Americans were led to believe the U.S. political class was on the side of democracy in Egypt. Nope.
It is, of course, very difficult to choose the single most extreme episode of misleading American media propaganda, but if forced to do so, coverage of the February, 2011 Tahrir Square demonstrations in Egypt would be an excellent candidate. For weeks, U.S. media outlets openly positioned themselves on the side of the demonstrators, depicting the upheaval as a Manichean battle between the evil despot Hosni Mubarak’s “three decades of iron rule” and the hordes of ordinary, oppressed Egyptians inspirationally yearning for American-style freedom and democracy.
Almost completely missing from this feel-good morality play was the terribly unpleasant fact that Mubarak was one of the U.S. Government’s longest and closest allies and that his “three decades of iron rule” — featuring murder, torture and indefinite detention for dissidents — were enabled in multiple ways by American support.
Throughout Mubarak’s rule, the U.S. fed his regime an average of $2 billion each year, most of which was military aid. The tear gas cannisters shot at protesters by Mubarak’s police bore “Made in U.S.A.” labels. A 2009 diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks noted that “Egyptian democracy and human rights efforts … are being stymied” but described the benefits received by U.S. from support for the regime: “Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace.” Another 2009 cable put it more bluntly: “the Egyptians appear more willing to confront the Iranian surrogates and to work closely with Israel.”
That same year, Hillary Clinton pronounced: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.” Another WikiLeaks cable, anticipating the first meeting between Obama and Mubarak in 2009, emphasized that “the Administration wants to restore the sense of warmth that has traditionally characterized the U.S.-Egyptian partnership” and that “the Egyptians want the visit to demonstrate that Egypt remains America’s ‘indispensible [sic] Arab ally.'” The cable dryly noted that “[intelligence] Chief Omar Soliman and Interior Minister al-Adly keep the domestic beasts at bay, and Mubarak is not one to lose sleep over their tactics.” The Obama administration supported Mubarak right up to the point where his demise was inevitable, and even then, plotted to replace him with Soliman: an equally loyal and even more brutal autocrat, most appreciated in Washington circles for helpfully torturing people on behalf of the Americans.
During the gushing coverage of the Tahrir protests, Americans were told almost none of this (just as most Arab Spring coverage generally omitted long-standing U.S. support for most of the targeted tyrants in the region). Instead, they were led to believe that the U.S. political class was squarely on the side of democracy and freedom in Egypt, heralding Obama’s statement that Egyptians have made clear that “nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.”
That pro-democracy script is long forgotten, as though it never existed. The U.S. political and media class are right back to openly supporting military autocracy in Egypt as enthusiastically as they supported the Mubarak regime. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who last year led the military coup against the democratically elected Egyptian government of the Muslim Brotherhood, is now a Washington favorite, despite (or because of) his merciless killing and imprisonment of dissidents, including Al Jazeera journalists. In June, Human Rights Watch noted the post-coup era has included the “worst incident of mass unlawful killings in Egypt’s recent history” and that “judicial authorities have handed down unprecedented large-scale death sentences and security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.” The group documented just last week:
Egyptian authorities have, by their own count, detained 22,000 people since the July 2013 military-backed ouster of the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsy. The broad arrest sweep has caught up many people who were peacefully expressing political opposition to Morsy’s overthrow and to the al-Sisi government. The actual number of arrests is probably higher. . . . There are credible accounts that a large number of detainees are being held incommunicado in military facilities, and that dozens have died in custody under circumstances of mistreatment or negligence that warrant investigation.
None of that has deterred U.S. support for the coup leaders. Months after the coup, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo and praised the military regime, actions The New York Times said “reflected the Obama administration’s determination to work with a military leadership that ruthlessly put down protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood.” In July of this year, the U.S. released $550 million to the regime. In August, Kerry seemed to praise the coup itself; as The New York Times put it: he “offered an unexpected lift to Egypt’s military leaders . . . saying they had been ‘restoring democracy’ when they deposed the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi.” In mid-September, the Pentagon announced “that the U.S. plans to deliver 10 AH-64 Apache helicopters to Egypt.”
That was the background for Sisi’s meeting with Bill and Hillary Clinton in New York last week (pictured above). He also met with U.S. business leaders and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. Sisi then met with Obama himself (photo below), where the U.S. President “touted the longstanding relationship between the United States and Egypt as a cornerstone of American security policy in the Middle East.”
Perhaps nothing demonstrates the U.S. commitment to autocracy in Egypt as vividly as the new, coordinated attack in U.S. media and political circles on former U.S. darling Qatar. As The Intercept reported last week, much of that anti-Qatar campaign is driven by Israeli (along with Saudi, UAE and American neocon) anger over Doha’s alleged support for Hamas. But at least as significant is Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, the party that won the post-Mubarak election; that has put Doha squarely at odds with the Saudis, the Emirates, and the U.S., all of whom strongly support the military coup. A widely cited anti-Qatar article this week in Foreign Policy — entitled “The Case Against Qatar” — made this division clear:
For years, U.S. officials have been willing to shrug off Doha’s proxy network — or even take advantage of it from time to time. Qatar’s neighbors, however, have not. Over the past year, fellow Gulf countries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain have publicly rebuked Qatar for its support of political Islamists across the region. These countries have threatened to close land borders or suspend Qatar’s membership in the regional Gulf Cooperation Council unless the country backs down. After nearly a year of pressure, the first sign of a Qatari concession came on Sept. 13, when seven senior Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood figures left Doha at the request of the Qatari government. . . .
Qatar’s Arab Spring strategy began to fail in the same place it was conceived, amid the masses of protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. On July 3, 2013, demonstrators cheered on the Egyptian military’s ouster of Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi, whose government Qatar had backed to the tune of $5 billion. Within days, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait welcomed the new military-backed government with combined pledges of $13 billion in aid.
In what universe is it morally preferable to support the Egyptian military coup regime (US/Saudi/UAE) rather than the democratically elected faction (Qatar)? That Qatar is now depicted in D.C. foreign policy circles as the Bad Actors in Cairo, while the UAE and the Saudis are the Good and Responsible Parties for Stability, underscores how deeply committed Washington is to Egyptian despotism.
That is not a new development. The Obama administration has long viewed Egypt and the Saudis as the “moderates” in the region. The 2009 cable preparing for Mubarak’s visit put it this way: “The ongoing intra-Arab dispute, which pits Egypt and Saudi Arabia against Syria and Qatar and is primarily driven by Iran’s regional influence, is the current test for Mubarak. For the moment the Egyptian-Saudi moderate camp is holding.”
The U.S. has long been devoted to tyranny in the region precisely to ensure that the widespread views of the public — which overwhelmingly view the U.S. and Israel as the greatest threats to peace — remain suppressed by U.S.-loyal tyrants. That’s what made the U.S. media coverage of the Arab Spring generally and Tarhir specifically such an astounding feat of propaganda: it successfully let Americans feel good about cheering for democracy in the region while ignoring their government’s central role in suppressing it for decades. The way the U.S. political class so seamlessly and shamelessly shifted from pretending to support democracy in Egypt to reverting back to its decades-long pro-tyranny posture is equally impressive.
Correction: This post originally gave an incorrect month for when the Department of Defense announced it would deliver Apache helicopters to Egypt. The announcement was in September. Oct. 6 11:30 am ET.
Photos: Clintons with Sisi: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images; Obama with Sisi: Anthony Behar-Pool/Getty Images
#whowouldhavethunkit?
[snip(s)]
‘Lockheed, the world’s biggest defense company, reached an all-time high of $180.74 on Sept. 19, when Northrop, Raytheon Co. (RTN) and General Dynamics Corp. (GD) also set records. That quartet and Chicago-based Boeing accounted for about $105 billion in federal contract orders last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government….’
‘U.S. lawmakers including Representative Peter King, a New York Republican, have suggested that the new global threats could prompt Congress to reconsider planned reductions in defense spending.
Rubel, the Jefferies analyst, said Congress’s possible willingness to boost arms budgets “reflects some rational thinking.”
“The military is stretched and stressed and there’s risk that if we cut much further, we’ll cut into serious bone and risk national security,” Rubel said..’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-25/syria-to-ukraine-wars-send-u-s-defense-stocks-to-records.html
Commonsensimilla ’16
Mursi made some mistakes but the coup against him was not really led by the people but planned by Israel, Pro-Israeli forces in the US, and Saudi Arabia. Middle East dictators supported by the US is a long list. It was done because of oil at the beginning but protecting Israel became overwhelming reason later on. When the people of the region see all the plundering of their wealth by the dictators supported by the west, hypocrisy on democracy in the region, and killing machine of Israel do you still wonder why the youth in Middle East are so radicalized and support the terrorist groups like AQ and ISIS?
Mursi made some mistakes but the coup against him was not led by the people but planned and directed by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the pro-Israeli media and power centers in the US. The US support of the Middle East dictators is a long list that started because of oil and much driven by the protection of Israel in later years. The current chaos and mayhem in the region is one of the fruits of the US policy in the M.E. Can you still wonder why the youth in the Middle East are so radicalized and are supporting the terrorists like AQ and ISIS?
In order for Americans to have been fooled by the claimed support by the American government for democracy in Egypt, those same Americans would have had to have either ignored their memories of America’s positions mere days before they started making those claims, or deliberately made themselves forget those positions with the help of the media (either act being a straight translation to real life of what was described in the book 1984) The saddest thing is that the American government (and the American media, who play such a pivotal role in papering over the lies and hypocrisy) know they can rely on the American public to do just that. In many ways, Orwell was lucky to have died within a year of publishing his protest creed over the willful ignorance, and willing surrender of freedom, he saw amongst his fellow citizens. Seeing it become ubiquitous AND ignored at the same time would have destroyed his hopes that by sounding the alarm, he could change things.
If I may add this point to my previous comment, August 25, 2014: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/13710-sisi-says-qatar-turkey-us-and-the-muslim-brotherhood-are-funding-media-projects-to-undermine-egypts-stability
“The Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said that Qatar, Turkey, the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood are funding new online media projects that ‘aim to undermine Egypt’s stability.’…
These powers, ‘do not hesitate to spend tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions, on these websites in order to promote ideas that aim to undermine Egypt’s stability,’ he added.
He mentioned names of new websites that he said are luring some with money by publishing their articles in return for large sums of money. Media Limited, Egypt Now (Masr Al-Aan) and Culture are among the websites pointed out by Sisi.
Al-Sisi, who was inaugurated on 8 June 2014 as president of Egypt, said that ‘the goal of these sites is to attract great minds and brilliant brains in Egypt and the Arab states to have them write material in return for lucrative financial compensation.’
Answering a question about the funding of those media projects, Sisi said that ‘funding comes from Qatar, Turkey, the United States and the Muslim Brotherhood.'”
These “media projects” seem to be similar to the tactics of the NED & the Freedom House during the overthrow of Mubarak in 2011.
That smiling idiot HCR is repulsive. I can hardly believe that some many Dems think she would make a decent president. We have rotten, criminal Rethugs and clueless, corrupt Dems as the opposition. We are truly doomed.
Mr. Greenwald I am a Muslim African American most of my friends are also. I have made the point of telling them that whenever I see an article written by you Allah willing I am going to read it. You seem to have a great and abiding comment to advocating what is fair and just to people and you do so in a very compelling manner. Please keep up the good work. And yes this article is another effort of advancing truth.
No question about US support for Mubarak for 30 years. In 2011, the “Arab Spring” overthrow of Mubarak also seemed to be engineered by the State Dept-funded NED and the Freedom House. I know that the US has seemed to support the Egyptian military junta since the coup in July 2013. But I think that the US has a more complex relationship with the junta and also with the Muslim Brotherhood. The Libyan-based Free Egyptian Army, with Qatar, NATO member Turkey, and LIFG bears an eerie resemblance to the CIA’s Benghazi-based arms smuggling operations to the Free Syrian Army. http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/04/14/sources-syrian-jihad-coming-egypt-help-turkey-qatar-obama/ The CIA has a long history with the Brotherhood going back to the Eisenhower administration and Said Ramadan. It is not inconceivable that the US has used the Free Egyptian Army against the junta, after they threw the Brotherhood out of a governing coalition and took the whole enchilada in July 2013. And Qatar hosts that CENTCOM base for US military ops, while supporting the Brotherhood, both in Egypt & in Syria.
As an Egyptian I am amazed how accurate this article is, at last! Great work!
Yes.
The United States has a long history of supporting dictators that serve US economic objectives.
“U.S. Love Affair with Murderous Dictators and Hate for Democracy”
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_62550.shtml
{“Millions of people around the world are overwhelmed and encouraged by the popular uprisings against U.S.-imposed dictatorship regimes in the Arab world. Yet what is lacking is any serious examination of the complicity of the U.S. government and its allies in supporting murderous regimes. Far from promoting stability and democracy, the U.S. is the source of instability and an enemy of democracy.’}
Nice to see AntiWar promoting Omidyar’s shill, GG. Not much reporting on Omidyar’s CIA coup in Kiev, is there, on Antiwar or at First Look? Why not?
Nice to see AntiWar promoting Pierre Omidyar’s shill, GG. Not much reporting on Omidyar’s overthrow of Kiev on Antiwar or First Look, is there?
Well then, enlighten us with documentation or proof Adam Engel. This is your big opportunity.
http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/
The names of the specific groups omidyar funded for Ukraine are in the Pando piece from February.
Just because you think your boy Greenwald is untainted doesn’t mean it’s true.
Also, weev’s a fascist and Greenwald doesn’t seem to have a problem hanging out with him. There’s a photo on line of the two of them mugging it up. I mean, seriously, he’s openly socializing with assholes like that!?! Freaking bourgeois reactionary.
And none of this murderous mendacity will, in any way, stop idiot liberals from supporting Clinton in 2016, because, vagina.
Utterly depraved and depressing.
The US deserves the upcoming societal collapse.
And none of this murderous mendacity will, in any way, stop idiot liberals from supporting Clinton in 2016, because, vagina.
It’s interesting that Bill Clinton was brought low by one woman’s mouth – never, of course, because he couldn’t control his own dick – while his wife will ascend solely due to her possession of another female orifice.
I can’t stand Clinton. Won’t vote for her or any other candidate put forth by democrats at anything other than a local, more easily observed/assessed/accountable, level. Even then they have to survive extensive, highly warranted side-eye. But to simplify HRC’s power over voters to her possession of a vagina is truly, massively, ostrich-like misogyny. She is powerful because of her connections, just like every man who came before her. In fact, it is her mastery of the skills manifested by her predecessors that got her where she is today and makes her almost a lock for 2016.
I totally agree. I can’t think of a worse candidate than HCR, and have no respect for Dems anymore. I voted for Obama once and Kerry many times, votes I now deeply regret. But I am done with the Democratic Party forever at the national level, and much of the state level also. They may be good on social issues, but they are fascists like the Rethugs on military, NSA-CIA, privacy, human rights and foreign policy. It’s nice that more states are voting to recognize gay marriage, but for most of us, it is not at all important. What is crucial to me is the rapidly developing Police/Security State, and being happily married (straight or gay) won’t impact the awful consequences that much once the repression really starts to get worse–and it will.
We have a very mediocre Dem. candidate for governor in Martha Coakley, and the alternatives in the Dem party and in Independents are much better, but she, like Clinton, is the power structure’s choice, to the detriment of the rest of us. Mass has the highest rate of non Dem and Repub registered voters in the country, but the Dem machine has a lock on the state politics. In time that will end, in fact I’m sure Coakley will hasten that end if she does become governor.
Ostriches may hate women, but that’s probably because few men wear ostrich feather hats.
Total lock for dogcatcher maybe.She doesn’t have a chance,too many people hate her,and as the next 14 months are going to further expose her complete idiocy and warmongering policies as the crap they are,fuggetaboutit.
How do you write women so well?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBz0BTb83H8
This is why corporate control of the media and political class — regardless of the party or anywhere worldwide — is so dangerous. Neither is worthy of trust and is why democracy is/will fail, whether in the USA, Egypt, the UK, Europe, the Persian Gulf, Israel, India, Russia, etc., even Hong Kong. Even the Nordic nations are crumbling.
It is also why local and international public efforts to halt the causes of Climate Change will fail: manufactured opinion combined with generally popular police/military violence are crushingly stronger than the public’s ability to save itself.
The only alternative to “corporate control of the media”
is political control of the media, which happens to be the only thing worse.
What do you think corporate control IS? Corporate picks the candidates, and the people get a choice of which corporate candidate. It was SO much worse in the old USSR and present day China where the party picks the candidates.
America continues to pay lip service to democracy in Egypt but it is clear to any involved observer that the USA’s middle eastern strategy requires Egypt to be completely compliant to American and Israeli interests, Egypt is effectively neutered as an independent regional power. The sad thing is that even Egyptians who supported the revolution were ignorant of the role that America played in sustaining decades of dictatorship and in making sure the revolution failed. They feared the degradation of their Islamic culture if American values took over in Egypt little realizing that America had already been deeply influential for decades. If they had been more savvy then they would have targeted their American masters instead of the Egyptian proxies and maybe the revolution would have got somewhere.
I submitted a comment late yesterday afternoon that still hasn’t appeared. It contained two links.
Glenn, this is the first time I find myself in opposition to you. Most of the article is well presented as always, but I strongly disagree that the overthrow of Morsi was a bad thing. He was just as tyrannical as any US-backed puppet. You applaud his rise to power through democracy, but his reign was a prime example of how one can manipulate the democratic process for personal power, particularly in a country that was perhaps not yet ready for democracy. Specifically, he rallied his countrymen under the banner of Islamic religious devotion – the easiest way to gain the votes of the naive peasants of which there are many in Egypt. This same strategy has been used in Turkey with great success for over a decade now, and it’s not much of a stretch to say that Erdogan is a full-fledged dictator (I need only remind you of Gezi park, the shoe-box scandal, the mass blocking of social media websites, and take-down requests of dissenting online content on an unprecedented scale).
Once in power Morsi committed all sorts of atrocities. Here’s just a short snippet taken from Wikipedia: “As president, Morsi granted himself unlimited powers and the power to legislate without judicial oversight or review of his acts, claiming that he would “protect” the nation from the Mubarak-era power structure, which he called “remnants of the old regime.”” That’s not to mention the indefinite detention and torture of dissidents and reporters. This lead to a new wave of country-wide protests on the coattail of Mubarak’s ousting.
I was in Tahrir square to witness one of the many political rallies in 2012. Although there were those in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, there were far more who showed great concern about Morsi’s increasingly autocratic leadership. Weeks later when the coup happened, I felt joy that the military had taken responsibility to forcibly remove Egypt’s next tyrant. It was the worst possible way to do so, but the severity of the situation felt justified at the time. I was, however, ignorant of the powerful forces behind the scenes that you allude to in this article. Alas, it seems that the Egyptian people continue to find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place; on one hand a corrupted democracy, on the other a military rule.
I take particular issue with what you wrote here: “In what universe is it morally preferable to support the Egyptian military coup regime (US/Saudi/UAE) rather than the democratically elected faction (Qatar)?” Perhaps in a universe where people with ulterior motives attempt to gain overwhelming power under the guise of a legitimate democracy by appealing to the country’s most uneducated demographics. That’s not to say that I support military coups as a viable solution to anything. But you seem to uphold Morsi as an innocent saint, which he is anything but!
– Henry
The atrocities of United States is well known in the region and in the world; movements like Arab spring will continue in future and one day the power of American imperialism and Arab autocrats will fail and then the punishments will come. Movements like Al Qeda and ISIS will continue to rise in future and deal with American duplicity and murder.
