It seems that Associated Press reporter Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb, her partner in distortion, can hardly believe that Egypt's military-backed government is calling terrorists "terrorists."
The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. Even if one believes, as Michael asserts, that "The Brotherhood, founded in 1928, denounced violence in the late 1970s," that alleged repudiation was rendered null and void after hard-line Islamist Mohammed Morsi, who lost his legitimacy when he took dictatorial powers in November of last year, was ousted from power in July. After that, the Brotherhood, as I noted at the time, with evidence, "rededicated itself to terrorism." Egypt's government is recognizing the obvious, and the in three process thumbing its nose at the Obama administration, which as far as I can tell has never backed away from its position that the Brotherhood should have a role in Egypt's government.
Here's some of the unreality delivered by Michael (HT to an emailer; bolds are mine):
Egypt names Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group
Egypt's military-backed interim government on Wednesday declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, criminalizing all its activities, its financing and even membership to the group from which the country's ousted president hails.
The announcement is aimed at crippling the Brotherhood and poses a dramatic escalation of the fight between the government and group, which has waged near-daily protests since the July 3 popularly backed military coup that toppled President Mohammed Morsi.
Hossam Eissa, the Minister of Higher Education, read out the Cabinet statement after long meeting.
Eissa said that the decision was in response to Tuesday's deadly bombing targeting a police headquarters in a Nile Delta city which killed 16 people and wounded more than 100. The Brotherhood has denied being responsible for Mansoura attack and an al-Qaida inspired group has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing on Wednesday.
Let's stop there for a moment.
Even Al Jazeera has noted that an Egyptian prosecutor's declaration "that Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood had committed acts of violence and terrorism in Egypt and prepared a 'terrorist plan' that included an alliance with the Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah." This is hardly an outrageous assertion. At National Review in 2011, Andrew McCarthy showed that for all practical purposes, "Hamas Is the Muslim Brotherhood." Only the willfully blind, which includes much of the Obama administration and AP reporters, continue to pretend the Muslim Brotherhood isn't philosophically aligned with terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda.
Continuing:
The decision comes after a sweeping decision Tuesday aimed at draining the Brotherhood's finances by freezing the funds of more than 1,000 non-government organizations with links to the group and putting more than 100 schools run by the group under government supervision. That directly attacks the grassroots strength of the Brotherhood, where it has much of its power in Egyptian life.
Rifaat Laqoushah, a political analyst, said that the government decision is "procedural" and that it could be overturned by the courts.
"The government should present strong evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood collaboration in terrorism and present it to courts in order to win a court ruling branding the group as a terrorist one," Laqoushah said.
I guess they'll have a find the remains of a suicide bomber's membership card before they're convinced.
Actually, even that might not be enough to convince skeptics and sympathetic reporters, given what Michael reports in two later paragraphs about a Mansoura bombing suspect:
The suspect — identified as 22-year-old Adel Younis Rashid who runs a computer shop in Mansoura — was taken into custody as he was trying to fly to Turkey with his mother and a friend, the official said.
The suspect is the son of a leading Brotherhood member and former lawmaker from Mansoura, the official said, adding that authorities have confiscated Rashid's computers and telephones.
My emailer says that the government's move shows that it is "one step ahead of Obama."
And of AP, the Administration's Press.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
