Category Archives: Egypt

Arab Counterrevoltion, Egypt, GCC, U.S. Foreign Policy

Nile Chutzpah: Cairo Regime advises USA on Official Violence……

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“Egypt on Tuesday urged U.S. authorities to exercise restraint in dealing with racially charged demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri – echoing language Washington used to caution Egypt as it cracked down on Islamist protesters last year. It is unusual for Egypt to criticize such a major donor, and it was not immediately clear why the government would have taken such a step. Ties between Washington and Cairo were strained after Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters following the army’s ousting of freely elected President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013………..”

The regime of Generalisimo Self-Appointed Field Marshal Al Sisi Bin Coup Al Dictator regularly rails against ‘intrusion’ of NGOs, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Now it thinks it sees an opportunity to strike back at the Obama administration (and maybe the US Senate). Regime media (owned and controlled) is full of smug comments about how the USA cannot advice others on the Ferguson affair and human rights. That is, when they are not railing against some imaginary joint plot between the U.S. administration and the Muslim Brotherhood whose freely-elected regime was overthrown by Generalisimo Al Sisi. That coup of last summer was pushed for by an alliance of Egypt’s Wahhabi liberals and Mubarak veterans (feloul) and it was financed by Persian Gulf princes and potentates, mainly from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

Arab Counterrevoltion, Cairo, Egypt, Human Right

Counter-Revolution: the Pussycat, the Coyote, and a Butcher of Cairo?………

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“You say you want a revolution
Well, you know We all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well, you know We all want to change the world”  The Beatles’ “Revolution”

“A day after Egypt barred representatives of Human Rights Watch from entering the country, the group disclosed the source of the government’s alarm: a report implicating senior officials, including Egypt’s current president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in what it called the “widespread and systematic” killings of protesters. Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said Monday that it had conducted a yearlong investigation into violence that followed the military’s ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi, and found that the killings of demonstrators by the police and army forces “likely amounted to crimes against humanity.” Official statements during the killings made clear that the attacks “were ordered by the government,”………………”

Many Egyptians who write and talk on politics in public seem delusional or confused, actually both, when they talk of “revolution”. Some talk of several opposing revolutions: (1) the Tahrir “revolution” of January-February 2011; (2) the June 30 “revolution”, referring to the large protests of the opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi on June 30, 2013, many of the protesters were calling on the army to return to take over again; (3) the July 3 military coup of 2013, when Generalisimo Al Sisi staged a coup against the man who had promoted him to minister of defense. Some deluded former Egyptian liberals (and Wahhabi liberals) called that a “revolution”. That last one, the coup, was the final nail in the coffin of the  Egyptian uprising of Tahrir Square, the final act in the counter-revolution: it was reportedly financed by money from the potentates of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Saudi princes.

The Rabi’a (Raba’a) massacre in August 2013 by the army and security forces of Al Sisi was the largest in the history of modern Egypt. More than one thousand unarmed people were reported shot and killed, and many wounded. It occurred at a square outside a mosque named for a famous early female Islamist poet of Iraq (Rabi’a Al-Adawiya). The massacres continued beyond that. Many were killed over the months after that. Almost two thousand have been sentenced to death for their political affiliations. Tens of thousands have been arrested, most of them have not been tried.

In retrospect, Hosni Mubarak was like a pussycat compared to the blood-stained coyote that Al Sisi has become. One difference is that people were not delusional under Mubarak, they knew what they had and owned up to it. These days many of them play a game of “pretend freedom”.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, Israel

Israel and Hamas and Egypt as a Perennial Follower…….

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“After the military ouster of the Islamist government in Cairo last year, Egypt has led a new coalition of Arab states — including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — that has effectively lined up with Israel in its fight against Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip. That, in turn, may have contributed to the failure of the antagonists to reach a negotiated cease-fire even after more than three weeks of bloodshed………………”

He is wrong of course about Egypt having “led” a coalition. A battered unstable Egypt is not “leading” any coalition on anything these days. In fact Egypt has not led independently on any regional issue since the day Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981. It has gotten worse in the year since the military coup of 2013. Under the military rule of Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, Egypt is being led, in regional matters, by a couple of Persian Gulf absolute tribal ruling families, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab .There has been a drive by the princes and potentates, and the Israelis, to inflate the appearance of a leading role for Al Sisi. This is self-serving, given the historical importance of Egypt and its size as the largest Arab country which can be put to good diplomatic and public relations use. That and its potential role as the host country of the impotent League of Arab Nations.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Egypt, Health, Healthcare, Science

