More Sit-Ins Planned

The Interior Ministry, the government department in control of the police and a mainstay for Mubarak loyalists, has outlined its purported strategy for dismantling the two sit-ins, one in Nasr City next to Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque and the other in Nahda Square across from Cairo University. David Kirkpatrick has the story this morning, "Police Put Off Dispersal of Pro-Morsi Sit-Ins":

Interior Ministry officials said Sunday that they would move in slowly, gradually surrounding the sit-ins to cut off any shipments of food and water. The officials said they would eventually block any entrance but leave one exit open so that demonstrators could leave at will. 

After that, the ministry officials said, the police will gradually step up the use of nonlethal tactics, including tear gas and water cannons. But it was unclear whether the police intended to escalate their pressure over a matter of hours, days or weeks. 

How the police would handle resistance was another question, especially with both sides on edge after the recent deadly clashes. The demonstrators have already erected barricades and stored piles of rocks to throw at attackers. Birdshot pellets and homemade handguns have become increasingly common at Egyptian street protests, including among Islamists. 

Government officials have accused the Islamists of stockpiling weapons, although both sit-ins appear to be overwhelmingly peaceful. 

Brotherhood leaders said Sunday that their demonstrations would remain nonviolent even if the police moved in. Gehad el-Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, all but dared them to try. “If they try to disperse the sit-ins by force, we will just create a new sit-in, or multiple sit-ins,” he said. “It is the people who make the sit-ins, not the sit-ins that make the cause.”

With their reputation for organization, I'm sure the Muslim Brotherhood already has locations selected for multiple sit-ins. They appear to hold an advantage over the coup administration at this point. The fact that the crackdown has been called off up until now is proof of this. Strains in the coup administration are beginning to manifest themselves. Mohamed ElBaradei, the interim vice president and advocate of a "go-slow" approach on the sit-ins, has begun to be savaged in the coup press. According to Kirkpatrick,

Mr. ElBaradei is “dangerous to the people and the state,” a headline in a state-run newspaper recently declared. He is working for the Islamists to “thwart the revolution,” encouraging their “sabotaging” and destructive inclusion in politics, charged a columnist in the state-run newspaper Al Akhbar, laying out an attack still echoing through the privately owned news media as well. 

In a Twitter message on Sunday afternoon, he fired back at the news media attacks, calling them “desperate attempts to sustain tyranny.” He declined a request to comment.

Kirkpatrick reports that the Brotherhood is willing to sacrifice the Morsi presidency as long he is reinstated temporarily in order to swiftly transfer power, lending the whole sordid mess a look of legality.

It's highly unlikely this will be the outcome. On the one hand you have Saudi Arabia, Israel, U.A.E., and all they want is a return of Mubarakism. On the other hand, you have the United States and Europe, and they want some sort of accommodation with political Islam. The intelligence agencies of the West see that the Arab Spring has changed things irrevocably and that there's no going back.

Going forward, there will likely be an attempt to maintain the status quo. This means a gradual rather than a brutal crackdown on the two sit-ins, followed by a relocation of the sit-ins to another part of Cairo. The conflict will be kept simmering but all hell won't break loose. Of course, it goes without saying, there's always the possibility that all hell could break loose.

The Bloom is Off Egypt's Coup

There are wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Egypt. One could go on. The Congo, Myanmar, etc. There is even war at home with a national security apparatus spying on its citizens while a Republican Congress guts any program that benefits the working class. Everywhere there is war.

In Egypt the bloom is off the June 30 protests that led to the July 3 coup by the Egyptian military. Esam Al-Amin has a devastating article, "The Grand Scam: Spinning Egypt’s Military Coup," that appeared on the Counterpunch website over the weekend. In it he exposes the hypocrisy of liberals like ElBaradei and the active role played by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Mubarak loyalists. But what particularly grabbed my attention was the section devoted to the preposterous inflation of protester turnout on June 30, which, at least in the Western press, was gullibly reported as fact:

By June 30, every actor knew his part. By mid-afternoon Tamarrud announced that the number on the streets were over 10 million. Soon the number became 14 then 17 then 22 million. Eventually the media claimed that the June 30 demonstrations across Egypt were the biggest in the history of mankind with as many as 33 million people in the streets. Military planes flew in formations entertaining the crowds in the skies above Tahrir Square throwing Egyptian flags and bottled water, and drawing hearts as a show of love and affection to the demonstrators. The army even provided a military helicopter to Khalid Yousef, a famous movie director known for his support of the opposition and hostility to the MB. Yousef recorded the crowd and produced a film that was immediately shown not only in every anti-Morsi TV network across Egypt but also on state television. Within hours, every media outlet claimed that the numbers were in the tens of millions with people in Tahrir Square alone reaching between 5 and 8 million. On the day of the coup, fireworks, laser shows, and festivities were on full display.

As I have argued before there is no doubt that there was a huge public outcry and anger against Morsi and the MB. But were the numbers as high as claimed? In October 1995, hundreds of thousands descended on the National Mall in Washington D.C. for what was promoted as the Million Man March that filled the entire area. The organizers claimed to have reached one million while the DC Park Police estimated the crowd to be four hundred thousand. The area of the national mall is about 146 acres. Thus, there were between 2750 people (police estimate) to 6750 people per acre (organizers’ estimate). In other words, there were 0.7-1.7 people per square meter. 

