Egypt’s army has reacted to any opposition to this month’s coup d’etat with an iron fist, and today reiterated its intentions to “turn its guns” on protesters who seek the return of the elected government, dubbed them “terrorists.”
Friday is expected to see another massive round to protests by the Muslim Brotherhood, orchestrated by what leaders have yet to be disappeared into military custody. The army has given them an ultimatum, demanding they agree to back to coup by Saturday or face some unspecific retaliation.
Army commander Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sissi is also pushing for pro-junta rallies in Cairo, insisting that it is necessary for people to attend rallies in support of military rule and against the prospective return of “terrorism.”
The protests against the coup have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but have repeatedly faced violent attacks from gunmen loyal to the new junta. The military also overtly massacred over 50 protesters on one occasion, and arrested the protest organizers for “incitement.”
Fascism on the march in Egypt. Unfortunately the Kemalist generals are cheered by liberal-secular elments of Egypts elite classes. The current clash is more or less of the poor classes favoring the MBs and the elite -military alliance backed by Saudi money and US underhand encouragement.
When US took over Iraq, they made sure all remnants of Saddam rule were removed from power, because they realized Saddam regime had a couple of million collaborators, which together with their family members numbered into 10-20% of the population. This is exactly the situation in Egypt. The pampered military leaders, who control 40% of the economy, the Judiciary, the Interior ministry, the secret policy and so on, number into between 1-2 million. Together with their family members they count into 15-20% of the population, which is how much vote the supporters of the coup managed to get in 5 consecutive elections, over the past year.
What they could not accomplish in the ballot, they are trying to do by terrorizing the 80% of Egyptians, who want their freedom. Sure, in their stronghold of Cairo, the remnants of Mubarak regime can bring out 1-2 million people, including men, women, and children. However, those opposed to the coup and continuation of Mubarak era have been bringing 10s of million demonstrators to the streets for over a month, all the while being intimidated at the barrel of tanks and F-16s. What the Mubarak hold outs, the coup supporters are doing, is massive form of TERRORISM, against the freedom loving people of Egypt.
"When US took over Iraq, they made sure all remnants of Saddam rule were removed from power"
Um, no. Within a week of "banning Baathists from government," they had begun re-hiring the ones they wanted, particularly in both the domestic "internal security" and foreign intelligence (read: versus Iran) areas.