07/24/12 – Adam Morrow – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
ScottHorton.org is where I keep all the archives, 2,500 interviews going back to 2003 that verify that I am always right about everything.
You can tell by the questions I ask, really.
It's all just the interview archives there, but still.
Anyway, ScottHorton.org.
Now we turn to another reporter from Interpress Service, IPSnews.net.
What a great organization that thing is.
Where would the world be without Jim Loeb and his great Interpress Service organization?
What worse place?
Certainly we would be missing out on a lot of great journalism, regularly churned out there.
It's Adam Morrow, reporting live from Cairo, Egypt.
Welcome back, Adam.
How are you?
I'm good, Scott.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
I appreciate you joining us today.
I guess it's tonight over there.
My pleasure.
We also just started the month of Ramadan, the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan here.
We're on the fifth day of that.
Oh, there you go.
So I guess that's sort of the center of everything.
That's right.
All right.
So now there's a couple of big news stories out of Egypt.
One of them is that, I think it's just an announcement so far, I don't know if there's been any follow through, that anybody who's being held by the military under the old emergency law is to be released.
I probably overstated that somehow.
I hope maybe you can help clarify.
And then also, is it true that they are opening, maybe you can tell us to what degree, how far they've gotten, whether it's true or not, that they are lifting basically the Egyptian side of the Gaza siege and opening the Rafah border crossing there?
Sure.
As for the first question, Egypt's new president, Mohamed Morsi, announced, I think about a week ago, or maybe less, maybe about five days ago, announced that I think it was something like 570 civilians that were being held by military courts would be released en masse.
And that was a presidential decree that has been implemented.
So that's quite a major development.
That's a sort of tangible, that's one of the first tangible things that the president has actually done.
That's been a longstanding demand of the revolutionaries from across the political spectrum, was an end to the longstanding Mubarak era practice of trying civilians in military courts.
So you have roughly, I think you have estimates of about 12,000 people, 12,000 civilians have been arrested since last year's Tahrir Square uprising, and several thousand of whom are still detained.
And like I said a couple days ago, the president announced this Ramadan amnesty, and something like 570 will be or already have been released.
So that's something quite positive that's come out in recent days.
Now is there any worry around that these guys are going to be a bunch of terrorists and crazies and pick fights and start some civil war or something, or is everyone pretty well convinced that if it took the military to try them, they must not have done anything?
That's pretty much the way I look at American military prisoners, for example.
Sure.
Well, what the president did was, I think about two weeks ago, he established a committee that was specifically mandated with looking into the cases of all of these people, of all of these civilians that were still detained in military courts, to basically determine which of them were possibly criminal elements that had actually faced some kind of criminal charges, and which of them were just simply political activists and demonstrators who happened to be out participating in a demonstration when they were arrested.
So I think it's pretty safe to assume that these 500 or 600 or so people that have been released were just your average political activists, young guys participating in recent demonstrations.
Yeah.
Well, that's great news.
Yeah, go ahead.
Oh, yes, it's great news, and everybody's hoping that more and more will be released.
So let me ask you this.
Does that mean that the average people, the regular citizens of Egypt now really believe that really is an end to the emergency law, the era of the, sorry, the military's got your cousin and they'll give him back if and when they feel like it is really over?
I don't think we can say that can be said with 100% certainty.
People are still very skeptical about a lot of things.
As you know, the military council still has considerable political control here.
But if nothing left, it's certainly a very, very good indication of the president's position on this thing and what we can expect in the future.
And there is a lot of pressure on him.
There is still a lot of pressure from, like I said, from across the political spectrum to release all of these people and to put a final end to this practice of bringing civilians before military courts.
You know, if you want to try a civilian, you put them before a civil court.
So again, it's a very good sign.
It's a very positive sign.
Okay, and now tell us about RAFA, because at least the headline's exciting.
I wonder about the reality.
Right, sure.
The last movement on the RAFA border was last year, if you remember.
We spoke about it at the time.
It was about a year.
It was maybe April of last year when they eased conditions slightly at the RAFA border and they started letting passengers in.
It remained closed to commercial traffic.
But they started to allow a set number of Gazans come in.
I think it was like they put a cap on it.
I think it was 500 a day were allowed to pass through.
And there were still several restrictions still applied.
But things were eased slightly.
Like I said, that was a year ago in April.
And now, recently, we've had the first sort of major change.
We've had the first sort of major change to the status quo just coming out in the last couple of days where apparently restrictions will be eased further.
And I think Gazans will be allowed into Egypt without having to obtain an Egyptian visa beforehand, which is something.
