Althouse: "Morsi was a terrible president, their economy is in terrible shape thanks to their policies but the fact is the United States should not be supporting this coup."

July 7, 2013

"Morsi was a terrible president, their economy is in terrible shape thanks to their policies but the fact is the United States should not be supporting this coup."

Said John McCain, making what he deemed "a tough call."

39 comments:

rhhardin said...: McCain makes tough calls on everything.

He's got the act down but the hamster is dead.; 7/7/13, 12:20 PM
Anthony said...: He's mostly right, but neither should we be opposing it. Egypt has never had a democratic government, and that includes the year of Morsi. It's just an unelected tyrant overthrowing an elected tyrant.; 7/7/13, 12:29 PM
madAsHell said...: Has Obama made any kind of official statement??; 7/7/13, 12:33 PM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: McCain is nuts. We need to do what is in the best long term interests of the USA. It is not in our long term interests to cut off the aid to starving Egyptians just after the theocratic dictatorship of the Muslim Brotherhood has been thrown out. Now is the time to give Egypt a lot more food. McCain is confusing elections with democracy a common mistake.; 7/7/13, 12:37 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: You can't always get what you want, but sometimes...; 7/7/13, 12:40 PM
Bob Ellison said...: McCain could've been President.; 7/7/13, 12:41 PM
ricpic said...: Brotherhood muzzies give little Johnny McCain the warm fuzzies.; 7/7/13, 12:41 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: I haven't read the whole thing but, just based on McCain's statement here, I'd agree with him:

Bad actors all around, also not very bright - not a good idea.

Better to let those that want democracy earn it, so better is precious, giving a hand only if they keep going in the right direction and someone then thwarts them.

Until they make their intentions clear - and rape isn't very convincing - we should keep our distance.; 7/7/13, 12:43 PM
Anonymous said...: A tough call, not a gutsy call.

Stay the hell out of the Middle East, we don't need their oil, we don't need the Suez. Let them fight their own damned wars, let both sides lose.

That humanitarian thing is ways over rated.; 7/7/13, 12:44 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Diogenes of Sinope,

McCain is nuts.

Not an opinion I haven't heard before.

We need to do what is in the best long term interests of the USA.

Agreed.

It is not in our long term interests to cut off the aid to starving Egyptians just after the theocratic dictatorship of the Muslim Brotherhood has been thrown out.

Hey, they picked 'em.

Now is the time to give Egypt a lot more food.

Now is the time for Egypt to get serious.

McCain is confusing elections with democracy a common mistake.

I don't know, black people seemed to find them pretty related,..; 7/7/13, 12:47 PM
Anonymous said...: Bob Ellison said...
McCain could've been President.

He's a has been.; 7/7/13, 12:48 PM
edutcher said...: As they used to say on my papers in Middle School, "Good, as far as you went...".

Supporting the Moslem Brothers is a bad idea also, although, why just letting Egypt solve this eludes DC I can't say.

PS Anent another of Junior's pet fixations, the fence Israel built on its Sinai border is more appreciated than ever; 7/7/13, 12:51 PM
Cedarford said...: Generally, every "tough call" John McCain has made on foreign policy and the urgent need for more wars in the last 20 years has been wrong.

This is another one. Thank god we avoided electing that idiot as President. (Not that Obama is much of an improvement...a D- vs. an F level President.)

McCain ignores Morsi ran on his committment that the Muslim Brotherhood would share power and promptly betrayed all the other Parliamentary groups and factions. He confuses elections with democracy.; 7/7/13, 12:53 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Egypt is a company mostly owned by its military which runs about 30 percent of its economy—everything from concrete factories to day-care centers. It was not about to let its business interests go utterly awry. Too much money in it for the generals....; 7/7/13, 12:53 PM
SteveR said...: Nobel Peace Prize update...; 7/7/13, 12:56 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: OH Johnny.

You came to that conclusion after careful thought???? You should have asked someone for help

Wow. You should resign now and let another Arizonan take the seat you apparently think only you are best capable of, out of the millions of Arizonans.

