...mean­while in Libya, rumors of Marines on Mal­ta ready to re-invade to estab­lish some min­i­mum order are being hot­ly denied.

And a report is out about the epic bat­tle between British spe­cial forces and Libyan farm­ers last year:

In a report broad­cast last night, Mark Urban, Newsnight’s Diplo­mat­ic Edi­tor, revealed that British spe­cial forces inter­ven­tion began as ear­ly as Feb­ru­ary 2011. Libyan rebels had set up in Beng­hazi, and as the con­flict became more heat­ed, the British Gov­ern­ment decid­ed to send a res­cue mis­sion to South­ern Libya.

On Feb­ru­ary 27, a ‘cou­ple of dozen’ SBS marines car­ried out three flights to res­cue one hun­dred and fifty for­eign oil work­ers (twen­ty British) from Zil­lah, Libya. The spe­cial forces team then flew the for­eign oil work­ers to Val­let­ta, Mal­ta.

By late Feb­ru­ary the British Gov­ern­ment had decid­ed to back the Nation­al Tran­si­tion Coun­cil (NTC) and over­throw Muam­mar Gaddafi.

The next stage of British spe­cial forces involve­ment in Libya would involve the high­ly secre­tive ‘E‑Squadron’. A unit joint­ly made up of the SAS, SBS with close links with Mi6. By ear­ly march six spe­cial forces oper­a­tives and two Mi6 agents trav­elled to Beng­hazi to meet rebel lead­ers.

The mis­sion failed. The so-called ‘Diplo­mat­ic team’ was con­tained by Libyan farm­ers. After this pub­lic embar­rass­ment, spe­cial forces were not involved in Libya for months.

Inter­est­ing arti­cle, but I have to say that a more accu­rate view of why things went ter­ri­bly wrong, is not that the Repub­li­can fac­tion of the CIA sup­pos­ed­ly ‘start­ed’ it; the fact is, Dave, I was watch­ing this event from the very moment it began to devel­op and the GOP was very, very, opposed to our involve­ment in Libya and the Arab Spring. It’s quite obvi­ous that they would­n’t have start­ed a movement(they may be evil, but they’re smart) which very well could have threat­ened their allies in the Mideast, includ­ing the MB(and giv­en that one of these sources came from Wik­ileaks, I have even more doubts. I strong­ly sus­pect this came from the Assange/Jermas fac­tion, prob­a­bly to try to throw peo­ple off from the real sto­ry. They have def­i­nite­ly pulled shenani­gans like this before)

That said, how­ev­er, there are some pret­ty strong indi­ca­tions that I’ve seen that the move­ment was instead manip­u­lat­ed and hijacked by these same forces, espe­cial­ly the Mus­lim Brotherhood(this makes a lot more sense when you real­ly think about it. Mubarak was pret­ty close to the U.S. right-wing as well as that of the Israelis.)

The good news, how­ev­er, is that a few of the pro­test­ers have wok­en up and real­ized that they’ve been played for fools and are start­ing to rise up against the crim­i­nal M.B. as well. Let’s hope that con­tin­ues to grow.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/19/us-egypt-radioactive-idUSTRE80I1SW20120119

Radioac­tive mate­r­i­al said stolen from Egypt­ian plant
CAIRO | Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:10pm EST

(Reuters) — Radioac­tive mate­r­i­al has been stolen from a nuclear pow­er sta­tion on Egyp­t’s Mediter­ranean coast that was the scene of vio­lent protests last week, the state-run al-Ahram news­pa­per report­ed on Thurs­day.

A safe con­tain­ing radioac­tive mate­r­i­al at the Dabaa nuclear pow­er plant, which is still under con­struc­tion, was seized while anoth­er also con­tain­ing radioac­tive mate­r­i­al was bro­ken open and part of its con­tents tak­en, the news­pa­per said.

In Vien­na, an offi­cial of the U.N. nuclear agency described the items miss­ing as “low-lev­el radioac­tive sources” which had been tak­en from a lab­o­ra­to­ry at the con­struc­tion site. He could not give any details on the nature of the stolen items.

“We are in touch with the Egypt­ian author­i­ties,” the offi­cial from the Inter­na­tion­al Atom­ic Ener­gy Agency said.

Al-Ahram said the gov­ern­ment has alert­ed secu­ri­ty author­i­ties and asked that spe­cial­ized teams help in the search for the stolen mate­r­i­al.

More than a dozen peo­ple were wound­ed last week when mil­i­tary police tried to dis­perse hun­dreds of Egypt­ian pro­test­ers demand­ing the relo­ca­tion of the Dabaa plant.

Plant staff have refused to go to the site because of the dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the secu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion there, al-Ahram said.

