"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
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Martin Luther King Jr. //
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"There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them."
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George Orwell //
Want to contact the Stubble Jumping Redneck? Shoot her an email @ oldweesie@sasktel.net
I remember a few years ago, the Muslim Brotherhood threatened to do the same thing. That would very nearly destroy Egypt's Economy. And al Sisi knows it:
"The Egyptian government under General al-Sisi just sentenced twenty-one more Muslim Brotherhood members to death by hanging. Amongst the twenty-one sentenced is Mohamed Badie, the chief of the Muslim Brotherhood. Badie and thirteen other Muslim Brotherhood terrorists were found guilty of organizing an “operation room” by which to guide terrorists and mobs to revolt against the al-Sisi government and spread chaos throughout Egypt"
"At al-Azhar, President al-Sisi was saying it is not merely an extremist interpretation of Islam that is threatening the world with global jihad, but ideas that are at the core of the mainstream, orthodox understanding of the religion--and that this would require a "religious revolution" to change.
At the Coptic Cathedral, he urged Egyptians not to define themselves by their religion, be it Christian or Muslim, but by the fact that they are Egyptians--a rejection of Islamism, which defines national identity in purely religious terms.
To the world, he was saying that Islam as it is being taught and practiced by its leading religious scholars has given birth to a globally destructive ideology which is now threatening us all.
Moreover, he wants to launch a movement within Islam to save the religion from itself, that is, before it tears itself apart completely and the rest of the world destroys it in self-defense."
[---]
"Al-Sisi is still so popular, the public so widely disgusted with the unending social and political chaos since the 2011 revolution, and so alarmed by the terrorist insurgency waged by the Islamists, that probably a majority of news editors and perhaps also of reporters have decided to support him completely and to oppose his critics automatically. At this point it is hard to find any clear connection with al-Sisi himself to this consensus, enshrined in a declaration by several hundred key media figures a few months ago. However, certainly if he didn't like it he could well speak up against it--yet he hasn't so far."
Good luck with that. I'll believe it when I see it.
"...if al-Sisi truly has established such a doctrine for stability, it would consist of the following:
Anti-Islamism—i.e. a more limited role for Shariah (which is nonetheless still enshrined in the new constitution, yet no longer to be interpreted by the clerics at al-Azhar, but by the government, whose authority and much of its outlook is secular, not religious;
Electoral democracy though with somewhat limited civil liberties, to satisfy both the demand for popular sovereignty and for an end to the endless chaos--strikes and demonstrations (and skyrocketing crime) since the fall of Mubarak in 2011, and to limit the public role of the Islamists, who are at war with Egypt; and
An independent foreign policy—one that still seeks to maintain the traditional alliance with the U.S. and the West, but is not afraid to go elsewhere as needed."
[---]
"Unlike Morsi and the MB, who worked covertly with the terrorists in Sinai, al-Sisi wholeheartedly supports the peace with Israel. He has greatly increased security cooperation with the Jewish state—which had been endangered in the 2011-12 transition and during the Morsi era—to levels exceeding those under Mubarak. Again, even more than Mubarak, who loathed them too, al-Sisi sees the MB, Hamas and their Islamist allies as threats to Egypt as well as Israel. Likewise, he sees Iran—with whom Morsi sought a rapprochement—as Egypt's greatest strategic adversary in the region.
As a result, Egypt is now in an informal alliance with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to confront Iran. That alliance is compromised, however, by recent moves from Egypt's Gulf partners to mend fences with Iran as a result of their feeling exposed by Washington's alarming pivot toward Tehran at the expense of its traditional Sunni clients."
Although it doesn't come right out and say it, I presume the "State Dept." is the American State Department. If so, Barack Obama's presidency has reached new depths. We live in very scary times..
Poised opposite Cairo university stands a grand statue of a traditional peasant woman (often used to depict Egypt) lifting her veil while standing next to a couchant Sphinx. The statue known as “Egypt’s Renaissance” was created in the 1920ies by the famous Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar and symbolizes hopes of modernity after a long history of colonization.
