Even if one agrees that Mubarak was worse, that doesn't shield Mursi from criticism. Seems like some posters are knee jerking against Atw instead of evaluating the argument he's making.
I think this is what it comes down. Mursi is in the wrong here. Calling him on that doesn't mean tossing out Mubarak was the wrong thing to do. It was clearly the correct thing to do. But it's far easier to keep someone else from becoming a dictator than removing him once he already is a dictator. There's a reason why Egyptians are protesting against Mursi. They don't want another dictator.
If you are referencing my posts, I would just like to point out that quite a few times I have criticized Morsi for an excessive and disproportionate response to the problem at hand. However, the problem has to be viewed in the context of a Mubarak-appointed judiciary, and a nation that has been struggling with autocracy for decades. The problem for why ATW is inviting "knee-jerk" responses is because his level of analysis, when it doesn't verge from personal insults not worth his time or quite honestly any of ours, verges to histrionics about the Arab Spring in general, and some vague references to ideological predictions, which invites other posters who come in and are like "how is Egypt better off?"---which is something that must be clarified.
No doubt. My point is that saying "Mubarak was a dictator" or "Mubarak was supported by the West" doesn't in any way disprove criticism of Mursi.
Oh yes? Scathing criticism, I have to say. Other than that, you have mostly posted irrelevant stuff you just googled. I see you are backtracking, intern. Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.
Well, you keep referencing being refreshed that Egypt isn't still under a dictator, which while nice (and I agree), isn't an answer to the argument that these moves are those historically undertaken by those who become dictators if unchecked. He made that argument, your response wasn't really on point, then the two of you devolved into silliness (your basement, no....your mom's basement). So my impression is that you appear to be an apologist for Mursi's actions (mubaraks appointees started it, this is a refreshing change of axis for argument etc). It might be that I haven't seen enough of your posts.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7373045&postcount=32 I deplore the excessive sledgehammer move by Morsi to address the situation You should read more thoroughly ATW. It is such an essential skill to have, sometimes.
ATW's original argument--- Other than two googled articles (the definition of irony), the following curious lines--- It is very on-point, in my opinion, to put these actions in context given this vague, over-simplified and ideologically motivated attack on the Arab Spring.
You posted that after you realized that you weren't getting any applause for your useless nitpicking and Wikipedia re-hashing. Your backtracking actually started then. By desperately trying to defend yourself, you look even more ridiculous.
ATW, please try to stop verging onto personal insults, and discuss the points at hand. This is an online anonymous forum for exchanging ideas and occasionally happyfacing when Harden scores 30+, not a place for personal validation. If you have any points you wish to address, please do so with your own expert knowledge or cited sources. I am still curious as to your views on Egyptian civil law---perhaps you have insight there I do not.
Kid, I know you are desperately trying to get my attention, but I have to watch a D-League game now. Everyone there has moar skillz than you and is less boring.
