Bearing-of-glad-tidings bot:
I have to say, japan is going well.
Well, if you have to, you have to.
Morsi supporters killed in Egypt: finding the truth-tellers* on that island
Many Morsi supporters have been killed by the military in Egypt—but why, and who attacked first?
I don’t profess to have a clue. But when I read this I began to wonder (and by the way, the number dead has been reported differently by various news outlets, but it seems to have been somewhere between the low 40s and the low 50s):
At least 51 people were killed on Monday when the Egyptian army opened fire on supporters of ousted president Mohamed Mursi, in the deadliest incident since the elected Islamist leader was toppled by the military five days ago.
Protesters said shooting started as they performed morning prayers outside the Cairo barracks where Mursi is believed to be held.
But military spokesman Ahmed Ali said that at 4 a.m. (10.00 p.m. EDT) armed men attacked troops in the area around the Republican Guard compound in the northeast of the city.
“The armed forces always deal with issues very wisely, but there is certainly also a limit to patience,” the uniformed Ali told a news conference, at which he presented what he said was video evidence, some of it apparently taken from a helicopter.
In this case we don’t know who the “good guys” are, or whether there are any “good guys.” It’s all relative anyway. So did the army suddenly fire on a crowd of Morsi supporters at prayer, as the Morsi forces claim? Or were they provoked by stone throwing and the like? For example, did this occur, and at what point?:
Young men, some carrying sticks, crouched behind a building, emerging to throw petrol bombs before retreating again.
Footage posted on YouTube on Monday showed a man in army fatigues on a rooftop opening fire with a rifle five times, apparently in the direction of a crowd in the street below…
State-run television showed soldiers carrying a wounded comrade along a rock-strewn road, and news footage zoomed in on a handful of protesters firing crude handguns during clashes.
Here’s another conflicting account:
The pro-Morsi protesters said the troops attacked their encampment without provocation just after they had performed dawn prayers. The military said it came under a heavy assault first by gunmen who killed an army officer and two policemen…
Truth is very very hard to come by in these matters. I have come to deeply distrust both sides. It is hardly beyond belief that Morsi forces would deliberately provoke the army to violence against the protestors by attacking the military and/or police, in order to cause a backlash of outrage against the army and/or police, and rally sympathy and support for their own side. It’s happened countless times around the world, and even at times in this country.
One thing seems somewhat clear, however: the military reaction in Egypt Monday morning was probably an overreaction, even if they were under some sort of attack from the protestors at the time. That’s a lot of civilians dead.
It’s interesting, too, that quite a bit of the coverage I’ve seen so far (and I don’t pretend to have read it all, just a sample of it) seems to accept at face value that these people were attacked and killed while innocently at prayer. I find it a bit hard to believe that’s true, although there’s no question it could indeed be true. But if so, it would be a departure for the military at this point, and it’s hard to see why the military would choose to escalate matters right now in that way—although I suppose it might be to discourage Morsi support and demonstrations in general.
* [NOTE: The asterisk beside the word “truth-tellers” in the title of this post refers to this old riddle:
You’re on an island and desperately need to get off alive. There are 2 caves in front of you. One cave tunnels under the ocean somehow and leads to safety, and the other cave leads to certain death. There are 2 people standing in front of you. You know that one always tells the truth, and one always lies, but you can’t tell which person is which. Both people know which way leads to safety and which one to certain death. You have one question to ask one of them in order to figure out how to get off the island alive. What is the question?
On this “island”—Egypt—I don’t think there are any “truth-tellers” in the official stories from either side. Of course, Egypt is hardly unique in that regard. We don’t have too many of them in public life or the media here, either.]
The San Francisco airplane accident: was someone negligent?
The tragic crash of an Asiana flight Saturday while landing in San Francisco is a terrifying event despite the fact that “only” two people died.
It’s tragic because two people dying is, of course, too many people—although everyone realizes it could have been much, much worse. It’s tragic because many of the victims (varying numbers have been reported) sustained very serious injuries.
And as more facts emerge, there are extra layers of upset. For example, we learn that one of the two sixteen-year-old girls who died in the crash may have been run over by a fire truck racing to the rescue. The irony of this is deep, although it’s also possible that the girl was already deceased before that (after all, the other girl was not run over and she died as well).
