Tuesday, July 09, 2013
Barry Rubin: At last, The Secret of President Barack Obama’s Middle East Policy Revealed, No Kidding
Remember what the two NSC staffers said, in representing Obama policy because it deserves ti go down in history:Nonie Darwish: The Problem at the Heart of Egypt's Revolutions
“Such a move [fighting the Islamists in Egypt would fail and probably prompt a shift to al-Qaeda type terrorist tactics by extremists in the Islamist movement in Egypt and elsewhere.”
The Obama administration, on the basis of the current CIA director John Brennan's Doctrine has given up the battle. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists are holding the United States for ransom. The demand for releasing (which means not attacking) the United States is the Middle East.
This latest revolution in Egypt, the second in the last two years, is a symptom of a deep-rooted problem at the heart of Islam itself: Egypt is on the verge of a civil war to bring a resolution to the never-ending tension between what Islam demands versus what the people really want.12-year-old explains Egyptian crisis in under 3 minutes
This is the central problem in most Muslim countries: the difficult choice between a civilian, military "infidel" government, and a totalitarian Islamic theocracy. The problem is compounded when most Egyptians consider themselves both Muslim and lovers of democracy, but refuse to see that Islam and freedom cannot co-exist. How can Islam anywhere produce a democracy when freedom of speech and religion are outlawed, where there is no free and independent judiciary, and equal rights for women, minorities and non-Muslims are legally suppressed?
A video of a 12-year-old Egyptian boy named Ali Ahmed eloquently and passionately criticizing the last year of president Mohamed Morsi’s rule has become a YouTube sensation since going viral on Saturday.Is Egypt on the brink of civil war?
Ahmed, demonstrating a grasp of the socioeconomic and political issues well beyond the level of an average 12-year-old, was interviewed by the El Wadi news organization while attending a demonstration last October organized in his words, to “help prevent Egypt from being a commodity owned by one person and to protest the confiscation of the constitution by a single party.”
Meanwhile, Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown, is set to begin Wednesday and this may come just in time for Islamists. Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official, wrote in Commentary Monday that Egyptian authorities will face additional challenges because of the holiday.Gang-Raping Your Way to Democracy By Mark Steyn
First, the late-night festivities may become politicized, leading to “some middle-of-the-night clashes.”
Second, Islamists will step in to feed those who are short of food. This good will may be able to be translated into more protesters in the street.
And third, many Muslims who generally do not go to the mosque too often, may end up in one of the Islamist dominated mosques, further influencing them.
As in the Congolese civil war, where both sides agreed that pygmies made excellent appetizers, in the Egyptian political stand-off, the young men of both pro- and anti-Morsi forces agree on little else except that the chicks are fair game. This ugly aspect has gone strikingly under-reported in America for over two years, ever since CBS chose to downplay the rape of its own correspondent.Mass resignations at Al Jazeera over "biased" Egypt coverage
The 22 staff resigned on Monday over what they alleged was coverage that was out of sync with real events in Egypt, according to a report by the Gulf News website.Brotherhood Leader: Egyptian Army 'Worse Than the Jews'
Anchor Karem Mahmoud announced that the staff resigned in protest against "biased coverage" of the recent events in Egypt. He explained that there was a lack of commitment and Al Jazeera professionalism in media coverage, stating, "the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries.”
Mahmoud added that the management used to instruct each staff member to favour the Muslim Brotherhood.
Mahmoud Badia, a top Brotherhood leader, said that the Egyptian Army was clearly interested in instigating a Syria-style civil war in Egypt. The crime of the army in opening fire on innocent protesters was so severe, he said, “that even the Jews have never done to Egypt what the army did.”Egypt closes Freedom and Justice Party HQ over weapons find
The army, meanwhile, said that soldiers were set upon by a mob of Brotherhood members, who were aiming to murder them. In self-defense, the army said, soldiers opened fire, after repeatedly trying to use other methods to break up the riot and protect themselves.
Police found "flammable liquid, knives and arms to be used against the June 30 protests," the official said, in reference to demonstrations that saw millions take to the streets to demand the resignation of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.Egypt And Hamas Part Company – OpEd
Just two days after the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, the new interim government in Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip indefinitely, and Nilesat – an Egyptian company that controls a number of Egyptian communications satellites – removed Hamas TV, Al-Quds, from the air.Helpless Hamas Watches as Egypt Decimates Muslim Brotherhood
With that, there were reports Monday that dozens of Hamas terrorists had made it over the border into Sinai and taken up arms to fight Egyptian Army troops. Several of them are said to have participated in a Brotherhood attack on an Egyptian Army post in El-Arish, in which several Egyptian soldiers were killed. Egypt, meanwhile has closed up most of the smuggling tunnels between Sinai and Gaza. Reports said that since the weekend, over 50 of the tunnels have been sealed.Powerful blast rocks Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut
A large explosion rocked a stronghold of the Shiite Hezbollah group south of the Lebanese capital Tuesday, setting several cars on fire, sending a thick plume of black smoke billowing into the sky and wounding at least 18 people, security officials said.Syria is a ‘Ten-Year Issue’ Warns Top U.S. General
The powerful blast in a bustling commercial and residential neighborhood came as many Lebanese Shiites began observing the holy month of Ramadan, and is the worst explosion to hit the area in years — likely direct fallout of the civil war raging in neighboring Syria.
“It is related – not exclusively – but related to a competition at best, and a conflict at worse, between the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, and it’s been hijacked at some level on both sides by extremists – al Qaeda on one side and Lebanese Hezbollah and others on the other side,” said Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Pakistan beats its breast over bin Laden failure
He added, “This is about a 10-year issue, and if we fail to think about it as a 10-year regional issue, we could make some mistakes.”
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was able to live in Pakistan undetected for nine years because of a breathtaking scale of negligence and incompetence at practically all levels of the Pakistani government, according to an official government report published by a TV channel on Monday.Tunisia actors may face 'indecency' charges: lawyer
The 336-page report was written by a commission tasked with investigating the circumstances surrounding the covert US raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011. The pan-Arab Al-Jazeera satellite channel published the report on its website after it was leaked to the station by unknown sources.
A group of Salafists attacked them and when police intervened they detained the actors while letting the radical Islamist militants go, the lawyer added.
"The Salafists carry out attacks but actors are arrested," said an angry actress Leila Toubel who heads the support group for the 19.
Police said the performance was also a tribute to anti-Islamist MP Chokri Belaid, who was assassinated in February by suspected Salafists.
