Turns Out "Tamarod" Coup Was to Restore Dictatorship in Egypt

Things are getting real interesting in Egypt right now, and by interesting I mean going down the fucking tube. Let's set some summaries out before we dive into it, shall we?

• Morsi was not a good president. He wasn't helping the already pathetic economy, his policies were creating an even more divisive and polarized society, he wasn't doing much to protect women and minorities from harassment and attacks, and all he did was talk but no walk when it came to the Palestinians. (There are a few more things but these are the main ones).

But did he deserve to be overthrown? That's debatable. When a president is completely horrible in a democracy, the military doesn't overthrow him and put in an oligarchical authoritarian regime instead. The people are supposed to petition him to do/not do certain things, impeach him, or vote him and his party out in the next elections. Morsi, even though he wasn't a good president, was the first and only legitimately elected ruler in all of Egypt's history. His term was for 3 more years. How much good can you expect someone to do in only a year's time? Maybe Egyptians should've put more legal and legitimate pressure on him for a longer period of time and see how he would've done, instead of overthrowing him.

• No matter Morsi's politics, the military's killings of unarmed protesters right after the coup is state terrorism, and gives the Egyptians the right to use violence to defend themselves from said state terrorism. 

Contrary to what a lot of bigoted, racist Americans are saying, if you go back to the news reports to June 30th and the next couple of days, you will see that the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters were entirely peaceful in their protests against the coup. And what did they get for being peaceful? The military and pro-dictatorship thugs slaughtered them by the hundreds, detained some and killed them in police custody, (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/08/2013818175824286257.html), raped hundreds of women, and attacked and burned dozens of MB offices.
 I don't care even if you hate the MB, you're perfectly allowed to have that opinion. But that doesn't mean you should support killing and torturing them just because you disagree with their politics. The thing is, not everyone who was protesting is a MB member. They might've just voted for Morsi, that doesn't mean they belong to the MB, anymore than voting for Obama once makes someone a Democrat. Other people who were protesting had nothing to do with the MB, they were just against the coup. Killing a non-combatant for political reasons is terrorism.
The very moment the military opened fire on protesters, the protesters now had the right to use violence to defend themselves. If you say no to that, that means you're saying the government can kill any citizen they want at any time, and the citizen has to sit there and do nothing and get killed. That's fascist bullshit. Everyone, regardless of political ideology, race, or religion, has the right to defend themselves against anyone who attacks them first.

The "interim" government is acting just like the Mubarak regime: persecuting Egyptians because of their political affiliation and kidnapping civilians out of their homes in nightly raids. Showing their love for a military dictatorship even more, now they're going to free Mubarak, the previous dictator in prison for all the hundreds of crimes he's done over the decades:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/middleeast/egypt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

This shows that that military dictatorship does not want to return to democracy in the least bit. Like Morsi or hate Morsi, you gotta admit that his election was fair and democratic. You can't claim you want democracy, saying "Oh yeah we can have elections, just these certain people can't run for office."

In conclusion, this has shown that peaceful protests will not work against the authoritarian regime, because they'll just shoot you. This has shown that participating in democratic elections against the authoritarian regime will not work because they'll just overthrow you if you win. Some Egyptians have realized this and have started doing the only thing that can get the corrupt authoritarian out of Egypt's political system:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/egypt-attack_n_3778106.html

The funeral for 25 police officers killed in an ambush in the Sinai Penisula

The Egyptian revolution of 2011 did not fully get rid of the authoritarian officials from the Egyptian government, it only got rid of Mubarak. This is the limitations of a peaceful revolution. It left the corrupt system intact. All it did was wait two years and then it seized upon anti-Morsi sentiment and took back the country. So how to solve this problem?

The Egyptian people must launch an armed revolution that will purge Egypt of the authoritarian regime. It's beyond saving; they must burn it to the ground and start again from scratch. It must be a legitimate armed struggle that is solely aimed at Egyptian police and military forces. Attacks on civilians, especially women and minorities, should not be tolerated and anyone who is found guilty of such attacks should be put to death. Once the government is defeated, an interim government should be set up. This interim government must have a counter-insurgency plan enacted, because surely there will be a pro-authoritarian insurgency, leftovers from the dictatorship. Elections can be held 8-10 months from victory date. For more details on how this revolution should be waged, see my July 31st entry on how the Palestinians should wage the 3rd Intifada.    
    

Egypt is rapidly spinning out of control, I don't know who to support

I had avoided talking about Egypt's revolution/coup, (even which one of those two words to use is controversial), because one: I don't know which side I favor, and two: things are happening and changing so fast that by the time I publish something, the situation may be far different than when I wrote it. But there have been a lack of interesting other stories to write about, so it is with great hesitation that I wade into this unholy mess of a situation.
Situation in a sentence: Mohammed Morsi, the first democratically elected president in Egypt's history, has been taken out of power by the military, and an interim government has been put in his place.

