Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label egypt. Show all posts

Egypt's Precarious Balancing Act

December 12, 2016 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - In 2011, the United States successfully overthrew the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak amid the regional so-called Arab Spring. In place of President Mubarak's government, rose the Muslim Brotherhood, a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) backed political front that has served their, and their Western sponsors' interests for nearly a century post-Ottoman Empire.

The Muslim Brotherhood was also instrumental in setting the stage for destabilization and eventually war in Syria.

To no one's surprise then, under the post-Arab Spring government led by the Muslim Brotherhood's President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt immediately severed ties with allies including Syria, and immediately backed US-GCC regional projects including the overthrow of the Syrian government.

In 2013, amid widespread street protests against the government, a military coup spearheaded by Egyptian army chief General Abedl Fattah el-Sisi, ousted President Morsi. In addition to a nationwide effort to liquidate the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's new government immediately restored ties with the legitimate government of Syria.

The Balancing Act Begins 

Egypt's economy depends almost equally on trade between Europe and the Middle Eastern and North African region (MENA) and to a lesser extent, Asia and North America. It has also become heavily dependent on foreign aid. Until recently, it had depended on tens of billions of dollars from the GCC, and more specifically, Saudi Arabia.

This aid did not come for free. Egypt was expected to back the GCC's (and in turn, Washington's) regional projects including the overthrow of the Syrian government as well as participation in Riyadh's war in Yemen.


But as President Sisi liquidated the Muslim Brotherhood and gradually shifted Egypt's support back behind Syria as well as withdrawing Egypt's symbolic military forces from the Yemeni conflict, Riyadh gradually closed off foreign aid.

Egypt now finds itself dependent on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and facing a similar "carrot and stick" dilemma.


Could Egyptian Support Tip the Balance in Syria's Favor?

December 2, 2016 (Jean Périer - NEO) - In recent days, a number of Arab media sources have begun speaking about Egypt’s growing involvement in the Syrian war. In particular, with special reference to the Lebanese agency As-Safir, a number of Arab media outlets reported that Egypt is allegedly sending troops to provide assistance to Damascus. Moreover, we are being told now that Egyptian pilots are already flying sorties in Hama, Syrian. In particular, it has been stated that Egyptian jets and cargo planes have been deployed to the province of Hama, and while fighters are bombing ISIS (the Islamic State), Egyptian transport planes are helping the Syrian army rapidly redeploy supplies and personnel.


At the same time, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s official spokesperson, Ahmad Abu Zeid, denied this information and told reporters of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida that this information is false, since the doctrine of the High Command of the Egyptian state and its policies are based on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.

However, analysts say that Egypt has every reason to join the Syrian war on the side of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Just recently, the Egyptian and Syrian governments resumed diplomatic contacts that were brought to a screeching halt in 2012, when toppled Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In late October , Cairo officially joined the group of states that are seeking ways to pursue reconciliation in Syria within the Vienna framework. In particular, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Mohammad Javad Zarif, called Secretary of state John Kerry to involve the Egyptian delegation in peace talks. Syrian media sources have been vocal recently about the new security cooperation agreement that Cairo and Damascus just signed during the visit of the Syrian National Security Bureau chief, Ali Mamlouk, to Cairo.

West Secretly Elated Over Downed Russian Airliner

November 5, 2015 (Ulson Gunnar - NEO) - A Russian airliner bound for St. Petersburg crashed while flying over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, killing all on board. With the peninsula seeing fierce fighting recently as the presence of foreign-backed terrorist organizations has grown, immediate suspicion was raised regarding a potential terror attack involving either a bomb brought on board or a missile fired from below.



As Russia carries out its investigation of the disaster, the rest of the objective world waits for answers. For others, they have already begun drawing up narratives to use the disaster to serve their purposes. One such individual is John Bradley, a frequent contributor for The Economist, The Forward, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Daily Telegraph, Prospect, and The Independent.

He has also lectured at the Washington-based policy think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and for over 2 years, was given almost unlimited access across Saudi Arabia while writing his establishment-lauded book, "Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis."

His most recent work is an unsavory op-ed for the UK Spectator titled, "The Russian plane crash could undermine Putin’s Syria strategy." In it, Bradley conveniently answers the most important question that will be asked if investigators determine the plane's destruction was an act of terrorism, "cui bono?"


West Hangs Syrian-Style War Over Egypt’s Future

April 29, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Al-Akhbar English in an article titled, “Egypt: Free Egyptian Army being formed in Libya,” reported that:
Egyptian security forces continue to chase armed groups active in the country. The confrontation does not seem it will come to end soon, with the information unfolding daily to security agencies about plans by those group to destabilize Egypt.
Security sources revealed to Al-Akhbar that “intelligence and security agencies succeeded in monitoring the movements of terrorist groups and arrested some of them inside the towns and villages of northern Egypt, as well as the eastern, western, and southern borders of Egypt.”
The report would also claim that a “Free Egyptian Army” was being prepared in neighboring Libya along the Libyan-Egyptian border, where the epicenter of heavily armed sectarian extremists from Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) began NATO-backed operations against the Libyan government in 2011. While the Al-Akhbar article only cites unnamed “sources,” recent and escalating violence lends credibility to concern regarding a Syrian-style conflict fueled by foreign interests to destabilize and overthrow the current Egyptian sociopolitical order.

The Syrian Connection

The recent violence spearheaded by supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, particularly his Muslim Brotherhood political party and its network of armed militant affiliates, is a cause of particular concern. It was the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria that began receiving cash and backing by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel as far back as 2007 in preparation for the ongoing armed conflict now raging across Syria for the past 3 years. 
In Reuters ‘May 6, 2012 article titled, “Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood rise from the ashes,” it stated:
“Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say.”
The Muslim Brotherhood was nearing extinction in Syria before unrest began in 2011, and while Reuters categorically fails in its report to explain the “how” behind the Brotherhood’s resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, “The Redirection” by Seymour Hersh. 

The Brotherhood was being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support through the Saudis so as to not compromise the “credibility” of the so-called “Islamic” movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Read the rest at New Eastern Outlook... 

Egypt Vs. The Muslim Brotherhood – Preventing the Next Syria

April 1, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - The sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Cairo – many in absentia – for their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman is the culmination of an all encompassing security crackdown across Egypt. The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally terrorize, peaceful and empty.

The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State Department. The Washington Post’s article, “Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death,” quoted US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf as claiming the US was “deeply concerned,” and “shocked.” She also claimed that the move “defied logic.”
 
The move was, however, exceptionally logical.
 
