Monday, July 8, 2013

Monday Links and Readings -- July 8

When the media juggles several big stories at once is when the best material gets tossed into the mix. Otherwise everybody is trying to yell louder than the rest and the same material gets stuck in a loop. This week we have the Zimmerman trial, a plane crash in San Francisco, simmering conflicts in Syria and Turkey, conflict coming to a boil in Egypt, railroad disaster in Lac Megantic, Quebec, fires and floods all over the place and L'affaire Snowden.  All this competing for air and ink! ABC's QandA is trending on Twitter. What more can I say?


Here's an audio link to this story if you want to listen as you continue to read. 
I heard it a few days ago and found it to be excellent. 



As Snowden told the Guardian, “This country is worth dying for.” And, if necessary, going to prison for — for life.

But Snowden’s contribution to the noble cause of restoring the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Constitution is in his documents. It depends in no way on his reputation or estimates of his character or motives — still less, on his presence in a courtroom arguing the current charges, or his living the rest of his life in prison. Nothing worthwhile would be served, in my opinion, by Snowden voluntarily surrendering to U.S. authorities given the current state of the law.

I hope that he finds a haven, as safe as possible from kidnapping or assassination by U.S. Special Operations forces, preferably where he can speak freely.

What he has given us is our best chance — if we respond to his information and his challenge — to rescue ourselves from out-of-control surveillance that shifts all practical power to the executive branch and its intelligence agencies: a United Stasi of America.

This is tied to a particular kind of personal austerity politics that the Right loves and too many liberals accept, a kind of asceticism that they push on the elderly and lower-income people in a convoluted way rather than just straight-up cutting their monthly allowance. And yet it is a trap - if you adjust to the cheap stuff, you get your benefits cut, so then you have to adjust more to cheaper stuff, and then they cut you again. The cuts aggregate, meaning people who rely on Social Security longer (more women, for instance) get hit harder.
[...]
Chained CPI is another way to dictate what choices people on benefits can make; for all the lip service paid to freedom and liberty, American politicians do not seem to like the freedom and choice involved when people are given a check and allowed to prioritise what they like. They prefer, instead, the virtues of sacrifice, the willingness to live on less and less in service of some greater good (like "debt reduction" or "keeping the company in business"). The idea that freedom includes the freedom to want more is off the table.


Fascinating analysis. Not too long to read. The term "salafi" is not as precise as most non-Muslims imagine. For the Muslim Brotherhood keeping them all in line is like herding cats. They are learning the hard way that politics really is the art of the possible. 
...Had the Brotherhood governed as a big-tent Islamist party in the way its leaders promised to do, it would have been on far surer footing. Unlike the Salafis, the Muslim Brotherhood was ideologically equipped to govern in this manner. But its organizational bias toward authoritarianism and secrecy, coupled with the extraordinary difficulty of governing in post-revolutionary Egypt, pushed the party over the cliff.





After a recent Rosh Hodesh service, Anat was arrested; and in a humiliating and misogynistic move, was strip-searched by the Jerusalem police for the "crime"of a woman reading from the Torah. Which is to say, since I, a man, can technically read from Torah at the Kotel and she can not, this is *her* movement, not mine, and I was there, with the other men, to *support* the Women of the Wall in their strategy and goals.
[...]
This is Zionism? Young Haredi men, living on government subsidies to study in yeshivas, refusing to serve in the Israeli army, benefiting from the protection of the Israeli army, heaping abuse on men and women who do serve in the Israeli army, protecting them, so that they can deny their fellow Jews' right to practice their Judaism. Our colleague Rabbi Sari Laufer of Rodeph Shalom in New York, six months pregnant, had a hard-boiled egg thrown at her, hitting her in the neck, and bringing up a painful welt the size of her hand. Others were sprayed with water, raw egg, and curses. According to Haaretz, two arrests were made.
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Moving along, take a look at how much America spends 
on education and reflect on how little we get in return. 
It's almost as expensive as health care 
and with the same less than excellent results. 
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Sunday, July 7, 2013

CNN Messed Up

Saw a Tweet that CNN has been forced to take their cameras and crews to safety in Tahrir cuz so many protesters think they are pro-Morsi. 

