The Briefing Room
General Category => World News => Topic started by: mystery-ak on August 17, 2013, 02:54:41 pm
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130817/DA87NOM81.html (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130817/DA87NOM81.html)
Aug 17, 9:36 AM (ET)
By MAGGIE MICHAEL and TONY G. GABRIEL
CAIRO (AP) - Egyptian authorities are considering disbanding the Muslim Brotherhood group, a government spokesman said Saturday, once again outlawing a group that held the pinnacle of government power just more than a month earlier.
The announcement comes after security forces broke up two sit-in protests this week by those calling for the reinstatement of President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader deposed in a July 3 coup. The clashes killed more than 600 people that day and sparked protests and violence that killed 173 people Friday alone.
Cabinet spokesman Sherif Shawki said that Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, assigned the Ministry of Social Solidarity to study the legal possibilities of dissolving the group. He didn't elaborate.
The Muslim Brotherhood group, founded in 1928, came to power a year ago when its Morsi was elected in the country's first free presidential elections. The election came after the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in 2011.
The fundamentalist group has been banned for most of its 80-year history and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak's rule. While sometimes tolerated and its leaders part of the political process, members regularly faced long bouts of imprisonment and arbitrary detentions.
Since Morsi was deposed in the popularly backed military coup, the Brotherhood stepped up its confrontation with the new leadership, holding sit-ins in two encampments for weeks, rallying thousands and vowing not to leave until Morsi is reinstated.
On Wednesday, security authorities swept through the two protest camps, leaving hundreds killed and thousands others injured. The violent crackdown sparked days of street violence across the country where Islamist supporters stormed and torched churches and police stations.
In the most recent standoff, Egyptian security forces exchanged heavy gunfire Saturday with armed men at top of a minaret of a Cairo mosque. The security forces fired tear gas, stormed the mosque and rounded up hundreds of Islamists supporters of Morsi who had been barricaded inside overnight.
The confrontations Friday - around a Brotherhood call for a "Day of Rage" - killed at least 173 people, said Shawki, the Cabinet spokesman. He said 1,330 people were wounded in the protests.
Egypt's Interior Ministry said in a statement that a total of 1,004 Brotherhood members were detained in raids across the country and that weapons, bombs and ammunition were confiscated with the detainees.
Among the dead Friday was Ammar Badie, a son of Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, the group's political arm said in a statement.
Also Saturday, authorities arrested the brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri, a security official said Saturday. Mohammed al-Zawahri, leader of the ultraconservative Jihadi Salafist group, was detained at a checkpoint in Giza, the city across the Nile from Cairo, the official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists about the arrest.
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Do it!
Egypt needs to show the world how it is done.
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That's their business and they should be free to pursue it; the US doesn't need to either endorse or criticize that policy. After all, Germany has outlawed anything to do with Nazism for decades and the US has been just fine with that.
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They need not worry...Obama will bring them all here and get it restarted.
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Do it here. Do it there. Do it everywhere. The 'brotherhood' is evil servitude and tyranny in its most savage forms.
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They are barbarians. Look at all of the achievements, inventions, cures, and other wonderful things that aren't happening because we're wasting time, money and lives dealing with BARBARIANS. It is futile and it is killing mankind's potential.
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That's their business and they should be free to pursue it; the US doesn't need to either endorse or criticize that policy. After all, Germany has outlawed anything to do with Nazism for decades and the US has been just fine with that.
Exactly. What's Obama going to do, tell the Egyptians they should have First Amendment-like religious freedom, when he's so hostile to our exercise of it here?
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That's their business and they should be free to pursue it; the US doesn't need to either endorse or criticize that policy. After all, Germany has outlawed anything to do with Nazism for decades and the US has been just fine with that.
It works for Germany. But outlawing a group, for beliefs alone, goes against freedom.
OTOH when beliefs move to violent actions, come down on both groups and individuals.
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They are barbarians. Look at all of the achievements, inventions, cures, and other wonderful things that aren't happening because we're wasting time, money and lives dealing with BARBARIANS. It is futile and it is killing mankind's potential.
It is worse. Both sides are wasting time, money and lives.
It baffles and infuriates me. If you look at jihadis in general - what you usually find is that they are intelligent, capable and very well educated. This isn't a bunch of illiterate shepherds here. So what the blazes makes setting bombs and strapping on suicide vests so attractive in the first place? Why do that when they can use their not inconsiderable skills to make a difference to the people they "supposedly" want to help.
I have asked. Friends, Imams, Priests, psychologists. No one has an answer.
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Do it here. Do it there. Do it everywhere. The 'brotherhood' is evil servitude and tyranny in its most savage forms.
Don't do it here, because then you've slain two of the most precious freedoms this country was founded upon: freedom of expression and freedom of association.
The American Nazi party used to parade around in the '60s and '70s, and even paraded around in an Illinois neighborhood where a lot of holocaust survivors lived.
And the Republic survived. What should matter in this country is conduct, not mere affiliation. If other countries want to ban certain groups or organizations, that is their business; it shouldn't be this country's business.