The International Plot against the Egyptian Military’s Miracle Drugs………

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“Hepatitis C. Virtually all of the non-A, non-B post-transfusion hepatitis described years ago in textbooks were found to be attributable to HCV after its RNA genome was cloned in the late 80s. It is estimated that there are 180 million people chronically-infected with HCV. Detection is routine and the virus is therefore largely screened out of the world’s blood supply. But individuals who have received blood or blood products before this time may have inadvertently contracted HCV. HCV is less transmissible than HBV and usually involves direct injection of blood or blood-products into the bloodstream and monogamous heterosexual couples have a low risk of contracting it from an infected mate (CDC Hepatitis C Information for Health Professionals). Most of the HCV transmission today in the developed world is among intravenous drug users, while those who experimented even only once with injectable drugs are at risk of being infected (CDC Viral Hepatitis Statistics & Surveillance). There is no vaccine for HCV and there is no expectation that an effective vaccine will be available anytime soon…………..”

Apparently these people have never heard of the new miracle drug invented by the Egyptian Army under the leadership of Field Marshal Al Sisi. Actually it is a dual-cure for both Hepatitis-C and HIV (AIDS). A leading Egyptian military scientist promised this past Spring that you can shove the drug into a kebab or kufta and eat it and get cured. The whole miracle “kebab” treatment was presented with much fanfare at a public gathering, with speeches and with General Al Sisi himself attending.

Some media, nay all media outside Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain had a field day with this army alleged invention. No report yet if the Egyptian military has plans to invent a democratic system that works for Egypt and the Arab world. But they do know a system that cures a country from wanting to go democratic.

Egypt Rejects Sisi Invention, Signs with Gilead for Hepatitis-C Cure……

Is Medical Pilgrimage in Egypt’s Future? the Army Says So about their Acne Cure………
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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Egypt, Humor, Israel, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Sectarian, US Foreign Policy

New Tri-Partite Coalition: a Jewish Democracy, an Arab Military Dictatorship, an Arab Tribal Monarchy………

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“A “joint high command” of Arab states is advising the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu how to press home his ground operation in Gaza, the Debka Net Weeky, a publication of a website close to Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad has confirmed. The website said that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi are in “constant communication” running daily conferences and sometimes more, according to the website’s sources. That communication is done over secure telephone lines, but such is the political sensitivity of their close co-operation that for really important messages human couriers are used. A special Israeli plane is parked permanently at Cairo’s military airport, ready to lift off whenever top-secret messages between the Egyptian president and the Israeli Prime Minister need to be delivered by hand. The flight takes less than 90 minutes. King Abdullah’s point man in this daily dialogue is the man he dismissed as intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, but who has now been re-hired as the King’s special adviser on the Islamic State in Iraq. Bandar maintains “direct contacts” with the Mossad chief Tamir Pardo….…………”

I would call it a coalition of convenience, not an alliance. It is like “the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, but I will not specify which one of these is which: it is probably a toss-up. It is really a coalition, if that is what it is, of two parties: Israel and the Saudi regime. Egypt has already made its peace with Israel and is doing its share in blockading Gaza and its Hamas rulers, and it has no regional influence left beyond that. Egypt under Al Sisi is now part of the Al Saud sphere of influence as far as other Middle East issues are concerned. Besides, Egypt is not directly involved with the main target of this coalition: Iran and her ruling mullahs.

This is quite a mix of an eclectic coalition of regimes, just look at its members: 

  • One militarized Jewish democracy (it is a democracy so far, if we set aside the West Bank’s future, and not only by Arab or Middle East standards),
  • One harsh Arab military dictatorship led by a Generalisimo Field Marshal but pretending to be a democracy,
  • One absolute tribal Wahhabi theocratic monarchy that has no pretensions of democracy or constitutional law whatsoever (its constitution is however the princes and their palace clerics interpret the law).

What brought them and holds them together? A mix of factors: (1) a desire to maintain the status quo and keep absolute family rule (Saudi Arabia and allies), (2) a desire to keep the military in absolute power and the old oligarchy in place while pretending otherwise (Egypt), (3) a desire to divide the Arabs and other neighbors and to weaken her main regional rival (that would be Iran in the case of Israel).