Another shocking fact is that the pilot in charge of the jet—which by all accounts was going far too slowly and flying too low for a proper approach to that particular airport—was piloting that type of plane into San Francisco for the first time:
…[W]ith Asiana insisting there was no mechanical failure, the data from the flight recorders showing the plane far below appropriate speed and the fact that the pilots were controlling the plane in what is called a “visual approach,” the available evidence Sunday suggested the crew was at fault.
On Monday, Asiana spokeswoman Lee Hyomin said that Lee Gang-guk, the pilot in control of the Boeing 777, had little experience flying that kind of plane. She told the Associated Press that it was the pilot’s first time landing in San Francisco and that he had nearly 10,000 hours flying other planes but only 43 hours on the 777.
There’s some question, though, about the accuracy of that “first time landing in San Francisco” statement. According to this report, the pilot had landed planes in San Francisco “several times between 1999 and 2004.” Of course, “several” times is not a great many, and 2004 is almost ten years ago, plus the fact that this was his first time landing a 777 in San Francisco. San Francisco—like Boston, an airport with which I am quite familiar—has a water approach, which is known to be tricky.
But before we get too shocked at the pilot’s inexperience, let’s reflect that at some point pilots have to have a maiden voyage. After all, every airline can’t have training runs with empty planes for each pilot new to that airplane and/or that airport at each of the world’s airports. I read in one article (can’t find it now, so I’m not giving a link) that the other pilot of the Asiana plane was very experienced both with San Francisco and with 777s, and he was supposed to have been closely supervising Lee Gang-guk during the landing. That sounds like a good system, but it’s highly possible it went sadly awry this time.
I’ve also read a while back that (again, can’t find the article right now), with improvements in airplane and instrument design based in part on what we’ve learned from previous accidents, although the airplane accident rate has gone down, a higher percentage of the accidents that do occur tend to be due to pilot error. The preliminary findings in this case point strongly in that direction.
I assume we’ll find out more as time goes on.
Spitzer says…
…if Weiner can do it, so can I.
Well, he didn’t really say that. But I assume that Weiner’s run for mayor has given Spitzer the courage to re-enter politics himself and run for comptroller. What a team!
And this post gives me the opportunity to use Spitzer and Weiner in the same sentence.
“I grow old, I grow old…
…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”
The lines are from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a masterpiece he began writing at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
It’s not uncommon for youth to lament the passage of time, and to feel old even when young. I recall my son having trouble sleeping on the eve of his fourth birthday, and when I asked him what was up he said, “It’s just that I’ll never be three again.”
Today I read this essay by Heather Havrilesky, only because it was linked to by Glenn Reynolds. In it, the 43-year old Havrilesky laments that her driver’s license photo isn’t as pert and perky and pretty as it was at 33 (she shows us the earlier photo but not the later one, although if you Google her she looks perfectly fine to me—but then again, 43 sounds awfully young to me).
You might say to Ms. Havrilesky, “Tough.” And it’s certainly the case that her piece is way too long and shows a certain self-centeredness. But you know what? I still have empathy/sympathy for her, because although we all have to do it (if we’re lucky enough to live long enough), and we all like to think we’ll have a great attitude, the truth is that growing old ain’t so psychologically easy.
I’ve been wrestling with it in various ways myself, and right here and now I will say that part of the reason is that my mother died last fall at the age of 98. I haven’t written about that event here because I wasn’t ready to write about it here, although someday in the not-too-distant future I plan to do so. I’ve been going through her things—just as the writer of the essay mentions she did with her father, who died young—and it’s a task that can’t help but conjure up the relative briefness of a life, even a life as long as my mother’s.
But for now I’ll just add this, from one of my favorite poems:
Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race,
As the clouds the clouds chase;
And we go,
And we drop like the fruits of the tree,
Even we,
Even so.
Obama’s Middle East and foreign policy blunders: are they blunders at all?
The brilliant Richard Fernandez totes up Obama’s blunders in the Middle East, in this article and in this one. He says, among other things, that, “The administration’s foreign policy is unwinding like a busted spring.”
Or is it? Certainly, if you look at it in the conventional sense, it seems that way. But really, it depends what the intent was. I don’t think this unwinding is sheer incompetence; I think it’s purposeful.
With Obama and foreign policy, up is down and down is up. Obama supports the people he shouldn’t and fails to support those he should, and he does both quite consistently. Even a stopped watch is right more often than Obama. And although Obama’s foreign policy may resemble a stopped watch at times, it is running—perhaps even rather more smoothly than is readily apparent.
