A contact of mine told me that to his knowledge quite a few of the leading players in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, those behind Mr Morsi, have very recently flown out of Egypt to Libya.
If true, and I have no way of verifying this at the moment (I’m working on it), but also have no reason to doubt my contact – it hints at a level of tension within The Brotherhood and concern for themselves which is interesting. It is also more than a little interesting that Libya would be their preferred safe-haven.
Just file it under ‘U’ for unverified. But interesting if true.
Following on from the talk we put on with David Malone about the Banking crisis on Thursday, I just thought I’d send you all a link I found to a documentary he made for the BBC in the late 90s. Ostensibly it’s about the environment but weaves in a critique of the GATT talks – the General Agreement on Trade which paved the way for globalisation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-tLKIXqu0I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWsZZI7_Bmk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1CbXRctBo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOD5HVWXiws
(It concludes with Teddy Goldsmith saying ”[the globalisers say] we can’t afford a Welfare State anymore and if you don’t like it we have a big police force…[but] We can’t marginalise three quarters of the population and hope to get away with it!”)
I then thought it might be useful to compare and contrast it with the multi-multi-millionaire Jimmy Goldsmith’s views on the same trade talks process:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PQrz8F0dBI
Goldsmith may have been on the ”other side of the fence” but much of what he had to say has clearly come true. Indeed compared to today’s Tories he sounds positively socialist.
Thanks Phil.
Goldsmith also talked more sense than Clinton’s Democrats. Interesting & very annoying listening to Laura Tyson spouting off about how wonderful everything would be because of GATT. Her & the likes of Summers & Hubbard all featured in ` Inside Job ` all still flying high. Here she is recently on CNBC trying to explain the lack of job creation in the US, maybe those jobs that she insisted would be created in the early 90`s & ever after :
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000114649
It seems that the empire is unhappy that Egyptians voted the wrong way and is unleashing another colour revolution.
The proposed constitution is not neoliberal/banking cartel friendly, so the “liberal” groups (read US State Dept stooges) are being used to block its adoption.
Although the Brothers have long established links with Western intelligence it appears that they’re not prepared to be quite as pliant as demanded.
Quite why any would be fleeing to Libya can only be guessed at. But given that the nominal Libyan regime has links with the NSF, any that do may have fears of a purge of the more pro-Western figures.
It’s all very complex, but I think the key is the constitution and its populist bent.
Perhaps they are in Libya to get funding. Libya is still a a very rich country.
Here’s F. William Engdahl ‘s viewpoint interviewed on Russia Today :
‘US secretly pushing for Islamic fascist regime in Egypt’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex0UQQuBu80&feature=g-hist
…. and I suspect he is on the right track.
FWIW
Here’s a link to the draft constitution.
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/12/04/translation-of-proposed-egyptian-constitution/
I have a lot of respect for Engdahl, but in this case, the Brothers have been doing all the compromising and there is a clear lack of evidence of any designs on an “Islamic dictatorship”.
Unlike the Syrian branch of the MB, the Egyptian branch has very little Salaafist influence in my understanding.
Remember the precedent of Hamas’ (an MB/Israeli creation) winning the Palestinian election.
David: Any chance of following ths up by doing an article on Egypt, The Muslim Brotherhood and the IMF please. Much of the media news reports are simply trying to play out the protests as a reaction against the potential power of Islamism and imposition of Sharia Law as John G intimates above: this is not the case and the situation is much more complicated that we are led to believe with the proposed constitution likely to lead Egypt away from the tender mercies of the IMF and a massive structural re-adjustment program.
That said, The Muslim Brotherhood has a long secret history of covert US support going back to the 1950s (Adam Curtis was wrong in this respect). It’s even possible that Syeed Qttub may have also been ‘ran’ by the CIA in their ‘black-ops’ campaigns against Nasser and secular Pan-Arab Nationalism which was spreading around the Middle East throughout the 1950s and 60s right up until it experienced a crisis in hegemony in the region after the Six Day War. Foreign exchange programs to the US engaging some of the brightest students from around the world have a history of being put to such purposes and have often been run by the National Endowment for Democracy which is still active today.
After the 1967 defeat and Nasser’s death in 1970 it was just a short step away to Saddat’s ‘Open Door’ policies which abandoned publically funded investment in education, health and infrastructure that had led to exceptional growth rates in this period. This ‘Open Door’ policy (باب مفتوح ) literally prised open the entire country’s national assets to the private international money markets in the mid 1970s so that it soon became the US controlled neoliberal client (read ‘kleptocratic’) state that it was under Saddat and then Mubarak. Needless to say, levels of inequality sky-rocketed since this fundamental change in it’s political economy.
U.A.R.
United Arab Republic. The union of Egypt and Libya. Needs bodies on the ground. I too, would pretend that they had fallen foul of Morsi, just to gain a few more days time to organize.
Then again, the Bolshies took over from the Menshies ….