There was also talk that regulations were being changed at the Cairo International Airport to allow Palestinians to fly in, which also represents a change.
I also read a report recently, however, that somebody spoke to someone at the airport and an airport source said that no official orders had actually come out in that regard.
So it's still a little open to question.
We're not exactly sure what exactly has changed in terms of regulation.
That's something that people are still looking into and trying to figure exactly what has changed technically.
But it's such a sensitive subject, as you know.
And I'm sure the president is doing this with the full understanding that he's being closely watched by the U.S. and Israel, and there will probably be ramifications on, you know, there'll be consequences to any kind of decision like that.
So it's extremely sensitive.
The last time a bunch of weapons went across that border into Gaza for Hamas to get, it was, and I think we've talked about this on the show too, Adam, it was the Egyptians working with the Israelis and the Americans to do so, to try to arm up Fatah, and it backfired, and instead of having to form a coalition government with the PLA, the Hamas guys ended up winning outright and taking over the entire thing.
Yeah, so that was pre-2007 you're talking about.
Yeah, but of course the point being, I'm sorry to just, you know, crack a joke at Israel's expense, I like to, but the point being that there's no doubt, is there?
That the Egyptian military can keep arms out of that border crossing or at least do a real good job of it, even while keeping the border open for other trade.
I mean, come on.
Oh, definitely, definitely, absolutely.
They want to pretend that they have to blockade every little thing and that anybody wants to sell a box of salt or anything else to the people of Gaza, they have to give it to Israel to deliver first and all of this kind of thing, in order to keep weapons out.
That's the theory that they sell.
Oh, absolutely.
And yet there's just no reason to believe in it.
Oh yeah, no, this is typical Israel, this sort of constant talk about the existential threat, the threat to their existence, that if you even open up the Rafah border slightly, tons of arms from Iran are going to immediately flow into Hamas from Iran and all of that sort of thing.
It's vastly, vastly overstated.
These people are in desperate need of humanitarian supplies, as you know.
I mean, that's the main issue.
But of course, Israel plays this weapons card with devastating effect.
But yeah, the weapons thing isn't really an issue.
I mean, this is humanitarian supplies.
This is building supplies.
They still haven't rebuilt their basic infrastructure since the war in 2007-2008.
Well, and basic trade, too.
Not just donations and things, but opening up that trade.
The economy of the Gaza Strip is just in a stranglehold.
You just loosen that grip a little bit, and their economy would grow by probably double digits in a year, if they could really open up trade there.
But I'm sorry, hold it there, Adam.
We've got to go out to this break.
It's Adam Morrow, IPSnews.net.
All right, y'all, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton, ScottHorton.org.
Still running the phone drive there.
If you can help out, please do.
That way we can continue to talk to Adam Morrow in Cairo, for example.
He's a reporter for Interpress Service, and right now we're talking about some of the changes since the Muslim Brotherhood candidate was elected president there.
I guess the military thought better of canceling the results of the election and putting the old regimist in and thought that might backfire.
I'm sure they were right about that.
So now we see, I don't know.
There's, of course, always speculation in my head, and I'm not sure who else is speculating or writing about this.
I should be watching more closely, but I always basically suspect that any faction coming to power overseas has already made a secret agreement with the Americans that we'll do this and that for you if only you don't kill us, which is the standing threat.
You know what I mean?
And, of course, there's a history of the Muslim Brotherhood and the CIA going back.
So I don't know whether this guy's really friendly with Hillary Clinton or not, or what's the real story there, and I guess I want you to talk about that.
But first, please finish up about what you were saying about Gaza.
What's the real extent of the change, or what does it look like so far, at least, with the opening up of the Egypt side of the Gaza blockade?
Well, it looks like regulations have been changed slightly to ease the blockade on the average sort of Palestinians who need, for example, medical treatment in Egypt, college students who are studying abroad.
Things have become easier for them to cross both the Rafah border, and it sounds like possibly in Cairo International Airport as well.
However, that being said, it still remains until now, it is not a commercial crossing.
Like you were saying earlier, you were talking on an economic level.
Commercial trade is still not possible across the border as of now.
I mean, it's still very early days.
The new president has only been in office for, what, two weeks or something like that.
So this just looks like a tentative first step towards the complete lifting of the siege from the Egyptian side.
There have been statements emanating from Hamas.
I know Khaled Meshal said recently, who is Hamas's political chief, said recently that, I think the quote was something like, we're expecting good things from Egypt's new president.
We've been told that we're to expect a pleasant surprise of some kind, which would lead observers to believe that more of such changes will be coming in the short to medium term.
