~ Edge Of A Revolution ~ Artist: NickleBack
~ The Dominoes Fall ~
"We will never be silenced. Whether you are a Christian, whether you are a Muslim, whether you are an Atheist. YOU WILL DEMAND your goddamned rights, one way or another. We will NEVER be silenced!" [Egyptian protester] "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable." [JFK] Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the current illegitimate president and tyrant of Egypt, days are numbered.
~ Muslim Brotherhood Accepted Western Plan While Sisi Rejected It ~
Paul Taylor reported from Paris, France that: Western allies warned Egypt's military leaders right up to the last minute against using force to crush protest sit-ins by supporters of the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, arguing they could ill afford the political and economic damage.
A violent end to a six-week standoff between Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood and the armed forces that toppled Egypt's first freely elected president seemed likely once the new authorities declared last week that foreign mediation had failed.
But the United States and the European Union continued to send coordinated messages to army commander General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Interim Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei during the four-day Eid al-Fitr Muslim holiday that ended on Sunday, pleading for a negotiated settlement, Western diplomats said.
"We had a political plan that was on the table, that had been accepted by the other side (the Muslim Brotherhood)," said EU envoy Bernardino Leon, who co-led the mediation effort with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns.
"They (the government) could have taken this option. So all that has happened today was unnecessary," Leon told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The last plea was conveyed to the Egyptian authorities on Tuesday, hours before the crackdown was unleashed.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was unusually forthright in condemning the imposition of a state of emergency - a throwback to the nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule under U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak, toppled by a popular uprising in 2011.
"In the past week, at every occasion ... we and others have urged the government to respect the rights of free assembly and of free expression..."Kerry said.
Washington also enlisted key Arab ally and aid donor Saudi Arabia to tell Sisi he needed to find a peaceful, inclusive solution "to retain international financial and political support", a person involved in the diplomatic exchanges said.
Flanked by the foreign ministers of Qatar, a major financier of Mursi's government, and the United Arab Emirates, a supporter of the military takeover, U.S. and EU negotiators sought to coax both sides into a series of mutual confidence-building measures. They would have begun with prisoner releases and led to an honorable exit for Mursi, an amended constitution and fresh elections next year.
The diplomatic source said Western mediators tried to persuade Sisi that Egypt would suffer lasting political polarization and economic hardship if there was a bloodbath.
Sisi and the hardline interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, were explicitly warned that ElBaradei would resign if they chose force over negotiation, robbing the military of its principal source of liberal, civilian respectability, the source said.
"The hardliners have a remarkable ability to ignore reality," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic exchanges.
The mediators warned that any move to break up the sit-ins would likely cause hundreds of deaths and drive many conservative Salafi Muslim activists, initially supportive of Mursi's overthrow, to join forces with the Brotherhood in fierce opposition to the authorities.
~ Mubarak's Gang Back In Control ~
~ Syrian Air Force Bombing Civilians ~
WARNING: Video contains graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised (Aleppo, April 11, 2013) -- The Syrian Air Force has repeatedly carried out indiscriminate, and in some cases deliberate, air strikes against civilians, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. These attacks are serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war), and people who commit such violations with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. The 75-page report, "Death from the Skies: Deliberate and Indiscriminate Air Strikes on Civilians," is based on visits to 50 sites of government air strikes in opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo, Idlib, and Latakia governorates, and more than 140 interviews with witnesses and victims. The air strikes Human Rights Watch documented killed at least 152 civilians. According to a network of local Syrian activists, air strikes have killed more than 4,300 civilians across Syria since July 2012. Courtesy Of: Human Rights Watch
In Egypt: 'Deep State' and Opposition Joined Forces To Plot Coup
The message: If the opposition could put enough protesters in the streets, the military would step in—and forcibly remove the president.
"It was a simple question the opposition put to the military," said Ahmed Samih, who is close to several opposition attendees. "Will you be with us again?" The military said it would. Others familiar with the meetings described them similarly.
By June 30, millions of Egyptians took to the streets, calling for Mr. Morsi to go. Three days later, the military unseated him.
Suggestions that Mr. Morsi's overthrow was planned in advance, as opposed to an emergency response, have implications for U.S. aid."If there was evidence this…was blatantly premeditated, then it would put more pressure to cut off aid on the [Obama] administration, which is currently trying to avoid having to label this a coup d'état," said Josh Stacher, a Kent State University political science professor and Egypt expert.
The meetings between the generals and opposition leaders also show the workings of what is known in Egypt as the "deep state"—an assortment of long-standing political and bureaucratic forces that wield tremendous influence. A military spokesman, Col. Ahmed Ali, acknowledged that "there was a process of getting to know people that previously the military had little dealings with."
The secret meetings between the military and secular opposition parties were key to the political chess game leading to Mr. Morsi's departure. The meetings represented a strange-bedfellows rapprochement between two groups long at odds: Egypt's opposition, and the remnants of the Mubarak regime. Their enmity dates to the 30-year dictatorship of Mr. Mubarak, which used its security services to quash the opposition.
Today, in a reversal, the opposition and Mubarak-era forces are united. They view Mr. Morsi and his Islamist ideology as a threat.
