DAVID IGNATIOUS TWISTS HIMSELF INTO A PRETZEL TO BLAME LOGAN ATTACK ON PRO-MUBARAK FORCES
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2011/02/did_anti-mubarak_protesters_as.html
Did anti-Mubarak protesters assault Lara Logan? By David Ignatius
Cairo — The sexual assault on CBS correspondent Lara Logan in Tahrir Square
Friday was an outrage, and I agree with my colleague Richard Cohen that CBS
shouldn’t have waited so long to report it. But Cohen and others who have
jumped on this story may be wrong to link this brutal attack with the
protests that toppled the government of Hosni Mubarak.
When I raised the Logan attack today with two Egyptians who are close to the
organizers of the Tahrir Square demonstrations, they made two points worth
considering:
-First, as news of Mubarak’s departure spread last Friday, Tahrir became
crowded with people who hadn’t necessarily taken part in the 18 days of
anti-Mubarak activism. Some were more like soccer hooligans than protestors,
my Egyptian contacts said.
From what the protest organizers tell me, they had worked hard to contain
violence within their own ranks, even when provoked. Indeed, violent
provocations seem to have come mostly from the other side — the pro-Mubarak
agitators, as in the infamous “Day of the Camels” assault by
counter-revolutionaries mounted on horses and camels.
-Second, Cohen repeats allegations that the crowd that assaulted Logan
shouted “Jew, Jew.” I don’t know if that’s accurate, but if it’s true, the
blame should go to the pro-Mubarak camp for disseminating the sick view that
Logan, as a foreign reporter, was a pro-Israel conspirator. This theme that
the Tahrir demonstrations were the work of pro-Israel foreign agents masked
as reporters was spread by pro-government sources, and even the official
media. When foreign journalists were attacked and beaten, it wasn’t by the
Tahrir protesters, but by pro-Mubarak thugs. The Logan attack may have been
an appalling echo of this outrageous pro-Mubarak campaign against foreign
journalists.
Again, none of this justifies the attack in any way. But I would want more
facts before I laid blame for the assault on the anti-Mubarak movement that
was itself a victim of similar thuggery.
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