, Ross Perot ran as an "independent" against George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ross Perot was not a democrat. His main supporters were either Republicans or independents that leaned Republican. George H. W. Bush was a Republican. Bill Clinton was a Democrat. At the time of elections, Ross Perot peeled off a number of Bush supporters (19%), but not enough to win the presidency. He did take the votes away from Mr. Bush. That made Mr. Bush's numbers lower (38%) and Bill Clinton won the presidency with less than half of the over all votes (43%). Had Ross Perot not run and split the Republican or Republican leaning vote, George H.W. Bush would have had a second term as president without even getting all of Ross Perot's 19% (surely some of those were Democrat leaning voters who just liked his business approach).

The same issue confronted the Labour, Conservatives and Greens parties in England with the Greens peeling of a number of parliament seats from Labour and it is the same problem, even worse, in Iraq where they have a multitude of parties with all of their various agendas. None of them are popular enough to actually to form a majority "governing" block in parliament by themselves. They are forced to cooperate and this makes their ability to govern weak, allowing fractures that the one party out of governance majority with less than 30% of the parliament can exploit. In short, the one party with the least number of seats can control whether a law gets passed or not over multiple parties with conflicting agendas with a majority of the seats.

Worse, if the multiple parties with the majority cannot cooperate and form a government, the single minority party can take power and rule, choosing the prime minister and cabinet posts. This is called "minority rule".

With the MB, the Salafists and the remnants of the NDP, the advent of three or more liberal parties will split the votes and the parliament into multiple weak blocks who will be at the mercy of any party who has at least 30% control (the MB). Worse, that means that the parliament will be weaker than any president elected instead of creating a check or balance.

The worst might be that the presidential candidate who wins only has support from one of the smaller blocks in parliament. The president will then be weaker than parliament instead of on equal footing. In a country that has just suffered under one strong "president" for 30 years, that might not be so unappealing for limiting powers. However, it would lead to weak leadership that cannot get anything done because he/she does not have the support and any (or all) actions can be vetoed by the minority party in parliament. Then the people will suffer from that weakness and the state itself will be considered weak by any outside nations or leaders.

The second issue confronting a multitude of parties is exhaustion of funding and organization. Campaigns take money and people to run. Too many parties with too many candidates means that the funds and people are spread too thin. They will be unable to compete effectively against an organized and even slightly better funded though minority party in a district.

What that means is that the liberals are going to have to decide how many parties and candidates they are going to field. They are going to have to decide this quickly. More than one or two candidates in a district will divide their funds, efforts and votes, thus, losing the district to any conservative opposition.

It is the parliamentary seats by district that they will have to contest first. It is these seats that, for the moment, are important because it is the people sitting in parliament who will form the constitution. The constitution will be the LAW OF THE LAND from which all other laws flow. It will either guarantee individual rights of the ALL the CITIZENS or it can be formulated to deny some rights to some or many.

The constitution will be the document that organizes all future government and elections. To put it bluntly, those in power tend to try to stay in power. It will be in their interests to create some form of road blocks for various groups to participate. Even if it is only some minority, such as Coptic Christians or women or anyone who is not sufficiently Islamic enough from obtaining the presidency, they will have limited multiple small parts of society from participating.

As with the lessons on minority rule in multiple party parliaments, even denial of only small groups from participating makes their minority position more powerful than it should be against any remaining parties or groups of citizens. Aside from degrading all people's rights when they degrade anyone's rights, this maneuver to improve their power should make the liberals stand up and take notice.

The liberals are being out maneuvered. They may have won the revolution, but they are losing the political battle. They're only answer is to become organized, now and stop playing the revolutionaries. They need to concentrate on how to win seats in parliament otherwise they are going to be relegated to doing nothing but marching in the streets and chanting slogans while everyone else decides the future of Egypt.

They have momentum now, but it is quickly fading. Fortunately, some are already discussing how they may use insurgent tactics of the rebel to make it happen: A Parliamentary Plan 2011

Egypt and Democracy: Catastrophic Success and Unity - Where Are the Egyptian Liberals?

2011-03-22T02:40:00.001-05:00

Reading around the net and the news in Egypt, the Liberals are quite upset over the outcome of the referendum. As the Weekly Standard suggested, the Liberals who marched in the streets did see the outcome of the referendum as not just a "yes" or "no" vote on amending the constitution, but approval or disapproval of their "revolution".

However, this would be a mistaken interpretation. The facts are that most Egyptians just want to get on with the business of living and get the process, any process, that would move Egypt's political process, hopefully free, forward. They have been patient for thirty years, they were patient with the revolution and now they are impatiently pushing forward without possibly truly considering the dangers of trying to throw together the law of the land in the form of the constitution. Laws that, as they should have already seen under the last constitution and government, can and will exist for a long time.

As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

No truer words were ever written. It is exactly what is at play in Egypt, despite the revolution: "all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

The people of Egypt do not all share the same experiences under the last constitution or the Mubarek regime. At least, not in their minds. Obviously, not everyone was thrown into prison, tortured by police or beaten to death in the streets. They have grown accustomed to the rough treatment by police as "necessary" to secure the population. A form of mass Stockholm syndrome. They have become accustomed to corruption and bribery.

Most importantly, they have become accustomed to eking out an existence for their families and waiting for someone else, anybody else, to come along and solve their problems. Their problems have boiled down to shelter, food and security. They have little comprehension or care at this moment how the lack of freedom and the security of individual rights prevents them from securing those basic necessities or stifles any ambition to improve their lives and do more than "eke out an existence".

From their experience, their problems may be due to the government, but they have no idea exactly why it is the government's fault. Therefore, the simplest answer is to change government. It isn't an idea that one system or idea is better suited to help them, but that any change has got to be better so they will accept what comes and give it all of 30 seconds to prove itself before they shake their heads and wave it away as irrelevant to their every day struggles.

The revolutionaries wanted Mubarek gone. They wanted the constitution changed. The revolutionaries got what they wanted and, to paraphrase a commenter at Mahmoud's blog, "shut up already".

As those who have read history know, no revolution is the revolution of ALL the people. In the United States, it is supposed that one third of the population supported the revolt, one third were loyal to the British King and one third wanted to be left alone. Fortunately for them and for later generations, the revolutionaries did not "sit down and shut up".

Unfortunately, the revolutionaries in Egypt may have put the horse before the cart. Or, in more modern terms, suffered a "catastrophic success".

They achieved a victory before they were ready to consolidate their power. They overthrew the government, but did not have a long enough period of time to promulgate their ideas and reasons for resisting to the population. Most revolutions have had a long period of build up, for ideas to be sifted through, reviewed and spread throughout a major part of the population. Further, most revolutions do not end up with the military of the previous oppressive regime running the political program instead of the revolutionaries with their revolutionary ideas as a "victory". In this case, it has left those who were already more organized, who had already been doing as revolutionaries do, the long build up of ideas and promulgation among the population, with the most power, even as the revolutionary youth paid the price.

Now they are in a race against time. Time they do not have to do the things that they should have been doing over the long haul. Time that was reduced from years into weeks via the internet. They know how to revolt, but they do not know how to "play politics".

The Liberals still have a chance for some success, but first they are going to have to adjust their goals and accept that, while they may be small and disorganized, they will still have the power to shape the future. They are going to have to work with the opportunities given them, but they will also have to "keep their eyes on the prize". They must dream the big dream, but take the small steps to get there.

Right now, they are disorganized, they do not have a central message nor have they organized to effect that message. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood who has a consolidated base, a strong organization and various methods for promulgating their message. Equally as important, the Liberals are an amalgamation of many groups with various ideas on how to achieve those desires. Further, while some have appeared in the media, the strategy of having no leader to thwart the government forces has returned to bite them. They have no spokesman. Or, at least, not one that they can agree on. Not even three or four or twelve.

