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Michele Bachmann Thanks Egyptian Military For Coup That Has Killed Hundreds

Doug Mataconis
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If I didn’t know better, I’d think that this was a Saturday Night Live sketch:

Three U.S. lawmakers who have generated controversy for their statements about Islam and Muslim Americans released a video Saturday praising the Egyptian military and thanking it for staging the July 3 and subsequent crackdowns against their “common enemy,” the Muslim Brotherhood. The video, apparently taken a few hours after meeting with coup leader General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi in Cairo, features Rep. Michele Bachmann reading a statement to the camera. She’s flanked by Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert.

The video, posted below, is a doozy. Bachmann, presumably supported by King and Gohmert, offers fulsome praise for the coup and the military-led government’s subsequent actions, describing its crackdowns against sit-ins and demonstrations as “the front lines” in “the war on terrorism.” She described the Muslim Brotherhood as a common enemy and a “great evil,” implying that it had been responsible for the attacks against the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. King and Gohmert offered similar but more tempered remarks.

Here’s the video:

I take this as a sign that King and Gohmert will be more than able to contribute enough crazy to make up for Bachmann’s absence after 2014

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42 responses to “Michele Bachmann Thanks Egyptian Military For Coup That Has Killed Hundreds”

  1. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    The video, apparently taken a few hours after meeting with coup leader General Abdel Fatah el-Sissi in Cairo, features Rep. Michele Bachmann reading a statement to the camera. She’s flanked by Reps. Steve King and Louie Gohmert.

    Seriously, is this National Mental Health Week?

  2. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    The Muslim Brotherhood is the spiritual and literal father of Hezbollah, a known terrorist group, and is considered the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement. When the military took them out of power, they vented their rage by massacring Coptic Christians.

    It seems that Bachmann is speaking inconvenient truths here.

  3. Gustopher Avatar
    Gustopher

    Jenos should run for the House. Surely, our country needs someone to replace Bachmann, and I don’t think King and Gohmert are up to the task.

  4. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    Don’t worry Jenos, Michelle will protect you from the bad men.

  5. OzarkHillbilly Avatar
    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    It seems that Bachmann is speaking inconvenient truths here.

    It would seem Jenos that you thinkl military coups are the answer for your parties failures at the ballot box. Or is that an inconvenient interpretation?

  6. Leyla Avatar
    Leyla

    can you read this “http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/81117/Egypt/Politics-/Egypt-liberals-tighten-grip-on-constitution-drafti.aspx?

    “Egypt liberals tighten grip on constitution drafting “. This news shows that she sided with the right side and good for her.

  7. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Actually, Hezbollahis a Shii’te organization, and to the extent that Hezbollah is now essentially Assad’s crack unit in his fight against the (somewhat) Brotherhood-influenced rebels, it and the Brotherhood are in a state of war. Thank you for playing.

  8. Grumpy Avatar
    Grumpy

    @humanoid.panda:

    Somewhat Brotherhood, some what al Qaeda and somewhat the group the Boston Bombers belonged to — Wonder how many are from al Bashir’s Islamic Da’wa

    Could explain a lot of things

  9. WriteRight Avatar
    WriteRight

    The Egyptian military thwarted the Muslim Brotherhood from turning the country into another islamist hell hole. These were people who were tossing young anti-Morsi activists off the roof to their deaths (search youtube). They were not going to go peacefully.

  10. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    What do you call an unrepentant terrorist group that wins an election?

    If you’re a sane person, they’re a terrorist group that won an election.

    But if you’re a leftist, they suddenly become a Legitimate Government That Must Be Dealt With Like Any Other Freely Elected Government, And Their Terrorist Ways Must Be Swept Under The Rug. Because a single election whitewashes all past misdeeds.

  11. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @humanoid.panda: You’re right, I was mistaken. Hezbollah (“The Party Of Allah”) is the Lebanon-based, Assad-backed terrorist group that has started a couple of wars with Israel, and is currently in total violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 — not that anyone cares, because Hezbollah won elections in Lebanon and are now part of the legitimate Lebanese government.