For example, I think that Scott Johnson is correct here, although I think he doesn’t go far enough:
From the perspective of Obama, however, our reduction to smallness and irrelevance represents a great success.
That is Obama’s goal, but I see it as a goal in the service of something more. He’s not just interested in smallness and irrelevance for their own sakes. He’s interested in weakening America’s influence, and in doing so he allows other forces to rise, forces that previous administrations had opposed. Those forces could be summarized as being either leftist or Islamicist, depending on the country and the situation. In studying Obama’s decisions in the foreign arena, it is difficult to escape the idea that Obama prefers that these groups gain more power around the world. And since he can’t come out directly for them, sometimes he must support them by apparent indirection and inaction.
The Obama Doctrine.
Hinderaker on the Zimmerman trial
Yesterday there should have been a directed verdict, and Hinderaker states why.
But of course that’s not what happened. And no one realistically expected it to, either, because this case has been fatally compromised from the start. Hinderaker agrees that the mothers’ testimony about the screams probably should never have even been allowed (I wrote about those problems yesterday). But really, at this point (to coin a phrase), what difference does it make? The trial is transparently a travesty.
Nevertheless, I get a sinking feeling that Zimmerman will be found guilty. Maybe it’s my pessimism at work, but just as the judge has consistently bent over backwards to rule for the prosecution, I suspect that the jury will, too.
Here’s a great comment on the Hinderaker thread:
To paraphrase Orwell from his “Homage to Catalonia”: when traitors were needed, I saw heroes slandered as traitors. When heroes were needed, I saw cowards hailed as heroes. What does the left need Zimmerman to be? Need I ask?
The options in Egypt
Shorter Caroline Glick: There are no good options in Egypt.
Unfortunately, it seems to have the ring of truth:
As was the case in 2011, the voices of liberal democracy in Egypt are so few and far between that they have no chance whatsoever of gaining power, today or for the foreseeable future. At this point it is hard to know what the balance of power is between the Islamists who won 74 percent of the vote in the 2011 parliamentary elections and their opponents. But it is clear that their opponents are not liberal democrats. They are a mix of neo-Nasserist fascists, communists and other not particularly palatable groups.
None of them share Western conceptions of freedom and limited government. None of them are particularly pro-American. None of them like Jews. And none of them support maintaining Egypt’s cold peace with Israel…
There are only three things that are knowable about the future of Egypt. First it will be poor. Egypt is a failed state. It cannot feed its people. It has failed to educate its people. It has no private sector to speak of. It has no foreign investment.
Second, Egypt will be politically unstable.
Mubarak was able to maintain power for 29 years because he ran a police state that the people feared. That fear was dissipated in 2011. This absence of fear will bring Egyptians to the street to topple any government they feel is failing to deliver on its promises – as they did this week.
Given Egypt’s dire economic plight, it is impossible to see how any government will be able to deliver on any promises – large or small – that its politicians will make during electoral campaigns.
And so government after government will share the fates of Mubarak and Morsi.
Beyond economic deprivation, today tens of millions of Egyptians feel they were unlawfully and unjustly ousted from power on Wednesday.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists won big in elections hailed as free by the West. They have millions of supporters who are just as fanatical today as they were last week. They will not go gently into that good night.
Finally, given the utter irrelevance of liberal democratic forces in Egypt today, it is clear enough that whoever is able to rise to power in the coming years will be anti-American, anti- Israel and anti-democratic, (in the liberal democratic sense of the word). They might be nicer to the Copts than the Muslim Brotherhood has been. But they won’t be more pro-Western.
It is difficult to argue with any of that, so I won’t even try. Of course, miracles do happen, and I would applaud the sudden emergence of a force in Egypt for liberal democracy that’s more than a few people deep, but nothing has led me to believe it likely or even possible at this point, or at any easily foreseeable point.
You may ask: how can you, a neocon, say that? Isn’t that against the neocon philosophy?
My reply is to suggest that you read my previous posts on neocons. But if you don’t want to spend time doing that, I’ll just summarize and say that (a) I chose the name “neo-neocon” primarily to indicate the fact that I was a new (“neo”) conservative at the time I started this blog, and (b) the neoconism I support neither advocates overthrowing governments by force nor believes any movement towards liberal democracy in the Middle East would be the least bit easy or quick.