While the US continues to feign support for the government in Cairo, it was fully behind the so-called “Arab Spring,” the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Mohamed Morsi that came to power in its wake, its mobs in the streets, and the networks of NGOs inside Egypt supporting and defending their activities.
 
How Egypt Got Here 
 
Egypt’s current turmoil is a direct result of the 2011 so-called “Arab Spring.” While nations like Libya lie in ruins with the “revolution” a “success” and the Libyan people now subjugated by pro-Western proxies, and Syria as it continues to fight on in a costly 3 year conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives, Egypt has taken a different path.
 
When violent mobs began inching Egypt toward violence of Libyan and Syrian proportions, the Egyptian military, who has been the primary brokers of power in Egypt for decades, bent with the winds of change. Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power and the military tolerated the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood itself into power. However, before they did so, they laid the groundwork for its eventual undoing.
 
The military leadership bid its time patiently, waiting for the right moment to unseat the Brotherhood and swiftly shatter its networks politically and militarily. It was a masterstroke that has so far saved Egypt from the same fate suffered by other nations still burning in the chaos unleashed by the “Arab Spring.”
 
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Resurrection 

How Egypt is Stopping the Next "Syrian War"

The West's next proxy war is being stopped before it starts in Egypt. 

Photograph: Cairo, Egypt. Tarek Wajeh/Almasry Alyoum/EPA
March 25, 2014 (Tony Cartalucci) - The unprecedented sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Egypt for their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman, is the culmination of a lighting fast, all encompassing security crackdown across the pivotal North African Arab nation. The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally sow their chaos in, peaceful and empty.

The New York Times reported in its article, "Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in Killing of a Police Officer," that: 
A crowd gathered outside a courthouse in the town of Matay erupted in wailing and rage on Monday when a judge sentenced 529 defendants to death in just the second session of their trial, convicting them of murdering a police officer in anger at the ouster of the Islamist president. Here in the provincial capital just a few miles away, schools shut down early, and many stayed indoors fearing a riot, residents said.

But the crowds went home, and soon the streets were quiet.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State Department. The Washington Post's article, "Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death," stated:
The United States was “deeply concerned, and I would say actually pretty shocked,” about the mass death sentences, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. “It defies logic” and “certainly does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with international standards,” could have been conducted over a two-day period, she said.
While the US continues to feign support for the government in Cairo, it was fully behind the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Mohamed Morsi, its mobs in the streets, and the networks of NGOs inside Egypt supporting and defending their activities.

The most recent of these NGOs on display is the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) cited by the above mentioned New York Times article which claimed:
“We have never heard of anything of this magnitude before — inside or outside of Egypt — that was within a judicial system as opposed to a mass execution,” said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who specializes in criminal justice.

“It is quite ridiculous,” he said, arguing that it would be impossible to prove that 500 people each played a meaningful role in the killing of a single police officer, especially after just one or two short sessions of the trial. “Clearly this is an attempt to intimidate and terrorize the opposition, and specifically the Islamist opposition, but why would the judge get so deeply involved in politics up to this point?”

EIPR is funded by among others, the Australian Embassy in Cairo, and carries out the same familiar role that other Western-funded NGOs did during the "Arab Spring" in 2011 - the covering up of the opposition's violence and atrocities, and the leveraging of "human rights" to condemn the subsequent security crackdowns carried out in return by the state.

How Egypt Got Here 

Egypt's current turmoil is a direct result of the 2011 so-called "Arab Spring." While nations like Libya lie in ruins with the "revolution" a "success" and the Libyan people now subjugated by pro-Western proxies, and Syria as continues to fight on in a costly 3 year conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives, Egypt has taken a different path.


Tahrir turbulence: Washington & SCAF as obstacles to change in Egypt

Nile Bowie

As figures in Egypt’s powerful military collude with the political opposition to form a civilian interim government, what kind of political and economic solutions will the new regime offer, and is Washington’s hidden hand at play?

Political polarization has reached new heights in Egypt following the dramatic overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader. Recent polls taken before the June 30 protests showed that SCAF’s approval rating had reached 94 percent while the Muslim Brotherhood’s rating was at 28 percent and the opposition’s at 38 percent. It’s strange that Egypt’s anti-Morsi activists would place their trust in SCAF given its extensive crackdown on civilian protesters since the revolution began, and certainly no one can deny that the Muslim Brotherhood was isolated during its final days. It is highly unlikely that Morsi would ever be reinstated at this point, and the interim government can be expected to pursue austerity measures, economic restructuring, and a foreign policy in step with Western-Gulf states. Morsi had something that the current rulers of Egypt do not – democratic legitimacy – and despite that only 34 percent of Egyptians took part in the vote, the result should have been respected by the military. Morsi was by no means a democrat, but the Muslim Brotherhood captured the majority in parliament, and their persecution and total exclusion from the interim government is unacceptable.

After sweeping away two presidents since 2011, the original goals of the revolution, embodied in the popular slogan “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice and Human Dignity,” haven’t come close to materializing. For all intents and purposes, life for the average Egyptian is more difficult now than under Hosni Mubarak, and although Morsi’s shortcomings may not have justified a military coup, his tenure was a spectacular failure. Although many perceive Morsi and Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) as being hijackers of the 2011 revolution, the bottom line is that the revolutionary fervor emanating from Tahrir Square is not directed against one party or political figure, but against economic conditions and neo-liberal tendencies that have largely remained unchanged throughout the ebb and flow of Egyptian politics in recent times.


Nile Bowie is a Malaysia-based political analyst and a columnist with Russia Today. He also contributes to PressTV, Global Research, and CounterPunch. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

Fomenting Civil War in Egypt


Eric Draitser
StopImperialism.com

The killing of more than 50 people at a demonstration in support of ousted Egyptian President Morsi in Cairo on Monday has justifiably horrified many in Egypt and internationally.  The pro-Morsi elements have placed the blame on the military forces, while the military claims it was attacked with live ammunition.  While accusations are hurled back and forth, a new aspect to this story is emerging – the presence of a third force, namely snipers stationed on rooftops firing at both sides of the conflict.  This revelation raises serious questions about the true nature of the conflict in Egypt and the disturbing similarities between this incident and similar ones in Syria, Thailand, and elsewhere.

The Cairo Massacre

As thousands gathered near the Republican Guard headquarters where many believe the Egyptian military is holding former President Morsi, violence erupted, killing at least 51 people and injuring hundreds.  The bloody incident marked a clear transition from a purely political conflict to a potential civil war. 