Huh? Check this conversation:

Wael Nawara ‏@WaelNawara4h
When millions demonstrate against #Morsi today in every major city in #Egypt, @cnn is nowhere to be found :) #Cnn & #Obama one hand with #MB

benwedeman ‏@bencnn2h
@WaelNawara You know why? Because to go into Tahrir would be to risk our lives right now.

ربنا معنا ‏@Metalloy1h
@bencnn @WaelNawara You could have easily planned for it, like renting a flat and shooting from a balcony overseeing the square !!!

benwedeman ‏@bencnn1h
@Metalloy @WaelNawara We did. But from a balcony what do you get? I want to be in crowd but w/"Shame on CNN" signs everywhere reception dark

Robert MackeyVerified account‏@RobertMackey
After technician in Atlanta mistakenly labelled crowd in Tahrir pro-Morsi @bencnn unable to report due to "hysteria whipped up against CNN"

Mary Michael ‏@Lalloo7512m
@RobertMackey @bencnn .... Seriously blaming it on a technician ??? We r supposed to believe that ?

adam mowafi ‏@adammowafi12m
@RobertMackey @CairoScene @bencnn the butterfly effect chooses a crappy way to materialize in Egypt lol

benwedemanVerified account ‏@bencnn10m
@Lalloo75 @RobertMackey Are you seriously suggesting I personally type the text onto CNN's screen???? or have the time to watch???

Nahla Enany ‏@Nahla_889m
@RobertMackey @Sandmonkey @bencnn mistakenly??? are kidding me?!!!

Mary Michael ‏@Lalloo757m
@bencnn @RobertMackey .... No... but did CNN issue a statement taking responsibility and correcting its mistake?

benwedemanVerified account ‏@bencnn7m
@Nahla_88 @RobertMackey @Sandmonkey You are free to entertain the idea that labelling Tahrir a pro-Morsi protest was a conspiracy. Go ahead

Nahla Enany ‏@Nahla_886m
@bencnn @RobertMackey @Sandmonkey No, I should believe it was a mistake, cause you guys are professional like that!

Mariam Ghazala ‏@mariamghazala6m

@RobertMackey @Sandmonkey @bencnn  see even the great American system is not fault free. Admit your mistakes and move on before its too late

Bahaa Eltawel ‏@BahaaEltawel5m
@RobertMackey: After technician mistakenly labelled crowd in Tahrir proMorsi @bencnn unable to report due to"hysteria whipped up against CNN"

benwedemanVerified account ‏@bencnn40s
@mariamghazala @RobertMackey @Sandmonkey If you thought the "great" America system was "fault free" I'm not sure what I can tell you.

السيد مانكي ‏@Sandmonkey12s
@bencnn @mariamghazala @RobertMackey LOL...

LOL, indeed!
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Sunday Reading and Links -- July 7

This weekend's stories have scaled back from rolling boil to simmer. No special theme today. Eclectic collection instead.

Avoiding Algeria in Egypt
July 6, 2013
Álvaro de Vasconcelos is Director of Projects for the Arab Reform Initiative (ARI), a consortium of 16 think tanks in the Arab world and the West, and coordinator of the Global Governance Group (GG 10). He was formerly Director of the European Union Institute for Security Studies, Paris, and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (IEEI) in Lisbon.
Hope remains that Egypt will not become Algeria in 1992 (or Chile in 1973). But to avoid that grim fate, it is imperative that Muslim Brotherhood members’ fundamental rights now be protected. 
US President Barack Obama, who has expressed deep concern about the overthrow of Morsi, is perhaps the only leader able to mediate in such a situation and work for a consensus solution that prevents a civil war. To achieve this, he would need to use all of the leverage at his disposal, including cutting off the massive military assistance that the US provides to Egypt’s armed forces, as he has threatened to do. He can also use the reserve of trust that he established by reaching out to the Brotherhood during Morsi’s presidency. 
But will Obama take the initiative? His speech in Cairo in 2009 – which called for “A New Beginning” in the region – inspired many in the Arab world. Now it is time for more than words.






When my time comes, I hope I can die in harness, as Francis Crick did. When he was told that his colon cancer had returned, at first he said nothing; he simply looked into the distance for a minute and then resumed his previous train of thought. When pressed about his diagnosis a few weeks later, he said, “Whatever has a beginning must have an ending.” When he died, at 88, he was still fully engaged in his most creative work.

