h/t to Joshua Pundit: The Daily Beast has what it says is an exclusive on Senators McCain and Graham holding forth upon their return from Egypt, where they met with the members of the new Egyptian interim government including Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi and military leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,who ousted Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi from power. And of course, with whom McCain and Graham refer to as ‘senior-level Muslim Brotherhood people’.
According to the pair, the ‘high level people’ requested they be anonymous, but are demanding that Morsi and the other Brotherhood leaders be released and not tried, and that Morsi and the Islamists be returned to power.
“We told [the Muslim Brother leaders] that in our view, the best way to resolve this issue was to renounce and condemn violence, that they should be willing to negotiate if some of the brotherhood were released from prison,” McCain said. “We were not negotiating, we were just saying what we thought had to be done to get back to the negotiating table.”
“The situation is very difficult here,” he said. “The two sides are polarized, and the Morsi supporters are still demonstrating, and the military and the new government are keeping a lot of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership in jail without communication in unknown places. It’s not a good situation, and we’ve recommended that some of them be released as a goodwill gesture. The only way this will get resolved is if both sides are willing to make some concessions.”
And the threat the two senators are holding over al-Sissi to try and force him to negotiate? Officially calling what happened in Egypt a coup and using it to withhold the $1.5 billion in military aid we give them.
“We told [General al-Sisi] exactly how a lot of members of Congress felt and we want to see negotiations and some release of political prisoners,” he said. “He did not say whether he would or he wouldn’t.”
President Obama tried the same threats and was told to go pound sand. And with the GCE countries including the Saudis stepping in over $13 billion in aid Egypt needs to keep going during the transition, I’m surprised al-Sissi even wasted time listening to these buffoons.
This is the same not-so-dynamic duo whom were perfectly willing to send Morsi and the Islamists F-16s and ignore the Brotherhood’s repression and political prisoners they were holding.
Even our State Department and the notoriously clueless John Kerry, our Secretary of State have avoided threatening the Egyptians at this point, trying to hold on to whatever little influence we have with them after President Obama’s epic fail in trying to save the Muslim Brotherhood government he helped install in power.
The two senators claim they weren’t sent by the president, but they arrived after a two hour special meeting with Obama and – just by coincidence, y’know – at a time when our Deputy Secretary of State William Burns is trying fruitlessly to bust the Islamists out of jail and back into power. They even met with Burns, in an obvious attempt to play good cop/bad cop with al-Sissi that failed miserably.
The Brotherhood in Egypt are attempting to wage guerrilla war in Egypt against the army with riots and sabotage, and as I predicted they’re being crushed, in spite of Obama’s efforts to salvage them.
Let’s parse what’s really going on here. The Morsi regime managed to win an election and gain power thanks to President Obama’s assistance, but became vastly unpopular once the Egyptians realized what Brotherhood rule actually meant. They were becoming increasingly friendly with our enemies in Iran, were destroying even the mild liberties associated with Egypt’s former constitution, and were openly aiding and abetting terrorists in the person of Hamas, the Brotherhood franchise in Gaza.
They are a genocidal and ruthless organization who stand against everything America ought to stand for, and their tactics differ from those of al-Qaeda only when it comes to timing and application. Both groups take their inspiration from al-Banna and Qutb, and both favor an Islamic caliphate. That was something our president and his allies were willing to help them put together in Libya, Egypt, Syria and the Arab-occupied parts of Palestine in the mistaken idea these people can be ‘worked with’, especially if the Obama Administration continues its work of destroying our current alliance with Israel.
Our two Senators are obviously part of this group, and you might recall McCain’s outspoken championing of Hillary’s Muslim Brotherhood connected aide Huma Abedin (Weiner), these senators voting to confirm Chuck Hagel and Samantha Power to sensitive national security posts and McCain’s push to arm the al-Qaeda and Brotherhood rebels in Syria, among other things.
The Egyptian military were the spear point of a reaction against that, a part of the real issue in the Middle East these days, the proxy war between the Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia and the Shi’ite bloc led by Iran that has come to a head in Syria.
The Brotherhood and Hamas were also ousted from Qatar, one of their major financial supporters as a new Emir took over, yet another sign that the devil’s bargain between the Brotherhood and Arab autocracies like the Saudis may be coming to an end.
As for McCain and Graham, the less said about them the better. They long ago passed the point of farce and are now are an actual problem, one I hope the people of Arizona and South Carolina resolve at the next opportunity to boot them out for now is the time for change in the Republican Party as well as in the culture and power structure in Washington, D.C..
Ever wonder why people hate the US around the world? As Egyptians have stood up twice valiantly for freedom, Obama and RINO’s like McCain and Graham keep trying to saddle them with the Muslim Brotherhood: Report: Obama Now To Meet With Muslim Brotherhood Officials At The White House (read immediately below) In fact, OBAMA OFFICIALS to Offer Muslim Brotherhood Top Positions in Egyptian Government (video):
A report from the Egypt Independent has it that President Obama has scheduled a meeting at the White House with Muslim Brotherhood officials to discuss events in Egypt. Also attending the meeting would be Turkish diplomats from that country’s Islamist government.
The Brotherhood officials and the Turkish diplomats are expected to push hard for deposed Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi’s reinstatement as well as the Brotherhood’s return to power.
The Egypt Independent claims to have heard from sources within the Brotherhood that Brotherhood member and billionaire Hassen Malek was the intermediary who contacted the White House to request the meeting.
Malek is definitely a person of interest. Born into a Muslim Brotherhood family and named after MB founder Hassan al-Banna, Malek joined the organization at a young age and is particularly close to the man who was the real power in Egypt during Morsi’s tenure, Brotherhood supreme guide Khairat al-Shater, whom he befriended when they were students at Alexandria’s university.
Malek and al-Shater co-founded one of Egypt’s first software companies, Salsabil, which had the Egyptian military as one of its clients and made a huge amount of money, but they were later accused of money laundering and funding a terrorist organization, which was what the Brotherhood was considered during Mubarak’s regime. Both were released after a year in jail without being charged.
Malek continued to amass a fortune through his software endeavors and through a series of business deals with companies like the Turkish furniture manufacturer Istikbal. He was actually a part of the Morsi regime, serving as the leader of Morsi’s business development council.
Another connection is that he is reputed to be close to none other than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s parents, her late father Syed Zainul Abedin, head of the Brotherhood front the Muslim World League and Abedin’s mother Saleha Abedin, a prominent and long standing member of the Brotherhood’s International Women’s Organization (IWO)
There’s no question that Malek has the clout to arrange a meeting with President Obama. And Malek can definitely afford the president’s going rate for a face to face, although given President Obama’s sympathy and support for the Brotherhood, Malek might get a discount or have the fee waived altogether.
Do I credit this as accurate? Ordinarily, I’d tread cautiously here, especially as it’s Egyptian media and based on unnamed sources. But given who President Obama is, I’d be leaning towards this being accurate. Especially since the Administration’s attempt to intimidate the current Egyptian government fell flat on its face.
There may just be a need to meet, greet and coordinate some strategy.
askmarion 
president has just appointed Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri believes that sharia law is superior to American law. Yet, al-Hibri is only one of the pro-sharia adherents that Obama has placed in influential positions since he became president. Dalia Mogahed was one of the earliest appointees and as Nonie Darwish has written , “[t]he empowerment of Radical Islam under the Obama administration” is extremely disturbing.
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