According to military officials, pro-Morsi “terrorists” attempted to storm the building, thereby eliciting a violent response from the military forces defending themselves.  Colonel Ahmad Mohammad Ali, a spokesman for the Egyptian military claimed that police personnel were attacked while attempting to secure the area.  He noted that, “They were on top of buildings…they either fired or threw things down…they were firing live ammunition and the military had to defend itself.”  Colonel Ali’s comments have been echoed by most major media outlets in Egypt which are largely controlled by forces sympathetic to the military and the former Mubarak regime.  However, the Muslim Brotherhood and other pro-Morsi forces paint a distinctly different picture.

A statement on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party website naturally blames the Egyptian military forces for wantonly killing what it describes as “peaceful protestors who reject the military coup and demand reinstatement of their elected President Mohamed Morsi.” From the Islamist perspective, the massacre, as well as the coup itself, was a direct assault not only on the Muslim Brotherhood but on democracy itself.  Moreover, the killings seem to have set the precedent that Islamist elements have no recourse in Egypt other than violence.

Despite the differences between these opposing factions, there is a common thread between them – both are blaming the other for inciting the violence that could lead to a total destabilization of the country.  However, here it is critical to note that the bulk of the killings on Monday took place at the hands of unknown snipers stationed on rooftops, as shown in this youtube video. Although the snipers appear to be wearing military uniforms, their actual identity remains unclear.  Because it is impossible to verify exactly who the snipers were, and who they were working for, it is critical to instead examine the possible motives or lack thereof.

The military has claimed repeatedly that they were attacked and that the response was purely defensive.  However, this cannot possibly explain the presence of military snipers on rooftops, no mere defensive posture.  Conversely, the claim by the Muslim Brotherhood and allied supporters that the snipers were obviously Egyptian military does not seem consistent with the political circumstances, nor the facts on the ground.

First and foremost, it should be noted that the military stands nothing to gain and everything to lose from using such tactics.  Having seized power in what can only be regarded as one of the most “popular coups” (not my term) in modern history, they already had the majority of the country and world opinion on their side.  There was no worldwide condemnation of their actions, rather, governments seemed to be falling over themselves to “look forward” and “call for stability”, both simply coded language for tacit support.  So, with the world watching Egypt, carefully scrutinizing every move the military and secular opposition make, in what possible way could they stand to benefit from sowing such chaos?  Naturally, they stood to gain nothing.  Moreover, the notion that Egyptian military snipers would fire at their fellow soldiers is far-fetched to say the least.

Secondly, the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters undoubtedly understood the impossibility of fighting the military on the streets.  Whatever weapons sources claim they had (bottles, rocks, small arms) are certainly not enough to significantly impact the military.  The notion that these demonstrators attempted to “storm” the Republican Guard headquarters seems laughable.  Although the crowd was predominantly comprised of fervent supporters of the deposed President Morsi, they were still regular Egyptians, not militant Salafists or some such formation.

So it would seem that neither side really stood to benefit or had the capability to do what the other side is suggesting.  That would then raise the most critical question of all…if the snipers were not part of either side, then who exactly were they?  It would seem that the only logical conclusion would be that the snipers were from some as yet unknown third party whose interest was not in taking sides but in ensuring that violent clashes and killings would take place so as to stoke tensions and foment civil war.  Keen observers will note that we have seen this scenario before, most recently in Syria.

The Syrian and Thai Precedent

At the outbreak of the violence in Syria in 2011, many wondered how the situation on the ground escalated so quickly.  It would seem, according to mainstream Western media reports, that the Syrian security forces had simply gone mad and began killing peaceful demonstrators at random.  However, what became clear within days was the fact that unknown snipers stationed on rooftops in cities such as Deraa and Hama were indeed the main culprits.  As seen in these videos as well as countless articles, the presence of snipers on rooftops throughout Syria is undeniable.  Naturally, the claim was immediately made that the snipers were merely Assad’s military forces.  Conveniently enough, no evidence was ever produced that showed the initial snipers were indeed government soldiers. 

Interestingly, the Arab League observer mission, itself openly hostile to the Assad regime, noted in its report of early 2012 that many of the atrocities including sniper shootings, could be correctly attributed to a third, unknown force inside the country.  As the report noted:
          
The Mission determined that there is an armed entity that is not mentioned in the protocol.  This development on the ground can undoubtedly be attributed to the excessive use of force by Syrian government forces in response to protests that occurred before the deployment of the Mission demanding the fall of the regime.  In some zones, this armed entity reacted by attacking Syrian security forces and citizens, causing the government to respond with further violence.

The report corroborates what many eyewitnesses have stated, namely that some of the violence that erupted at the outset of the conflict in Syria was attributable to this “third force” replete with snipers and military training and equipment.  Predictably, the report attempts to spin the violence from the “third force” as being purely in response to the Syrian military, but provides no evidence other than a generic assertion that “undoubtedly [the violence] should be attributed to the excessive use of force by Government forces”.  Essentially then, it should be clear that there was some element inside of Syria during the early stages of the conflict that used snipers and other forms of violence and terror to push the opposition and government into full scale war.  It seems to have worked quite successfully.

Syria is certainly not the only country that has experienced this sort of phenomenon.  In 2010, violence erupted between the government of Thailand and red shirted supporters of US-backed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.  Just as in Syria, mysterious gunmen armed with sniper rifles, machine guns, and grenades emerged within the ranks of the red shirts and began attacking Thai troops, killing a prominent Colonel and six other soldiers. The attempt to “storm” a military facility with protestors was clearly a cynically orchestrated cover for the fomenting of chaos and possible destabilization of the country with the intention of installing Washington’s darling Shinawatra.  Here again we see that snipers and other armed, unknown fighters were at the center of the incident.

What happened in Thailand was no mere accident.  It required coordination and planning, financing and materiel support.  This indicates that, contrary to the mainstream media’s fantastical narrative, this was no mere political protest and should not be treated as such.  Rather, as in Syria, we see a clear example of the lengths to which certain elements will go to achieve their political aims.

The details of the massacre in Egypt are still coming out, so it is impossible to say for certain exactly what happened.  However, judging from previous experiences in Syria and Thailand, one should have reservations about the narrative being sold to the public.  Who exactly were those snipers in Cairo?  Who gave the order to fire at both pro-Morsi protestors and at the military forces?  The answers to these and other questions must emerge with time.  Hopefully, there is still a united and peaceful Egypt when they finally do.

Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City.  He is the founder of StopImperialism.com.  You can reach him at ericdraitser@gmail.com.

Unmasking the Brotherhood: Syria, Egypt, and Beyond

December 13, 2012 (Stop Imperialism) - The complexities of the Arab Spring and the struggle for political freedom throughout the Arab world should not obscure what has now become an absolutely essential understanding for all anti-imperialists: the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the most powerful weapons of the Western ruling class in the Muslim world.  While that may be a difficult pill for some to swallow for emotional or psychological reasons, one need look no further than the insidious role the organization is playing in Syria and the abuses of power and human rights of the government of Egypt.  In the US-NATO sponsored war against the Assad government, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged as the leading western-sanctioned force, the avant-garde of the imperialist assault.  While, in Egypt, President Morsi and the Brotherhood government seek to destroy what had been, little more than a year ago, the promise of the revolution.

Muslim Brotherhood in Syria
This week's establishment of the Supreme Military Command, in charge of all military aid and coordination to the rebels, demonstrates unequivocally the leadership role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the drive for regime change in Syria.  As Reuters reported, "The unified command includes many with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Salafists...it excludes the most senior officers who have defected from Assad's military."[1] This command structure, formed at the behest and under the sponsorship of the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey among others, does not simply include members of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is, in fact, dominated by them.  Is it possible that the Western imperial powers simply did not notice that the group they were forming was comprised of these elements?  To suggest so would be to accuse some of the leading "statesmen" of the world (Hillary Clinton, William Hague, Laurent Fabius, Ahmet Davutoglu, etc.) of being stupid.  Alas, they are not so.  Instead, these individuals have collaborated to create a Muslim Brotherhood proxy force in Syria, one that can be controlled and depended on to do the bidding of the West.

Analysis: Egypt & Morsi's Power Grab

November 28, 2012 (Stop Imperialism)


....

Geopolitical analyst Eric Draitser appears on RT to discuss the political crisis in Egypt. He explains the reasons behind President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's power grab and the possible long-term implications. Draitser also points out the true nature of some elements within the opposition and how the conflict might be resolved.

Morsi & the Muslim Brotherhood Challenged in Egypt

Protesters ransack Muslim Brotherhood offices across the country as "Arab Spring" facade is further exposed. 


November 23, 2012 (LD) - Riding upon a wave of Palestinian blood, Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has opportunistically used the afterglow of an alleged "ceasefire" he claims to have brokered between Hamas and Israel to announce a sweeping power-grab many are calling a "coup."  As a result, protests and attacks have been reported across the country targeting the Muslim Brotherhood and its offices.

While we are told that in Egypt, "democracy" has prevailed resulting in the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood into power, the reality is that the vast majority of Egyptians do not support the Muslim Brotherhood, and the country itself is far from the sectarian extremist cesspool it is portrayed as turning into.


Image: Backlash against the Brotherhood. Despite the Muslim Brotherhood's political success, it represents a violent, loud, minority that is quietly opposed by the vast majority of not only Egyptians, but Arabs across North Africa and the Middle East. Its high level of organization, immense funding provided by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and even the West, including Israel, allows it to perpetuate itself in spite of its unpopularity, while its violent tactics allow it to crush dissent. 
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West Celebrates as Dark Age Descends over Egypt

Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood begins rounding up outspoken journalists as Egypt arrays itself with West against Syria and Iran. 
by Tony Cartalucci 

August 13, 2012 - US State Department's Voice of America boldly proclaimed "Egyptian Media: Military Shakeup 'Revolutionary'," airing proclamations from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that, "Egyptians have been “dreaming of a fair democratic system for more than 60 years." It is unlikely that Egyptians have been "dreaming" of an end to their secular system of governance, or "dreaming" of a sectarian extremist political party coming to power, notorious for thuggery, violence, and for being a stalwart pillar of Western machinations.

Image: Mohamed Morsi - hardly a "hardline extremists" himself, he is the embodiment of the absolute fraud that is the Muslim Brotherhood - a leadership of Western-educated, Western-serving technocrats posing as "pious Muslims" attempting to cultivate a base of fanatical extremists prepared to intimidate through violence the Brotherhood's opposition. Failing that, they are prepared to use (and have used) extreme violence to achieve their political agenda.  
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And already, Egypt's "democratic dreams" are vanishing like the last wisp of morning mist as the ruling Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt begins rounding up critics amongst the media. AFP recently reported in their article, "Egyptian journalists to be tried for insulting Mursi," that "television boss Tawfiq Okasha and newspaper journalist Islam Afifi will be tried for "incitement" and insulting Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi."

Strangely, while similar actions around the world beget howling indignation from organizations including Freedom House, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and IFEX - not to mention the US State Department itself which underwrites each of these faux-human rights advocates - there is not only absolute silence regarding this assault on "freedom of expression," but instead, a collective chorus of support from the Western media, hailing Morsi's increasingly despotic dismantling of Egypt's checks and balances through an increasing aggressive consolidation of power, as a "step forward for revolution."

Morsi's assault on Egypt's press has coincided with "mysterious" sectarian extremist attacks on Egyptian security forces on the Sinai Peninsula, most likely the collective work of Israel and Hamas. Of course, Hamas, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, is a direct creation of Israel (and here), and like the Muslim Brotherhood, is a pillar of US-Israeli machinations throughout the region.

Morsi quickly used the convenient attacks as a pretense to sack various security officials, the momentum of which carried forward to the forced "retirement" of Egypt's military leadership.

Fortune 500-funded think-tanks including the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution would gush over Morsi's move to extra-legally procure more power - with CFR's Steven Cook declaring Morsi as "extraordinarily powerful." Cook would concede however that "in theory," this is a "more healthy place for Egypt to be in a democratic transition, but you have to raise questions about the democratic credentials of the Muslim Brotherhood." 

So What are the Brotherhood's "Democratic Credentials?" 

Raise questions about the Muslim Brotherhood's "democratic credentials" indeed. The Muslim Brotherhood is a theocratic sectarian extremist movement, and not only that, but a regional movement that transcends national borders. It is guilty of decades of violent discord not only in Egypt, but across the Arab World and it has remained a serious threat to secular systems from Algeria to Syria and back again. 

Today, the Western press has decried Egyptian and Syrian efforts to hem in these sectarian extremists, particularly in Syria where the government was accused of having "massacring" armed Brotherhood militants in Hama in 1982. The constitutions of secular Arab nations across Northern Africa and the Middle East, including the newly rewritten Syrian Constitution, have attempted to exclude sectarian political parties, especially those with "regional" affiliations to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda affiliated political movements from ever coming into power.

And while sectarian extremists taking power in Egypt and attempting to take power in Syria may seem like an imminent threat to Western (including Israeli) interests - it in reality is a tremendous boon.

