Dear (Redacted),
Oh man, things went insane after you left your post a few days ago, but thankfully we got the situation under control, and we removed the old bag of bones and his henchman. I can’t believe he wanted to stay as Minister of Defence after the decades he spent in his post and the insane things he made us go through the past year and a half. I mean it’s bad enough that all the lower ranks couldn’t get promoted for all of these years because those two stayed in their posts, but to want to continue, after the damage your actions did to the army and its image? Tantawi had to go with his boy, and thankfully the rest of the group chose me as the next Minister of Defence and we made the deal with Morsy to appoint me, in exchange of giving him all the powers we had, to end this circus we have been living in for the past 18 months.
I mean can you imagine us continuing to go through what we went through the past year and a half? For all of those meetings, and media appearances, and the journalists, and the friends and family members who all want to be assured one way or another, to continue? Why? We didn’t sign up for this. All that we wanted in all of this is not to have our mode of operations messed with and to keep our business empire. That’s it. And we haven’t been doing that. The army is one of the country’s largest and richest business empires and it is too integral to our economic interests to have it ran this way. We have veered so far off course with our revenue targets because of this whole ruling the revolution business that I can’t fathom how much we lost when I review our balance sheets. Do you know how much we spent on buying gas for those whiney under-paying gas guzzlers the last year and a half alone so that they wouldn’t complain? Unless we forgot what we are doing here in the first place, we are here to make money and to keep our guns and prisons to mess with anyone who threatens that. Can you say that we have been doing this efficiently lately? I can honestly say that the environment at work lately has been as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.
And that supplementary constitutional declaration business; don’t even get me started on that. The country now has a president from the Muslim Brotherhood, which means they will get off our backs, and we have completely managed to defame all the political parties and annihilate all of those Tahrir creatures that wanted to review our books. Why would we continue this ruling business? We don’t want to be Turkey. We have seen how this film ends. It’s better not to be in the public eye when you are running the kind of racket we have been, especially this close scrutiny that is causing us great embarrassments. It’s bad enough that we had to excuse what happened at Maspero by stating that our soldiers freaked out and ran over those Copts, but Sinai? They were surprise attacked while eating? Those kinds of fiascos are bad for our image, and they might encourage people to start asking to review what we are doing here, and we can’t have that. I mean we have the occasional good apples, but those kids in recruitment today are not the calibre of yore. Plus, we don’t want to get involved in this securing Sinai business. That’s, as Mubarak used to say, “Israel’s problem.” Why would we want to assume responsibility for that? I will end up having one those incidents once a week. I think us stepping away from the spotlight is for the best, and that we should focus on repairing the damage done to our image in the meantime. That’s why I earmarked EGP one billion from our budget for Sinai as this year’s CSR campaign. We are hearing good buzz about it already, and less on the news that we are not really hunting the Rafah killers nor that we are bombing sand dunes to make it look like we are fighting them. And honestly I expect our revenue projections to rise dramatically when we raise the prices of our products because of “inflation”, like we actually pay wages or taxes or anything. That’s what’s so great: Nobody is paying attention to us anymore, and everyone is focused on Morsy and “the Ikhwanisation of the state. Oh how I love journalists and political analysts. They really do believe anything we tell them.
Unfortunately we will have to sustain some damage for a while, with people continuing their tradition of making legends about us and believing them to be true. Like how we are getting infiltrated by the Brotherhood for example, which completely ignores that 75 percent of all the armed forces come from outside of Cairo and Alex, and many of them have some seriously conservative religious point of view. Or how they believe that we will be affected by them, completely ignoring that we are with whoever is in charge. We were socialists under Nasser, capitalists under Sadat and Mubarak and we have no problem becoming Islamists under Morsy, just as long as he doesn’t actually think that we will fight in any wars any time soon. But I am expecting people to continue making theories about how “SCAF” is doing this or the “deep State” is doing that, like there is an entity that actually plans and really works in Egypt. Like we don’t have Egyptians running this institution. Oh well, let them entertain themselves. The best analysis I’ve heard lately was that us going back to the shadows is to have Morsy be totally responsible for the sad state of this country; like, idiot, isn’t that what you wanted in the first place? To end military rule? Why are you complaining? Freakin’ political analysts. They are the worst.
Either way, I hope all is well with you and your kids, and please don’t forget to call every now and then. And don’t worry about Tantawi and Anan, they are ok with this: they get to keep all of their money, and enjoy it, and not go to prison. It’s an excellent deal, really. Why would they be mad?
Oh, and before I forget: regarding that thing you asked me about, we did investigate your suspicions regarding Mohamed Abu Hamed, and you were right: he is an alien. From Mars, we think. We are checking it out. Will keep you informed.
Sincerely Yours,
Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi
Egyptian Minister of Defence
*This article is a parody
