Egypt retires 70 army generals

One retired general for every 13,000 or so personnel if you include the reserves. I wonder how many are still around, and whether the result's top-heavy or not.

and Lebanon.

That would be a giant leap toward establishing Sharia law in the Middle East.

It's their right if they vote this way.

rights of a minority are protected by the state including those specified in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948.

of the country are voting to have their right to drive stripped away, to be locked in their own homes and to be treated like property.

Egypt is a Sunni Islam Nation. One of the chief sources of Sunni sources on Mohammad is Aisha, his youngest wife. The Marriage between Aisha and Mohammad appears to be Political, she was the daughter of one of Mohammad's followers and the marriage was done to strengthen the relationship between the two (In fact Aisha's Father would succeed Mohammad as leaders of Islam at the death of Mohammad).

During Aisha’s entire life she was a strong advocate for the education of Islamic women especially in areas such as law and the teachings of Islam. Aisha, the mother of the Muslims, was known for establishing the first madrasah for women in her home. Attending Aisha’s classes varied from family relatives to orphaned children. Men also attended Aisha's classes, and a curtain simply separated the male and female students. One of her most mentioned and outstanding students was her nephew, Urwah, who eventually became one of the greatest scholars of his generation. Umrah bint Abdur was also one of Aisha’s famous women pupils who was not only regarded as a trustworthy narrator of the Hadith, but became Aisha’s secretary.

Aisha's scholarly intelligence and motherly figure allowed for important contributions in the emergence of Islam and an important dignitary to the Muslim women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha

On the other hand, the Shiite hate Aisha (for the simple reason she opposed Ali as the successor of Mohammad, Shiite is translated into English as "Party of Ali") but they hold Mohammad's only daughter, Fatima, in high esteem, for she was also the wife of Ali (and in turn hated by Aisha, which has been one of the points of division between Shiite and Sunni Islam, i.e. two women are the centers of both Sunni and Shiite Islam).

The Shitte attitude to Fatima is tied in with her being the only child of Mohammad to actually bear children herself. While Mohammad was alive, Fatima tended to be in the background, but at his death, she demanded her inheritance, not just once, but at least twice, including interrupting the Successor of Mohammad as Caliph, while he was giving a speech in a Mosque. When her inheritance was refused, she refused to recognize Mohammad's successor as his successor. Her refusal to accept the new Caliph was her decision not her husband's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatima_bint_Muhammad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi%27a_view_of_Fatimah

Mohammad's relations with women were complex, his first wife, Khadīja bint Khuwaylid, he married at age 25 and lived with till her death when he turned 50. Mohammad did not have any other wives till she was dead, and then only for the last 12 years of his life.

More on Khadīja bint Khuwaylid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khadijah_bint_Khuwaylid

Khadīja bint Khuwaylid was the only wife to bear Mohammand's children, his other wives seems to be more political marriages OR marriages to the widow of followers then anything else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_wives

As to the Moslem Brotherhood, while they want women to wear the "Viel", i.e. traditional arabic dress for women,

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/03/egypt.muslim.sisterhood/index.html?&hpt=hp_c2

The Moslem Brotherhood has even accepted the idea that women can serve in the cabinet, through NOT the Presidency of Egypt:

http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=28077
http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/brotherhood-sticks-ban-christians-and-women-presidency

We sided with torturers and dictators in the view of the Egyptian people.

And our War on the people of Iraq did not give our benevolent language much credibility.

Many people in Egypt are well educated and liberal, but who did we support for decades? Folks like Musharraf.

I hope that the Egyptian people will take another look at their political leaders and support liberal ones. But we have only our own conservatives to blame for the horrible distrust that many Egyptians have for all that is American and Western. Because our conservatives, those among us who were obsessed with fighting socialism and Communism set in place our policy of supporting conservatives in Egypt. And ultimately, the real conservatives in Egypt are the Islamic extremists, so you may be right that shariah law is on its way.

