Re: [iwar] Taliban appeal worries Egypt

From: e.r. (fastflyer28@yahoo.com)
Date: 2001-10-27 18:33:40
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From: "e.r." <fastflyer28@yahoo.com>
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Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 18:33:40 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: [iwar] Taliban appeal worries Egypt
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I think that the Taliban would appeal first to the Egyptian Islamic
Jihad. While the Egyption gov't will stay out of this fight, withing
reason, due to there long-term friendship, The Taliban will talk to the
Jihad.  There is no evidence for anything else at present.  At the
recent Arab League meeting on Afganistan, only Iraq stood with the
Taliban.  False prophesy wins you no friends.
--- Mohammad Ozair Rasheed <ozair_rasheed@geocities.com> wrote:
> http://www.metimes.com/2K1/issue2001-43/methaus.htm
> 
> Taliban appeal worries Egypt
> By Amil Khan Middle East Times staff
> 
> Away from his usual jokes and semi-permanent laugh, Yasser, a
> 35-year-old 
> shopkeeper from Cairo, looks up, peers over his glasses and says,
> "Bin Laden 
> wants to give us back our respect, bring us closer together and set
> our 
> societies back on the straight path. I don't think that he carried
> out the 
> attacks on America, and the Taliban don't think he did either. But,
> since 
> he's their guest and they have offered him protection, they are now
> willing 
> to die for him. They have honor."
> 
> However, Yasser looks nothing like the marginalized bearded fanatic
> that 
> Muslim governments would have the world believe are the only people
> who see 
> Osama Bin Laden as a man with a just mission.
> 
> In fact, it would be fair to say Yasser is as far from a religious 
> conservative as it is possible to get. He likes to drink Egypt's
> Stella beer 
> from time to time, can get his friends anything from uncensored
> videos to 
> marijuana, and will spend hours discussing Jean-Claude Van Damme
> action 
> films.
> 
> It is the quietly-building grassroots support for people like Bin
> Laden, 
> along with the deteriorating image of the West, and America in
> particular, 
> that has been worrying Egypt's pro-western government since the
> September 
> attacks.
> 
> In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, most of the world tried to
> decide 
> where to position itself in relation to America's "new war".
> 
> The Arab regimes realized that the West's newly-intensified
> abhorrence of 
> terror attacks carried out in the name of Islam offered them the
> opportunity 
> to indulge in some domestic spring-cleaning.
> 
> Egypt, in particular, had, for 20 years, been trying to persuade
> Western 
> countries to hand back suspected Egyptian terrorists who had sought
> asylum. 
> Western governments were well aware that Egypt had been pursuing its 
> opponents with ruthless vigor and those seeking asylum could easily
> show 
> that their lives were in danger if they returned home.
> 
> However, September 11 changed all that. The Egyptian prime minister,
> Atef 
> Ebeid, proudly suggested that Western countries, instead of
> criticizing 
> Egypt, as they had for 20 years, should have followed in its
> footsteps.
> 
> As governments around the world began to re-examine their files on
> Egyptians 
> who had escaped Cairo's clutches, the Egyptian authorities began
> rounding up 
> members of Islamic jihad and Gamaa Islamia and ordering their trials
> before 
> military courts.
> 
> The climate worked in favor of the authorities. Instead of facing
> political 
> pressure from the United States or European countries, Cairo only had
> to 
> brush aside the muffled protests of groups such as Human Rights
> Watch.
> 
> America was not prepared to defend groups that, in its view, have
> similar 
> outlooks to those that had carried out the suicide bombings in
> Washington 
> and New York – and it was definitely not ready to anger a
> much-needed 
> 'anti-terrorist' ally.
> 
> After Gamaa and jihad came the turn of the peaceful, popular and
> banned 
> Islamic-orientated opposition movement, Muslim Brotherhood. Legal
> sources 
> announced on October 22 that four members of the Brotherhood had been
> 
> arrested and ordered into detention for 15 days. Muhammad Abbas, an 
> engineer, and three teachers, Muhammad Hassan, Khaled Al Samuli, and
> Hossam 
> Habashi, had been arrested on October 20 in Alexandria.