With the MB about to take con­trol after the his­toric protest start­ed by an alliance of lib­er­al youth groups, it’s worth look­ing back at the Egypt­ian MB’s state of affairs one year before the Jan­u­ary 25th protests that sparked the whole thing. Thing’s weren’t exact­ly look­ing up for the MB:

Is the Broth­er­hood Push­ing the Self-Destruct But­ton?
Amr Hamza­wy The Nation­al, Jan­u­ary 18, 2010

...

Elec­tions for the movement’s lead­er­ship – the 16-mem­ber Guid­ance Office and the posi­tion of Gen­er­al Guide – have demon­strat­ed the extent of the Brotherhood’s trou­bles. The results illus­trate the pro­found impact of Egypt’s closed polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment, deep­en­ing inter­nal divi­sion and fur­ther entrench­ing the movement’s con­ser­v­a­tive lead­er­ship.

Since its strong show­ing in the 2005 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, in which it won 20 per cent rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the People’s Assem­bly – the low­er cham­ber of par­lia­ment – the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has been sub­ject­ed to sus­tained repres­sion by the Mubarak regime. In an attempt to lim­it the Brotherhood’s polit­i­cal influ­ence, the gov­ern­ment has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly detained its mem­bers, con­demned the movement’s lead­ers and those who fund it to long peri­ods of impris­on­ment imposed by mil­i­tary tri­bunals, and manip­u­lat­ed elec­toral pro­ce­dures and elec­tion results.

The gov­ern­ment has also intro­duced sev­er­al con­sti­tu­tion­al and legal changes, which it admits are aimed at shrink­ing the space avail­able for the Brotherhood’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in pol­i­tics. Most sig­nif­i­cant­ly, reli­gious par­ties and polit­i­cal activ­i­ties were banned by a 2007 con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment, and con­sti­tu­tion­al arti­cles were changed to pave the way for a par­ty-based elec­toral sys­tem. The con­se­quences of these changes have been severe for the Broth­er­hood; as a move­ment banned by law, it must either field elec­tion can­di­dates as indi­vid­u­als, or join forces with an exist­ing legal par­ty.

The first major out­come of all this has been a grad­ual clos­ing off of the for­mal polit­i­cal sphere for the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. In spite of its sig­nif­i­cant rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the People’s Assem­bly and the sol­id appear­ance of its par­lia­men­tary bloc, the Broth­er­hood has become an iso­lat­ed move­ment with lit­tle influ­ence on Egypt­ian pol­i­tics. In fact, almost no one in the Brotherhood’s lead­er­ship expects it to secure more than five per cent rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the new People’s Assem­bly that will be elect­ed in the autumn.

The sec­ond major out­come has been a grow­ing recog­ni­tion by many in the Brotherhood’s lead­er­ship that the move­ment is under siege and will remain so indef­i­nite­ly. The dom­i­nant view has come to be that the Brotherhood’s pri­or­i­ty should there­fore be to sus­tain the movement’s organ­i­sa­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty in the face of regime repres­sion, rather than invest effort in futile polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion. In oth­er words, the closed envi­ron­ment in which the Broth­er­hood has been oper­at­ing since 2005 offers no incen­tive for polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion, prompt­ing the move­ment to turn inward.

Under these con­di­tions, it comes as no sur­prise that the Brotherhood’s inter­nal dynam­ics have been shaped by diverg­ing posi­tions on the strate­gic val­ue of polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion. The inclu­sion­ist wing of the Brotherhood’s lead­er­ship, which advo­cates par­tic­i­pa­tion, has inevitably lost sup­port and organ­i­sa­tion­al pow­er over the past few years, while the iso­la­tion­ists have grown more influ­en­tial and now rep­re­sent a secure major­i­ty.

The results of the inter­nal elec­tions last month reflect­ed this chang­ing bal­ance of pow­er. An influ­en­tial mod­er­ate, and arguably the Brotherhood’s most out­spo­ken defend­er of polit­i­cal par­tic­i­pa­tion, Abdul Munim Abul Fut­tuh, lost his posi­tion in the Guid­ance Office to oppo­nents whose pri­or­i­ty is the movement’s social and pros­e­lytis­ing efforts.

In addi­tion, Muham­mad Habib, the for­mer Vice Gen­er­al Guide with a rep­u­ta­tion for build­ing con­sen­sus between inclu­sion­ists and iso­la­tion­ists, failed to keep his seat in the Guid­ance Office. Among the four new­ly elect­ed mem­bers to the Office, only Issam al Iryan can be iden­ti­fied as an advo­cate for par­tic­i­pa­tion. And very few of the Office’s re-elect­ed mem­bers, includ­ing the head of the Brotherhood’s par­lia­men­tary bloc, Muham­mad Saad al Katani, can be con­sid­ered pro-par­tic­i­pa­tion.

