EXPOSED: NAMES AND IDENTITIES OF MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD OPERATIVES IN U.S.

El Watan, one of Egypt’s most widely circulated and read newspapers, has published a report discussing the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence over the United States, especially in the context of inciting pro-Brotherhood policies against Egypt’s popular June 30 Revolution, which resulted in the ousting of Muhammad Morsi and the Brotherhood from power.

Titled (in translation), “With Names, Identities, and Roadmap…  El Watan Exposes Brotherhood Cells in America,” it’s written by investigative journalist Ahmed al-Tahiri, who begins the report by saying:

In the context of El Watan’s ongoing investigation concerning the Brotherhood’s cells and lobby inside America that support the regime of the ousted [Morsi], and which intensified their activities to attack and defame the June 30 Revolution, informed sources have disclosed to El Watan newspaper the names and cell entities of the Brotherhood and their roadmap of activities all throughout the United States of America.

The sources said that these organizations, which are spread throughout the States, agitated for and were supportive of the decisions taken by Muhammad Morsi’s project to “Brotherhoodize” and consolidate power [in Egypt] and gave a favorable opinion to the general American public that Morsi’s decisions were welcomed by the public [in Egypt]. Following the June 30 Revolution, these groups  launched a malicious war in order to incite the American administration to take hostile decisions against Egypt, with the aim of bringing back the Brotherhood to the power.

Via: Human Events
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Egypt police clash with students at al-Azhar University

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the al-Azhar protest

Egyptian police have fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of students staging an anti-military protest at Cairo's al-Azhar University, reports say.

Students had blocked the main road leading to the campus and threw rocks as security forces drew near.

Clashes at the country's top Islamic institution erupted when students tried to take their protest off the campus.

Supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi have staged regular anti-army protests since he was ousted on 3 July.

There were no immediate reports of casualties at the al-Azhar protest.

The campus is close to Rabaa Square where Islamists set up a huge protest camp that security forces raided in August, leaving hundreds dead and sparking days of unrest.

A Reuters witness said some of the students were trying to reach the square, when they were cut off by the security forces.

There were also reports of scuffles at a demonstration at Cairo University between supporters and opponents of Mr Morsi.

Hundreds of people demanding his reinstatement - mostly Muslim Brotherhood supporters - have been killed in clashes with security forces since his ousting.

Mr Morsi and other senior Brotherhood figures have been imprisoned and face trial next month.

Via: BBC

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Obama Just Made a Terrible Mistake on Egypt

In a certain sense, the Obama administration’s decision to withhold much of the $1.3 billion in annual aid given to Egypt isn’t surprising. U.S. law mandates cutting off aid to countries in which a coup has taken place, and the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi this summer was, analytically speaking, exactly that. Moreover, the Egyptian military’s behavior during the three months since Morsi’s removal has made Egypt’s slide towards enhanced autocracy impossible to ignore: Over 1,000 people have been killed in the military-backed government’s crackdown on pro-Morsi protests; journalists who criticize the military have been prosecuted in military courts; and the new constitution will likely further shield the military from any kind of civilian oversight.

Indeed, the generals are not democrats, and never have been. They are bureaucratic actors who selfishly guard their bureaucratic privileges, which include autonomy over their internal affairs and control over vast economic assets (for example, among other consumer products, the Egyptian military produces bottled water), and they know that true democracy could cost them these perquisites. But cutting off aid won’t make the military democratic, and it will come at a substantial cost: namely, the ability to encourage the military in a more progressive direction down the road, when the environment might be riper for a more assertively pro-democratic U.S. policy in Egypt.

he calls to cut off military aid in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what transpired in Egypt this past summer. To say, as is frequently said, that the military removed a democratically elected president from office is to overlook a very basic reality: that by the time unprecedentedly mass protests against the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule commenced on June 30, Mohamed Morsi was a president in name only. Morsi’s November 2012 constitutional declaration, which put his own edicts above judicial scrutiny, and his subsequent ramming of an Islamist constitution through to ratification, severely undercut his popular legitimacy, and shrunk his support in a country of 85 million people down to the Brotherhood’s base of approximately 500,000 members. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to dispatch its cadres to brutally attack and torture protesters outside the presidential palace on December 5 led many Egyptians to view the Brotherhood—an organization that they had elected only months earlier—as an emerging fascist regime. From that point forward, protests against Morsi’s rule became so frequent and destabilizing that by late January, the military—at Morsi's request—assumed control over the three major Suez Canal cities.  

Via: New Republic

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U.S. Move to Give Egypt $450 Million in Aid Meets Resistance

The Obama administration notified Congress on Friday that it would provide Egypt’s new government an emergency cash infusion of $450 million, but the aid immediately encountered resistance from a prominent lawmaker wary of foreign aid and Egypt’s new course under the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The aid is part of the $1 billion in assistance that the Obama administration has pledged to Egypt to bolster its transition to democracy after the overthrow last year of the former president, Hosni Mubarak. Its fate, however, was clouded by concerns over the new government’s policies and, more recently, the protests that damaged the American Embassy in Cairo.

The United States Agency for International Development notified Congress of the cash infusion on Friday morning during the pre-election recess, promptly igniting a smoldering debate over foreign aid and the administration’s handling of crises in the Islamic world.

An influential Republican lawmaker, Representative Kay Granger of Texas, immediately announced that she would use her position as chairwoman of the House appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign aid to block the distribution of the money. She said the American relationship with Egypt “has never been under more scrutiny” than it is in the wake of the election of President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“I am not convinced of the urgent need for this assistance and I cannot support it at this time,” Ms. Granger said in a statement that her office issued even before the administration announced the package.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at a meeting of the Group of 8 nations in New York, said on Friday that the world needed to do more to support the governments that have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, including those in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

Via: NYT

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