Whose Side Are We On?

Been busy this week due to five medical appointments in three days. Nothing wrong, just the normal process of advancing age happening to coalesce inconveniently. I did find out yesterday that at some point more than two years ago but less than eight years I had a significant heart attack, which came as a bit of a surprise. I see the cardiologist again the end of next month and will find out more about that.

He says I appear to be at “no significant risk of another one,” which is comforting, but then I was not at any significant risk of that one either, so… Doctors are not always clear in their explanations. Whatever.

Anyway, I watched CBS Evening News the night that the Egyptian Army cracked down on the Morsi supporters and, while certainly there was nothing amusing about the events of that day, and nothing unexpected either, I had to be amused at the efforts by CBS to paint the Muslim Brotherhood as “the good guys” in this national tragedy.

They had three different “reporters,” who I would label more as “elocuters” or “emoters” than reporters, and as each one of them spoke emoted they replayed the same set of film clips of Morsi supporters being gunned down, being carried on bloody stretchers and having name tags placed on their dead bodies. They spoke of “bloodbath” and “brutal attacks,” and showed Morsi supporters “valiantly defending themselves” with rocks and sticks.

They didn’t show the Morsi supporters using AK-47s to kill 50 policemen, nor did they show them attacking and burning Copt Christian churches and killing people sheltering there. They didn’t elaborate on the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Morsi government, nor did they describe the extent to which the Morsi government was promoting an Islamic theocracy.

Nor did they mention that the United States was, at that point scheduling joint military exercises with the Egyptian Army, which have since been cancelled, or that we are providing the military government with $1.5 billion in financial support, which we are continuing to do.

John Kerry, meanwhile is urging the Muslim Brotherhood to avoid violence. He seems not to have noticed what the Egyptian Army is doing. There is a lot that John Kerry doesn’t notice. John Kerry holds several international records for not noticing. John Kerry's world view is so lofty that he would not notice if you pissed on his shoes.

He also says that “Violence never solved anything,” which is sort of mind boggling coming from any American official. Tell that to the people of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen… I guess it depends on your definition of “solved.”