> 
> Government figures in Egypt have come to realize that the public's
> simmering 
> anti-American and pro-Bin Laden feelings could threaten the regime.
> In a 
> seminar on Arab economic integration, held on October 21, Gamal
> Mubarak, son 
> of President Hosni Mubarak, told the audience: "Our Arab societies
> were 
> mobilized against the West even before the September 11…. Today, we
> are 
> urged to double our efforts to set things straight… and not to
> allow certain 
> forces to exert their retrograde influence on us."
> 
> Egypt's present government, which started life through an
> anti-Western, 
> anti-imperialist, socialist coup in 1952, has emerged as one of
> America's 
> strongest regional allies. However, a population angered by perceived
> 
> American bias towards Israel and lack of interest in the suffering of
> Iraqi 
> and Palestinian civilians, is not entirely convinced that reliance on
> 
> America is a good thing.
> 
> Muhammad Ahmed Abdullah, a security guard from the Cairo district of
> Bulaq, 
> told the Middle East Times, "Unfortunately we need American help, but
> I wish 
> we didn't. They made our government sell its soul." Yasser Bakry, a 
> 28-year-old businessman from the Cairo district of Imbaba, added with
> zeal: 
> "Soon we won't need it and they can go to hell."
> 
> Well aware of the anti-American and anti-Western mood of its people,
> the 
> Egyptian government is attempting a balancing act. Although the
> authorities 
> generally frown on public demonstrations, they realize the need to
> let 
> people vent their anger. However, protests that are allowed to take
> place 
> are always surrounded by a security force often greater in number
> than the 
> demonstrators.
> 
> Egypt's annual $2 billion aid package from Washington was unknown to
> many 
> Egyptians until American commentators mentioned it last year in their
> 
> criticisms of Egypt. The government felt obliged to counter by
> pointing out 
> that aid (which it said it hoped to replace soon with trade) did not
> give 
> any country the right to "buy" Egyptian foreign policy.
> 
> The government's attempt to convince the population that instead of
> becoming 
> a tool of American policy it has managed to convince the Americans to
> part 
> with cash for Egypt's own development without bowing to American
> pressure, 
> has begun to sound increasingly hollow.
> 
> When the present Palestinian intifada kicked off a year ago, student 
> demonstrators began to carry placards expressing dismay at U.S.
> backing for 
> Israel. Some placards asked: "Where is the Egyptian army?"
> 
> President Mubarak appeared on TV telling the nation that Egypt had
> done its 
> duty in previous conflicts with Israel and could not afford another
> war.
> 
> After the demonstrations came the public boycott. Lists began
> circulating of 
> U.S. products and services that should be avoided to make America
> realize 
> that pro-Israeli policies would have an economic impact on their own 
> industries.
> 
> However, within weeks dismay set in as the realization dawned that
> many 
> American products were produced in Egypt and any boycott of them
> would have 
> a negative impact on the Egyptian economy.
> 
> Without a free press – and public examination of official policies
> frowned 
> upon – government statements presented by a compliant state-run
> media are 
> fast becoming unacceptable.
> 
> The present mood represents the most dangerous threat to the regime,
> which 
> has, so far, been spared a rising tide of revolutionary opposition.
> The 
> Iranian revolution didn't inspire the masses, as the Shia
> revolutionaries 
> had first hoped, and Egypt's armed militants' attacks on civilians
> set many 
> people against them.
> 
> Today, while Egyptians feel little affinity for the Taliban, the
> U.S.-led 
> attacks against it are tending to confirm the view of America as a
> nation 
> "on the other side," a world power on which their government relies
> but 
> which Arabs and Muslims cannot trust. For them, the experience of 
> Palestinians in the intifada confirms that American help may well not
> be 
> there when they really need it.
> 
> The government's balancing act has just become that much harder.
> 
> 


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Next message: Fred Cohen: "[iwar] [NewsBits] NewsBits - 10/26/01 (fwd)"
Previous message: e.r.: "RE: [iwar] [fc:Arab.world.poverty.--.whose.fault?]"
In reply to: Mohammad Ozair Rasheed: "[iwar] Taliban appeal worries Egypt"
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