Writing and Reporting on Egypt’s Mass Killings

By Taylor Marvin

Today at Political Violence @ a Glance I compiled a list of links to great reporting and analysis on the recent mass attacks on pro-Morsi demonstrators by Egypt’s security services. Check it out if you’re interested.

Given the volume of items being published on the killings and what they mean for Egypt’s future, there are some that I missed:

Paul Pillar paints the choice to violently disperse the demonstrators’ camps as a deliberate ploy to radicalize Morsi’s supporters, to the government’s political gain.

Kevin Lees, writing yesterday, largely agrees and sees the killings as a return to Mubarak-era tactics: “At each juncture, as the military has escalated the violence against the Brotherhood, it has only narrowed the path toward a political settlement.”

Juan Cole notes that Morsi’s tenure increasingly resembled a slow-moving coup — “if Morsi was what democracy looked like, many Egyptians did not want it” — but lays responsibility for the violence with the military government.