...

The Egypt­ian peo­ple have been stunned by the Brotherhood’s pub­lic dis­play of inter­nal rifts, a divi­sion played out most­ly in the media. The Broth­er­hood is no longer the secre­tive move­ment it once was, reveal­ing lit­tle of its inter­nal affairs to out­siders. Recent­ly, fig­ures such as Muham­mad Habib have accused oth­er lead­ers of manip­u­lat­ing the elec­toral process for the Guid­ance Office. Indeed, sev­er­al voic­es in the inclu­sion­ist group have open­ly dis­cussed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of the Brotherhood’s break-up.

...

Here’s anoth­er inter­est­ing MB fun-fact relat­ed to that the MB’s top leader, Mohammed Mad­hi Akef, who was step­ping down at that time. It turns out that he also played an impor­tant role in cre­at­ing the “Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety” (MAS) in 1993, an MB-umbrel­la group for the US. It sounds like the MAS was start­ed in response to inter­nal group divi­sions over how much the group should oper­ate open­ly or in secret in the US. There are a num­ber of par­al­lels between the inter­nal debate back in the ear­ly 90’s then and the debate in the years lead­ing up to the Arab Spring:

A rare look at secre­tive Broth­er­hood in Amer­i­ca
Mus­lims divid­ed on Broth­er­hood
A group aim­ing to cre­ate Islam­ic states world­wide has estab­lished roots here, in large part under the guid­ance of Egypt-born Ahmed Elka­di

By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe and Lau­rie Cohen Tri­bune staff reporters

Sep­tem­ber 19, 2004

Over the last 40 years, small groups of devout Mus­lim men have gath­ered in homes in U.S. cities to pray, mem­o­rize the Koran and dis­cuss events of the day.

But they also addressed their ulti­mate goal, one so con­tro­ver­sial that it is a key rea­son they have oper­at­ed in secre­cy: to cre­ate Mus­lim states over­seas and, they hope, some­day in Amer­i­ca as well.

These men are part of an under­ground U.S. chap­ter of the inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, the world’s most influ­en­tial Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ist group and an orga­ni­za­tion with a vio­lent past in the Mid­dle East. But fear­ing per­se­cu­tion, they rarely iden­ti­fy them­selves as Broth­er­hood mem­bers and have oper­at­ed large­ly behind the scenes, unbe­known even to many Mus­lims.

Still, the U.S. Broth­er­hood has had a sig­nif­i­cant and ongo­ing impact on Islam in Amer­i­ca, help­ing estab­lish mosques, Islam­ic schools, sum­mer youth camps and promi­nent Mus­lim orga­ni­za­tions. It is a major fac­tor, Islam­ic schol­ars say, in why many Mus­lim insti­tu­tions in the nation have become more con­ser­v­a­tive in recent decades.

Lead­ing the U.S. Broth­er­hood dur­ing much of this peri­od was Ahmed Elka­di, an Egypt­ian-born sur­geon and a for­mer per­son­al physi­cian to Sau­di Ara­bi­a’s King Faisal. He head­ed the group from 1984 to 1994 but abrupt­ly lost his lead­er­ship posi­tion. Now he is dis­cussing his life and the U.S. Broth­er­hood for the first time.

His sto­ry, com­bined with details from doc­u­ments and inter­views, offers an unprece­dent­ed look at the Broth­er­hood in Amer­i­ca: how the group recruit­ed mem­bers, how it cloaked itself in secre­cy and how it alien­at­ed many mod­er­ate Mus­lims.

Indeed, because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Broth­er­hood has been an increas­ing­ly divi­sive force with­in Islam in Amer­i­ca, fuel­ing the often bit­ter strug­gle between mod­er­ate and con­ser­v­a­tive Mus­lims.

Many Mus­lims believe that the Broth­er­hood is a noble inter­na­tion­al move­ment that sup­ports the true teach­ings of Islam and unwa­ver­ing­ly defends Mus­lims who have come under attack around the world, from Chechens to Pales­tini­ans to Iraqis. But oth­ers view it as an extreme orga­ni­za­tion that breeds intol­er­ance and mil­i­tan­cy.

...

When Egypt impris­oned and exe­cut­ed some Mus­lim Broth­ers in the 1950s, many mem­bers fled the coun­try and helped spread the phi­los­o­phy through­out the Arab world. The group’s ide­o­log­i­cal voice became philoso­pher Sayyid Qutb, who abhorred West­ern val­ues and believed the Koran jus­ti­fied vio­lence to over­throw un-Islam­ic gov­ern­ments.