My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’, too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty. At 80, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

I am looking forward to being 80.
Number Six stands out to me...
(6.)   Sixth, the MB has also shown their true undemocratic colors when they decided to go after the constitutional court, the judiciary, the free press, the NGOs, and to draft a deeply flawed electoral law slanted to their favor. Theoretically, the MB seems to be relying on an ancient and outdated political philosophy whereby the people’s participation in the political system appears to start and finish with the ballot boxes, what Amr Ezzat coined as ‘ballotocracy’. According to this view, arguably based on medieval precedents, the leader, once elected should command total respect and obedience from his (and of course there is no ‘”or her” in this political vision) followers. He is constantly compared to a captain of a ship or a leader of a caravan. If you don’t follow his commands, you run the risk of drowning or perishing in the barren desert. The MB, and strangely Anne Patterson, do not seem to believe that the president’s role is more akin to the CEO of a company or the president of a university who is accountable to a board of directors or to stockholders/board of trustees; who is subject to laws and procedures; and who can be fired and sacked if he does not do his job properly. If this view imbuing total obedience seems generally outdated, it is particularly unsuitable for a revolutionary moment. Not realizing the people cannot be expected to go home and mind their business after casting their votes in the presidential elections is the gravest mistake the Brotherhood/Patterson coalition has committed.

Service Brings Scorn to Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox Enlistees
By Isabel Kershner, yesterday's NT Times
The integration of Haredim, or “those who fear God,” into the military — and providing them a path into the work force — is viewed as essential by many Israelis, not only to uphold the principle of social equality but also to ensure the economic survival of the country. More than a quarter of Jewish first graders in Israeli schools belong to the fast-growing ultra-Orthodox minority. 
In recent years, hundreds have served in Nahal Haredi, a combat battalion established in the late 1990s for ultra-Orthodox 18-year-olds. About 3,000 more have served in Shahar, an army program set up in late 2007 to train young married ultra-Orthodox men as technical staff members for the air force, navy, intelligence and other branches of the military. 
To attract recruits, Shahar allows soldiers to go home every night during their two-year army stint and provides a government salary. 
But with Parliament working on legislation that would eventually lead to the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men, and the subsequent backlash among the Haredim, things now appear to be moving in the opposite direction.
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This brings tears to my eyes.
“No fighting,” Anderson said, as she handed out 15 meals and walked toward the back of the bus, where a young mother in a tank top and pink slippers was sitting with her 2-year-old son. The mother opened the toddler’s fruit cup and, a minute later, the little boy stood up on his seat, laughed and tossed the fruit cup out the school bus window.

“How dare you?” the mother said, turning to the toddler, slapping his bottom hard enough for the bus to go quiet, then pulling her arm back to slap him again.

“It’s okay,” Anderson said, hurriedly reaching into another bag for a replacement cup of fruit, breaking the rule about seconds.

“It is not okay with me!” the mother said. She turned back to her son, who was wailing, and yanked him back into his seat. “Sit on your butt,” she said. “What did I tell you about wasting?”

Anderson watched the mother for a few seconds and wondered if this would be one of the times when she needed to call child protective services to make a report. It had happened three times on buses already in the past two weeks, once for possible child abuse and twice for possible neglect. Stress, anger, desperation — these were behaviors she had been told to anticipate on the bus at a time when a record 10 percent of children live in homes unable to provide adequate, nutritious food. “Low-income families are being pushed to the very edge,” one of her training manuals had warned. But now Bible walked back from his driver’s seat and put his hand on the young mother’s shoulder. “It’s hot. We’re hungry. Nobody is in a good mood,” he said. “So I’d like to tell a joke. Have you heard that this bus has 2050 air conditioning? That means 20 windows down and 50 miles an hour.”