Revolutionaries camped out in Tahrir Square. 

Now, there's so much propaganda, BS, false history, blah blah blah so much crap going around the internet and news agencies that this is far as we can go without getting into controversy. It is very hard to isolate what is fact and what is fiction. This is far as we can go that everyone agrees with. I'm going to explain each side's argument and each problem I have with both of them, and then let you decide which side you want to support, or to support neither of them.

Pro revolution/Anti-Morsi argument: Morsi was creating a more sharply divided Egyptian society between Islamist vs secular, Muslim vs Christian, conservative vs liberal, etc. He was not including people from all segments of Egyptian society in his government. He was only serving the Muslim Brotherhood and didn't care about anybody else. He was grabbing power for himself, so many Egyptians feared that he was going to turn into another dictator. He wasn't doing enough to help the country's huge economic woes.

Problem I have with that argument: First: The president of the country is not responsible for how people view other type of people in the country. He's not there to baby-sit people. If some Muslim and Christians in Egypt believe the bigoted shit they hear or read and go at it, it's not his problem. Second: the nature of politics is to put people in power who like you, have similar views of yours, and will do what you tell them to do. When Republicans get into power, guess what they do, they put Republicans in power so they can get Republican-y shit done. When Democrats get into power, they put a bunch of Democrats in power so they can get Democrat-y shit done. Third: Egypt's economy is severally fucked up. It has been for decades. A combination of an Authoritative centrally planned economy, requisites for international loans, and several wars have completely wrecked the economy, which has the potential to be a very strong one. There's no way Morsi, or anyone else for that matter, could've fixed all of the economic problems in one year. They simply need more time.

Anti-revolution/Pro Morsi argument: Morsi was democratically elected, so the appropriate way to go at him is through elections, not overthrowing him. Overthrowing him, even with his flaws, is an attack on Egyptian democracy. The revolutionaries have been attacking pro-Morsi supporters and Muslim Brotherhood buildings, so they are hooligans and do not deserve to have power because of their violent actions. In the revolutionary ranks are many former Mubarak era politicians, which show the true nature of this "revolution," that they only want democracy for themselves. They are the ones, not the Muslim Brotherhood, who wants another dictator.

Problem I have with that argument: I don't care how someone came to power, the people always have the right to take him/her out of power if they feel he/she is not doing their job correctly. That is a fundamental part of democracy is for the people to have power over their government. So it is not an attack on democracy. Benjamin Franklin said we need a revolution at least once every 50 years to keep the government in check. Non-Egyptians, including me, don't have the right to tell Egyptians who to elect or what style of government to have. That is their right and their right alone. Same thing: Egyptians don't have the right to tell Americans who to elect. So if 22 million+ Egyptians felt that their president needed to be taken out, then that is in their right to do so, and who are we to tell them otherwise?

Conclusion
I hope this has cleared up a little bit of a very murky situation. Like I said earlier, I don't support one side or the other at the moment. I see the good and bad points in both sides. I need more time and information before I cast my vote.
The test of whether this revolution was pro-democracy or pro-dictator will be if they stay true to their word, and have free and fair elections in 6-8 months. If they do that, then their revolution has my support. If they don't, and simply appoint a strongman to power, then I will condemn their revolution as a subversion of democracy.        

Egyptians Want Dictator Supporters Out of Their Country

Egyptian protesters stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo, and ripped down the American flag that was hanging there.

          http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/11/world/meast/egpyt-us-embassy-protests/index.html

 

          The Egyptians had a clear message: they don’t want American government personnel operating in their country anymore. The American media, and many other Americans for that matter, will spin this story, saying any number of things:

          1. All Muslims hate Americans, not because of the crimes we do, (America doesn’t do anything wrong, remember?), but because of who we are, for us just simply existing.

          2. Muslims hate America because they’re jealous of the wealth and freedoms that we have.

          3. Muslims are violent people so they just stormed the embassy just because an anti-Islamic video that may/may not have been showing at the embassy.  

         

          Etc etc the list goes on, but I digress. My point of this post is that the Egyptians had good reason to storm the embassy. Islam, Christianity, and American values would all support these protests and what they did. (This is a totally different story than the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya. I condemn that attack, as Islam does not support an attack based on the circumstances in Libya. But again, I digress). For a minute, forget the crap that the American media constantly spews out about Islam, Muslims and the Middle East. Forget all the xenophobic bigoted bullshit that many Americans say every day. Let’s look at this story with logic and context (*gasp* I know, what a dangerous innovation that is!).  

