@cicerone imposter,
I haven't let them upset or distract me, ci.
It is more of a comment about the sorry state of "debate" around here these days. I feel very sad about it.
Am I dreaming, or am I correct in my assessment that A2Kers with opposing political views in the past were required to be considerably more up-front about their respective positions? ... before this thumbing up & down approach to "involvement" in political discussions, especially?
That seemed a much more straightforward & honest state of affairs to me. And I sorely miss it.
But anyway, moving right along:
This (quoted below) was the (Wikileaked) US assessment of Suleiman's claims about the Muslim Brotherhood in the past, which is important, I think.
Perhaps the Brotherhood is not exactly the bogeymen that we have been led to believe it is? ... It might well be very relevant to quite a number of Egyptians.
Perhaps Mubarak, & now Suleiman, are being forced (finally) to deal with some very legitimate demands from the Muslim Brotherhood? Why has this organization been banned for so long? There has not been a legitimate reason for that for 50 years now.
Mubarak & Suleiman have demonized the Muslim Brotherhood for years, to the US. Most likely looking after their own interests.
It is interesting that the US apparently never accepted Suleiman's assessment of the threat that the Brotherhood posed.
It is also interesting that Suleiman is now negotiating with this (until recently banned) organization, in an attempt to find a resolution to the current situation in Egypt. Are we expected to believe that he has suddenly become an honest broker?
Quote:In a cable dated 25 October 2007, Ricciardone said Suleiman "takes an especially hard line on Tehran" and frequently refers to the Iranians as "devils".
The cables suggest US officials have consistently responded sceptically to the Egyptian government's dire warnings about the Brotherhood.
In a 29 November 2005 cable to Mueller before his visit, Ricciardone said Egyptian authorities "have a long history of threatening us with the MB bogeyman". "Your counterparts may try to suggest that [then president George Bush's] insistence on greater democracy in Egypt is somehow responsible for the MB's electoral success," he wrote. "You should push back that, on the contrary, the MB's rise signals the need for greater democracy and transparency in government.
"The images of intimidation and fraud that have emerged from the recent elections favour the extremists both we and the Egyptian government oppose. The best way to counter narrow-minded Islamist politics is to open the system."
In a follow-up cable on 29 January 2006, Ricciardone seemed to foreshadow the current unrest when he wrote to Mueller: "We do not accept the proposition that Egypt's only choices are a slow-to-reform authoritarian regime or an Islamist extremist one; nor do we see greater democracy in Egypt as leading necessarily to a government under the MB."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/06/wikileaks-egypt-omar-suleiman-muslim-brotherhood