I need your attention about as much as the Middle Ages needs the plague. There's plenty of ways for me to get it as well; starting a thread, entering any thread about Islam, posting in general---I'm the one who chooses to engage, really, if you think about it. It was a somewhat unfortunate circumstance that we have again talked for so long. I had given out a bit of hope (as you verged to substance ever so briefly) that this might be productive, but I sadly have to conclude that it will not be. We shan't be talking (again) for quite a while, so enjoy your stay on the forums ATW, and you can thank me for contributing substance to your thread sometime later
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...a56c72-3672-11e2-92f0-496af208bf23_story.html Egypt’s judges set to fight Morsi power play CAIRO — Egypt’s association of judges called Saturday for the judicial system to come to a halt to fight an assertion of near-absolute power by the nation’s first democratically elected president, setting the stage for a confrontation between the courts and a man who has said his will is not subject to appeal. Judges across the country vowed to strike, and lawyers filed several legal challenges to the move by President Mohamed Morsi, who has said he is assuming broad powers temporarily to combat entrenched remnants of the former authoritarian government. The constitutional court, meanwhile, hinted that it may weigh in on the matter, directly challenging the man who has tried to sideline them. The dispute — which was rapidly emerging as a divide between Egypt’s secularists and political Islamists — showed no sign of diminishing Saturday, raising questions about Egypt’s fragile democratic transition. With hundreds of protesters camping out in Tahrir Square and vowing not to leave until the president rescinds his decrees, and Morsi’s Islamist backers and his opponents both planning to mobilize dueling demonstrations in the coming week, compromise was nowhere in sight. In a Cairo hall packed with lawyers and judges, the man who was prosecutor general until Morsi booted him from office Thursday vowed that he would fight the sidelining of the courts if it cost him his life. “These groups do not know what is righteous,” Abdel Meguid Mahmoud said to cheers. An appointee of former president Hosni Mubarak, Mahmoud has presided over the acquittals of many officials of the old autocratic government, and Islamists and liberal revolutionaries alike had wanted him gone. On Saturday, however, many of those secularists found themselves on his side, with the country’s leading liberal politicians and human rights organizations uniting in opposition to Morsi’s measures. Outside the country’s main administrative courts, protesters fought with police, who fired tear gas at them. Egypt’s judges’ association, many of whose members were appointed by Mubarak, called the moves an “unprecedented assault on the judiciary,” and the head of the judges’ group in the coastal city of Alexandria said that courts there were already on strike. Morsi issued his decrees just a day after garnering international praise for helping bring about a cease-fire between the Gaza Strip and Israel following a week of bloody conflict. That enthusiasm quickly dimmed after his announcement, including in the United States, where the State Department said Friday that the actions “raise concerns.” But it was not clear whether U.S. officials would be willing to jeopardize Egypt’s role as a broker between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers by pushing too hard on the domestic front. Morsi has said that the steps were necessary to prevent what he termed a small group of “weevils” from eating away at democratic gains of the past two years. The constitutional court had appeared poised to dissolve within weeks the body writing a new constitution, as well as the Islamist-dominated upper house of parliament. The court had already dismissed the lower house in June, shortly before Morsi was inaugurated. He has said he will give up his powers once a new constitution and parliament are in place. “All the obstacles that have occurred during the transitional period . . . were made by remnants of the former regime to discredit the revolution and hinder its movement,” the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, a Morsi ally, said in a statement Saturday. Morsi backers said that the constitutional court had been harming democracy, not helping it, by issuing dramatic rulings that shut down new institutions as they emerged. The constitutional court, meanwhile, held an emergency meeting of its own Saturday. It said afterward that it was not going to comment on the edicts because legal cases “might be referred to the court concerning the constitutional declaration.” But that in itself was a challenge to Morsi, since his emendations to Egypt’s transitional constitution said that no court was permitted to question any of his decisions. Legal analysts said that if the court finds that the president is not permitted to amend the constitution, it may also have to void an August decision by Morsi to strip the military of its power to declare legislation. “Egypt has gone so far into a constitutional twilight zone . . . you make up the rules as you go along,” said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based Egypt expert at the European Center for Foreign Relations. “Basically, between Morsi and the Constitutional Court there is a confrontation of dueling legitimacies.”