Morsi himself is by no means an "extremists" or an "Islamist." He is a US-educated technocrat who merely poses as "hardline" in order to cultivate the fanatical support of the Brotherhood's rank and file. Several of Morsi's children are even US citizens. Morsi will gladly play the part of a sneering "anti-American," "anti-Zionist" "Islamist," but in the end, no matter how far the act goes, he will fulfill the West's agenda.

Already, despite a long campaign of feigned anti-American, anti-Israel propaganda during the Egyptian presidential run-up, the Muslim Brotherhood has joined US, European, and Israeli calls for "international" intervention in Syria. Alongside the CIA, Mossad, and the Gulf State despots of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood's Syrian affiliates have been funneling weapons, cash, and foreign fighters into Syria to fight Wall Street, London, Riyadh, Doha, and Tel Aviv's proxy war.

In a May 6, 2012 Reuters article it stated:


"Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say."

 The Muslim Brotherhood was nearing extinction in Syria before the latest unrest, and while Reuters categorically fails in its report to explain the "how" behind the Brotherhood's resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, "The Redirection" by Seymour Hersh.

The Brotherhood was being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support through the Saudis so as to not compromise the "credibility" of the so-called "Islamic" movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Hersh reports the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government: 


"[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007, US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood: 
"There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular. Clearly the Brotherhood did not spontaneously rise back to power in Syria, it was resurrected by US, Israeli, and Saudi cash, weapons and directives.

Likewise, its rise into power in Egypt was facilitated by Western-backed and funded destabilization, sometimes referred to as the "Arab Spring." 

US-backed Sedition, Not Revolution Has Seized Egypt 

In January of 2011, we were told that "spontaneous," "indigenous" uprising had begun sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, including Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, in what was hailed as the "Arab Spring." It would be almost four months before the corporate-media would admit that the US had been behind the uprisings and that they were anything but "spontaneous," or "indigenous." In an April 2011 article published by the New York Times titled, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings," it was stated (emphasis added):

"A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington."

The article would also add, regarding the US State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED):
"The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department. "
It is hardly a speculative theory then, that the uprisings were part of an immense geopolitical campaign conceived in the West and carried out through its proxies with the assistance of disingenuous organizations including NED, NDI, IRI, and Freedom House and the stable of NGOs they maintain throughout the world. Preparations for the "Arab Spring" began not as unrest had already begun, but years before the first "fist" was raised, and within seminar rooms in D.C. and New York, US-funded training facilities in Serbia, and camps held in neighboring countries, not within the Arab World itself.

In 2008, Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as Movements.org. There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYM's various corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM 2008 summit report (page 3 of .pdf) states that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives.



Image: The Serbian Otpor fist... in Egypt? The same US organizations that trained & funded Serbians to overthrow their government in 2000, were behind the April 6 Movement and the Egyptian "Arab Spring." Sun Tzu in the Art of War said, "all warfare is deception." In fourth generation warfare, no deceit is greater than convincing people they are "liberating" themselves when in reality they are dividing and destroying their nation so that Wall Street & London's network of already in-place NGOs can take over. This, while a suitable proxy is put in office as PM or president. In Egypt, these NGOs would already have a new constitution drafted and ready before the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
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Shortly afterward, April 6 would travel to Serbia to train under US-funded CANVAS, formally the US-funded NGO "Otpor" who helped overthrow the government of Serbia in 2000. Otpor, the New York Times would report, was a "well-oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the United States." After its success it would change its name to CANVAS and begin training activists to be used in other US-backed regime change operations.

The April 6 Movement, after training with CANVAS, would return to Egypt in 2010, a full year before the "Arab Spring," along with UN IAEA Chief Mohammed ElBaradei. April 6 members would even be arrested while waiting for ElBaradei's arrival at Cairo's airport in mid-February. Already, ElBaradei, as early as 2010, announced his intentions of running for president in the 2011 elections. Together with April 6, Wael Ghonim of Google, and a coalition of other opposition parties, ElBaradei assembled his "National Front for Change" and began preparing for the coming "Arab Spring."


Photo: From left to right, ICG members Shlomo Ben-Ami, Stanley Fischer, Shimon Peres, and Mohamed ElBaradei. Despite claims that Mohomed ElBaradei is "anti-Israeli" or "anti-West," it is a documented fact that he is indeed an agent of the Wall Street-London corporate-fascist global oligarchy, and a member of the International Crisis Group which includes several current and former senior Israeli officials. The same charade is now taking place with Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
....

An April 2011 AFP report would confirm that the US government had trained armies of "activists" to return to their respective countries and enact political "change," when US State Department's Michael Posner stated that the "US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments." The report went on to explain that the US "organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there." Posner would add, "They went back and there's a ripple effect."

That ripple effect of course, was the "Arab Spring" and the subsequent destabilization, violence, and even US armed and backed warfare that followed. While nations like Libya and Tunisia are now run by a BP, Shell, and Total-funded Petroleum Institute chairman and a US NED-funded "activist" respectively, Egypt had managed to ward off and expose the US' first proxy of choice, Mohammed ElBaradei, who's own movement was forced to denounce him as a Western agent.

[Mamdouh Hamza. Image from youm7.com]

Photo: Mamdouh Hamza collaborated with Mohamed ElBaradei in executing the premeditated, US-engineered destabilization of Egypt in January 2011. Most likely to remove ElBaradei's terminally infected public image, he has finally outed ElBaradei as a member of George Soros' International Crisis Group and accused him of having "strong ties to Zionism." Hamza himself, however, is just as compromised as ElBaradei, perhaps more so.
....

The Egyptian military would then strike at seditious Western-funded NGOs, seeking to undermine the source of destabilization, the conduit through which US money and support was being funneled through to "activists," and expose the true foreign-funded nature of the political division that has gripped the nation for now over a year.

A February 2012 AP article reported that Egypt's generals declared, "we face conspiracies hatched against the homeland, whose goal is to undermine the institutions of the Egyptian state and whose aim is to topple the state itself so that chaos reigns and destruction spreads." Clearly, this was an accurate observation, not a political ploy to undermine "opposition" activists, with similar US-hatched conspiracies documented and exposed from Tunisia all the way to Thailand.

With the more "blunt" instrument of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood taking the reins in the wake of ElBaradei's fall, the West will inevitably face a reckoning in the distant future after the Muslim Brotherhood has served its purpose. Until then, it seems to be doing a masterful job disassembling the institutions, checks, and balances of Egypt's secular government. Egypt's "revolution" has gone from a quasi-pliable proxy dictatorship, to one both more hardline and brutal domestically, and more pliable and willing in terms of serving Western interests abroad.