...

And while Broth­er­hood activ­i­ties vary from coun­try to coun­try, and chap­ters are offi­cial­ly inde­pen­dent, inter­na­tion­al lead­ers in Egypt say that all chap­ters are unit­ed in their beliefs and that the Egypt­ian office gives them advice.

In recent months Akef, the inter­na­tion­al Broth­er­hood leader, repeat­ed­ly has praised Pales­tin­ian and Iraqi sui­cide bombers, called for the destruc­tion of Israel and assert­ed that the Unit­ed States has no proof that Al Qae­da was to blame for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Iman Elka­di’s father, Mah­moud Abu Saud, was par­tic­u­lar­ly involved in the Broth­er­hood’s begin­nings in Egypt and remains well-known in the Arab world. An accom­plished econ­o­mist, he is wide­ly regard­ed as a pio­neer in Islam­ic bank­ing, which requires that inter­est not be charged for loans.

He also was jailed repeat­ed­ly for his Broth­er­hood activ­i­ties.

...

A change of face

In recent years, the U.S. Broth­er­hood oper­at­ed under the name Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety, accord­ing to doc­u­ments and inter­views. One of the nation’s major Islam­ic groups, it was incor­po­rat­ed in Illi­nois in 1993 after a con­tentious debate among Broth­er­hood mem­bers.

Some want­ed the Broth­er­hood to remain under­ground, while oth­ers thought a more pub­lic face would make the group more influ­en­tial. Mem­bers from across the coun­try drove to region­al meet­ing sites to dis­cuss the issue.

For­mer mem­ber Mustafa Saied recalls how he gath­ered with 40 oth­ers at a Days Inn on the Alaba­ma-Ten­nessee bor­der. Many mem­bers, he says, pre­ferred secre­cy, par­tic­u­lar­ly in case U.S. author­i­ties cracked down on Hamas sup­port­ers, includ­ing many Broth­er­hood mem­bers.

“They were look­ing at dooms­day sce­nar­ios,” he says.

When the lead­ers vot­ed, it was decid­ed that Broth­er­hood mem­bers would call them­selves the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety, or MAS, accord­ing to doc­u­ments and inter­views.

They agreed not to refer to them­selves as the Broth­er­hood but to be more pub­licly active. They even­tu­al­ly cre­at­ed a Web site and for the first time invit­ed the pub­lic to some con­fer­ences, which also were used to raise mon­ey. The incor­po­ra­tion papers would list Elkadi–just months away from his ouster–as a direc­tor.

Elka­di and Mohammed Mah­di Akef, a Broth­er­hood leader in Egypt and now the inter­na­tion­al head, had pushed for more open­ness. In fact, Akef says he helped found MAS by lob­by­ing for the change dur­ing trips to the U.S.

“We have a reli­gion, mes­sage, morals and prin­ci­pals that we want to car­ry to the peo­ple as God ordered us,” he says. “So why should we work in secre­cy?”

But U.S. mem­bers would remain guard­ed about their iden­ti­ty and beliefs.

An undat­ed inter­nal memo instruct­ed MAS lead­ers on how to deal with inquiries about the new orga­ni­za­tion. If asked, “Are you the Mus­lim Broth­ers?” lead­ers should respond that they are an inde­pen­dent group called the Mus­lim Amer­i­can Soci­ety. “It is a self-explana­to­ry name that does not need fur­ther expla­na­tion.”

...

“Atlanta Jew­ish Times Edi­tor Apol­o­gizes For Oba­ma Assas­si­na­tion-By-Mossad” by JTA 1/20/12

‘The own­er of the Atlanta Jew­ish Times apol­o­gized for an opin­ion col­umn in which he count­ed Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s assas­si­na­tion as among Israel’s options in head­ing off a nuclear Iran....
...reac­tion from read­ers had been over­whelm­ing­ly neg­a­tive.’

Attor­ney Gen­er­al Yehu­da Wein­stein instruct­ed Israel Police on Tues­day to open a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion against a top Mus­lim cler­ic for incite­ment to vio­lence and racism.

Weinstein’s request came a few weeks after Jerusalem’s Mufti Mohammed Hus­sein quot­ed a reli­gious text that includes pas­sages about killing Jews dur­ing a speech at the 47th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of the Fatah move­ment in East Jerusalem.

Wein­stein stat­ed that the inves­ti­ga­tion will also look into oth­er state­ments the mufti has made about Jews in the past.