Excellent comprehender of the Egyptian incident and a perfect example of US hypocrisy. USA’s biased international policies will hit its own people like a boomerang soon. The only way to save the world from destruction is to send american hypocrisies back to where they came from, to USA.
another effective analysis, glen. thank you for your tireless effort.
most of the ordinary people around me are aware, if at varying degrees, of the deceitful game played over and over. knowing that we’re not alone in this understanding is critical, so that the critical majority will find the energy to do our very best in our own way everyday to expedite this dangerous last steps of the crumbling desperate global empire and prepare for a just and peaceful alternative community around us.
unplug from the criminal status quo in any and every way imaginable!
While agreeing with the central point here, I think it needs to be said that none of the actors involved, including the Morsi government, could be said to inhabit a universe that has much truck with morality.
The hell is up with this judgement of Greenwald. El sisi is very much adored by egyptians. Egyptians are dumb? Perhaps, but it’s what egyptians want. The stupidity in all of this is that El sisi’s regime was resisted by Obama’s administration and the Muslim brotherhood was loved by Obama. This author is a tool of the government to cover up its mistake in sponsoring the terrorists MB. Honestly, any nation that does not permit for the exploitation of its resources is going to be black listed by left-wing liberals such as this author. It’s all a game. Ask any most egyptians from egypt and that Egyptian will tell you that they are okay with el sisi. You are talking out of your a..
Bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan was a reason trotted out by warmonger politicians and corporate media shills to destroy their countries, leaving civil war.
Human rights for women and minorities, too. Wait, under Saddam, Iraq was a secular state. The Sunnis, Shias, Kurds etc. coexisted in peace and safety (but fear to). Women dressed freely, attended university, held high office. Saddam was willing and able to help the US and the West achieve greater goals in the ME, but Clinton ignored him. Bush was walking around the White House promising he was going to whack Saddam, way before 9/11.
9/11 was his big chance an now we have perpetual war in Muslim lands, perpetual fear and propaganda, perpetual surveillance, police and prisons, perpetual attacks on detractors.
Biggest foreign policy blunder in American history, bar none. The whole world knows it, except the deluded English-speaking parts.
“Biggest foreign policy blunder in American history, bar none.”
It’s only a “blunder” if you view it in the context of the long term interests of the United States – at large. It is not a blunder from the perspective of a number of power factions within our current governing elite.
From the perspective of say, some 19 year old citizen attending Cal State Long Beach, who hasn’t yet registered to vote, who is completely unaware of the issues, whose Filipino parents aren’t familiar with them either…………. sure. It’s a blunder. This hypothetical young person is more representative of our nation now — and it’s future — than any of the doyens of these elites, or their privately schooled kids. But she has no representation in this matter. At all.
So the status quo will remain as is……………… until it doesn’t.
You’re a capitalist right?
“Biggest foreign policy blunder in American history, bar none.”
No, that would be the vomiting of the State of Israel on the people of Palestine.
It was a blunder, but not a mistake. The elite war mongers from Bush to Clinton did what they wanted to do. And profited from it.
“For change to come, Americans will have to make America stop acting like it owns the world. The world is not America’s to do with as it pleases. To the extent it ever was, it is no more.”
Andrew Levine: *The Anxieties of Empire*
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/03/the-anxieties-of-empire/
(Scroll down a bit after clicking the link to see the article)
*Bill Maher Destroyed Again And Again By Reza Aslan*
The Young Turks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ibKWVTFSak&list=WL
That was beautiful. Thanks
Thanks Cindy, for that link. Reza Aslan is an articulate and impressive voice. There’s too much ignorance about Islam in this country, too many false generalizations.
Wow!
Is the argument for that here, going back to the Bush years? Do right-wing Christians have the same influence under Obama, or is there something more recent? That’s an extraordinary statement!
Craig Summers claims:
Actually, I’ve shown that it is a racist endeavor.
Israel is a nation-state. No nation-state has a “right” to exist. I mean, what, Gorby should have gone to the Hague claiming the U.S.S.R couldn’t disintegrate because it had a “right” to exist? Czechoslovakia had its rights violated? pffft
“……Craig Summers claims….”
I didn’t claim that Mona. The EU defines this as antisemitism. I’m sure it’s a simple oversight on your part.
Yes Craig, the EU’s definition of anti-semitism was written in Tel Aviv, and nobody rational abides by it. It is as PC as PC gets, and you would object if such exquisite, absurd sensitivity were applied to any other group.
I at least am consistent. Because I object to hate speech codes/laws as Europe and Canada embrace them as applied to many different groups.
I am not a big fan of Canada’s hate speech laws either, but realistically in Canada we are able to criticize Israeli policy/military actions much more than in the US. At least our media does. The US media seems to have a competition on who can praise Israel the most.
Zionist Craig Summers again resorts to the dehumanizing rhetoric Zionists have been using against critics — to a dangerous extent in Israel:
Time for me to repost this again.
———————————————————————————–
Rabid Zionist hatred and violence against perceived “leftists” is growing increasingly alarming in Israel. From an op-ed in today’s NYT:
Zionists like our own Craig Summers have long deployed “leftist” against critics of Israel, using it in the same manner others hurl “Nazi” as an epithet. In Israel, this incitement is now (or, again) turning violent. Jews, especially younger ones, who are left-of-center, are fleeing the country in the thousands. It is becoming almost as dangerous to be designated “far left” in Israel as it was in Germany c. 1933.
Entire op-ed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/27/opinion/how-israel-silences-dissent.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytopinion&_r=0
“rabid”
You are the only one that seems “rabid”, Mona – rabidly anti Jewish state.
“Craig”,
If this op-ed is accurate (and I have every reason to believe it is, given the normative pro-Israel slant of the NYT) why do you continue to call Israel a “Jewish State”? Likudnik State……. perhaps. However, this trend must be derailed if Israel is to remain a Jewish state — and a haven of safety or homeland for all Jews. I’m getting the sense that many among the ultra-orthodox and orthodox are working to purge their country of all but themselves, plus a utilitarian secular thug-caste – who’ll fight for them….. while living off contracts from U.S. security agencies, or working as ex-pats in Manhattan.
It’s an unwholesome dynamic in any society, but it’s wildly inimical to the long term interests of a small, distinctive people. The neocon stranglehold on the most vigorous proponents of Jewish interests are going to do you in eventually…………. once no one besides your own grandkids remembers your history anymore.
c. 40 years, max. Yes, you’ll be long dead, I know. That is not the point.
I mean, Craig, now be reasonable. You don’t think Zionist mobs chanting “Death to Arabs” and “Death to leftists” — and beating some of these such that they require medical care — can properly be described as “rabid?”
Hi Fluffy.
That ship has sailed. Israeli land-grabbing and settlements leave nothing like the ’67 borders in place to create a separate Palestinian state. What’s in place instead is an apartheid state with several million Palestinian non-Jews living in the West bank and Gaza. Many have passes to leave for work into Israel, with special buses that take them back by night to their “Bantustans”- — just as happened in South Africa back in the day.
There already is a de facto one-state “solution.” The question now is for how long it remains an apartheid one.
Hi Fluffy
“…..However, this trend must be derailed if Israel is to remain a Jewish state — and a haven of safety or homeland for all Jews…..”
The trend that needs to change, actually be reversed, is the continued settlement activity specifically in the West Bank. Until Israel starts getting that message, they are going to continue to lose the international propaganda war with the Palestinians. A boycott is a distinct possibility in the future and Sweden is going to become the first European country to recognize a Palestinian state.
Thanks.
Craig avoids the issue by spewing:
So Craig, what say you about the way “leftists” are abused and persecuted in Israel? You know, the topic of my seminal comment in this thread.
“……So Craig, what say you about the way “leftists” are abused and persecuted in Israel? You know, the topic of my seminal comment in this thread….”
Well Mona. I don’t recall any being thrown off of buildings or executed without a trial. Do you?? Regardless Mona. I can’t support the actions of people that derive people of their rights in Israel – left or right. I also don’t support the burning (killing) of a Palestinian in an act of revenge by Israel Jews either. And I don’t support the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teens by Hamas operatives (or former ones).
And I don’t support a police officer gunning down a citizen with his hands in the air yelling he surrenders (if that is what happened).
Thanks Mona.
Tsk-tsk Craig, you continue to be non-responsive. What do you have to say about the treatment in Israel of those perceived to be “leftists?”
Great article. Thanks.
“The U.S. has long been devoted to tyranny in the region precisely to ensure that the widespread views of the public — which overwhelmingly view the U.S. and Israel as the greatest threats to peace — remain suppressed by U.S.-loyal tyrants.”
True and thank you for attempting to educate people regarding this fact Mr. Greenwald.
All completely supported by historical fact and documented in depth in the following article:
“Engineering Empire: An Introduction to the Intellectuals and Institutions of American Imperialism”
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/engineeringempire.html#.VArNoGNgjyU
{ “From Cold War to New World Order: ‘Containment’ to ‘Enlargement’
At the end of the Cold War, the American imperial community of intellectuals and think tanks engaged in a process that continues to the present day in attempting to outline a geostrategic vision for America’s domination of the world. The Cold War had previously provided the cover for the American extension of hegemony around the world, under the premise of ‘containing’ the Soviet Union and the spread of ‘Communism.’ With the end of the Cold War came the end of the ‘containment’ policy of foreign policy. It was the task of ‘experts’ and ‘policy-oriented intellectuals’ to assess the present circumstances of American power in the world and to construct new strategic concepts for the extension and preservation of that power.
In 1990, George H.W. Bush’s administration released the National Security Strategy of the United States in which the Cold War was officially acknowledged as little more than a rhetorical deception. The document referenced U.S. interventions in the Middle East, which were for decades justified on the basis of ‘containing’ the perceived threat of ‘communism’ and the Soviet Union. The report noted that, “even as East-West tensions diminish, American strategic concerns remain.” Threats to America’s “interests” in the region, such as “the security of Israel and moderate Arab states” – otherwise known as ruthless dictatorships – “as well as the free flow of oil – come from a variety of sources.” Citing previous military interventions in the region, the report stated that they “were in response to threats to U.S. interests that could not be laid at the Kremlin’s door.” In other words, all the rhetoric of protecting the world from communism and the Soviet Union was little more than deception. As the National Security Strategy noted: “The necessity to defend our interests will continue.” [15]”}
The irony of the Saudi-Qatar feud is that Qatar supported the MB and Al-Nusra — aka the “moderate” Islamist rebels, while the Saudis supported ISIS and SISI.
Yes, Morsi was elected. Sisi was elected too. Morsi is now the defendant in a criminal trial. Imagine Nixon had refused to resign, been impeached and replaced by Ford. Of course in reality, unlike Sisi, Ford never won election to anything higher than Congress. He wasn’t even elected Vice President.
If you think Sisi’s election wasn’t fraudulent,you need a head examination.Sheesh.They banned the prominent political party ,the MB,candidates.
Israel uber alles;the NWO.
These two:
…are arguing against each other with their straw men.
Completely idiotic Doc.
You’re admitting you’re an idiot? Well, that’s a start, at least.
Agree DocHollywood.
In reading through the comments on this article particularly those made by the cited “individuals” (excluding the possibility that they are one and the same individual), the following comes immediately to mind.
{“Internet trolls, also known as “paid posters” or “paid bloggers,” are increasingly being employed by private corporations as well, often for marketing purposes. In fact, it is a rapidly growing industry.
Trolls use a wide variety of strategies, some of which are unique to the internet, here are just a few:
1) Make outrageous comments designed to distract or frustrate: An Alinsky tactic used to make people emotional, although less effective because of the impersonal nature of the web.
2) Pose as a supporter of the truth, then make comments that discredit the movement: We have seen this even on our own forums — trolls pose as supporters of the Liberty Movement, then post long, incoherent diatribes so as to appear either racist or insane. Here is a live example of this tactic in use on Yahoo! Answers.
The key to this tactic is to make references to common Liberty Movement arguments while at the same time babbling nonsense, so as to make those otherwise valid arguments seem ludicrous by association.
In extreme cases, these “Trojan Horse Trolls” have been known to make posts which incite violence — a technique obviously intended to solidify the false assertions of the notorious MIAC report and other ADL/SPLC publications which purport that constitutionalists should be feared as potential domestic terrorists.
3) Dominate Discussions: Trolls often interject themselves into productive web discussions in order to throw them off course and frustrate the people involved.
4) Prewritten Responses: Many trolls are supplied with a list or database with pre-planned talking points designed as generalized and deceptive responses to honest arguments. 9/11 “debunker” trolls are notorious for this.
5) False Association: This works hand in hand with item #2, by invoking the stereotypes established by the “Trojan Horse Troll.”
For example: calling those against the Federal Reserve “conspiracy theorists” or “lunatics”. Deliberately associating anti-globalist movements with big foot or alien enthusiasts, because of the inherent negative connotations. Using false associations to provoke biases and dissuade people from examining the evidence objectively.
6) False Moderation: Pretending to be the “voice of reason” in an argument with obvious and defined sides in an attempt to move people away from what is clearly true into a “grey area” where the truth becomes “relative.”
7) Straw Man Arguments: A very common technique. The troll will accuse his opposition of subscribing to a certain point of view, even if he does not, and then attacks that point of view. Or, the troll will put words in the mouth of his opposition, and then rebut those specific words. For example: “9/11 truthers say that no planes hit the WTC towers, and that it was all just computer animation. What are they, crazy?”
Sometimes, these strategies are used by average people with serious personality issues. However, if you see someone using these tactics often, or using many of them at the same time, you may be dealing with a paid internet troll.”}
http://dprogram.net/2010/02/08/disinformation-tactics-the-methods-used-to-keep-you-in-the-dark/
In this case Item 7 above, in particular is worthy of note.
Spot on summary Lyra.
Another pathetic trolll-trait worthy of mention is that of expressing contemptuous disregard for the truth while trying to gloss over it:
The troll won’t flinch at labeling as “a complete fabrication” the reality he despises:
“Among Islamic countries polled, the U.S. and Israel generally vied for the top place as world’s greatest threat: Algerian respondents picked U.S. (37 percent) followed by Israel (22 percent); Indonesians named the U.S. (34 percent), followed by Israel (27 percent), as did Malaysians – the U.S. (25 percent), then Israel (22 percent).
For Iraqis the greatest threat came from Israel (24 percent), then the U.S. (21 percent); Lebanese selected Israel by a large margin (41 percent), followed by the U.S. (23 percent), as did Moroccan respondents – Israel (45 percent), then the U.S. (17 percent), and those in Tunisia – Israel (38 percent), followed by the U.S. (27 percent).”
http://www.wingia.com/en/services/about_the_end_of_year_survey/global_results/7/33/
Regardless of his self-delusions and the other dishonest techniques he marshals to protect them, it is just a flagrant lie – and a really stupid one when the links to the evidence are provided – to call an entire statement containing established facts “a complete fabrication”.
Doc
I wasn’t disputing the poll. I was disputing “….The idea that ‘the U.S. has long been devoted to tyranny in the region precisely to ensure that the widespread views of the public……..remain suppressed by U.S.-loyal tyrants….”
That is what I was disputing. If you read the post, then you also understand that the US supported democracy in Iraq and Libya which calls into question Greenwald’s statement.
Thanks Doc
The post lightly edited [in brackets] for honesty.
“[Having selected the specific quote I denounced as a] a complete fabrication bordering on another Jewish conspiracy theory, [I will now dishonestly claim that] I wasn’t disputing the poll [and then repeat the new claim about what] I was disputing, [and then repeat it a third time:] that is what I was disputing [in order to convey the ridiculous idea that what I posted is not what I really meant].
If you read the post, then you [will see that I spewed a plethora of insubstantial platitudes. I will now make the absurd claim that, despite all evidence to the contrary, including a priori disclaimers from the Bush administration denying any interest in “nation-building”, subsequent admissions by politicians and commanding generals that the true purpose was over oil, and the horrific outcome of the interventions, that] the US supported democracy in Iraq and Libya. [I will provide no evidence to support my latest gaffe. All of] which calls into question [my integrity and honesty when I respond to] Greenwald’s statement.”
Hi Doc
What I was disputing is what I said in my reply to you. That is an honest reply. I really don’t give a fuck what you think I meant. In addition, I’m not talking about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq which were clearly for regime change (not oil as we have discussed in the past). The US supported democracy in bringing the Sunnis into the government before the US was expelled from Iraq (at the time of the surge). The US supported a democratic government at that time which the Maliki government completely fucked up by marginalizing the Sunnis from the government leading to the current crisis with ISIS.
The bombing of Libya was pushed principally by France and Britain in support of the Arab Spring. That was all about helping Arabs who were demanding political rights from Gadhafi who cracked down killing hundreds. The US supported democracy in that case as well.
Thanks Doc.
What a tangled web he weaves:
The way he’s parsed his original denunciation removes the reference to Israel.
So now he’s left with nothing to explain how he came to describe it as “bordering on another Jewish conspiracy theory”.
Epic fail.
Once again, I agree with you DocHollywood.
The unending continual spouting of state sponsored lies without paying attention to facts or details, like truth. That is the problem with disinformation artists and trolls that support them.
Speaking of which, and just in case some people reading these comments are demanding only truthful rhetoric which parallels to the content of Mr. Greenwald’s article and refutes the lies of resident trolls; I submit the following:
“Washington’s Secret Agendas — Paul Craig Roberts”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/09/28/washingtons-secret-agendas-paul-craig-roberts/
{“The public fell for the lie that the Taliban in Afghanistan are terrorists allied with al Qaeda. Americans fought a war for 13 years that enriched Dick Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, and other private interests only to end in another Washington failure.
The public fell for the lie that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” that were a threat to America and that if the US did not invade Iraq Americans risked a “mushroom cloud going up over an American city.” With the rise of ISIS, this long war apparently is far from over. Billions of dollars more in profits will pour into the coffers of the US military security complex as Washington fights those who are redrawing the false Middle East boundaries created by the British and French after WW I when the British and French seized territories of the former Ottoman Empire.
The American public fell for the lies told about Gaddafi in Libya. The formerly stable and prosperous country is now in chaos.
The American public fell for the lie that Iran has, or is building, nuclear weapons. Sanctioned and reviled by the West, Iran has shifted toward an Eastern orientation, thereby removing a principal oil producer from Western influence.
The public fell for the lie that Assad of Syria used “chemical weapons against his own people.” The jihadists that Washington sent to overthrow Assad have turned out to be, according to Washington’s propaganda, a threat to America.
The greatest threat to the world is Washington’s insistence on its hegemony. The ideology of a handful of neoconservatives is the basis for this insistence. We face the situation in which a handful of American neoconservative psychopaths claim to determine the fate of countries.
Many still believe Washington’s lies, but increasingly the world sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace and life on earth. The claim that America is “exceptional and indispensable” is used to justify Washington’s right to dictate to other countries.”}
Enough for further manipulation of state lies by those that promote them.
Continuing my exposition of why Israel is not a democracy, consider the following by Max Blumenthal:
“There are no meaningful differences between our ‘militarists’ and our ‘vegetarians.” This is right. A Zionist, whether right-wing or purportedly left-wing, necessarily accepts ethnic cleansing and apartheid-style demographic engineering to maintain the “Jewish character” of the ethnocratic State of Israel. Whatever else this is, it is not what anyone thinks of when hearing the word “democracy.”
I am not sure why you keep calling me a Zionist while I rarely comment about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Are you obsessed by the word, so you just call everybody a Zionist?
I have called you, specifically, a Zionist precisely once. And you are, in fact, a Zionist.
oh well!
Steb
The word “Zionist” has a much more specific meaning when Mona uses it. It means you support the “ethno-supremacist” idea of a Jewish state. You support racism (Zionism equals racism) and you support apartheid (because Israel is no different than South Africa during their apartheid days). That’s fairly classic far left wing thinking. Mona is no ordinary left winger. She is a humdinger of a left winger.