Today ninety years later again women start to take off their veil. Just like in the early twenties this change is not yet noticeable in the streets of the more popular neighborhoods of Cairo, but in the more affluent parts of the city it already is. In a like manner, a lot of young veiled women are following a new trend: showing some hair. Like their Iranian counterparts, wearing the headscarf this way reflects a protest against the very purpose of the veil: covering a lady’s hair.
This ‘secularizing’ trend seems to contradict with the daily news we get from the Arab world. Today all eyes are focused on the Islamic State. After the horrors of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda worldwide, the world is shocked to see an extreme and barbaric version of Islamist rule through a reign of terror in Syria and Iraq. The Islamic State is becoming an Arab World phenomenon as groups in Algeria, Egypt and Yemen pledged allegiance to the new Caliphate. There seem to be no limits to growing extremism in the Muslim World. Therefore, the question is, are more people becoming extremists or are extremists becoming more extreme? To answer this question we have to refer back to history. With the humiliating defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 War against Israel, most non-Islamist ideologies died. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arabism, socialism and secularism died on the battlefield, as well as the liberalism of his predecessors. The Arab world fell into an identity crisis, opening the way for the only remaining ideology: Islamism or conservative political Islam. Saudi Arabia used this momentum and its newly gained petrodollars after the oil crisis in 1973 to spread Salafism or Islam without modernity. The Muslim Brotherhood too regained ground. It was founded in 1928, four years after Turkey’s Atatürk abolished the Caliphate. Its main goal was (and continues to be) reinstalling this Caliphate. This could only be achieved by getting rid of the Western-backed Arab dictators.
The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a golden opportunity for the Islamists. Knowing that the young revolutionaries were too unorganized and idealistic, Islamists took the power. The entire Arab World looked to Egypt, where for the first time, the Muslim Brotherhood had the leverage to execute their plan and organize an Islamist society. They miserably failed.
Much more important is what is happening to the silent majority in the Arab World. And here the opposite trend slowly starts becoming clear. Fewer taxi drivers place a copy of the Koran visibly in their car. More women are taking off their veil. The young revolutionary generation is also attending prayers at the mosque less often. Most of them only denounce the political Islam preached at many mosques. Others go further and flirt with atheism. The Egyptian government doesn’t like this trend and in Alexandria even a special police taskforce has been created to arrest atheists.
As there are no credible surveys on these trends and the reasons behind it, we can for the time being, fall back on personal stories that might be representative. One such story is about a conservative family in the city of Port Said, Egypt. Two sisters in their thirties, Marwa and Heba, discovered just after the fall of President Mohamed Morsi that the books with which they grew up reading are books printed and distributed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Shocked to learn this, they started to rethink all the ideas that they formed and question the very basis of their religion. “Only after Morsi fell, I discovered that Hassan Al Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood,) wrote the foreword of the book ‘Living along the Sunni Lines’. I grew up with this book. Now I begin to doubt about everything,” Marwa said. Their veils started to become ‘trendy’, then to disappear last week.
The story of Marwa and Heba is just one of many. It demonstrates what is happening on the ground in the Arab World. The young revolutionary generation feels betrayed by the Islamists and is turning its back on them and often even religion itself. Where power and religion are one and the same, youngsters seem to reject both. This was already the case in Iran and it is happening now in the Arab World. As the current generation consists of fifty percent of the Arab population, this trend is probably the real revolution that is silently transforming the Arab World. (Emphasis mine)
Egypt has long been a leader among Arab nations, but still, I will believe it when I see it.
"The Arab League agreed Monday to combat extremists like the Islamic State group as one of its suicide bombers killed 16 people at a meeting of Sunni tribal fighters and security troops in Iraq."
"Arab tribes have been fighting and allying with each other for centuries. And tribes also tend to unite against an invasion by outsiders."
[---]
'Lee Smith uses this statement by bin Laden in his book, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations, explaining, “The wars waged between Arabs according to the strong horse principle make the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Middle East a much graver threat to themselves than they are to anyone else.'”