I just wanted to say also about the, in terms of the commercial nature of the border.
If you talk to a lot of these people in Gaza, what they'll tell you is, while they appreciate a lot of these donations that are coming in internationally, both from the Arab world and from the West, you know, you have a steady stream of these aid convoys.
They appreciate it very much, but what they say is, we don't really need donations.
We want to open the border up to trade.
We want to buy stuff.
We have, you know, we do have money and we would like to buy.
We want to enter into an economic commercial relationship with Egypt.
You know, it's not just about aid convoys managing to slip in every now and then to give them, you know, handouts.
You know, they are very keen to open the border to total commercial trade, which would be also, which would be highly beneficial to Egypt as well, because as you know, I mean, the border crossing opens onto the Egypt Sinai Peninsula, which has been long, long neglected in terms of economic development.
That was one of the chief complaints about Mubarak, is that he neglected development of the Sinai Peninsula.
So if you were to open that border to total trade, it would also have the effect of encouraging local industry and commerce in the Sinai Peninsula as well, which is something that most Egyptians from that area, I suspect, would welcome.
Well, and of course, yeah, the people of the Gaza Strip desperately need, you know, probably just the ability to cross the border for a couple of days and just get out from under an Israeli drone for a minute.
I could see how that would drive a man mad, you know.
Give me two days of R&R across the border, you know.
Definitely, definitely.
This is another thing that doesn't get much press are the constant drone flights, you know, these constant or, you know, the breaking of the, what is it called, the, you know, the sound barrier by Israeli fighter jets and that sort of thing is a regular practice.
It's sort of a low-intensity psychological war on the population there.
And if you talk to just the average people from the Gaza Strip, we'll say, you know, talk about how these things have taken a toll on their children's psychology and their kids can't sleep at night and their, you know, because of this constant low-level sort of, you know, psychological warfare, you know, these constant threats of another possible attack on the Gaza Strip, which have kept everybody in a state of incredible, you know, incredible fear and anxiety for the last couple of years.
So this is another thing that often goes unreported.
But, yeah, I'm sure most of them would love a couple days respite from that sort of environment.
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's a very 21st century form of warfare going on there, I guess.
And I always try to remind people of this Washington Post piece about it and just, you know, Gaza drones and Washington Post is probably keyword enough for people to find it on the first page of results there, where the whole first half of the article is how poor Israel has to do this.
But once you get past that and they talk about what life is really like in Gaza with the constant buzz of a drone in the sky that may or may not kill you for reasons that you cannot know from people sitting far away.
Wow, that's a very particular, very interesting kind of slavery.
If you go to the Egyptian side of Rafa in the Sinai, you can hear them and see them, you know, regularly.
You can hear the sound, they call them zanana, flying around above the skies of Gaza.
Yeah, that's America's future too.
I've read, I mean, I don't know if this is 100% confirmed, but I read that American law enforcement is increasingly relying on drones to police borders and stuff like that.
It's a race to see who can get the most first.
Oh yeah, they all love it.
In fact, the Austin police where this show is in Austin, Texas, they were the first ones to use a drone on a drug bust.
Well, the guy lives on a hill, don't you know?
He could do something to us.
We had to fly our drone up there first to check it out.
That's the first one and the precedent set.
Anyway, so yeah, America becomes occupied Gaza.
Right.
Anyway, so back to Egypt though.
So tell me about this guy, Morsi, and do people believe in him?
Do they think that, you know, I saw where some liberal socialist type protesters were accusing Hillary Clinton and the CIA of backing the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now, just because they say that doesn't mean it's true.
But then again, the CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood have a real history going back, as you can read in the book Devil's Game by Robert Dreyfuss, and I don't know if anybody really knows what the hell is going on and who's whom and who on that level, but I wonder what you think about it.
Sure, sure.
Nobody can really know because, I mean, I certainly don't have access to the highest echelons of the Muslim Brotherhood and what they're saying to the Americans behind closed doors.
However, that being said, I found these accusations by these sort of liberal secularist revolutionaries, I found it to be ridiculous.
I mean, these are people that, they protested, there was a protest when Hillary Clinton came to Cairo last week, and they were protesting her presence basically on the assumption that a secret deal had been struck between the United States and the Brotherhood, and that they had somehow been betrayed, and their revolution had somehow been betrayed by America, and America was secretly allowing the Muslim Brotherhood to take over.
Now, in the absence of any proof, I mean, I can't give this story any credence.
There's been no evidence of any such deal.