“That’s fairly classic far left wing thinking”
So, according to Craig, Mona’s view of what a Zionist is is a “fairly classic far left wing” way of thinking, despite Mona being “no ordinary left winger” but instead a “humdinger of a left winger.”
Moan also used to wear some awesome pumps, truth be told, but that, like Craig’s assessment here, is beside the point.
Not only are Craig’s attempted puns in this assertion atrocious, the initial premise is factually incorrect.
Although Craig sums up Zionist tendencies fairly well and fairly accurately, he falls down when he attributes that definition to just a subset of ideologies self-described by him as “a “fairly classic far left wing” way of thinking.
It is a rational way of thinking about what is going on regarding Israel and Palestine. To attempt to marginalize it to a particular imagined world-view is to deny the evidence all around you.
“Ideology knows the answer before the question has been asked. Principles are something different: a set of values that have to be adapted to circumstances but not compromised away.”
– George Packer
Sillyputty
“…..It is a rational way of thinking about what is going on regarding Israel and Palestine. To attempt to marginalize it to a particular imagined world-view is to deny the evidence all around you……”
To refer to Zionism Israel as a ethno-supremacist ideology is not a rational or common viewpoint for the typical left winger. It’s not classic liberal thinking to compare Israel to apartheid South Africa. And it certainly isn’t classic left wing thinking to call or imply that Zionism is racism (which was repealed at the UN). According to the European definition of antisemitism (examples):
“……Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel……..”
“Liberals” oppose the settlements because they were declared illegal under international law, and they prevent Palestinian right to self determination. Liberals care about Palestinians while recognizing the right to self determination for Jewish people (albeit an imperfect democracy). The hard left delegitimizes Israel as a Jewish state – as Mona does.
There is a world of difference between the intolerant and many times bigoted radical left and liberals. Sometimes – as I have mentioned many times – the far right and left are indistinguishable. Israel is just one part which defines the political fringe left – and it doesn’t necessarily imply Marxism. Mona may not like the label, but she has certainly earned it.
Thanks sillyputty.
Steb, as Craig Summers has said in another context: the truth matters. I have not done what you claimed I did.
“To refer to Zionism Israel as a ethno-supremacist ideology is not a rational or common viewpoint for the typical left winger – CraigSummers
That’s my point – Craig, you called it “a fairly classic far left wing way of thinking” – I called it “a rational way of thinking about what is going on regarding Israel and Palestine,” thus disputing that “far-left” characterization, so I don’t understand the confusion, other than I’m consistent in what I say, and disregard pigeon-holing others with labels in order to confuse, rather than elucidate.
In other words, it’s the labels (typical left, far-left, liberal, and humdinger-left-winger) that muddies the waters here.
What Israel is doing to Palestine is morally bankrupt, and you don’t need to label it or pigeon-hole it ideologically to see that plainly. The fact that some do need to do that simply – and I’ll restate it again – marginalizes it to a self-selective imaginary world-view in order to deny the evidence all around them.
The fact that you always seem to try to marginalize Mona’s and others views regarding this and other topics here with labels is the problem here, and is quite puzzling, in that it really shows a particular sort of infantile rhetorical acumen; because arguments made using pigeon-holing and labels inevitably default to what are nothing more than imprecisely sophisticated ad hominem attacks in order to make their point.
” I don’t like the monikers, and I don’t like being pigeonholed. You know, I’m a human being. – John Lydon
Thanks for your response.
“…..In other words, it’s the labels (typical left, far-left, liberal, and humdinger-left-winger) that muddies the waters here…..”
I’m not quite following why that muddies the water. I didn’t invent political terminology like left, liberal, far left, far right, libertarian, socialist, fascist, Nazi, libertarian socialist and so on. Political scientists invented them to describe political beliefs. If I label David Duke a far right wing racist, will you object? I doubt it, or at least you shouldn’t. If someone objects to how I label them, then they can argue their case. I’ll listen.
“…..That’s my point – Craig, you called it “a fairly classic far left wing way of thinking” – I called it “a rational way of thinking about what is going on regarding Israel and Palestine,”…..”
I don’t. To me, labeling Israel an ethno-supremacist state is hatred and bigotry personified. So I would probably label you further to the left than you might (want to) believe. But it is not just the IP conflict where this label comes from. There are a host of issues associated with the label – far left. On other issues, you might change my opinion. For example, you might support air strikes against ISIS because you fear for the fate of the Yazidis. As I mentioned in the above post, there are a lot of issues surrounding the IP conflict to criticize the actions of Israel – like settlements and disproportionate responses. Certainly, Israel could find themselves (deservedly) boycotted in the next decade if there is no attempt to create a Palestinian state (despite Hamas always – and ignorantly – providing cover for their actions).
“…….The fact that you always seem to try to marginalize Mona’s and others views regarding this and other topics here with labels is the problem here, and is quite puzzling, in that it really shows a particular sort of infantile rhetorical acumen; because arguments made using pigeon-holing and labels inevitably default to what are nothing more than imprecisely sophisticated ad hominem attacks in order to make their point……”
I have seen Mona use “Zionist” in a derogatory fashion for the past year (and much worse) so she is going to have to deal with how I label her – until she proves otherwise. However, I don’t use the “Far Left Wing” label because Mona calls everyone a “Zionist” in a disparaging manner. I fully believe that it’s an intolerant offshoot of liberalism. I have a lot of respect for liberals (especially concerning civil liberties, civil rights and human rights) and very little for the extreme left.
Thanks.
” If someone objects to how I label them, then they can argue their case. I’ll listen
The problem, as I’ve tried to be clear on, is that labels, in and of themselves, don’t foster effective communication, they stifle it.
In my view, particularly supported by the horrendous job being done by most main stream media and politicians when communicating, by taking these comments from individual commentators and trying to categorize every branch and sub branch of a religion, ideology, or any other broad based belief in the hope that it somehow will enlighten or bring forth more information isn’t very helpful – and more often than not, it’s counterproductive.
Why? Because labeling someone doesn’t tell you anything more about the argument that person is presenting – but it does tell you a lot about the intellectual laziness of the person rebutting the argument.
Some guidance regarding labeling individuals from an unlikely, but nevertheless, very authoritative source – a grandparent:
http://www.grandparents.com/family-and-relationships/inspiring-stories-and-wisdoms/labeling-people
” I’m not an optimist. I’m a realist. And my reality is that we live in a multifaceted, multicultural world. And maybe once we stop labeling ourselves, then maybe everyone else will.” – Octavia Spencer
Sillyputty, good points all.
Craig claims his using the label “far left” is no different than using the label “Zionist.” The latter, however, is a set of beliefs, religious and secular, regarding the Jewish relationship with, and entitlement to, the land that until 1948 was called Palestine. Many, many Jews happily claim the label of Zionist, as do many evangelical Xtians.
By contrast, I literally know no one who calls him- or herself “far left,” “extreme left,” or Dershowitz’s favorite, “hard left.” Nor do those who use this functional epithet have any definition for it that makes sense — to them it means anti-Israel, and perhaps also against invading and bombing Muslim countries; those are not inherently left-wing positions.
Left is commonly understood to describe something about a person’s views regarding the state’s role in economic issues: business and labor matters, as well as a welfare system. It is economically redistributionist.
What that has to do with someone’s views on Israel is known only in the minds of Zionists like Craig, who promiscuously hurl the “far left” thing against Israel’s critics.
It can get violent, this irrational hatred of perceived leftists, and has done so often in Israel.
You as well, Mona, and thank you. A refresher for those who need it:
Ad hominem: Latin for “to the man.” An arguer who uses ad hominems attacks the person instead of the argument. Whenever an arguer cannot defend his position with evidence, facts or reason, he or she may resort to attacking an opponent either through: labeling, straw man arguments, name calling, offensive remarks and anger.
Pretty much sums up all too many conversations in our world today.
““Psychobabble attempts to redefine the entire English language just to make a correct statement incorrect. Psychology is the study of why someone would try to do this.” – Criss Jami
Mona
“……Craig claims his using the label “far left” is no different than using the label “Zionist.” The latter, however, is a set of beliefs, religious and secular, regarding the Jewish relationship with, and entitlement to, the land that until 1948 was called Palestine. Many, many Jews happily claim the label of Zionist, as do many evangelical Xtians……”
Many Jews (and Christians) do happily call themselves Zionists; however, I don’t know any Jews that are happy to be labeled ethno-supremacist because they support the Jewish state (or the idea of a Jewish state). That’s simply hatred and bigotry on your part Mona. There is no other way to label it. And when you call someone a Zionist – like Steb – that is exactly what you mean. In your mind, Zionism is equivalent to racism – something that was repealed at the UN.
Indeed, Mona, you have crossed the line on other issues involving Jews as well like Jews run US foreign policy and Jews control the Republican Party and so on. These are traditional positions of the far right. You clearly have no problem using the term “fascist”, and presumably, far right as well. These are not typical “liberal’ positions, however.
You are dismissive of the European definition of anti-Semitism calling them written in Tel Aviv (wonderfully telling statement). You support a Nazi funding this site without any apparent sensitivity to what that means. Greenwald has no problem (ignorantly) comparing Netanyahu with Goebbels – and he does that purposely. You certainly are not a far right winger Mona. I don’t buy that, but you are not a liberal either. The far left is a special political class marked by extreme anti Americanism and extreme opposition to Israel (always in tandem: see the article by Greenwald). The extreme left is far more anti American than pro-Arab (for example bombing Muslims in seven countries) and far more anti-Israel than pro-Palestinian. These truths are self-evident. But as I have explained at least twice to you before, those are not the only defining factors.
Deal with it Mona.
Thanks
Fer’ beegezesus’ sake, Craig – what part of using labels is a logical fallacy do you not understand?
A refresher for those who need it:
Ad hominem: Latin for “to the man.” An arguer who uses ad hominems attacks the person instead of the argument. Whenever an arguer cannot defend his position with evidence, facts or reason, he or she may resort to attacking an opponent either through: labeling, straw man arguments, name calling, offensive remarks and anger.
Pretty much sums up your every argument – a series of fallacies using poor reasoning because you are simply unable to defend your position with evidence, facts or reason.
“Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids.” – John Steinbeck, East of Eden ”
sillyputty
You keep posting the same idea. I got your message. I just disagree with it. The rise of antisemitism on the left is not a new topic or one that I just made up. It’s an ongoing controversy and topic of discussion. There are plenty of links if you google “the political left and antisemitism”. Ben Cohen has a good article on left wing antisemitism: “The Persistence of Anti-Semitism on the British Left”. As Mona has mentioned, Dershowitz addresses the “hard” left. It is pertinent to the discussion of Israel – and it’s pertinent to the campaign to delegitimize Israel i.e., the Jewish state.
Again, it is not the only criteria that defines the fringe, hard, extreme, far, radical left, but it is important in the discussion of US foreign policy and Israel which are almost always intertwined in discussions by the far left.
I think it’s ironic that Mona thinks “….It can get violent, this irrational hatred of perceived leftists….” According to Wikipedia:
“……In 2002, [David] Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to “examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times.”[118]…..”
Sometimes the far right and far left are hard to differentiate, don’t you agree?
Thanks sillyputty.. .
<blockquote. I don’t know any Jews that are happy to be labeled ethno-supremacist because they support the Jewish state
I do. The Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin, for one.
He’s by far not the only Zionist to hold such views.
In any event, the topic was my use of the label “Zionist,” and you have not rebutted that it is a perfectly accurate and acceptable word to describe those who hold a particular set of beliefs regarding Jews and certain land. By contrast, you have not shown that your use of “far left” has any content other than rejecting Zionism, and opposing endless military actions in Muslim countries.
It is a label you Zionists use to incite hatred, as is happening again in Israel with attendant violence.
Yes, or a Stalinist, Scientologist or ISIS member, or a Zionist. So long as they write the check from $$ earned making innocuous widgets & etc., and strictly leave the journalists free to write as they please.
“You keep posting the same idea. I got your message. I just disagree with it. – CraigSummers
If you disagree with the fact that labeling is logically fallacious, then there isn’t much point in discussing anything when you hold that point of view.
Why? Because these rules of argumentation and fallacies are not just things to be bandied about just because – they are the underpinning of how people make and dispute arguments among one another.
In other words, if you refuse to argue with the same set of rules that govern reasoning for everyone else, there is no reason to argue at all. This is because it will only be done at cross-purposes – one side (yours) attempting to define the rules of each argument differently for each and every argument, and even those rules you do make up differing at times from argument to argument that you make – to those of us that do want to utilize the overwhelmingly accepted rules that both consistently define what an argument is and point out fallacies consistently and equitably as they arise.
Neither Mona nor I nor anyone else gets a special pass on this here, and Craig, neither will you.
I still do not understand why you call me a Zionist.
Steb, I call you a Zionist for one simple reason: you are one.
sillyputty
You keep posting the same idea. I got your message. I just disagree with it. The rise of antisemitism on the left is not a new topic or one that I just made up. It’s an ongoing controversy and topic of discussion. There are plenty of links if you google “the political left and antisemitism”. Ben Cohen has a good article on left wing antisemitism: “The Persistence of Anti-Semitism on the British Left”. As Mona has mentioned, Dershowitz addresses the “hard” left. It is pertinent to the discussion of Israel – and it’s pertinent to the campaign to delegitimize Israel i.e., the Jewish state.
Again, it is not the only criteria that defines the fringe, hard, extreme, far, radical left, but it is important in the discussion of US foreign policy and Israel which are almost always intertwined in discussions by the far left.
I think it’s ironic that Mona thinks “….It can get violent, this irrational hatred of perceived leftists….” According to Wikipedia:
“……In 2002, [David] Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to “examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times.”[118]…..”
Sometimes the far right and far left are hard to differentiate, don’t you agree?
Thanks sillyputty.. .
“……In 2002, [David] Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to “examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times.”[118]…..”
And about that, he has a great deal of truth on his side. But with a racist like Duke, he uses that truth the same way he deploys also-true black crime statistics. Duke would have one hate Jews and blacks.
“The rise of antisemitism on the left is not a new topic or one that I just made up. It’s an ongoing controversy and topic of discussion.”
A perfect example of why labels are not only not needed, but counterproductive.
Take the words “on the left” out of the sentence above and it not only becomes not fallacious but becomes more clear.
If you, the MSM and politicians would practice discarding labels in lieu of using actual words to describe positions like the rules of argumentation prescribe, it would make dialog much less polarizing, and therefore much more productive.
“……Take the words “on the left” out of the sentence above and it not only becomes not fallacious but becomes more clear……”
Don’t be ridiculous, sillyputty. By removing “on the left”, it changes the entire point and meaning of the sentence. Why provide cover for bigotry by those who profess to be liberals? Does it offend you in particular?
I wrote above:
“……In 2002, [David] Duke traveled to Eastern Europe to promote his book, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question in Russia in 2003. The book purports to “examine and document elements of ethnic supremacism that have existed in the Jewish community from historical to modern times.”[118]…..”
Mona responded
“…..And about that, he has a great deal of truth on his side…..”
She thinks I’m dangerous? That is even brazen by the standards of Mona. In a single sentence she proved my point. Mona is not a fascist. She couldn’t be any more anti nationalistic, but she is no liberal by any stretch of the imagination. That comment is about as bigoted as you can get, but she will get a free pass on this site. She defines far left bigotry and intolerance. Is there any wonder she opposes a Jewish state? Mona has zero credibility simply because of these kind on antisemitic remarks and all you can talk about are “labels”……Jesus.
” By removing “on the left”, it changes the entire point and meaning of the sentence
No it does not. Why? Because your “left,” “hard-left,” “uber-left, rock-hard-right” ad nauseum are nothing more than the ideas of what you perceive as being any of these labels, and do not and never have meant the same for everyone.
What matters is that the central point of the argument is made (the rise of antisemitism) and not what arbitrarily labeled group you (and only you) perceive it coming as from.
In other words, by labeling, your thinking and explanations become more arbitrary and less precise – exactly the opposite of what is needed in public discourse right now.
” Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. – John Quincy Adams
Thanks sillyputty
Craig behaves as a wanker by claiming:
But you, of course, omitted the rest of the paragraph, which said:
Mona
You are simply beyond help. There is no rehabbing you on this issue. You are a bigot plain and simple. I’ve been discussing Israel, AIPAC and Jews with you for over a year. Agreeing with David Duke is just one more piece of the puzzle in place. Over the past year, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are an intolerant bigot – a card carrying member of the anti racist, racist radical left. Nazis and fascist would happily cheer your posts about Jewish power and Jewish supremacy – and that Jews run the Republican Party and US foreign policy. Indeed, neocons (Jews) manipulate the Middle East in the interests of Israel (like Qatar, for example). Wasn’t the invasion of Iraq done for Israel in the interest of Israel over the interest of the US?
It’s just a short hop to Jews not only control the US government (apparently Europe as well: European definition of antisemitism was “written in Tel Aviv”), but Hollywood and world banking and finance – and all of this is done for Israel over the interest of the “American” people. Jews “manipulate”. Jews poison wells. Jews drink the blood of Palestinian children.
You have a history of anti Jewish bigotry that can’t be denied, Mona. David Duke is up front about his hatred of Jews. The anti racist, racist fringe left hides their hatred of Jews in support of the human rights of the Palestinians. The “liberal” left supports the rights of Palestinians (like self determination). The radical left opposes Israel.
Thanks Mona
…says the man who slurs Muslims as “brownies”.
Hi Doc
Defending bigotry again, I see. I realize when I post on a site promoting a radical leftist agenda, I will get absolutely no support from posters who support the same agenda. I’ve been posting on these types of sites for years so your defense of like-minded posters is par for the course, Doc. I wouldn’t post here if it bothered me. So it’s no surprise that you defend bigotry because political allies are important to weed out the opposing views. I’ve pointed out your hypocrisy time and time again. The same goes for the poster MIC who took up the charge of racism against me even as he dismissed anti Jewish bigotry as something not to be taken seriously. Other posters like Liera and Dahoit promote the same type of bigotry as Mona without challenge on this site.
That’s what is so fascinating about the extreme left. They oppose racism on the one hand (like racism directed at Muslims) and support it on the other hand (like Mona). Again Doc. You are a complete fucking hypocrite – and you know it..
Thanks (as always).
No, I’m not defending you.
Hypocrites engage in the same behaviors they condemn in others.
CraigSummers condemns others for the behaviors in which he engages and then ends up calling someone else a hypocrite while being hypocritical.
It’s not merely his bigotry: that alone is not hypocritical. What’s hypocritical is BOTH his practicing bigotry AND condemning others for bigotry.
The irony when he calls someone else a hypocrite is just entertaining.
“Bigotry is a state of mind where a person strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc.”
After looking back on the discussions here, where in the end CraigSummers damns Mona as simply being “beyond help” with regards to bigotry – it seems that the shoe is more so on the other foot, so to speak.
While Mona is quite passionate about the stands she takes, and at times hurls emotional invectives with the best of them, thus clouding issues at times when clarity is needed, she appears not to be monolithic in her thinking in that she aligns “labels” to “actions” which lends credibility to the views she presents here.
CraigSummers, on the other hand, relies more so on labels to define both a discussion and who is being discussed – forgetting that the labels he creates are, if not his sole invention, then his interpretation of those labels, thus logically fallacious from the start.
In other words, much like our politicians and main stream polemics, CraigSummers does not appear to be as much interested in what the underlying truth of a matter is, but rather is more concerned with which label or category or pigeon-hole into which he can place an argument – and therefore the arguer – into.
What CraigSummers does in these instances is one of the most difficult logical fallacies to refute, in that at face value it appears logically consistent and, in CraigSummers case, at least for the most part grammatically correct; but despite all of that CraigSummers specifically – and the main stream media on the whole – lack the nuance needed to address the specific concerns being discussed in order to reach a resolution or understanding of what another position is, and more importantly, how it relates to the overall argument being discussed.