That could explain the new Egyptian leader's crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
"Speaking on the sidelines of the world assembly of Islamic scholars in Jeddh, Saud bin Faisal Al Saud said that the Middle-East needs peace and co-existence more than ever and Saudi Arabia as a leading Islamic country is ready to make sacrifices in peace negations and encourages President Abbas to follow the same policy.
Referring to the ongoing war in Gaza strip, the Saudi foreign Minster stressed that Hamas authority is the sole responsible for Palestinian calamity and they must brought before the law. [Emphasis mine]
The Saudi official further added that Arab World Increasingly Frustrated With Hamas which is seeking more wars."
[---]
"Media in Saudi Arabia and Egypt blame Hamas’ actions for Israeli war and prioritizing conflict over the safety of the Gazan population and criticized the leadership for waging war far from the conflict, a Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) report shows."
[---]
"“[Meshaal], we are tired of defending the [Palestinian] cause that you have sold for cheap to an MB (Muslim Brotherhood) gang whose way you followed even though they have lost their [own] way,” wrote columnist Abdul-Hamdi Razaq. He also called Meshaal out for living in luxurious Qatari hotels instead of fighting in Gaza.
Hamas is losing its legitimacy because it was sacrificing Palestinians while using financial aid to promote its interests, wrote Al-Watan columnist Abdullah Al-Sayyid."
I've been nursing this theory for some time that the House of Saud is afraid of a Muslim Brotherhood inspired coup. There is obviously no love lost for the MB with the Egyptian regime, either. They are all afraid of Iran and Israel is stronger than all of them combined. We live in interesting times.
(Note: Poor English and grammar exists throughout the text of the article. It looks like it may have been machine translated, or translated by someone whose command of English is very weak.)
"Iran will give a crushing response to any enemy aggression against its soil, Iranian military officials also said on Monday.
"Iran will respond to any aggression, from any aggressor, under any circumstances" and "this is a serious message from Iran," Iran 's Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqan was quoted as saying by Press TV on Monday.
Meanwhile, Commanders of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also threatened retaliatory steps in the wake of the downing of the drone.
"We will accelerate arming (Palestinians) in the West Bank and we preserve the rights for any response" to Israel in retaliation for its drone penetrating Iran's space, Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, aerospace commander of IRGC, was quoted as saying by semi-official Fars news agency.
Iran's military forces are fully ready to detect and intercept the flying objects of the enemy over the country's air space, Hajizadeh said Monday, adding that "in case these actions are repeated, the aggressors should wait for our crushing response."
The IRGC said Sunday that it had downed an "Israeli spy drone" near Natanz uranium enrichment site in the central province of Isfahan.
After the drone of Israel, which was a stealth and radar- evading kind, was intercepted by IRGC's air defense system, it was targeted by a missile and downed before penetrating the airspace over the Natanz nuclear site, a statement by IRGC said without elaborating on when the drone was shot down.
It said the main parts of the drone were undamaged, according to Press TV.
Iran's state TV on Monday broadcast footage of an allegedly Israeli drone, showing small scraps of the destroyed drone in a dessert-like area.
"The downed spy drone is Hermes and made in Israel," Hajizadeh said, adding that the operational range of Hermes drones is 800 km and the aircraft can fly 1,600 km by refueling once.
The Israeli drone is equipped with two cameras, enabling the espionage aircraft to capture high-quality images, Press TV quoted him as saying.
The country's military experts will analyze the remaining parts of the downed drone to extract any data stored on its system, Dehqan was also quoted as saying.
The Iranian defense minister said Israel and the United States seek to create the impression that they could penetrate the airspace of any country to conduct spying operations.
On Saturday, Iran launched a uranium-conversion plant which would produce enriched uranium dioxide in Isfahan province within the framework of the agreement with the P5+1 group, namely Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany.
Under an interim deal reached between Iran and the P5+1 that came into effect on Jan. 20, Iran would suspend some sensitive nuclear activities in exchange for limited sanction relief, and the two sides would negotiate over a comprehensive deal within six months.