I refer you, for example, to this essay of mine for a summary written many years ago. To that I will add that Egypt is most definitely not a good candidate for becoming a liberal democracy, to say the least. Nor was Mubarak a tyrant on the order of Saddam Hussein, or in defiance of UN sanctions or mandatory weapons inspections like Hussein was. Mubarak’s regime was bad, but what replaces him has every likelihood of being just as bad or worse.
When we invaded Iraq in order to depose a tyrant who was defying UN sanctions and whom we thought had WMDs, we were left with the task of what to do afterward, an undertaking far more difficult than the initial war. We have all seen how hard it was to sustain our strength of will and commitment there, and no one is advocating a repeat performance in Egypt or any other country at the moment. Egypt, as I said, presents a completely different picture anyway, and lacks almost all of the ingredients that motivated our invasion of Iraq.
But if you stop to think about it—despite the serious problems Iraq continues to face—considering Iraq’s previous state, and the state of practically all the other nations in the region except Israel, Iraq isn’t doing so bad. It’s a cliche to regard the Iraq war as having been a disaster, but the real question is: compared to what?
Let’s have some fun…
…and do the Walk of Life:
I usually prefer live versions, but for this particular song for some reason I couldn’t find a live version I liked better than the studio one.
And here’s one of those “golden oldies” to which Knopler refers, of the really silly song type. Although none of the Edsels (the group who released it) were named “Johnny,” they were a be-bop (not “be bop a lula”) group:
Here are the real be bop a lula guys (Gene, not Johnny). They were considered a rockabilly group:
So, do we now know who put the bomp in the…?:
If you’re following the Zimmerman trial…
…Andrew Branca offers an excellent summary of the proceedings so far. Branca is a lawyer and the author of The Law of Self-Defense, which will also be available on Kindle at Amazon soon.
Branca posts updates at Legal Insurrection on the case every day. Here’s today’s.
This morning, testimony for the prosecution began with Trayvon Martin’s mother saying it was Trayvon screaming on the tape. I wonder what possible probative value that could have, although those who want to believe will believe.
Martin’s mother would have every reason to say (and actually and sincerely believe) that it was his scream that is heard, but that has nothing to do with whether it actually was Martin or Zimmerman screaming on the tape. Respected voice experts (as opposed to pretenders) have stated that it is impossible even for them to tell who it is, because the voice of a person screaming in terror for his/her life is qualitatively different than that person’s speaking voice, or even shouting or screaming voice, under more normal circumstances. Martin’s family has every reason to identify the voice as his and none to say otherwise, including the fact that they’re not the least bit familiar with Zimmerman’s screams.
And by the way, none of that is meant to be a critique of Martin’s family. In believing that it’s Martin’s scream on the tape, they’re thinking and acting as most human beings would who have suffered a similarly tremendous shock and loss.
What hath Obamacare wrought?
People are not dumb. They get around a law if they can. And Obamacare is a terrible, terrible law, passed in a terrible manner.
Egypt vs. Iran: revolutions and coups
I often agree with editorials in the Wall Street Journal. But this one seems to hit a flat note, to wit [emphasis mine]:
The result [of Morsi’s overreach in Egypt] was political polarization, with the opposition and military uniting against the Brotherhood supporters who were Mr. Morsi’s last defenders. The millions of Egyptians who took to the streets were also protesting chronic gas and food shortages and a sinking economy. The uprising shows that the worst fate for Islamists can be to take power and thus be accountable for results. Unlike Iran in 1979, Egypt retains enough competing power centers such as a secular business class and judiciary to prevent an Islamist revolution.
Well, I suppose it depends what you mean by “retain.”
Iran before the revolution of1979 was actually fairly robust and “modern” (relatively speaking) under the Shah, at least as countries in that neck of the woods go. True, those elements of society (secular business class, judiciary) did not prevent an Islamist revolution in Iran, but that Islamist revolution was accomplished (much as Morsi’s election was) by stealth and deception. In other words, prior to Khomeini’s taking power (which, by the way, was the result of a referendum—in other words, people voted) the Ayatollah had held himself out to be a far more moderate person than he actually was (just as Morsi did). Khomeini’s revolution had had widespread support from people who should have known better but did not see what was coming.