Personally, I have no stake in the dispute regarding the Palestinians and Jews in that their issues will not immediately and directly affect my life more-so than they have already – I simply cannot condone and allow unchallenged the intellectual laziness with which CraigSummers addresses these issues using labeling rather than precise words to explain complex positions – a rhetorical cancer that pervades and degrades our public discourse to an unacceptable extant via the main stream media and our elected officials already.
In the end, when CraigSummers repeatedly attempts to apply labels to complex human dilemmas it is just as morally and intellectually bankrupt as when the main stream media or anyone else does it – because it not only provides a convenient and unaccountable rhetorical backstop in which to hide behind – but also because it minimizes and therefore confuses issues that deserve the best dialog we can provide amongst one another in order to provide not only mutually beneficial understanding – but mutually beneficial solutions to all those involved.
”“People strive hardest to save face, when the beauty they value is solely extrinsic.” – Justin K. McFarlane Beau
“……Personally, I have no stake in the dispute regarding the Palestinians and Jews in that their issues will not immediately and directly affect my life more-so than they have already – I simply cannot condone and allow unchallenged the intellectual laziness with which CraigSummers addresses these issues using labeling rather than precise words to explain complex positions…..”
You may not have an interest in the IP conflict, but you are not just a neutral observer in this case. We disagree politically which is why you have chosen to ignore the bigotry of Mona. If I was to refer to the black population in Ferguson as lazy and content to collect welfare checks, you might forcefully object to that stereotyping of black people. If I was to quote David Duke and agree with him, you might (rightfully) call me a racist. When Mona stereotypes and labels (all) Jews as ethno-supremacist and promotes other stereotypes like Jews control the Republican Party and US foreign policy, that is what you should object to sillyputty – not where I consider Mona to be on a political spectrum. That’s the far more important issue in this case.
I can’t say for sure, but I don’t recall you objecting to terms like “fascist” and “Nazi” which are tossed around on these threads quite liberally. I don’t recall you objecting to Greenwald comparing Netanyahu to Goebbels – a Nazi. I may be intellectually lazy, but you are the one that ignores clear bigotry either for political reasons or because you agree with Mona(?). That’s what is important.
Thanks.
“You may not have an interest in the IP conflict, but you are not just a neutral observer in this case. We disagree politically which is why you have chosen to ignore the bigotry of Mona
I clearly did not state that I do “not have an interest” in the I/P conflict – because I most certainly do. What I said was that I do not have a stake in it for the reasons listed in the post that you’ve omitted here. But my interest is not because I have a particular and distinctly labelled political or ideological alignment – which appears to be your favorite logical fallacy when discussing things – it’s because I’m human, and what is being done is inhuman. It’s as simple as that. No additional labels necessary.
I also never claimed to be a neutral observer in this case in this case for the same reasons – and none other – that were stated above and in my previous posts on the matter.
I also never claimed or suggested that I disagree with you politically. What I have said throughout is that I disagree with your ongoing fallacious arguments using labels instead of precise words in order to get you position across. Why? Reread my posts again; it’s fully explained there.
Regarding my ignorance of what you say is Mona’s bigotry – in this case that has been willfully done by me; not because I choose to take sides or because, as you wrongfully envisage, that I disagree with you politically, but because my interest in this dialog isn’t what you label Mona as, it’s that fact that you continually label others despite that doing so is a logical fallacy and is, as evidenced by your discourse with Mona, self-evident that this constant and recurring labeling detracts from the conversation rather than adding anything in order to reach a better understanding of each others position.
In the end my disagreement with your comments is a tautological one, because your labeling and pigeon-holing is obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning that might possibly support anything that might resemble a well stated conclusion on your part.
“First, they came for the bigots, and I said nothing, because I didn’t believe I was a bigot, then…it was really nice, it turned out it was the bigots who’d been the main issue. We just all went out and had a lovely picnic together.” – Robin Ince
“…..I also never claimed or suggested that I disagree with you politically…..”
Trust me on this one, sillyputty. You do
Thanks for your responses.
“I also never claimed or suggested that I disagree with you politically – Sillyputty
“Trust me on this one, sillyputty. You do” – CraigSummers
Which label is it then that you ascribe to yourself, Craig? I’ll need to know that in order to not be mislabeled by anyone else.
“You cannot produce trust just like you cannot ‘do’ humility. It either is or is not.” – Wm. Paul Young, The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity
sillyputty
“…..Which label is it then that you ascribe to yourself, Craig? I’ll need to know that in order to not be mislabeled by anyone else……”
Here is the important conclusion. Labeling someone a radical leftist is far worse than labeling jews ethno-supremacist who control the Republican Party, manipulate US foreign policy and have the interests of Israel over the interests of the US (Israel firsters). Of course, that’s why we locked up the Americans of Japanese origin during WWII. Maybe we just need to lock them Jooos up? You certainly have your priorities in order, sillyputty. No question about that.
Thanks.
“Here is the important conclusion. Labeling someone a radical leftist is far worse than labeling jews ethno-supremacist”
Wrong again. Labeling anyone, a form of ad hominem argumentation, is in and of itself logically fallacious and intellectually lazy. That was the entire point of my end of the conversation.
In order to improve communication amongst one another, labels that are not exactly the same for everyone need to be done away with. Period. People aren’t places on maps, with their coordinates to be determined by the label of longitude and latitude (a measurement which is the same for all of us).
If you simply have to resort to labeling someone, you’ve lost the argument already due to lack of effort and the inability to be concise in what you are saying.
I’ll let Mona, if she cares, tell you once again why the label of “radical leftist” (a subjective, catch-all phrase which isn’t descriptive, but rather subjective) is different from the objective descriptor phrase of “ethno-supremacist.”
Of course, reading the posts again will spell that out quite clearly, should the interest in not subjectively labeling everything and everyone suddenly overtake you.
“A constructive approach to diplomacy doesn’t mean relinquishing one’s rights. It means engaging with one’s counterparts, on the basis of equal footing and mutual respect, to address shared concerns and achieve shared objectives. – Hassan Rouhani
“…..I’ll let Mona, if she cares, tell you once again why the label of “radical leftist” (a subjective, catch-all phrase which isn’t descriptive, but rather subjective) is different from the objective descriptor phrase of “ethno-supremacist.”…..”
You are a man of a lot of words, but you are completely full of shit (no offense intended). Calling Jews ethno-supremacists is “objective”? The best thing you can do sillyputty is to just quit talking. You do a lot of it, but it’s your undoing.
Thanks for the advice – but I’ll pass.
“…..“If the shoe fits, wear it” – Daniel Defoe “The Dyet of Poland”
“The best thing you can do sillyputty is to just quit talking. You do a lot of it, but it’s your undoing.” – CraigSummers
Pot calling the kettle black – my favorite part of the degeneration of a discussion. I think I’ll pass on that advice.
What’s most telling is that I’m impervious to your labels and so the only thing that you are left with is more ad hominem epitaphs that are as equally successful at making your points as your labeling and pigeon-holing have been – which is to say, not so much.
The fact that you simply cannot understand the difference between a subjective label (means something to you but not everyone else and for which you provide no adequate explanation, thinking, wrongly and fallaciously that uttering the label is information enough) and an objective descriptor that does adequately describe, especially with caveats provided by Mona, which is what is being discussed.
Never mind that what you do is repeated and is therefore, once again, logically fallacious and uninformative.
If this sounds repetitive, it’s meant to be – because the original reasons for my posting remains the same:
“In the end my disagreement with your comments is a tautological one, because your labeling and pigeon-holing is obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning that might possibly support anything that might resemble a well stated conclusion on your part.”
And:
Because of “the intellectual laziness with which CraigSummers addresses these issues using labeling rather than precise words to explain complex positions – a rhetorical cancer that pervades and degrades our public discourse to an unacceptable extant via the main stream media and our elected officials already.”
Regarding you thoughts on shoes:
“Who will wear a shoe that hurts him, because the shoe-maker tells him ’tis well made?” – Algernon Sidney
sillyputty
“…..What’s most telling is that I’m impervious to your labels and so the only thing that you are left with is more ad hominem epitaphs that are as equally successful at making your points as your labeling and pigeon-holing have been – which is to say, not so much……”
I am just as certain that David Duke uses the same arguments to justify his support for the white race. He is a far right wing racist and I feel comfortable with that label for David Duke (as would Mona). On the other hand, you were unable to condemn blatant bigotry by Mona which indicates to me that this is a political decision by you. For example, you could have rightly condemned Mona (and everyone on this site for tolerating anti Jewish bigotry) and made the same arguments about “pigeon-holing”. You didn’t. Thus you exposed your bullshit about “labels”.
Bigotry (Wiki): “Bigotry is a state of mind where a person strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc.[1] Some examples include personal beliefs, race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, or other group characteristics.”
Check out the article by Ben Cohen. You might learn something.
Thanks sillyputty
“On the other hand, you were unable to condemn blatant bigotry by Mona which indicates to me that this is a political decision by you”
No. As I stated several times in my posts, it was a conscious decision to concentrate on the fact that your arguments are innately logically fallacious and consistently so. As was noted, this is due to your constantly labeling others positions and constantly trying to redirect the argument away from their fallacious aspects (as your comment above attempts to do), despite them being brought to your attention each and every time.
To recap yet again:
“CraigSummers, on the other hand, relies more so on labels to define both a discussion and who is being discussed – forgetting that the labels he creates are, if not his sole invention, then his interpretation of those labels, thus logically fallacious from the start.”
“Regarding my ignorance of what you say is Mona’s bigotry – in this case that has been willfully done by me; not because I choose to take sides or because, as you wrongfully envisage, that I disagree with you politically, but because my interest in this dialog isn’t what you label Mona as, it’s that fact that you continually label others despite that doing so is a logical fallacy and is, as evidenced by your discourse with Mona, self-evident that this constant and recurring labeling detracts from the conversation rather than adding anything in order to reach a better understanding of each others position”
“In the end my disagreement with your comments is a tautological one, because your labeling and pigeon-holing is obscuring the lack of evidence or valid reasoning that might possibly support anything that might resemble a well stated conclusion on your part.”
Because of “the intellectual laziness with which CraigSummers addresses these issues using labeling rather than precise words to explain complex positions – a rhetorical cancer that pervades and degrades our public discourse to an unacceptable extant via the main stream media and our elected officials already.”
“I’ve been saying it so long to you, you just wouldn’t listen. Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.” – William Goldman, The Princess Bride
“…..As I stated several times in my posts, it was a conscious decision to concentrate on the fact that your arguments are innately logically fallacious and consistently so…..”
That’s just garbage. It’s political
Thanks sillyputty
“That’s just garbage. It’s political”
Well, that’s just your opinion, and it carries the same weight as your ad hominem arguments. None.
First you try with your ad hominem labeling to create credible “fallacies of definition;” meaning that when you label something that the label you provide for someone or something is, according to you, therefore so well-defined and clear enough for everyone to understand, thus abrogating you from explaining yourself or the rational of your arguments adequately. That’s fallacious garbage.
You then go on to, out of the blue, to change the subject (a “red-herring fallacy”) and attempt to ascribe a motive in order to extend your run on logical fallacies to that of a “false cause fallacy.” This is where in the end you are imagining some ulterior motive (“it’s political”) in order to refute what I say outright are my reasons for arguing with you. That’s more fallacious garbage.
In other words, I had from the beginning no interest whatsoever in engaging with you in a political discussion. Why? Because all of your arguments are riddled with logical fallacies which makes any attempt at doing so an exercise in futility.
I therefore chose to concentrate on enumerating the fallacious garbage that I found throughout your arguments. No doubt I missed some – but whatever else it was, it certainly wasn’t political.
““I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.” – Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
You do not need to read very far into this article to get the point. Our leaders are corrupt! But how exactly do you unseat a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Pinochet, when they are in the heights of their powers? This is what we are faced with here in the US. Our so called representative, democratic, leadership, is no longer representative of us, but of foreign monarchs and dictators, many installed by US administrations, and we know their names.
True William W. Haywood.
“A century of central banking and heavy taxation of the people by bought off politician puppets has coincided with a century of war, depressions, currency debasement, overconsumption, obscene levels of consumer debt, trillions of excessive debt financed government spending, hundreds of trillions in unfunded entitlement liabilities, and a persistent decline in standard of living for the masses due to Federal Reserve manufactured inflation. We have failed to heed the lessons of history. We have repeated the blunders committed by the Romans.
The American Empire will not be murdered by an external force because it is too busy committing suicide. The moneyed interests, corporate oligarchs and their hand-picked politician front men see themselves as conquering heroes. Their colossal hubris and arrogance is only matched by the ignorance, gullibility, quivering fear of bogeymen, and susceptibility to propaganda of the general populace. The Wall Street bankers and feckless politicians are not gods, they are only men. Death is the great equalizer for emperors and peasants alike. The only thing that remains is your legacy and whether you positively impacted the world. It can be unequivocally stated that those in power today are leaving a legacy of despair, destruction, and debt.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/bread-circuses-bombs-decline-american-empire.html
Instead of discussing the puppets we should eradicate the puppet masters.
But that would be anti Semitic,wouldn’t it?Sorry,Freudian?Pavlovian?nationalist?slip.
In what universe is it morally preferable to support the Egyptian military coup regime (US/Saudi/UAE) rather than the democratically elected faction (Qatar)? – Glenn Greenwald
On Oct 17, 2013, The 94-page report “License to kill; why the American Drone War in Yemen violates international law” was published by Alkarama, a Swiss-based human rights organization:
“This report is the result of several field investigations conducted throughout Yemen in 2012 and 2013 by Mohamed Al-Ahmady, director of Alkarama’s office in Yemen in collaboration with Yemeni human rights NGO Hood. The delegation went to several sites of drone attacks in order to gather witness accounts and victim testimonies on these strikes as well as information from the families and lawyers. Interviews were also held with government officials and members of civil society.” (alkarama.org)
In Dec 2013, the Treasury Department added the president of Alkarama, Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi, to its terror list. It is alleged that Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi, a Qatari academic and businessman, “ordered the transfer of nearly $600,000 to al-Qa’ida via al-Qa’ida’s representative in Syria, Abu-Khalid al-Suri, and intended to transfer nearly $50,000 more.” The Treasury claimed that al-Nu’aymi also sent funds to al Qaeda in Iraq (now called ISIS), to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and to al-Shabaab in Somalia. In addition to Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi, Abd al-Wahhab al-Humayqani, a Yemeni rights activist, was also made subject to sanctions by the US Treasury for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen:
“The U.S. Department of Treasury today imposed sanctions on two al-Qa’ida supporters based in Qatar and Yemen. Abd al-Rahman bin ‘Umayr al-Nu’aymi (Nu’aymi) and `Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad `Abd al-Rahman al-Humayqani (Humayqani) were named as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. Nu’aymi was designated for providing financial support to al-Qa’ida, Asbat al-Ansar, al-Qa’ida in Iraq, and al-Shabaab, and Humayqani was designated for providing financial support to and acting on behalf of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
It is alleged that “Humayqani has used his Yemen-based charity as a cover for funneling financial support to AQAP and has frequently traveled throughout the Arabian Peninsula while conducting business for AQAP. During political unrest in Yemen, Humayqani reportedly assisted AQAP in gaining a foothold and safe haven in al-Bayda’ Governorate, Yemen and as of mid-2011 served as the acting AQAP amir there. Both Nu’aymi and Humayqani are at the center of global support networks that fund and facilitate terrorism.”
The New York Times reports that, in 2010, an arm of the Qatari government made a donation to help build a $1.2 million mosque in Yemen for a sheikh, Abdel Wahab al-Humayqani, designated as a fund-raiser for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. (Qatari Embassy officials and Yemeni government officials both attended the opening.) (Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far; Sept 7, 2014)
Almonitor reports that Humayqani represented the Salafist Rashad Party at the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) which took place in Yemen from March 18, 2013 to January 24, 2014 wherein he was described as “one of the most prominent participants, proving to be an intelligent and flexible leader, with an awareness and willingness to accommodate the views of others that no other Salafist movement leader in Yemen had ever shown.” The Salafist Rashad party. The Rashad party didn’t split from the ruling forces is a dissenting religious group, which believes that democracy is a Western invention designed to create divisions among Muslims. After the assassination of their representative, the Houthi refused to participate in the talks and, upon their completion, Leader Mohammad al-Bakhti rejected the intended outcome “because it divides Yemen into poor and wealthy regions.” The remaining Dialogue members signed an agreement that Yemen would be transformed into a 6-region federal system.
The historical context in which the outcome of the National Dialogue Conference is framed is essential to understanding its true purpose and/or hidden goals To this end, Almonitor published an article, entitled “Hidden Goals of the Yemen Gulf Initiative”, that provides a brief retrospective of recent Yemeni history that places Yemen’s political woes at the Saudi’s doorstep:
“Under the umbrella of the Gulf Initiative, Saudi Arabia imposed its control, while, through the Taif Treaty, it ignored Yemeni rights and confirmed the former regime’s collusion in relinquishing Yemeni rights when it signed the Jeddah Accord. […] Yemeni expatriates in Saudi Arabia being subjected to the worst forms of torture, extortion and injustices, all the while finding no one to come to their aid and protect their rights.”
Sorry:
“The Salafist Rashad party. The Rashad party didn’t split from the ruling forces is a dissenting religious group, which believes that democracy is a Western invention designed to create divisions among Muslims.” should have read:
“The Salafist Rashad party is a dissenting religious group which believes that democracy is a Western invention designed to create divisions among Muslims.”
The administration’s rapid and bald-faced flip-flops are SO starkly Orwellian (“we’ve always been at war with Eastasia”).
And, as Orwell feared, it works almost flawlessly. The proles (the ones that care at all) just believe.
The topic of MENA and “democracy” has drawn out some of our resident Zionists who insist that Israel is a democracy. It is not, it is founded on ethno-religious supremacy and apartheid.
Washington Post columnist and Zionist Richard Cohen has just released an astonishing new book on Israel that defies characterization. But whatever it is describing, it isn’t democracy.
Cohen doesn’t just concede that Israel brutally stole the land it occupies, he insists on it and defends it, my emphasis:
Unironically and in all seriousness, Cohen titles one of his chapters “Ethnic Cleansing for a Better World.” Some more excerpts from this eerily honest but morally bankrupt tome:
Cohen observes that Germans were cleansed out of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary in a “brutal” fashion that “worked”:
Israel was born in hell. A hell that “shaped its leadership and its people.”
Democracy? pffft
Hi Mona
There is nothing in your post that disproves that Israel is a democracy – just your typical rants about an ethnic supremacist state. Beyond that, you discuss the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Arab population. After the UN proposed a partition of Palestine with one state being Jewish and the other Palestinian Arab, the Arabs rejected the proposal with violence. This was late 1947. During the early months of 1948, Jewish fighters clashed with Palestinian Arabs and Arab militias. There was no significant ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people. Arab countries threatened to invade if Israel declared independence on May 15th (scheduled British departure). Bennie Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War, p. 116:
“…But the Haganah had little choice. With the Arab world loudly threatening and seemingly mobilizing for invasion, the Yishuv’s political and military leaders understood that they would first have to crush the Palestinian militias in the main towns and along the main roads and the countries borders if they were to stand a chance beating off the invading armies. And there was an ineluctable time frame. The Palestinians would have to be defeated in the six weeks remaining before the British departure, scheduled for 15 May….”…the Haganah switched to the offensive in early April, also simply, because it could.For four months under continuous provocation and attack, the Yishuv largely held itself in check, initially in the hopes that the disturbances would blow over,and later, in deference to international, particularly British sensibilities….”
