Egypt: Bloodbath for the Muslim Brotherhood

The Egyptian army has “declared a war against its own people,” said Debasish Mitra in the Times of Oman. “Trigger-happy forces” mowed down hundreds of peaceful demonstrators who had camped in Cairo for six weeks. The military turned the Rabaa al-Adawiyah Mosque into a scene worse than the massacre in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. It was “an excruciating sight to behold” as “chunks of human flesh blown off by gunshots lay splattered all over.” What prompted this “barbaric bloodbath”? All the protesters asked was the restoration of their democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, ousted by a military coup. “Muslims may never trust the ballot box again.”

It’s not that black-and-white, said Sara Abou Bakr in the Daily News Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood sit-in at the mosque was hardly peaceful. The international press never reported on the “systematic attacks on Rabaa residents,” or that “women had to cover their hair to pass the sit-in for fear of attack.” Inside the sprawling camp, suspected moles were tortured. Outside it, Morsi supporters killed residents in sporadic clashes throughout July and August. “Egyptians are fighting to protect their way of life against an armed group that is clearly backed by Western administrations.” That foreign backing makes Egyptians “ever more resolute to get rid of the Brotherhood—and they will.”

That’s simply not possible, said Khalil Al-Anani in English.Ahram.org.eg. The Muslim Brotherhood was in power for a year, and even though it made a mess of its rule, its members will never accept a return to their status in the Mubarak era, “when they were suppressed and remained silent.” Brotherhood members now have little to lose, and many are enraged at the killing of their friends. “Attempts by the state to once again ‘subjugate’ the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists will fail, even if the ongoing crisis is resolved.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Yet there should be no doubt that the military will remain in charge for years to come, said Ahmet Insel in Radikal (Turkey). Plenty of Egyptians—though well short of a majority—welcome military rule as a relief from the Islamists. The Coptic Christians and the urban middle class see the military as their protectors. And while the mass arrests and killings have given the Muslim Brotherhood “a sympathetic edge,” it will take it years to reorganize as an opposition group. In the meantime, the Islamist void will be filled by more-radical groups, providing “enough ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorist actions’ to prolong the state of emergency indefinitely.”

Don’t expect the U.S. to lift a finger to restrain the generals, said Murat Yetkin in Hurriyet (Turkey). President Obama has plenty of domestic reasons not to cut aid. The U.S. support for Egypt’s military is a cover for a huge gift from American taxpayers to American defense companies. More than 80 percent of what is called aid to Egypt “goes directly into the pockets” of Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and other stalwarts of the military-industrial complex. That means powerful American lobbies are involved—and at stake are “American jobs.”