Of course, before they can choose leaders, they must consolidate their core or cores. Movements like the April 6th Youth and the Revolutionary Youths have nominal leaders, but they are "revolutionary" leaders, not political leaders. There focus is narrowly defined in terms of their socialist agendas for labor as evidenced by the top priorities of their previous demands though some of those demands have been met.

4 - the launch of the right to form associations and trade unions and the issuance of the establishment of newspapers and other media with no restrictions other than the notification to a competent judicial authority
5 - the holding of trade unions and student unions, according to the law of each of them

Others they are not likely to achieve such as restraining those who participate in the current interim position of forming a constitution would not be able to participate in the next elections. A hope of limiting people's and organizations desires to doing the "right thing" for Egypt as opposed to seeking their own path to power. A noble, if naive hope when what they should have been concentrating on was consolidating their base of support and spreading their political ideas on freedom.

The other Liberals are in even worse condition. They do not even have these nominal leaders nor do they have any manifesto, declaration or platform that translates ideas of freedom into the ideas by which men can govern, live and achieve their ambitions. They are barely a cohesive group, much less a group that can write a declaration or translate it into the terms of governing a state. They have their version of pamphleteers on the internet along with their Liberty Tree of Twitter, but it is at best described as a fast moving train of noise whose strain of liberty has as yet to be simplified into statements that can be accepted, translated and disseminated.

They need their Thomas Pain and Thomas Jefferson to step forward quickly. These ideas, once they are imbibed by the masses have a chance of moving out of the "virtual town square" into the public square. The advantages of the tools at their disposal means that they could, very likely create the materials, the Pamphlets, that they can disperse among the people on the street. They can use these tools to infiltrate the media. A media that, even in a free nation, has limited time and space. They can even circumvent the main stream media to get the word out and unify their base.

One of the things that the Liberals need to accept is that, in politics, in the heat of a revolution, there is no such thing as a non-partisan. There are those who are participating and those who are not. The idea of "unity" in the Egyptian revolution has taken on some strange idea that the groups with less power should not disagree with the groups that do have power because it will rock the boat. This is, in fact, still some bizarre hold over from those days when "evils" were "sufferable". That some group, any group, has a more definitive claim on shaping the outcome of Egypt because they have "suffered more" when it is clear that all of Egypt has suffered under the tyranny and corruption of the last regime.

The demand for "unity" is exactly the demand that the old regime used to keep the masses silent in the face of even the most horrific acts. Let "unity" fly out the window with the rest of the heresies that defame Freedom.

If there is any "unity" to be had, it can only be found when the leadership and core of all parties understands that the freedom of all can only come when they stand ready to defend the rights of the least among them. Because, one day they may be the party out of power and the tools they set in place by law to oppress any other will become the tools used to oppress those who fall out of power. It is the vicious circle of oppression that the people of Egypt have already endured and that must come to an end.

That is the message the Liberals, the Future of Egypt, must begin to send immediately. Not some weak idea of "unity" that has been used to oppress them for over fifty years. It is Freedom, only Freedom and always Freedom.

Yet, the Liberals are curiously silent in the public square except to be scratching their heads, lamenting their perceived "failure" and wondering what they should do next now that their first plan has gone array.

What they should do first, from this perspective, is to decide who they are. Are they the eternal revolutionaries marching in the street for every demand? Or, are they the guardians of freedom for all?

A New Arab Generation: Democracy, Revolution and Dreams

2011-03-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

A New Arab Generation: Voices from the Middle East, New York Times

Egypt and Democracy: Referendum on Constitutional Amendments By the Numbers

2011-03-21T14:00:00.001-05:00

The news is out, Egyptian voted overwhelmingly, nearly 77%, to accept the constitutional amendments.

More than 18 million valid ballots were counted, with 77.2 percent of voters approving the changes, Mohammed Attia, the head of the judicial commission overseeing the referendum, said today at a press conference in Cairo.

“This is the first referendum after the people regained Egypt,” said Attia. “The citizen felt after the January 25 revolution that his vote counts.” Turnout was about 41 percent, he said.

Many believe that the referendum will put the Muslim Brotherhood and remnants of the NDP back into power. The Muslim Brotherhood was campaigning hard to get the vote to "yes". They say it is to return the government to civilian rule as soon as possible, but most who did not support the referendum believe that it would give the MB and NDP an advantage over the now disorganized "liberals".

Those voting "yes" likely had more reasons than just supporting the MB. Many related that they just wanted to "move forward" or return Egypt to stability. An interesting dichotomy as it may be difficult to do both.

The "youth" are, understandably, disconcerted by the "yes" vote when they were campaigning for a "no". There is a realization that most of the "revolt" took place in the urban areas and that "Cairo is not Egypt".

Cairo is not Egypt. This may seem obvious to others, but let me repeat that point again: CAIRO IS NOT EGYPT. Stop your Cairo-is-the-center-of-the-universe chauvinism. 25 million live in Cairo, 60 million live elsewhere.

As previously mentioned here, urban populations and rural populations have different agendas, political persuasions:

in times of turmoil and crisis, people tend to do two things: fall back on their conservative roots as a bulwark against the insanity and bet on the people/things that they know. Also, urban groups tend to forget about their rural counterparts out in "fly over country" (as we call it). Those groups almost always trend more conservatively. Particularly because they are often older since the young tend to flee towards the urban centers for jobs and education.

It is also the reason that the MB has an opportunity to take 30% or more of parliament seats. These are political realities that any liberal youth must keep in mind when discussing how they will organize and create a power base.

The numbers clearly outline the issue and where the liberals will have to concentrate their funds and efforts to gain any seats in parliament. The Arabist has a "red v. blue" map, red voted "yes" and blue (actually, purple since more red + blue =) "no". His basic conclusions actually support the "urban v. rural", "liberal v. conservative" matrix.

What does this tell us? Basically, that governorates with a large urban population (Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, Assiut) had a higher proportions of "no" votes, as did those sparsely populated governorates that have a large proportion of tourism workers (Red Sea, South Sinai, Luxor). Areas where tribes count more tended to have a high "yes" vote (Wadi Gedid, Marsa Matruh, North Sinai).

Even in Cairo that voted 60% "yes" and the other governorates, the numbers indicate the diversity of the population and it's concerns. The extremely poor neighborhoods where the MB has a strong presence as well as the very affluent neighborhoods with a strong NDP presence probably leaned towards "yes", but the middle class neighborhoods would have had to be split over the issue, more likely along the lines of security, stability and the need to get back to earning money to support their families.

There is likely a strong feeling that the revolution has gotten what it wanted. Mubarek, et al is gone, the elections will now be "free" and "fair", what more do the revolutionaries want? Now it is time for the regular people to get what they need. Sandmonkey thinks the revolutionaries need to accept that and get on with the political process:

You no longer represent the people. You really don’t, at least when it comes to their concerns. Your concerns and their concerns are not the same anymore. You care about the revolution, & the arrest of NDP figures & getting the country on the right track. They care about economic security, the return of stability and normalcy the fastest way possible. (...)

So, now what? Well, now is the hard part. This is the part where we stop playing revolution, and start playing politics for the sake of the country. This means caring more about perception and public support over righteous and legitimate demands.

The numbers and the map show where the "liberals" have a chance to win seats in the up coming elections. They also have an opportunity to win more support since only 40% of the eligible population, 18.5 million, voted. It is difficult to say how many votes or constituents they would gain without a more detailed breakdown of number of registered voters and their specific governorates down to the voting districts.

The liberals will have to discern what districts might represent the most support for their ideas and concentrate their efforts there. They have an opportunity to at least be represented. There are over 222 districts with two seats each in parliament equaling 444. There are also 64 seats assigned for women separately (2 from each governorate as opposed to the smaller voting districts plus six additional from the urban areas like Cairo and Alexandria that are allowed four women). That does not mean that these districts and seats will remain after the next election, but it leaves room for the liberals to make room at the table. Particularly the designated women's seats.