Clearly, the threat of the attacking Arabs resulted in expelling the Arabs. No territory had been conquered until the end of March – fully four months after the partition was announced. It was only when it became apparent that they needed to prepare for the Arab invasion that the ethnic cleansing took place. The ethnic cleansing was a defensive military measure, Mona. Theories advanced by anti Israel activists like Plan Dalet just don’t hold up.
Thanks.
Only in the sense that people you plan to remove and are discriminating against *do retaliate, and so you decide to cleanse them all. Sure, if that’s what you mean by “defensive.” (And the “military” was largely constituted of depraved terrorists.)
Cohen admits the idea was purely to be rid of the indigenous people. It was simply a necessary “population transfer,” the kind Churchill endorsed back when the West was still very overtly colonial-imperialist. Which is what Israel is: a Western, settler-colonist enterprise. Cohen admits that, too — it was undertaken overwhelmingly by European Jews to make a European “Jewish state.”
If it is, it is an evil, illiberal one. Most of us mentally put the word “liberal” (in the classical sense) in front of the word democracy. Israel most decidedly is not that. It was founded in and by hell, and maintains itself with hellishness.
Mona
“…..Only in the sense that people you plan to remove and are discriminating against *do retaliate, and so you decide to cleanse them all. Sure, if that’s what you mean by “defensive.” (And the “military” was largely constituted of depraved terrorists.)……”
Not much of an argument against a well known and respected Israeli historian, but I don’t expect any because you really don’t have any answer to his view of history. It simply doesn’t fit your narrative – so “I’ll” make something up. Jews responded to the impending invasion by Arab armies, Mona. Until that point, there was very little ethnic cleansing of Palestinians despite their resistance (fully four months after the proposed partition).
Thanks Mona.
Which departure was happening because Jewish terrorists were sending letter bombs and otherwise killing British officials and Arab civilians. (Margaret Truman and others report that Zionist terrorists sent her father a letter bomb at the White House.) Britain had had enough of Zionists trying to terrorize it into acceding fully to Zionist demands at the expense of the indigenous population of Arabs.
Zionists got their way via bloody terrorism. As Cohen says, Israel was founded in hell.
Oh, and Craig. According to Phil Weiss in his review of Cohen’s book — http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/cleansing-palestinians-themselves — Cohen is very pessimistic that Israel will survive as a “Jewish state.”
In addition to the Arabs in Israel proper, many liberal Jews are fleeing the country by the thousands. They are not welcome (or even safe) in the extremely racist, proto-fascist, murderous state that Israel now truly is. Younger, secular Jews don’t want what Israel offers.
Good points, Mona.
Re ethnic cleansing, one of the leading lights and founders of Zionism, Jabotinsky, visited Stalin to learn how it was done. Remember his famous quote, “There is no choice: the Arab must make room for the Jews of Eretz Israel. If it was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs.”
Stalin forcibly transferred thousands of Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians (mostly civilians, the military had been previously mostly eliminated, i.e. shot) to the nether reaches of Siberia, to camps from where few returned. Not only the Baltic peoples were forcibly transferred, so were many others, notably the Crimea Tatars and Chechens. These forcibly transferred people were replaced by ethnic Russians, which is one of the reasons for the majority Russian population in the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, and almost 50% in Latvia, 30% in Estonia. And Stalin used the same excuse as our Zionist apologist. That these transfers were necessary because we were dealing with “enemies of the people”, that they were “Nazi collaborationists”. Or a “threat of attacking Arabs”, to quote our resident apologist.
The State of Israel learned its founding principles at the knee of Stalin. Need we say more.
“……The State of Israel learned its founding principles at the knee of Stalin. Need we say more……”
Maybe a little. What Stalin may or may not have done regarding population transfer is irrelevant in Israel. From a review of a book about Jabotinsky (Wall Street Journal), he seems to have supported the rights of the Arabs.
“……Jabotinsky was committed to upholding the individual rights of Arabs in the Jewish-majority state. Indeed, when British officials in the late 1930s proposed partitioning Palestine and transferring the Arabs out of the Jewish portion, leading Zionists on the left consented, but Jabotinsky said that “forcing the Arabs out of Palestine is totally out of the question.” He rejected the proposal as an unconscionable violation of the Arabs’ individual rights. The Arabs enjoy majority rights in many countries, he noted, and would of course prefer to remain the majority in Palestine. But they will have to live as a minority in that one country, he said, or the Jews would have to live as a minority everywhere in the world……”
Thanks.
<blockquote. What Stalin may or may not have done regarding population transfer is irrelevant in Israel.
Sure, Craig. That Jabotinsky was informed by an actual far leftist – Joseph Stalin — is utterly irrelevant. Uh-huh. ;)
Jabotinsky was about as concerned with the rights of Arabs as Stalin was with the rights of Kulaks.
“…….Jabotinsky was about as concerned with the rights of Arabs as Stalin was with the rights of Kulaks……”
I’m not against you disagreeing with this source (which quotes him), but you need to provide something other than your personal opinion. The quote of Jabotinsky provided in the book review of Jabotisky seems to dispute what Kassandra stated in her post.
Thanks Mona.
Re the comment that Jews are leaving Israel by the thousands. Just as Israel has never defined its borders, I don’t think we have hard facts as to what Israel’s population really is. A majority of Israelis have dual citizenship, making it easy for them to move between countries. It is a prestige factor to own a pied a terre in Israel, especially Jerusalem. Many of the luxury new construction is specifically aimed at monied Jews in Europe or USA. Spend any time in Jerusalem, you become aware of the non-occupied apartments. Many of the “settlements” are sparsely populated. Yet, there seems to be a housing crisis in Israel for the less well off Jews. As with much concerning Israel, it is hard to tell what is really going on.
Based on my own observations, I really think that many Jews from the USA and Europe treat Israel as sort of a summer camp.
Craig thinks what Stalin said or did not say is irrelevant to Israel. Craig may think it irrelevant, but quite obviously Jabotinsky did not think so. The statement that Craig quotes as “seeming” to support Jabotinsky’s pro-Israel stance ends with the Palestinians “having to live as a minority (in Israel)”. Now, how does a majority become a minority in their own country?
Let us open the well-documented study by Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing if Palestine, and let’s see what Plan C, the Gimel plan, in operation before 1946, called for:
1. Killing the Palestinian leadership.
2. Killing Palestinian incites and their financial supporters.
3. Killing Palestinians who acted against Jews.
4. Killing senior Palestinian officers and officials in the Mandatory system.
5. Damaging Palestinian transportation.
6. Damaging the sources of Palestinian livelihood: water wells, mills, etc.
7. Attacking nearby Palestinian villages likely to assist in future attacks.
8. Attacking Palestinian clubs, coffee houses, meeting places, etc.
That is a lot of attacking and killing. In a few months, another plan was drawn up for those Palestinians that didn’t get the idea from Plan C.
Plan Dalet, put in operation in 1946, called for the systematic and total expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.
“……The statement that Craig quotes as “seeming” to support Jabotinsky’s pro-Israel stance ends with the Palestinians “having to live as a minority (in Israel)”. Now, how does a majority become a minority in their own country?…….Plan Dalet, put in operation in 1946, called for the systematic and total expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland…..”
First of all, Jews were a majority within the area of the partition proposed by the UN. It would have been somewhat ridiculous for the UN to propose a Jewish state with a minority Jewish population.
Second of all, Pappe has never been concerned with details like the “truth”: In an interview with Le Sour, 1999,
“………Ilan Pappe, a history lecturer at the University of Haifa, freely admits that, in his view, facts are irrelevant when it comes to the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. “Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts, Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers,” Pappe said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Soir, Nov. 29, 1999……”
Third, Bennie Morris writes about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during Israel’s war of independence. Plan Dalet was not a plan to “systematically” ethnically cleans the Palestinians. Benny Morris, “1948: The First Arab-Israeli War”, page 120 -121:
……Plan D has given rise over the decades to a minor historiographic controversy, with the Palestinian and pro Palestinian historians charging that it was Haganah’s master plan for the expulsion of the country’s Arabs. But a cursory examination of the actual text leads to a different conclusion. The plan calls for securing the emergent states territory and borders and the lines of communication between the Jewish centers of population and the border areas. The plan is unclear about whether the Haganah was to conquer and secure the roads between the Jewish states territory and the blocks of Jewish settlement outside the territory. The plan assumed that enemy regular, irregular and militia forces would assail the new state, with the aim of cutting off the Negev, and eastern and western Galilee, invading the coastal plane and isolating Tel Aviv and Jewish Haifa and Jerusalem. The Haganahs operational goals would be to defend [the sate] against….invasion,, assure free [Jewish] movement, deny the enemy forward bases, to apply economic pressure to end enemy actions, limit the enemys ability to wage guerrilla war, and gain control of former mandate government installations and services in the new states territory.
The plan gave brigades the carte blanche to conquer the Arab villages and, in effect, to decide on each village’s fate-destruction and expulsion or occupation. The plan explicitly called for the destruction of resisting Arab villages and the expulsion of their inhabitants. In the main towns, the brigades were tasked with evicting the inhabitants or resisting neighborhoods (not expulsion from the country). The plan stated: “[The villages] in your area, which have to be taken, cleansed or destroyed – you decide [on their fate], in consultation with your Arab affairs advisors and HIS officers.” Nowhere does the document speak of a policy to expel “the Arab inhabitants” of Palestine or of any of its constituent regions; nowhere is any brigade instructed to clear out “the Arabs”….”
The last two sentences are important.
Thanks.
A democracy for fellow travelers only.
In what universe is it morally preferable to support the Egyptian military coup regime (US/Saudi/UAE) rather than the democratically elected faction (Qatar)? – Glenn Greenwald
On Oct 17, 2013, The 94-page report “License to kill; why the American Drone War in Yemen violates international law” was published by Alkarama, a Swiss-based human rights organization:
“This report is the result of several field investigations conducted throughout Yemen in 2012 and 2013 by Mohamed Al-Ahmady, director of Alkarama’s office in Yemen in collaboration with Yemeni human rights NGO Hood. The delegation went to several sites of drone attacks in order to gather witness accounts and victim testimonies on these strikes as well as information from the families and lawyers. Interviews were also held with government officials and members of civil society.” (Alkarama.org)
http://en.alkarama.org/documents/ALK_USA-Yemen_Drones_PublicReport_EN.pdf
In Dec 2013, the Treasury Department added the president of Alkarama, Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi, to its terror list. It is alleged that Abd al-Rahman al-Nu’aymi, a Qatari academic and businessman, “ordered the transfer of nearly $600,000 to al-Qa’ida via al-Qa’ida’s representative in Syria, Abu-Khalid al-Suri, and intended to transfer nearly $50,000 more.” The Treasury claimed that al-Nu’aymi also sent funds to al Qaeda in Iraq (now called ISIS), to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and to al-Shabaab in Somalia. In addition to Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi, Abd al-Wahhab al-Humayqani, a Yemeni rights activist, was also made subject to sanctions by the US Treasury for allegedly supporting al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen:
“The U.S. Department of Treasury today imposed sanctions on two al-Qa’ida supporters based in Qatar and Yemen. Abd al-Rahman bin ‘Umayr al-Nu’aymi (Nu’aymi) and `Abd al-Wahhab Muhammad `Abd al-Rahman al-Humayqani (Humayqani) were named as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224. Nu’aymi was designated for providing financial support to al-Qa’ida, Asbat al-Ansar, al-Qa’ida in Iraq, and al-Shabaab, and Humayqani was designated for providing financial support to and acting on behalf of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).”
It is alleged that “Humayqani has used his Yemen-based charity as a cover for funneling financial support to AQAP and has frequently traveled throughout the Arabian Peninsula while conducting business for AQAP. During political unrest in Yemen, Humayqani reportedly assisted AQAP in gaining a foothold and safe haven in al-Bayda’ Governorate, Yemen and as of mid-2011 served as the acting AQAP amir there. Both Nu’aymi and Humayqani are at the center of global support networks that fund and facilitate terrorism.”
The New York Times reports that, in 2010, an arm of the Qatari government made a donation to help build a $1.2 million mosque in Yemen for a sheikh, Abdel Wahab al-Humayqani, designated as a fund-raiser for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. (Qatari Embassy officials and Yemeni government officials both attended the opening.) (Qatar’s Support of Islamists Alienates Allies Near and Far; Sept 7, 2014)
Almonitor reports that Humayqani represented the Salafist Rashad Party at the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) which took place in Yemen from March 18, 2013 to January 24, 2014 wherein he was described as “one of the most prominent participants, proving to be an intelligent and flexible leader, with an awareness and willingness to accommodate the views of others that no other Salafist movement leader in Yemen had ever shown.” The Salafist Rashad party. The Rashad party didn’t split from the ruling forces is a dissenting religious group, which believes that democracy is a Western invention designed to create divisions among Muslims. After the assassination of their representative, the Houthi refused to participate in the talks and, upon their completion, Leader Mohammad al-Bakhti rejected the intended outcome “because it divides Yemen into poor and wealthy regions.” The remaining Dialogue members signed an agreement that Yemen would be transformed into a 6-region federal system.
The historical context in which the outcome of the National Dialogue Conference is framed is essential to understanding its true purpose and/or hidden goals To this end, Almonitor published an article, entitled “Hidden Goals of the Yemen Gulf Initiative”, that provides a brief retrospective of recent Yemeni history that places Yemen’s political woes at the Saudi’s doorstep:
“Under the umbrella of the Gulf Initiative, Saudi Arabia imposed its control, while, through the Taif Treaty, it ignored Yemeni rights and confirmed the former regime’s collusion in relinquishing Yemeni rights when it signed the Jeddah Accord. […] Yemeni expatriates in Saudi Arabia being subjected to the worst forms of torture, extortion and injustices, all the while finding no one to come to their aid and protect their rights.”
For the complete picture goto:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2013/08/yemen-saudi-arabia-gulf-initiative-national-dialogue.html#
“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” (Alexander Hamilton.)
I believe it highly doubtful that Hamilton would call ANY of the governments discussed here (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt past or present, Israel OR the United States) ‘moderate.’
Interestingly, he also said “The honor of a nation is its life.” And, prescient about current affairs and related to being moderate: “When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.”
“……I believe it highly doubtful that Hamilton would call ANY of the governments discussed here (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt past or present, Israel OR the United States) ‘moderate.’…..”
Or even the ones never discussed here like Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China.
I meant ‘here’ as in within this article, but no, not those either.
Mr. Greenwald
In the world of Greenwald, geopolitics – as far as the US and Israel go – is black and white. These two countries control Middle East politics for their own interests. All other countries are simply victims to US and Israeli policies.
“…….Almost completely missing from this feel-good morality play was the terribly unpleasant fact that Mubarak was one of the U.S. Government’s longest and closest allies and that his ”three decades of iron rule” – featuring murder, torture and indefinite detention for dissidents – were enabled in multiple ways by American support…..throughout Mubarak’s rule, the U.S. fed his regime an average of $2 billion each year, most of which was military aid……”
This is simply more anti Israel and anti American propaganda. The US didn’t have anything to do with bringing Mubarak to power – and he certainly did not come to power as a liberal democrat. Mubarak came to power after Sadat was murdered by Islamists for signing the Camp David agreement making peace with Israel. Israel, for their part, signed the agreement and returned the Sinai to Egypt. Sadat was hated by Islamists for this peace agreement – and he paid with his life. The Camp David agreement was a US geopolitical coup – and the aid to Egypt cemented US-Egyptian relations for the coming decades. The US brokered peace agreement brought stability to the Middle East after the Arab wars with Israel in 1967 and 1973. That had absolutely nothing to do with Mubarak and how he ruled. Mubarak was just another dictator in a sea of greater Middle East dictators which included the elder Assad, Hussein, Gadhafi, the Shah etc. (except Israel, of course, which is a democracy).
In addition, when it comes to the “military coup” in Egypt which saw the replacement of Morsi by the military, you are missing (purposely) an important part of the story. Millions of Egyptians – the same Egyptians that marched in the streets to replace Mubarak – took to the streets to protest the Morsi government which ruled not only incompetently, but undemocratically. Morsi was ousted as much from a popular uprising as a coup and the US had nothing to do with either one.
In fact, the US was rightly critical of the removal of Morsi as President and the subsequent brutal crackdown by al-Sissi on Islamic protesters. The US cut off military aid to Egypt damaging relations with one of their longest standing allies in the Middle East. The idea that the US “….has long been devoted to tyranny in the region precisely to ensure that the widespread views of the public — which overwhelmingly view the U.S. and Israel [of course, cited in tandem by Greenwald] as the greatest threats to peace — remain suppressed by U.S.-loyal tyrants…..” (my brackets) is a complete fabrication bordering on another Jewish conspiracy theory. It represents one more attempt by you to blame all of the problems in the Middle East – the authoritarian regimes, the rise of fanatical and brutal Islamists, the failure of the Arab Spring (to date) and the attacks against the west by terrorists – on US and Israeli policies where US interests coincide with and protect the Jewish state (you know, the neocons working with AIPAC).
In fact, Mr. Greenwald, you opposed the US removing Saddam Hussein and (helping France and GB removing) Gadhafi from power even though the byproduct of removing the dictators might have been democratic elections and democracy. In both cases the US supported democracy – contrary to your bullshit. Unfortunately, Islamists stepped in Libya, and the Maliki government ruled only for the Shia marginalizing the Sunnis from the government. The ISIS stepped in that power vacuum.
No it is not. It is impossible to simultaneously be founded on ethno-religious supremacy that requires ethnic cleansing and an apartheid state, and also to be a democracy. Israel is the former.
CraigSummers
Thank you for writing an opposite position here. I agree with neither you nor with Mr Greenwald completely. But it is nice to read different opinions.
The majority of American news editors, journalists and Columnists with few exceptions are despicable, unethical propagandists out to please govt officials and think tanks. The little pretense at even handedness is for credibility-sake so their propaganda isn’t outright rejected. Case in point is the Foreign Policy anti-Qatar article. . A typical despicable journalist rolls her sleeves and takes hammer to Qatar for the crime of deviating from Washington: We never once read anti-Qatar article in the Foreign Policy Magazine while Washington was happy with Qatar. The good thing is the intercept article forced her to add a paragraph distancing herself from the anti-Qatar smear campaign directed by some Washington lobbying firm. . A poor attempt to face safe and project some sort of independent journalism. The best thing is to destroy their credibility by lifting the curtain on their behind-the-scenes activities.. The sausage making of propaganda. Like when you exposed the emails of that AP reporter sending his articles to the CIA for approval. Or the UAE paying DC lobbying firms to smear Qatar who then enlist american journalists to carry out the dirty work. Because of these exposures, Im now much more vigilante about any coordinated stuff on the press. If two columnists are both attacking the same country. or anything that looks coordinated. You bet i will be suspicious.
The amout of bull Washington dishes out and gets away with just blows me away. Sometimes though, I get down on how much people don’t know and or don’t care about these important issues. Most of my friends are educated, but too busy to know where the real facts are coming from and what is really happening in the world when their news is CNN.
Is Mr Greenwald suggesting the US should have supported President Morsi because he believed in democracy?
Well, let’s take a look at his “democratic” records
1) Freedom of the Media: closure of station Dream TV. Closure of Al Farareen TV. Two private stations that had a common point: they both opposed the Muslim Brotherhood. Journalists Islam Afifi, Gamal Fahmy charged for “insulting the president”.
2) Rule of Law: Decree allowing the president to take decisions “to protect the revolution” without judicial oversight. Around 40 international NGOs workers under arrest for receiving foreign funds illegally. Multiple attacks against the opposition including the arson of the Tamarrud headquarter.
3) Freedom of Religion, only guaranteed to Islam, Christianity and Judaism. (The constitution was passed without liberal, secular and Christian members of the Constituent Assembly). Attack on the Coptic Cathedral in April 2013. Deadly attack on a Shia village the same year.
