You want proof? Forty Egyptians dead in clashes -- following a soccer match.

Presumably, the losing side blamed a conspiracy of soccer players aligned with American-Zionist agents. The other side took offense and counter-claimed that the other fans were being funded and supported by Mossad and the CIA, in league with the current Egyptian military regime. Then the mob did what mobs do.

Just another day in post-Arab Spring Egypt

UPDATE. Now we're up to 74 people dead... and counting.

Just another Middle East country descending further into barbarism. Nothing to see here.

The Propagandist's Allies are on the warpath. Better get out of their way, bubba.

• Jailed Cuba dissident dies in hunger strike. "Villar launched his hunger strike shortly after he was arrested in November, put on trial and sentenced to four years in prison for crimes including disobedience, resistance and crimes against the state."
• Defend Freedom of Expression on 11 Feb. Gladly.
• Malawian women protest over 'trouser attacks'. Just try to imagine some retail vendor beating you up and stripping you down in the middle of the street because he doesn't like how you dress. Yes, this really happened.
• France gets a clue, suspends all operations with Afghan army after Afghan soldier murders four French troops. It happened again. "Scores of Nato troops have been shot dead in recent years by their Afghan partners raising fears of widespread Taliban infiltration and underlining the tense relations on the ground between the allies."
• Hamas says it will investigate attack on human rights activist. Sure. Foxes guarding the henhouse.
• The Arab spring through women's eyes. Not looking good.
• Are you now or have you ever been an Islamophobe. Nope.

Confusion to our enemies!

The Arab Spring has also been called the Arab Awakening, which begs the question of why the oppressed people living in the Arab states and Iran don't wake the hell up already.

There are hints that the international mainstream media (despite the wilful blindness of the BBC, CNN and other big outlets) has begun to catch on to the fact that all of the revolutionary activity across the Middle East has actually set back the region by decades and may end up putting them back centuries. Some of the people who live in those countries, such as the few genuine liberal democrats hoping for a break with the greater and petty tyrrannies of the past may be catching on a bit quicker. But the vast majority of Arabs appear to be quite willingly signing up for another epoch of theocratic serfdom.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is triumphant (much to the chagrin of the country's Christian minority, which is already on the verge of being totally ethnically cleansed). The head of Tunisia's victorious Islamist political party gloats over the pending arrival of a Sixth Caliphate. In Libya, the dictator has been replaced by gaggles of Al Qaeda-sympathizing hillbillies. These are the areas where the revolutionary activity has seen its greatest potential success and ultimately, its most awful failure.

The Islamic world generally suffers from poor development prospects to the point that the nations of the Middle East (with one glaring exception in the tiny but free democracy of Israel) have fallen behind everywhere else from Asia to Latin America. The causes are not difficult to discern: women are not emancipated or even fully treated as human beings. Right off the bat, 50 percent of the Middle East's productivity swirls down the toilet. Meanwhile, vast numbers of uemployed, under-educated young men with no prospects, no capital and no idea of how to change their lot in life sit and steam. That's a recipe for disaster in any country. Throw Islamic fundamentalism into the mix and now you're really playing with fire.

The revolutions were supposed to bring change, but how can they do that when most people don't understand their own interests (Which is not a phenomenon confined to the Middle East -- try asking an unemployed American Tea Party volunteer why he supports tax breaks for billionaires and a reduction in the social safety net. Prepare to get spit on)? Read more

SYRIAN AMBASSADOR: "Just so we're clear, here: you are pretty sure that we've committed the worst possible crimes against humanity: the torture, mutilation and killing of children. Assuming we did it, we'd have to be the worst kind of human scum imaginable. That's what you're accusing us of."

UN REPRESENTATIVE: "Yes, that's what we're saying. The Syrian regime tortures and kills children."

SYRIAN AMBASSADOR: "You really think we we're capable of such inhuman conduct?"

UN REPRESENTATIVE: "Well, it seems that way. The evidence we've seen so far points to this."

SYRIAN AMBASSADOR: "Let's assume we did it, just for argument's sake. Let's assume we pull fingernails out of 10-year olds and knock all of their teeth out just for crying for their mommies. Let's say we flay the flesh from their bodies and then burn them to cover up our crimes. What makes you think we would be so nice and ethical that we would actually cooperate with any investigation of yours?"

