Egypt’s military coup (UPDATED)
True to it’s word, the Egyptian military has started clamping down on the Morsi government and the Muslim Brotherhood, seizing the media, and restricting travel of the Morsi government. From Fox News;
Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the leader of Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, is currently meeting with religious, opposition and youth leaders, the military said on its Facebook page Wednesday, and he will release a statement on Morsi’s fate after the meeting is over.
Khaled Daoud, spokesman of the main opposition National Salvation Front, which pro-reform leader Mohamed ElBaradei leads, said that ElBaradei, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar mosque, and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, were part of the meeting. Political sources told Reuters that two members of a rebel youth group that is leading the anti-Morsi protests and members of the hardline Muslim fundamentalist al-Nour Party also are attending the meeting.
Morsi has said that he won’t step down and I believe him – it probably won’t be a step down, and I don’t think his resolve will frighten Army officers.
UPDATE: From Fox News;
Egypt’s top military commander says the army is now in full control of the country and President Mohammed Morsi has been replaced by the chief justice of the constitutional court as the interim head of state.
Category: Terror War
@47: I stated my ‘true colors’ explicitly in my first reply; I’m hardly trying to disguise them. I don’t love Obama, but I don’t hate him either. The entirety of my original post (a response to VOV) was to explain how Obama DID, for a brief while, raise our standing in the international community. And, since one’s ‘standing’ in matters in which they have no real record is based on perception, I explained that this happened because the then-candidate Obama was a very well-spoken, well-presented contrast to how large parts of the world viewed President Bush.
I always find it’s better to understand things than simply vilify them, but perhaps you feel differently. If you feel an explanation of how this all happened makes me akin to Baghdad Bob, that’s your call.
Anyone else surprised that an Army Chief of Staff (albeit Egyptian) can keep his word and our own cannot?
Morsi is under house arrest, along with his presidential team.
http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663303/s/2e2c2431/l/0Lworldnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A70C0A30C192614660Emorsi0Eousted0Eunder0Ehouse0Earrest0Eas0Ecrowds0Ecelebrate0Ein0Ecairo0Dlite/story01.htm
@51-Anonymous, I have to disagree with you when you say Obama is well-spoken. He cannot, and has never been able to, make a speech unless it is scripted and right in front of him. He demonstrated clearly twice in the national debates that he has no debating skills. Most people can speak coherently without ‘uh’, ‘er’ and ‘ummm’ in between words. He can’t. He only comes off as well-spoken when someone writes something up for him. Yes, he is an effective speaker when that happens.
I gave him 15 minutes of my time to listen to him summarize the national health care plan. It seemed like common sense. I wanted to see what would really happen. He could not effectively defend the sloppy mess it turned into.
He seldom ever holds a press conference, because it requires extemporaneous speaking skills, which he does not have. Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Clinton, and Reagan were all far more effective speakers than Obama in every way, including off-the-cuff remarks.
And my basis for this is my father, who taught theater and speech and hounded me, my sister and my brother at the dinner table every night to speak clearly and distinctly, and to communicate in an effective way.
@38. I can’t even go that far. If people really listened to him back in the run-up to 2008, they should have known that Baracka was incompetent, and his focus on Obamacare, which he now won’t implement, because that would make 2014 a bigger disaster than it’s going to be, was another tell.
The second time around, one is forced to acknowledge that he was re-elected on the promise of better Obamaphones and Obamacash from his Obamastash. It certainly wasn’t on his competence.
@49: I’m a regular here, and I don’t believe I ever ‘defended’ Obama from anything in my posts in this particular thread. I explained WHY he was supported as a candidate capable of restoring our standing in the international community, and also clearly pointed out that at the moment those ‘hopes and dreams’, if you will, have been crushed and many foreigners -both regular people and politicians- are pretty pissed at him.
How is that defending him? It was an explanation, that’s all.
I come on this site -and some liberal ones- because I try to understand political issues from multiple sides, especially foreign policy and military issues. In doing so, sometimes I defend this administration, and sometimes I’m in relative agreement with people here.
You talk about leadership and the military, so let’s change the question for a moment: is Obama a weak military leader? Absolutely. Now let’s change it back to the original point I was addressing: did candidate Obama, in his first run for President, raise our standing in the international community? Absolutely. And I can have both those very different opinions about the man at once.
Uh, no. He did NOT “raise our standing” with the rest of the world, and certainly not with our allies.
@53: I agree that he’s far, far better on-prompter than off it, and probably put it best (in my reply #28) when I said he gave well-written and well-delivered speeches.
That said, I don’t think he’s absolutely horrible off-the-cuff. Certainly not the best, but my own recollection of the debates is that he did pretty well, barring an abysmal performance in the second one, was it?
