The choice in Egypt

WaPo ^ | 8/23/2013 | Krauthammer

[RoosterRedux]

Egypt today is a zero-sum game. We’d have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military.

Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But Gen.Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that he didn’t have three years, that by then there would be no elections — as in Gaza, where the Palestinian wing of the Brotherhood, Hamas, elected in 2006, established a one-man-one-vote-one-time dictatorship.

What’s the United States to do? Any response demands two considerations: (a) moral, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for Egypt, and (b) strategic, i.e., which outcome offers the better future for U.S. interests and those of the free world.

As for Egypt’s future, the Brotherhood offered nothing but incompetent, intolerant, increasingly dictatorial rule. In one year, Morsi managed to squander 85 years of Brotherhood prestige garnered in opposition — a place from which one can promise the moon — by persecuting journalists and activists, granting himself the unchallenged power to rule by decree, enshrining a sectarian Islamist constitution and systematically trying to seize the instruments of state power. As if that wasn’t enough, after its overthrow the Brotherhood showed itself to be the party that, when angry, burns churches.

[dontreadthis]

We don’t have three years either

[Norm Lenhart]

For a smart man Charles, you can be quite dense.

You do nothing but kill people who burn churches. Becuse when they run out of them, they burn you.

Generals are the Ideal leaders to contain a brutal people. Because they are not us. The sooner the world understands, the sooner we move forward.

This ain’t rocket surgery and
muslims are not westerners with western morrals and thought processes.

Period.

[sr4402]

The Washington Post does there usual non-story on Egypt again.

The story is that Morsi came in and scrapped the Egyptian Constitution and Supreme Court. He dissolved their parliament and let the Brotherhood start persecuting Christians.

The Egyptian people protested this (Natually!) and the military returned the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and Parliament.

The Brotherhood started seeding protests with armed Terrorist and the rest is what you see.

So the Post is still good for Fish Wrap and the usual attempt to divert us from the real story.

Could the WaPo want Sharia Law? IMHO: Yes.

[Publius]

Barry Goldwater identified this problem half a century ago. Back then, the UN and the US Foreign Policy Community had an absolute mania for decolonizing Africa and other parts of the world. Goldwater called this a fool's errand. He pointed out that some people aren't ready for democracy, and for cultural and religious reasons they may never be. He predicted that the mania for democratization would only create a playground for the CIA and KGB. He argued for a hard-headed approach where it would be best for a nation to be ruled by a benevolent dictator, and one preferably loyal to the US, not the Soviet Union.

He was excoriated by the Mainstream Media for "wrong-headed and illiberal thinking". But history proved him right. Islam will have to go through something like the Enlightenment before it can support democracy.

[blackdog]

Democracy is to Islam, what Shakepeare is to swine. It's concepts, liberties, responsibilities, inclusion, lust for debate, resistance to submission to anyone, and public forum run contrary to the keystones of Islam.

Stand up comedy doesn't go over so well either.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Islam will have to go through something like the Enlightenment before it can support democracy.

With their thinking and teachings stuck in the 7th century, that isn't going to happen any time soon.

[Cicero]

Well, I don’t really agree with this, but if you remember that he’s mostly addressing liberal idiots and their assumptions, then it makes a certain amount of sense.

No, it wasn’t just Morsi who blew his chance at “popularity” by being too much of a fanatic and would-be dictator. It was the whole gang. Give them a chance, and they showed themselves for what they were. At least the Egyptians figured it out, even if our press, politicians, and useful idiots still haven’t..

[JoeFromSidney]

If the protests had been allowed to continue, eventually Morsi would have ordered the Army to suppress them. Ultimtely, the Army had two choices: suppress the protests, or get rid of Morsi. They chose the latter.

[pgkdan]

I wish our military had half the balls that the Egyptian military has!

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks RoosterRedux.

We’d have preferred there be a democratic alternative. Unfortunately, there is none. The choice is binary: the country will be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood or by the military. Perhaps it didn’t have to be this way. Perhaps the military should have waited three years for the intensely unpopular Mohamed Morsi to be voted out of office. But Gen.Abdel Fatah al-Sissi seems to have calculated that he didn’t have three years, that by then there would be no elections...