Conspiracies

Egyptian TV: America Controls the Weather—and Is Using It to Destabilize the Middle East

Still, weather machines and hip hop groups conspiring against Egypt may be just the most paranoid iterations of a mainstream belief pushed by columnists and even Egypt’s president.

“Information wars and psychological wars destroy nations,” Abdel Fattah al-Sisitold an assembled who’s who of the next generation of Egyptian military leaders. These days it is hard to open up a newspaper or turn on a TV without hearing a security official or political commentator not belaboring this point.

At a recent government-sponsored conference called “Media, Freedom of Speech and National Security,” General Sameh Abu Hashima, a professor at the Nasser Military Academy, said foreign media in Egypt has two goals: One is to make the populace lose confidence in ruling authorities and the military. The second, he says, is to make the Egyptian people lose confidence in the economy.