Is Egypt's Military Getting Ready To Impose Martial Law?

Egypt’s Military is Waiting for the Worst -- Christopher Dickey and Mike Giglio, Daily Beast

The death toll is mounting. If violence continues between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators the army may see no choice but to impose martial law. Christopher Dickey and Mike Giglio report.

There is, as yet, no curfew in Egypt. There are, as yet, no tanks in the streets. (The armored personnel carriers that move Egyptian troops around are to a main battle tank what a Mini is to a Mack truck.)

There are few if any checkpoints with soldiers stopping civilians, demanding their papers, interrogating them about who they are, where they are coming from and where they are going. In short, there is not yet the draconian imposition of order that goes by the name “martial law.” But if the kind of violence we saw in Egypt Friday night continues and grows worse, the Egyptian military’s high command may say it sees no alternative.

It will act with a great show of reluctance. As with Wednesday’s coup to remove the country’s first legitimately elected president, Mohamed Morsi, the military will let events lay the groundwork for its action. It will say it is just responding to forces that it actually helped set in motion. And soon, in fact, it may have little choice: Morsi’s core supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood say they are determined to engage in a struggle they keep calling a matter of life and death—or, as they like to put it, “martyrdom”—even though they claim they want their demonstrations to remain peaceful.

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My Comment: The true test will come this Friday when the sermons are over in the mosques. If the violence returns with the same intensity as what was witnessed on Friday .... expect martial law to be imposed very soon.