Excerpts from the cler­ic’s speech were post­ed on YouTube last week by Pales­tine Media Watch, an Israeli watch­dog group that tracks incite­ment. The com­ments drew angry reac­tions from Israelis Sun­day.

“The hour of res­ur­rec­tion will not come until you fight the Jews,” Hus­sein told the gath­er­ing, cit­ing a hadith, or say­ing attrib­uted to the Prophet Muham­mad. “The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. But the trees and the stones will call: Oh Mus­lim, oh ser­vant of God, there is a Jew hid­ing behind me, so come and kill him.”

Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu con­demned the Mufti’s speech, call­ing it a “heinous offense that all nations of the world must con­demn.”

Hus­sein, who is based in Jerusalem, said his com­ments were tak­en out of con­text. “I was speak­ing about the final signs of the day of res­ur­rec­tion,” Hus­sein said. “I did not incite, and I did not call for killing. We are not, at present, at the end of days.”

This sto­ry is by:
Tomer Zarchin

Con­sid­er­ing that the US NGOs prob­a­bly helped pro­pel the MB into pow­er by work­ing with the youth move­ments to help start the “Arab Spring”, there’s a bit a of irony in this turn of events:

Egyp­t’s Broth­er­hood backs mil­i­tary in US dis­pute
2:46 p.m. Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 15, 2012

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press

CAIRO — Egyp­t’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood on Wednes­day threw its weight behind the coun­try’s mil­i­tary-backed gov­ern­ment in an esca­lat­ing dis­pute with the U.S. over the fund­ing of pro-democ­ra­cy groups.

Cairo claims that the groups are foment­ing protests against the coun­try’s mil­i­tary rulers, and has referred 16 Amer­i­cans and 27 oth­ers to crim­i­nal court. Six Amer­i­cans are barred from leav­ing the coun­try.

The dis­pute has shak­en rela­tions between the two coun­tries, with U.S. offi­cials and leg­is­la­tors threat­en­ing to cut aid to Egypt — $1.3 bil­lion in mil­i­tary aid and $250 mil­lion in eco­nom­ic assis­tance — if the issue is not resolved.

On Wednes­day, the Broth­er­hood — whose polit­i­cal arm con­trols the largest bloc of seats in Egyp­t’s par­lia­ment — praised offi­cials car­ry­ing out the crack­down and said it sup­port­ed their “nation­al­ist posi­tion.”

The Broth­er­hood said it “rejects all forms of pres­sure the U.S. is exert­ing,” the state­ment pub­lished on the group’s web­site said.

The state­ment said the group “declares that it, and the Egypt­ian peo­ple, will not tol­er­ate any offi­cials if they decide to suc­cumb to the pres­sure or cov­er up the accu­sa­tions or inter­fere in the busi­ness of the judi­cia­ry.”

Egyp­t’s rul­ing mil­i­tary coun­cil has repeat­ed­ly allud­ed to plots by for­eign pow­ers through­out the last year. Crit­ics see the alle­ga­tions as an attempt by the army to deflect atten­tion from what they regard as a botched tran­si­tion to democ­ra­cy. The strong­ly-word­ed state­ment by the Broth­ers appears to be an attempt to out­bid the mil­i­tary posi­tion.

The state­ment comes a day after the state media pub­lished the four-month old tes­ti­mo­ny of the Cab­i­net min­is­ter in charge of inter­na­tion­al coop­er­a­tion in which she lashed out at the main­ly U.S. groups.

Min­is­ter Faiza Aboul Naga, a left­over from deposed Pres­i­dent Hos­ni Mubarak’s regime, accused them of using the for­eign funds to foment pro-democ­ra­cy protests against the coun­try’s mil­i­tary rulers, who took over after Mubarak was oust­ed in a pop­u­lar upris­ing a year ago.

The for­eign fund­ing affair has also been inter­pret­ed by many among Egyp­t’s pro-democ­ra­cy groups as part of a larg­er plan to neu­tral­ize rights groups and oth­er civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tion, who have long chal­lenged Mubarak and con­tin­ue to chal­lenge what they say are grave rights vio­la­tions by the mil­i­tary rulers.

Inves­tiga­tive judges have said a sec­ond phase of the probe is look­ing into Egypt­ian groups receiv­ing for­eign funds.

The Broth­er­hood, itself an unreg­is­tered group, had pre­vi­ous­ly backed the mil­i­tary’s inves­ti­ga­tion of pro-democ­ra­cy and human rights groups.

“Civ­il groups are as much a thorn in the side of any reli­gious group,” as they are of an author­i­tar­i­an regime, said Negad Borai, a human rights lawyer.

....