Hey John! Did you consider THIS point - one that would also let you justly score big points of our (Conservative) side here at home, as the parallel hardly needs expressing out loud?

Morsi BETRAYED his oath of office. He assumed powers not granted. He deserved to be deposed. And, lucky Egypt, they had a willing military to do so.

We should back them strongly, and point out the obvious (but not to you, alas) teachable moment of leaders unconstitutionally over-reaching.

Jesus, will you Arizona voters please rid is of this troublesome Senator? Please?; 7/7/13, 12:58 PM
Revenant said...: McCain needs to retire and let someone with a brain have that Senate seat.; 7/7/13, 1:06 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Another thing to remember is that the defining feature of Egypt is stagnation.

Civilization arose there over five thousand years ago and didn't fundamentally change until the Greek and Roman conquests, and even then they still spoke the same language until the Arab conquest.

The government in Egypt is a descendent of the military coup led by Nasser in 1952. Nothing has changed. Not Egypt's economic problems, not the hatred of Israel, not the complete inability to face modernity.

Nothing will change, either, unless it is bad. Egypt is not a society that's changed while leaving its government behind that a revolution can unleash. It's a society that doesn't want change at all.; 7/7/13, 1:16 PM
Tom from Virginia said...: McCain routinely reminds me of why he would have been just as horrible a President as PBO. It's great that one of them had to lose in 2008. Reminds me of that remark that it was very good of Mr. A to marry Mrs A, and so make only two people miserable not four.; 7/7/13, 1:16 PM
Cedarford said...: Diogenes of Sinope said...
McCain is nuts. We need to do what is in the best long term interests of the USA. It is not in our long term interests to cut off the aid to starving Egyptians just after the theocratic dictatorship of the Muslim Brotherhood has been thrown out. Now is the time to give Egypt a lot more food
=======================
Well, yes. But the underlying premise that we are morally obligated to give free food in perpetuity to people that have outbred the capacity of their land and water to sustain them it also something that needs to be challenged.
Along with the right of "starving hordes" to demand to be let in to new countries as refugees to breed 14 kids on welfare as a "basic human right".
All though the Middle East, Africa, Muslim lands outside the ME, and lands like Haiti - exploding populations on geometric, bacteria-like growth have hit and moved past arable land and water supply limits and survive on the goodwill of some 8-9 nations that acept phony debt IOUs to supplant the food.

We have no "moral obligation", and the "maximum reproduction right" is a phony one...unless you are willing to accept either:

1. Sending every scrap of spare food from surplus to lands like Pakistan and Egypt and Somalia - until those populations reach a point even with the West sacrificing all other priorities but making and sending the 3rd World food - no longer can cope.

2. Accept the boom and bust cycle of other herd animals for 3rd World humans. Excess blessed babies galore! means we start letting nature take its course and starve the excess, hope disease and war also helps lower population to sustainable levels. (as has happened many times before in human history).

3. Agree to a mass transfer of 100s of millions of 3rd worlders to the US and other nations of the West to hold off the inevitable a generation or so longer, except when collapse comes of the herd - the US herd would also see mass death.

OR- Start getting serious about matters. As China has done.; 7/7/13, 1:17 PM
edutcher said...: Bob Ellison said...

McCain could've been President.

By now, it would be Palin.; 7/7/13, 1:20 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Cedarford-

The thing to remember is that modern Egypt has always been dependent on foreign aid. Egypt was importing 40% of its food during the Kennedy administration. They've been playing the aid game for over sixty years.

First they were getting aid from us, then from the Russians, then from us again.

Part of the reason they hate us so much (Egypt is the most anti-American country in the world) is that they have to beg and there's nowhere else to go now that the USSR is dead.

So far, the Egyptian government has been very successful keeping the aid flowing. We'll see if they can keep it up.

