Moral High Ground by David Atkins

Two people were killed in Cairo and Alexandria this weekend as Egyptian activists took the streets to protest the military's attempts to maintain its grip on power. And guess how the state is justifying its deadly crackdown.

"We saw the firm stance the US took against OWS people & the German govt against green protesters to secure the state," an Egyptian state television anchor said yesterday...

Yeah—it gets harder and harder to maintain a moral high ground when videos like this and pictures like this are unavoidable.

Reporting from Cairo—
Egypt is frayed, bloody and slipping toward a new revolt.

The clashes that erupted for the second day in a row Sunday between police and protesters are the most volatile challenge in months to the nation's military leaders. The anger glimpsed through the tear gas and on the bruised faces of demonstrators marked a dangerous chasm between the Egyptian people and the generals who have refused to relinquish power to a civilian government.

What is unfolding in the streets of Cairo, Suez and the coastal city of Alexandria is the compounded anger over the unrealized promise of a revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February but has yet to steer the country toward a new democracy. Five people have been killed across the nation, including three Sunday in Cairo's Tahrir Square, and more than 1,000 have been injured since violence broke out on Saturday.

Security forces and military police, swinging batons, firing birdshot and driving armored personnel carriers, stormed the square late Sunday afternoon, chasing out protesters and burning tents. The troops quickly retreated and growing ranks of demonstrators returned to the area, yelling epithets against the military as darkness fell. Protesters numbered as many as 20,000 before midnight.