@Pterrafractyl: Well, as I’ve said before, it looks like the Arab Spring was actu­al­ly ini­tial­ly mid-wived, as it were, by the ENEMIES of the Under­ground Reich & their allies, and that arti­cle you post­ed is actu­al­ly one more piece of the puz­zle.

How­ev­er, though, this does not, of course, dis­cred­it the research done by Dave, your­self, and oth­ers includ­ing myself, that does indi­cate that the Arab Spring move­ment was indeed co-opt­ed and hijacked by some of the very same forces that the creators(and their allies) were fight­ing against.

Frankly, though, I think the elite, the Under­ground Reich includ­ed, are get­ting very des­per­ate and will soon run out of move­ments to cor­rupt and hijack, as indi­cat­ed by their mis­er­able fail­ure at attempt­ing to hijack OWS not long ago.

We are still win­ning, guys. It may be an uphill bat­tle still but it’s thanks to Dave and oth­ers that we CAN win this fight. =)
@Mike: Sad stuff.....I won­der if Stan­ton may have pos­si­bly been involved with some right­ist occult groups.......thanks for the info.

I found a video of Nass­er, with French sub­ti­tles. In this extract, he tells to the crowd the high­lights of a meet­ing with the leader of the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood for that era. Basi­cal­ly, he says, “why should I impose the islam­ic veil on every women if, your­self, can’t impose it on your own daugh­ter (who does­n’t wear it)? The crowd laughed and cheered.

But what I find real­ly inter­est­ing with this extract is the non-ver­bal and psy­cho­log­i­cal aspects of it. Look at the man. He seems relaxed, hap­py, with a sense of humour, at ease, etc. It is in total con­tra­dic­tion with the lead­ers of Arab coun­tries of today. Look at the dif­fer­en­tial in behav­ior, atti­tude, etc. What we would give to have lead­ers like that in the Mid­dle East, today!

I am afraid that we won’t see lead­ers like that for a while in that part of the world. I want­ed to share it with you to illus­trate the shift and trans­for­ma­tion that have occured since a cou­ple of decades, and that we could label as a descent into fas­cism or a return to bar­barism. It is anoth­er case of an image worth a thou­sand words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=W99M1Po_VlE

@Dave: I think you will appre­ci­ate the inter­est­ing devel­op­ments pre­sent­ed in this arti­cle. The Egypt­ian rev­o­lu­tion: A Mason­ic-Amer­i­can-Zion­ist con­spir­a­cy?

http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2012/02/14/194659.html

@Claude: The con­tent of that link is pret­ty sober­ing. Note too the vague nature of the lan­guage used by one of the MB spokes­men regard­ing the nature of oppo­si­tion par­ties in Egypt:

...

The MB spokesman empha­sized that the peo­ple fol­low all the facts and know about con­spir­a­cies being hatched against the rev­o­lu­tion, adding that “The peo­ple are only too aware of the wide­spread cor­rup­tion brought about and insti­tu­tion­al­ized by the for­mer regime. I believe our good Egypt­ian pub­lic will always take the side of dig­ni­ty, free­dom and inde­pen­dence – of the loy­al men and women work­ing for the inter­ests of this home­land”. In his TV pro­gram, Howei­di said he had sub­stan­tial infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing the exis­tence in Egypt of a dubi­ous group prepar­ing to form a new par­ty that will cast itself as the true rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the nation­al forces that can res­cue the coun­try. More­over, the Egypt­ian writer assert­ed that this par­ty is cur­rent­ly dis­trib­ut­ing its mem­ber­ship forms, adding that it is sup­port­ed by cer­tain Arab and West­ern coun­tries, and that its meet­ings are already under­way, and also prepa­ra­tion of a plot in which that party’s col­lab­o­ra­tors will come out to demand the oust­ing of the Broth­er­hood. Howei­di said that the MB has broad expe­ri­ence and con­sid­er­able exper­tise that allow them to uncov­er the heinous plot and foil the sabo­teurs’ scheme, adding that the Broth­ers’ role is not con­fined to par­tak­ing in the elec­tions, “The Broth­ers are bear­ers of a uni­ver­sal mes­sage that must spread on as wide a scale as pos­si­ble. They have a lot to con­tribute towards the advance­ment and revi­tal­iza­tion of Egypt, and the restora­tion of its dig­ni­ty and rights that had been vio­lat­ed for cen­turies”.

...

Trans­la­tion: Assume any non-fun­da­men­tal­ist Egypt­ian polit­i­cal par­ties that emerge in oppo­si­tion to the MB are part of a West­ern Zion­ist plot.