          American support for past Egyptian dictators is well known and well documented. Americans seem to act like this isn’t such a big deal, or that it never happened in the first place, and act all surprised when Egyptians protest against the U.S. government. American military support, (not counting any other type of support), for Hosni Mubarak’s repressive and torturous dictatorship was $1.3 billion a year alone, (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0127/Joe-Biden-says-Egypt-s-Mubarak-no-dictator-he-shouldn-t-step-down). The protesters in last year’s revolution were burning with anger when they saw that the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters being shot at them had “Made in the U.S.A.” on them. Their blood boiled when they saw the police’s vehicles and APCs were given to Mubarak’s thugs by the U.S.

          Not only did the U.S. finance Mubarak’s dictatorship, but we knew exactly what the fuck he had been doing for decades, and still financed it anyway. We can’t play the “we didn’t know” excuse for this one. Jane Myer, in her book The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, says that the U.S. State Department reported that: “detainees were "stripped and blindfolded; suspended from a ceiling or doorframe with feet just touching the floor; beaten with fists, whips, metal rods, or other objects; subjected to electrical shocks; and doused with cold water [and] sexually assaulted," (p.112).

          On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Ambassador in Egypt wrote the following in a secret cable published by WikiLeaks:

"Police brutality in Egypt against common criminals is routine and pervasive. Contacts describe the police using force to extract confessions from criminals as a daily event, resulting from poor training and understaffing. Brutality against Islamist detainees has reportedly decreased overall, but security forces still resort to torturing Muslim Brotherhood activists who are deemed to pose a political threat. Over the past five years, the government has stopped denying that torture exists, and since late 2007 courts have sentenced approximately 15 police officers to prison terms for torture and killings...NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone." ("US embassy cables: Police brutality in Egypt," Guardian/UK, January 28, 2011.)  

          And we gave these guys weapons, food, vehicles, and surveillance equipment! Again, as I’ve asked in my past posts, what does that make us? But wait! It gets even better. Not only have we knowingly and voluntarily financed torture, kidnappings, rapes, oppression and denial of people’s basic human rights in Egypt, we’ve actually facilitated it! That’s right, according to the ACLU, a former CIA officer said "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt." ("Fact Sheet: Extraordinary Rendition," ACLU, December 6, 2005).”

          So now do you see why Egyptians are so pissed off at the U.S.? It’s not because they’re ignorant and violent, it’s not because they’re jealous of our “intelligence and power”, it’s not because Islam is commanding them to attack non-Muslims, no, it’s because WE FINANCED AND SUPPORTED kidnappings, torture, sexual assaults, murders, and assassinations in Egypt! And since the American embassy is the only piece of American territory in Egypt, that would make it the logical place to start. Since foreign aid to Egypt goes through the embassy and embassy diplomats are the ones that facilitate the money to Mubarak’s thugs, again, that would make it the logical place to attack.

          Imagine if it was the other way around, if you still can’t understand the legitimacy of this anger. Imagine if Egypt gave billions of dollars to an American politician or general that had his own army, and he took control of this country and made it a dictatorship. And, using this money that he got from Egypt, he took away our rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He used this money to pay thugs to kidnap American citizens that were brave enough to become politically involved against the dictatorship. These thugs would torture American citizens, sometimes killing them, and they would never be heard from again. American women who were kidnapped would be sexually assaulted and raped.

          Wouldn’t you be just a tad pissed off at Egypt for causing so much pain, destruction and agony against the American people? Wouldn’t you want the Egyptian embassy to get the fuck off of American territory? Yeah, you would be pissed off! Now you see my point.

          Some people would counter this, saying “This attack is not about any U.S. support for Mubarak, this about some dumb anti-Islamic film that was possibly being shown in the U.S. embassy.” I would answer “The film was simply the fuse that lit the powder keg. That was the thing that sent the Egyptians into the streets, but they do not have short term memory loss. They have not forgotten what the U.S. had been doing to them for decades. Was World War 1 all about the assassination of Arch-Duke Ferdinand? Of course not, but his assassination sparked the war. You cannot look at events without background history and context.”

          Lastly, some people will say “Oh well, Mubarak fell in 2011, so why are the Egyptians attacking us just now?” I would answer “Just because a crime happened last year, doesn’t mean it should count anymore? No, that’s not logical. That’s not how we think towards any other crime, so why should we think that way towards this one? Who cares when it happened, the fact is that we did these crimes towards the Egyptian people, and now, they are fighting back. They have every right to fight against torturers, rapists, and killers. Christianity supports this. Communism supports this. Islam supports this, etc. We have these rights as Americans, (right to attack people who are injuring/killing/raping other people), so American values supports fighting against criminals as well.”     

(Photo is from CNN. Some sources and quotes are from revcom/us).