When Is A Military Coup Not A Military Coup? When The White House Says So.

[cthulu2016]

6. I find that I cannot get upset about this coup

Absent a white hat so white that it is worth the horrors of chaos I do not automatically fault the military here.

I do not find, for instance, instituting Sharia in the most populous Arab nation to be clearly better than the current situation. (Unlike in Iowa, instituting Sharia in Egypt is not a daft fantasy but rather a possibility.)

If the military said they were acting to preserves what rights women currently have in Egypt it would surely color perceptions here. I doubt that is their particular motive (their desire is long-term social stability, IMO, whether their methods are effective or ineffective to the goal), but it is probably true in effect if not design.

The same could be said for the rights and safety of, say, Coptic Christians. (A little under 10% of the country) What if they said they needed to prevent Egypt from sliding away from the Camp David accords? Etc..

I see nothing simple here. My support of democracy is no stronger than my opposition to theocracy. Those two things usually go hand in hand, but not always. The imposition of secularism may be repugnant to our first-world sensibilities but it has a long history in the middle east that is not all bad, by any means.

I remain agnostic here, and will not be entirely swayed by atrocity stories from or about either side. The fog of riot and insurrection makes the fog of war seem like a summer day in Maine.