Mohammed Morsi vs. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

[All Along The Watchtower]

As repugnant and awful Morsi was, I can't stand how readily the West's supposed defenders of liberal Western democratic values so readily support SECULAR STRONGMEN (read: murderously brutal and thus, widely despised dictators - usually coming from an illiberal and antidemocratic military elite) in the name of some misguided (and flat-out wrong) notion of "stability." So yeah, Morsi by default here.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Morsi, solely because of how cartoonishly evil Sisi's regime is.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Sisi, though I don't like him.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Morsi, solely because of how cartoonishly evil Sisi's regime is.

[DavidB.]

Sisi (normal)

[Santander]

Sisi (normal)

[nicholas.slaydon]

Sisi

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

Unlike Sisi, Morsi was ACTUALLY elected (Sisi's election doesn't count since any real opposition chose to boycott the election), and his government isn't so horrible like Sisi's is.

I'll agree both are terrible, but I'd vote for Morsi over Sisi.

[Santander]

Unlike Sisi, Morsi was ACTUALLY elected (Sisi's election doesn't count since any real opposition chose to boycott the election), and his government isn't so horrible like Sisi's is.

I'll agree both are terrible, but I'd vote for Morsi over Sisi.

Mugabe was elected. The people making terrible decisions doesn't legitimize bad democratically elected leaders.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

If morsi had been ousted legitimately (which, given his incompetence, would have been almost certain) then Islamism would have been dealt a blow right in its heartland (see: the post government collapse of Tunisian Islamism), instead the moronic coup served to reinforce them.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Sisi (normal)

[Intell]

Sisi (normal)

[America Needs R'hllor]

Now that I have more time to explain my choice- the middle east needs competent leaders and stability, and now. Mursi was an Islamist, friendly to terrorists, and incompetent. Sisi might be a strongman, but he is at least competent and working to stabilize the region. I particularly like his policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Many countries are, unfourtunately, still not ready for full democracy. Iraq was one of them; Egypt appears to be another. I'd love it if they slowly transition to become democracies, but first they need to be stable. So, my policy is: a competent leader who promotes stability and values of freedom and equality is way better than a democratically-elected leader who destablizes his country and takes away his people's rights, such as Hamas. That's why I supported the coup in Turkey, that's why I would support a secularist coup in Iran, that's why I would not bat an eye before destroying every single high-ranking member of Hamas and replacing them with a scular-ish leader who can keep Gaza stable and start its recovery.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Well, it's pretty stupid reasoning seeing as the initial actions of muh secular strongman is to immediately destroy or cripple the institutions that counterbalance authoritarianism (unions, business, NGOs, media) that would be needed in a democracy. Military regimes do not help a country transition to democracy, they simply create badly functioning states - Turkey, Thailand, Pakistan etc. - with confused and divided oppositions. And of course they actually help islamists, as the pulpit is normally the only opposition unable to be gully ousted.

The only reasoning that makes sense is Israel. And that's actually a fair reason, but not one based on goodwill to Egypt.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Also as Beet noted once secular strongmen have killed way more people than Islamists. Just look at the records of Saddam Hussein or the Assad family.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The whole "Sisi is a great secular hero" meme should've died long ago. If opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood were a paragon of secularism, the Saudis would've take the gold.

Even if Sisi were great secularist, defending him solely on these grounds is pretty much like what we've seen during the Cold War: "yes, he's a murderer and a tyrant, BUT he's not a communist".

Also, the way Sisi regime works hardly seems to have solving anything in a long run. Years of Mubarak resulted in a political explosion. Imagine such a delayed explosion in reaction to Sisi's ways.

[America Needs R'hllor]

That's why I did not say "Saddam Hussein is great" or "praise Assad". I agree, a secular strongman is not the answer, but a secular strongman-ish who does promote some democratic values (I know they're rare, but, for example, the people behind the Turkish coup seemed to be of that sort) and can stabilize the country is miles better than an Islamist strongman.
Sisi is not great either, but from what I've seen, he's a lot better than Mursi, or Saddam Hussein.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Kinda weird to call the military officers who violently overthrow (or attempt to violently overthrow, in Turkey's case) the leaders of countries who - however alarming in the ways in which they wield their power - were actually elected, as people who "promote some democratic values." And the main effect of these brutal coups is to not only give the Islamists significant fuel for their propaganda, but they also give much-welcomed legitimacy to the arguments of even (perhaps especially) the most violent of Islamists.

There's a very credible argument to be made that this is exactly what has happened in much of the Middle East, as despotic leaders who promote "secularism" at the barrel of a gun and by imprisoning, torturing, and/or murdering even the most nonviolent of dissidents. The fact that the United States and other Western powers have tacitly or even overtly supported many of these regimes over the course of recent (Cold War) history has done promoters of liberal "Western-style" democracy no favors in this part of the world. People don't only have long memories in these countries, there are literally many people alive who grew up under this history. They've certainly taught this history to their children and grandchildren. And yes, as CrabCake alluded to in this thread, the mosque has effectively become the only real place of dissent in these countries. Seems pretty relevant to this discussion!

(This isn't even getting into the issues of American support for Saudi Arabia and the other despotic Gulf monarchies who aggressively promote a form of Sunni Islam that is at best, one or two steps removed from the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS.)