    The Muslim Brotherhood’s affiliated terrorist group is Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group whose charter explicitly calls for genocide against the Jews. Oh, and won a fair election, so they’re all just fine and dandy now.

    Thanks for catching my error, and allowing me to correct it.

  12. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    I rarely use Facebook but sometimes I see a friend’s home page and this friends is friends with a bunch of people that are complete RWNJs.

    The other day a friend of my friend posted some graphic claiming that Obama had given tanks and planes to the Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently, this guy is such a nutbar that missed the distinction between the Egyptian Army, which overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

    In short: what do you expect from these people?

  13. David J Avatar
    David J

    Is this bad? I had the same feelings. Still do.

  14. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    Well, once upon a time the British thought of our founding fathers as “unrepentant terrorists.”

    When the Japanese used water boarding, we called them war criminals and executed them. When we did it, well, that was different.

    Stick with your cartoon view of the world though, clearly it is using up all your available system resources.

  15. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @Timothy Watson: Well, Obama did supply the Egyptian military with weapons while they were still subordinate to the Muslim Brotherhood. It was only after they overthrew the MB that Obama started talking about suspending future arms shipments.

    Check the timelines. Those “RWNJs” are closer to the truth than you are in your mockery.

  16. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @ Timothy Watson

    I recently saw a graphic on FB with the burning twin towers with the message “the president is defending the people who did this”…

  17. Stormy Dragon Avatar
    Stormy Dragon

    How is the Egyptian Army any less a terrorist group at this point than the muslim brotherhood. Bachman is in fact a terrorist sympathizer, provided it’s anti-muslim terrorism.

  18. An Interested Party Avatar
    An Interested Party

    What do you call an unrepentant terrorist group that wins an election?

    I assume you hold the same contempt for all terrorist groups…

    …and is currently in total violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701…

    Once again, you must hold contempt for Israel too…a country that is also in total violation of UN Security Council Resolutions…

  19. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    How is the Egyptian Army any less a terrorist group

    For that matter, the Mubarak government was a brutal, murderous regime. Yet they prostituted themselves for US aid, which made them good guys in some people book.

  20. al-Ameda Avatar
    al-Ameda

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    What do you call an unrepentant terrorist group that wins an election?

    If I was a snarky person, I’d say the “Republican House Delegation,” but I’m not type of person.

    On the other hand, if I was trying to characterize much of the political activity from North Africa east to Iran, I’d say “welcome to a century of political instability, and that it is often dangerous to consider the enemy of your enemy to be a friend.”

  21. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @ An Interested Party

    You never hear conservatives excoriating Reagan for honoring Begin, an unrepentant terrorist once wanted dead or alive by our closest ally, at the White House.

  22. Gromitt Gunn Avatar
    Gromitt Gunn

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    What do you call an unrepentant terrorist group that wins an election?”

    The Texas GOP.

  23. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    Gromitt Gunn < we have a winner

  24. Lounsbury Avatar
    Lounsbury

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Hezbullah is 12 Shi’a and not in any way fathered by the Brotherhood, which has historically been fairly cool to the Shia. The short of your comment is your pretty much know fuck-all about this and are merely whanking off in making assertions to support whatever narrow partisan domestic political thinking you have re USA land.

  25. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @Stormy Dragon: How is the Egyptian Army any less a terrorist group at this point than the muslim brotherhood.

    Well, for starters, the Army never went on a rampage against totally innocent bystanders, like the MB and the Coptic Christians. That’s one good reason right there.

  26. Jenos Idanian #13 Avatar
    Jenos Idanian #13

    @An Interested Party: Here’s one critical difference: all parties accepted 1701 as the settlement for the 2006 fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. All parties signed on. And Hezbollah kept that pledge just long enough to regroup. In almost no time at all, they were actually better equipped to attack Israel than they were when they started that last war.

