Ex-president Mohamed Morsi issued a statement on his official Facebook page saying that the Wednesday military announcement amounts to a coup.

“The procedures announced by the general command of the armed forces represents a full coup d’etat that is completely unacceptable,” the statement asserted.

Ahram Online.  “Morsi refuses army road map, says he remains Egypt president.”  July 3, 2013.

As stated to some of my Facebook friends, “Again, the hope, and this perhaps part of the expression by Egyptians opposed to Morsi’s Administration, may be that the military will prove more responsible than kleptocratic, which has been too often the case, more moderating in the political discourse than strident in its own right, and more capable than the Muslim Brotherhood of returning to Egyptians a true democracy working through an open conversation with the broadest possible participation.”

However, to get from here to there with a president out in front of a party devoted to the possession of power for the experience of it — only God knows how little it has done to further the interests and improve the lives of, at minimum, the millions of Egyptians who have come out on the streets in opposition to it — has meant risking civil war.

Now the question turns to the military’s own best foresight and planning with regard to getting in the way of the development of that kind of bloodshed.  If it is overwhelming in intelligence and force, it may well attenuate the polarization evident on the streets and forestall the kind of “brush fires” that would threaten to become a sullen low-intensity conflict; if it has miscalculated and the Muslim Brotherhood reaches for significant arms and war materiel and comes up with both, it could produce the kind of melting away of law and security experienced elsewhere in states hosting their portion of the Islamic Small Wars.

Quite unlike the Assad regime in Syria, which military in the hands of Maher al-Assad has been something worse than merely fascist in its devouring Syrian civilian assets and lives — the possessions of its own constituency — with a minimum of concern or discrimination between enemy combatants and those simply not involved with the politics, Egypt’s military appears both experienced and responsible.

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Are you in Egypt? Send us your experiences, but please stay safe.

Cairo (CNN) — Egypt’s military deposed the country’s first democratically elected president Wednesday night, installing the head of the country’s highest court as an interim leader, the country’s top general announced.

Gen. Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi said the military was fulfilling its “historic responsibility” to protect the country by ousting Mohamed Morsy,

Sayah, Ben Wedeman and Matt Smith.  “Morsy ou in Egypt coup.”  CNN, July 3, 2013.

From the Second Row Seat to History

If you’re in Egypt and sharing the experience with CNN, let me know if they pay you.

🙂

Honestly, when I moved out of the Washington, D.C. area, I thought I’d be shooting weddings on the weekends and out dancing in the evening.  In my wildest dreams I’d have never imagined developing a global life online and then, here I / you / we are (if you’re reading close to the publishing date and time on this post) communicating about the same thing from every location at about the same time across the planet at the speed of light.

Gone is the poor sod sent to the telegraph office to get the latest communique from the revolution, run it up to an editor for write-up, down to a department for layout, and, later, on to the press for the run on to broadsheet — and the “crank” on the other side of the process who reads of that communique and goes to the writing desks with a pen, later a typewriter, to fire off a missive to the editor on the matter.

Ah, the good old days!

And some of them were mine.

What I can’t do, CNN knows, from the second row seat to history is control my own live link where something’s happening.

I’m on the outside, nose pressed to a transparent wall — invisible “shields up” would be the Star Trek perspective — looking in and looking on.

* * *

The president of the supreme constitutional court will act as interim head of state, assisted by an interim council and a technocratic government until new presidential and parliamentary elections are held.

“Those in the meeting have agreed on a roadmap for the future that includes initial steps to achieve the building of a strong Egyptian society that is cohesive and does not exclude anyone and ends the state of tension and division,” Sisi said in a solemn address broadcast live on state television.

Reuters.  “Egypt’s military leader suspends the constitution, appoints interim head of state.”  The Jerusalem Post, July 3, 2013.

Here’s a powerful headline from the Huffington Post (July 3, 2013): “Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court, Named Interim President.”

Referencing Adly Mansour

Enein, Ahmed Aboul.  “SCC approves new chief justice appointment.”  Daily News Egypt, May 19, 2013.

Taylor, Adam.  “Here’s the New Acting President of Egypt.”  Business Insider, July 3, 2013.

According to sources (“Profile of Adly Mansour: Who is Egypt’s interim President?” the Independent, July 3, 2013), Adly was appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court by Morsi and had taken up the position on June 1, 2013.

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