Why Did Egypt's Train Depart, With the Brotherhood Still Standing on the Platform?

Because the Brotherhood were standing on a false platform.

Because the great majority of the passengers saw in the Brotherhood a clear and present danger.  Boarding that train would have meant inclusiveness.  Well!!  The Brotherhood wished to travel alone.  Their "Guidance Bureau" decreed that.

Because the train did not segregate men from women; veiled women from the unveiled; lots of Copts and some Shiis exercised their right to board; and the train had changed its course, from going east towards Hamas, to going west in a grand opening towards a broader and more interactive world.

Yet, even when abandoned by themselves on that empty platform, the Brotherhood still nurtures the dream that the passengers will rebel.  Their dream is based on their assumed right to have the train turn back to have them board.  Thus their spokesman, like Ahmed Darrag, addresses over the BBC airwaves on May 11, 2015, these fancy hopes of return.  He claims that:

• We are more popular inside Egypt than El-Sisi;
• The "deep State" of Mubarak and the Armed Forces engineered our ouster;
• Our ouster did not come about through the will of the people;
• Fuel was made scarce through conspiracy;
• We are but a broad "social movement," not a political organization;
• Morsi's mandate was cut short, and should be allowed to resume;
• We have been around for 80 years and we are everywhere in the Arab and Muslim worlds;
• We stand for democracy.  But shall not take part in any parliamentary elections;
• Democracy is not "elections" only; and
• We committed no mistakes while governing Egypt.

A total farce.  An enveloping self-delusion.  Typical Brotherhood contradictions.  No need to rebut every argument advanced by Darrag, even if you dignify all his points above as "arguments."  However an overall rebuttal is called for.

Even after two years of being thrown out of governance, the Brotherhood remains unrepentant.  They don't believe in admitting errors -grave national errors:

• Looking upon Egypt only as a launching pad for islamization;
• Egypt is only a province within a vast Muslim Nation (Ummah);
• Having their "Guidance Bureau" as a super-sovereign decision-maker, with Morsi as a junior partner;
• Engineering the election of a President before the promulgation of a Constitution;
• Rail-roading that Islamic Constitution of 2013 through Egyptian polity.  That is after chasing out Copts, women, and secularists from the Constituent Assembly;
• Having Morsi declare that he was above the law one month prior to the plebiscite on the Islamic Constitution;
• Attempting to create a militia and a Brotherhood Presidential Guard to parallel these iconic State institutions, a la Iran;
• Harassing the judiciary and downgrading Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church; and
• Opening the Sinai gateways for Hamas and its war on Israel.

In spite of all these Brotherhood calamities, they looked upon the Second Egyptian Revolution of June 30, 2013 as a rebellion against their "law and order."  And termed their non-responsiveness to peaceful political re-integration, through appeals by El-Sisi from June 30 to July 3, 2013, as a sacred right to exclusive governance.  Then launched bloody sit-ins at Rabaa and Al-Nahda squares in Cairo as "a peaceful exercise of the right to dissent."

After 6 full weeks of refusal to peacefully disperse from their declared "Rabaa and Al-Nahda Emirates," their obstructionism and criminal actions of murder and hostage-taking necessitated State action.  Hundreds were killed, including some State security elements.  So now self-victimization became a battle cry -a cry that openly invited foreign intervention and foreign funding.

No, Mr. Darrag!!  Your arguments are vacuous; your Valhallas (mythical palaces in which so-called slain heroes are thought to feast) are pure fantasies; and your inattention to God's words is patently manifest.  Especially when it comes to your non-recognition of your mistakes about which the Brotherhood remains unrepentant.  The Quran says: "But as for the one who repents and believes, and does righteous deeds, he may be one of the prosperous." (Chapter 28, Verse 67).

You and the rest of your Brothers are waiting in vain for the Egyptian train, standing alone on a non-promising platform.  Your station has been re-named "Terrorville!!"

I now have an admission.  For a long time, I thought that the Brotherhood was always at its best when they lied.  To them lying has been an industry.  And it comes in various forms.  From suppression of the truth, to the invention of facts.  From evading to answer directly, to reinterpretation of what you or they have said.

