JOHN BERNARD: EGYPT: DOES IT AFFECT OUR AFGHANISTAN POLICY? IT SHOULD
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Egypt; Does it Affect our Afghanistan policy? It Should!
Nobody seems to be asking this question. The talking heads can’t make the connection because for the talking heads, there is no commonality. Hasn’t that been the argument all of this time? We have been trying to get someone – anyone in government or anywhere in the media to consider, even for a minute, the possibility that there might be other factors to consider and yet they remain immutable.
There was almost no publicly displayed concern when Tunisia crumbled and very little talk about the ‘growing pains’ in Lebanon. Egypt has been different though. Egypt has been seen as an ally in a region of the world where the difference between your friends and your enemies can be defined by the bruise on your forehead – assuming you still have a head to bruise.
Mubarak’s government media made it clear the Muslim Brotherhood was behind this latest round of protests and within days, the Muslim Brotherhood made it clear that they were. During this same period, Iranian officials made it clear that they supported the protestors and their quest for ‘democracy’. The Egyptian government outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood in 1954 just 26 years after they formed in that country largely due to their political opposition. Their efforts in Egypt since then can be defined as an underground movement and when these latest protests began in earnest last week, their effectiveness became readily apparent.
The fact that Iran has come forward and made clear their support of the protestors who are being ‘lead’ or ‘encouraged’ by the Muslim Brotherhood should suggest they are in league with each other – at least ideologically. If our government has shown a complete lack of credible understanding of Islam they have never-the-less been more or less all in agreement that Iran is rogue in a part of the world they (the US government), see as otherwise peaceful. If Iran is rogue and their Clerics have in fact hi-jacked an otherwise peaceful religion, shouldn’t we be concerned that they are apparently in league with the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts in Egypt? Is there any serious indication that elections in Iran have been conducted without coercion? If not; then what exactly is the definition of a democracy in Iran?
Let’s also recall that the Muslim Brotherhood is the principle advisory ‘committee’ for this sitting government and the Pentagon. Getting nervous yet? This sitting government’s military decisions in that region of the world are based largely on advice from Muslim Brotherhood officials.
If, then, the Muslim Brotherhood is behind a protest that is lauded by the Iranians who all agree are violent and ‘extremist’ in their ideological views, what confidence can anyone have for the future of Egypt? The protestors in Egypt may well achieve democracy but it will be short lived. In their first democratically cast ballot, they will likely vote themselves into another form of slavery taught by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Clerics. The sad truth is all of the countries with predominantly Muslim populations in that area with autocratic regimes are likely to follow suit.
Our Representatives in DC are likely to get several lessons in Islamic Theocratic processes in short order. The question is what they will learn from these lessons and whether it will cause them to reconsider their rosy view of Islamic doctrine and Islamic society in Afghanistan specifically. Let’s not forget that the COIN strategy governing our military prowess in that country has a lot more to do with US human terrain assessments than it has to do with sound battle strategy.
As Iran is about the business of developing a nuclear program capable of delivering a warhead, they are also busy seeding the region with their version of Shia Islam and replicating themselves. If the toehold they now have in Iraq is a devastating indictment of our complete misunderstanding of the draw of fundamental Islam on Muslims, misunderstanding the Iranian and Muslim Brotherhood’s intent for the crumbling governments of it’s neighbors will be confirmation of that ignorance.
In the end; governments come and governments go. In a Democracy or a Constitutional Republic such as ours, casting blame on the incompetency of government is tricky. In this land of government, ‘by the people, for the people’, the people have only themselves to blame for the shortsightedness of their elected representatives.
If, then, the people are in fact dissatisfied with the way our Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and Coastguardsmen are being led on the plains of Afghanistan, they are going to have to rise from their soft cushioned thrones in front of the television set, pick up the phone and do something about it.
Our Warriors are.
They are doing the very thing they swore to do; obeying the lawful orders of the Officers placed above them – who are carrying out the mission statement of the White House and blessed by those same representatives…By – Their – Silence!
Semper Fidelis;
John Bernard
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