To get that opportunity, liberals will have to act quickly to consolidate their base and get the message out.

Mahmoud Salem has a few ideas on what they need to do.

Story of Our Life Time: Freedom Rising

2011-03-20T02:53:00.000-05:00

In this moment of history, it is appropriate for us to look back at the place and moment when freedom was attacked. The moment that would become Al Qaeda's waking of the sleeping giant.

On 9/11, the forces of tyranny and oppression attacked the United States. Our response was not simply to attack and kill those who were immediately responsible, but the very ideas that propelled their murderous violence. They believe that freedom is evil, a highway to sin against the dictates of God. We believe that freedom is a gift of the All Mighty and the power that lifts man kind towards the greatest good.

Our ideas cannot be any further apart and they have been tested over and over again. From Iraq to Afghanistan to Tunisia to Egypt to Libya and on and on and on, the Arab Muslim populations are rejecting their ideology, rejecting oppression and tyranny. Every vote is a repudiation of their theocratic aspirations. Even the participation of ideological travelers insists that it is freedom, not oppression that fuels the dreams of men.

With every finger painted purple, pink, green, whatever color, it might as well be painted red, white and blue.

Their ideas will go with the rest of the oppressive, dysfunctional ideologies: into the ash heap of history. From the ashes of our once stricken city to the ashes of their ideology, we see the future:

Freedom Rising

For years, the future has been slow to appear at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But with six months remaining until the national 9/11 memorial opens, the work to turn a mountain of rubble into some of the inspiring moments envisioned nearly a decade ago is thundering forward.

This March 15, 2011 photo shows the Freedom Tower, right, rising above the World Trade Center site in New York. Rebirth has been slow in coming to ground zero, but with six months remaining until the first portions of the national 9/11 memorial are scheduled to open to the public, the work to turn a mountain of rubble into one of the world"s great urban centers is thundering forward and beginning to produce some of the inspiring monuments designers envisioned nearly a decade ago.

Freedom is "thundering forward". They destroy, we build.

Egypt and Democracy: Referendum on the Muslim Brotherhood?

2011-03-20T01:11:00.001-05:00

In yesterday's post, I linked to a story from the Weekly Standard that suggested that the referendum was in some ways a referendum on the revolution.

After reading extensively the reports coming out of Egypt, I have to repudiate that assessment. I believe that this referendum can be safely categorized as a referendum on the Muslim Brotherhood and their aspirations.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been mobilizing to "encourage" people to vote "yes". Some say it has degenerated into both intimidation and a form of vote buying by setting up stands to give food and drinks to waiting voters while simultaneously lecturing them about why they should vote "yes". There are reports that El Baradei was attacked on his way to vote either by residual NDP or by "salafis" (I have been reading much and there seems to be some split among the Egyptians as to whether this implies the MB or some other more stringent, fundamentalist group that would more closely align with their idea of the AQ types). There are other reports that the MB were actually inside some polling stations "exhorting" people to vote yes.

As I wrote yesterday, the concerns of the "liberals" and many other "common" Egyptians, that the amendments as they stand would a) help keep the old politicos in place and b) help pave the way for the MB to become the second power, both controlling the political power structures of Egypt and the writing of the new constitution that would thwart the demands of the common people for a more open and responsive government, for, of and by the people.

In a Divided Egypt, the Military and Islamists Play for Political Advantage

"We are afraid that some tragedies will occur between those saying yes and no, especially now that the Muslim Brotherhood is saying yes," said Shadi el-Ghazali Harb, a representative of the Democratic Front Party (DFP) in the Coalition of Revolutionary Youth on Thursday evening. "We did not want to show this image in the world, so we're directing our efforts to distributing pamphlets." (...)

The passage of the amendment, however, would probably undermine the Brotherhood's cooperation with other movements. "I expect that if the referendum turns out to be yes, the tensions between us and the Brotherhood will rise," said Harb.

More Women Come to Vote than Men?

“I didn’t expect so many of them to show up,” Safty, clearly impressed, confesses to his friend. “But, by God, it’s a beautiful sight.”
“Just remember,” Shafik adds with a smile, “These are the type of women that say ‘no’.”
The joke — referring to the fact that most voters, male and female, seemed to be in favor of rejecting the proposed amendments — may have cracked the old neighbors up, but the reality of the situation is that, as individuals, Egyptians feel that, for the first time ever, their voices might actually count. As a result, Saturday’s turnout at Nasr City polling stations — the majority of which were located on the campuses of different public schools — was in no way limited to eligible voters.(..)
“I was worried fights would break out, that things might turn violent,” admits 22-year-old Fady Selim, who had been standing in line for the past hour with his three friends. “I was also worried because people were talking about members of the Muslim Brotherhood showing up, to try to convince us to vote ‘yes’ on the amendments and that things might heat up then, but so far it’s all been great.”

As I pointed out, the major malfunction here is that the amendments still leave the power to decide who participates in future elections in the hands of those already in power. In the short run, that means that whoever wins in the upcoming proposed parliamentary elections, will have the power to approve or disapprove future participants and candidates. With a few less necessary votes, but still leaves that approval in the hands of existing power players.

Then there is the matter of whoever wins the next proposed elections will be the ones writing the constitution. The liberals and less religiously motivated people are not excited about the MB getting any majority role in this program. They can see that the MB's approval of the amendments equate to the MB trying to get the same power as the NDP. New guys same as the old guys, just different names and different ideas on oppressing people's freedom.

In the end, this may be a referendum on the revolution, but it is also, by power of the MB supporting a "yes" vote, a referendum on the Muslim Brotherhood as a political power in Egypt.

Zawahiri's Brother Released From Prison in Egypt

2011-03-19T11:54:00.000-05:00

According to this report on Friday, Ayman al Zawahiri's brother has been released from prison in Egypt as part of the "political prisoners" release demanded by various parties.

Mohamed al-Zawahiri was released Thursday along with scores of other political prisoners after orders from Egypt's Interior Ministry, said Nizar Ghorab, who claimed al-Zawahiri was tortured in prison.
Al-Zawahiri had been in jail since 1999 after being detained and extradited from the United Arab Emirates on allegations that he was linked to the assassination of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Al-Zawahiri was acquitted on the assassination charges but later was accused of conspiring against the Egyptian government.

Please tell me we knew about it and that we now have some covert or, hell, even overt assets crawling up this guy's a$$.

I am very surprised that nobody else on the right side of the aisle or the left have covered this. Is Libya, Japan and Unions so engrossing we forgot we're at war?

Egypt and Democracy: The Coming Referendum and Just Say No

2011-03-19T10:23:00.004-05:00

Today was referendum day in Egypt. Egyptians in mass were to vote on the amendments to the constitution. There are many concerns about the amendments and what they are meant to do.

Update: Stories coming out of voting. First, the Egyptian people are not giving any politicians privileges to vote ahead of anyone else. Apparently, they forced the governor of Cairo District and the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood to stand in line with everyone else. The only people allowed to move ahead appear to be the disabled and the pregnant women since they are standing in lines for hours on end to vote. Kind of reminds me of some other moments in history, not so long ago.

Other things, not so good, the MB has been reported to have deployed representatives and Imam's in front of polling stations to try to convince people to vote "yes". I don't think they have the correct idea about how "free and impartial" elections are supposed to occur. I think the next evolution of election law should address this (I hope). UPDATE: Apparently, some people told the MB to bug off and several suggested that, yeah, there ought to be a law.

And El Baradei get's booed along with some stone throwing.

Sarah Carr over at Inanities says she is voting no:

The proposed amendment to article 75 reads – in spirit – thusly:
Half-Egyptians are the scum we must share our country with and so are the bastard children of Egyptians who had the stupidity to acquire other nationalities or married whores from other countries thereby strangling at birth their progeny’s political ambitions. This is a way to keep out Ahmed Zoweil and possibly also stifle the presidential aspirations of that nuclear pain in the arse Mohamed ElBaradei because Rose El-Youssef says he’s an American but we’re not sure cos he said on OnTV that he only has one nationality.
If I must be treated like a political untouchable then I want consistency. Don’t let me vote in a race I am not allowed to compete in. And possibly also make me wear a hair coat.