Where was I wrong about giving the Brotherhood the Devil's World Prize for Lying?  When they last week surpassed their lying metrics with reports claiming to be secret recordings.  Done of conversations among senior Egyptian army commanders.  These were reported in The New York Times of May 13, by David Kirkpatrick, known for his bias toward the Brothers.  You read those so-called "unflattering leaks" about the upper echelons of the mighty Egyptian armed forces.  Then you say: "Wow!! How stupid!!  I thought the Brothers were much better liars than that!!"  Why?

The reports on the supposed leaks are the product of an interested party.  The lawyers representing the political party of ousted President Morsi.  They are supposed to be "evidence in a criminal case in Britain."  Against whom, and what is the basis of action?  Against the alleged illegality of ousting Morsi, and "the take-over's leaders (being charged) with torture and other human rights violations."

Now let us first stick to the underlying issues.  That is before coming to the great vista of the Brotherhood specialization in not honoring facts.  Those lawyers instituting that frivolous case must be dumb.  Sovereign political issues are not justifiable.  The principle of universal jurisdiction does not apply.  Evidence based on unauthorized recording is inadmissible for its being hearsay.  Also the plaintiffs (the Brotherhood's lawyers) must prove either legal representation of their clients, or prove that they were directly injured (tortured).  Even if they prove appropriate lawyer/client relationship, the client (the Brotherhood) has been declared a terrorist organization by sovereign authorities.  Open rebellion against Egypt's security forces on August 14, 2013 vitiates any claims against those forces and/or their commanders.  There is no subsidiarity in the relationships between the Egyptian judiciary, a party aggrieved by the Brotherhood, and any non-Egyptian court system.

Should I say more about what a "loser case" this is?  Oh, yes!!  Who are the presumed defendants in that Brotherhood case which is forum-shopping in London?  The reports say "the take-over leaders!!"  

But El-Sisi was never "a take-over" leader.  His actions from June 30 to July 3, 2013 were prompted by 35 million Egyptians rising in a massive human wave in a second revolution against the Brotherhood's take-over of Egypt's identity.  He, in that regard, was a go-between between an Egypt angered by the brotherhoodization of their country and Morsi.  Morsi had  refused for 3 days a consensual solution -an exit from a civil war.  That refusal transformed El-Sisi's role, as Defense Minister, into an actor for protecting the country from a lurch into Civil War.  El-Sisi did not seek that role.  The Brotherhood's obducracy imposed on the Armed Forces the duty to act.

Turning now to whatever substance there might be in those presumed leaks.  I see in them Brotherhood's desperate attempts to tarnish the legitimate El-Sisi administration.  But even if those recordings were authentic, their value seems to serve the present Egyptian administration.  For banter is a common sport in international relationships.  None of that banter amounted to serving personal needs, nor is it any indication of selling Egypt short.

On the other hand, miles of such tapes can never amount to Brotherhood's callous underestimation of Egypt.  The Brotherhood's former Supreme Guide openly said "To Hell with Egypt" (Toz Fi Masr)!!  And the Brotherhood's agent, Morsi, allowed a participant in one of his conferences in November 2012 to call for war on Ethiopia in order to keep alive an outdated treaty on Nile water allocation.  These were not secret recordings of doubtful authenticity.  The whole world heard them.

By comparison, El-Sisi's greeting is "Tahia Masr" (Long Live Egypt).  Then he, as the present leader of "a strong Egypt," went to Ethiopia earlier this year.  Starting a participatory Pax Nilotica between Addis, Khartoum and Cairo.

Well said, Mr. Michael Morell, the author of the recently published book "The Great War of Our Time."  In an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS (Public Broadcasting System) on May 12, 2015, he was asked a question about Egypt.  His answer was clear, short and illuminating.  "Morsi was taking Egypt to ruins.  El-Sisi's Egypt looks good for the future."

To me, Morell is more believable than Morsi and his hordes.  Morell was Deputy Director of the CIA under both Bush II and Obama.  His task for decades was to be the first person every morning to have the ear of two presidents.  Briefing them on facts and analysis relating to the state of the world.

Mike Morell, 53 years old, is still in play as possibly returning to the White House in 2016.  That is regardless of who wins.  The value of truth in reporting.  Hardly to be found within the ranks of the Brotherhood.