Report: Visiting Republicans Laud Egypt’s Force
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Two months after the military ousted Egypt’s first elected president and began a bloody crackdown on his supporters, a delegation of House Republicans visited Cairo over the weekend to tell the new government to keep up the good work.
“We are here as members of Congress to say, ‘We are with you, and we encourage you,’” Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said in a news conference broadcast over a pro-government satellite network and eagerly reported on Sunday by Egyptian state news media.
Amplifying on the new government’s portrayal of its crackdown as a battle against terrorism, Mrs. Bachmann wrongly implied a link between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group whose political party dominated elections after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak and now leads the opposition to the takeover, The New York Times reported.
“We have seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world. We stand against this great evil,” she said, adding: “We remember who caused 9/11. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans.”
The United States and Egypt “have that common enemy, the terrorists who have shown themselves so recently in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mrs. Bachmann continued. “We don’t have a choice. They must be defeated.”
Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, appearing with her and Representative Steve King of Iowa, compared the leader of the military takeover, Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, to George Washington.
Mr. Gohmert overlooked the new government’s mass shootings of hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters, its sweeping roundup of thousands of political opponents and its suspension of all legal protection against arbitrary arrest or other police abuse; instead, he commended General Sisi and the appointed civilian leaders for creating a government where the rule of law was “king.”
All three representatives vowed to defend the $1.3 billion in American military aid to Egypt so that its army could continue its fight against what Mr. Gohmert called “the bloodthirsty Muslim brothers.”