I didn't say Egypt "owed" the United States a "heads-up." What I was wondering about was whether Secretary Clinton, AKA the United States in this context, was told while she was there that Mursi was about to take these actions. In other words, given a heads-up regarding what Mursi was about to do by Mursi himself. My guess is that he did not (doesn't mean we didn't know what was about to happen, although we might not have mentioned that at the time, waiting to see just what would play out), and that if he did, Clinton strongly objected and advised against it. Some day, we'll know what happened, but whether Clinton was told while she was there, or not, our relative silence about it is understandable. If we come out strongly against Mursi's actions, then that props him up. He can claim that he's defiantly acting against our wishes, which would garner him strong support in some quarters in Egypt. If we come out in open support of his actions, we look like we're complicite, which some have already implied here without having a basis for doing so. I know everyone likes things in a nice and tidy foreign policy suitcase, but foreign policy, despite what we read in the media, which too often likes to "dumb down" everything to "help" the "masses" understand what they are saying (a big mistake, IMO), is incredibly compicated, if it is anything. Several administrations helped Mubarak stay in power by providing massive aid. Yes, we had other reasons for doing so, but helping to keep Mubarak in power was one of the results of our actions over decades. The last thing the United States wants is for another dictator to arise, whether a secular dictator, or a religious, fundamentalist one. I strongly believe that President Obama is viewing Mursi's actions with dismay. As for your comment about our military presense in the region, I know all about it. My comment was to point out that it has been increased recently, to the point of stopping ships in transit to retain them on station in the Eastern Med. I assumed at first that it was because of Gaza and Syria, but now think it could also be because of what's happening in Egypt today. That our intelligence services might have seen Mursi's actions coming, which could lead to a big blowup in Egypt, one that could not only affect our people there, but have a big impact on a very troubled region. We are quickly positioning the forces in the Eastern Med to protect our interests if things get out of hand. In other words, we're looking at far more than Iran, IMO, while currently positioning our forces. We should all hope that Mursi backs down and a compromise of some sort is reached, or we could see a problem in Egypt that makes Libya and Syria look like chicken feed, and Gaza like a distraction. I hope not.
Google translate version regarding Attorney General Talaat Ibrahim, the Morsi-appointed Genreal Prosecutor:
Thanks Mathloom. Even other Islamists describe Islamist Morsi's action as an assault on the judiciary. Only the intern does not understand this.
The march towards a total Islamist dictatorship continues: http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/mursi-amends-egypt-s-trade-union-law_813054.html Mursi amends Egypt's trade union law Cairo: Days after Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi granted himself absolute powers, he brought in his first law allowing the government to appoint loyalists to the country's sole trade union federation, a move denounced as "Brotherhoodisation" by the worker's body. The amendments to the country's labour union law were ratified amid the political crisis that ensued after Mursi issued a Constitutional declaration immunising his decisions from judicial appeal and granting him absolute powers. This is the first law to be decreed by Mursi following his November 22 declaration, which granted his decisions immunity against challenges. According to the new law, the manpower minister, who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, may appoint workers who are members of the group in leadership positions that would become vacant in the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which has always been affiliated with the government. The new law cancelled Article 23, which allowed union membership without age limit. It also grants the minister the right to appoint board members of unions if the minimum required number of members is not attained for any reason, to fill the vacant seats on the board. Labour activists fear the law paves the way for Brotherhood control of the federation. Ahmed Abdel Zaher, the chairman of the ETUF, criticised amendments to the law. The amendments, he said, violate international agreements Egypt had signed with the International Labour Organisation, especially those related to trade unions' freedom from governmental interventions. Zaher said amendments to the law could prompt the ILO to blacklist Egypt as one of the states breaching trade union freedoms and allowing government intervention in labour affairs. Kamal Abu Eita, the head of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, said federation members would attend tomorrow's demonstrations to protest the new labour law, adding that they plan to confront the amendments with partial and all-out strikes. He added that Mursi’s decision won him and the Brotherhood new foes, arguing that amendments to the labour law seek to "Brotherhoodise" trade unions.
And some judges are already ruling as the Islamists expect them to: Egypt Copts get death in absentia over anti-Islam film A CAIRO court sentenced seven Egyptian Christians and a controversial US pastor to death in absentia for involvement in a movie that ridiculed the Prophet Mohammed, state media said. The Christian Egyptians, including the film's maker, are all located in the United States and were tried in their absence. The American pastor, Terry Jones, heads a small congregation in Florida. During the trial, the judges were shown clips of the low-budget film, the Innocence of Muslims, and footage of Muslim protesters in Libya outraged by the film, the official MENA news agency reported. Egyptian courts usually hand out the maximum punishment - execution in this case for a blasphemy verdict - and send the decision to the state's top Islamic scholar to get his approval, which is always granted. If the defendants do return to Egypt, they could get a new trial. The movie, in which Mohammed is depicted as a buffoon and paedophile, sparked fury across the Muslim world. In Libya, Islamists killed the US ambassador Chris Stevens in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi. http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/bre...-anti-islam-film/story-e6frg13l-1226526170709