She goes on to outline the two positions, those who want a "yes" and those who want a "no". The MB is pushing for a "yes" because the amendments, no matter what they say about their political aspirations, will give them a lot of power to form the next constitution and control the potential for a strong rival party or candidate to appear.

The Weekly Standard puts the "yes" into context for the revolution:

A yes vote means that Egyptians also want to return to business as usual, and so the vote tomorrow is a referendum on the revolution. “Yes means there will be little legitimacy for the demonstrations any more,” says Bargisi. “The notion that people demonstrating were out there for democracy and representing all Egyptians will fail. The revolutionaries will be seen to be a minority, and that from the beginning there weren’t all that many people who supported their demands.”

Part of the amendments that make the whole thing a concern for the liberals are the sections that not only limit who can run for president, but how any future candidate or party can participate in future elections.

Meanwhile, article 76 was modified to ease draconian restrictions on presidential nominations. The commission set three methods for candidacy: a presidential hopeful should either be endorsed by 30 members from one of the parliament’s two chambers or both, garner 30,000 signatures from Egyptians living in 15 provinces or belong to a party that has at least one seat in the People’s Assembly or the Shura Council.

Two of those methods insist that any party or candidate has to obtain the approval (endorsement) of 30 members of parliament or be a member of an already seated party in the parliament or Shura council means that those already in power get to decide who can play. It is essentially a continuation of the Mubarek and NDP's old ways of restricting participation. There is the "third way" which says that a candidate can get 30,000 signatures from Egyptians living in 15 provinces (out of 29). What we're talking about is making it extremely difficult for somebody who has not already been in the forefront of politics in Egypt in the past, who does not have the "presence" and "face", to become a candidate. Essentially making this an election of all of the old powers in Egypt.

The other concern is, as El Baradei has been arguing against, if the election is within 60 days or six months, the only parties with the organization to participate are the MB and the NDP. That means, with the above rules in place, not only will these two organizations continue to control the government, they will be the parties that "reform" or draft a new constitution. The concern is that they will re-enforce Islamic law and possibly undermine any hopes for the liberal parties to advance or real democratic freedoms, sending Egypt back in time, as the Weekly Standard notes, to that moment in 1952. Right before a military coup put the military in control and democracy far out of reach for everyone else.

The Youth Movement adamantly opposes the new referendums. Per Arab Media:

- Cancel the old constitution and a new constitution for the country following the formation of the new parliament should be the nature of the popular and democratic constitution paves the way for a parliamentary republic, including include reducing the powers of the President of the Republic and the separation of powers and specific rules for the electoral process.

Who participates in the position in the transitional phase may not run in the first parliamentary elections or presidential leaders. This stress on securing the transition from any external pressure to secure the transfer of power.

Those are the two big ones along with canceling the emergency law and wiping out the Interior Ministry's state security apparatus that they believe has and continues to oppress, arrest, torture and otherwise kill any who oppose the last regime.

The Youth Coalition of revolutionaries gave a statement on television yesterday, stating their position on voting no. Basically, what they want is that the old constitution of 1971 is null and void. That they do not want a "top down" reformed constitution that keeps all the bad things in place, but want a constituent assembly that will write a whole new constitution that would meet all of the Egyptian people's demands. They believe that a "no" vote will allow this to happen.

More on the debate can be found at Al-Masry Al-Youm. Those saying they will vote 'yes' have several concerns about the delay to civilian authority.

“There are people, like me, who don’t trust the military at all, as it has been slow in responding to [our] demands,” wrote Alaa Seif on his blog. Seif is a leftist activist who intends to vote in favor of the amendments. “The military has been preserving the security of the state, protecting symbols of the [toppled ruling] National Democratic Party and corrupt people, while consistently fighting protests and strikes,” he wrote.

Sandmonkey, on the Free Republic of Egypt:

Dear Free People of Egypt,
It’s a lovely day to be talking to you all in a Mubarak and NDP free Egypt. It’s been quite the undertaking, and many people were terrified, injured or killed, but we somehow managed to do it. Congratulations on that to all of us. Pats on the back, everybody!

Naturally, we (the revolutionaries) still don’t think the battle is over. The Mubaraks are still free, so are Fathy Surrour, Zakaria Aazmy and Safwat ElSherief, alongside with all the corrupt NDP officials in all branches of government, not to mention all the state security and police officers who spent the last 3 decades terrorizing, monitoring, torturing & killing those they were supposed to protect. The Political prisoners and detained Jan25 protesters are still unlawfully in prison, the stolen money is still in foreign countries, and the Minimum wage of 200 dollars a month for all Egyptians is still not enforced. There is also the matter of transparency of the government (financially & operationally and having the country run by civilians instead of a military Junta, a new constitution to be drafted instead of one that gives absolute power to the head of state, political freedoms to all Egyptians, enforceable bill of rights to all Egyptians, equal rights to all women, equal political rights to Egyptians living abroad and/ or born or married to a foreigner, freedom of the media, etc..etc.. I don’t want to bore you, but, yep, lots of work is yet to be done, and it’s taking far too long by those in charge to get done, which is making us unhappy. And Unhappy protesters usually protest. It’s just a fact of life.

Now we wait. Polling stations remained open until everyone has had a chance to vote.

Living the Prequel to Logan's Run

2011-03-17T14:49:00.000-05:00

There are things going on today that simply seem unreal. Dream-like, or nightmarish depending on your view. Maybe, as some have noted, like a movie. Something with a great catastrophe that changes the way man thinks and lives. In most of those catastrophe movies, it is something terrible that man does that forces him to realize the error of his ways and how it is better to have returned to a "state of grace", like Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden, without knowledge or technology. Except for the knowledge that, if humanity survives, they must learn to live within the bounds of nature, lest man finally, once and for all, brings about humanity's final destruction having finally messed with nature one too many times.

Those movies are interesting, but, for all of the modern movie's great explosions, heart stopping images of giant tsunamis and sky scrapers falling into the sea, the moral of the story is usually short, sweet and without a scrap of agency that makes the viewer think.

You, mankind, are bad. You messed with mother nature and now a tsunami must wipe you out. End of story. It is the pet theory of every global warming enthusiast and end of mankind prophet.

One of my favorite movies, slightly campy and cheaply made, is Logan's Run. The movie is different than the book, but stays with the premise: what if all those young people marching in the streets, demanding peace, living in communes, going to concerts, drinking, drugging, etc, got their wish and got rid of all the "old men" they thought were driving them towards the brink of disaster? What would their world look like?

Logan's Run is set in that post apocalyptic world. SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAS HAPPENED. We don't know what it is, man made nuclear war or natural catastrophe, but it was bad enough that the survivors had to flee to the underground. There they built a great city, covered in a dome. The air is filtered and purified. Resources are scarce so everyone is fed at the communal mess just exactly what they need to live a healthy life.

To maintain those resources, the population must be controlled. The founders of the city had instituted cult like religion that claimed that anyone reaching the age of thirty must join "the carousel" and be ritually killed in order to insure the survival of the rest. Not that the people believe they are being killed. It is all made glamorous and acceptable by telling them they will be "renewed."

Everyone would know their time was up by a small, red crystal in their palm that would start to blink when when it was their "last days". Most submit, but there are those who try to run to a place that people call "sanctuary". If they run, they are hunted down and terminated with prejudice by special police who are called "sandmen" because they put the runners into the "deep sleep".

