With Libya now moving to a Sharia-based system that will impose religious values on the population, Egypt is also rapidly moving toward an extreme Sharia based system. Indeed, Hesham al Ashry (the leader of the Salafists) announced this week that “I am the enemy of democracy.”
Businessman Naguib Sawiris now calls Egypt’s future “dim … bad.”
Al Ashry put the reality into perspective: “This is a big opportunity and it’s not going to go back. This was mentioned by the Prophet Mohammed. Peace be upon him. He said this was going to happen.” Thus, the freedom that led to the overthrow of Mubarak regime will now be extinguished to embrace a new form of oppression — just faith-based rather than tyrant-based repression.
One of the objections made to the intervention of the United States in Libya was that, in addition to the absence of any declaration from Congress, President Obama could bring bring about a more radical regime. Even at the time, Libyan rebels were known to have extremist elements, including some linked to Al Qaeda. Some of the same concerns were heard in our Egyptian policies. I am less critical of the Obama policy on Libya. Indeed, I thought the Administration struck the right tone — without military intervention. However, there is a general misconception that the “Arab Spring” necessarily means a triumph of democracy and human rights. Movements in both Libya and Egypt show the powerful pull of theocratic oppression. The denial of the separation of mosque and state (as well as religious freedom) undermines a host of other rights from free speech to free association. The Obama Administration undermined those rights further with its shocking support of a United Nation’s resolution that embraced the concept of blasphemy prosecutions.
With the move to Sharia law, Egypt is showing other signs of extremism. Sectarian violence, particularly against Christians, has increased with little intervention from the military.
The loss of Egypt to religious extremism would be extremely destabilizing for the regime. It will also raise a question of our continued massive support for the country. Even though we have cities and states breaking under economic pressures, we are still pouring billions in aid to both Israel and Egypt.
Clarification: by him I mean al Ashry 🙂
He’s currently being sued for defamation by Shirley Sherrod.
Seriously, Bdaman, Breitbart is a clown and a proven liar. You might as well be blatantly making up a source if you’re going to him and his crew. The only thing those kind of people are is an example of propagandists in action. You can’t trust a single word coming from someone like Breitbart. If you do? You’re either an idiot or complicit . . . and that’s not a false dilemma either. Those are really your only two choices.
who is making a living by lying and libeling people.
Where are all the lawsuits ? How many times has he been sued ?
How much were the judgements ?
Surely someone must have one a libel case against him.
Bdaman,
not when it comes to Breitbart. He is a paid liar and he has proven as much on more than one occasion. Breitbart is a punk who is making a living by lying and libeling people.
I agree nal…they have a whole think tank of psychologists that examine all possible results….
Just doing his master’s bidding … and I believe most of the bloggers have identified the master.
Bdaman:
how could you? He was the one who showed ACORN acting badly and then that dust-up in New Orleans.
What ever happened with that by the way?
Raff with all due respect you as an attorney should examine the evidence before dismissing the source.
rafflaw,
I hope that I’m wrong…
🙂 regarding Breitbart…
Bdaman,
with all due respect, how can you link to any Breitbart website with a straight face?
anon nurse,
I hope you are wrong about another Kent State, but unfortunately, you could be right.
We’ll see another Kent State down the road…It’s also predictable, though I hate to say it…
I must disagree Nal. This outcome is both intended and foreseen. It is deliberate.
Here is another act of deliberate violence only this time, at “home”: “Police Turn Oakland Into War Zone
by Allison Kilkenny
Incredible footage emerged from downtown Oakland last night – not of basic law enforcement efforts to maintain public “health and safety” as the
police have been claiming – but of a war zone in which police shot tear gas, bean bags, wooden dowels, flash grenades, and rubber bullets at protesters.
POLICE VIOLENCE: Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement carry away a protester, who was shot point-blank with a police gas canister near the Oakland City Hall. (AFP) Rather than using the weaponry once in a final effort to subdue the crowd, officers reportedly used them over and over again in what @OccupyOakland describes as a “relentless” assault on the thousands of activists gathered near City Hall.” You can see the story at Common Dreams along with video footage. Welcome to Amerika!
Social media will prevent lasting extremism. Rome was not built in a day.
Unintended but not unforeseen.
You say “Thus, the freedom that led to the overthrow of Mubarak regime will now be extinguished to embrace a new form of oppression — just faith-based rather than tyrant-based repression.”
Seems a little hysterical to me.
Ypu say “With the move to Sharia law, Egypt is showing other signs of extremism. Sectarian violence, particularly against Christians, has increased with little intervention from the military.”
How big is the increase? Who figured out the causality? I hope it would be, at least, be based on reports from the Coptics. Is it?
Taqwacore.
Report: Obama’s Muslim Advisers Block Middle Eastern Christians’ Access to the White House
Beirut Arab news agency al Nashra reported on Saturday November 22, that [White House Muslim envoy] Dalia Mogahed has succeeded in canceling a meeting between the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon and President Barack Obama. Writing in al Nashra, the reporter said “an unnamed US source told the news agency, that those who sought canceling a visit of (the spiritual head of the Maronite Church) Patriarch Beshara Rahi to the White House are Dalia Mujahid (Mogahed), the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department, who is from Egyptian origins. And that,” according to al Nashra, “heeding a request by the higher leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who consider that US Administration must support the Islamist Sunni current facing the Iranian current in the region.”
The al Nashra report, circulating now widely in the Middle East, but also in the United States and across the Lebanese Christian Diaspora confirms what was already known about the impact the so-called “advisors on Arab and Islamic Affairs” in the White House on Middle East issues in general and on US policies regarding the Christians in the Middle East.
Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi
The anti-Middle East Christian lobbying in Washington, attributed to Muslim Brotherhood front groups and sympathizers is not limited to the Maronites, who form the bulk of the two million Lebanese Americans. According to research showing the links between Presidential adviser Dalia Mogahed and the Muslim Brotherhood, and to NGOs representing Middle East Christian groups in the US, blocking Middle East Christian meetings at the White House and the State Department have been associated with the work of the “advisors” and their allies in the Islamist camp in Washington such as CAIR and MPAC.
Coptic Solidarity International which has been trying to obtain meetings at the White House or with Secretary Clinton at State to expose the horrors committed against the Christian Copts of Egypt, were not granted such access. “Probably because of fear that American Copts will expose the role of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists in Egypt” said an official with Coptic NGOs.
Also and despite the many massacres against Christians in Iraq over the past two years, representatives from the Assyro-Chaldeans of the US were not received in the Oval Office or by Secretary Clinton, at a time Islamist linked groups are on the roaster of invitations to the White House. Indicatively, Administration officials declined invitations to speak at the annual Assyrian Christian convention this year, few months from the start of the withdrawal from Iraq.
US official attitudes towards the Middle East Christians are, according to this behavior, dictated by the “Muslim Brotherhood friends” now very influential in the Obama Administration. Of late, CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) are pushing to eliminate any intelligence analysis focused on Islamist and Jihadist violence in general and directed against the Christian communities in the Middle East in particular. This could explain why Maronites, Copts and Chaldo-Assyrians have been cut off the Administration.
Observers believe that the campaign against Americans from Middle East Christian descent has also reached Terrorism experts and congressional advisers and NGO leaders whose field focuses on the Islamist and Jihadist movements. Indeed, in a report published this year, John Esposito, the chair of the Saudi-funded Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (and an associate to Mogahed) endorses sharp attacks against experts and analysts, always charging “Islamophobia.”
Blocking the Maronite Patriarch from the White House is a move that is directed to all Middle East Christians in the United States and can have significant effects in the region and even on US politics. Brooklyn Bishop for the Maronites in the US, who are part of America’s Catholic Church criticized President Obama for not meeting the Patriarch during his visit. Bishop Mansour wrote:
Patriarch Rai’s warning about the future of Christians in Syria is not taboo. Christians are in a state of peril in the same way that Christians of Iraq were a few years ago when two-thirds of them migrated out… A new day is dawning in the Middle East. The Arab Spring is happening with little vision for the summer that will ensue.
However, for advisors in the Administration to rebuke the spiritual head of a main Middle East Christian community, and engage in a witch hunt against Middle East Christians, including US citizens, for the benefit of the Muslim Brotherhood is a serious matter the American public should not tolerate.
The Maronites are Middle Eastern Christians who count about a million people inside Lebanon with more than 10 millions in the Diaspora. There are about one and a half million Americans who are Maronites and five millions in Brazil. There are Maronite members of the US Congress such as Congressman Charles Boustany of Louisiana or former Congressman Ray Lahoud, current secretary of transportation. Maronites are among the 25 millions of Christians in the Middle East, including the 15 million Copts in Egypt, the one million Assyrians and Chaldeans in Iraq, another million Syriacs and Orthodox in Syria as well as Iranian Christians and African Christians in Sudan. Americans who are from Middle East Christian ancestry are about 86% of all Americans from Arab or Middle East Christians and count two times the size of American Muslims.
http://bigpeace.com/elcid/2011/10/25/obamas-muslim-advisers-block-middle-eastern-christians-access-to-the-white-house/
The Arab Spring has had many things to contend with, not the least of which has been the US govt.’s interference. The people who came to Tahrir square were diverse. Many of those protesters wanted a secular govt. and democracy. Unfortunately for them, that is not a goal shared by the US govt.
The US govt. has a long history of destroying democratic/secular govts. around the world. Corporations and their militaries need tyrants who will do their bidding, not governments that work towards the welfare of their own people. The corporations who have bought and paid for the US govt. have destabilized nearly all the earth in their quest for complete control of resources.
If you look closely at what is happening in Egypt, you will see the Muslim Brotherhood has a friendly relationship with the US govt/military/world corporations. This entity is trying hard to destabilize the wishes of the majority of Egyptians. I hope they do not succeed. They may not because Egyptians seem to have a very good understanding of the forces arrayed against them.
The USmilitarycorporate governing class has supported and continues to support brutal tyrants across the world. The US govt. allied with people in Libya whom the govt. knew were thugs. What you see around the world is no accident. It is planned destabilization with a distinct purpose of accumulating resources and power by the ruling elites.
BTW, looks like Pakistan might be next for regime change. They are collaborating with al Qaeda according to the govt.’s own very reliable sources. If that’s a reason for regime change Obama better start droning the crap out of his own govt. because all indications are that the US govt. works quite closely with certain members of al Qaeda to achieve their own aims. The US govt. has been caught selling weapons and drugs many times. Take a look at some of our fine megabanks and their illegal weapons deals! Just think, we’ll be bailing them out again real soon.
You say “Businessman Naguib Sawiris now calls Egypt’s future dim … bad.”
There is a difference between the attitudes of the people in the city and the attitudes of people in the sticks, just as always in every revolution, and just as in the USA. Your analysis could be just a tad less monolithic.
As the principle virtue of Christianity is Love, the principle virtue of Islam is Mercy. Just something to chew on. .
The law of unintended consequences