Egyptian military using Tea Party propaganda to justify coup

The indispensable Charlie Pierce points us to a NYT piece on how the military junta is talking about the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi to the people of Egypt. Turns out they’re talking a whole lot like any random American rightwing radio host; people can no longer trust the American government, because Pres. Obama is secretly in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood and trying to destroy Egypt.

"However crackpot that view may sound," the Times reports, “it is widespread among supporters of the military.”

But Pierce zeroes in on one extremely disturbing paragraph in the piece:

Many Egyptians refer to YouTube clips played repeatedly by the pro-military news media, quoting Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, who recently equated giving $1.5 billion in aid to the Morsi government with support for terrorists.

"Be proud, all of you who voted in the worst Congress in the history of the Republic," writes Pierce. "Be proud. Republican leadership, which has proven to be unable or unwilling to control the flying monkeys in its midst. You’ve done something remarkable. In the streets of Cairo, the face of American foreign policy is Louie Gohmert, scourge of Terror Babies, and the biggest bag of hammers in the House Of Representatives. This is a blow from which diplomacy may never recover."

Tea Party conspiracy theorizing is finding its way into Egyptian propaganda. How long before other despots, criminals, and dictators follow their lead? How long before the ravings of Louie Gohmert, Michele Bachmann, and Steve King become the voices that speak for America, carefully cherrypicked because of all the helpful lying?

Tea Party BS doesn’t stop at America’s borders, apparently. And it’s not the world’s brightest beacons who find it useful — not people like Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi.

No, it’s the killers and the tyrants people like that  fight against who find Tea Party lies most useful. And that tells you all you need to know about the original authors of those lies — don’t trust them any farther than you can throw them, because they are most definitely not good people.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

One conservative’s response to shocking and bloody war crimes: ‘Yay!’

The latest news out of Egypt confirms mass murder by the military coup government there.

New York Times: The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody on Sunday, as the country’s military leaders and Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time so many had died while in government custody.

While the murders of 36 prisoners hardly amounts to a genocide, the motives in those killings is definitely genocidal. There is no pretense to legal executions here, this is killing people who have become a problem. In a just world, the Egyptian military personnel responsible for this would be dragged in front of a court in the Hague for war crimes.

So what is the reaction of Stephen Green at Vodkapundit?

Is this terrible? Yes. Are innocents being killed? Almost certainly. Am I weeping? Not this time.

Being an Islamist, a jihadi, being a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, means being ready and able to kill innocents in the name of Islam. This is what they do. So once Mubarak was gone and the lid was off, something like this violence was bound to happen. The question is whether the military will be violent enough to put down this revolt quickly. Otherwise the place really will devolve into a combination of the worst parts of Syria and Somalia.

The complete lack of anything even resembling logic is notable here. Green admits that innocents are being killed, but also says good riddance — because they were supposedly ready to kill innocents. I don’t expect much at all from the rightwing blogosphere, but keeping your cognitive dissonance in check long enough to write two short paragraphs really shouldn’t be much of a challenge.

And just because you’re protesting in support of Morsi doesn’t mean you’re a violent jihadist. The right gets the Muslim Brotherhood wrong as a matter of propaganda — MB disavowed violence and embraced democracy years ago. The equation of them with terrorists is more a matter of wingnut’s anti-Muslim bigotry than anything else. And the idea that Egypt is headed toward becoming the next Somalia is so astonishingly ignorant that I won’t even waste my time with it.

But how worthless is Green when he looks at a bloody war crime and basically says, “Yeah, they deserve it.” To look at a report that says the prisoners had “been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van” and conclude that those people aren’t worth worrying about?

This is why I dislike conservatives. There are far too many de facto Nazis among them and those who aren’t these pro-“kill everyone I disagree with” dicks are far too tolerant of said genocidal dicks.

Stories to Watch: 2/11/11

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In case you missed it (what, do you live under a rock?), that Mubarak guy quit in Egypt. Dancing in the streets. Jake Tapper reports that he got a little shove from Obama, but influential wingnut blogger John Hinderaker apparently didn't get that memo.


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News Roundup for 2/11/11

According to one neocon, completely incapable of democracy

-Headline of the Day-
"Former Bush-Cheney National Spokesman Thinks Muslims Are Incapable Of Democracy: 'This Is The Middle East'."

If you want an accurate and clear-eyed view of the middle east, you talk to a neocon -- because they've been so right on everything so far.

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Fox News turned to Terry Holt, a former national spokesman for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, to talk about the prospects for democracy in the newly-Mubarak-free Egypt. Foxbot Martha MacCallum said that Egyptian people "want democracy, they’re tired of being repressed, they want something better."

Nononononono! said Holt. Democracy is beyond the monkey-people of Egypt, because they're all like Arab and stuff. See, the "traditions there do not support their embracing" democracy, because it's an alien concept. Never mind that they're talking about democracy all the damned time, Egyptians have never even heard of it.