UN REPRESENTATIVE: "You cannot simply disregard diplomatic protocols..."

SYRIAN AMBASSADOR: "Fuck you and your American spymasters. And I'll tell you something else. You ever come back here, we're going to find your children and assume they are foreign agents of the Zionist regime. We will fuck them up. Are we done, here?"

UN REPRESENTATIVE: "This is highly irregular..."

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

Watch the "revolutionaries" in Egypt's Tahrir Square announce their dedication to unending warfare and subjugation of others and their enthusiasm for murdering Americans and Jews (note: not Israelis. Jews).

Yeah, I think we're done here. If there is still anyone out there who thinks the Arab Spring is set to unleash a hitherto silent flood of liberal democrats, this video should end their illusions.

The revolution thus far has been a failure, effectively replacing one thuggish regime with another, with the added bonus of ethnic cleansing against Copts. Will this new round of protest deliver positive change or will Egypt go from the frying pan into the fire?

The 2nd Annual Essay Contest for The Propagandist introduced us to some excellent works by our regular contributors as well as first-time pundits. Our readers were treated to critical analysis of issues as far-ranging as Turkey's democratic drift, the threat of jihadism in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden and the consequences of the Arab Spring.

(A quick apology to our contributors and readers in getting the results out. We know we're a few days late. Hopefully, the winner wasn't counting on the prize money to help make a mortgage payment over the weekend.)

Without further ado, the winning submission of the 2nd Annual Essay Contest for The Propagandist is (drumroll, please)...

• Better Jews. The Moral Vanity of Israel's Leftist Jewish Critics, by Adam Levick

Here's an excerpt:

This recurring tendency of Jews, such as Murane, to pay greater attention to their own moral performance than to the necessities of survival is a trait which Ruth Wisse characterizes as “moral solipsism”.

 

In displaying the resilience necessary to survive in exile, many Jews have come to fetishize weakness, and believe that they could pursue their mission as a “light unto the nations” on a purely moral plane.

However, Jewish history has surely shown that such weakness only increased Jews’ vulnerability to scapegoating and violence.

 

Yes, with national sovereignty there is a price that has to be paid in terms of the occasional infliction of human suffering (even if unintentional) that invariably occurs as the result of even the most responsible and restrained use of national power.

But in the lives of individual adults, as in the lives of responsible nations, rarely is there the luxury of making choices that will lead to perfect justice for all concerned. 

The runner-up in the judging was:

• Combat Jihad By Destroying Its Conceptual Roots, by Farzana Hassan

Thanks to all of our participants who wrote so eloquently for the cause!

Confusion to our enemies.

If you weren't already completely disillusioned about the Arab Spring and what Egypt has already become, this photograph ought to put you over the edge.

To certain self-defined progressives, select Occupy Wall Street protesters and other affiliated lunatics who suggest that we need our own Arab Spring, I say shut the hell up.

The Propagandist's Allies are on the move. Here are the latest dispatches from the front lines:

• Useful idots for Palestine. Pat Condell tells it like it is.
• Nigeria: Muslims misunderstood Islam, shouted "Allahu akbar" as they murdered 67 in gun and bomb attacks on churches and police stations. Speaks for itself.
• Egypt Revolt Leading to Military Dictatorship. What do you mean, "leading to"? It happened months ago.
• Canadian Sea Hitler stooge David Heap beaten into hideous ugliness by Israeli soldiers. It's a war crime! Wait... that's just what he always looks like?
• Andy Rooney dead at 92. We miss you already.

Confusion to our enemies!

I just read one of the most bizarre portrayals of what's going on in Syria by a Western journalist in recent memory, courtesy of the Telegraph's Andrew Gilligan.

First up, we have the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad presented as a modest, easygoing kind of guy who wears blue jeans. Gilligan notes the lack of heavy security he personally saw before meeting Assad and seems to imply the Syrian regime isn't really a totalitarian security state it's said to be -- without bothering too much to point out that Assad's vast security apparatus may indeed have other things to occupy its time, such as machine-gunning villages or pulling the fingernails out of dissidents. They've got bigger priorities than assiging gun-toting thugs to shake down friendly Telegraph journalists.

Next, we get to the situation on the ground in Syria's capital -- evidently, a great place to hang out on a weekend. It's a diverse, boozy, funky kind of town: Read more