It seems Mr Greenwald that you are annoyed because the US did not provide as much support to your dictator as it provides to the new one. You also failed to mention that the US did have normal relations with President Morsi (Hillary Clinton met him in Egypt) and military aids did continue while he was president. I am also wondering whether the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel bothers you.
No, Mr Greenwald has never said we should or should not be supporting Morsi. He is simply saying that Morsi was democratically elected in elections which were considered fair and free by international observers, was overthrown in a coup that was much more violent than anything Morsi done, and yet here we are, supporting Sisi.
As for yuor points:
1) Yes, Morsi did attack freedom of speech. Though nowhere close to what Mubarak did or Sisi has done.
2) No. You are wrong. He withdrew that. And the reason he introduced it in the first place was because remnants of the “deep state” from the Mubarak era who still held prominent positions were trying to undermine the revolution.
3) The attack on the Coptic Cathedral had nothing to do with Morsi.
As for your claim that military aid continued to Morsi, that statement just shows how clueless you are. The military aid was going to SISI, not Morsi! Morsi had no control over the military, nor the police, which was in the end, his downfall.
Does anyone of you personally know any Egyptian? I know a few and they are good people. All they want is a leader that will love Egypt, honor the rights of their people, to defend and protect the people of Egypt. President Sisi is very good to the people of Egypt. Many happen to love him. They are helping fight the battle against terrorism infiltrating into Egypt. That’s why the military threw out the Brotherhood, as well as working on ridding the country of any other violent Muslim groups. Our media does not report the truth to us in the USA. I’ve heard only GREAT reports about President Sisi, from the people of Egypt. Every president of the United States, elects his own people he likes to be in his company. They get fired from their positions; only to be replaced.
Yes, the US is supporting Sisi because he is a better dictator in defending US interest. Anything new? What is your point? Mine is simple. Where was Mr Greenwald when the other dictator was in power? I just have the feeling Mr Greenwald disappeared when the dictator Morsi was in power because President Morsi was a Hamas supporter, so basically he was his dictator. He is disturbed because the US is supporting the other dictator who does not follow the anti Israeli (not pro Palestinian) policies he supports.
Obviously, you are more a Morsi supporter than a democracy supporter.
You either have freedom of speech or you do not.
“And the reason he introduced it in the first place was because remnants of the “deep state” from the Mubarak era who still held prominent positions were trying to undermine the revolution.”
The best way to manage the “remnants” from Mubarak was to grant himself powers above the judiciary? Basically make himself as powerful as the former dictator.
You failed to remind the readers he withdrew the decree after multiple demonstrations (sometimes violent), strikes, and international pressure (even from the USA, the great supporter of tyranny according to Mr Greenwald).
“The attack on the Coptic Cathedral had nothing to do with Morsi”
Yes, it has a lot to do with him and the Muslim Brotherhood that created an environment of irresponsibility and indifference with regards to minorities. However, as you stated:
“If, for arguments sake, 90% of a country want to live under a theocracy, then why should the 10% get to choose how the 90% live? We might not like it, but that’s what the people want.”
“As for your claim that military aid continued to Morsi, that statement just shows how clueless you are. The military aid was going to SISI, not Morsi! Morsi had no control over the military, nor the police, which was in the end, his downfall.”
I admit as opposed to you, I did not and still do not have access to Egyptian Intelligence or top Egyptian Army leaders. Therefore, I do not know whether or not Morsi had full control over the military. However, the world knows that
1) He fired the head of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces: General Tantawi
2) He fired the Army Chief of Staff: Sami Enan
3)He fired the Navy Commander: Mohab Memish
4) He fired the Air Force Commander: Reda Hafez
5) He appointed Al Sisi as the new defense chief
6) He fired the intelligence chief
7) He ordered the deployment of Egypt 2nd Division to Sinai
Suppose you are right. All these facts are just theater, Morsi as president had no control over multi million dollar weapons coming in the country he was leading, and he had no control over the armed forces, then what you are saying is that he was a very weak president. So, he should have resigned and avoid all that mess.
No, Morsi wasn’t a dictator. Morsi granted himself powers, and then he retracted them. Had he kept hold onto the powers, then you could have argued he is a dictator. But he didn’t. He even agreed to hold elections again, when they weren’t due for another few years – please show me one dictator in the world that is willing to hold free and fair elections.
Anyway, reading pedinska’s posts below, it seems you are a resident here who constantly uses straw-men, and therefore I will not waste my time refuting the rest of the straw-men in your post.
“……Anyway, reading pedinska’s posts below, it seems you are a resident here who constantly uses straw-men, and therefore I will not waste my time refuting the rest of the straw-men in your post……”
Taking your ball and headed home? The problem with Morsi is that he forgot about the many people who rallied in the streets for a say in their government – and those same people returned to the same streets to show their displeasure with the policies of Morsi. That is democracy in action. Unfortunately, Morsi was ousted, but he was unwilling to meet with the opposition to discuss their demands which led to the coup. As a leader of all Egyptians – especially one with a diverse political spectrum – he failed the “inclusive” test (IMO).
Implementing democracy is not an easy task. In a rare agreement with anything Cindy writes at the Intercept, she quotes Hamilton:
“……“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”…..”
How true and beautifully proven in Iraq and Egypt.
Thanks.
America’s meddling in Egypt and (violence) in Iraq should alert the reader to the fact that Hamilton’s quote (with which Craig agrees) presents the US as presently not concerned with real liberty due to its immoderate behavior.
Cindy
“……America’s meddling in Egypt and (violence) in Iraq should alert the reader to the fact that Hamilton’s quote (with which Craig agrees) presents the US as presently not concerned with real liberty due to its immoderate behavior…..”
The violence in Iraq certainly made the transition to democracy more difficult. None the less, the Maliki government totally fucked up a great opportunity to make that transition by marginalizing the Sunni population from the government. The US supported democracy in Iraq – true liberty.
Thanks.
Craig, Hamilton doesn’t describe real liberty as democracy OR despotism, or can’t you read? And he certainly didn’t promote meddling or pre-emptive war. Try to comprehend the Founding Father that you say you agree with. Here he is again:
“The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.” (Alexander Hamilton)
As I stated, you are more pro Morsi than pro democracy. I thought you were smart enough to challenge my points and not relying on comments from those who hide their lack of brain power behind childish personal attacks.
And, Craig, this is the uniqueness of the US Constitution, which as you know Hamilton helped create – a Constitution ostensibly neither democratic nor despotic which still compelled government away from corruptibility. America was to be nation of laws, and have a MODERATE government.
“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” (Thomas Jefferson)
Craig, your dishonesty is really quite astounding.
In a democracy, a party that wins fair and free elections has to be given a chance to make changes. You can’t just say people are on the streets demonstrating, therefore we should overthrow whoever is in power. Imagine if after Obama had won the elections, 2 months later, 6 million Republicans were demonstrating for him to go. Should we overthrow Obama? Of course not, that would be extremely silly.
Now I know what you will say “34 million people demonstrated”. Except they didn’t. Those figures were made up and circulated around. Some said 14 million, Tony Blair said 17 million, the US State Department said 23 million, the Egyptians said 34 million! Google publicly came out on record to say that Google has never provided any figure on how many were demonstrating – this after people were citing Google as the source of these figures.
A study by a crowd size analyst in the USA said the figures were just wrong. The figure based on maths and reasoning says that between 2 and 4 million people demonstrated. I am sorry, that just isn’t a large enough figure to overthrow a democratically elected government.
But I will save till last the point that totally destroys your pathetic argument. Morsi agreed to have another election. He made an offer to Sisi to have another election. But, Sisi declined, imprisoned him, killed his supporters in what Human Rights Watch has described as a massacre on the scale of Tiananmen Square, and banned his party by playing the “terrorist card”.
What happened in Egypt was that the opposition forces were just not strong enough to defeat Morsi at the elections. You had those who just wanted a better economic situation, those that were Salafi Islamists, those that were pro-old State, those that wanted a secular democracy. Each of these groups were motivated by different ideologies, and they knew that the Muslim Brotherhood was the single most popular party in a divided Egypt – that is why Morsi had gone to the polls five times, and won five times. He wouldn’t get a very high percentage, but he still got more than anyone else.
Therefore, the secular democrats joined in with their old enemies, the Egyptian military, in ousting Morsi. They abandoned their democratic principles to eliminate someone who they could not beat at the polls. And where are these secular democrats now? Well, the April 6 Youth Movement has now been banned and its leaders are currently sitting in jail.
AU
“…..You can’t just say people are on the streets demonstrating, therefore we should overthrow whoever is in power…..”
I never said they should so who is dishonest here? However, protest is one of the most basic rights in a democracy – and it applies whether the government was rightly elected or not. It applies to Morsi as well as Mubarak. It applies in Ukraine, Hong Kong and Egypt. I didn’t support the coup by the military or the murderous crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood protesters after the coup. I also did not support the banning of the MB, or designating them a terrorist organization (now you might understand my position better).
In my opinion, the revolution simply went back to square one after the military took over, and the bloody process will likely repeat itself in the future simply because the Egyptian people empowered themselves by removing Mubarak. Al-Sissi will be unable to move too far forward without political reform. That’s a certainty.
“……A study by a crowd size analyst in the USA said the figures were just wrong. The figure based on maths and reasoning says that between 2 and 4 million people demonstrated. I am sorry, that just isn’t a large enough figure to overthrow a democratically elected government……”
That’s still a huge amount of disaffected people if those figures are correct – and you really are no more certain of those figures than the others published – so there could have been many many more. Indeed, who designated you to determine what is enough or not enough to overthrow a government? Regardless, Morsi was incompetent and completely misread the reactions to his “decree”.
“……On 22 November 2012, Morsi issued a declaration purporting to protect the work of the Constituent Assembly drafting the new constitution from judicial interference. In effect, this declaration immunises his actions from any legal challenge……The move was criticized by Mohamed ElBaradei who said Morsi had “usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh”.[96][97] The move led to massive protests and violent action throughout Egypt,[98] with protesters erecting tents in Tahrir Square, the site of the protests that preceded the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. The protesters demanded a reversal of the declaration and the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly…….The declaration was also condemned by human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Freedom House.[101][102][103][104] Egypt’s highest body of judges decried the ruling as an “unprecedented assault on the independence of the judiciary and its rulings”.[105] …….”
What did Morsi expect? It was normal everyday people that had protested while the MB remained mostly (and comfortably) in the shadows during the protest against the Mubarak government? Egyptians rightly were concerned about (possible) sharia law and more usurping of power by Morsi during his tenure. It was those same protesters that risked their lives to overthrow Mubarak, and they had every right to call for the removal of Morsi. That’s democracy in action.
“…….The military has given Morsy until 4 p.m. local time (10 a.m. ET ) to come up with a power-sharing agreement [with the opposition] or face a military solution, the sources said. Morsy refused to bow to the ultimatum…….”
In some ways, I can’t blame Morsi, but he was clearly clueless how to govern across broad political interests marginalizing large parts of the population while appeasing his constituents. The revolution simply wasn’t far enough along to get away with that kind of thinking.
However, the military coup was wrong (IMO).
“…..Morsi agreed to have another election…..”
I just need a source on that AU.
Thanks.
Cindy
“……And he certainly didn’t promote meddling or pre-emptive war. Try to comprehend the Founding Father that you say you agree with…..”
That’s you reading a whole bunch into something I never said. Fine. You disagree with the invasion of Iraq. That has nothing to do with the US supporting democracy in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was rightly removed from power. Nothing.
Thanks.
You’re the one being dishonest. You are not even looking at things from as an impartial observer.
No one has said protest shouldn’t be allowed. That’s a straw man.
“That’s still a huge amount of disaffected people if those figures are correct – and you really are no more certain of those figures than the others published – so there could have been many many more.”
Actually, I am more certain of those figures than others published. And the reason I am more certain of these figures is because the source are crowd analysts who have explained how they came to this conclusion. The other figures don’t even have a source – they started appearing amongst the anti-Morsi media in Egypt, but there was no source for who calculated these figures and how.
I come from a scientific background, so these things matter to me. They might not to you, but I wonder if the Muslim Brotherhood demonstrated, said 20 million people are demonstrating, and a crowd analyst said 1 million people are demonstrating, whether you would still be saying that we cannot be any more certain of the crowd analysts figure of 1 million than the Muslim Brotherhoo’s figure of 20 million.
And let us be serious here – the actual figure matters. I mean, a lot of people who say they love democracy have used the figures as their justification for the anti-democracy coup.
I have no idea what relevance his decree has to the discussion. In case you don’t know, he withdrew it very soon afterwards because it was so unpopular – that’s democracy in action!
I think your ignorance about what happened in Egypt is apparent from you thinking that all those who were demonstrating against Morsi were those who had demonstrated against Mubarak. I guess you only read mainstream American media, and that’s why you follow this narrative which is way off the mark.
Anyway, a week before the coup Morsi said in an interview published in the state-owned Akhbar al-Youm newspaper.: “I have said it before. I urge everyone to sit together to discuss what would achieve the interests of our nation.”
He continued: “I will continue in my pursuit for contact, and I may speed up parliamentary elections as a way of involving everyone in an agreed method to manage our differences … The call for protest on June 30 reflects the atmosphere of freedom granted to us by the revolution”.
So, yes, this idea that Morsi wasn’t willing to talk to anyone and wasn’t inclusive is just rubbish. He was far from perfect, but in a democracy, you have to give the party elected a chance. As for Morsi refusing to bow to the ultimatum, well, let me ask you this – if the secularists had won elections, and then the Muslim Brotherhood issued an ultimatum and said you have to start sharing power with us or we will kick you out and if you disagree we will start killing you, would you think that is ok? Of course you wouldn’t, because this is undemocratic.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how people like you have different standards according to whether you like a group or not.
AU
Thanks for your response
“……I think your ignorance about what happened in Egypt is apparent from you thinking that all those who were demonstrating against Morsi were those who had demonstrated against Mubarak. I guess you only read mainstream American media, and that’s why you follow this narrative which is way off the mark…..”
Well at least the main stream media mentions there were millions protesting against Morsi. This unimportant fact was left out of the Greenwald article (but not by accident). This is a classic Greenwald tactic – a carryover from his days as a lawyer – and a perfect example of “advocacy journalism”. And I didn’t say “all”. That’s you – as you seem to love doing – putting words into my mouth. I said it was the same protesters who marched against Mubarak (not necessarily “all” since the Islamists were likely not protesting against Morsi).
“…..I have no idea what relevance his decree has to the discussion. In case you don’t know, he withdrew it very soon afterwards because it was so unpopular – that’s democracy in action!…..”
Oh, I don’t know AU. Maybe making himself a temporary dictator might upset the “people” after hundreds had been injured and a thousand killed to remove Mubarak?? Maybe this caused a fair amount of suspicion about the long term motives of Morsi?? I assume you are not joking when you say something that ridiculous. In addition, there was a huge amount of disagreement surrounding the Constitutional Assembly:
“…….A number of parties have embraced Mohamed ElBaradei’s and Hamdeen Sabbahi’s calls for a boycott of the Constituent Assembly. The parties and organizations that have signed a statement calling for a boycott include “the Nasserist Party, Karama Party, the Constitution Party, the Egyptian Democratic Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance, the Free Egyptian Party, the pro-democracy Kefaya Movement, the Egyptian Socialist Party, and the Revolutionary Democratic Coalition”.[21] Mohamed Ghonim, the coordinator of Egyptian Popular Current and liberal Amr Hamzawi have also signed the statement calling for a boycott.[21]
A number of activists, public figures and politicians announced during a press conference on Wednesday 3 October 2012 that they do not recognize the constitution as it is currently being written by the Constituent Assembly and instead seek to draft a constitution that is built upon popular consensus.[22]……”
In addition:
“…..The constituent assembly had a number of groups and individuals withdrawing from it as of November 2012…..”
“…..Numerous church representatives withdrew from the Constituent Assembly on 17 November 2012.[24] The church representatives that withdrew from the Constituent Assembly included Bishop Paula of Tanta of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Bishop Yohana Qalta, who is the Assistant to the Catholic Patriarch in Egypt and Safwat al-Bayadi, who is the head of the Anglican Communion in Egypt.[24] The acting Coptic Pope “wanted to withdraw from the assembly to make sure the church’s stand was known and that officials knew the Coptic Church would not allow such a narrow-minded constitution to be drafted with its name on it.”[25] The New Wafd Party withdrew its representatives on 17 November 2012.[26]…..”
(And there were plenty more)
None of these were confidence builders for Morsi. Does that seem reasonable? There was a severe amount of distrust over the whole process exacerbated by the Morsi power grab. And who could blame them? It’s interesting that you don’t think the decree was relevant to the discussion. While he may have rescinded the decree, he did it under pressure from the protesters. He lost a great deal of trust because of that huge misstep.
Morsi made himself ruler of Egypt on November 22nd.
“…….On 8 December 2012, Morsi annulled his decree which had expanded his presidential authority and removed judicial review of his decrees, an Islamist official said, but added that the effects of that declaration would stand.[11][110][112][113][114][115] A constitutional referendum was still planned for 15 December. George Isaac of the Constitution Party said that Morsi’s declaration did not offer anything new, the National Salvation Front rejected it as an attempt save face, and the 6 April Movement and Gamal Fahmi of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate said the new declaration failed to address the “fundamental” problem of the nature of the Assembly that was tasked with drafting the constitution.[11]…..”
Distrust?
“…..let me ask you this – if the secularists had won elections, and then the Muslim Brotherhood issued an ultimatum and said you have to start sharing power with us or we will kick you out and if you disagree we will start killing you, would you think that is ok? Of course you wouldn’t, because this is undemocratic.
It’s funny, isn’t it, how people like you have different standards according to whether you like a group or not…..”
You are sure worth your weight in gold when it comes to putting words in someone’s mouth. Your strategy seems to be, let me ask you a question and then let me answer it for you.
Listen, AU. You are clueless about how I would answer that question (or any) – so quit trying to put words into my mouth, OK? If you think you know something about me, then cite what I have said in the past to back up your assertion rather than taking a shot in the dark. You only make yourself look like a fool.
I want to make it clear, however, that none of this justifies the military coup which was a setback to the Arab Spring in general, and in Egypt in particular.
Sorry. You can take your ball and go home now.
No, Craig, that’s you saying you agreed with Hamilton and then you demonstrating immediately that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Followed by your childish attempt to cover up your utter confusion and dishonesty while doubling down on your ill-informed nonsense and belligerence.
And you’re welcome.
No, I am not putting words into your mouth. You might not have said “all”, but your post clearly implied that the majority of people who were demonstrating against Morsi were demonstrating for democracy. But you have nothing to prove this at all. There were huge numbers of people who were from the Mubarak era who were demonstrating – these people clearly do not want democracy, they just want to go back to the way things were. There were Islamists who were demonstrating – Islamists who are more conservative than Morsi and they definitely do not want democracy. And there were people who were protesting against the economic situation – the high cost of things and the power shortages. These people don’t really care who is in power, they just care about their standard of living. And then there were those who WERE demonstrating for a secular democracy. How many? I don’t know. Neither do you, yet you are going around acting as if the mass protests against Morsi were pro-democracy protests.
Of course, if I have read you wrong, then maybe you can correct me. Maybe you can say that Morsi wasn’t overthrown because the majority of protesters wanted democracy, but he was overthrown because the majority of protesters constituted of conservative Islamists, Mubarak supporters (which are in the millions) and people just unhappy with the economic situation – which could hardly be blamed on Morsi as he had only been in power a year.