The mother appeased him with a smile. The 2-year-old went back to eating his sandwich. The meal ended, and the bus emptied out.
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Khaled Fahmy is professor and chair of AUC's Department of History.
What led me to rebel against Mohamed Morsi and to not consider him as the legitimate president of Egypt was his failure to achieve the goals of the revolution, and particularly, not standing up to the army and the police. We revolted so that we could subject the army to parliamentary supervision, and we were stunned to see the Brotherhood’s constitution maintaining all the army’s perks and privileges , allowing for military trials for civilians, exempting the army from the necessity of presenting its budget to parliamentary oversight, and ruling out the possibility of appointing a civilian as minister of defence. As for reforming the police, the president avoided every serious initiative to reform the interior ministry, and turned a blind eye to human rights violations still being committed by the police and did not put an end to the legal and structural environment that allowed for torture to spread across police stations.




Shameful.
Doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitationsterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found. 
At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years – and there are perhaps 100 more dating back to the late 1990s, according to state documents and interviews. 
From 1997 to 2010, the state paid doctors $147,460 to perform the procedure, according to a database of contracted medical services for state prisoners.
More at the link. 


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Saturday, July 6, 2013

Twitter Messages, Other Egypt Links

The day after the June 30 protests, Sisi issued a 48-hour ultimatum to Mursi: either yield to the protesters' demands that he share power with the opposition, or make way for the military to impose a solution. In two private meetings with the president on July 1 and 2, the armed forces chief was even more blunt with the president, but met with incomprehension and rejection, a military source briefed on the meetings said.

"General Sisi went to him and told us when he came back, ‘He was in denial, he said the protesters are just 130,000 to 160,000, but I told him ‘No, sir, they are far more than that and you must listen to their demands'', the source said.

"In the second meeting, General Sisi went with a video recording of the protests the army had made and told him ‘Sir, the situation is out of hand and your suggestions to change the government or the constitution are now too late and will not satisfy the street. I suggest you call a referendum on your continued rule.' But he refused and said this is unconstitutional and illegitimate," the source said.



...In 1992 a French analyst of the Muslim world, Olivier Roy, published a book entitled "L'échec de l'Islam politique"—translated into English three years later as "The Failure of Political Islam".

Back then, political Islam—the idea that Islam could provide a platform for taking and exercising power in modern times—seemed to be doing quite well. The Islamic masters of Iran, having withstood a long war with Iraq, were looking for new places to extend their influence, including the former Soviet republics to their north. In Algeria, an Islamist party had won a clear electoral majority, triggering a military intervention and then a civil war whose outcome was anybody's guess. It seemed clear that wherever secular despots were willing to relax their grip, Islamist parties would step into the void.

But none of those things disproved the thesis of Mr Roy, who is now a professor at the European University Institute. One of his simplest but most compelling points was that for all its power as a mobilising slogan, Islam just does not provide the answers to the problems of governing a modern state. Quite recently the resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of the Arab spring seemed, once again, to challenge Mr Roy's analysis. But as of this week, he could be forgiven for saying: "I told you so."
(I know. Egypt, not Iran. Link to read later. If Vali Nasr sez important, it's important.) 


I've read he totally lacks "street cred" in Egypt. Ex-pat too long. Idealistic but perhaps not ideal, despite a Nobel Prize. 
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Not Egypt here but we need comic relief...


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Friday, July 5, 2013

Spotlight on Egypt -- July 5

So as of yesterday the Egyptian ship of state is being steered by the military instead of a civilian president. And unlike most military coups of the past, this change of leadership has not only been for the most part non-violent, but done with massive support from most of the population. That prompted me to leave the following comment at my Facebook page.

Excellent first-person account of events leading to yesterday's takeover of the Egyptian government by the military. If there were a punch list for failure, President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood would have checked off nearly every item.

I'm forming the impression that the historic non-violent demonstrations of the last five days were not as spontaneous as they are being reported. Too many pieces are falling into place too smoothly for the outcome, despite hot spots of violence and some fatalities. One Twitter message mentioned that gas during the "crisis" was flowing like the Nile and someone else noted that there had been no power interruptions for several days. Either of these two items would be remarkable, but both together -- lasting for five days, no less -- suggests a deliberate attention to a couple of important details.

It's not a stretch to think the military, which is a far more important part of the fabric of the country, economically and in production of goods and services, had a role in planning the recent protests. The video I posted earlier suggests as much. And as the Twitter remark noted even the taxi drivers remarked on several days of unrestricted, adequate petrol.

