Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio and this just broke right before we Right after we went on the air with our previous guest Greg Gordon The US government is accusing the Iranian government of being behind a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador and according to the crawl on CNN international this was to be the first of a series of attacks and And all I'm here to tell you is that everything the government says is a bunch of lies and there's no reason to believe this And just compare it against what you know about Iran having no ability to wage any conventional war in North America Whatsoever get a single one of their boats anywhere near our coast and they know for a fact that our Navy can sit off of Their coast indefinitely and bomb them even with nukes if we feel like it off the face of the earth The idea that they would try to start a war with us like this right now is preposterous Don't you believe it for a second?
I?
Mean could be true.
I'm just saying don't give them the benefit of the doubt at all They're liars and murderers and this has already been proven to be true right in front of your eyes over and over again All right now to our next guest It's the great Adam Morrow from interpress service IPS news.net welcome back to the show Adam.
How are you doing?
Thanks, God.
I'm doing okay.
How are you?
I'm doing great appreciate you joining us today Everybody as you may know Adam writes from Cairo Egypt where there's been a lot of bloodshed and Attacks by you tell me who against a bunch of Coptic Christians at a demonstration over the weekend Yeah, well the situation is getting really really confusing The the entire the whole at a whole nine month aftermath the Egyptian Revolution things have just things have just become Increasingly confused people have become increasingly divided So situations are becoming harder and harder to read The latest incident to understand the latest incident you have to go back about ten days to when?
You had an incident in Upper Egypt in the government of Aswan where local Christian local Coptic Christians apparently were attempting to convert a church or attempting to convert a a Building of some kind into a church either with a license or without a license We still the verdict is still out on whether or not they had an official license from the government to convert this building into a church and basically you had local Muslim residents basically objecting to the building of this church and and eventually Knocking down some additions to this building that had been that had been made to this church and this caused uproar in the Coptic community and Basically resulted in a big a big protest march in Cairo on Sunday And that protest march basically the upshot was that that protest march was was was apparently fired upon by the rule by the ruling military by the by the armed forces Which now control the which have controlled the government since Mubarak's ouster in in February Now details of exactly what happened.
However remain extremely ambiguous and I still have not been able to determine who exactly was responsible for triggering the violence There's there are basically three trains of thought there's there's one There's one, you know But the Christians are basically saying that they were they were just staging an entirely peaceful march when they were brutally shot upon by By this by soldiers And there's a second line of thought but basically a second theory in which and and with eyewitnesses also to testify to it Basically saying that but there were there were armed elements within the protest who had started the violence and had had fired on On army personnel and and therefore were fired back at And then there's a third.
There's a third line of thought as well that basically says that that strange elements that weren't from either side basically Managed to infiltrate the the march and basically got the two sides to shoot at one another What exactly the truth is is is still?it's still Open to question things are emotions are running extremely high here and people are doing a lot There's been a lot of fiery rhetoric from both sides.
People are saying things in anger without fully understanding the facts So it's it's The situation has gotten a little bit choppy here But we do know that at least 25 people were killed on Sunday night though and hundreds were injured in the melee all right, well fill me in on the tradition here because there are how many what millions of Coptic Christians in Egypt and Typically everybody gets along more or less.
Okay, right?
Well, yeah, this is this is a very interesting thing You've basically got a population of roughly 80 million some an estimated 10% of which are Christian There aren't exact figures because under the the former regime of Hosni Mubarak sort of like to keep things ambiguous I think it worked in their favor to not ever actually know exactly how many Christians there were But there until now nobody nobody nobody knows that for the precise numbers But they're estimated at 10% of the population now that 10% of the population Has traditionally lived with the Muslim majority in peace for More than a thousand years It was only until about 10 or 15 years ago that you started to see these sectarian incidents sectarian flare-ups mostly in Upper Egypt they would often involve Church building or unlicensed church building or sometimes they were just they just had to do with with feuds between rival families But one family just happened to be Muslim and one family just happened to be Christian over land.
For example, that would that would Eventually take on a sectarian flavor, even though the original problem might have been a non a non sectarian issue now Episodes like that would occur maybe once every five years That was like where I'm talking now 80s 90s Now within the last 10 years the the tempo of these sort of sectarian conflicts conflicts has accelerated to the point where Over the last decade you had something happening about once a year You would have some kind of serious incident again, usually in Upper Egypt, but not necessarily sometimes in Alexandria sometimes in Cairo so the last 10 years of the Mubarak regime basically saw a Speed speed up in the tempo of these sectarian problems And that basically culminated in the bombing of a church.
I'm sure you remember this It was only January of this year.
It seems like longer ago considering everything that happened but it was only in January of this year of New Year's New Year's Day actually when a church in Alexandria was bombed and Muslims were blamed and it caused a huge huge hue and cry here at the time Well, and everybody thought at the time that Mubarak did it right?
Well, well, what was interesting?