You also claim to be saying that everyone who demonstrated against Mubarak was demonstrating for a secular democracy. This is simply not true. As I said before, supporters of Muslim Brotherhood were demonstrating, they just weren’t carrying MB slogans because they knew the history of persecution of the MB by the Egyptian military. There were also Islamists who were demonstrating. Or maybe I misunderstood you again, and you can clarify for me why you keep suggesting that everyone who demonstrated against Mubarak was demonstrating for secular democracy. Maybe you can say that some people who demonstrated were demonstrating for a secular democracy, and some who demonstrated were demonstrating for their Islamist party to get a chance to get into power. Maybe you can also enlighten me to how you are concluding how much of the anti-Mubarak protesters were pro-democracy protesters and how many had their own goals.
As for your claim that Glenn didn’t mention the figures of how many demonstrated against Morsi – well, you’re just being silly now and I think it is time to stop debating with you as I like the person I am debating with to have at least some degree of intelligence and integrity that makes a debate worthwhile. Maybe Glenn can be bothered to answer, but he is probably too busy to deal with such ad hominem attacks …
“No, I am not putting words into your mouth…….You also claim to be saying that everyone who demonstrated against Mubarak was demonstrating for a secular democracy…..”
I’m not sure where you come up with these statements. I have never said or claimed or implied that the Arabs want secular democracy. Some most certainly do, but the reality is that a western style democracy will not likely be supported anytime soon in the Middle East. However, Arabs most certainly have protested for a say in their governments i.e., political rights. That includes Islamists, leftists and most everyone else. This has occurred throughout the Middle East with a great deal of opposition – like in Syria. Islamists (as I believe you mentioned) have been marginalized in Arab society as well – and they have every right to expect political rights just as an Arab that might support a western style democracy. That’s the commonality between all the movements that opposed Mubarak (and Assad) in my opinion. That’s what defined the Arab Spring. Their goals might not align exactly, but all rightfully seek political reform.
“……Neither do you, yet you are going around acting as if the mass protests against Morsi were pro-democracy protests……”
You mention democracy far more than I do to describe the protests. The protests against Morsi were for policies he implemented to write a new Constitution and for putting himself above the law and courts (decree). Again, protesters were concerned about maintaining a say in the government i.e., political rights.
We agree on the major points. We both disagree with the military disposing of Morsi. By throwing Morsi out of office, the military alienated one-half of the country. In addition, the brutal crackdown left hundreds of innocent protesters dead. Whether the military liked it or not, the election of the MB to run the country was important for the Arab Spring. Banning the MB was amazingly counterproductive since Egypt has a conservative Muslim population. Finally, al-Sissi certainly must understand that the only way to avoid the bloodshed of future protests is to allow political rights to the Egyptian population – and eventually restore the rights of people in the MB who have been a part of the social and political fabric in Egypt for decades.
I think you and I roughly agree on that.
“……Maybe Glenn can be bothered to answer, but he is probably too busy to deal with such ad hominem attacks …….”
Yea. I wish he would answer.
Thanks. You make really good points.
“The protests against Morsi were for policies he implemented to write a new Constitution and for putting himself above the law and courts (decree). Again, protesters were concerned about maintaining a say in the government i.e., political rights.”
That is simply not correct. Part of the protests were for the reason you cite. But there were other reasons.
I suggest you read the following if you want to learn about the Deep State within Egypt.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/19/the-grand-scam-spinning-egypts-military-coup/
Maybe now you will understand how wrong your simplistic take on all of this is.
AU
“……Maybe now you will understand how wrong your simplistic take on all of this is…..”
That was certainly interesting reading – and a very conspiratorial story. Whether all is true or not, I have no idea (nor likely do you). I’m not a big fan of counterpunch either. The article paints Morsi as the good guy while all the other actors – especially the Arab states – are the bad guys preserving their power by manipulating Egypt’s internal politics (which is plausible by the way). One really interesting part has the US promising the return of aid to al-Sissi even at the time of the coup which is not how the story is written by the MSM. The author is not exactly a household name, but I will read some more of his articles as he publishes them. You could have linked this story much earlier in the discussion which seems to be the source for your positions – for the most part.
Thanks.
The article paints Morsi as the good guy? Are you serious? Counterpunch supports socialism, not Islamism, and Counterpunch has been full of articles criticising Morsi.
I mean, this guy writes: “As I argued before in several of my articles (as have others), there is no doubt that President Mohammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) committed political miscalculations and made numerous mistakes, especially by ignoring the demands of many of the revolutionary youth groups and abandoning their former opposition partners. They frequently behaved in a naïve and arrogant manner. But in any civilized and democratic society, the price of incompetence or narcissism is exacted politically at the ballot box.”
And this author had previously written: “While in power, Mursi and his government continued Mubarak’s policies of contracting the public sector and social spending in a continuing war against the poor and downtrodden of Egypt, who are the majority of the population, and pushed forth neoliberal economic policies that favored the rich and powerful, including an IMF deal (which was never finalized for no fault of Mursi’s), which would increase the already existing austerity measures against the poor. Indeed, he did nothing to change the existing labor and tax laws that favor the rich and oppress workers, middle class employees, and the poor. Mursi neither prosecuted army generals for crimes of which they stood accused (he rather bestowed on them major state honors and awards and made those whom he retired into advisors to the President), nor tried the Mubarakist thieving bourgeoisie in the courts for its pillage of the country for three and a half decades, let alone the security apparatus that continued to repress Egyptians under his rule.”
So you cannot for one minute try and pretend this article is biased towards Morsi.
As I have said many times, Morsi was not democratic – but he was more democratic than either Mubarak or Sisi. And, yes, some of the protests against Morsi were by people who wanted their freedom. But it’s quite clear that the money and backing for the protests came from the “deep state”. I don’t consider this a conspiracy, just because Mubarak had gone, it didn;t mean that money and power was now distributed – no, the people with the most money and power in Egypt were still the ones who Mubarak had favoured. They were to lose out under Morsi, so it;s only natural that when they saw Morsi was vulnerable, they would use the guise of freedom to get back into power.
Au
The author stated:
“…..“While in power, Mursi and his government continued Mubarak’s policies of contracting the public sector and social spending in a continuing war against the poor and downtrodden of Egypt, who are the majority of the population, and pushed forth neoliberal economic policies that favored the rich and powerful, including an IMF deal (which was never finalized for no fault of Mursi’s), which would increase the already existing austerity measures against the poor. Indeed, he did nothing to change the existing labor and tax laws that favor the rich and oppress workers, middle class employees, and the poor. Mursi neither prosecuted army generals for crimes of which they stood accused (he rather bestowed on them major state honors and awards and made those whom he retired into advisors to the President), nor tried the Mubarakist thieving bourgeoisie in the courts for its pillage of the country for three and a half decades, let alone the security apparatus that continued to repress Egyptians under his rule.”…..”
So Morsi continued the status quo, but then you say:
“…..But it’s quite clear that the money and backing for the protests came from the “deep state”. I don’t consider this a conspiracy, just because Mubarak had gone, it didn;t mean that money and power was now distributed – no, the people with the most money and power in Egypt were still the ones who Mubarak had favoured. They were to lose out under Morsi, so it;s only natural that when they saw Morsi was vulnerable, they would use the guise of freedom to get back into power…..”
What? While continuing the status quo (paragraph 1), the ones with the most money and power “were to lose out under Morsi” (paragraph 2)? I’m not sure that paragraph 2 makes any sense after paragraph 1. Morsi clearly was not supporting the status quo if the status quo (Mubarakist) opposed him (paragraph 2).
Just because the author criticizes Morsi certainly doesn’t mean he doesn’t favor him. After all, Morsi was elected and the author seems to support the Arab Spring i.e., Arab people empowerment which is positive IMO.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Is Mr Greenwald suggesting …?
It seems Mr Greenwald ….your dictator…..
You should really get some fresh material for your strawmen because the ones you parade around here with stink of the rancid horseshit of a thousand prior assumptions that have no merit even as fertilizer anymore. It’s really quite sad how you have to put words in someone’s mouth that were clearly not spoken in order to have something to say.
The rank hypocrisy of lying about “supporting democracy” – words that have been issuing forth from the shriveled lips of American leaders for ages – while assisting in deposing leaders across the world who refuse to bow and scrape sufficiently for our tastes is catching up with us. Empires come and empires go. If there is any justice in the world then at some point we will be weak enough for some other country, or group of countries, to decide they need to step in and “help” us out a little bit with our leadership. When that happens, if people like you aren’t the rank hypocrites you appear to be, then you should sit back, cross your legs primly, purse your lips and stfu because we will be getting exactly what we deserve.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, well, not without more work than a lazy bastard like myself is prepared to do…
This piece on the US and Japan is well worth a read.
http://www.unz.com/author/karel-van-wolferen/
Well, I am still flattered that you always read “the rancid horseshit”. Maybe you are attracted to the odor. I am not responsible for your inability to comprehend my opinion, which I shall put on an elementary level just to please you. The US, like every single government on planet Earth supports governments that defend the US interests whether these governments support democracy or not. If you did not know that, then you should get back to your history class in high school. If you are shocked by the “hypocrisy” in the diplomatic world, then you should again go back to your history class in high school.
Mr Greenwald is not a diplomat and he is not running for an elected office. He always presents himself as a supporter of the truth and democracy. However, while he points out US support for the dictator Al Sisi, he will not mention that Morsi was not a democrat and the US did continue military aids to Egypt while he was in power. Mr Greenwald always underscores US support for Israel and its occupying forces, but he will not underscore the human rights records of Hamas. He criticizes US support for Saudi Arabia, but he does not clarify whether the main tribes in Saudi Arabia that would be picking their leaders in a free and fair election believe in democratic values such as freedom of religion. So, it seems that Mr Greenwald is unease at US support for dictators that do not share his beliefs, not at US support for dictators in general.
No, I’m suggesting nothing of the sort.
Thought you were banned.
A wonderful display of the crippled American mind:
“Is Mr Greenwald suggesting the US should have supported President Morsi because he believed in democracy?”
Where the only alternatives are overthrow or support.
A wonderful display of the crippled American mind:
[…]
Where the only alternatives are overthrow or support. –Bill Jones
Yep:
In fact, Mr. Greenwald, you opposed the US removing Saddam Hussein and (helping France and GB removing) Gadhafi from power–CraigSummers
Weak, weak, weak every god damned day, all day long. It’s rank.
Once again, I exhort all here to write and call our elected congresspersons and president with your thoughts, requests, and demands for needed extreme change. I’m discouraged as some of you must also surely be, but what alternatives have we? We still have freedom of speech as long as we continue to use it.
“Moderate” = tyrannical. More commonly “understood” definitions.
More or less imminent (whatever that might mean as of now) — a veritable PRC / USA conflict? Vide:
revolution-news.com/occupy-central-us-state-dept-funding-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-movement/
Cf. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, …
Oi veh. Cf.:- rt.com/news/192404-china-us-internal-affairs/
Oh, look at the bright side. It would have been worse if we were ideologues who *didn’t support the pro-democracy protestors and stuck to our guns simply for loyalty’s sake. It is something of a step up to be Ur Bitchy Friend who jumps in for a selfie when you get nominated prom queen, tricks you into a sleepover where a group of girls cut off all your hair when you’re persona non grata for stealing the boyfriend of a Mean Girl, then blames it all on some other girl and takes you shopping for designer bags once that blows over. At least there is flexibility in that model, Glenn, at least there is flexibility.
Seriously, though, I like to think we support the ‘best’ of whatever is currently available – ‘best’, no doubt, being a mixture of ideology (i.e., democracy in the ME) and self-preservation in considering who is on our side. Leaning entirely toward the former is a recipe for being ineffectual, toward the latter, for having no ethical leg to stand on. I’m glad that you are watchdogging such events to, hopefully, make sure there is something of a balance there.
So you’re basically saying that we should support whoever we consider “best”, even if the Egyptians consider someone else the “best” and vote for that person?
Ultimately all opinion is a personal judgement. Your post, however, indicates that the factors for finding the ‘best’ person should center around who we like the most in an arbitrary way (apologies if I’m misunderstanding), which doesn’t line up with my post. I noted that: 1) We supported pro-democracy protestors when they existed, publicly if not financially 2) I described ‘best’ as being a mixture of those who meet certain democratic ideals, tempered by the necessity of being effective and protecting national interests.
No, my post was saying that we shouldn’t say we support democracy. Instead, we should say “we support democracy but only if the person who gets elected conforms to our national interests”.
Hmm. Well, you’re certainly entitled to your view.
@Nic –
That’s all? AU’s saying that, if we support democracy in Egypt, the person we will consider “best” is the person the Egyptians consider best, as expressed by democratic elections, regardless of which person would best serve our own national interests (“is on our side”). That’s hardly “arbitrary”. And it’s the true meaning of “supporting democracy”. How is that his/her “view”? What else can it mean to support democracy (in Egypt)? (Whether or not supporting democracy, in that sense, makes us “ineffectual” depends on what we are trying to achieve in the Middle East.)
That’s all?
Yes. I have no commenting spunk today. Besides, it’s possible AU was being sarcastic as you suggest, but I have no idea – seems like a rather non obvious way to introduce sarcasm. As to your post, barncat, I don’t disagree. If they had a democratically elected leader that would be great, but they don’t, so we’re back to pragmatism.
Oh, sorry AU, when you said “we should”, I thought you were making a statement about what you want to happen, which seemed like a not very commendable and abrupt leap. I guess you meant this is what you think is happening, so you want people to describe it in that way. Well, the fact that it took me this long to process your intent probably tells you we don’t view that one the same way.
According to amnesty international, both Egyptian regimes also used rape as a weapon while being supported by the US, including both by Obama:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/obama-refuses-stop-upholding-egyptian-dictatorship-using-rape-weapon.html
It’s a miracle that the IS consists of just 30.000 fighters; I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be 130.000 in a nearby future.
From Somoza to Suharto, the US supports those regimes least interested in human rights.
That’s how colonialism works — get the locals to fight one another. Train, arm, and finance the most ruthless of these local thugs — the one willing to commit horrendous atrocities upon his own people (See Suharto for the sort of activities the US clandestinely supports). Then announce a long-standing friendship between the US and the [__________________] people. This is what Kissinger called “realpolitik” while US spy-gnomes worked tirelessly to undermine democratically elected regimes — in different and diverse postwar locales like Iran and Chile.
One might argue that ISIS is the new Viet Cong — a nationalist uprising against colonial powers. Of course the US hopes to enlist their neighborhood thugs to help maintain their colonial influence.
But the problem is the same as in Viet Nam.
The more people the US kills, the stronger the nationalist forces become.
This is why ISIS broadcasts it’s own atrocities. Locals cannot hide and out wait the foreign oppressors — they must choose just as the Viet Cong forced the Vietnamese to choose.
“Sooner or later Mr. Fowler, one has to take sides if one is to remain human.” — Graham Greene, The Quiet American.
Nothing unusual for the USA! USA! USA! In the ’50s, the Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were the darlings of America…because he was the dictator of Formosa after being kicked out of China by the communists.
Nete
“……the Chiang Kai-shek and his wife were the darlings of America…because he was the dictator of Formosa after being kicked out of China by the communists……”
Yes, the darlings. Those were the lucky Chinese that missed the “Great Leap Forward” and the infamous “Cultural Revolution”. People on Taiwan went on to democratize and develop one of the largest economies in the world with much the same story occurring in South Korea. If only the same had been allowed in mainland China. Finally, the communist party realized that the key to their longevity rested in liberalizing their economy – and their growth has been astounding.
Consider that they’ve also somehow recruited, controlled or otherwise owned enough MSM / press people to manipulate public acceptance of planted stories (Judy Miller and we’re STILL in Iraq) and initial rejection of whistleblowers exposing government crime (Gary Webb and endless others), “for decades.”
Imagine what a Constitutional Amendment banning both political advertising of any kind that’s not taxpayer financed, and the bundling of campaign contributions by anyone for any reason – would have. Now, what sort of rejuvenating effect do you suppose the absence of both lobbyists with big checks and a financially compromised media – might have on OUR Constitutional principles?
I know, dreaming…
Great piece and it plays well with the “haunting of 12333,” Halloween coming and all. The Clintons do seem plugged into and perhaps now chosen again by whatever agency’s swinging this media propaganda machine – so effectively. And after all, what more could the big money company store interests ask for than original neoliberals to return combined with some of those new and refined neocon tendencies…? Zero regulations or taxes and war everywhere — smells like money…
I meant to throw this in after suggesting current Clinton media prowess, FWIW.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
“I know, dreaming…”
At least it’s not a nightmare. Everything starts with a dream, right?
Who was it that said, ‘the reason the world is not ideal is not the idealists’? Or something like that…
Are you aware of Wolf PAC? They’re working to get state legislatures to call for an Article V constitutional amendment to deal with Citizens’ United ruling and other related laws. So far they’ve gotten CA and VT to call for the Convention and bills are in the works in other states, including PA. I realize that doesn’t necessarily solve the media problem, but it might arguably affect quality of elected government officials.
Glenn, I’d point out the initial secular democracy movement betrayed by the USA in 2011 is a bit at odds with the thought the Morsi government was a freely elected government in Egypt. The Brotherhood stepped in and hijacked the secular revolution when it was in disarray (and much of its leadership in Omar Suliman’s jails.) In was this circumstance the Brotherhood won an election by the skin of an onion, and has been disputed as free and fair by none less than Mohamed el-Baradi. If the initial revolution had been legitimate, but hijacked by the Brotherhood, so could it be said of the 2nd secular revolution against the autocratic Morsi was legitimate, but had been subsequently hijacked by the Generals.
On both occasions, it was a secular revolution stolen by anti-democratic forces. The generals action to throw out Morsi but then take over, contaminated for a second time, what had been initiated in 2011, the actual revolution for secular democracy… pointing this out in the spirit of Oscar Wilde’s maxim “Truth is seldom pure and never simple”
Your post makes no sense whatsoever. First of all, there is no law that states that a democracy has to be secular. If, for arguments sake, 90% of a country want to live under a theocracy, then why should the 10% get to choose how the 90% live? We might not like it, but that’s what the people want. Of course, there is the risk in a theocracy that other minorities get persecuted, but you can have a theocracy where minorities get protected.
Secondly, your suggestion that Mohamed el-Baradi is someone whose opinion is neutral is laughable. It clearly shows just how little you know about Egypt.
As for your claim that the revolution was “stolen by anti-democratic forces” – more rubbish. Muslim Brotherhood had people demonstrating from day one. They just weren’t identifying themselves as such because of the persecution they have suffered for decades.
There were elections, and Morsi won. You might not like it, but he won, and whilst there might have been some irregularities, they would not have affected the results, and the elections were considered fair and free by independent observers.
And you are completely wrong in your justification of the second revolution. I know you will probably say “oh, but 23 million demonstrated against Morsi” – after all, that is what the US State Department said. Except they didn’t.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/resources/commentary-and-analysis/6574-30-june-anti-morsi-crowd-figures-just-dont-add-up
And Morsi actually offered to dissolve parliament and hold elections again. That is about as democratic as you can get – even though you have been elected, you agree to hold elections much earlier. But he was still removed, and anyone who supported that doesn’t really believe in democracy, they only believe in democracy when democracy suits them.
And I suppose you believe the USA is a representative democracy, or so it would seem could be the possibility by your definition of theocracy as democracy (recalling the Christian Taliban running the Pentagon) but more to the point, I read your link and had a laugh at MEMO host of the opinion piece:
“We are also an essential point of reference for journalists, researchers, human rights organisations and NGOs”
NGOs in this case would appear is code for Color Revolutions (google ‘color revolutions and civil society. phillip agee’ for a former CIA officer’s take on NGOs) and every related miscreant behavior, considering UK empire ‘Lords & Baronesses’ advising your publication:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/about-us
Better this following article for a take on Morsi’s misadventures:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/muslim-brotherhood-media-egypt-propaganda.html
^ For thinking people, meanwhile spew any self righteous verbiage you care to, I could care less
Perhaps the moderators will look in the spam, I messed up and put two links in my initial reply, but here goes again; look at who hosts your linked article:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/about-us
^ unabashed empire propaganda, advised by ‘Lords and Baronesses’
Pathetic. That’s the best you can come up with?