How Morsi, Brotherhood Lost Egypt
By: Bassem Sabry for Al-Monitor 
Posted on July 4.
CAIRO — I was in Tahrir when they announced Mubarak was ousted. I was in Tahrir when they announced Morsi had won. And I was also in Tahrir as they announced Morsi was ousted.

Each time was a remarkably different experience for me, only united by roaring crowds, waving flags, fireworks, hugs from strangers and a big sense of relief. This time, the cheers were even more deafening. They were not just in Tahrir, but in other squares around Cairo and the country, all packed without any real organizational power behind them. The floods of people in the streets around Cairo appeared to me bigger than before, people seemed to genuinely believe they “took back their country,” and that the military was a hero doing all the right things. But perhaps what characterized this time in Tahrir for me was my sense of worry, deeper than ever before. 
I believe that Mohammed Morsi had won his election, despite the more hardcore of the anti-Morsi camp's claims of fraud and voter intimidation by the Muslim Brotherhood, and that the Brotherhood had secretly threatened violence if they lost (likely, this narrative will be intentionally magnified now to make the new order even more acceptable). I believe in democracy and I have always argued in favor of the democratic process taking its course in Egypt, and always argued against any political exclusion. I consistently called for national reconciliation and compromise as the most sustainable way forward. Having said all of that, I cannot shake my conviction that Morsi, and the Brotherhood, had it coming. It was inevitable that an explosion was coming. 
Until November, many had held on to the idea that Morsi and the Brotherhood were wise enough not to overplay their hand, that they knew how complicated the situation in Egypt was and that unilateralism would only bring them down. Many believed that the Brotherhood would learn from the poignant history of deposed president Hosni Mubarak and the National Democratic Party, from which they suffered perhaps the most. Many felt Morsi would be wise enough to realize he was barely elected (51.7% of the vote) against a candidate who many viewed as representing the former regime, and with the vital aid of a strong, multi-ideological revolutionary coalition that supported him based on promises of inclusion and unity. 
But the problem was that it became more and more apparent that the Brotherhood was intent not on building a democratic administration, but a new regime.
Bassem Sabry is a writer and Egyptian blogger who covers the region on An Arab Citizen. On Twitter: @Bassem_Sabry
This article is much longer. An excellent read for anyone who really wants to for a sensible narrative of what is happening in Egypt. 
If you don't read but one article about this subject, this is the one to pick. 
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Sprinkling of Twitter messages and links beginning with last night.





(Open this next "conversation" for the link.)

Haitham Tabei‏@Haithamtabei

Pro #morsi protestors provoked the guards first. Insisted on putting morsi pic on the barbed wires

Ahmed Ateyya ‏@Ateyya5h

@Haithamtabei were they violent?

Noha ‏@nohaakr5h

@Haithamtabei are they (protestors) armed?

George Orwell ‏@AliDc40095h

@Haithamtabei so they shot them for putting pics up! Is that what you call provoking someone?
Details
Eman Abdelhadi ‏@emanabdelhadi5h

@Haithamtabei @Ana_Mubasher Apparently that's a crime punishable by death?

Ahmed Awadalla ‏@3awadalla5h

@Haithamtabei Provoked them to shoot? What did they use other than installing the picture?

Am the Lungs of aSea ‏@CapitalShip_5h

@Haithamtabei @Ana_Mubasher R u giving them excuses to shot unarmed Egyptians down?? remember how much provocations caused in

Am the Lungs of aSea ‏@CapitalShip_5h

@nohaakr @Haithamtabei not armed pic.twitter.com/uEdweyxFMW  [gruesome image]

Aya ‏@ayakhalil5h

. @Haithamtabei putting pics up supporting ousted prez = being shot to death. Cool makes sense.

Ana Mubasher ‏@Ana_Mubasher5h

@CapitalShip_ @Haithamtabei Hez not He is Just Reporting

James Miller (ميلر) ‏@MillerMENA5h

Matches other reports MT @Haithamtabei Pro #morsi protestors provoked guards first. Insisted on putting morsi pic on the barbed wires

Shami Witness ‏@ShamiWitness5h

@millermena @haithamtabei oh such a provocation.nobody said this who fired first during Jan25, genius.
Details
James Miller (ميلر) ‏@MillerMENA5h

@ShamiWitness @haithamtabei that's not true, I worked hard to find that info out. I'm not 

Shami Witness ‏@ShamiWitness5h

@millermena @haithamtabei how on earth is putting a poster on barbed wire a provocation to kill?