The MB’s embrace of democ­ra­cy is already becom­ing a sleep­er hold and they’re just get­ting start­ed. :-/

@Pterrafractyl: Let’s hope things turn around. The Egypt­ian peo­ple deserve it. =(

@Steven L.: Yeah, it’s like watch­ing a fam­i­ly mem­ber that was unjust­ly thrown into a prison decades ago final­ly get released. You’re thrilled that they’re free, but their first deci­sion is to go join the Sci­en­tol­o­gists (whom they met in prison). There isn’t a lot you can do oth­er than point them in the direc­tion of “Oper­a­tion Clam­bake” and just wait it out until they real­ize they’re get­ting scammed by con men. It’s not a par­tic­u­lar­ly sur­pris­ing turn of events giv­en all the unjust abuse in their past, but it’s still painful to watch because you know they’re about to get seri­ous­ly fleeced and the Sci­en­tol­o­gists don’t let any­one leave with­out a fight. :-(

@Pterrafractyl: So true, and I fear the same could end up being true in Syr­ia as well. At least there may be some hope for Iran, though, at least they know what it’s like to live in a fas­cist Islamist-run hell­hole, and may be far less like­ly to fall for any tricks should the mul­lahs be overthrown(we can only hope!).

Seemed sort of inevitable the way things are going...:

In U‑turn, Egyp­t’s Broth­er­hood names pres­i­den­tial can­di­date

By Mar­wa Awad and Sher­ine El Madany

CAIRO | Sat Mar 31, 2012 7:26pm EDT

(Reuters) — Egyp­t’s Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, in a pol­i­cy U‑turn, said on Sat­ur­day it would back its deputy leader for pres­i­dent, an endorse­ment that guar­an­tees Khairat al-Shater a place among the fron­trun­ners after the group ini­tial­ly said it would not field a can­di­date.

The Broth­er­hood said it changed tack after review­ing oth­er can­di­dates in the race and after par­lia­ment, where its Free­dom and Jus­tice Par­ty con­trols the biggest bloc, was unable to meet “the demands of the rev­o­lu­tion”, a ref­er­ence to its mount­ing crit­i­cism of the rul­ing army’s han­dling of the tran­si­tion.

Giv­en the Broth­er­hood’s strong show­ing in the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion and its broad grass-roots net­work, the group’s back­ing for a can­di­date could prove a deci­sive fac­tor. How­ev­er, ana­lysts say name recog­ni­tion may also play a role in the race that could help oth­ers such as for­mer Arab League chief Amr Mous­sa.

Ana­lysts said the move sug­gest­ed the Broth­er­hood, on the brink of pow­er for the first time in its 84-year his­to­ry, was wor­ried it could have that pow­er snatched away after decades of repres­sion at the hands Hos­ni Mubarak, who was oust­ed last year.

...

Shater, 61, one of the group’s three deputy lead­ers and a busi­ness­man who runs a com­put­er firm, will be com­pet­ing against sev­er­al oth­er Islamists who have declared their plans to run.

He has played a key role in the Broth­er­hood’s eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and met the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund team which is nego­ti­at­ing a $3.2 bil­lion loan facil­i­ty with the gov­ern­ment. The IMF has said it wants broad polit­i­cal back­ing for the deal.

SPLITTING THE VOTE?

Shater’s nom­i­na­tion could fur­ther split the Islamist vote, as at least three oth­er Islamists are cam­paign­ing, includ­ing one who was expelled from the Broth­er­hood when he defied their ear­li­er deci­sion not to field a can­di­date.

But the Broth­er­hood, the old­est and most well-estab­lished Islamist group, could use its polit­i­cal clout to encour­age Islamist politi­cians and vot­ers to unite around Shater.

Like many mem­bers of the Broth­er­hood that was banned under Mubarak, Shater spent years in and out of jail. He was most recent­ly freed short­ly after Mubarak was top­pled.

The Broth­er­hood had met twice before Sat­ur­day’s gath­er­ing to debate a change in pol­i­cy but did not reach a deci­sion, high­light­ing divi­sions about whether to change course on field­ing a can­di­date and about who to back.

A Broth­er­hood mem­ber told Reuters that 56 of 108 mem­bers of the Broth­er­hood’s shu­ra, or advi­so­ry, coun­cil vot­ed to pick Shater as the group’s can­di­date and 52 vot­ed against it.

“Those who went against the can­di­da­cy of Shater at first changed their minds and sup­port­ed him after­wards,” said Mohamed Badie, the Broth­er­hood’s leader.

The group pre­vi­ous­ly said it did not want one of its mem­bers in the top office, so it did not appear to be hog­ging pow­er and alien­at­ing those who did not back the group in post-Mubarak Egypt. “We do not have the desire to monop­o­lize pow­er,” the FJP’s Morsy said after Shater’s can­di­da­cy was announced.

