Egypt’s Generals – Heroes In 1973, Cowards In 2013

By Mark Bruzonsky

Some 40 years ago, just seven years after its humiliating defeat in the 1967 war,  the Egyptian army armed by the Soviet Union attacked across the Suez Canal.  The Americans rushed to the defense of Israel with an air bridge of military supplies and then declared a “nuclear alert” as much to stop the Israelis from possibly using their own battlefield nukes as to warn the Soviets to back off.     Back then the Egyptian army was fighting Egypt’s enemy and trying to help the people of Palestine as well as its own.  That was October 1973.

But now the Egyptian army has become a narcissistic VIP cabal of arm-chair Generals who fear to battle anyone other than their own defenseless people.  Today’s Egyptian Generals have throughout their military careers sucked up to their American benefactors and grossly rewarded themselves. They parade pompously in their glittering uniforms primarily concerned with the money and privileges they, their families, and their associated political cronies can suck from poor Egypt while the great majority of Egyptians remain destitute and illiterate.

True, Egypt has really been a military state from the start ever since the 1950s revolution when it took power.  True they have always de-uniformed and redressed one of their own in carefully tailored suits — Generals Sadat and Mubarak the two of recent memory. And now when they failed to get their General Ahmed Shafik “elected” in 2012 they schemed from the start to bring down the elected government and use Mubarak-era politicians and judges to cover their tracks.

Now the Egyptian army is fighting and killing its own brave people while bringing suffering and repression to the Palestinians. Now is October 2013.