James Miller (ميلر) ‏@MillerMENA4h

@ShamiWitness @HSimbad @suzzzh @Haithamtabei I agree. Just sorting the facts. This proves that SCAF is too on edge. Very scary times
Details
H.A. Hellyer ‏@hahellyer4h

@Haithamtabei @Sandmonkey Obviously a provocation that deserves death?
Details
Haitham Tabei ‏@Haithamtabei4h

@hahellyer @Sandmonkey dear they were told not yo cross the road to the deployed forces and approach them. A guy crossed, shoot dead.

H.A. Hellyer ‏@hahellyer3h

@Haithamtabei @Sandmonkey Exactly.The fact you find nothing wrong with this is disappointing. Unarmed protester shot dead for getting close.

amal matar ‏@Amal_Zak3h

@hahellyer @Haithamtabei @Sandmonkey many r scared of suicidal bombers..esp after armed confrontation&threats from jihadists in Sinai!

H.A. Hellyer ‏@hahellyer3h

@Amal_Zak @Haithamtabei @Sandmonkey I can't believe I'm having this conversation. He was an unarmed protester, killed by a military officer.

Haitham Tabei ‏@Haithamtabei3h

@hahellyer @Amal_Zak @Sandmonkey NO JUSTIFICATION FOR ANY KILLINGS FOR ANY REASON.
Details
adam mowafi ‏@adammowafi3h

@Haithamtabei @hahellyer @Amal_Zak @Sandmonkey witnesses reporting now army fired in air, civilians shot man not army

amal matar ‏@Amal_Zak2h

@adammowafi @Haithamtabei @hahellyer @Sandmonkey u r right no justification for killing for any reason..
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==►I lost several hours of narrative due to personal time limitations. Sorry.

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It's now coming up on ten o-clock at night in Cairo... 





Street fighting will go on all night. 
The following Lisa Goldman recommendation -- from a New Zealand paper --  is a good place to end this post. 
This is a picture of denial on the part of Mohammed Morsi. 

 (Time permitting, read also Juan Cole's comments at truthdig:
How Egypt’s Michele Bachmann Became President and Plunged the Country Into Chaos)