In the mean time, everyone is free to enjoy anything else they might take a hankering too. Drugs, multiple sex partners, music, you name it. They can order it up via remote on their "television" and have it delivered to their rooms. They are all extremely healthy, with no defects, provided by free medical care and careful cloning of the best citizens. Any perceived defects are fixed through free modification surgery with lasers.

Life, death, population replacement, food, entertainment and even drugs and sexual partners are provided by the BIG COMPUTER that selects all through complicated algorithms without an ounce of human input or compassion. Of course, everyone accepts it because it is how it has always been and hasn't it kept them safe all these years from the "SOMETHING TERRIBLE" that happened in the outside world.

Then one day a "sandman" is assigned to catch a runner. He hunts him down, but discovers that there is an entire underground that helps runners get to this mysterious place called "sanctuary". When he reports it's existence, the computer orders him to find this "sanctuary" and destroy it because it will destroy their way of life and, according to the all knowing, destroy man kind. Logan 5, a sandman, is assigned the task.

To help him accomplish the task, Logan's crystal is made to blink four years ahead of his scheduled thirty year "deep sleep". He infiltrates the underground railroad and tries to find "sanctuary", but nobody actually knows where it is because everybody who seeks it does not return. Of course, Logan meets a girl and falls in love. This is unacceptable, so the computer puts him on the "list" to be terminated and sends other sandmen after him.

He decides to try to escape, taking Jessica 6 with him as they try to find their way out of the city and into "sanctuary". After many twists and turns, they end up in a cave where they discover that all of those who tried to escape before were lined up like frozen slabs of beef. The creators of the city had created a robot that patrolled the caves shooting the runners with his freeze ray, insuring no one makes it outside to "sanctuary".

After some more action and a bizarre battle with the robot, Logan and Jessica finally make it outside where they see the sun for the first time though they don't really know what it is. Except, it is warm. The computer is not ready to concede defeat. Neither is Logan's once best friend and Sandman who is so ideologically invested in their "way of life" and the "new religion", that he is willing to even go outside of the city and risk "contamination" in order to kill his friend and save their world.

Jessica and Logan see a city in the distance and run all the way, only to discover the city in ruins. They see the statue of Abraham Lincoln and read it's words. They marvel at such construction. However, the sandman is still after them and they need to find sanctuary so they run into a great building where they find cats and an old man. Neither things they had ever seen before.

The man tells them what the place used to be and they begin to read the books and papers. One of them is the Declaration of Independence.

All men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...among these are the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness".

Life. An old man. Air to breath, a sunset to see, running water and all manner of creatures. They didn't have to die. There was plenty of room for everyone to live, work, eat and grow old. Men used to live by other rules that made them free.

They ask the old man what happened. He didn't really know, but he had been living there for over sixty years after everybody abandoned the place. Free, but lonely. Except for his cats. That is when reality sets in. There was no TERRIBLE SOMETHING that forced them all into the underground commune. Just the dream of utopia to save mankind from something that everyone feared, but had as yet to occur.

That is the point in the movie when you realize that this isn't your typical rant against government trying to take over everybody's lives, but what happens when that government falls into the hands of those who want to "save the world" by isolating themselves from all things "terrible", regulating everything from birth to death, creating utopia. What good is all that free medical care that keeps you healthy if some great unknown bureaucracy decides you've lived long enough? When it decides who is a burden on society?

They've been eating fish, plankton and seaweed because that is what was good for them when there was all this bounty on the outside. For all their "freedom" to enjoy all of these once societal taboos, they were more restricted than their predecessors.

Of course, the movie was created in the 70's at the height of the Cold War so most could be forgiven if they thought it was simply a low budget, futuristic movie about the perils of Communism and the dangers of the Free World disappearing. Instead, it is a libertarian's dream/nightmare of the future.

In the end, Logan kills the Sandman pursuing them after trying hard to convince him that there is no sanctuary, just this outside world, this "freedom", that those in the city didn't want them to know about. He and Jessica run back to the city to tell the others, shouting to the latest batch of 29.99 somethings that the carousel is a lie and they don't have to die; there is no "renewal".

They are captured and Logan is sent to be interrogated by THE COMPUTER. The program is like a giant, futuristic lie detector (why a completely controlled, happy populace needs this police force of "sandmen" to make them comply to the rules or this lie detector, is left for the viewer to comprehend). The computer keeps asking Logan, "Where is Sanctuary?" His reply, "There is no Sanctuary" it's just a bunch of ruins, an old man and some words about freedom. The computer cannot accept this answer, going further and further until the computer self-implodes.

In the end, the city collapses and all of the residents are forced to run outside. A world that is full of threats and no longer supplies their every need, but a world where they are all now free. Free to grow old, free to be who they want to be. It's a savage world where they will now have to work to survive, but no one will be able to say that today they die. For the greater good or whatever other nonsense the Great Computer has been telling them.

Now we return to our present, the future after this movie was produced, the "past" according to the dates in the movie. We discover that all those students marching in the streets in the early seventies, wanting to live in communes allegedly free, throw off the constraints of morality and overthrow their government to install their version have all grown up now.

They have written the books and told the stories over and over again. At every turn they have pronounced some new TERRIBLE SOMETHING that they insist demands we sacrifice freedom for the greater good. Nuclear war, global warming, take your pick. If neither of these come to pass, it will be something new, and, even if it did, are either of those or any other future TERRIBLE SOMETHING, reason enough to sacrifice freedom?

Today I woke up and thought: I'm living the prequel to Logan's Run. That time before the TERRIBLE SOMETHING that turns out to be the EMPTY NOTHING, but which is supposed to make us all forget that there is NOTHING worth giving up FREEDOM. Not free food, free health care, free shelter, free love or free from any sense of morality. None of those things makes us free, they make us slaves.

Disintegrating Japan and the Future of the United States:Taxes and the Debt Ceiling

2011-03-15T10:34:00.000-05:00

Continuing yesterday's discussion on what the United States needs to do to prepare for the future in light of the disaster in Japan: Energy and Oil

Japan's economy will be offline for awhile meaning that it's purchases of foreign goods and materials will be severely diminished. However, so will their capacity to manufacture goods along with their soon to be on going power issues from defunct nuclear power plants. The United States needs to prepare, not just for the down turn or general change in the world economy, but to fill the needs that will arise as well as those that will arise from the future rebuilding. Further, there is a probability, based on historical context, that this could bring about a new era of technology, structural engineering and materials.

Currently, as Japan's economy is offline and the disaster is ongoing, so is Japan's demand for oil, diesel and gasoline. However, without their nuclear reactors, they are going to need to switch up their power generation, most likely to coal and diesel fuel power plants. Further, several refineries have been damaged or destroyed. Where is the oil going to come from? If it is simply taken out of the current supply system, the cost of oil, thus gasoline and diesel, will rise even further. Second, where will the additional refining capacity come from?

In the short run, current production and refining capacity will be hard pressed to fill the need. An ongoing result of Middle East "unrest", pirates in the Arabian and Red Sea and our own policies that have decreased production and decimated refining capacity make it nearly impossible. In the long term, we need to adjust our policies now to address those needs and stabilize oil and fuel prices to insure future economic growth. Dumping US oil reserves into the market doesn't help at all.

At the same time, the US needs to prepare for a future of increased manufacturing and development of technology. If we do not do it, another nation will and since the second largest economy is now China that will likely be China. Putting China well on the way to becoming the number one economy as it has already reached the number one position in manufacturing. As this report in 2006 suggests, one of the issues facing America is that it cannot compete with China's cheap labor or business oriented government. We are also behind the line in regards to investing in research and development as well as educating scientists and engineers.

However, the United States currently has an official 8.9% unemployment (hovering around 9 million) and an unofficial unemployment (in other words, those not filing claims anymore) is probably closer to 12% (close to twelve million or more). That is a huge number of potential workers available for the development and manufacturing of necessary materials, products and technology, not only for the development of a new Japan, but for the continued growth of the United States economy and its advancement into the future of technology.

