“A Coup? Or Something Else?” is the question a New York Times headline is posing today (7/5/13) about the U.S. government’s response to the military’s removal of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. It’s not just a question of semantics; U.S. law seems to require suspending aid to Egypt in case of a coup. That’s why the government might not want to call it one.
But that raises another question: What is the New York Times calling it?
The paper’s July 4 edition reported that “Egypt’s military officers removed the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi.” They added:
The generals built their case for intervention in a carefully orchestrated series of maneuvers, calling their actions an effort at a “national reconciliation” and refusing to call their takeover a coup.
Another piece that day referenced the “ousting the nation’s civilian leader” and that “the military decided that time was up on the Morsi presidency.”
In today’s Times (7/5/13), under the headline “Even as Army Seizes Power, Egyptians Claim Revolt as Their Own,” the paper references how “Morsi was deposed and generals again took a leading role in the country,” and details “the circumstances that forced Mr. Morsi from power.” One Egyptian stresses that it “was not a military coup,” another calls it a “people’s coup.” A different piece referenced “the military ouster of the country’s first freely elected president,” and that Morsi “was deposed by Egypt’s military commanders.” There are also references to “Morsi’s downfall” and “the military’s intervention.”
The closest the Times came to calling the coup a coup was a line about “the forced change of power, which had the trappings of a military coup spurred by a popular revolt.”
That article also mentions this:
The pre-Morsi foreign minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr…held a series of meetings with the foreign news media on Thursday aimed at refuting the idea that Egypt had undergone a military coup.
It’s doubtful the Times would need such a meeting to decide not to call what happened in Egypt a coup. But it’s interesting to note the similarity between the U.S. government’s public position on this question and the Newspaper of Record.
The Times‘ editorial page (7/4/13), on the other hand, declared that it “was unquestionably a coup,” and columnist David Brooks’ defense of the coup was headlined, well, “Defending the Coup.”
When the military of a country deposes an elected leader, shutters media outlets associated with the former president’s party and arrests members of that party, that’s generally considered a coup. As the Times acknowledges in the piece today about U.S. aid to Egypt, these terms matter.
Considering the recent history of major U.S. media outlets like the Times—supporting the coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez without calling it one, spinning for the coup in Honduras that ousted left-wing President Manuel Zelaya–it’s clear that the “c-word” is deployed, and avoided, very carefully.
I’m genuinely confused about this. Is it really a coup, even if the military performs it, if it is at the behest of the civilian population? I’m really not sure.
One “media outlet” in reporting on the events in Egypt did mention that there is a national security exception in the statute that requires the US to cut off aid to a country in which a coup has occurred. No else has touched on that but it must be true. And does anyone doubt that our government will use that exception if necessary? Just more silly palaver here.
This is part of a pattern of the Times playing dumb when it comes to reporting “all the news that fit to print.” They report all the news that will only help Wall Street. Denying the coup also misleads readers to realizing U.S. culpability in it, as amnesty international reported that all the weapons in Egypt come from U.S. weapons manufacturers. It is very hard to be sympathetic to American journalists under a siege from WH when they go along with whitewashes like these. What happens in Egypt happens to us, as Adam Lanza proves. -RF.
There are also corporate coups, but Egypt is not having one of those. I think other parts of Africa are about to have that kind.
“Is it really a coup, even if the military performs it, if it is at the behest of the civilian population? I’m really not sure.”
The wishes of the civilian population are determined by elections, not how many people take to the streets. It’s a coup. This is not to say that some coups aren’t justifiable
This criticism would be stronger if FAIR found, by way of contrast, examples of the Times using “coup” freely as a descriptor in other cases, particularly if there were a correlation with ideologies of the old and new regimes. As it is, all we see here is that the Times is careful about employing the word “coup”, which I don’t necessarily have a problem with.
Regardless of how the Times describes Morsi’s ouster, the Times has in fact consistently supported the Brotherhood’s brutal — murderous, really — regime, every step of the way. The implication of this piece, that the U.S. establishment is behind Morsi’s ouster, is preposterous.
P.S. — As noted in Hart’s article, in David Kirkpatrick’s Times piece, “Crackdown on Morsi Backers Deepens Divide in Egypt,” Kirkpatrick describes Egyptian events as “the military ouster of the country’s first freely elected president.” First, “military ouster” shares the key characteristic of ‘military coup’ in that it ignores the passionate involvement of unprecedented numbers in demanding Morsi’s leave — almost as many signed the anti-Morsi petition as voted for BOTH sides in the presidential runoff election! Second, Kirkpatrick’s claim that Morsi was “freely elected” is consistent with the Times refusal during the presidential runoff to report the virtual reign of by the Brotherhood and friends against the Shafiq forces — many headquarters and rallies attacked, and so on. Not to mention immense pressure by the US on the election committee to declare Morsi the winner. Hardly a free election.
Sorry, should have been “reign of terror.”
Some people call it Coup d’état .
Just like the NYT and WaPo wouldn’t use the word “torture”, only calling what we did “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
Egypt has about a quarter of our population, and we categorize it as a dictatorship. But you couldn’t get 2 1/2 Million American to protest in our town squares day after day unless Obama exiled Honey Boo-Boo and the Kadashians to Venezuela or cancelled the 2013 NFL season.
This is a typical example of dual standard practiced by the US mainstream media. They just repeat what US corporations who own the media tell them to say. A military intervention ousting a government elected by a nation is not a coup if the person who will be handcuffed or murdered is not a USA obedient. Throwing Mohammad Mosadeq from the office and bringing in the fugitive puppet Shah of Iran back to power was not a coup. It was just reinstating a leader who later, will get daily orders from US Ambassador in Tehran.
However, in today’s (Sat.) Times, Peter Baker (“Egypt Crisis Finds Washington Largely Ambivalent and Aloof”), though still not calling a coup a coup, at least calls a spade a spade in explaining that aloofness (of Obama, Kerry, congresspeople, etc.). “The overriding American interest in Egypt is preserving its three-decade peace with Israel, which officials believe the military is committed to doing”.
Sounds true, and pathetically so, to me. All those millions of Egyptians, and what they want for themselves is irrelevant compared to how their country relates to our favored ally.
Well we are getting blamed by the Egyptians for the Islamic brotherhood winning, AND for their ouster.Its called getting hit coming and going.Of course they still want our money,and arms.And of course we will give them what they want….Maybe we are to blame come to think of it.
Hugh Caley, “genuinely confused,” asks:
“Is it really a coup, even if the military performs it, if it is at the behest of the civilian population?”
The “behest of the civilian population” is called ” an election.” Morsi won that election. He was throw out of office by the military.
Ergo, it is a coup.
Give “Seven Days in May” a viewing some time – it will make the picture clearer.
HUGH CALEY that’s an incredibly stupid suggestion which flies in the face of truth, history and the very fabric of reality…the eygyptian army did not stage this coup d’eta “at the behest of the people”…even to suggest such a thing shows a thought process that has been numbed and infiltrated by dangerous levels of exposure to dumb, lying, US media “products”….after all how was this supposed to work? maybe
“the people” sent a sternly worded letter to the ombudsman of eygyptian military takeovers? perhaps “the people” rang up the supereme commander of The heroic Eygytian “regime change” battalions, at home and had a long talk with him begging him to overthrow the elected govt? I don’t know about all that Hugh
Jesus….Marcus does think it is our fault
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