The fundamental truth about the Arab middle east is that none of the countries set up after decolonization can rule themselves. They aren't really sovereign nation states. All are on the edge of collapse all the time. They were part of one empire or another for a thousand years and they still can't function independently.

They became clients of the American and Soviet empires for a reason. Now that the Soviets are gone and the USA doesn't care much anymore we are seeing the predictable result, which is collapse. Either some new imperial patron is found, or the countries collapse. That's why Iran is being so active. They aren't a superpower but in these conditions of Arab weakness they don't have to be.; 7/7/13, 1:30 PM
Joe said...: McCain is a statist and has no integrity. All he cares about is power and perpetuating the power for those who have it.; 7/7/13, 2:07 PM
Skyler said...: John McCain didn't much care about our economy either, and his sucking up to big banks right before the election on our dime is why he wasn't elected. He is a moron.; 7/7/13, 2:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Revenant said...
McCain needs to retire and let someone with a brain have that Senate seat.

A senator with a brain? That's hilarious.; 7/7/13, 2:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Joe said...
McCain is a statist and has no integrity. All he cares about is power and perpetuating the power for those who have it.

That is exactly why he's so at home in Washington.; 7/7/13, 2:29 PM
Steven said...: McCain is a fatuous ass. It's not remotely a "tough call" to repeat conventional "democratically elected leader" pablum from a position of no actual responsibility for the outcome from thousands of miles away from the consequences.; 7/7/13, 2:32 PM
Diogenes of Sinope said...: Cedarford, I propose feeding the poor Egyptians not out of any sense of moral obligation. The reason to feed them is to reward the ignorant masses of illiterate Egyptians at the time of the coup which threw out the radicals. Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi gone, hey now we have food.; 7/7/13, 2:39 PM
Revenant said...: A senator with a brain? That's hilarious

It happens occasionally. :); 7/7/13, 2:49 PM
Rabel said...: The law, from what I've read, is quite clear. The US cannot give foreign aid to a country whose government has been overthrown by a military coup.

We can get around that by changing the law or lying about the obvious facts.

I credit McCain for at least taking a stand as Obama dithers while trying to find a position that is most favorable to his own political interests.; 7/7/13, 2:54 PM
Big Mike said...: Yeah, what the H*ll. The Egyptians already despise Obama and hate the US State Department. Let's follow McCain's lead and give them reason to hate the rest of us, too.; 7/7/13, 2:55 PM
Gahrie said...: McCain could've been President

I know. One of the sins of the Republican Party. McCain is an American hero, but he also is an establishment politician, captured by the beltway crowd.

The old saying is pretty much true with McCain. If I am undecided on an issue, I find out what McCain's position is, and take the opposite.; 7/7/13, 3:14 PM
Cedarford said...: Diogenes of Sinope said...
Cedarford, I propose feeding the poor Egyptians not out of any sense of moral obligation. The reason to feed them is to reward the ignorant masses of illiterate Egyptians at the time of the coup which threw out the radicals. Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi gone, hey now we have food.

=========================
As long as the message does not get perverted into "America , though almost bankrupt, is now committed to feed and support any overpopulated nation lest they threaten to go radical Islamist, Voodoo, pomo Communist or whatever" - if we dont.

If our Borders are secure, and 15 million Haitians on a land that can support 3 million threaten to go "Voodoo Terrahist!" and eat one another until cannibal hordes are ready to invade America - so what! Let them die and achieve a stable herd population.

As for the Egyptians, remember how they and the cleverer Jews arranged for 5+ billion in annual welfare each year for the past 35 years on threat they would "hate each other, go to war again" unless Uncle Sugar Daddy paid them off.

They go terrorist? OMYGD!

Keep in mind most of the Paki and Afghan Muslims that hate us and want to kill us are living largely on free US and Canadian grain. Each IED, each sniper round killing John McCains "Hero nation-building US troops" - probably had the Taliban or Al Qaeda operative eating a meal of South Dakota or Minnesota wheat right beforehand.; 7/7/13, 3:47 PM
jr565 said...: edutcher wrote:
Supporting the Moslem Brothers is a bad idea also, although, why just letting Egypt solve this eludes DC I can't say.