We all know that traditionally, I mean, America kept Mubarak in power for 30 years.
We know that.
Everybody knows that.
While the Brotherhood here was persecuted terribly and marginalized, and so this idea that somehow America would be happy to see the Brotherhood take over Egypt just does not make any sense.
And until any evidence to the contrary is produced, I give the whole idea very little credence.
On the other hand, though, now Hillary Clinton has one job, which is keep Egypt in our camp somehow, which means that even if it's a really, as legitimate as it needed to be anyway, democratic process that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power, and they really aren't in America's camp, she's got to bribe and threaten them into saying, Okay, lady, we don't want no trouble with you.
We'll take your money and we won't cross your lines, or else they got trouble, for real.
You know how America is.
We'll bomb the hell out of that place.
Right, right.
Well, my take on it is that basically...
Sanction them or something.
Sure, sure.
Well, the Brotherhood, as we've said before, has a history of pragmatism.
It's waited, it's shown incredible patience in terms of its political history.
It waited 80 years before it managed to finally assume power.
I mean, 80 years in opposition, facing incredible persecution, and now it sort of finally has its chance now.
My take on it is that they're basically not going to do anything, when their situation is still so precarious on a domestic level.
They are certainly not going to do anything to rock the boat on the international level.
I basically think, what I believe is, and Camp David is sort of the perfect, you know, is the sort of quintessential issue that all of this sort of hangs on.
And I think what their sort of mid- to long-term game with the Camp David thing is, they have consistently, even before the presidential elections, even before parliamentary elections, shortly after the revolution last year, they have consistently stressed that we will respect all international treaties and obligations, you know, in an obvious reference to Camp David.
Now, what their mantra, the mantra that they repeat about this, as we're seeing with increasing frequency, is that we will respect all treaties and obligations as long as the other side does the same, as long as the other side also abides by the terms of whatever treaty and obligation, you know, the treaty in question.
So what I think they're planning on doing, basically, is paying lip service to this treaty, paying lip service to the U.S., saying, look, we're not going to rock the boat, we're going to respect all of our obligations, da-da-da-da-da-da, while basically focusing on the domestic scene and basically focusing on what they're calling their renaissance project, their Egyptian renaissance project, which is to basically get Egypt up and running again after 30 years of incredible, you know, incredible corruption and neglect on the part of the Mubarak regime.
So I think they're going to, for at least the next five years or so, they're going to focus on getting Egypt back up and running again economically, they're going to try to get its tourism sector back running after a year and a half of very low performance.
They're going to try and, you know, they're going to tackle chronic economic problems like the incredible unemployment problem that's been here.
They're going to focus on these things, you know, their education sector, their public health, public services, this sort of thing.
This is going to be their main focus.
And when they feel that Egypt is on its feet, when they feel that, you know, when they sort of have confidence, when Egypt sort of becomes a player again and has a bit of gravitas, you know, has managed to regain some of the power that it used to wield, I think then, only then, will they start to challenge some of these international treaties, by which I mean Camp David, at which point they will say, look, you know, we've always said that we would respect these treaties and obligations as long as the other side respected it.
And it's very easy.
They won't have to wait too long until Israel itself, you know, violates the treaty in some capacity.
If you remember last year, Israel flew a couple of gunships across the border, killed five or six Egyptian military personnel, and then flew back again.
And there was never any, with total impunity, there was never any sort of reaction.
There was never any sort of legal follow-up.
There was never sort of anything.
And that was a clear, even though the Israelis said at the time that they were pursuing Palestinian militants, this still represents a clear, clear, clear breach of the Camp David Agreement.
You couldn't really come up with a more flagrant breach of the treaty.
So I think they're just going to wait until the time is right, be it two years from now, be it five years from now, who knows, maybe ten years from now, at which point they're going to say, okay, look, you just broke the treaty yourselves.
So we no longer respect it.
And in fact, we're going to put the whole thing up to a popular referendum.
So I think they're biding their time and they're being incredibly gradualist.
And we can't forget that, I mean, this change has only been, we've only had a new president, like I said, for like ten days now or 15 days now or something like that.
It is still very, very, very early days.
And they're not going to do anything radical, again, when their position domestically still isn't secure.
They're going to spend a long time consolidating their domestic position before they go out on a limb and start to challenge something like the Camp David Peace Agreement.
All right, well, we'll have to leave it there.
We're way over time here, Adam, but I really appreciate your time on the show today.
My pleasure.
Great talking to you.
All right, everybody, that is Adam Morrow, Interpress Service.
That's IPSnews.net, writing from Cairo, Egypt.