Since I seem to be branded the water-boy for the President here, though, I’ll steer this back to my only real point: when running for President in 2007 – 2008, he gave some speeches that really resonated with people abroad, and THAT is why he helped raise our standing in the international community. They, too, had ‘hope’. Period.
@56: Then or now? If you’re talking now, no disagreement here. If you mean circa 2008 or so, you’re kidding yourself.
I just found this with a half-second of Googling:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111253/world-citizens-prefer-obama-mccain-more-than-3to1.aspx
I only skimmed it, but the only countries that seemed to favor McCain were the Philippines and Georgia. UK? 60 to 15 for Obama. Spain? 49 to 6. France? 64 to 4. South Korea? 50 to 24. Australia? 64 to 14. Japan? 66 to 15.
@27, Thank you for the laugh. That was pure awesome.
http://www.debka.com/article/23088/Army-deposes-Morsi-In-TV-statement-army-chief-names-judge-provisional-president-Tahrir-Sq-jubilant Very interesting bit of information coming out today in regards to the coup launched by the Egyptian military. This Debka article I read earlier this morning is a case-in-point. Apparently, President Obama and GEN Dempsey both called their counterparts in Egypt in an attempt to prevent the military coup from taking place. Specifically, Obama threatened GEN Asisi that all military aid would be cut if they go through with it (which is that talking point you heard on the news where Obama said he’s going to “review” our current relationship). This is extremely significant due to the fact that was a major factor in Morsi choosing to reject the Egyptian military’s 48 hrs ultimatum. Morsi felt with President Obama intervening in support of his regime would keep the military from taking action. He was wrong, and the Obama administration greatly miscalculated the military’s resolve. In other words, that VTC set the conditions for the coup to be launched. It could’ve been prevented by not getting involved, and Morsi would’ve resigned. But then again, Morsi and the Brotherhood being removed from power would also be a colossal foreign policy failure for this administration. Rather ironic for The Big O to try so hard to prevent his “crowning foreign policy achievement” from becoming a failure only to be the one that prompts it, yes? Oh, btw, this particular article came out before President Obama made his comment, which in my view tells me Debka has some damn good sources in their network… Excerpt: “Tuesday morning, US President Barack Obama and Chief of US General Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey intervened in the Egyptian crisis early Tuesday, July 2, in an attempt to save the besieged President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood. Obama called the Egyptian president and Gen. Dempsey phoned Chief of staff Gen. Sedki Sobhi, hoping to defuse the three-way crisis between the regime, the army and the protest movement before it gets out of hand. The crash of Morsi’s presidency would seriously undermine the objectives of the Arab Revolt pursued by the Obama administration as the arch-stone of his… Read more »
Muslim Brotherhood got dogged… Democrats must be upset.
Maybe it makes me a neanderthal, but fuck all of them.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/opinion/burleigh-rapes-tahrir-square/index.html
This is in response to Anon talking about what Obama offered in words during his campaign in ’08. Anyone that voted for him based on his words and not his actions, back then, in regards to his foreign policy experience, or any semblance of knowing a damn thing, is stupid. When Georgia was invaded by Russia, McCain came out immediately and made a statement condemning the Russian action while Obumbles took nearly a week and had to meet with 300 advisors before he even made a statement. That’s how incompetent he is on foreign affairs. He couldn’t even muster the words to use back then; so how the fuck could anyone think he was competent to run a country?
@58–so who did you vote for in the last two presidential elections, pray tell? Lemme guess–wasn’t McCain, wasn’t Romney. What do I win?
Oh, and as for your Gallup poll? So fuckin what? Haters gonna hate, as they say. I bet back in the 1980’s you’d pick up a poll where the Russians didn’t like our foreign policy either, and if we only elected Carter to a second term, or Mondale, etc., the world would be a sunshine and roses socialist paradise again.
Newsflash–anytime this country leads from the front, it’s usually a good thing. Either that or we’re cleaning up the mess those fuckers who hate us left behind. Please feel free to cite examples of where I’m wrong.
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” Don’t worry, Egypt won’t get fooled, again. It doesn’t matter if the US takes the side of the existing administration, the rebels, or stays out of it completely. We always end up getting bit in the ass when there is turmoil in that region.
Remember that the first Egyptian revolution was all on the locals. Unlike Libya we had nothing to do with it. In their second swing at it, they did again this time in spite of our efforts. For those who have questioned why we spend time and money getting to know foreign armies, this is why. Most of Egypt’s senior officers have spent time at US military schools and we do our best to impart western morality and professional values on them. It’s ironic that GEN Dempsey toed the party line and asked his counterpart to prevent the coup. In this case the Egyptian Army said “that attempt at democracy had some flaws and this guy is hurting the country. We’re doing what’s best for our people.” If we hadn’t spent years working with those officers that same army might have helped Mubarak slaughter thousands.