In order to move our economy forward, improve tax revenues to offset current debts, improve potential lending and re-orient our federal government to be more business friendly, the United States needs to do several things.

First, as both a short term and a long term re-establishment of the US as a business and investment friendly nation, congress and the president needs to re-assess the US tax code. Currently, the United States corporate tax code is the second highest behind...Japan.

It is very simple. Businesses are set up to provide profits to its owners and dividends to its investors. Taxes take an aggregated average of 39.2% of corporate revenue. That is before profits are realized. This reduces the revenue left for everything else. Not just profits and dividends, something that would surely keep any investor or owner/operator from considering development here in the US, but it reduces revenue left for paying employees, maintaining properties or expansion, capital investments in equipment or even purchasing products or materials from other companies that would also fuel employment, is hampered if not severely stagnated.

Add to that the current administration and Congress's health care bill that, on aggregate, proposes to add another $4,000 in benefit costs per employee to every company's ledger. It does not take a Wharton School of Business graduate to know that, unless that company is a favored government industry (such as the new drive towards "renewable energy") that receives more tax credits, subsidies, guaranteed loans or other favorable government legislation that offsets these increases and more, opening a business in the United States is moving closer and closer to the "unprofitable" column.

In return, that decreases tax revenues and increases unemployment that further decreases tax revenues. It's a vicious cycle that results in long term economic damage, deepens unemployment and slows development.

We cannot simply lower taxes. United States spending is quickly reaching critical mass where no amount of increased taxes will offset the debt. Making investment in US bonds and treasuries a non-starter. There is no profit or interest realized on a country who's GDP can never overcome it's debt. This is basic business, not just national or international lending practices.

Investors invest in companies who carry debt every day. What they are looking for is the potential that the company's future growth of income will be able to pay off that debt and its interest. Even allowing that company to borrow again, grow again and pay off the next debt. Even as it pays off the debt in incremental stages, revenue still remains to pay investors and share holders a steady stream of dividends over time.

What happens if the company takes out major loans for capital investments and build outs, but does not experience the projected growth? Investors jump ship, loan payments come due and the company, if they are lucky, starts "restructuring" its debt, sells some aspects of its business and revises its budgets to decrease costs. Usually including lay offs of employees among its several moves. If it isn't lucky? Bankruptcy, selling off its assets to competitors that usually results in massive lay offs, etc, etc, etc. Worse, they may go completely out of business, sell off assets to pay whatever creditors that can collect and then disappear from history.

Of course, a nation is slightly different from a business. It's potential growth rests on more stable grounds such as available natural resources and it's human assets, it's citizens. However, that doesn't mean that bad governance can't drive a country into bankruptcy. Too many expenditures and not enough revenue with government continuing to spend like "drunken sailors" on projects and programs that do not support economic growth (ie, entitlement programs v. developing infrastructure, resources, products or "marketing") results in deficits that do not have offsetting revenue streams. There are numerous countries right now either on the verge of bankruptcy or doing basically disintegrating economically as this post is written.

The United States must...MUST review it's budget and expenditures. It is not incorrect that a government can spend money to help the economy. The question is, what are the expenditures and how would it help the economy? Improvements in infrastructure such as roads and even the power grid can help the growth of business which, in turn, increases potential revenues to the government. Investments in social programs for "human assets" can have an impact as well, but they are less tangible and, ultimately, not as direct in providing revenue to pay off creditors.

The US must be able to show good faith that it is willing to make necessary changes to grow the economy and reduce costs that will allow the US to continue to pay it's creditors back their investments with interest earned or allow them to maintain it as stable, ever more valuable asset in their portfolio.

On the other end of this equation, the US has to consider raising it's "debt ceiling". In essence, the "debt ceiling" is setting the limit of credit and expenditures that the US is willing to carry and basically guarantees will be paid back. This is a matter of statute. If the law does not allow the US to carry more "debt", it cannot take any additional loans to build infrastructure or pay off other debts with a higher interest rate than the potential funds that can be at our disposal (ie, potential for lower interest rates, thus, lower over all debt).

It sounds contradictory to say so, even as we are talking about lowering our spending to improve our "credit rating". What we are saying is that we believe the US economy will grow to the point where our debt is still more than offset by our assets and potential revenue/income.

This is especially important if we expect to provide any funds or lend money to Japan for their own rebuilding. Rebuilding that can lead to growth in the American economy. However, it can't be completely based on borrowing money to lend to someone else at a different rate. We have to build our own funds. Those must come from two aspects: 1) cutting costs to free up funds for a) paying down our debts, b) improving our infrastructure for the build to our economic, technologically advanced future; 2) cutting taxes to invite business development and investment that ultimately increases tax revenue to pay off debts and future developments.

This is what the United States has needed before the disaster in Japan. Now that the destruction has occurred, the United States must put it's financial house in order to step into the breach as well as lend support to our friend and ally.

To do less would not only place that ally in jeopardy, but would risk the future of the United States and all its allies in freedom.

Disintegrating Japan and the Future of the United States: Energy and Oil

2011-03-14T07:39:00.004-05:00

Watching Japan disintegrate before our eyes, the ongoing disaster is nearly beyond human comprehension. The scale of the loss of life and destruction of infrastructure has yet to be fully realized nor its true economic and strategic fallout.

There are major predictions that this will impact the United States' economy, job creation and over all ability to borrow money. The United States must be prepared for a long future with a diminished Japan economy in the world and strategic partner in the region.

There are definite steps that should be taken now. The demands of this once thriving economy will change drastically. So will the demands of the world economy as the ability of Japanese manufacturers to meet the technological and automotive demands of their world consumers will also be seriously diminished. There is also a likelihood of mass population displacement and migration.

While all eyes are focused on the near future down turn, the US should be prepared to move to mitigate these circumstances and reposition our economy to fill the developing needs of both Japan and the world in general.

First, while there is an immediate down turn in the demand for gasoline and oil, within the next few years, the demand will increase as Japan's energy consumption and supply likely changes. With multiple reactor failures and the probability that these nuclear reactors will be inoperable, they will likely require more oil and coal to feed their rebuilding efforts and ongoing energy needs. There is a possibility that nuclear energy will be slow to regain trust among the populace as well as the government's likely response to re-evaluating any builds based on knowledge of the engineering and structure failures as well as the ability to respond to disasters. Further, Japan's own capacity to refine has been severely damaged.

Refinery Margins Poised to Surge After Quake If History Is Guide

“This is a super bullish factor for the Asian middle distillates and fuel-oil market,” said Akira Kamiyama, an energy derivatives trader at Mitsui & Co. in Tokyo. “Factories which have their own generating facilities will begin to buy diesel, while utilities will start purchasing fuel oil.”

The US needs to evaluate the potential impact to US imports, supply and economics. The rising cost of gasoline and fuel oils is severely hampering the United States' economy now. Current attempts to change our energy supply are too slow and current administration plans represent unrealistic time frames without enough innovative or cost effective technologies. The economic down turn has actually put projects to expand electric supply on hold. In the meantime, the cost of the average utility bills for homes and businesses have increased by over 23%.

Food, clothing and other basic essentials have risen in direct relation to these rises. As this report indicates, there is an expected increase in diesel fuel demands. Diesel fuel costs are directly related to the costs of these items. Families and businesses cannot afford this increase. The US needs to bring its oil production and refining ability up to meet near and far future demands. The administration must review current policy on permitting drilling, existing delivery systems and capacity, and regulations governing refineries. It may even need to review tax credits for oil industry development.

The administration needs to re-assess the time lines for development of other energy within the US. These energy resources need to be explored and developed, but they cannot do so effectively, timely or cost effective in a down economy. It adds to the burden over a long term instead of providing relief. Further, it would be easier and simpler to develop these means in conjunction with developing economic regions in the US. These regions can change depending on the changes in Japans manufacturing and development where the US may pick up this demand.