  27. Corey Mondello Avatar
    Corey Mondello

    I have to admit I didn’t view the video, I can’t. Even when I used to listen to the radio when they would just play sound bites of her or some other crack pot it wouldn’t motivate me to take action like call their office or email them telling how I didn’t agree or what have you… I would get incensed, enraged at their stupidity and audacity people like her provide for the so many willingly stupid Americans there are. I often tell people why it is possible for people like her to get away with supporting killing people..their belief literally is, the only good non-Christian is a dead non-Christian. It doesn’t matter what religion or Ideology they follow, whether violent or peaceful, moderate, liberal or extreme, if they are not Christians in any way they are better off dead. So many people don’t realize that her kind want to install biblical law, and believe the USA is and always was a Christian nation. I believe the only good Conservative Christian is a dead one personally because they are evil, the devil in incarnate, even though I don’t believe in such an entity, those types of people, throughout history have used Conservative Christianity to kill people; Hitler, Constantine, Puritans, KKK, Scott Lively, etc. Those are evil people and do no good for man kind. On a more lighter note, there are many Christians, Muslums, Jews, Pagans, non-Religious etc that have helped mankind out of oppression, slavery, abuse. We don’t need the Bachmanns or others from the accurately named American Taliban to keep destroying America and the world. It’s not extremist Muslims we should be worrying about, we should be worried about the “Bachmanns” of the world that keep creating more America haters by sticking their world domination ideology into all other countries. 9/11 was what the CIA calls Blowback, I call it Payback. That’s the price we pay for letting people like Bachmann run the world, and those afraid to confront them don’t help much either !!!

  28. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Of course, Israel totally abstained from re-equipping and retraining it’s army in response to the events of the last war, because only terrorists would do that.

  29. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Now, I know that you would argue that the very existence of Hizballah as an armed group is a violation of 1701, but show me a single Israeli general or politician who for a second expected the Hizballah to disarm. All Israelis expected is avoiding a repeat of the periodic attacks Hizballah waged between 2000-2006, and so far Hizballah had stood up to that tacit agreement, even after Israel repeatedly bombed its Syrian patron. This is not to say that Hizballah is not a vile organization, but to say that as a (semi)-state organization, it understands power, how to balance it, and how to lose it.

  30. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    Well, Obama did supply the Egyptian military with weapons while they were still subordinate to the Muslim Brotherhood.

    The modern Egyptian Military has NEVER been subordinate to the modern Egyptian Government. It has always been the other way around (as recent events have clearly demonstrated) – the Egyptian Government serves at the whim of the Egyptian Military. That’s why the country has been through two military coups* in the last five years.

    It was true for Morsi, as it was true for Mubarak, as it will be true for the next head of State.

    Not that facts have ever gotten in the way of an internet argument.

    * – Yes, despite the fact that they began as popular protests, in both the case of Morsi and Mubarak, it was the Egyptian Military who decided when it was time for the men to go and the Military who took immediate control of the situation. Just as it was the Military how installed Sadat as the first leader of modern Egypt and more-or-less chose ever leader that followed him up to Mubrark.

  31. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Matt Bernius: Even more than that, Israel had lobbied Congress hard to continue the aid to Egypt under Morsi, for a simple reason: while the screwed up with a lot of domestic arrangements, he didn’t abrogate the Camp David accords, and kept communication channels with Israel open, knowing that is the only way to keep US aid flowing. That is a piece of useful leverage in the real world, but we do live on the internet…

  32. pylon Avatar
    pylon

    “What do you call an unrepentant terrorist group that wins an election?”

    The Bush admin? The Likud party? Whatever Mushareff’s party was called? Hamas?

    Take your pick.