A Dark Age Descends Upon Egypt 

For the average Egyptian, a dark age has begun to descend - one where freedom of speech is still curbed, the press still muzzled, an autocratic despot still holding the reins of power, but also one where the largest military in the Arab World is commanded by hardline theocratic sectarian extremists with regional ambitions and affiliations along with a proven track record of shedding blood within and beyond its own borders.




McCain (left) and Kerry (right) gesticulate as they explain Wall Street and London's agenda within the confines of an Egyptian Coca-Cola factory. This was part of a trip surveying the effects of their US-funded opposition overthrowing Hosni Mubarak's government. While war and destruction seem approaching over the immediate horizon, the final goal is global corporate-financier hegemony being extended over Egypt and its neighbors. Morsi will inevitably, but quietly prepare the grounds for the machinations described by McCain and Kerry in 2011.
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With the NATO-created terrorist safe-haven of Libya to Egypt's west, and the epicenter of Arab World despotism, Saudi Arabia to its east, a corporate-financier underwritten terrorist empire is rising from the barren north of Mali, to the oil rich shores of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.

There is no revolution. Instead, a violent, extremist multinational front has been assembled, as it was planned since 2007, to array sectarian extremists against the collective influence and interests of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the government of Syria, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. By consequence, this brazen geopolitical conspiracy targets both Russia and China as well, setting the stage for even greater global conflict. It is a conspiracy that will be paid for with secular, moderate Muslim, and non-Muslim blood across the region, the destruction of ancient culture and traditions, and the regression of all social and economic progress made since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.   

Warning to the World: US Conducting Global Campaign of Violent Destabilization

Going Rogue: America's Unconventional Warfare in the Mideast.

Sharmine Narwani
Alakhbar English
July 5, 2012

The intent of U.S. [Unconventional Warfare] UW efforts is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerabilities by developing and sustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives…For the foreseeable future, U.S. forces will predominantly engage in irregular warfare (IW) operations.
So begins the 2010 Unconventional Warfare (UW) Manual of the US Military’s Special Forces. The manual attached here (TC 18-01) is an interim publication, developed to address the definition of Unconventional Warfare and some other inconsistencies in UW Doctrine. The new UW document (ATP 3-05.1) is in the initial draft and not yet available, though sources tell me it is unlikely to differ much from TC 18-01.

But most of us have not had the pleasure of leafing through this truly revelatory blueprint that shows how America wages its dirty wars. These are the secret wars that have neither been approved by Congress, nor by the inhabitants of nations whose lives – if not bodies – are mauled by the directives on these pages.

A quote from President John F. Kennedy in 1962 opens the document. These few lines illustrate a core Washington belief that US forces have the right to destabilize, infiltrate, assassinate, subvert – all in service of questionable foreign policy objectives, with no evident consideration of a sovereign state’s preparedness or desire for change:
There is another type of warfare—new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins; war by ambush instead of by combat, by infiltration instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It preys on unrest.
Target: Middle East

The Bush Doctrine paved the way for the mainstreaming of unconventional warfare by establishing the principle of pre-emptive actions against a state that may one day pose a threat to American interests. It didn’t offer any specific criteria to gauge those threats, nor did it attempt to explain why anyone outside the United States should be held accountable for US “interests” – be they commercial, security or political.

The doctrine went largely unchallenged, and has been played out with disastrous results throughout the Middle East in the past decade. The prime targets of UW have traditionally been nations and groups that oppose US primacy in the region – mainly the Resistance Axis consisting of Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas – but UW has been carried out to some degree in virtually any nation where this Axis carries some influence.

The most nefarious aspect of UW - aside from the obvious violations of international law pertaining to sovereignty, territorial integrity and loss of human life/property, etc – is the proactive and aggressive effort to psychologically sway a population against its government. It is at this entry point where UW fails every American test of “values.”

The Arab Intifadas of 2011 provided a unique opportunity – amidst regional and sometimes domestic chaos – to ramp up UW activities in “hostile” states, whether or not populations sought regime change. Prime examples are Iran, Syria and Libya – all of which have been UW targets in the past year, at different levels of infiltration and with markedly different results.

Here is a chart from the Special Forces UW manual that demonstrates the scope of activity at the early stages:


February 14 was supposed to be the kick-off in Iran, but the Islamic Republic was already on guard, having gained experience with UW subversion in the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian presidential elections.
The use of social media to coordinate protests and widely disseminate anti-regime narratives in Iran’s post-election period marked a new era in the internet revolution globally. The Pentagon lost no time in claiming cyberspace as an “operational domain” and in the past year has substantially increased its budgetary allocation to subversion activities on the web.

Continue reading this article here at english.al-akhbar.com. 

US Struggles to Install Proxy "Brotherhood" in Egypt

From Egypt to Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood does the West's bidding - now joined by overt State Department fronts.
by Tony Cartalucci


العربية: الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية تسعى جاهدة لتمكين الاخوان من حكم مصر

June 23, 2012 - Were anyone to still believe the rhetoric of the so-called "Arab Spring," one would be admittedly confused over the emerging political landscape in Egypt where the military establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood have emerged from what was supposedly a "pro-democracy" "popular uprising."

However, if anyone understood that the "pro-democracy" protesters were in fact US State Department-funded, trained, and equipped mobs providing cover for the attempted installation of the Muslim Brotherhood amongst many other potential Western proxies, the current political battle would make perfect sense.


































Image:  Mohammed Morsi (above) is the Muslim Brotherhood's current presidential candidate. As evidence continues to mount against the Brotherhood, implicating them as overt proxies of Western foreign policy, their credibility took another blow as the US State Department's April 6 Movement endorsed Morsi. Below, Egypt's youth are once again duped by Western propaganda and fellow Egyptians conspiring against their own nation and people. 
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The Egyptian military, like in many developing nations, may accept money from the West, may train with Western forces, and may even participate in Western machinations of global domination, but are ultimately nationalists with the means and motivation to draw lines and check the West's ambitions within Egypt and throughout Egypt's sphere of influence. The necessity for the West of removing not only Hosni Mubarak who had refused to participate in a wider role against Iraq and Iran, but the grip of the military itself over Egyptian politics and replacing it with the Muslim Brotherhood who is already hard at work in Syria attempting to overthrow one of Iran's primary regional allies, is paramount.

