Posted on 06/12/2013 6:07:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
In a humiliating example of self-inflicted electronic bugging, last week a live broadcast television microphone in Egyptian President Muhammed Morsi's Cairo office caught the president and Egypt's most senior political leaders plotting sneak attacks on the upstream Nile's biggest dam builder, Ethiopia.
No denial on the Nile. When an audience of millions overhears pious Egyptian Islamists and well-heeled Egyptian liberals mull classic covert warfare options -- such as having Ethiopian rebels sabotage Ethiopia's new Blue Nile dams or deploying shady political agents to agitate in Addis Ababa -- the usual diplomatic salve, plausible denial, isn't an option.
In point of fact, the Egyptian government's initial embarrassment has given way to hard-edged declaration. Egyptians will fight Ethiopia for every drop of Nile River water!
For politically fractured and factionalized Egypt, war talk is a unifying tonic and a distraction from Egypt's endless miseries. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood government has simply failed to address the enormous economic and social problems afflicting Egypt.
Solving embedded societal ills requires a national unity of purpose. Morsi has been a national divider. His sharia-based constitution delighted Muslim Brothers but dismayed Egypt's liberals. His attempt to invoke emergency rule (reminiscent of Hosni Mubarak) splintered Egypt's Arab Spring revolutionary front. Muslim moderates joined with secular liberals and demanded he resign.
But Nile water sustains all Egyptians. The trite adage, "Egypt is the Nile," is true. From Aswan north to Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea, the green band bordering the great river is home to 90 percent of Egypt's population.
Morsi needs a route to national reconciliation. The Nile Water War (temporarily) solves Egypt's broken puzzle: Us Downstream Egyptians versus Them Upstream Ethiopians.
But Ethiopia's dams did not suddenly appear. For two decades every nation in east Africa has known Ethiopia intended to build several large hydro-electric dams and become Africa's biggest power exporter.
Ethiopia has been waging a steady diplomatic campaign asserting its rights to Nile water. Ethiopia's case is as passionately essential as Egypt's. One word defines the basic case: famine. Water in reservoirs is a hedge against famines induced by drought. Electrical power sums Ethiopia's expanded case.
Ethiopia contends the traditional division of Nile water distribution rights are based on an antiquated colonial artifact that unfairly favors Egypt. The 1929 Nile Waters agreement (engineered by Great Britain) gave Anglo-Egyptian Egypt 90 percent of the Nile's annual flow. Egypt could also veto upstream water projects. In 1957 Ethiopia announced it would utilize Nile water resources within its territory. The Blue Nile and its Ethiopian tributaries generate 75 to 85 percent of the Nile's annual flow. The White Nile, from Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, generates the rest.
A war between east Africa's two most powerful nations would be a disaster for both. That's so obvious I'll wager even Mohammed Morsi knows it. The war options Egyptian leaders vetted included buying new long-range strike aircraft. Egypt's air force can handle border conflicts, but hitting the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a long-range operation. Sudan separates Egypt from Ethiopia. One parliamentarian thought credible strike aircraft might give Ethiopia political pause. Ethiopia's already credible air and ground forces should give Egyptian sword rattlers pause.
In April 2011 StrategyPage.com reported that Ethiopian diplomats had proposed an interesting win-win solution. Ethiopia would sell Egypt a partnership interest in its dams. Egypt would have ownership input in the operations. Ownership guaranteed Egypt reliable hydro-electric power. Egypt would also split the profits from selling electricity throughout Africa. Hey, Cairo. For the dams to generate electricity, water must flown downstream.
Ethiopia's proposal at least creates the possibility of a win-win political deal. In time cool heads in Cairo should accept it.
Man Obama is just the master of peace.
The main ingredient in this conflict is not only water, but Muslim vs Kuffar. Ethiopia is the oldest Christian nation in the world and the muzzies in Cairo know it.
In terms of recurring war this is maybe the oldest version. Lower Egypt vs. Upper Egypt (unified eventually under the two part Pharaonic crown) and then the Nubian kingdoms at the upstream cataracts. Bottom line, though, is the Egyptians are correct. No Nile or (controlled at Aswan since the 1960's) Nile floods no Egypt. It would be 80 million people left to die or migrate en masse.
The fact that the conflict would be between the largest Arab Muslim country vs. a much much smaller, black, and predominantly Christian country (and supposedly home of the Ark of the Covenant) does put this version into a whole new category.
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It then flows into South Sudan, where it is known as the Bahr al Jabal (”Sea of the Mountain”, possibly from Nahr al Jabal, “River of the Mountain”). The Bahr al Ghazal, itself 716 kilometres (445 mi) long, joins the Bahr al Jabal at a small lagoon called Lake No, after which the Nile becomes known as the Bahr al Abyad, or the White Nile, from the whitish clay suspended in its waters. When the Nile floods it leaves a rich silty deposit which fertilizes the soil. The Nile no longer floods in Egypt since the completion of the Aswan Dam in 1970. An anabranch river, the Bahr el Zeraf, flows out of the Nile’s Bahr al Jabal section and rejoins the White Nile.
The flow rate of the Bahr al Jabal at Mongalla, South Sudan is almost constant throughout the year and averages 1,048 m3/s (37,000 cu ft/s). After Mongalla, the Bahr Al Jabal enters the enormous swamps of the Sudd region of South Sudan. More than half of the Nile’s water is lost in this swamp to evaporation and transpiration. The average flow rate of the White Nile at the tails of the swamps is about 510 m3/s (18,000 cu ft/s). From here it soon meets with the Sobat River at Malakal. On an annual basis, the White Nile upstream of Malakal contributes about fifteen percent of the total outflow of the Nile River.
The average flow of the White Nile at Malakal, just below the Sobat River, is 924 m3/s (32,600 cu ft/s); the peak flow is approximately 1,218 m3/s (43,000 cu ft/s) in October and minimum flow is about 609 m3/s (21,500 cu ft/s) in April. This fluctuation is due the substantial variation in the flow of the Sobat, which has a minimum flow of about 99 m3/s (3,500 cu ft/s) in March and a peak flow of over 680 m3/s (24,000 cu ft/s) in October. During the dry season (January to June) the White Nile contributes between 70 percent and 90 percent of the total discharge from the Nile.
HMMMmmm...
Where have I heard something similar to this lately???
All the denyin' is saved for the Potomac!
Ethiopia is now a Muslim majority country.
the Egyptian MB has been supporting Islamists in Ethiopia for several decades.
The real leaders of the MB, the men who control Morsi, also carry great influence on militant Muslim Supremacist imams in Ethiopia.
I’m doubting this was all that “unintentional” hot mic.
Wikipedia sez Ethiopia is one third Muslim and only six percent Somali. Population 86 million, not much smaller than Egypt.
Egypt will have to attack Ethiopia long distance, by air. If they do, the Israeli air force will have a nice turkey shoot.
Bookmarked.
“Egypt’s air force can handle border conflicts, but hitting the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a long-range operation.”
-— Some F-16’s ought to do the trick.
OTOH attacking someone else’s dam could give them the idea of attacking your dam. And Egypt has a really big one upstream of Cairo.And if you attack a dam upstream from your own infrastructure, you would produce a sudden rush of water headed you your own country.
Ethiopia could leak the intelligence that if their dam suddenly ruptures, a serious tonnage of ANFO will be carried downstream in the flood. That might focus some minds in Egypt . . .
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