Although, the Egyptian army is full of brave men and women who are willing to put their lives on harms way to protect our homeland, I believe that it is important for the army to remain neutral from politics. I have nothing personal against my brothers and sister in uniform, however, I have serious doubts about the military as an institution and as a culture could undermine our nascent democracy.
The army is built on culture of blindly following orders,it is important during military operations that the commander have full control of the troops, thus maintaining a close link between higher military strategy and tactical operation on the ground. To optimize operational security it is important to keep as few people as possible in the know and only the few high rank officers have the whole strategic picture of the war theater. It is important to trust the fewest people as possible, those key military leaders have to pass background checks to minimize the infiltration enemy intelligence.
On the other hand, an open political process depends on diversity of opinion, decent is encouraged to provide the widest array of solutions. This is followed by deliberations between different political factions that is covered widely by the free media. The informed electorate then pick wining vision to prevail and in some cases a compromise have to be reached. In the democratic system, freedom of information is critical so that the electorate can account the government based on accurate media reports. For the political process to work rival factions have to trust each other and compromise, especially if neither have electoral majority and to maintain social peace.
The militarily culture is not inherently evil, it best used to defend our homeland. The military can not manage a democratic process or even a democratic transition because democratic values and norms are not part of the institution culture or individual officers psychology. Asking the military to be democratic could be like asking pigs to fly.
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