# Cutting off aid to Egypt is the law **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2013, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutting-off-aid-to-egypt-is-the-law/662825 "2013-07-06T23:52:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 72
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutting-off-aid-to-egypt-is-the-law/662825/72 "2013-07-12T01:58:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That would be interesting if the statute said that an Egyptian gets to decide if it was a coup or not. Besides, I’m shocked, SHOCKED that an Egyptian doesn’t want us to cut off aid to his country. I have no problem with an Egyptian saying it was not a coup. After all Egypt belongs to Egyptians. It can be called a revolt if they wish. I expect that Egyptians, having seen one year of the Muslim Brotherhood showcasing their version of running or governing a democratically elected regime, tens of millions voted again against them with their feet. Was this an early revolt to ‘save’ the young sapling of liberty for the Egyptian people? Who was it that said, " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. " The Egyptians figured out that theirs needed refreshing quite early in the process. I have read some interesting commentary in the European Press and one of them was about Mubarak’s former secrete police. They were a hundred thousand strong. They were mentioned with the need to take a look at how the alliances have been shifting since Mubarak was ousted. One writer observed that it looks like the former Mubarak Secret Service members seem to be allied and protecting the Secularists of seventeen million who took to the streets calling for Morsi to resign. So this go around there is an alliance against the theocratic Muslim Brotherhood made up of the secularists/ protestors/ rebels plus the perhaps 100,000 former Mubarak Secret Police and the Egyptian military. Think about it. Secularists have the toughest and most weapon laden groups on their side now. There may not be a civil war … and perhaps that is why the Muslim Brotherhood may have calmed down and figured out just what they are up against… and are now saying stuff like this: > [@](#): > > “We will continue our peaceful resistance to the bloody military coup against constitutional legitimacy,” the Brotherhood said. “We trust that the peaceful and popular will of the people shall triumph over force and oppression.” > A senior Brotherhood leader, Essam el-Erian, echoed the sentiment in comments published on the website of the Brotherhood’s political arm, the Freedom and Justice party. > “The people will restore their freedom and dignity through peaceful sit-ins in square, demonstrations and protests,” he was quoted as saying. “All Egyptians must stop dragging the country to violence and avoid falling into the vicious circle of violent and counter-violence.” [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202\_162-57593288/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-vows-peaceful-defiance/](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57593288/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-vows-peaceful-defiance/) And the writing about the Secret Police comes from this excerpt and link: [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/colinfreeman/100225749/revolution-in-egypt-are-cairos-secret-police-on-the-right-side-for-once/](http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/colinfreeman/100225749/revolution-in-egypt-are-cairos-secret-police-on-the-right-side-for-once/) > [@](#): > > For once, this is a conspiracy theory that appears to have some credence. The Amn al-Dawla, or State Security Investigations Service, was a hated organization during Mubarak’s time, a sign that Egypt, despite its tourist friendly image, was a police state in much the same mold as Syria or Iraq. > > Its 100,000 staff monitored every walk of Egyptian life, even organizations such as hospitals and universities, and to get on the wrong side of them politically was to have one’s card marked for life (or, in some cases, death). > > It was no surprise, therefore, when after Mr Mubarak’s fall in 2011, its headquarters were ransacked by crowds of angry demonstrators. Back then, anyone who even looked vaguely like a state-security man – burly, middle-aged, bad dress sense – could get surrounded by a mob and beaten up. > > But while state security lost its stranglehold of terror that time, and has been in something of a directionless flux ever since, no organization with 100,000 people in it just disappears completely. And crucially, its leaders did not form a warm relationship with the Egypt’s new Muslim Brotherhood masters when they swept to power in last year’s elections. > > From the Brotherhood’s point of view, state security had beaten up and tortured far too many Brotherhood followers to ever be trusted to any real degree. And from state security’s point of view, far too many Brotherhood types had pasts as violent militants, who had no business being anywhere near the reins of power. > > Hence the sight of plain clothes men mingling in recent weeks with the crowds of anti-government protesters, this time with a view to protecting them rather than singling out people to cart away for questioning. So is there a genuine change of heart, or is it just a good instinct for self-preservation? I still like the odds for the secularists - the military - and the 100,000 strong former Mubarak tough guys - and many forward looking religious conservatives coming together to hold the Muslim Brotherhood’s itch for Iranian style Theocracy in check. I’d call what happened to Morsi was a smack down or to paraphrase Jefferson.. it was a good bit of ‘refreshing the tree of liberty’ when it had to. Call it a coup D’état if you like. It doesn’t matter within a deeper perspective. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutting-off-aid-to-egypt-is-the-law/662825)._