"Pro-democracy" movements, particularly the April 6 youth movement, trained, funded, and equipped by the US State Department, serve the sole purpose of giving the Muslim Brotherhood's installation into power a spin of "legitimacy" where otherwise none exists. Those within these "pro-democracy" movements with legitimate intentions will be inevitably disappointed if not entirely thrown under the wheels of Western machinations as regional war aimed at destroying Iran, Syria, and Lebanon's Hezbollah arch of influence slowly unfolds.

Muslim Brotherhood were, are, and will be Western Proxies  

Despite the Brotherhood's lofty rhetoric, it has from its inception been a key proliferator of Western foreign policy. Currently, the Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood has been involved heavily, leading in fact, the US, Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari-backed sectarian violence that has been ravaging Syria for over a year. In a May 6, 2012 Reuters article it stated:


"Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say."

While Reuters categorically fails to explain the "how" behind the Brotherhood's resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, "The Redirection" by Seymour Hersh, as being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support through the Saudis so as to not compromise the "credibility" of the so-called "Islamic" movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Hersh reports the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government: 

"[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007, US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood: 
"There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular. Clearly the Brotherhood did not spontaneously rise back to power in Syria, it was resurrected by US, Israeli, and Saudi cash, weapons and directives.

And most recently, as the West frequently does before elections it wishes to manipulate, premature claims by the Muslim Brotherhood of a victory during a presidential runoff were made headlines by the Western media in an effort to portray the Brotherhood as the victors and lay the groundwork for contesting any results other than a decisive win for the West's proxy of choice.

US State Department-run Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) "Muslim Brotherhood Declares Victory In Egypt Election," amongst many other articles attempted to give readers the impression that the Muslim Brotherhood had indeed already won the election. In reality the official tallies had yet to be given and it was merely the Brotherhood's own rhetoric upon which the report was based. As election results were finalized, and the Brotherhood's candidate, the US-educated Muhammad Morsi, appeared not to have the decisive victory claimed by his party and the Western media, immediately accusations of voter fraud were leveled against the Egyptian government.



Image: From the US to Serbia, to Egypt and back again, US State Department-funded, trained, and equipped agitator Ahmed Maher poses at the scene of "Occupy D.C." Ironically, Americans claim Maher and his "April 6" movement have inspired them to rise up against their corrupt government, unaware that his movement was insidiously created by the US government. Photo: courtesy Ahmed Maher, Spencer Ackerman 
....


The West is already combining its various proxy fronts for what it sees as a pivotal showdown and perhaps another opportunity to overthrow any remaining nationalist tendencies within the Egyptian military.  Despite the Muslim Brotherhood, allegedly being a theocratic sectarian party, the antithesis of what the secular April 6 Movement allegedly stood for, Ahmed Maher, the movement's founder threw his full support behind the Brotherhood.

Maher it should be remembered, had been in the US, Serbia, and back again to the US for a series of training and networking opportunities arranged by the US State Department before during and after the so-called "Arab Spring." What seemed like politically ideological opposites, between April 6 and the Muslim Brotherhood, in fact share a common denominator - they are instruments executing Western foreign policy.

Libya, Egypt, Syria and Beyond to Form United Front Against Iran

Weakening Egypt before NATO's assault on Libya was a crucial step in ensuring the latter's absolute destruction and the creation of what is now a Libyan terror-emirate shipping cash, weapons, and fighters east and west to destabilize and overthrow various governments on the Anglo-American's long "to-do" list. The West's ability to install a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, with it's substantial regional standing and influence would be a serious blow not only to Syria, but to Iran as well. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is already echoing calls by the US and Israel for "intervention" in Syria.

Along with Libya, Egypt and of course the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and with the possibility of the Brotherhood coming to power in Syria as well, a united front against Iran would be formed and prepared to fight a proxy war on the West's behalf against the Islamic Republic.

Such a reordering has not only been mapped out in US foreign policy documents like Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?" report, but mirror designs against China where all of Southeast Asia is slated for destabilization, regime change, and realignment to carry out the West's ambitions to contain and even collapse a rising China.

Muslim Brotherhood are Western Proxies

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Joins US-Euro-Israeli Chorus for War in Syria.
by Tony Cartalucci

May 28, 2012 - One would expect allegedly "outspoken" critics of the US and Israel to represent the antithesis of any joint US-Israeli foreign policy, especially when it involves mass-murdering large numbers of fellow Arabs to expand Western hegemony across the Middle East. Yet the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has done the exact opposite, after a long campaign of feigned anti-American, anti-Israel propaganda during the Egyptian presidential run-up, the Muslim Brotherhood has joined US, European, and Israeli calls for an "international" intervention in Syria.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently called for international intervention in Syria citing the alleged Houla massacre, echoed by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan who stated the same. The Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood has been involved heavily, leading in fact, the US, Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari-backed sectarian violence that has been ravaging Syria for over a year. In a May 6, 2012 Reuters article it stated:

"Working quietly, the Brotherhood has been financing Free Syrian Army defectors based in Turkey and channeling money and supplies to Syria, reviving their base among small Sunni farmers and middle class Syrians, opposition sources say."

While Reuters categorically fails to explain the "how" behind the Brotherhood's resurrection, it was revealed in a 2007 New Yorker article titled, "The Redirection" by Seymour Hersh, as being directly backed by the US and Israel who were funneling support through the Saudis so as to not compromise the "credibility" of the so-called "Islamic" movement. Hersh revealed that members of the Lebanese Saad Hariri clique, then led by Fouad Siniora, had been the go-between for US planners and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Hersh reports the Lebanese Hariri faction had met Dick Cheney in Washington and relayed personally the importance of using the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in any move against the ruling government: 

"[Walid] Jumblatt then told me that he had met with Vice-President Cheney in Washington last fall to discuss, among other issues, the possibility of undermining Assad. He and his colleagues advised Cheney that, if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be “the ones to talk to,” Jumblatt said." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh
The article would continue by explaining how already in 2007, US and Saudi backing had begun benefiting the Brotherhood: 
"There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh

It was warned that such backing would benefit the Brotherhood as a whole, not just in Syria, and could effect public opinion even as far as in Egypt where a long battle against the hardliners was fought in order to keep Egyptian governance secular. Clearly the Brotherhood did not spontaneously rise back to power in Syria, it was resurrected by US, Israeli, and Saudi cash, weapons and directives.

PR Roll-out of Orchestrated  Regional War

To the general public, the violence in Lebanon seems to have "spilled over" from Syria, with characters like Saad Hariri, a leading figure in an effort at fueling regional bifurcation between Sunni and Shi'ia Muslims, being suddenly "involved" in the ongoing violence. To the general public, because of a willfully deceitful mass media, the Muslim Brotherhood's sudden backing of US-Euro-Israeli and Gulf State calls for foreign intervention seems like a spontaneous reaction to the so-called Houla massacre.