After six months of negotiations, Iran and the six world powers agreed on July 19 to extend their talks until Nov. 24, as disagreements remained over Tehran's uranium enrichment capacity, its Arak heavy water reactor and the sanctions.
The two sides are expected to hold meetings in New York in Sept. ."
All bluster and bravado. The downed drone is probably their own.
"Lawyers say the ruling can be overturned on appeal. It was not immediately clear how many sentences had been confirmed, with the lawyers giving estimates ranging from 182 to 197. In either case, it would be largest mass death sentence to be confirmed in Egypt in recent memory."
"An Egyptian judge confirmed the death sentences of the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and nearly 200 supporters on Saturday, in a trial of Islamists who held power in Egypt for a year, but were overthrown last July."
To be honest, I am sort of of two minds about this. The Muslim Brotherhood are a bunch of hoodlums, but the death penalty? Is the new leader, an army general, any different from the countless coups and counter coups and coups to counter the counter coups, that took place during the '50s and '60s during the end of the colonial era? One dictator replacing another, and then another, and another, ad infinitum, which, BTW, also happened in Egypt.
Tensions have emerged in the British government over David Cameron’s decision to order an inquiry into Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, to see if it should be classified as a terrorist organisation.
"Saudi Arabia formally designated the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization Friday, putting it on the same footing under Saudi law as al Qaida and shaking what until recent months had been considered one of the Muslim world’s most established mainstream organizations."
Trying to get on the good side of their customers?
Seeking Israel's protection?
"Members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood have been a mainstay of the movement to topple the government of President Bashar Assad, and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is closely allied with the Brotherhood.
The designation is also likely to have ramifications for Hamas, the Brotherhood-affiliated group that rules the Gaza Strip and which both the United States and Israel have designated a terrorist organization."
And The One Is Not Pleased:
"The U.S. State Department said it did not share Saudi Arabia’s view that the Brotherhood was a terrorist organization. But with the United States increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia to pursue its stated goal of toppling Assad in Syria, U.S. policy _ and its selection of partners _ in that country seemed likely to be affected by the Saudi action."
RTWT It's almost like an earthquake has hit the Middle East. But there's more...
"Authorities worry that hundreds of young, radicalized Islamist fighters will return home and try to topple the royal regimes."
[---]
"The Brotherhood condemned the Saudi action.
"It is one of the founding principles of the group not to interfere in matters of other states, and this new position from the kingdom is a complete departure from the past relationship with the group, since the reign of the founding king until now," the group said in a statement."
The world's still in spin, the Middle East is falling apart
"Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani has called for the expansion of relations with on Oman in a move apparently meant to undermine Saudi Arabia’s efforts to dominate the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and exercise greater influence in the Arab world.
In a phone call made by the Qatari ruler to Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said on Thursday, the two influential Arab rulers reviewed means of boosting and developing ties in addition to the latest regional developments.
Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recalled their envoys from Doha this week in what many said was a response to Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, who was overthrown by the military in July.
Egypt has welcomed the decision of the three Persian Gulf states to withdraw their envoys to Qatar and said its own ambassador "will not return" to the emirate."
"When an Ankara court ruled this week against Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s construction of a new TL650m ($295m) prime ministerial complex, the Turkish leader insisted the building would go on.
The court said the site was on protected land in the forests outside the capital city. In reply, the prime minister suggested the court’s decision was probably the work of a “parallel state” within Turkish institutions.[Emphasis mine] “No one can stop the construction of this building and no one can demolish it,” he proclaimed".
Have I ever told you I think technological advances are a primary catalyst of change, frequently in directions that were unanticipated. The invention of the printing press, is a major example. The internet is another. It's also true that history is just one damn thing after another.
"Egypt state media is reporting that the top prosecutor has referred Morsi to trial for conspiring with foreign groups with the intention of carrying out terrorist operations in the country.
[---]
"Egypt state media is reporting that the country's top prosecutor has referred ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi to trial for conspiring with foreign groups with the intention of carrying out terrorist operations in the country.