There is one other factor that sounds ridiculous but some Arab regimes pretend, for political reasons, to take it seriously: a professed media-driven fear of the spread of Shi’ism. This indicates a lot of religious insecurity within the sects of Islam. Saudi and other Gulf sectarian propaganda often warn of this threat of the ‘spread of Shi’ism’. Recently so have otherwise apparently calm but apparently Wahhabi-ized Egyptian clerics from within and without Al-Azhar. But I doubt the Jews of Israel worry much about this nonsense as much as their paranoid neighbors, perhaps excluding some remnant zealots in the settlements and around Jerusalem.

However, it would be fun if there was a true Shi’a threat of conversion in all three countries. Imagine a common threat to convert all Sunnis of Egypt, all Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, and the toughest nut of all would be to convert all Jews of Israel (and hence of the Diaspora from New York to San Fernando valley).

Just think: they wouldn’t have to wait for the Second Coming and the Rapture to convert, although it would be to the wrong faith. That should give all Christian Zionists in the American Red-blooded States massive group infarct.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Funny Courts, Media

Judiciary Thuggery in Egypt’s Courts: Dumb and Dumber instead of Best and Brightest……

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“A judge released his reasoning for harsh sentences issued last month against three journalists for Al Jazeera’s English-language channel, saying they had been brought together “by the devil” to destabilize Egypt  ………. The judge, Mohammed Nagi Shehata, convicted and sentenced the three — Peter Greste, an Australian; Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian of Egyptian descent; and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian — to seven years over charges linked to aiding the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Mr. Morsi was a leader. The judge said that Al Jazeera worked “in the service of a banned terrorist organization,” referring to the Brotherhood……………..”

What this Egyptian ‘judge’ said was a variation of the old saying that the “devil made them do it“.

Under Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, Egyptian courts, like Egyptian state-controlled media, have reached new laws. Judges pass sentences couched in vulgar language that even bloggers like myself shy away from (well, mostly: e all like to have some fun, but we are not all judges). Only a few weeks ago two Egyptian kangaroo courts sentenced more than one thousand people to death for being Muslim Brotherhood supporters. A political massacre.

There are reportedly some 30 thousand to 40 thousand others under arrest for their politics and awaiting trial by these same regime courts. It is a throwback to the age of Nazi Germany and Baathist Iraq, among other places.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Azhar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized

King Abdullah Earns a Doctorate from Al Sisi University, Morsi Moves from Elba to Saint Helena………

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“Al-Azhar University granted an honorary doctorate degree to the King of Saudi Arabia as a tribute to his efforts to support Egypt and for serving Islamic Dawa , head of Al-Azhar University Osama el-Abd told Youm7 Wednesday. The board of directors of al-Azhar University is seeking an appropriate way to deliver the degree to the king, Youm7 added. King Abdullah Ben Abdel Aziz supported the 30th of June revolution………..”

Al-Azhar University in Egypt has decided to bestow a degree of honorary doctorate on Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz for “his sincere efforts in the service of Islam and Muslims and his brave patriotic stance with Egypt and her people”. The president of Al Azhar University said the board has authorized him “personally” to travel to the Saudi kingdom soon to present the doctorate to the king.

It did not say if he will discuss with the Saudi king his dissertation or if he will administer his written qualifying exams or the orals. Assuming his majesty has already taken his Graduate Record Exams (GRE) long before he earned his doctorate from Generalissimo Field Marshal A. Al Sisi. The Al Azhar statement did not add that his majesty is also being rewarded for encouraging democracy and freedom in Bahrain and the Gulf and for financing and arming the Wahhabi bombing campaigns for free speech and religious tolerance in Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and for his role in keeping the people of Gaza under siege and a target of Israeli bombs.

I suspect this will now open the floodgates for copycats across the region. Other colleges and universities across the Arabian Peninsula and Lebanon and Jordan and Egypt will shower his majesty with honorary, and a few regular, doctorates. The King Doctor Custodian will soon have a resume that is the envy of a whole faculty of a college. He may just get the Nobel Prize for Academic Degrees by default.

P.S.: One of my sources claims that Al Azhar is mulling changing its name to Al Sisi University. Personally, I think it is probably too soon. What if the imprisoned president Morsi managed to do a “Napoleon from Elba” number instead of a “Napoleon in Saint Helena” number planned for him by the generals and their Saudi and Abu Dhabi allies? What if he managed to bust out of his military prison in which the generals and the Persian Gulf princes want him to spend the rest of his life?