In reality, for those who are informed regarding the true back story of the geopolitical reordering of the Arab World, it is nothing more than the public roll-out of an orchestrated conspiracy years in the making, with each actor having long practiced their roles backstage together before coming out on stage and being introduced to the audience. Indeed, the Muslim Brotherhood and Saad Hariri have been working together with the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia for years. The Muslim Brotherhood's political resurrection was solely owed to the US-engineered "Arab Spring" and torrents of cash and backroom diplomatic support. The US State Department on record had been preparing since at least as early as 2008, with Egyptian protest leaders flown to New York, trained, equipped, and funded courtesy of US taxpayers before being sent back to destabilize Egypt beginning in 2010 and culminating in the 2011 "Arab Spring." 

And while the Muslim Brotherhood is busy feigning hatred and belligerence toward the US and Israel, they in turn have feigned fear and displeasure at the Brotherhood's rise amidst political destabilization the West itself created and perpetuated solely to place the Brotherhood back in power. This gambit is perhaps best exposed with the rise and fall of another Western-backed proxy, Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei.

Those who "hate" most... 

In fact, the more unreasonable and frothing one's anti-American, anti-Israeli rhetoric becomes, the more likely they are in fact working directly with the West and using such rhetoric as a smoke screen. Mohamed ElBaradei, for example, attempted to ride the wave of anti-Western sentiment by regularly pointing out the odds he was at with America over Iraq and Iran. Israel and the US in turn accused him of being an "Iranian" agent, and ElBaradei would regularly threaten to make war with Israel, should he be elected president of Egypt. We will see just how absurd this entire charade really is.


Photo: From left to right, ICG members Shlomo Ben-Ami, Stanley Fischer, Shimon Peres, and Mohamed ElBaradei. Despite claims that Mohomed ElBaradei is "anti-Israeli" or "anti-West," it is a documented fact that he is indeed an agent of the Wall Street-London corporate-fascist global oligarchy, and a member of the International Crisis Group which includes several current and former senior Israeli officials.

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In reality, ElBaradei sits as a trustee of a US corporate-financier funded think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG) along side convicted criminal and billionaire Wall Street speculator, George Soros, geopolitical adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, suspected financial criminal Lawrence "Larry" Summers, and Neo-Conservative Richard Armitage. Additionally, sitting around the same table with ElBaradei is the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, Stanley Fischer who serves as governor of the Bank of Israel, and former-Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben-Ami.

Beyond even this evidence, and before the "Arab Spring" even unfolded, another US corporate-financier funded think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, pointed out the necessity of manipulating public perception to maneuver client regimes into power. In a March 2010 article titled, "Is ElBaradei Egypt's Hero?" published in CFR's "Foreign Affairs," it stated:

"Further, Egypt’s close relationship with the United States has become a critical and negative factor in Egyptian politics. The opposition has used these ties to delegitimize the regime, while the government has engaged in its own displays of anti-Americanism to insulate itself from such charges. If ElBaradei actually has a reasonable chance of fostering political reform in Egypt, then U.S. policymakers would best serve his cause by not acting strongly." 

Clearly, both Western and Israeli press not only refrained from "acting strongly," they feigned immense displeasure at ElBaradei's rise in Egyptian politics, while simultaneously showering his enemies and opponents with support to taint them in the eyes of an emotional, and apparently easily manipulated global public.

In this light it is hard to take ElBaradei's feigned anti-Western sentiments as anything more than an absolute coordinated deception, to mask the fact that he indeed is a direct representative of these very insidious manipulators. Likewise the Muslim Brotherhood is playing a double game, capitalizing on carefully cultivated hatred versus America and Israel, while in reality leading sectarian extremists toward fulfilling rather than balking Western machinations. Not only is this apparent in the propaganda game played by both the Brotherhood and their counterparts in Washington, London, Doha, and Tel Aviv, but demonstrably as the Brotherhood's agenda now overtly converges with that of the US and Israel versus Syria, as stated would happen in 2007 by Seymour Hersh. 

It seems almost unimaginable that any Arab, regardless of their opinion of Iran, Syria, or Hezbollah in Lebanon, could believe that eliminating this countervailing force vis-a-vis the West and Israel will be to their advantage, especially as it becomes clear their "new" "Arab Spring-installed" leaders are in fact working with, not against Western hegemonic expansion across the Arab World.

Arab Spring Brings Western Client Regimes. 

In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood's rise in Egypt and Syria, in Tunisia serving Western interests is the recently installed Moncef Marzouki, formally of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, a US National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros Open Society-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member organization. Marzouki, who spent two decades in exile in Paris, France, was also founder and head of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, a collaborating institution with the US NED World Movement for Democracy (WMD) including for a "Conference on Human Rights Activists in Exile" and a participant in the WMD "third assembly" alongside Marzouki's Tunisian League for Human Rights, sponsored by NED, Soros' Open Society, and USAID.

In neighboring Libya, Marzouki's counterpart, NATO-installed Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib is listed as a "Professor and Chairman" of the Petroleum Institute, based in Abu Dhabi, UAE and sponsored by British Petroleum (BP), Shell, France's Total, the Japan Oil Development Company, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Both Marzouki of Tunsia and el-Keib of Libya have vocally supported Western efforts at regime change in Syria, with Libya additionally supplying cash, weapons, and fighters drawn from the US State Department-listed terror organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

Clearly with regime change on the table since the first Gulf War during the 1990's, specific calls for regime change as early as 2002, and an articulated conspiracy to use sectarian militants to overthrow Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon and in turn, undermine and destabilize Iran, on record since 2007, all hinged on the creation of a front of Western client-regimes across the Arab World. The US-engineered  "Arab Spring" has demonstrably created such a front, which in turn has demonstrably contributed to the goal of isolating, undermining, and violently overthrowing Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

For the Arab World, it should be clear that the "enemy of my enemy" is most certainly not "my friend," especially when that "enemy" is the result of an artificial strategy of tension created by those posing as "allies." Sunni Muslims share a common enemy not only with their Shi'ia neighbors, but with all peoples, races, and religions from Africa to Asia. That enemy is Anglo-American imperialism which has perpetuated itself for centuries by nothing else other than its ability to divide, destroy, and conquer nations pitted against nations, north versus south, one religion versus another, one tribe against another. This is how they subjugated huge swaths of Africa, Central and Southeast Asia, and this is exactly how they are now conquering the Arab World.