Nobody nobody really suggested that at least in the mainstream.
Nobody suggested that when it happened but what happened was only it was only weeks after that that the revolution broke out and During the revolution you had all different sorts of sort of sorts of crazy things happening You know, you know You had these top-secret government documents that were coming to light you had you had police stations being stormed You had the Interior Ministry offices were being stormed and you know these documents were falling into the hands of people and One of the things one of the interesting bits of information to have emerged during that whole 18-day period was apparently there were two people Two people who had worked for the Interior Ministry who sought refuge at a foreign embassy and basically they told the story that they had been that they had been a part of the bombing that they had been that they had somehow been involved in the bombing and And that it was in fact an Interior Ministry led operation With now if that's true, and this is with as usual This is one of these incredibly interesting tantalizing stories that just sort of falls off the radar screen, you know Given everything else that's happened, especially in the Middle East and in Egypt in the last nine months It's one of these things that was never adequately investigated and there was never real any real follow-up I'd actually like to I'd like to look into it a little bit more because if it was proven If what these guys said was true Then it would indicate that there was definitely there was an official policy on the part of the former regime to instigate sectarian sectarian strife And their their motives would be clear if that was the case they would their their motives would be clear because basically they would be allowed to that would allow give them the justification for Clamping down on the citizenry with these emergency laws and all of these draconian measures that they had You know Egypt has been under an emergency law for 30 years the entire duration of the Mubarak regime And this this basically would give them an excuse they could then tell their foreign critics They could then tell human rights organizations and things like this If we remove the emergency law, we're gonna have a situation where Muslims are going to attack Christians and all hell is gonna break loose.
Basically if we if we ease up All right now all right there Adam.
We got to go out to this break It's Adam Morrow live on the phone from Cairo Egypt talking about the state of the revolution.
Of course, we all remember cops and Muslims protecting each other and protesting together in Tahir Square just a few months ago exactly right a lot more along these lines We get back without a more right after this every All right, y'all welcome back to the show it's anti-war radio I'm Scott Horton and I'm on the line with Adam Morrow from interpress service.
That's IPS news net he's in Cairo Egypt reporting on the state of the revolution and now Adam I'll tell you I I don't know man.
I'm pessimistic about this thing It seems like the elections were supposed to be a month ago.
The Military Council rules the place my imagination if not journalism informs me that CIA and Joint Special Operations Command guys are running wild all over Egypt by the thousands Manipulating events as much as they can and maintaining their dominance over the Military Council that now rules the country again under those emergency laws At Panetta's insistence they were Reimplemented I think just a few weeks ago and it seems to me like the revolution is lost.
Talk me out of it Please well, yeah, you know, I I sort of I I would agree with what you said for the most part I don't think this this ruling Military Council is independent in the sense that it's actually making its own decisions Or in the sense that it has the best interest of the Egyptian public at heart I think that it was the way it came into power if you'll recall In midway through the 18-day uprising when police were actually in the early days when police were withdrawn from From the streets of they were withdrawn nationwide Actually, they pulled out they pulled out that the hated police forces and they deployed the military in in in the streets of Egypt cities And if you remember that point, it was it was you you had this very dramatic and very very moving displays of Protesters hugging and Embracing these these soldiers on the tops of tanks and it was the the idea was that the army was coming in basically to save the public from From the police you had this good cop bad cop situation where the police were very bad and the army's army guys were You know, we're seen as like I said, we're seen as protecting the revolution And and and the public basically gave them a mandate they received a mandate from the public to run the nation's affairs Which they've been doing ever since but in retrospect now, it looks like it was, you know I don't know how else to describe it other than a psychological operation basically their poop that the police failed to keep the people down with the use of force and and by with the with the Use of fear and so basically the next line of defense basically to maintain the status quo Was to win over the hearts and minds of the public and to win them over with love and smiles and hugs and kisses and That that seems to have been exactly what happened.
They received this mandate to run the country for a transitional period Which is seems to be getting longer and longer and yet most of the revolution's goals or demands Remain unanswered.
You still have this emergency law remains in effect as you mentioned It was it was just just just reactivated a couple of weeks ago You have civilians are still being brought before military Tribunals or military trials, which was a which was the the you know, which is a practice that that revolutionaries had demanded must end With that with Mubarak's ouster and that that those are still going on.
You still have You still have certain foreign policy issues for me I think the Gaza thing is incredibly important the the siege on the Gaza Strip, which which Egypt is It's contributing to by closing off its northeastern border Still remains in effect and it's actually one of the things that despite a lot of talk after the revolution How all of these foreign policy issues were going to be addressed?
Seems to have fallen off of the radar again and because of all the domestic problems now Nobody's talking about Gaza anymore.
