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House of Rep...Gohmert (TX) 2012 questioning Morsi's commitment to democracy and support of U.S. Could be used if one wanted to argue that Morsi's gov't was already undermining Egyptian democracy and therefore the coup was warranted. 

Preempting the "will of the people" or legitimate support for removal? Army and judiciary in Egypt linked with authoritarianism. Urge for caution.

Obama's July 3rd statement on events in Egypt.

*Judith Miller is a middle east expert *Judith Miller - Morsi " 'obliterated' fundamental democracy in Egypt" *Calls Morsi's ouster a "soft coup" *Cutting off military aid a bad idea. We want to support the new government because "the United States has a strategic interest in Egypt." *Democracy should be more than just elections. *Israel "relieved" that Morsi was removed but worried about what will replace Morsi. Israel wants stability in Sinai Peninsula and the streets

Ironic, since the US govt has been a major reason since Sadat for Egypt not becoming a Democracy

It has been especially surprising to watch many Egyptians and Americans try to cast a military coup - which is what the army executed when it deposed Mr. Morsi, detaining him and many of his Brotherhood allies - as a democratic tool. The Obama administration, hoping to avoid a legally mandated cutoff of United States aid to Egypt, thus further inflaming anti-Americanism there, has used tortuous rhetoric to avoid calling a coup a coup, or even condemning it. So have many lawmakers and analysts who say the surest way to protect American interests in the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the Suez Canal and Egypt's cooperation in countering terrorism is to work with the army, Egypt's most powerful institution. A different but equally pragmatic case is made by Egyptian liberals, secularists and non-Islamists who bravely took to the streets to force the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, voted (in many cases) for Mr. Morsi, then turned against him. As Mr. Morsi proved increasingly eager to impose Islamic authoritarianism on the country, the opposition said it collected more than 20 million signatures on a petition demanding his removal (surpassing the 13 million votes Mr. Morsi won in the 2012 election ) and rallied millions of protesters. In their analysis, the army was simply honoring the people's will when it forced Mr. Morsi out. Some Egyptians say they will do that again if the next president also fails them. The basic flaw in these arguments is that coups, forcible overthrows, whatever one calls them, do not provide a foundation for stability or sound representative government. And unlike Mr. Mubarak, Mr. Morsi was not an autocrat imposed by the army, but the country's first freely elected president. True, he was a disastrous leader. But as The Times has reported, remnants of Mr. Mubarak's old order worked hard to sabotage him. It would have been better if his opposition, including the protesters, had worked to defeat him at the ballot box.

Painful as it was to see the democratic process interrupted so soon after the revolution that overthrew the longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011, the military's action was necessary. At its most blatant level, there was no way that Mr. Morsi and his affiliates in the Muslim Brotherhood were going to leave power willingly, no matter the severity of the civil discontent over the president's efforts to consolidate his power while mismanaging major problems from fuel shortages to rising inflation.

In Egypt, fear of the Muslim Brotherhood - by secularists, liberals and religious minorities - is already leading many who once condemned the army to accept it as a neutral arbiter. In such an environment, it is unlikely that genuine democratic government will emerge; instead Egypt is likely to experience some form of "military-guided democracy," as has happened in Indonesia, Pakistan and other states with powerful generals. The tragedy of this pattern is clear: It allows the military to tame democracy, without being accountable to voters or being responsible for improving governance.

Targeting of Christians by Islamists highlights need for reconciliation between various groups in Egypt.

Article from Jerusalem Post 7.11.13

LOS ANGELES - THE Egyptian Army claims that it had no choice but to overthrow the country's first legitimately elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and that last week's coup reflected the will of the Egyptian people. It's true that most Egyptians hated Mr. Morsi's inept government and rejoiced at his downfall.

the Muslim Brotherhood ... failed to exercise the art of modern-day inclusive, participatory, and consensus-building politics that is necessary to move post-Mubarak Egypt forward.

Just two weeks before the rioting that resulted in the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Zack Gold, F09, was visiting Cairo, where he thought things seemed eerily quiet. "Don't be fooled," he was told by people he met. "A protest is being planned." No one, though, could have predicted its size and impact.

Even as analysts credited some of the ministers for their competence and for bringing badly needed expertise to Egypt's escalating economic crisis after a year of mismanagement, the composition of the cabinet exposed it to the same criticisms once heaped on Mr. Morsi: that he excluded his opponents from governing and, in the process, demolished any sense of political consensus. The government's legitimacy "is going to be very hard to measure," said Zaid al-Ali, a Cairo-based constitutional expert with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. "Under normal circumstances, the government would be accountable to the people, through elections and the media," he said. "Now there is no parliamentary institution. The only institution that can hold government accountable is the people, through demonstrations." "Legitimacy," he said, "is hanging by a thread."

Reactions from a number of countries.

condemns removal of Morsi as a military uprising, coup, anti-democratic