The state news agency reported Wednesday that Morsi and 35 others, including the Muslim Brotherhood's top three leaders, are charged with revealing state secrets to a foreign country, sponsoring terrorism and carrying out military training and other acts that undermined Egypt's stability and independence.
Morsi is already under investigation over allegations he and the Brotherhood worked with the Palestinian militant group Hamas on a prison break that freed him and other members of the group during Egypt's 2011 uprising."
"Prosecutors claim that while president, Morsi and his aides revealed state secrets to the militant groups and to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Morsi and 35 others, including the Muslim Brotherhood's top three leaders, are also accused of sponsoring terrorism and carrying out combat training and other acts to undermine Egypt's stability.
The charges, which refer to incidents as far back as 2005, carry the death penalty.
Mohammed el-Damaty, a defense lawyer for Muslim Brotherhood members, said the lawyers have not attended any of their clients' interrogations and have no idea about the details of the charges."
That last little bit is interesting, isn't it? Don't know quite what to think about i, but that stench has a familiar quality. Sleaze, I think it is. Or maybe fear. If I was legal counsel for the Muslim Brotherhood, I'd be looking over my shoulder. And it looks like they are:
"At least 17 of the 35 people charged Wednesday with Morsi are on the run, prosecutors said."
"The backlash against Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt comes as secular forces across the Middle East are rising up in opposition to political Islam. Divisions reach from top leaders to the street.
Political leaders in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan have sided with the Egyptian military and secularists who backed the July 3 ouster of President Mohammed Morsi.
On the streets of Cairo over the weekend, mobs and snipers attacked Morsi supporters, forcing security forces accused of slaughtering the Islamists to stand between them and the mob. The violence in Egypt echoes similar, though less deadly, backlashes against a recently installed Islamic ruling party in Tunisia, and one in power since 2002 in Turkey."
"Efforts by the West to pressure Egypt’s new government to end its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood could be moot thanks to Saudi Arabia’s oil money – and whole-hearted backing of the military.
While the West calls for peace in Cairo, the Saudis are supporting Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who led the ouster of Mohammed Morsi. The Kingdom has pledged to make up for any loss in foreign aid resulting from the military’s brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood"
Unbelievable! You know, I used to be amazed at how quickly the Soviet Union crumbled and the Berlin Wall fell. This has the same feeling about it. But I'm not so sure about the sincerity of the House of Saud, tho. Only time will tell.
And in my ever-so-humble opinion, this all started with Gulf War I and II. All hail Bush Senior and Junior. And I should also put in a good word for Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the WWW, and the British Empire for making English a global language. Thanks to them, we can now communicate with people on the other side of the globe.
History is just one damned thing after another, and you just never know where it's going to lead. PS: I didn't know Berners-Lee was a Brit. I just learned that right now.
============Original Post Starts Here============
...What's up with Pakistan?
Former Pakistani leader Musharraf charged with 2007 assassination of Bhutto
Was it because Bhutto was a woman, or was she just a threat to his dictatorship?
"The former president was brought to a special anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi under tight security after his lawyers warned of threats to his life."
Pakistan has "anti-terrorism" courts? The world is changing. Never thought I'd see the day. I'll bet you he gets off.
"EGYPT'S conflict between the army and the Muslim Brotherhood is set to flare again after efforts by international mediators collapsed.
Officials from the US, EU and African Union have all left Cairo after failing to end the standoff between the country's two most powerful organisations.
Officials from the US and EU described the situation as "a dangerous stalemate"."
[---]
"Last week, the interim government ordered security forces to end the protests, claiming they endangered national security.
In a televised address, interim President Adly Mansour said: "The phase of diplomatic efforts has ended today.
"These efforts have not achieved the hoped for results.""
A stubble jumper is a prairie farmer. I'm from Saskatchewan and my dad was a farmer, so the name is apt. "Redneck" needs no explanation. It's anyone who disagrees with a lunatic leftie. My blog is mostly about the Middle East but other issues also catch my eye and get me going. I monitor comments to keep out trolls and lunatic lefties. Anyone who is zealously anti-American and anti-democracy in the Middle East is NOT welcome.