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Arab League, Arab Media, Egypt, Gaza, GCC, Israel, Palestine

Two-Front War on the Gaza Ghetto: Role of the Bloody Arab Hands ………

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Gaza is facing a two-front war, and the people of Gaza are facing two determined enemies. This has been the case for years. World media is pre-occupied with only one front of this newest Gaza-Israeli war. But this has always been a two-front war, with the people of Gaza and their Hamas fundamentalist rulers facing two hostile enemy fronts. We all know about the northern-eastern front with Israel, but the other front helps weaken the Gazans and directly helps the Israeli assault. 

The second front, the southern front with Egypt should be considered worse from an Arab point of view. Egypt has always been part of the strategy to defeat Hamas by starving out the people of Gaza in their ghetto, a ghetto created largely by Arab regimes collaborating with the Israeli government blockade. Generalisimo Field Marshal Al Sisi, new Mubarakist leader of Egypt, is tightening the screws on Gaza even as his Israeli allies are bombing and shelling the hell out of them. Even as much of Arab media, mostly controlled by Persian Gulf princes and potentates, focus on the northern front with Israel, preferring not to shed any light on the role of the Likudnik Egyptian regime in the Israeli strategy.

When it comes to the suffering of the Palestinian people of Gaza and shedding their blood, the culprits with bloody hands are not only Israeli forces, but Arab dictators and tribal princes from Cairo to Riyadh.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Al-Azhar, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, History, Islam, Islamic History, UAE, Uncategorized, Wahhabi

Grand Ayatollah of Al Azhar Gets His Just Reward on the Gulf………

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Qatari daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports that His Excellency the ‘Great Imam’ shaikh of Al-Azhar went to Dubai last week by private plane. He was to receive the Dubai Holy Quran International Prize (WTF that be). He is reported to have received the award as “Islamic Personality of the Year” as a reward for his efforts in the service of Islam (WTF they be). It does not say if he is rewarded for siding with the military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood presidency of Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, nor if he was awarded for siding with Hosni Mubarak during the uprising of 2011. As I noted in a recent post here, he was bound to win the prize.

This is news to most people, the fact that now Shaikh Dr. Al Tayeb calls himself the “Great Imam”, or is it the “Grand Imam”? Apparently the Al Azhar bureaucracy and its hierarchy are now copying some of the Shi’a (Shi’ite if you prefer) titles like Grand Ayatollah, etc. It is now not too fat-fetched that Dr. Shaikh Al Tayeb will pop out some day with the title “Grand Ayatollah” of Al Azhar, possibly earned from one of them ubiquitous online for-profit theology colleges.

Now what would their Wahhabi allies and financiers in Riyadh think of all this? A Grand Ayatollah leading Al Azhar, just as its original creators of the Fatimid Dynasty had intended? Thus undoing the military coup of Salah El Din Al Ayyoubi (Saladin) who overthrew his Fatimids bosses and benefactors long before Al Sisi overthrew his Morsi boss and benefactor. Saladin did atone for it later by liberating Jerusalem from the European barbarians. No wonder there are complaints, warnings, and fears about the spread of Shi’ism in Egypt. No wonder the military regime and its Salafi and Wahhabi-Liberal allies ban Bahrain activists and Iranian tourists from coming to Egypt. It can be risky. Look, even the recently Wahhabi-ized Al Azhar shaikhs are adopting Shi’a titles now. Soon they might start allowing Shi’a mosques and Husseiniyyas all over Cairo. Who knows, some day we might see Al Sisi playing Shimr, or maybe even Al-Hurr, in a re-enactment a Shi’a passion play about the Battle of Karbala.

And our princes and pals on the Persian-American Gulf had thought their man Al Sisi had come to power and was generously rewarded in order to stop all that.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Egypt, Science

Egypt Rejects Sisi Invention, Signs with Gilead for Hepatitis-C Cure……

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“Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb attended on Tuesday the signing ceremony of the agreement between Egypt’s health ministry and Gilead, the US manufacturer of Sovaldi, which is used to treat the hepatitis C virus. The medicine will be available at 26 national centers for hepatic viruses, where treatment will be at the government’s expense. It will be offered at one percent of its international price, according to the health minister…………..”

It looks like the Egyptian government, appointed by Al Sisi, has decided to buy their Hepatitis-C cure from Gilead. They have rejected the Egyptian Army invention of the double cure for H-C and HIV viruses as develped by Al Sisi and his researchers. I guess this means they can kiss the Nobel Prize goodbye.

Cheers

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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