[Monkei]

Originally Posted by TexaninVA

Good question and it's not really political in the sense of Dems vs Repubs etc. This is world reality at work and in plain view ... with a lot of ugliness, imperfection and unfairness etc ... in other words, reality.

it's a very complicated issue. By way of simplistic summary, the Egyptian elites have, over the years, appropriated much of the wealth while also messing up the economy thus making life pretty miserable for the masses. Unfortunately, it's still largely a statist system, mixed with cronyism, which explains their poverty. The Egyptian Brotherhood got its start years ago as a welfare organization to administer aid etc. Again unfortunately, over time, it bought into the radical Islam agenda.

The Egyptian military is still largely pro-US ... a generalization I realize. If the Brotherhood truly crushes the military and takes over, I think we'll eventfully see a replay of what happened after the Iranian Revolution ...ie the radical crazies take over.

From our perspective, it's a mess ... but since when has the Middle East been anything but a mess? However, our national security would be enhanced if the military stays in power ... and would take a big nose dive should the Brotherhood win.

Thus, I'm hoping we'll see the Brotherhood defeated or at least held at bay. We can not fix the dysfunction, and certainly do not want the US involved militarily ... but we do have a stake in who wins.

Just my perspective.

How do we square up the notion of a democratic Egypt with an elected official with support for a military takeover against that same elected official? Can we be the standards for democracy and then within a couple of years abandon those standards.