In contrast, the area of Tahrir Square is 12.3 acres. As Amjad Almonzer, a communication engineer and a Google Earth Expert, conclusively proves: even if all side streets to Tahrir Square were included, the area would not exceed 25 acres. Even if four people were counted per square meter and dozens of surrounding buildings were removed, there would be no more than 400 thousand people on that day. If the 5-6 million number promoted by the proponents of the military coup were to be believed, it means that there were 50-60 people per square meter (5-6 per sq. ft.), clearly a physical impossibility. Even if one million were at every inch in Tahrir Square and all the surrounding streets, there would have to be 10 people per square meter, another impossibility. Even BBC eventually questioned these inflated numbers. 

So at best there were less than half a million people in Tahrir Square at the peak of the demonstration and there were probably an equal number across Egypt. Therefore, the will of the Egyptian electorate was sacrificed when one or two million people protested for a day or two.

Kareem Fahim reports today of 12 deaths from yesterday's street battles, the highest number since the July 8 massacre of Morsi supporters by security forces:

The latest fighting in Cairo was apparently set off by Mr. Morsi’s supporters, during a provocative march near the opposition stronghold in Tahrir Square. Other clashes were murkier, and on Tuesday, the Muslim Brotherhood accused the police of joining attacks on its supporters or providing cover for plainclothes thugs. At a news conference, medics displayed graphic pictures of victims with gunshot wounds. In a protest square near Cairo University for Mr. Morsi’s supporters, cars gutted by fire or with smashed windows marked the site of fighting that killed nine people. 

“We want security!” a sobbing man yelled to friends who tried to console him. A mother and her two children, carrying suitcases, made their way out of the square. 

The violence has peaked as Mr. Morsi’s supporters have intensified their protests with daily marches in cities around Egypt, to publicize what they call a “putsch” by the army. The marches also seem designed to create the kind of chaos that the Brotherhood accused Mr. Morsi’s opponents of fomenting to undermine his presidency.

The coup plotters hoped that the Muslim Brotherhood would fall into line and agree to participate in the elections outlined in the transition process set forth by interim president Adly Mansour. When they did not and peaceful protesters were gunned down while in prayer, the likely outcome pointed to civil war. Mass violence didn't immediately break out following the July 8 massacre of 54, but events have been moving steadily in that direction.

ElBaradei Apparently Not PM

Ben Hubbard is now reporting, "Signs of Disarray Emerge in Egyptian Generals’ Plan for Governance," that because a Salafi party, an important Islamist part of the anti-Muslim Brotherhood coalition, balked and withdrew from SCAF's transition plan, Mohamed ElBaradei is not prime minister, at least for now.

The other thing about last night's street battles between pro- and anti-Morsi fighters that I forgot to mention was the large number of guns and gunshot wounds, which is unusual because gun ownership is not a prevalent part of Egyptian culture (as it is here in the land of Yankee Doodle Dandy). This does not bode well for the possibility of nonviolent protest.

In Cairo, Street Fights Move to Hospital Wards

Reading Ben Hubbard's account of the aftermath of street battles last night in Cairo, it appears that Egypt is in for a long, grinding, violent conflict:

Dr. Abu Aisha said the hardest part was the continuation of street fights in the sprawling hospital’s wards. 

“There were dead and wounded from both sides, and they wanted to finish each other off, so they beat each other inside the hospital,” he said. “There is no agreement and everyone is sticking to their views and we can’t come up with a plan to move the country forward.”

In the surgery ward, Muhammad Ibrahim, 20, recalled seeing someone shot dead next to him and then watching his twin brother, Ahmed, collapse after being shot twice in the abdomen in a clash with pro-Morsi marchers. 

“We want there to be stability — not people getting shot every day,” Mr. Ibrahim said. “We’ll let anyone rule as long as there is stability.” 

He said both he and his brother had voted for Mr. Morsi, hoping that he would use Islam to improve life for Egyptians, but they had given up on him when life got worse for the general population. He reserved judgment on Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, leader of the armed forces, who described the military’s intervention into politics as a step toward healing the country. 

“We’ll see if he does anything good or if he’ll say he’s with the people and do nothing, like the others who came before,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

The quick installation of  ElBaradei as Prime Minister is proof that the SCAF is interested in currying favor with Obama. Franklin Lamb has a piece on the Counterpunch web site this weekend which tells of ElBaradei's good relations with the Obama administration and his energetic lobbying for Morsi's ouster; it also mentions that ElBaradei has pledged fealty to Israel. The Moon of Alabama blog thinks that ElBaradei is basically decent -- I tend to agree -- but that Egypt's problems are too numerous and too large, and that he will burn out in no more than two years. I think if ElBaradei is still around in two years then the SCAF will have successfully pulled off its coup. I think at this point that's looking overly optimistic.

We'll see what happens with the Muslim Brotherhood's sit-in in front of the Republican Guard officers' club in Nasr City. Morsi, it is believed, is being held there. If the military cracks down, then soon talk of peaceful resistance will give way to jihad, and the suicide bombers can't be far behind.