If there is any upside to this horrible event, it is that, in rebuilding, the Japanese and the United States have a unique opportunity to develop future efficient and affordable technology that will change the world as did the rebuilding of Japan after World War II. There are current experimental technologies that are languishing without attention. Technologies that go beyond wind farms, solar panels, LED street lights and electric cars. Innovation will come to the forefront and long ignored platforms, once thought too costly to produce, such as nanotubes or thin, flexible batteries, will become more affordable comparatively. The potential is nearly limitless. (nanotubes turn carbon dioxide into energy; integrated flat screen technology, strengthening structures, electric conductivity and other daily living technology from heating to heads up displays)

These advancements cannot occur when the cost to fuel plants and deliver products eats at profit margins of companies who develop this technology or want to invest in product development, hiring employees or in people being able to simply travel to work. When gasoline prices have increased a hundred percent in a decade and, along with home energy costs, are taking a third or more of the average consumer's income, purchasing new energy efficient technology may be necessary, but it becomes equally and increasingly out of reach. Those purchases provide the capital for research and development.

It is the circle of economic life and that life is currently slipping from serious condition to critical. Therefore, it is necessary for the United States to re-evaluate it's energy plan. Increased oil and gasoline production and refinement must be part of a rational and immediate energy integration plan. This is not an "either/or" situation. It must be together, or the United States cannot move forward.

On another note: Japan is liquefying US treasury bonds and China is likely the next biggest buyer. At the same time, China is now reported as surpassing the US in manufacturing:

China has passed the U.S. as the biggest manufacturer in the world, having 19.8% of world output in 2010. The U.S. lagged behind at 19.4%.

Obama on Oil: What He Didn't Say

2011-03-11T18:35:00.001-06:00

I watched Obama's speech a few seconds ago. He said that domestic production is at an all time high. I learned recently that this is true. He said that the reason the price keeps going up is that the economy is coming back on line and that growing nations are consuming more oil (a common thread among many). Those I would classify as half truths. The economy is not growing anywhere near what it did in the last decade or the decade before, while these other nation's were experiencing similar growth in that period. And, yet, gas prices and oil did not spike near uncontrollably as they have since the President took office. Certainly, if the price of gasoline continues to rise, the economy is going to tank.

So, what is the problem?

Well, we can drill all we want, but unless you have the number and type of refineries necessary to change it into gasoline along with the requisite delivery systems (ie, pipelines, trains and trucks) to take the oil to those refineries, it doesn't do anything except sit there:

Ironically, even though there's an oversupply of US oil-known as West Texas Intermediate, or WTI-problems with getting the crude refined have forced the US to import the more-expensive Brent, which is pushing up US gasoline prices.

So while American consumers looking to determine the direction of gas prices would normally look at US oil prices, they really should be looking at Brent.

If you read that entire article, you will discover that the president is correct that the total percentage of over all oil being imported is around 50%, but the percentage of imported oil being refined to gasoline is 70% of our supply. Because we can't refine our own crude because there are not enough refineries or delivery systems to do so.

You may ask why that is so. Please direct those questions to the Oval Office. Maybe one of his staffers will find the information and the president will FINALLY put the right strategy in place.

Oil and Refinery capacity

The Annual Energy Outlook 2004, produced by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), stated that financial and legal considerations make it unlikely that new refineries will be built in the United States.

Where is Sarah Palin when you need her?

The "legal matters" would be government regulations enforced by the EPA. Several reports say that old refineries were "moth balled" because they were too inefficient while another report in 2004 suggested that gasoline demand in the US had declined and some indicate will continue to decline due to new fuel efficient vehicles and an aging population (that last part I am not sure that I get - especially since the population continues to grow). Yet the last report as per the EIA was that the big "efficient" refineries were operating at capacity (ie, can produce very little or no more). So, which is it?

Wikipedia (not yet updated with two new refinery builds) indicates that "the public" has demanded that no new refineries be built due to concerns about pollution:

Environmental restrictions and pressure to prevent construction of new refineries may have also contributed to rising fuel prices in the United States.^[8] Additionally, many refineries (over 100 since the 1980s) have closed due to obsolescence and/or merger activity within the industry itself. This activity has been reported to Congress and in specialized studies not widely publicized.

So, we know what the problem is, but we are helpless to do anything about it? It continues:

Today, national and state legislation requires refineries to meet stringent air and water cleanliness standards. In fact, oil companies in the U.S. perceive obtaining a permit to build a modern refinery to be so difficult and costly that no new refineries have been built (though many have been expanded) in the U.S. since 1976.

In 2009 through 2010, as revenue streams in the oil business dried up and profitability of oil refineries fell due to lower demand for product and high reserves of supply preceding the economic recession, oil companies began to close or sell refineries. Due to EPA regulations, the costs associated with closing a refinery are very high, meaning that many former refineries are re-purposed.

Yet, oil companies are posting record profits and gasoline reserves have gone down.

Gasoline inventories fell by 5.49 million barrels to 229.2 million, the biggest decline since September 2008, according to the department. Stockpiles were forecast to drop 1.5 million barrels. Supplies of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, fell 3.98 million barrels to 155.2 million, the lowest level since June.

To summarize:

1) We do have high oil production.
2) We don't have the capacity to refine it or transport it.
3) We don't have enough refineries (the right refineries for the oil produced - "sour crude" as opposed to "sweet light crude we get from Saudi Arabia, et al.
4) We don't have refineries because EPA regulations that raise the cost of production and transportation
5) "Nobody knows what to do about it."

Or, in the case of the President, he's not saying anything, but "renewable energy".

Libya, Obama, Islamists and War for Oil

2011-03-08T06:46:00.001-06:00

It is difficult not to agree with Barnett's analysis on US intervention in Libya. To wit, that interfering in Libya may make the "Arabs" angry over continued conspiracy of American Imperialism, but, to do nothing will have the same results and worse, like in the days of Rwanda, we might find it difficult to face ourselves in the morning.

We let this go down and we'll be hated anyway, and we hate ourselves for letting it happen. So what is the big difference? There will be no working with the guy after this anyway, so what is the downside? The Saudis hate him, because of the hit he tried on Abdullah.

There is the problem of do we actually know who is who and who we would be helping?

United States Foreign Policy: Freedom is the Guarantor of Peace and Prosperity

2011-03-08T03:47:00.003-06:00

Matthew Levitt from the Counter Terrorism Blog writes at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on dealing with the rise of Islamist political parties or governments in post revolutionary Middle East:

As the administration considers the differences between global jihadist terrorist groups and politically inclined Islamist groups, it would do well to reread British prime minister David Cameron's recent speech in Munich. Cameron cautioned that while Islam is not the problem, Islamist extremist ideology is. And as one moves along the spectrum of Islamist ideology, one will encounter both violent and nonviolent extremists. Both, Cameron stressed, are cause for concern.(...)

As Cameron goes on to say, many who enter into the violent extremist groups started out in non-violent extremist groups and eventually traversed the divide to active warfare and terrorism. Levitt goes on:

"If our policy can't distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood," stated the same anonymous official cited by the Post, "we won't be able to adapt to this change" presented by the Jasmine revolutions. In fact, to adapt to these changes and be on the right side of history, what the administration really needs to do is consider what the appropriate threshold should be for partnering with the United States and participation in the democratic system.

Levitt goes on to finish by outlining what some of these "threshold" line items might look like including personal rights, women's rights, honoring international borders and treaties, etc. These are admirable goals. It may not be the right way or only way to establish economic or defense ties, but it should always be part of our "conversation" and we should always be on the look out for ways to support groups, organizations or political parties whether materially or morally. We should always be ready to speak to our allies or potential allies on those points and consider to what extent we would be willing to invest in the nation.

In short, the defense and proliferation of political, personal and economic freedom should be one of the main pillars of our foreign policy. Not only because it is "the right side of history" as the spread of freedom and democratic revolutions have continuously gone forward in the last thirty years, but because the proliferation of freedom is the most viable and long term policy for our own defense and economic prosperity as well as meshes with our own ideology and moral position as these first free nation and the leader of free nations.