The meeting of minds between Mubarak-era powers and the secular opposition has coincided with a resurgence of bare-knuckle political tactics resembling Mubarak-era violence. In the days before Mr. Morsi's ouster, for instance, a wave of violence against Muslim Brotherhood offices bore similarities to violence on behalf of the Mubarak regime during previous elections in the Mubarak era.
Within Egypt they are viewed by many who witnessed the violence as efforts by Mubarak-era power brokers to push Mr. Morsi out using methods that once sustained Mubarak.
With Mr. Morsi out, Mubarak-era figures and institutions are gaining influence. The military chose a Mubarak-era judge as interim president. Other Mubarak-era judges are set to head efforts to draft a new constitution.
Egypt's opposition and Mubarak-era officials began to mend ties in November. Opposition parties united under the banner of Mr. ElBaradei's National Salvation Front.
Mubarak-era loyalists had long distrusted Mr. ElBaradei. But after Mr. Morsi's declaration, the ice thawed. Some influential Mubarak-era figures joined Mr. ElBaradei, including Hany Sarie Eldin, the lawyer for imprisoned steel magnate and Mubarak regime heavyweight Ahmed Ezz.
Mr. Eldin's joining "sent a message to powerful businessmen who were skeptical about the revolution and ElBaradei that they could trust him," said Rabab al-Mahdi, a political-science professor at American University of Cairo who is close to NSF leaders.
The two sides needed each other. Opposition parties had popular credibility, unlike Mubarak-era officials. Mubarak figures brought deep pockets and influence over the powerful state bureaucracy.
Some of these figures "are the ones who continue the methods of the so-called deep state," said Ms. Mahdi. "They are the ones who know who are the election thugs, how to hire them," she said. They know "which public-sector managers have the biggest networks of employees."
As Mr. Morsi's ouster neared, there were increasing meetings between the military and opposition. They included Mr. ElBaradei, former presidential candidate and Arab League chief Mr. Moussa, and another presidential candidate, Hamdeen Sabahy, according to Ms. Mahdi and Mr. Samih, both close to top NSF members.
Some meetings took place at the Navy Officers' Club, where the generals said that if enough Egyptians joined public protests, the military would have little choice but to intervene, according to several activists close to Mr. ElBaradei and U.S. officials. "The military's answer was, if enough people come out into the streets, then it will be exactly like Mubarak," Mr. Samih said.
Since Mr. Mubarak's ouster, Egypt's activists have proved woeful at grass roots organizing outside cities. But in late April a previously little-known group, Tamarod, separately launched a petition against Mr. Morsi.
Tamarod's effort took off. Its founders claim they gathered 22 million signatures in less than eight weeks. The numbers are impossible to verify, but were widely reported as fact by state and private media, two hotbeds of anti-Muslim Brotherhood zeal.
In the town of Zagazig, former Mubarak party lawmaker Lotfy Shehata said he rallied support for Tamarod using the same political networks that got him elected under Mr. Mubarak.
As agitation against the Muslim Brotherhood grew, the Brotherhood formally asked the Minister of Interior for protection of their offices nationwide. Gen. Mohammed Ibrahim, Minister of Interior, publicly declined.
Gen. Ibrahim faced pressure from powerful figures in the former Mubarak camp. On June 24, Ahmed Shafiq—the last prime minister appointed by Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Morsi's closest rival for president—said in a television interview that he warned the general to not show support for the Brotherhood.
"I told him…the coming days will not be on your side if you do, and these days will be very soon," Mr. Shafiq said on TV. "They will see black days," he said, referring to the Brotherhood.
Days later, Mr. Shafiq's warning materialized. Armed young men began ransacking Muslim Brotherhood offices nationwide.
In Zagazig, an hour north of Cairo, armed men showed up outside a Muslim Brotherhood office the night of June 27, according to neighbors and residents of the building housing the office. As they approached, the electricity went out, according to eyewitnesses not affiliated with the Brotherhood. Gunshots rang out, these witnesses said. Seven Muslim Brotherhood defenders were shot, one fatally.
The province's deputy governor, a Muslim Brotherhood member appointed by Mr. Morsi, called the police chief and ordered him to intervene to prevent violence, according to local Brotherhood leader Yasser Hag. Mr. Hag said the police chief said he couldn't help, citing the need to protect 7,000 antigovernment protesters elsewhere.
The police declined to comment. In an interview, Mr. Shehata, the former Mubarak party lawmaker in the area, said police couldn't respond because they were stretched thin protecting protesters. He said the youths were random mobs and would be arrested if caught.
Another building resident, Mohammed Nasser Ammar, who said he opposes the Muslim Brotherhood, said that as the youths laid siege through the night, he and his neighbors phoned the police many times. "Each time they would say that they are coming, but then they don't show up," he said. Other residents gave similar accounts.
Nationwide that evening and in the next few days, dozens of Brotherhood offices were hit.
Mr. Ammar noted the similarities to Mubarak-era political tactics on behalf of then-ruling-party candidates. "The thugs that used to come out then, and the events happening during that time, was pretty much the same to this time," he said.