I hear fear mongering on the right that the populist revolution taking place in Egypt today could result in a radical Islamic Regime under the Muslim Brotherhood. I admit that the Russia’s progressive-socialist Kerensky government was shortly overthrown by the totalitarian Bolsheviks and the populist Iranian revolution gave way to the current theocratic regime there, and know one can say where a revolution will lead. Perhaps the Kerensky government might have held if European nations and the US has not invaded Russia in support of the Tsar. Perhaps the extremism in Iran could have been avoided had not the US overthrown Iran’s democratic government and installed the Shah. Obama is right to leave the outcome to Egyptians. Republican lies from the likes of Neocon Jon Bolton should be ignored.
Thousands of Egyptians continue to take to the streets in protest of President Hosani Mubarak’s 30-year-long authoritarian regime. But while the Obama Administration inches towards public support for the Egyptian people, many Republican hardliners are throwing up roadblocks to U.S. endorsement of democratic reform. Their delusion-du-jour? The threat of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Those who subscribe to Rep. Thaddeus McCotter’s (R-MI) [GOP lies delinked] and Amb. John Bolten’s [GOP lies delinked] fear-mongering warn that the inevitable result of this pro-democracy movement will be the enfranchisement of the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-American “jihadist nutjobs.”
Today on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, former International Atomic Energy Agency director, Egyptian activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei blasted the delusion as a “myth” lacking “one iota of reality.” Intimately familiar with both Iranian and Egyptian politics, ElBaradei pointed out that the Muslim Brotherhood is not actually an extremist group and the idea that extremists would takeover the government is just a myth “perpetuated and sold” by the Mubarak regime…
…Watch it:
While the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had supported violence at one time, the conservative group is “Egypt’s largest opposition group” and “has disavowed violence and sought to participate in Egyptian politics” legitimately since the 1970s… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
6 Responses to “ElBaradei: Muslim Brotherhood Not a Threat”
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This is where the rubber meets the road as far as what we say compared to what we do. We either support the will of the people in the streets expressing their desire for fair and free government or we continue our trajectory of the past hundred years and support the dictators that work primarily to enrich themselves at our expense. I say yes to the revolt in the street and no to a continuation of our past covert foreign policy that has done nothing to enhance our security.
if Egypt moves from secular leaning to Muslim it is their fate and destiny and not ours to control or even push one way or the other. Obama should take the progressive stance and help get rid of Mubarak but then that would take more courage than he has yet ever shown.
If this populist redress of the Egyptian people against their government is anybodies business but theirs and theirs alone, it should be more of a concern to the Chinese and their own repressive system. let them put it down. If they can.
I’ll hold on my comment here, because this is the subject of the current poll.
Yeah, heard Hannity popping a gasket last night ever fearful of the Muslim boogeyman. He thinks the Muslim Brotherhood is paying people to be on the streets protesting. Hell, even the Koch brothers ain’t got that amount of money.
Some of the more extreme Republicans are actually calling it a plot by Obama to destroy Christianity.
The GOP is afraid of its own shadow. We must hope that cooler heads will once again prevail and let these fearmongers go off and bite their nails by themselves somewhere else. Reckless, rash judgment= foolish foreign policy every single time.
Another senseless GOP fear? Cuba. Read my current two posts about my amazing trip there.
Thanks Jack. I’ll try to get there today!