And yet this this this coastal enclave remains Remains the the biggest prison on the planet So there was also talk if you recall immediately afterwards about Relaunching diplomatic relations with Iran which have been suspended since 1979 that Also has not been has not come come to the fore again either that seems to have been forgotten as well So so just if you just sort of sit down and look at what exactly has changed Since Mubarak has left and this new new military council has taken over If they were there's really not much to boast about, you know You really can't point to it You can't point to many achievements up until now and what's more is the head of the ruling council this military council was Mubarak's Defense Minister for 20 years So everybody else, you know You might a lot of other people who might have been associated with the former regime have been have been kicked have been booted Out and some of them are sitting in prison, etc But the guy who's effectively running the country nominally Anyway, the head of this council was was a defense minister under Mubarak for more than two decades So so I think your pessimism is is justified well, Adam What if I or one thought that perhaps the State Department types?
Decided say a year ago or more that look Hosni Mubarak's an old man.
He's got to go sometime and We have to be prepared for the next regime after that Let's bankroll some NGOs and some young democracy Twitter Facebook or types and let's write us a revolution started and you know adopted the Richard Perle Laurent Miro at thesis that what we need is Egypt the prize Right.
Well, this is are you suggesting that the actual revolution itself might have been kicked off by?
Yeah, we've seen the CIA bankroll color-coded revolutions and their associated NGOs in Serbia and in Georgia in Ukraine in Kyrgyzstan an attempted one in Lebanon and Well regime change short of invasion.
It seems to be right policy.
Maybe they did it to themselves here Right, right.
It's a very good point, but I don't think that's exactly what happened I do think that the Egyptian Revolution unlike some of the other revolutions that might be going on in the in the region now I do think the Egyptian Revolution was an organic grassroots event Mainly because I mean I lived through it and I saw it unfold minute by minute and I knew I knew some of the people that were involved and I don't think that it was that it was manipulated from I don't think it was triggered by by external forces Another reason is if you if you call the reaction of the United States Did the United States didn't act like it was expecting this the United States real?
Acted like it was really seemed to have been surprised by by the Egyptian Revolution and they didn't know how to ram handed to you know, trying to put Suleyman in there and and Hillary Clinton warning the Protesters that they better restrain themselves and all these things didn't seem like exactly it seemed more like a giant series of blundering reactions Exactly.
It really seemed like it took the u.s Off-guard that they didn't know how to react and it was it was I thought I thought it was funny because it really showed showed up the hypocrisy of US foreign policy now in that they wanted to maintain their image of these as being pro-revolution and pro Democracy protesters and all of this sort of thing Well at the same time it was obvious that they really wanted to keep their boy hosting Mubarak in place Who had served them so well for so long.
Yeah, you know, don't you?
You know Hosni Mubarak's buddy up until a little while ago He took credit for the Egyptian Revolution and I thought that he kind of had a point at least in that Certainly the invasion of Iraq more than anything Helped radicalize the people of Egypt and make them detest their own government for being our lackey our governments lackey even more and then also of course all the Inflationary money that was created by the Fed in order to make the Iraq war seem free for the first little while there Helped to you know Make people hungry and go out there and and protest and and shout in the street over the fact that their local Currency is being devalued in order to keep pace with the devaluing American dollar Right, right, right Well, I mean the neocons were very good at playing this double game where they they you know They pose themselves as these champions of democracy while at the same time Underhandedly supporting these these these dictators Clumsy that they end up getting somewhat of the results.
They wanted just by way of Overreacting to their bad policy sometimes.
It's right, right, right.
So I I do believe the the Egyptian That's a very good point that you made though because it is it's very important I mean not now that we I Mean if you if you sort of understand the way the world looks you really have to ask how you know these political events that appear to be spontaneous as we now know are very often, you know, the work of People behind the scenes pulling the string Like in the case of Ukraine or or Kyrgyzstan or something like that You know the the Freedom House and the National Endowment for Democracy and all then their role is a lot more Blatant and I guess I do know that the State Department was trying to bankroll some pro-democracy so-called factions in Egypt, but I don't think that this is what they wanted out of them What exactly I mean they were definitely doing that there was definitely an issue of foreign funding of NGOs America was definitely making lots of sounds about about funding pro-democracy people and there were even some of the some of these groups that Even apparently gone to to the states on the State Department dime to get training and social media and stuff like this But but that simply wasn't enough but what what they were providing simply wasn't enough to trigger a massive national revolution and also the the role of the sort of These young internet savvy revolutionaries I think has been has been grossly exaggerated in the sense But the most of the people that were going toe-to-toe with the police at the height of the uprising When you know when firebombs were being thrown and and police police vans were being thrown off of bridges and stuff I mean these were these were just average workaday Egyptians who were probably making less than You know less than $200 a month to support their families of five.
Tell me fast Music and we got to go tell me yes or no.
Are there going to be free and fair elections of any kind anytime soon?
I wouldn't hold your breath.
All right.
Thanks very much IPS news.net for the journalism of the great Adam Morrow.
Thank you