Kind makes you wonder why the neocons wanted to dick around with democracy in Iraq, doesn't it? (ThinkProgress, with video)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, you know that Ariana Huggington lady? She just got richer! Yay!


Click for animation
Maybe the rest of us just got a little poorer, though... (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Republicans turn Congress into 'clogged toilet,' says Democratic lawmaker."

Cogent, concise, and accurate. (The Hill)

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That didn't take long. Hours after a scandal broke involving Craigslist, photos, personal ads, and his own marriage, Rep. Christopher Lee -- a NY Republican -- has resigned. It's kind of weird, because it sounded like it was embarrassing, but survivable. You wonder if there's more to it or whether Lee just didn't have the guts to face constituents after the story broke.


Meanwhile, Sen. Jim Webb announces he won't seek reelection.


House GOP suffer another embarrassing loss. This time, in trying to take back money paid to the UN. On their previous loss, Adam Serwer largely agrees with me -- the influence of the Tea Party on the final vote count is being wildly overstated.


House Republicans who took the dare and swore off the commie, gummint-controlled health insurance offered to members are starting to get what all that reform stuff was all about. Welcome to the real world, mad tea partiers.


Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is regaining her powers of speech.


Finally, labor joins in with protests in Egypt by staging a general strike.

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Republican Sen. Dick Lugar tells Tea Party to 'get real' about the START treaty. Good advice, but remember, these are 'baggers -- living in reality is not what they're all about.


Laurence Tribe talk sense about the Supreme Court and healthcare reform.


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Demonstrating the GOP's laser-like focus on creating jobs as promised, Eric Cantor announces that House Republicans will try to defund healthcare reform next week -- creating not one single job.


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I guess there's some big bowl game today, which doesn't have anything to do with bowling. Anyway, the Green Bay is in on it, so all the people around here are dusting off our cheese hats. Also, it's snowing again. If we get much more, we'll have to start tunneling through it. The Super Bowl seems to be sucking up all the news time, so this is going to be short. Now here's the news...


What's going on in Egypt? Well, a lot of stuff, but mostly nothing new. Al Jazeera reports that the nation "remains at an impasse."


ThinkProgress has a really good post up on how the Ronald Reagan that Republicans worship as a god never actually existed.


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Finally, Juan Cole gets Socratic on Egypt, asking a boatload of questions that are instructive in themselves.

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Top leaders in Egypt resign, but Hosni Mubarak remains in office. The Egyptian people say that's not good enough.


The White House backs a transitional government led by handpicked Mubarak puppet Omar Suleiman. I'm guessing this is backing the wrong horse. Especially seeing how he's just survived his first assassination attempt.


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As long as we're talking about Republicans and abortion, this is just awful. I sometimes wonder why Republicans aren't constantly ashamed of themselves.


This is likewise just awful.


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Sen. John McCain

-Headline of the day-
"McCain Calls Middle East Pro-Democracy Movement A 'Virus'."

Remember how, when we invaded Iraq, democracy was supposed to bust out all over in the middle east -- and that was a good thing?

Well guess what: democracy is busting out all over in the middle east -- and that's a bad thing!

See, it works like this; these democracy movements have jack squat to do with Iraq, so that makes them automatically bad. Because they're gonna hate Israel. See, if democracy movements were born because of Iraq, then those movements would automatically love Israel.

Why? Just because, OK? When we bomb someone into democracy, that's like a vaccine. But when it breaks out all on its lonesome, then it's a virus.

Although, now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure that's how the British once felt about things -- say, two hundred and some years ago. (ThinkProgress, with video)


-Totally gratuitous graphic...-
...because I'm still wiped from dealing with ALL THAT SNOW!!



Totally worth it though, am I right? (Daily What)


-Bonus HotD-
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In an act of judicial activism, a federal judge in Florida has ruled that the entire healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. Steve Benen notes that the decision doesn't seem to make any constitutional sense, that both judges who've ruled against the law were Republican appointees, and that the foes of the law haven't actually been very successful, with 2 courts ruling for the law, 2 against, and about 12 courts refusing to hear the cases at all.


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WikiLeaks releases a treasure trove of documents on Egypt and you've got to wonder why everything didn't go all to hell a lot sooner.


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John Bolton comes out in defense of Mubarak.


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Wow. How about that Egypt thing, huh? Turns out, the revolution will be televised -- assuming this will turn out to be revolutionary. I've been following the news on my new blog, so here's a plug -- check out Quick Hits Headlines for updates. For more up-to-the-minute coverage, Al Jazeera is liveblogging the whole thing. Now here's the (other) news...


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Hey, you want a Google Chrome theme? I was goofing around today and I came up with this. Pretty nifty and patriotic, huh? I think the white marble frame was a nice touch. Now here's the news...


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