Morsi isolated but defiant in his last days
The army chief came to President Mohammed Morsi with a simple demand: Step down on your own and don't resist a military ultimatum or the demands of the giant crowds in the streets of Egypt. 
"Over my dead body!" Morsi replied to General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, two days before the army eventually ousted the Islamist leader after a year in office. 
In the end, Egypt's first freely elected president found himself isolated, with allies abandoning him and no one in the army or police willing to support him. Even his Republican Guards simply stepped away as army commandos came to take him to an undisclosed Defence Ministry facility, according to army, security and Muslim Brotherhood officials who gave The Associated Press an account of Morsi's final hours in office. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media. 
The Muslim Brotherhood officials said they saw the end coming for Morsi as early as June 23 - a week before the opposition planned its first big protest. The military gave the president seven days to work out his differences with the opposition. In recent months, Morsi had been at odds with virtually every institution in the country, including the top Muslim and Christian clerics, the judiciary, the armed forces, the police and intelligence agencies. 
His political opponents fuelled popular anger that Morsi was giving too much power to the Brotherhood and other Islamists, and had failed to tackle Egypt's mounting economic problems. 
There was such distrust between Morsi and the security agencies that they began withholding information from him - deploying troops and armour in cities in the past week without his knowledge, the officials said. 
The police also refused to protect Muslim Brotherhood offices that came under attack in the latest wave of protests. 
Thus, when Morsi was fighting for his survival, there was no one to turn to, except calling for outside help through Western ambassadors and a small coterie of aides from the Brotherhood who could do little more than help him record two last-minute speeches.
In those remarks, he emotionally emphasised his electoral legitimacy - a topic that Morsi repeatedly raised in the talks with el-Sissi. 
Early this week, during two meetings in as many days, Morsi, el-Sissi and Hesham Kandil, the Islamist-backed prime minister, sat down to discuss ways out of the crisis in which millions of Egyptians were clamouring for the president to resign. 
But Morsi kept returning to the mandate he won in the June 2012 balloting, according to one of the officials. He said Morsi wouldn't address the mass protests or any of the country's most pressing problems - tenuous security, rising prices, unemployment, power cuts and traffic congestion. 
A Brotherhood spokesman, Murad Ali, said the military had already decided that Morsi had to go, and el-Sissi would not entertain any of the concessions that the president was prepared to make. 
"We were naive. ... We didn't imagine betrayal would go this far," Ali said.
"It was like, 'Either we put you in jail, or you come out and announce you are resigning,'" Ali added. "He didn't do either because he didn't want to hand the country to the military again."
But according to one official, Morsi delivered the final, terse response to el-Sissi's demand: "Over my dead body!" 
On Monday, the armed forces announced they had given Morsi 48 hours to meet the protesters' demands or face military intervention. In reality, however, the countdown had begun as early as June 23, when el-Sissi gave Morsi and the opposition a week to work out their differences - a remote possibility given the wide gap between both sides.
Brotherhood officials said they saw the end coming based on el-Sissi's comments nine full days before Morsi's actual ouster. 
"We knew it was over on June 23. Western ambassadors told us that," said another Brotherhood spokesman. US Ambassador Anne Patterson was one of the envoys, he added. 
Morsi searched for allies in the army, ordering two top aides - Asaad el-Sheikh and Rifaah el-Tahtawy - to establish contact with potentially sympathetic officers in the 2nd Field Army based in Port Said and Ismailia on the Suez Canal. The objective was to find army allies to use as a bargaining chip with el-Sissi, security officials with firsthand knowledge of the contacts said. 
There were no signs that Morsi's overtures had any effect, but el-Sissi, on learning of the contacts, took no chances. He issued directives to all unit commanders not to engage in any contacts with the presidential palace and, as a precaution, dispatched elite troops to units whose commanders had been contacted by Morsi's aides. 
The commander of the 2nd Field Army, Lieutenant General Ahmed Wasfy, denied that there were any divisions within the military. 
"We are united. The culture and principles of the armed forces don't allow divisions," he said. 
On the surface, Morsi wanted to give the impression that the government was conducting business as usual. His offices released statements about meetings with Cabinet ministers to discuss issues such as the availability of basic food items during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims feast on food after a day of dawn-to-dusk fasting. He had four Cabinet ministers talk to TV reporters in the presidential palace about fuel shortages and power cuts. 
The opposition set its first mass protest calling for his ouster on Sunday, June 30, the anniversary of his inauguration, but the demonstrations began early, and Morsi had to stop working at Ittihadiya palace on June 26. 
The next day, he and his family moved into the Cairo headquarters of the Republican Guards, an army branch that protects the president, his family and his palaces and residences. 
Morsi worked at the Qasr El Qouba palace and continued to do so until June 30, when the Republican Guards advised him to stay put at their headquarters. His foreign policy aide, Essam el-Haddad, telephoned Western governments about what was happening in Egypt, and putting an optimistic spin on events, according to a military official. 
El-Haddad was also issuing statements in English to the foreign media, saying that the millions out on the streets did not represent all Egyptians, and that the military intervention amounted to a textbook coup. 
According to the usually authoritative newspaper Al-Ahram, Morsi was offered safe passage to Turkey, Libya or elsewhere, but he declined. He also was offered immunity from prosecution if he voluntarily stepped down, but he again said no, the newspaper added. 
Morsi gave a speech late on Tuesday night in which he vowed to stay in power and urged supporters to fight to protect his legitimacy. Soon after he finished, el-Sissi placed him under "confinement" in the Republican Guards headquarters. Some of his close aides, including el-Haddad, stayed with him.
Troops began deploying across major cities at 5am Wednesday, ahead of the expiration of the two-day ultimatum given by the army. On the army's official Facebook page, videos of the deployment were posted to reassure Egyptians. 
At noon Wednesday, hours before el-Sissi announced the ouster, the Republican Guards' troops assigned to protect Morsi walked away from the president and his aides.
Army commandos soon arrived. There was no commotion, and Morsi went quietly, taken to an undisclosed Defence Ministry facility, officials said.

- AP

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