Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood goes down dictatorship path.

[BigRedChief]

Grant themselves sweeping powers and give the Islamist s the power to write the constitution. Riots break out in multiple cities.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11...#ixzz2DA59xzWv

CAIRO – Egypt's highest body of judges slammed on Saturday a recent decision by the president to grant himself near-absolute power, calling the move an "unprecedented assault" on the judiciary.

In a statement carried on Egypt's official MENA news agency, the Supreme Judicial Council condemned this week's declaration by President Mohammed Morsi placing his decrees above judicial review until a new constitution and parliament is in place, several months if not more in the future.
Their condemnation of the president's edicts are the latest blow to Morsi, whose decision Thursday set off a firestorm of controversy and prompted tens of thousands of people to take to the streets in nationwide protests Friday.
Through their statement, the judges join a widening list of leaders and activists from Egypt's political factions, including some Islamists, who have denounced the decree.

The Supreme Judicial Council is packed with judges appointed by former President Hosni Mubarak. It regulates judicial promotions and is chaired by the head of the Court of Cassation.

Their move reflects a broad sense of anger within the judiciary. Some judges' groups and prosecutors have already announced partial strikes to protest Morsi's decree.

Morsi has accused pro-Mubarak elements in the judiciary of blocking political progress. In the last year, courts have dissolved the lower house of parliament as well as the first panel drafting the constitution, both led by his Muslim Brotherhood group.

The edicts Morsi issued mean that no judicial body can dissolve the upper house of parliament or the current assembly writing the new constitution, which are also both led by the Brotherhood. Supporters of Morsi feared that court might in fact dissolve one of these bodies, further postponing Egypt's transition under the aegis of a new constitution.

They say Morsi has a mandate to guide this process as Egypt's first freely elected president, having defeated one of Mubarak's former prime ministers this summer in a closely contested election.

The judges' council's stand against the president sets the ground for an uneasy alliance between former regime officials and activist groups that helped topple Mubarak's regime and have in the past derided those officials as "felool," or remnants.

The presidents' opponents nonetheless see the judiciary as the only remaining civilian branch of government with a degree of independence, since Morsi already holds executive power and as well as legislative authority due to the dissolution of parliament.

The judges released their statement following an emergency meeting Saturday. They said Morsi's decision is an "unprecedented assault on the judiciary and it rulings" and called on the president to "distance himself from the declaration and all things that touch judicial authority, its specifications or interference in its members or its rulings."

[Ebolapox]

I'm surprised, really I am.

[patteeu]

2016: Obama's Egypt

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by patteeu

2016: Obama's Egypt

WTF are we supposed to have done? Side with Murback? Let him kill his people like Assad is doing in Syria?

Surely we learned our lesson from the cold war. Supporting dictators that kills its own people to stay in power are always eventually overthrown.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

WTF are we supposed to have done? Side with Murback? Let him kill his people like Assad is doing in Syria?

Surely we learned our lesson from the cold war. Supporting dictators that kills its own people to stay in power are always eventually overthrown.

Mubarack wouldn't have had to go to the lengths of Assad, but even after we abandoned him, we still could have sided with the military over the MB. Whatever we did, we should have done something different because it's hard to imagine it being much worse (although Obama does have another 4 years to work at it, so I won't rule it out).

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Mubarack wouldn't have had to go to the lengths of Assad, but even after we abandoned him, we still could have sided with the military over the MB.

Siding with the military? Really? yeah that would have turned out so well.

We don't get to dictate how people chose to conduct their affairs. Everyone says the Muslim brotherhood won the election fair and square. We can't use our military and political power to alter the election outcome in the Muslim worlds most populated country. It would have backfired on us big time. Set us back years.

I'm confident that eventually Egypt will be some type of Democracy, if we don't **** it up by trying to control the will of its people.

[go bowe]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Mubarack wouldn't have had to go to the lengths of Assad, but even after we abandoned him, we still could have sided with the military over the MB. Whatever we did, we should have done something different because it's hard to imagine it being much worse (although Obama does have another 4 years to work at it, so I won't rule it out).

salafists win the parliment and the presidency, they bring in some taliban to teach the new religious police and some ayatollah takes over as supreme leader...

you need to work on your imagination...

[cosmo20002]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Mubarack wouldn't have had to go to the lengths of Assad, but even after we abandoned him, we still could have sided with the military over the MB. Whatever we did, we should have done something different because it's hard to imagine it being much worse (although Obama does have another 4 years to work at it, so I won't rule it out).

Define "sided with"? Military force? A statement in support? I assume you mean verbal support and you know it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. You've said before that Obama "let" this happen, I just don't know what you think he could have or should have done about it.

[HonestChieffan]

Still leading from behind.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by HonestChieffan

Still leading from behind.

So, what should we have done differently?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

Siding with the military? Really? yeah that would have turned out so well.

We don't get to dictate how people chose to conduct their affairs. Everyone says the Muslim brotherhood won the election fair and square. We can't use our military and political power to alter the election outcome in the Muslim worlds most populated country. It would have backfired on us big time. Set us back years.

I'm confident that eventually Egypt will be some type of Democracy, if we don't **** it up by trying to control the will of its people.

Maybe you want to believe that the most powerful man in the world had no ability to influence world events, but I don't agree. This is a huge policy failure amidst a whole cornucopia of foreign policy failures.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

Define "sided with"? Military force? A statement in support? I assume you mean verbal support and you know it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. You've said before that Obama "let" this happen, I just don't know what you think he could have or should have done about it.

Aid, assurances, covert support, public statements, all of the above.

[blaise]

This is a feather in Obama's cap.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by patteeu

Aid, assurances, covert support, public statements, all of the above.

That is just general statements. What statements, assurances would you like to have seen made? and to whom?

Aid to who? and what aid?

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

That is just general statements. What statements, assurances would you like to have seen made? and to whom?

Aid to who? and what aid?

If you wanted me to design the details of our foreign policy, you should have been planting patteeu signs in your yard instead of Obama signs this fall.

We have lots of tools at our disposal when it comes to influencing the geopolitical world around us. If Obama and his team had used them effectively, we wouldn't find a MB dictatorship in place in Egypt right now. His incoherent policy has been a disaster across the Middle East and there's no reason for any optimism that things will get better in his second term. I didn't build that.