Ironically, CNN is presenting this new revolution as anti-Obama. What kind of crazy world is it that the best our foreign policy can do is support the Muslim Brotherhood against the vast majority of Egyptians, playing down the extent of these demonstrations and trying to speculate that this will be defined as a coup and that Egypt will lose its billion plus funding from the USA because of that.
I see no reason for using this to predict the end of democracy in Egypt. Revolution is messy. The history of many countries is a series of missteps before things settling down.
I have read Egyptian commentaries declaring that this has proven the Muslim Brotherhood cannot rule and that this will be very important for the future of the Middle East.
When the vast majority of people say no, a government needs to fall.
Morsi was not going to step down. My prayers go with all of them.
The current social tension and frustration echo the expectations and hopes that followed the Revolution. Leading the list of protestors are employed citizens who make up 24.5 percent of protesters in the period from July 2012 until June 20, 2013. They are followed by government employees (17.2 percent), employees in the education sector (12 percent), employees in the security sector (10.5 percent), drivers (9.8 percent) and employees in the medical sector (8.7 percent).
Democracy Now has a segment explaining the current controversies. Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Reportedly, the army has taken control of state media, including the main flagship newspaper, Al-Ahram. And on its front page, it has an outline for what it would call a roadmap, which would include a interim presidential council headed by the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, abolishing the constitution and appointing a panel to rewrite a new charter, and having a military leader act as interim prime minister. Subsequently, a military source this morning denied that roadmap was going to be put in place or imposed today, and said, instead, they were going to gather political forces, economic and social forces’ leaders to talk. That may be what is happening right now with Mohamed ElBaradei and other people reportedly meeting with the military. It’s very unclear what is happening behind the scenes.
Former American Ambassador Edward S. Walker says we should not call this a coup.
Also on Democracy Now:
Joining us from Cairo’s Tahrir Square, Egyptian writer and activist Ahdaf Soueif says the refusal by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood to run an inclusive government has sparked the massive uprising now seen in the streets
He has gone back or failed to honor every one of the promises that he made in order to be elected. And he has basically behaved as though he had somehow legitimately inherited the old Mubarak regime with a veneer of piety. So, he’s—you know, he’s let down people that he’s promised things. He has—he’s shot protesters in the street. I mean, basically, things like police brutality, which were one of the watchwords of the revolution, he’s done nothing whatsoever to curb the police. In fact, he’s rewarded them for the way that they have suppressed the revolution. As Sharif was saying, he had to put together a fact-finding mission to explore what had happened, how people had been killed during the rule of the military. The results of the fact-finding
commission were put to one side and not implemented, you know, were not even put in front of the judiciary. His economic policies, he has continued to be as opaque as Mubarak. He went running to the IMF for a loan. Nobody ever knew what this loan was going to be used for. And finally—and, of course, he pushed through the constitution.
2:34 PM PT: The military did not announce this alone. They include representatives from many factions.