Worth reading and watching
Two contrasting, but similar commentaries. The first is by a Conservative MEP, Daniel Hannan and has some telling passages, like this:
Quote:
There is no such thing as a good coup, only bad coups and worse coups. All military regimes, in time, become tawdry and self-serving. Whatever intentions the army officers begin with, they end up as petty tyrants. An elected ruler is kept in check by the knowledge that he can be fired. Take that knowledge away and, however pure his motives, he will end up arranging the affairs of state around his personal convenience.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ntentions.html
A BBC Newsnight commentary, four minutes or so, which gives a very quick overview of 'Egypt crisis: Does political Islam have a future?':http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23736446
Business is better with the generals?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TheCurmudgeon
This offers another interesting perspective. If the major problems in the company are economic and if the military has experience in business, does this not provide another argument for the military?
Somehow I have m' doubts that a serving or retired Egyptian soldier has excellent commercial acumen, more likely via the state apparatus he'd have an "insider's track" on investments, such as a property development. In a wide-ranging critique from the 'left' Nick Cohen commented:
Quote:
To add robbery to murder, it has built a military-industrial complex that keeps Egyptians poor by preventing new businesses competing with the elite monopolies it controls.
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...-west-response
1 Attachment(s)
Variant Voices - and Data
Starting with the Egyptian Army and its "grip" on the economy, the title says it all, Egypt military fights for macaroni, as well as security - Estimates of the Egyptian military's share of the country's economy range from 5% to 40% and its hands reach into many industries, including mining, real estate, farming and the production of household appliances (USA Today, 17 Aug 2013).
5% would make it a significant, material factor in the economy; 40% would make it an oligopolist, heading toward effective monopoly control. Which is the more factual case ? I don't know.
Then we have Gen. al-Sisi; for whom, we have two original source documents - the first, this year; the other in 2006: Excerpts from Washington Post interview with Egyptian Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi; and Democracy in the Middle East (US Army War College, 2006).
Based on these (and other sources), we have two opinions that Gen. al-Sisi is an "Islamist":
Sisi's Islamist Agenda for Egypt - The General's Radical Political Vision (Foreign Affairs, Robert Springborg, July 28, 2013).
Why Egyptian Putschist General Al-Sisi’s Anti-Secular U.S. Army War College Thesis Matters (Andrew Bostrom, 10 Aug 2013).
Portrait of the General as a Not-So-Young Grad Student: Egypt's army chief isn't an Islamist -- in fact, his work at the U.S. Army War College suggests he may be a Mubarak clone (Foreign Policy, Eric Trager, 7 Aug 2013).
and these are just a sampling of divergent pundits.
Attached are pp.14-15 of al-Sisi's War College thesis (only 17 pages total). Based on his 2006 comments, I'd tag him as a moderate Muslim - though not a secularist. I see more than a little bit of Nassar in al-Sisi (the "masses", a Middle East "EU"; focus on Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen).
Regards
Mike
When it is appropriate to act ...
From an article entitled "Egypt’s Military: Doing What Germany’s Should Have Done in 1933"
Quote:
Sudanese writer Al-Hajj Warraq, got it exactly right in an Egyptian television interview last year. He said:
Democracy is about more than just the ballot box. Democracy is a culture engraved upon the cerebral box before it is the ballot box. One cannot talk about freedom in the absence of free minds. The tragedy of the Arab Spring is that when the tyrannical regimes fell, the fruits were reaped by movements that preach closed-mindedness, rather than free thinking. The outcome will be regimes that are worse than those that were toppled.
Apparently, the Egyptian people – at least the 30 million who were in the streets marching against Morsi – agreed with him. Unfortunately, the United States has not.