And after he came to power, it didn’t take long at all for Khomeini to play his cards, and what cards they were! Khomeini makes Morsi seem like a meek lamb in comparison. For starters, Khomeini declared “”do not use this term, ”˜democratic.’ That is the Western style…” And then on to the main course, where he followed the glorious example of late-eighteenth century France [once again, emphasis mine]:
The first to be executed were members of the old system ”“ senior generals, followed by over 200 senior civilian officials, as punishment and to eliminate the danger of coup d’é‰tat. Brief trials lacking defense attorneys, juries, transparency or opportunity for the accused to defend themselves, were held by revolutionary judges such as Sadegh Khalkhali, the Sharia judge. By January 1980 “at least 582 persons had been executed.” Among those executed was Amir Abbas Hoveida, former Prime Minister of Iran.
In mid August, shortly after the election of the constitution-writing assembly, several dozen newspapers and magazines opposing Khomeini’s idea of theocratic rule by jurists were shut down. When protests were organized by the National Democratic Front (NDF), Khomeini angrily denounced them saying, “we thought we were dealing with human beings. It is evident we are not… After each revolution several thousand of these corrupt elements are executed in public and burnt and the story is over. They are not allowed to publish newspapers.”
Between January 1980 and June 1981, when Bani-Sadr was impeached, at least 900 executions took place, for everything from drug and sexual offenses to `corruption on earth,` from plotting counter-revolution and spying for Israel to membership in opposition groups. In the 12 months following that Amnesty International documented 2,946 executions, with several thousand more killed in the next two years according to the anti-regime guerillas People’s Mujahedin of Iran.
It goes on—and on, and on—with purges of more moderate clerics and the like. But I think you get the idea. The majority of the people of Iran, and the former power structure in the country (judiciary, military) did not like what Khomeini was doing. But as Khomeini knew, ruthlessly killing the opposition tends to have the effect of making that opposition rather ineffective. What’s more, it has a tendency to scare off further opposition.
So far at least, Morsi has done nothing of the sort, so those groups in Egypt have been able to “retain” some power.
Another huge difference between 1979 Iran and current Egypt is that the Shah had become an unpopular figure with a lot of baggage himself, having been in power far far longer than Morsi, and being a monarch (rather than elected) as well. The analogy with Egypt’s long-time leader (although not monarch) Mubarak would be more accurate, rather than Morsi (another parallel: Carter withdrew support from the Shah, much as Obama did with Mubarak). And Khomeini was a revered and powerful figure with a huge following, unlike Morsi. All of that helped Khomeini solidify his hold on the country. But his willingness to be absolutely and uncompromisingly ruthless in murdering the opposition was a huge part of what happened there, which cannot be ignored when comparing the two countries.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about how often it is that popular revolutions are betrayed by the leaders who are their beneficiaries (see this for a lengthy post on the subject). It’s the norm, actually, with the United States being one of the rare exceptions.
So, why hasn’t the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt followed the path of Khomeini in simply killing the opposition? I submit that it’s for three reasons: Morsi isn’t a tower of ruthlessness like Khomeini (who was more in the mold of 20th century tyrants, although he was a religious figure and most of them were not); Morsi lacks the political support, spooky presence, and aura of sanctity that Khomeini had built up; and public relations has become more important to dictators in this digital age in which opposition can be organized through Facebook and Twitter, and the whole world is watching far more intently.
But remember, just because Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has not gone the Khomeini route so far doesn’t mean they won’t in the future.
[ADDENDUM: I see that the military in Egypt has now arrested many Brotherhood leaders. That sort of thing has been going on in Egypt since the Nasser era, although Nasser himself was more Draconian, establishing concentration camps for the Brotherhood and torturing them, although only killing a few. Sadat and Mubarak made the Brotherhood illegal, but their imprisonment waxed and waned periodically depending on circumstances, and few if any were killed. However, it was Muslim fundamentalists (although not Brotherhood members) who assassinated Sadat (for a longer post I’ve written on the Brotherhood in Egypt, please see this).
The Shah of Iran had imprisoned Khomeini, but as ruthless as the Shah was purported to be (and I think it’s unclear how ruthless he really was), he stopped short of killing him. That may have been his big error, although killing Khomeini may instead have had the effect of elevating him to martyr status and inspiring a revolution anyway. When faced with a force like that, or the Muslim Brotherhood, it sometimes seems as though there’s no good way to handle it.
I’ve written many posts in the past about the Iranian revolution. If you want to do some reading, this list includes the majority of them. And this one seems especially relevant right now.]