![]() ![]() Several weeks later, Obama halted the planned delivery of U.S. “We have to be very careful about being seen as aiding and abetting actions that we think run contrary to our values and ideals.” “We can’t return to business as usual,” he declared after the slaughter. The massacre was shocking even by the standards of Egypt’s long-dismal human rights record. His security forces arrested thousands of people, including much of his political opposition, and in one bloody day that summer, they gunned down some 1,000 pro-Morsi protesters (or more) who were staging peaceful sit-ins. In the summer of 2013, Sisi followed his coup with a brutal crackdown that would have done Saddam Hussein proud. Just two years earlier, Sisi had seized power in a military coup, toppling Mohamed Morsi, the democratically elected successor to Hosni Mubarak, himself a strongman of 30 years pushed out in early 2011 by mass protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. For Egypt’s brutally repressive president, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the spectacle was a triumph, symbolizing not only his militaristic power at home, but also his victory over an American president who had tried to punish him before surrendering to the cold realities of geopolitics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |