TEMPLATE ANALYSIS
Egypt’s ambassador to London has denied the force used by his country’s military was excessive. He denied the use of sniper fire, and argued that the measures taken in the massacre were necessary to restore order and to protect the people of Egypt.
He drew parallels with the British police breaking up demonstrations in London two years go.
To make his point, he distributed videos probably compiled from Youtube which he says shows Muslim Brotherhood members firing at the police.
That was the tactic used by protesters who first gathered at Tahrir Square to oust the long-standing dictator of Egypt.
Unverified footage, was good enough then, why is not now?
Of course, as Sky News showed today, there are videos of the Egyptian security forces shooting arbitrarily and hitting protesters.
From day one of protests, as BBC’s Jeremy Bowen observed, the army has fired directly into the crowds of Muslim Brotherhood supporters.
The death toll is at leat 500 and if the Muslim Brotherhood are right is in excess of 2,000, and that does not include the injured.
As the casualty figures mount, Egypt’s military and government who successfully convinced the Americans that they were acting for the people when he overthrew a democratically elected President, are fighting a propaganda war.
The obvious parallel to these horrendous events is the putsch conducted by Gamal Nasser against the Muslim Brotherhood during the fifties.
Egypt’ suffered for decades afterwards with incompetent miliary rule headed by first Sadat and then Mubarak, who was only ousted two years ago.
Yesterday’s heavy-handed tactics has taken the Arab World’s most populous nation to into a new and more frightening direction.
The Muslim Brotherhood got what they wanted, Sky’s Dominic Waghorn said the Egyptian military is currently thinking, that is martyrs for its cause.
If that is indeed the case, then the bloodshed on 14/08/13 could well have ensured that the Egyptian military’s attempt at a counter-revolution to push back the ‘Arab Spring’ and to restore military-led control of the country has failed
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