for life and liberty

Brother Of Al-Qaeda Chief Al-Zawahiri Reportedly Detained In Egypt

"Egyptian authorities have arrested the brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri, a security official said Saturday. He said Mohammed al-Zawahri, leader of the ultraconservative Jihadi Salafist group, was detained at a checkpoint in Giza, the city across the Nile from Cairo. Mohammed al-Zawahri's group espouses a hard-line ideology but was not clandestine prior to Egypt's July 3 coup. He was allied with ousted President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist, whose supporters are now taking to the streets to protest the killings of its supporters in a security crackdown last week. The official declined to give further details. He spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to talk to the press." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBrother Of Al-Qaeda Chief Al-Zawahiri Reportedly Detained In Egypt

The Muslim Holy War Against The ‘Great Satan’

"Western imperialism and its terrorist puppet regimes in this vast region over two centuries have produced an immense, exploding cauldron of rage against the puppets and the imperialists. The people have returned to their Muslim roots to give them hope and strength to endure the terrible wars they must fight for decades to rid their ancient homelands of these imperialists. The U.S. is sinking into an immense cauldron of Holy War against a billion Muslims and is fighting them with mercenary troops who for the most part believe in nothing but their pay-checks and retirement perks. It may even take a century of terrible war, but the outcome seems obvious." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Muslim Holy War Against The ‘Great Satan’

The army pulled the trigger, but the West loaded the gun

"To focus on the actions of the security forces alone, on what they did with their trigger fingers yesterday, is to miss the bigger picture; it is to overlook the question of where the military regime got the moral authority to clamp down on its critics so violently in the name of preserving its undemocratic grip on power. It got it from the West, including from so-called Western liberals and human-rights activists. The moral ammunition for yesterday’s massacres was provided by the very politicians and campaigners now crying crocodile tears over the sight of hundreds of dead Egyptians." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe army pulled the trigger, but the West loaded the gun

CFR’s Leslie Gelb on Egypt: Hold Your Nose and Back the Junta!

"Long-time foreign policy insider Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, believes democracy is when the guys he likes win. Free elections that produce 'enemies' of the US or Israel are by definition not democratic and the winners should be overthrown by the US and its allies. Gelb is back this weekend, penning a piece as Egypt drowns in blood in the aftermath of the military massacre of supporters of the deposed president Morsi. He warns us against getting bogged down in 'moral posturing about democracy in Egypt' and urges that we 'hold our nose and back Egypt’s military.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCFR’s Leslie Gelb on Egypt: Hold Your Nose and Back the Junta!

Eric Margolis: Storm On The Nile

"So far, army and security police have scored brilliant battlefield victories against unarmed men, women and children, killing and wounding thousands who were demanding a return to democratic government. The latest Cairo protests by supporters of the elected Morsi government have been scattered by gunfire and huge armored bulldozers resembling the giant vehicles used by Israel to smash Palestinian barricades and protesters. All Egyptians opposing the Sisi dictatorship are now officially, 'terrorists.' Egypt’s generals and hard right Mubarakist supporters have ditched any pretense of civilian government and now rely on the bayonet and tank. The men with the guns make the rules." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEric Margolis: Storm On The Nile

The Egyptian Debacle

"Of all the promise of the Arab Spring [..] perhaps the greatest was the idea that the region could escape the paralyzing political trap that offered Western-backed dictatorship or radical Islamism as its only alternatives. These repressive Arab societies — so illustrative of Western hypocrisy in their power structures, so deadening to the hopes of the young, so shot through with nepotism and cronyism, so distant from a glimpsed modernity — resembled factories for militant Islam rather than bulwarks against it. When the only place to gather is the mosque, when 'secular' equals Western-backed dictatorship and when 'elections' amount to a rigged farce, the consolation of the Islamist cause grows." Continue reading →

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Egypt’s Tragedy: Military Dictatorship Takes Shape on Nile

"It is as though the February 2011 overthrow never happened. Egypt is caught once again in a conflict that has raged for more than 60 years and has dominated the country since those eight bullets were fired on Nasser on Oct. 26, 1954, in a failed, and perhaps staged, coup attempt. At the time, Nasser banned the Brotherhood and imprisoned its leaders. In the ensuing decades, fear of the Islamists was used to justify the military's authoritarian control and the brutal tactics of the security services. In the end, however, the military created precisely what it had claimed it was preventing: even more radical Islamists." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEgypt’s Tragedy: Military Dictatorship Takes Shape on Nile

Washington frets over Saudi ties

"Saudi Arabia did not just pledge a combined US$12 billion in financial assistance, but it has also promised to make up for any Western aid that may be withheld as a result of the coup and the ongoing crackdown in which about 1,000 protesters are believed to have been killed to date. Perhaps even more worrisome to some experts in Washington has been the exceptionally tough language directed against Washington's own condemnation of the coup by top Saudi officials, including King Abdullah, who declared last week that '[t]he kingdom stands ... against all those who try to interfere with its domestic affairs' and charged that criticism of the army crackdown amounted to helping the 'terrorists'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWashington frets over Saudi ties

Bipartisan calls to cut off Egyptian aid emerge after military crackdown

"Untangling the aid relationship with Cairo would not be simple and could be costly for the United States as well as Egypt. A special financing arrangement Cairo uses could leave U.S. taxpayers holding the bill for billions of dollars in equipment Egypt already has ordered on credit, and companies like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics that build military hardware for Egypt would be affected by aid restrictions. Also on Sunday, several lawmakers made the point that the security of neighboring Israel and the Suez canal were compelling reasons in favor of continued aid. Since 1979, when Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel, it has been the second largest recipient, after Israel, of U.S. bilateral foreign aid." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBipartisan calls to cut off Egyptian aid emerge after military crackdown

The Fascinating Interventionist Mindset

"It never considers the possibility of simply ending foreign aid entirely to Egypt and, for that matter, every other country. It’s as if the interventionist mindset is compelled to think only in terms of intervention on one side or the other. The thought of not intervening in any way doesn’t even enter the mental processes of the interventionists. Why not just leave Chile alone? Why not just leave Egypt alone? Why not just cancel foreign aid entirely, not only to brutal dictatorships but also to every other regime, especially during a time that federal expenditures continue to far exceed federal income? That’s a fascinating question. Unfortunately, it’s one that never enters the interventionist mindset." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Fascinating Interventionist Mindset