You see your double standards? You are happy to believe the figures of anywhere between 14 million and 34 million without once saying “oh, maybe those figures are exaggerated and are propaganda”, but when the figures are shown to be much lower, suddenly you sit there crying it’s propaganda.
Anyway, your post is pathetic because that media outlet didn’t actually do the research. They were linking their research to a crowd sizing expert – Dr Clark McPhail. And this Dr’s research was initially done during the ANTI-Mubarak demonstrations, when he was saying that the estimates are way higher than they should be. And he said the same thing about the anti-Morsi demonstrations. He’s a crowd sizing expert – how about you provide some proof that there were 14 to 34 million people.
^_^ … sure, Dr so-n-so says so, so it must be true. But if you’re not a ‘Dr’ in Germany, example given, you’re a nobody whose opinion accounts for nothing (recalling a certain ‘Mengle’ was a ‘Dr’) .. but if you were to look a bit more carefully at your propaganda outlet, you’ll also see they’re in bed with NGOs which it so happens, are hotbeds of intelligence agencies social engineering via information operations, the UK is little different to the USA in this regard, here’s example detailed by a former CIA officer on how you are sucked into believing precisely what it is preferred you believe by parties other than yourself:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/08/08/terrorism-and-civil-society-as-instruments-of-us-policy-in-cuba/
^ Terrorism & Civil Society is a textbook example of revolution engineering by intelligence agencies utilizing NGOs and our NGOs Freedom House, National Democratic Institute et al, were busy in Egypt working to control the forces of the so-called Arab Spring and they did a fine job of botching the entire business, at least that is until chaos had given the generals in the USA’s pocket the excuse they needed to assert control (so it all worked out in the end for the military hardware salesmen at the Pentagon)
Another pathetic argument by you.
The Dr has no known prejudices. He is simply an expert in counting crowds. That’s what he likes to do. If an expert says something, AND gives his explanation for it, and someone who isn’t an expert comes up with an arbitrary figure without any explanation behind it whatsoever, who will you believe?
Meanwhile here is the better take on your theocracy that’s posed itself as a democracy:
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/muslim-brotherhood-media-egypt-propaganda.html
^
All democracies take time to nurture.
Whether you like it or not, Egypt under Morsi was more democratic than it was under Mubarak or under Sisi. Yes, it wasn’t a perfect democracy, but that doesn’t change the fact it was more democratic. Surely if we sit here and shout “we love democracy”, then we should be supporting a Presidency that is more democratic.
Anyway, some research has suggested that America is an oligarchy and not democracy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
Would you be happy if all elections were cancelled in America and martial law was declared and no one was allowed to vote? I mean, both governments aren’t democratic. The answer is of course you wouldn’t, because if you have the choice between two systems, both of which aren’t really democratic, you would naturally opt for the one that was more democratic even though it isn’t a true democracy.
I see you are a proponent of the ‘lesser of evils’ philosophy, in which case your choice is ‘evil’ ;)
ciao
Not really sure what you’re trying to say – it seems you think you’re making some smart comment – you’re not.
If you only have two choices, and both are “evil”, but one is “really evil”, and the other is “evil”, and you choose the “evil” one, your choice is actually “good” and not “evil” because choosing “evil” over “really evil” when you have no other choice is “good” ;)
AU, sorry dudette, but there’s this thing called a principled stance, and if enough people were to embrace the idea, there would be a means to rise above your embrace of the ‘lesser evil that is good because its not quite as evil as the other evil’ .. g’nite, past my my bedtime (Central Europe Time)
Ronald, sorry mucker, but your principled stance is ideological and doesn’t reflect reality. If you were living in some poor country, in some poor village, and you had no means to leave the village because you were so entrenched in poverty, and you had to choose between two village leaders, and one was someone who would rape your daughters and you couldn’t say anything, and the other was someone who would just swear at you and steal your money, and if anyone protested against either of them, the village mob would kill you, I would then like to see you say “there’s this thing called a principled stance” and vote for no one – you might start talking to others in the village and try and encourage them to all unite together so that in future you could have enough power to evict both these nasty leaders, but for the time being, you would think about the immediate danger that your family faced and would vote for the village elder who wouldn’t rape your daughters.
Democracy IS NOT a law. It is a form of government that requires pluralism, participation, performance, basic freedoms and rule of law. The idea behind democracy is that we are all equal. So, if 90% want a theocracy then you already have an unequal society because the absolute ruler (God) or his servant ( The Ayatollah) cannot be challenged. The 10% do not decide how the 90% want to be ruled. They just want the basic right to question the economic, social, health or just the foreign policy of the rulers. And also the right to convince the 90% to accept democracy.
Yes, Morsi was democratically elected. That does not mean he was a democrat. He and the Muslim Brotherhood did not believe in pluralism so they manage to make democrats and other powerful non democrats very upset. Of course, Mr. Greenwald does mention Morsi’s non democratic actions. His anti Americanism prevents him from doing so.
Mr Greenwald does not
Of course democracy is not a law, it is a PRINCIPLE that stands above law. That’s the whole point of a democratic constitution (ours is in the dust bin, btw) .. and by definition, a theocratic rule precludes pluralism, so you have that correct in regards to the Ayatollahs in Iran, but back to Egypt; Morsi was elected via a series of actions that were underhanded and undemocratic, taking advantage of the secular movement’s disarray following their leadership impounded in Omar Sulieman’s jails, and Morsi furthered his undemocratic acts such as refusing to postpone parliamentary elections until the secular opposition could reorganize. Therefor the parliamentary so-called ‘elections’ were neither free nor fair when bringing the Brotherhood to power. So, if you believe certain kinds of acts, for instance comparing the deliberately rushed parliamentary elections in Egypt to gerrymandering in western democracies, are representative of free and fair elections, it just won’t stand up.
Oh, so now it is Morsi’s faults that the “secular movement” was in disarray!
Honestly, debating with you is pointless. You are clearly one of those people who is incapable of looking at something from both sides, maybe you’d be better off posting at FOX News?
FOX is great comedy, but here is some reality for you:
http://www.forensic-architecture.org/publication/the-least-of-all-possible-evils/
Have a GREAT day! :D
I guarantee your concern over Egyptian democracy are all crocodile tears.
What happens in Egypt is Egypt’s affair,but for 60 something years now it’s been an American and Israeli affair.Of course democracy is not to be allowed where the people hate US and Israel,as then their govts policies would be opposite of this Zioreacharound by Sissy.
And the Clinton’s should be ashamed of themselves,but they are soulless scum,evidently.
I never said Morsi was a democrat.
I just said Morsi was more democratic than Mubarak or Sisi. We cannot claim that we support democracy, and then support someone who is much less democratrc than the person he removed from power in a coup.
Just to reiterate, Morsi promised another election. Sisi declined and ousted him. And then Sisi massacred his supporters and banned the party and imprisoned thousands of their members. This is about as undemocratic as you can get.
This is what Human Rights Watch has to say on the massacre of Morsi’s supporters.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/01/qa-egypt-mass-killings-report-all-according-plan
As for your definition of democracy, well there are many types of democracies, but the basic definition is: “Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens are meant to participate equally – either directly or, through elected representatives, indirectly – in the proposal, development and establishment of the laws by which their society is run”. So if 90% of the population votes for a theocracy in elections in which everyone was allowed to stand and everyone was allowed to vote, then that is a religious democracy. It might not be a secular democracy, it might not be a democracy you and I like, but it is still a democracy. The fact that so many people like you do not even know what democracy is is just shocking.
I have no idea where Ayatollah comes into all of this, considering we are discussing Egypt – maybe you have just heard the term being used and think slipping it in makes you sound cool and knowledgeable?
I would dryly note you brought up ‘ayatollah’ as a term, a term used more along the lines of referring to the Shia in Iran as opposed to Sunni ‘mullah’ in Egypt- just fyi
Good luck with all that in any case
Pardon me, it was ‘steb’ interjected ‘ayatollah’ my bad
That’s a good definition, imo. I just want to point out that, by that definition, there can never be a perfect democracy of any size, because there will never be a perfect equality of participation among citizens. (There will never be a perfectly equal distribution of power.) Therefore the correct question is never whether or not a society is a democracy, but the degree to which a society is democratic. This supports your point that “you would naturally opt for the one that was more democratic even though it isn’t a true democracy”; that’s the only choice we ever have.
@barncat – agree with what you say.
@ Barncat & company
Lest there be any mistaken assumption I’m arguing for a form of democracy, imperfect or utopian, I’m not. My philosophy is precisely this:
“In any democracy, ethics, self restraint, tolerance and honesty will always take a second seat to narcissism, avarice, bigotry & persecution, if only because people who play by the rules in any democracy are at a disadvantage to those who easily subvert the rules to their own advantage”
Democracy is a failed experiment. Whether the gerrymandering passing as ‘redistricting’ (how Cynthia McKinney was outed from Congress) in the USA, or the ‘imperfect’ lesser of evils the comments in this thread embrace, it is a practice at odds with its principles for the very reasons in my quote preceding.
That said, I suppose I’m somewhat similar to Glenn Greenwald in one aspect; in our purported democracy, the laws we have should conform to our constitution, and this precludes making laws conforming the constitution to the expedience (convenience) of the moment. Therefor, I would propose the idea that any society that accepts less than the principles enshrined in its founding charter and yet considers itself ‘democratic’ is self-disingenuous. There are no ‘degrees of democracy’, there is democracy or there is none.
@ AU
You have been doing well in presenting and supporting your position, so do not fall into the personal attack game. You mentioned theocracy in your posts. The well known theocracy( or form of it) in this world is Iran in which the Ayatollah is a supreme leader who cannot be challenged. Hence, my point.
After you defined democracy “as a form of government ….citizens participate EQUALLY” you are suggesting that another form of government (theocracy) in which the citizens cannot participate equally is a “religious democracy”. In a democracy the citizens, rich, poor, religious, secular … pick their leaders because all the citizens are allowed to challenge the leaders and replace them.
In a theocracy, the leader cannot be replaced because he is a supernatural being, a God. “All eligible citizens” cannot participate “equally” because the laws come from God, who for instance, might not accept that young people dance happily on the streets according to the interpretations of his servants. You cannot challenge a God. (Ask the Pope who led the Vatican). However, you can challenge an elected president or senator whether you are in the 90% or the 10% because all citizens participate EQUALLY.
I will not comment on your assumption that you know democracy better than everybody else.
@ everybody .. lighten up and enjoy a satire:
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2013/05/24/the-michelle-bachmann-archetype/
^ ‘Michele Bachmann & Wild Indians (speaking of theocracy)
Goodnight from the EU & NATO satellite states where democracy thrives (so long as it rolls over for the USA)
Well then, Egypt under Morsi was clearly not a theocracy according to your definition. This is because under Morsi’s constitution, he could be replaced at the next election.
@Ronald, You seem like quite an intelligent individual, so I wonder why you have such biased and simplistic views on Morsi. I mean, Morsi was by no means perfect or democratic, he did some things which I strongly disagree with, but to suggest that Morsi was somehow as bad or worse than Mubarak or Sisi is just … stupid.
The hallmark of a western imperialist is they love to pretend to support democracy … right up to the point where someone they dislike wins, at which point they declare the person to be a democratically-elected tyrant: see Chavez, Hamas, Erdogan, etc. etc.
If you want to support dictators on the ground that they loyally serve the US: fine, just admit that. Don’t pretend that you support democracy the way the US does while shoveling arms and money to dictators.
Your interlocutor, Steb, is foremost a Zionist. For him/her the issue is that Morsi was not so good for Israel, a nation that maintains the fiction that being an ethno-religious state is compatible with democracy.
Thank you for your reply. It is a privilege to be included directly in your debate.
I do not believe you have a high level of discomfort because the US does not “admit” it supports dictators that only serve the US. For hundreds of years countries have supported other governments that are loyal to them, not because they have the same forms of governments. Moreover, US support for many dictators throughout history is not a secret that requires a Snowden type divulgence.
Our disagreement comes from your well calculated strategy of not painting the whole story to the readers. Yes, Chavez was hugely popular and he was an elected leader. However, you should also mention that he “neutralized the independence of the judiciary” “undermined” freedom of expression and association according to Human Rights Watch. Hamas is also popular in Gaza, but you do not share with us its policies of closing radio stations, restricting freedom of assembly and executing “spies” publicly without proper judicial procedures. Erdogan was democratically elected, but readers of the Intercept should also know that he attempted to close Twitter, Facebook and You Tube because their users have “manipulative” motives.
You paint a black and white world in which the US has to choose between a highly democratic Danish society versus a powerful Saudi autocrat. However, you do not include the fact that while the Danish society strongly believes in democracy, the Saudi autocrat has a policy of controlling tribes that are more autocratic than him and that could easily spread their non democratic values beyond their borders violently. You do not blame the US for supporting the bad guys, you blame the US for supporting the bad guys you disagree with. A strategy that is quite similar to US foreign policy that you consistently attack.
Among Steb’s many false or misleading statements is this:
Hamas, and the Palestinians of Gaza, do, in fact, prosecute informers and collaborators with due process in a “proper” tribunal. The only time they do not do so is when they are placed in a state of war. Then, like many/most resistance movements — including the French during WWII — Hamas publicly executes infiltrators and collaborators with such process as possible while under fierce bombardment.
Your response to Glenn constitutes one long non sequitur. (Whatever civil libertarian sins Chavez & etc committed are irrelevant to the fact that they were/are democratically elected. Adducing those sins would neither support nor undermine Glenn’s argument.)
Moreover, Glenn is not “blaming” the U.S. for supporting the bad guys. He is calling out its gross lack of candor. I suspect you did not really read his post. It ended thus:
Quite.
@
Mona
My statements regarding Hamas that you claim are false and misleading are based on the following report from Human Rights Watch:
“Under the Cover of War” Hamas Political Violence in Gaza
http://www.hrw.org/node/82366
and the following news report from the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/world/middleeast/israel-gaza.html?_r=0
Your argument supports the idea of bypassing proper judicial procedures because the territory is in a state of war. You are basically saying that it is okay for Hamas to disregard international laws, local laws, basic human rights because Gaza was at war (although their violations did not stop during temporary peacetime). Well, I wonder whether you are willing to allow to other side to use the same argument. Let’s say a country that is at war decides to bypass international laws by placing its prisoners on a island in the Caribbean and subject them to torture. That should not bother you. After all, if the French Resistance disregarded international laws during WWII it should be okay for others to do the same, right?
“Let’s say a country that is at war [with a noun]…”
At least pick an actual war, not an invented one.
The Morsi government was less than a genuine democracy; it therefore failed to carry the day.
The US cannot be accused of inconsistency. It strongly supported Mubarak, until just before his demise became inevitable. Then it strongly supported Morsi (feigned if you will), until his demise became inevitable as well. Now it is strongly supporting el-Sisi.
So the pattern is clear. The US strongly supports whoever is in power and in return, requires them to promote US interests in the Middle East. It’s true that dealing with an autocratic is much easier, since they don’t need to consult with other stakeholders or voters and so can seal a deal on the spot. But there is no evidence that the US could not work with a genuine democracy, providing the leader was able to create the misdirection and false narratives necessary to sway popular opinion. It appears Morsi may have lacked that skill, and so his government cannot be considered a ‘genuine democracy’. Democracy is based on the premise that you can fool most of the people, most of the time. If you can’t, then democracy does not work.
Yep, you got it. The US will do/support absolutely anything it can get away with that expands or maintains its state/corporate empire.
No, you are wrong.
The Mubarak government was elected in elections which were not free and fair.
The Sisi government was elected in elections which were not free and fair.
The Morsi government was elected in elections where they did not stop other parties from contesting, and which were considered, by independent observers, to be free and fair.
Now you might not consider the Morsi government to be “genuine” democracy. And I agree they fall short of the criteria we have. But they were more democratic than Mubarak and Sisi, so let’s cut out the nonsense, and say it like it is: “We are happy for a democratically elected government that isn’t 100% democratic to be overthrown and it’s supporters massacred and imprisoned by a government that is even less democratic”
How a government achieves power is of no consequence. The test of a genuine democracy, or any other form of government, is whether it can maintain power. If it can’t, it’s a failure, regardless of its other attributes.
The US does not care whether a foreign government is democratic or not, as long as it serves US interests. If so, the US will support it. If not, the US will seek to undermine it. That is simply rational behavior.
Governments are there to serve the people. If a government puts the interests of the general population before the interests of certain groups or individuals, then it is a good government for that nation. If it doesn’t, then it is a bad government.
Of course, a government should also have some sort of ethics that it follows. So if invading another country and killing tens of thousands means the government will have more money to look after its population, then that is wrong.
Exactly. We seem to forget that Morsi was elected in an election declared free by observes, the entrenched forces immediately started a campaign to undermine him, and he was in power less than a year. To expect Morsi to correct all the entrenched woes of the last 30 years in truly simplistic. As for naivete, it reached even the English expats in Egypt. I remember reading on one blog where the person complained that the shortages of fuel in Egypt are caused by Morsi sending all the fuel to Hamas in Gaza.
The Clintons are not the only ones fawning over Sisi. I remember Kerry’s 14 Sept. visit to Cairo, where he almost on bended knee begged for Sisi’s help against ISIS, or as Kerry then said, that “Egypt had a critical role to play in counterterrorism.” All I could think about was that he just helped recruit another few thousand to ISIS’ ranks.
I would think one of the reasons Qatar has been singled out for specific abuse is because it was the headquarters for Sisi’s nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood for some time. Also, Qatar is the home of Al Jazeera, and as any devoted watcher of Al Jazeera knows, it always had excellent coverage in Egypt. It covered the original revolution 24 hours a day, and it covered the Rabia Square demonstrations for almost three months, 24/7, to the final, unbelievably ghastly end when Sisi sent in his goons and hundreds were executed, on camera. And Al Jazeera continued its 24/7 coverage until the very end, until their offices were attacked and destroyed, their newsmen jailed and they were thrown out of the country. One of Al Jazeera’s reporters was hired by NBC. He tried to do the same kind of reporting for NBC in Israel as he had done for Al Jazeera, he was quickly withdrawn by NBC.
There is a reason people are attracted to join ISIS. Maybe they see the alternatiive as worse.
Ah, Benito, you have said what was in my mind. The US supports whoever is in power. Long-term dictators are more convenient, because the US can make a deal with one person who is able to guarantee compliance with the terms of the deal over many years. Imagine being a dictator who has to deal with continually switching Republican and Democratic US administrations.
As I remember the Egyptian spring, the US newspapers favored it and the US government did not. The government held back until it was obvious that Mubarak was on the way out. I think Greenwald errs in this editorial by combining the newspapers and the government into one schizophrenic entity.
I was pleased that the US government stayed out of it for so long, because I thought the Egyptian people should make their own revolution. If the US had stepped in to help them, the revolution would have been tainted. There are always claims that “outside influences” have rendered something illegitimate, and I was hoping that this could for once be a purely in-house movement that gained legitimacy by being solely local, not a product of US meddling.
“Moderate Saudis” probably exist but I doubt they’re anywhere near power.
Well, they’re probably near the power sockets in the Saudi torture chambers.
Democracy supported by the US is merely a tool to subvert a government it doesn’t like.
When the job is done the tool is put down.
You need a simplified version of your articles, I don’t like reading english and the articles too long for me. It hurts my head.
Support for tyranny has usually been the standard for US policy… we’ve only help the oppressed when it was convenient for us, or as a proxy war.