A Guardian writer does a nice job of calling out the Wall St. Journal.
Wall Street Journal says Egypt needs a Pinochet – can it get away with that?
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled "After the Coup in Cairo". Its final paragraph contained these words:
"Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who took over power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy."
Presumably, the Wall Street Journal's editorial board believes that because Pinochet "hired free-market reformers", he should be excused the excesses of a few death squads. That is, presumably, why they think a business-friendly cold killer in the Pinochet mold is who Egyptians need now to manage their "transition to democracy".
The general thrust of the WSJ editorial is that real democracy means following its market oriented economic prescription. The notion that the people might be free to chose another course simply doesn't enter into to the picture.
This is a pretty clear expression of neocon philosophy. It is the function of the US to impose its standard of values on the rest of the world. The rhetoric about democracy is mostly window dressing. What really matters is economic control. The US has been underwriting the Egyptian military for many years. The funding has enabled the generals to establish financial control over all important sectors of the economy.
The news from Egypt is of spreading violence with conflicts between those who oppose the Morsi government and those who support it. The situation has the ingredients necessary for a civil war. The notion that this is all going to be turned into some tidy package that meets with complete American approval seems like a pipe dream to me.