Obama Won't Fight Morsi 'Coup' In Egypt
Egypt: Cairo's streets are filled with demonstrations against Egypt's president. It sounds awfully familiar, but since the grievances are against an Islamist this time around, don't expect "the people" to enjoy U.S. support.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who came to power as leader of the "civilizational jihadist" Muslim Brotherhood, is besieged with protests from his people after giving himself Pharaoh-like powers that include a ban on challenges to his decrees and the weakening of Egypt's judiciary.
Crowds torched Brotherhood offices in cities across the land of the pyramids, and they jammed Cairo's Tahrir Square with shouts of "Out! Out!"
Gee, isn't Morsi a man of the people, personifying the "new beginning" of President Obama's 2009 Cairo University "apology to Muslims" speech? And didn't Morsi, just a day before his power grab, become the Peacemaker of Palestine by joining with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in forging an Israeli-Hamas cease-fire?
How could Morsi be corrupt, and how could the people turn against their liberator? As the rock singer says, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
Morsi has become just as tyrannical as his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak — except Mubarak was a staunch U.S. ally who maintained peace with Israelis and kept the Mideast powder keg stable for decades, while Morsi so reviles the Jewish homeland he won't let the word "Israel" pass his lips.
The seriousness of Morsi's coup, as many Egyptians are fearlessly calling it, is indicated by the posture of Mohamed ElBaradei, the longtime head of the U.N.'s atomic weapons oversight body and critic of the U.S., who on Friday called on Egyptians to "save the nation," charging Morsi "blasted the concept of the state and the legitimacy and appointed himself ruler by divine decree."
The left-leaning Nobel Peace Prize winner also declared: "The revolution is aborted until further notice."
Just don't expect White House press secretary Jay Carney to announce that the Egyptian people's "grievances have reached a boiling point, and they have to be addressed," as his predecessor Robert Gibbs did when Mubarak was on the ropes.
And don't hold your breath for Clinton — or whoever her successor is at the State Department — to call for "an orderly, peaceful transition to real democracy, not faux democracy" in which "the people just keep staying in power and become less and less responsive," as she said two years ago during street demos against Mubarak.
It took 24 hours for Morsi to take advantage of the prestige Obama and his secretary of state handed him. Now he's using America's stamp of approval to oppress his own people.
Some "new beginning." |
