Egypt (The chains are gone)

Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
The question is, did the military depose him using the demonstrations as an excuse, or did they depose him because they sincerely thought he was turning himself into a dictator?
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That's a good question, and I haven't found an answer for that so far. Fact is, Morsi was never too much of a democrat, and he had ties to clientele with a deep green shade to it. I find it likely that the army ousted Morsi to prevent Islamism from rising. The army and Islamist radicals were always mortal enemies. My guess is that the military will tolerate a democratic government if it keeps the i-word out of the constitution.

Ideally, popular pressure should either cause Morsi and the Brotherhood to lose the next regular election, or - at worst - force a new election sooner than scheduled.
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The problem is, I don't think anybody knows where the public's sympathies lie. Morsi was elected by an ever-so narrow margin, and only because the other option was a Mubarak supporter. How many people really do support the Brotherhood? What does the Brotherhood stand for after the revolution? Are the people cheering for Morsi's deposing the majority? Fact is, Islamists in Egypt are getting more radical by the hour. Many of the want Morsi back, and the military coup does give them some sort of moral legitimacy.
 

This could get ugly ... and whatever you do ... do not call it a coup

(Reuters) - Egypt's public prosecutor ordered the arrest on Wednesday of the leaders of ousted President Mohamed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, charging them with inciting violence in a clash that saw troops shoot dozens of his supporters dead.
A week after the army toppled Egypt's first democratically elected leader, bloodshed has opened deep fissures in the Arab world's most populous country, with bitterness at levels unseen in its modern history.
Brotherhood spokesman Gehad El-Haddad said the announcement of charges against leader Mohamed Badie and several other senior Islamists was a bid by authorities to break up a vigil by thousands of Mursi supporters demanding his reinstatement.

This week's unrest has alarmed Western donors and Israel, which has a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Washington, treading a careful line, has neither welcomed Mursi's removal nor denounced it as a "coup". Under U.S. law, a coup would require it to halt aid, including the $1.3 billion it gives the army each year.
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I've been reading on several websites. This is unbelievably sad.
 
The scary thing: there's absolutely no way back. The muslim brotherhood won't stop or else they'll get arrested (some them already got arrested).
The army won't permit that places get occupied.

Also civilians have clashed among themselves.. even in Alexandria.

Masked men with automatic guns.

And the Kopts.... who cares about the Kopts.
 
I would say there are a lot of people watching closely what is happening to the Copts.
 
I thought the army removed Morsi because he was a Brotherhood pawn and ignored the new Constitution that protected the Koptic Christians and other minority groups. But I could be completely wrong.
 
You're neither completely wrong nor entirely right. The constitution was a disgrace that thinly veiled the Brotherhood attempts at establishing a theocracy.
 
Ah. So bad constitution, and the army has removed Morsi because he supports it? Does the army want a secular constitution then?
 
The response from the Western powers has been incredible. Need to "show restraint", etc --this is in response to hundreds dead; reports that many died of bullet wounds to the head; stories of woman & children burning alive in tents; several journalists (inc. Sky cameraman) killed; snipers on roofs, etc etc. The original response from several news outlets, here in the UK, as it unfolded, was to poo-poo claims of a "massacre"; Egyptian Government sources at the time were reporting only a few police/army casualties. Well, that turned out to be total bullshit. It's shocking stuff.
 
LooseCannon said:
Ah. So bad constitution, and the army has removed Morsi because he supports it? Does the army want a secular constitution then?
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Something like that, yes. The army has been traditionally opposed to the Islamists, and Morsi was their president. He was elected democratically, but the elections are disputed because of the limited participation, IIRC. The army wants whatever keeps the Brotherhood away from power.
 
LooseCannon said:
So the army is against democracy in some ways? That is what I thought.
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Of course. Mobarak and his predecessors (Sadat and Nasser) were all army puppets. The army has been in power since 1952. The only reason they dropped Mobarak was because holding on to him would have endangered their position. This way, they let the people have their revolution, let them believe they're changing the system when in reality, the army has always been perfectly content pulling the strings in the background. It only became dangerous when the elections favoured a side that could become really dangerous to them.

Mind you, I'm not siding with the Brotherhood or Morsi here. I'm just saying we've been watching a show.
 
I have the idea that the Egyptians don't know what to do with democracy (if they know what it is). When they shouted for democracy after Mubarak's fall, they meant they wanted a good life, a job etc. They didn't get it, so they got angry. Bye Morsi.

I don't have faith in the army but I am also not sure about the Brotherhood. Some of them have shown their real faces lately. A doomed country.
 
I think you're oversimplifying this. The Egyptians who revolted against Morsi aren't stupid. There was probably some discontent about things not changing fast enough, but I don't think that's the key. These people do know what democracy is, and it's not the shari'a-based laws Morsi and the Brotherhood tried to install. That's why they revolted.
 
It is interesting trying to watch US officials describe this, they cannot call it a coup or it will trigger a cut off of US aid, which is a good chunk of what the Egyptian Army relies on for funding ... so they are dancing around calling it everything but what it is.
 
I guess Obama does not want to ... on one hand, I do not like funding these people .. but on the other, if the army splinters or loses power this will get incredibly bad
 
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