  33. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    @anjin-san: I wonder what the RWNJs like “An Interested Party” have said about al Qaeda affiliates executing American and allied soldiers, (apparently) completely unaware that Begin did the same thing to British soldiers. Heck, read the notes that Begin and his followers left on the bodies of two British sergeants they executed:

    Two British spies held in underground captivity since July 12 have been tried after the completion of the investigations of their “criminal anti-Hebrew activities” on the following charges:

    1. Illegal entry into the Hebrew homeland.

    2. Membership of a British criminal terrorist organisation known as the Army of Occupation which was responsible for the torture, murder, deportation, and denying the Hebrew people the right to live.

    3. Illegal possession of arms.

    4. Anti-Jewish spying in civilian clothes.

    5. Premeditated hostile designs against the underground.

    Found guilty of these charges they have been sentenced to hang and their appeal for clemency dismissed. This is not a reprisal for the execution of three Jews but a “routine judicial fact.”

    Sounds pretty familiar to the crap al Qaeda puts out, doesn’t it?

  34. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @ Jenos,

    Dude, should I send you a new shovel? The one you have been using must be just about worn out by now.

  35. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Timothy Watson: Well, big difference between Etsel and Al-Qaeda, is that Etsel was an IRA type group, focusing mostly on military targets and making at least symbolic efforts to minimize casualties among civillians when going for non-military targets. Also, like the IRA and the PLO, and unlike Hammas and Al-Qaeda, it aimed to achieve a specific political objective rather than totally destroy the infidels.

  36. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    @humanoid.panda: Uh, what? The King David Hotel was a military target? And the random killing of random Arabs was just symbolic? They were mass-murdering thugs that tried to kill as many Arabs (and British) as possible:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun_attacks

    The IRA did the same thing, setting off bombs on random streets (along with time-delayed ones to try to take out rescue workers).

  37. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Timothy Watson: Well, the King David hotel was also an administrative British headquarters, and Etsel issued a series of warnings before the explopion. Again, this is not to argue that Etsel was not a terrorist group, just to argue that there ares some terrorist groups with whom you can actually negotiate (PLO, IRA and even the ANC had its terrorist phase) and other, Al-Qaeda most prominently, are simply nihilists.

  38. Timothy Watson Avatar
    Timothy Watson

    @humanoid.panda: Oh, so it’s okay to murder 91 people as long as you give them a warning first. What about the 100+ Palestinian they massacred in Deir Yassin? Or throwing grenades at Arab day labourers? Or the Arabs killed at a half-dozen marketplace bombings?

    Even Ben-Gurion couldn’t even negotiate successfully with the Irgun: “We must decide whether to hand over power to Begin or to order him to cease his activities. If he does not do so, we will open fire! Otherwise, we must decide to disperse our own army.”

  39. humanoid.panda Avatar
    humanoid.panda

    @Timothy Watson: Look, as I said, the Etsel was a terrorist organization, but a political one. Once it’s objecitves were met, it did not maintain a campaign of terrorism until such time a Greater Israel was established, it accepted the authority of the elected government, and it transformed itself into a political party, which quickly became known for being far more liberal (in the European sense of the word) than Ben Gurion’s labor. This is, why, for the third time, comparing Etsel to the PLO, or the NLF, or the IRA is completely legitimate, while Al-Qaeda and Hammas are a totally different ball game. For bonus points, if you really wanted to compare a Zionist group to nihilistic terrorist, you would have made a better argument with Lechi (Stern gang). Those guys were real psychos, but even they laid down their weapons after the 1948 War was over.

  40. An Interested Party Avatar
    An Interested Party

    I wonder what the RWNJs like “An Interested Party”…

    Sarcasm, I assume, as we seem to be in agreement about Jewish terrorism…

  41. Pinky Avatar
    Pinky

    @Corey Mondello: It’s just mean to make fun of left-wingers by parodying them like this.

  42. anjin-san Avatar
    anjin-san

    @ Pinky

    Right wing parodies tend to end up much like an unfunny comedian who is bombing on stage then getting mad at the audience for not laughing.

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