Egypt and Democracy: First Draft of Amendments for Constitution

2011-02-26T11:02:00.002-06:00

Commission announces proposed changes to Egyptian Constitution

An army-appointed legal commission announced Saturday a package of proposed constitutional amendments that eased restrictions on eligibility conditions for presidential elections, limited the number of presidential terms to two four-year periods and ensured full judicial monitoring of elections.

To satisfy political forces calling for the promulgation of a new constitution, the commission made it compulsory for the next parliament to draft one.

There are still issues with this from my perspective:

Meanwhile, article 76 was modified to ease draconian restrictions on presidential nominations. The commission set three methods for candidacy: a presidential hopeful should either be endorsed by 30 members from one of the parliament’s two chambers or both, garner 30,000 signatures from Egyptians living in 15 provinces or belong to a party that has at least one seat in the People’s Assembly or the Shura Council.

The problem, to me, is that they still have to get any "endorsement" from 30 members of one of Parliament's two chambers. On one hand, there may be the need to ensure that any president can be somewhat beholden to or work with parties in parliament, but the current parliament is officially disbanded (I believe) and, even if those seats remain, are stock full of NDP associates. Whether it is 250 endorsements or 30 endorsements, it makes for trouble. Why can't a potential candidate simply declare, raise the signatures and money and be endorsed from their political party as the candidate?

One way or the other, it seems like an attempt to limit participation.

The other amendments include term limits for the president, rules requiring the president to be married to an Egyptian (born of two Egyptian parents), limit on the ability to declare Emergency Law to require parliamentary approval and, if more than six months, must be approved by public referendum (ugghh! democracy gone mad, but I understand where it comes from), independent judiciary oversight of the entire electoral process (as opposed to presidential appointed judiciary committee) and among the other items, sets in motion a total review of the constitution by the next parliament.

I definitely do not like the "Shura Council" as any sort of deciding body in parliament and neither should any liberal leaning folks. Shura is, ostensibly, a body of religious scholars or lawyers who would insure that all laws meet Islamic religious law (Sharia). They are either elected (?) or appointed by the president. Under the Iranian example and Bahrain, they act as a vetoing body, instead of consultative. Egypt law has it as "consultative".

In either event, it allows religion to do more than be a faith to base principles on to an actual political power. One that can create its own political power and threaten the legitimacy of any democratic government.

Otherwise, the other aspects of the amendments pretty much fall in line with the protesters' demands.

Bahrian Protests: Unravelling Sectarian Politics

2011-02-26T10:53:00.002-06:00

Bahrain protests: Unravelling the sectarian politics

Manama--Bahrain’s protests are causing an integral shift in its political landscape, as happened in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Its shift, however, is built along sectarian lines. The two groups that emerged during the protests that erupted on 14 February are divided by a thin line.

While addressing generic human and civil rights, Bahrain’s protests brought attention to the gigantic elephant in the room, the sectarian divide between Sunni and Shia in the country.

According to AlMahmoud there is distrust between certain Sunni groups and “the other party,” because of Sunni preconception that Shias are loyal to their Imam before their country. “This is why the government restricts their participation the military,” he said.

Egypt and Democracy: al Gheit on Witch Hunts, Iran and Foreign Aid

2011-02-26T10:30:00.002-06:00

An interview with Al Gheit, current Foreign Minister for Egypt.

It is subtitled, but extremely interesting in his views about Egypt, Iran, Israel (the treaty), future of US relations, Egypt's need for economic improvement, etc.

Once you get passed the first five minutes of him strenuously objecting over a question apparently asked by the interviewer about Foreign Ministry cables saying the revolution would not spread, burning important foreign ministry documents and some rumor that the Foreign Ministry ordered the army to fire on protesters (he says they do not have the power and it is ridiculous on its face, etc). Some of his objections sound like a man who is a) scared he's next in line for the "witch hunt" and b) hopes like hell he will be able to participate in the next government.

Egyptian Army Is Now Single

2011-02-26T09:53:00.002-06:00

According to reports, protesters went into Tahrir Square on Friday to demand the removal of PM Al Shafiq. The "Revolutionary Youth" are seriously adverse to his continuation as they see him as nothing more than an extension of the Mubarek Regime. They aren't very fond of several others that retain their positions including the advancement of the last Interior Minister's underling. The Interior Ministry being the director of the CS (Central Security) responsible for many "disappearances" of anyone that the regime considered an "enemy".

Unfortunately, the army (or some parts of it), were not very patient with the continuing protests and tried to disburse them after curfew set in. The military police apparently used cattle prods and batons to drive the protesters away (say hello to the new guy, same as the old guy).

Sarah Carr from Inanities, blogs about her experience.

She also goes on to report a short conversation with an Egyptian soldier and suggest this is an "insight" into the Army's view of the situation:

he thinks that sleeping on Egypt’s streets and directing traffic is beneath the Egyptian army. He wants to go back to his barracks, rather than sleep on the pavement. He regards Mubarak as the leader of the armed forces rather than president and was therefore sad when he went. He was nonetheless extremely happy to see the Egyptian people “so joyful” on February 11^th.
The Egyptian people’s demands were legitimate on February 11^th because they were backed by a million Tahrir protestors, he said. A few hundred protestors calling for Shafiq’s resignation is not the same. He doesn’t understand why people cannot have faith that remaining demands will be met, nor the opposition to Shafiq. Several time he suggested that “elements” want to use the opportunity of the “turbulence” in the country to “destroy” it. He also thought that it was extremely disrespectful that teenagers are demanding that senior citizens like Shafiq leave.

The Army's apology suggests there is some form of communication break down from the top to bottom about handling people's new found right for self expression and demands for self-determination. Then again, the Egyptian military has a culture all to its own. A form of nationalism that is extremely paranoid about its own citizen's intent.

Sarah goes on to suggest that the Army's new found use of Facebook and it's strange apology sounds like the angst of a teenager over a lover's spat:

Entitled “apology” it then said that the “encounters” between the military police and the great Egyptian people were “unintentional” (“OMG I didn’t mean to hurt you babe!!!! Luv u 4ever xoxoxoxo)

Facebook relationship status: single

Christopher Hitchens: Obama Administration Response "Morally Neutered"

2011-02-25T12:26:00.004-06:00

Is Obama Secretly Swiss?

The Obama administration also behaves as if the weight of the United States in world affairs is approximately the same as that of Switzerland. We await developments. We urge caution, even restraint. We hope for the formation of an international consensus. And, just as there is something despicable about the way in which Swiss bankers change horses, so there is something contemptible about the way in which Washington has been affecting—and perhaps helping to bring about—American impotence.

This isn't even within the realm of "speak quietly, but carry a big stick". This is more like "close my eyes and hide in the corner and maybe the big, scary monster won't notice me".

Evidently a little sensitive to the related charges of being a) taken yet again completely by surprise, b) apparently without a policy of its own, and c) morally neuter, the Obama administration contrived to come up with an argument that maximized every form of feebleness

The United States, with or without allies, has unchallengeable power in the air and on the adjacent waters. It can produce great air lifts and sea lifts of humanitarian and medical aid, which will soon be needed anyway along the Egyptian and Tunisian borders, and which would purchase undreamed-of goodwill.

I said this same thing over at Blackfive yesterday. If all we support is people's "self-determination" (instead of freedom and democracy), then at least let us support it with whatever we've got. We might not need carriers as we have all sorts of other assets in the area (Incirlik). If we are going to have the "Peace Corps" leading our country, maybe they could at least do some of the things that the Peace Corps does on a regular basis.

As I said there, in agreement with Mr. Hitchens, it's time to hold the hand out.

Update: Don't bomb Egypt (we have no idea who we'd be helping)