Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Uh, Let's Not Compare The Egyptian Revolution To The American Revolution

I have not commented on the recent "revolution" that swept Egypt recently. Other than to note the obvious that former President Hosni Mubarak is no longer the president.
But let us look at the situation right now.
The military is in control of the nation right now. In fact, things are not all that as workers are staging strike after strike. As if a military government can right 40 years of corruption and authoritarian rule in 40 minutes. Oh, did I not write that the military is now the government in Egypt?
The reality is that there has not been a leader or leaders of the so-called Egyptian Revolution. There is no George Washington. No Benjamin Franklin. No Thomas Jefferson. No, all that seems to speak for a lot of Egyptians is the sixth most powerful man in the Islamic world, Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi. And this is supposed to be a "moderate" voice of Islam. I guess he is a a strange way.
Make no mistake. He wants to see a totally Islamic Egypt. And nearly 1,000,000 Egyptians crowded Tahir Square when he spoke recently on a Friday afternoon.
It kind of reminded me of another, so-called moderate dude that went back to his home nation after a 30-year exile.
The name of that dude escapes me for a moment. Darn it, who was that. Oh yeah! Why none other than Ruhollah Khomeini. Most know that guy as the Ayatollah Khomeini. Oh yeah, he turned out to be a real middle-of-the-roader, didn't he?!
So far, thankfully, the military has not defected to the leadership of Sheik Qardawi. At least not yet.
And so many people have hailed what happened in Egypt. Many believe that voila! Democracy will and even has broken out. And these same people blasted former President George W. Bush for having the gall to believe that democracy could take place in Iraq.
Yet I would like to submit to you this column by the great Dennis Prager.
Mr. Prager shares my concern that this will turn into more of a Sunni version of Iran than a Jeffersonian democracy.
A couple of Mr. Prager's points strike me.
His second point, that pro-American tyanical leaders are replaced by worse people. He cites, as example, Castro in Cuba. The aforementioned ayatollah in Iran. And I will throw in Vietnam after the communist North seized the South in 1975.
The fifth point is that these people have lived under a pseudo-socialist state and it will be very hard to wean them off of it. As much as the majority yearn for freedom, enough will not like if subsidies for food, and employment by the state come to an end. And it has to so a free society can emerge. It should be noted that one of the reasons the people had enough is because of food shortages.
Point number six is the Obamawhore media not reporting on the bad guys. Mr. Prager notes the attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan in which in between sexual assaults, she was shouted as a "Jew! Jew!" And making this Sheik Qaradawi to not be all that bad. Trust me, this guy is bad news. The armed forces can not be all that trusted. They will go with the wind as they ended up doing in ousting Mr. Mubarak in the first place.
The fact is that Team Dear Leader has been playing catch up since the uprising began. And they still have no clue as to what to do where Egypt is concerned.
What is needed is to influence events on the ground. There needs to be an effort to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from gaining power. There needs to be an effort to reach out to real moderates that want to see a real republic based on the rule of law. And there needs to be a way to find the Egyptian George Washington.
If the Egyptian George Washington is not identified, then the Sunni Ayatollah Khomeini will be in charge. And that is bad news for the United States.

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