Obama was a fool and a half trying oust Moubarek and backing the Muslim Brotherhood.
First off, if we are going to go after dictatorial regimes there are far worse you can go after than Moubareck who was an ostensible ally.
It means he had to back the Muslim brotherhood, and now he has all this egg on his face giving aid and weapons to the fucking muslim brotherhood.
Now, are the next batch fighting the muslim brotherhood the real deal or just a slight variation of the msulim brotherhood.
We hould be supportive of this coup but we should also be wary that those we are monitoring may just be more of the same.; 7/7/13, 4:14 PM
jr565 said...: Rabel wrote:
The law, from what I've read, is quite clear. The US cannot give foreign aid to a country whose government has been overthrown by a military coup.

We can get around that by changing the law or lying about the obvious facts.

I credit McCain for at least taking a stand as Obama dithers while trying to find a position that is most favorable to his own political interests.

That's a good point.; 7/7/13, 4:18 PM
Cedarford said...: John, thanks for your observations.
From the little I understand, in JFKs days, the population was 20 million. They imported 1/4th their wheat, but balanced that with being a robust vegetable and fruit exporter to winter markets in Europe, as well as year-round to wealthier Arab countries. The Green Revolution temporarily made them self-sufficient in grain in the early 70s, but that ended fast as a growing population ate up the Green Revolution surplus. Then ag truck farm exports dried up.

By the late 70s, when population was 40 million, a part of Egypts critical food needs began to come as pure do-gooder welfare from the Hated West.

Now, half their food has to be given to them to support a "breed like rats" population of 83 million.

And Muslims may soon find the charity spigots may be turned off despite the threats of terror and mayhem...and "Demography is Muslim Destiny" may have a whole new meaning if the dogooder wheat and dogooder refugee visas end.; 7/7/13, 4:19 PM
Aridog said...: Diogenes of Sinope said...

McCain is confusing elections with democracy a common mistake.

Cedarford said...

... Morsi ran on his commitment that the Muslim Brotherhood would share power and promptly betrayed all the other Parliamentary groups and factions. He [McCain] confuses elections with democracy.

I believe many Americans, some of us here in fact, confuse elections with democracy. We do so with our background of a two party representative democratic republic system, with democratic elections, spread between a federation of states [one man one vote in states, then nationally electoral state by state] operating within the structure of a republic. In the U.S. system, for the most part, different political interests and philosophies consolidate within one or the other party before elections.

To my knowledge [correct me if I am wrong] no other nation on earth operates this way. Most *Democracies* with free elections [corrupted or not] have systems with myriad parties who don't consolidate until after an election to form governments.

Frequently the myriad party system enables minority governance and consortiums unimagined by the voters in a given election....in effect a majority only system, given the consortiums, bearding unanticipated coalitions, where minority interests are ignored or worse.

In such instances, although the "vote" is important symbolically, it does not accomplish representative democratic republic institutions or consolidation of them under a republic. While we in the USA have tried to spread this concept elsewhere, it hasn't been widely adopted, if at all. *Democracy* in Israel, the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Iraq, et al., is not the same...so why would any US politician expect Egypt to be any different? Why would we expect autocracy not to evolve quickly in such places that are trying it for the first time?

For that matter, we have been hell bent on establishing autocracy as our own government system...where Congress can't budget and Courts can't have their rulings enforced.; 7/7/13, 4:28 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Obama and his gang support the Muslim extremists, Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood.

We should be helping the people who want to break free from that.

McCain - pffft.; 7/7/13, 4:31 PM
Joe said...: Don't fool yourself Aridog. In most elections anywhere, the voter is simply choosing what kind of nanny he or she wants. On rare occasions, voters get to choose someone who genuinely believes in smaller government. Unfortunately, said candidates are all too often nuts.; 7/7/13, 4:51 PM