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Unless I am mistaken, our weapons are currently being used to kill the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. We don't imagine any of our weapons will find their way from Syria to Egypt? What sort of ridiculous foreign policy are we conducting here? Are we just helping everyone willy-nilly in the hope that whoever emerges victorious will remain allied with us? Are we deliberately funding enemies to assure the necessity of the intelligence/defense infrastructure?
None of it makes sense to me anymore. What the hell are we doing?
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'We're' in the middle of toppling long-term rulers and dictators...in hopes that the result will be a unified Islamic Republic Middle East with no Israel.
That's what 'we're' up to! :laugh:
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'We're' in the middle of toppling long-term rulers and dictators...in hopes that the result will be a unified Islamic Republic Middle East with no Israel.
That's what 'we're' up to! :laugh:
Yes. You've got it. And, ironically, American Jews support it, by a large percentage. If I have failed to point this out, which I doubt, American Jews are crazy. They run to do what they know is not right, and they recoil from anything that is simple, and truely good.
In short, they are crazy. IMO
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Unless I am mistaken, our weapons are currently being used to kill the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. We don't imagine any of our weapons will find their way from Syria to Egypt? What sort of ridiculous foreign policy are we conducting here? Are we just helping everyone willy-nilly in the hope that whoever emerges victorious will remain allied with us? Are we deliberately funding enemies to assure the necessity of the intelligence/defense infrastructure?
None of it makes sense to me anymore. What the hell are we doing?
Yes, that's precisely what the Obama (mal)administration is doing.
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I would like to hear from GOP leaders, challenging Obama to explain his policies.
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Yes. You've got it. And, ironically, American Jews support it, by a large percentage. If I have failed to point this out, which I doubt, American Jews are crazy. They run to do what they know is not right, and they recoil from anything that is simple, and truely good.
In short, they are crazy. IMO
I hope I don't offend anyone here, but I remember as a child - reading the Bible and thinking the Jews were crazy then. While Moses is on the mountain getting the Ten Commandments - they're down in the valley worshiping graven images - and THEN they went and crucified the Messiah. I remember thinking, Lord - can you please explain to me why they are your chosen people?
Don't get me wrong, I love the Jewish people. It's just an observation of mine. :shrug:
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alice, I've been doing a "through the Bible in one year" reading program and entertained similar thoughts as I've gone through Exodus, Judges, etc. God, in all His mercy, keeps taking care of them and they keep thumbing their noses at him. (Kind of like us!)
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No one has ever been able to explain why Jews are like they are all throughout history.
The common perception is that they are a mystery. I speak in bold terms just to be direct, not to insult anyone. My feeling, as others have expressed, is of confusion and not condemnation.
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It is a confounding mystery to me, this thing called "human nature".
:th_10444:
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Maybe it's because even in Biblical times, the Jews were always the merchants of capitalism..."money-changers".....aka GREAT BUSINESSMEN!
Business is to Republicans as peanut butter is to jelly....so they take every opportunity to align themselves with a political party which supports the downtrodden and needy...instead of the party that promotes "a rising tide lifts all boats".
They think it will keep the next band of Nazis from targeting them...perhaps? :shrug:
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alice, I've been doing a "through the Bible in one year" reading program and entertained similar thoughts as I've gone through Exodus, Judges, etc. God, in all His mercy, keeps taking care of them and they keep thumbing their noses at him. (Kind of like us!)
That's the key, mountaineer.
They're just like us. We do the same thing. And God still loves us too.
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No one has ever been able to explain why Jews are like they are all throughout history.
The common perception is that they are a mystery. I speak in bold terms just to be direct, not to insult anyone. My feeling, as others have expressed, is of confusion and not condemnation.
I have the same frustrations as you and Alice have expressed. While I have wonderful Jewish friends (Ladybug's daughter among them) I do get downright frustrated when I read (or watch on TV) the most scathingly leftist partisan articles imaginable--either from journos or university professors, and find myself thinking "I bet he's Jewish!" before even getting the authorship clarified, and 9 times out of 10 I am right.
Do I feel good about harboring these opinions? No. Do I feel guilty? Yes. I am a big supporter of Israel. I have nursed a raging crush on Benjamin Netanyahu for years. I work in the medical field, and some of the most talented and compassionate docs I know are Jewish. I deal with attorneys too (Baltimore, DC area) and believe it or not, they aren't bad either, at least in the arena I work in. I have a group of Jewish FB friends, all of whom are conservative, but they never seem to voice concern for the huge majority of their fellow Jews, who are JUST NUTS--the sheer huge amount of their obviously intelligent brethren who come to some of the dumbest conclusions imaginable!
Then I'll go and read something, like the membership roster of the original Journolist, and think "geez.. this thing reads like the guest list at a Bar Mitzvah!" Or, I'll read the percentage of the Jewish vote some obvious political crank can garner and just roll my eyes and sigh. I mean-- its FRUSTRATING!! :chairbang: