Attacks on Protesters in Cairo Were Calculated to Provoke, Some Say

RICK GLADSTONE: “Given the propaganda of the state-supported media in Cairo, tarring the Muslim Brotherhood with the terrorist brush, making them enemies, not just a nuisance, is setting them up for being completely crushed and eliminated,” said Hugh Roberts, director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Tufts University. “To use an Algerian term, eradication.” Many said the events since the forced removal of Mohamed Morsi, the first freely elected president, suggested that Egypt’s military commanders had concluded beforehand that they would gain nothing from negotiations with the Brotherhood, and would rather deal with it as an insurgent group that presented a security threat, not as a popular political movement. More here.