This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com:
- Four Egyptians killed in clash between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters
- U.S. says that Syria’s Assad is preparing to use chemical weapons
- Thousands of U.S. troops arrive near Syria on USS Eisenhower
Four Egyptians killed in clash between pro- and anti-Morsi protesters
Four Egyptians were killed and hundreds injured in fighting thatfollowed a “massive attack” by Muslim Brotherhood supporters ofpresident Mohamed Morsi on opposition protesters. The attack by Morsisupporters occurred as the perception has been growing that widespreadopposition to Morsi is causing him to lose his legitimacy aspresident.
Morsi had a great deal of legitimacy two weeks ago, after hesuccessfully engineered a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza. Anumber of commentators say that Morsi apparently believed at that timethat he had enough prestige that there would be little opposition tohis constitutional decree giving himself dictatorial powers. That wasa bad misjudgment, and opposition demonstrations have been increasing,even more so after the Muslim Brotherhood led Constituent Assemblycame out with a draft constitution that embodied Islamic Sharia law.
Morsi made additional mistakes by refusing to reach out to theopposition. Morsi gave a speech last week in the face of growingopposition, but he directed the speech only to his supporters, withoutreaching out to the opposition. Now he’s refusing any compromise inthe draft constitution, and he’s called for a nationwide referendum onDecember 15 to ratify the constitution.
Morsi’s attitude towards the opposition is almost identical toPresident Barack Obama’s attitude toward his opposition. He made noattempt to compromise with Republicans when he pushed through theDemocratic Congress the huge fiscal stimulus and the Obamacare bills.
Although there have been no violent attacks by Obama supporters theway that Morsi supporters attacked the opposition on Wednesday, therehave been a number of moves by Obama and his supporters to inciteviolence against Republicans — calling Tea Party memberspolicy a “racist,” condoning of violence and rape by Occupy WallStreet protesters, and the call to violence and war against the TeaParty last year by Teamsters president James Hoffa, when he said: “We are ready to march. Let’s take these sons ofbitches out and give America back to an America where webelong.”
Hoffa’s call to violence was, in fact, heeded two weeks later byhundreds of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Unionmembers (ILWU) labor union, who violently attacked guards protecting anon-union grain terminal in the Port of Longview in Washington state.
Obama has been doubling down on the “racist” charges recently, afterit was revealed that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice lied about thesituation in Benghazi, and that the deception and cover up spread tosenior administration figures, and possibly to Obama himself. Obamacan usually count on the mainstream media to support him, no matterwhat he does, and to join him in calling his opponents “racist.” Butif Obama keeps doubling down on “racist” as his only defense to anincreasing level of accusations, then he’s going to incite additionalviolence.
Morsi’s aides have said that he’ll give a new presidential address tothe nation on Thursday. Egyptians will be watching to see whether hetakes a hard line again, infuriating the opposition, or whether hereaches out to the opposition and seeks compromise, infuriating hissupporters.
Obama and Morsi are very similar — both “hope and change” candidateswho won on the basis of personality, and who are now refusing tocompromise in any way. This cannot end well. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and CNN
U.S. says that Syria’s Assad is preparing to use chemical weapons
U.S. officials say that they’ve confirmed that the regime of Syria’spresident Bashar al-Assad has mixed the precursor chemicals for sarin,a deadly nerve gas, and loaded the gas into bombs. It’s believed thatthe gas has been loaded in aerosol form into canisters that can bedropped from planes. Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein’s forces killed5,000 Kurds with a single sarin gas attack on Halabja in 1988. Oncemixed, the sarin gas has to be used within 60 days, or it becomesineffective. NBC News
Thousands of U.S. troops arrive near Syria on USS Eisenhower
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier transited the Suez Canalfrom the Persian Gulf on Saturday, with 8 fighter bomber squadrons ofAir Wing Seven on its decks and 8,000 sailors, airmen and Marines, andis now off the coast of Syria, according to unconfirmed reports.According to an unnamed U.S. official:
The muscle is already there to be flexed. It’spremature to say what could happen if a decision is made tointervene. That hasn’t taken shape, we’ve not reached that kind ofdecision. There are a lot of options, but it [military action]could be launched rapidly, within days.
Yesterday, Nato approved Turkey’s request for Patriot anti-missilesystems on the border with Syria. According to Turkey’s ForeignMinister Ahmet Davutoglu:
The protection from NATO will be three dimensional:one is the short-range Patriots, the second is the middle-rangeTerminal High Altitude Air Defense [THAD] system and the last isthe AEGIS system, which counters missiles that can reach outsidethe atmosphere.
Debka and Russia Today
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