...

Only 56 out of 108? And Rom­ney thinks he has it hard.

@Pterrafractyl: And the crim­i­nal­i­ty continues(in Egypt, that is.). Thanks for the infor­ma­tion, my friend. Hope­ful­ly, more peo­ple will wake up and real­ize they’ve been tricked, and boot these fas­cists out of office.

@Steven L.: The MB’s choice of an IMF point­man is par­tic­u­lar­ly omi­nous for the Egpt­ian pub­lic giv­en the indi­ca­tions in the arti­cle that the IMF wants broad polit­i­cal sup­port for a new $3.2 bil­lion aide pack­age. And based on this arti­cle, it looks like Egypt is about to get Greeced:

IMF, FJP say Egypt govt yet to pro­vide loan details

Reuters, Mon­day March 19 2012

* Egypt seek­ing $3.2 bln, 18-month financ­ing pack­age
* IMF wants reform plan with broad polit­i­cal sup­port
* Says any agree­ment still at least weeks away
* Aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures cer­tain to prove unpop­u­lar (Recasts, adding quotes, details and back­ground)
By Patrick Werr and Mar­wa Awad
CAIRO, March 19 (Reuters) — Egyp­t’s gov­ern­ment has been reluc­tant to share details of a reform plan it has drawn up with the Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund, mak­ing it hard for par­lia­ment to sup­port any accord, the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood’s par­ty and the IMF said on Mon­day.
The IMF says that before it agrees to a $3.2 bil­lion loan Egypt needs to pre­vent a fis­cal cri­sis, the gov­ern­ment must first sell the plan to the coun­try’s polit­i­cal forces, espe­cial­ly the Broth­er­hood’s Free­dom and Jus­tice Par­ty (FJP), which won near­ly half the seats in the new par­lia­ment.
The reform plan con­tains a series of aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures and new tax­es, accord­ing to a draft obtained by Reuters, steps that are cer­tain to be unpop­u­lar in a coun­try ham­mered by a year of eco­nom­ic hard­ship after its pop­u­lar upris­ing.
“We do not find there is enough detail avail­able for us to deter­mine what the real finan­cial cir­cum­stances are of the bud­get and the gov­ern­ment,” Ahmed Alnag­gar, a mem­ber of the FJP’s eco­nom­ic com­mit­tee, told Reuters after a meet­ing with the IMF on Mon­day.
“There­fore the FJP can nei­ther agree to nor reject the loan unless the gov­ern­ment gives us the nec­es­sary details to study and then decide.”
Egypt for­mal­ly request­ed the 18-month IMF financ­ing pack­age ear­li­er this year and the gov­ern­ment has said it hoped to seal an agree­ment this month. But the IMF says a sign­ing is sev­er­al weeks away at least.
“Our tech­ni­cal team, if all goes well, will be here for the next cou­ple of weeks,” IMF region­al direc­tor Ahmed Masood told Reuters after talks with FJP mem­bers. “This process will take a few weeks rather than some­thing we will resolve in days.”
The FJP has said it sup­ports Egyp­t’s request for an IMF loan but first wants the gov­ern­ment to pro­duce a coher­ent plan to bat­tle cor­rup­tion and get costs under con­trol.
Egypt has spent more than $20 bil­lion in for­eign reserves since last year’s upris­ing to prop up its cur­ren­cy. Reserves now stand at a wor­ry­ing­ly low $15.7 bil­lion, includ­ing $4 bil­lion in gold bul­lion the gov­ern­ment would be reluc­tant to draw down.
...

Accord­ing to the few details released by the gov­ern­ment, the reform plan con­tains an increase in the prices that heavy indus­tries must pay for their ener­gy, and the expan­sion of Egyp­t’s cur­rent sales tax into a ful­ly fledged val­ue-added tax.
The draft reform plan, drawn up in Decem­ber but not released pub­licly, con­tains 25 urgent mea­sures to reduce Egyp­t’s bud­get deficit, which the gov­ern­ment has put at 144 bil­lion Egypt­ian pounds ($23.9 bil­lion) in the fis­cal year that ends this June.
“The gov­ern­ment has promised a detailed pro­gram, but what we received instead was gen­er­al data with­out any details on how the loan will be spent and the means by which the loan will be repaid,” Alnag­gar said.
“The IMF stressed the neces­si­ty of get­ting sup­port from the main polit­i­cal par­ties and the FJP so that the loan (bill) is passed in par­lia­ment.” ($1 = 6.0342 Egypt­ian pounds) (Writ­ing by Patrick Werr and Mar­wa Awad; edit­ing by Ron Askew)