By now, most people know that Mohammad Morsi of Egypt has all but made himself into Egypt’s supreme ruler. Morsi’s power grab came at the same time he was finalizing the constitution with his allies in Parliament.
This came within days of the “truce” between Israel and Gaza [which we are all pretending Morsi helped to broker]. Did President Obama know this was coming or did he simply empower Morsi? The timing is fascinating.
Morsi controlled the executive and the legislative branches, now he also has the judiciary. As I watch Barack Obama, I see him seizing more-and-more power for the executive branch, legislating from the White House and threatening SCOTUS. Are we so different except for the speed at which it is happening?
The Eygptian secularists have been marginalized as the Salafis and the Brotherhood have risen to power. The Brotherhood originally claimed they would not seek office and of course that was never going to be the case.
The Salafis are very dangerous in their extremism and make they make the Brotherhood look almost Jeffersonian.
If the opposing secularist forces don’t defeat Morsi now, they can look forward to a dictatorship perhaps as bad or even worse than that of Mubarek. ElBaradei, a leading democracy leader, has called for protests.
Morsi’s decrees give him power over the judiciary and the power to squash any dissent.
The protests are growing with some refusing to leave Tahrir Square until he renounces his decrees. A larger protest is planned for Tuesday. Some of the protests around the country have turned violent.
Egypt is currently engaged in rewriting the Constitution. With Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood in complete control, it isn’t whether Sharia’h law will be written into the constitution but rather how extreme it will be.
Two weeks ago, Salafis protested for an extreme form of Sharia’h, though to us as Americans, all Sharia’h is extreme.
It will be interesting to see who wins. I am rooting for freedom, even though the secularists in Egypt are actually socialists. It’s better than a crazed theocracy.
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