But what would you suggest we do about it?

Fight another war? Insult them? Those are usually the conservative responses for every foreign policy issue.

that was when it became obvious that Mubarak was going to have to step down and to keep Iran from becoming Egypt's new best friend

Much easier to cut deals that way, no need to lead, you just give orders.

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." Describing what it's like to be governor of Texas.
(Governing Magazine 7/98)

-- From Paul Begala's "Is Our Children Learning?"

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator," Bush joked.

-- CNN.com, December 18, 2000

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it, " said.

-- Business Week, July 30, 2001

I've traveled like so many others and seen poverty and starvation. I've seen slavery and near slavery of woman and poor in other countries in the name of religion and enough dead and destruction to make me ask why do humans exist?

I love to tweak the ultra religious by quoting from the Torah that Christians translated into the King James version as "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." Genesis 6:6

God may not make many mistakes but when she does it's monumental!

Libya still has its problems but the Muslim Brotherhood is not it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9379022/Libya-elections-Muslim-Brotherhood-set-to-lead-government.html

Perhaps you are right but IMO the Muslim Brotherhood will end up controlling Libya.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/10/muslim-brotherhood-expectations-libyan-election

You're posting pre-election spin based on Tunisia and Egypt. Libya did not follow their lead and the Muslim Brotherhood was heavily marginalized in Libya thanks to the women who voted in numbers never before seen in the Muslim world.

edit: another link: National Forces Alliance wins more than double the seats of Muslim Brotherhood party, as final results confirmed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/17/mahmoud-jibril-party-elections-libya

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_General_National_Congress_election,_2012

Total defeat in Libya for the Muslim Brotherhood. Libya had an entire year to set up revolutionary councils and spread the revolutionary spirit. Neither Tunisia or Egypt had that opportunity.

And of course, it's also an opportunity to retire people whose loyalty to the new regime seems questionable.

This guy moves fast. Edit: politicians who move fast worry me.

In proportion to their population the Egyptian military's about as large as the American one, and could get away with being much smaller than it is. It's a half million now - a million if you include reservists - and seventy generals of different ranks would imply something in the quarter-million range instead.

Say what you will about the US military, but I do like the fact that there's limits on how many generals its armed forces can have actually written into the law. (The current limit's 498, three-quarters of whom can 'only' be one- or two-star officers, and only eighteen of which are full four-star generals.) I wonder if Egypt might see something similar in the next few years as people attempt to nail down civilian control of the armed forces.

A look at their Wikipedia page suggests they have around 60 standing combat brigades organized into three armies, but it isn't a perfectly triangular organization and I can't guess the total number of combat generals without counting, which I ain't gonna do. That also assumes that brigades are commanded by brigadiers, which may not be so.

So the combat command structure alone might require at least 70 generals. If that doesn't include reserves, then it could be twice that. And then there is the air force and the navy, and the logistics, engineering, and administrative wings....

... It is amazing that they get anything done at all!

And militaries that evolve out of Warsaw Pact doctrines tend to be quite top-heavy. (Of course, again, as a Canadian, I don't have much room to comment on top-heavy armies.)

Egypt's army being around a million overall suggests a few hundred generals at various levels anyway, especially if they don't nudge older ones out the door or into odd positions. Given the army's history there they could probably stand to put at least seventy out to pasture though.

We have way too many generals and colonels and not enough grunts. No wonder we can't win a war anymore.

I keep hearing the US has more colonels than machinegunners.

Of course, as a citizen of a country whose military has more generals than combat aircraft I can't snark too hard. And I do like that you guys have managed to put actual legal limits on the number of generals, even if the result is still top-heavy at the lower levels.

Military coup could be accelerated if Israel were to bomb Iran, causing the Middle East to explode and a massive destabilization of the free world.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/former-white-house-speechwriter-suggests-military-coup-could-oust-obama.html