Will U.S. Suspend Aid to Egypt’s Military?
The most devastating Egyptian military action since Mubarak’s demise has been the generals’ decision to open up its Rafah Gaza border. This allows Hamas unfettered shipment of weaponry through the border crossing. There are reports more than 400 al-Qaeda terrorists are now operating in Egypt’s Sinai.
The Egyptian military also has taken the initiative to broker a new “unity government” between between Palestinian factions Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Egypt ignored U.S. and European Union requirements that Hamas first renounce violence, agree to abide by past agreements, and recognize Israel’s right to exist.
The Egyptian military, furthermore, continues to eye Israel as its prime enemy. Documents revealed by Wikileaks show that the Egyptian military continues to see Israel, not Iran, as its primary military threat despite a decades-old peace treaty. The Egyptian military has refused to change its Soviet-era preoccupation with major armor units poised to fight Israel, and the Wikileaks documents also show that American diplomats believe the generals do not appear interested in taking on the war on terror.
Since Mubarak’s departure, there also is consternation about the military’s post-Mubarak human rights record. It has tolerated Muslim violence against Christian Copts. There were widespread charges the military conducted “virginity tests” on female protesters. Military tribunals are being used to prosecute hundreds of protesters, and press censorship continues.
All of this worries Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-IL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Last month she urged caution on continued aid to Egypt following President Obama’s May 19 speech on the Middle East:
The U.S. should only provide assistance to Egypt after we know that Egypt’s new government will not include the Muslim Brotherhood and will be democratic, pro-American, and committed to abiding by peace agreements with Israel.
Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) has said that the Egyptian military’s growing anti-Israel posture might violate the Camp David Accords. Kirk has warned that military aid requires that Egypt “keeps its commitments under the Camp David peace accords, allows safe passage through the Suez Canal, and works to stem the flow of weapons into Gaza.”
The Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) was the first organization outside of Congress to publicly call for an end to Egyptian military assistance. In May, President Sarah Stern wrote:
In the past four decades, billions of dollars have not secured for United States the modern, westernized military partner they have sought, as the disturbing tales from Tahrir Square have shown. Additional aid will serve no further purpose.
…
Our foreign military aid program has bought us no good will. … It has become the foreign policy equivalent of the worst welfare programs. We are simply rewarding bad behavior. At a time when the American budget is stretched, we are throwing away our tax payers’ dollars at people who mock us and our democratic values.
Z Street, a pro-Zionist organization, has followed’s EMET’s lead. Z Street has urged its members to get mobilized:
This is a time of fiscal constraint for the U.S. economy. Yet, despite budgetary cuts we are being asked to make all over, we keep showering foreign aid to the Egyptian government and to the Palestinian Authority.
Observers believe a debate is long overdue about American largesse to Egypt. In light of troubling new warning signs, perhaps there will be cuts.
An informative and unsettling report. I hope the question of aid to Egypt comes up in presidential debates (including Republican primary debates).
What a shock! The world gets behind a silly little “Bolshevistic” style revolution and an even less ideal situation pops out the other side! Suddenly the Mubarak option that we didn’t side with isn’t looking so bad.
Even though I think Ghadafi is a piece of garbage, this is exactly why I’ve been hoping he manages to hang in there. The domino’s need to stop falling because the cure, thus far, is worse than the disease.
Self-righteous socialists, the likes of which we currently have running the country, are of the ilk that they think an all-muslim national assemblage from Tripoli to Bosnia is the answer. They probably think that if the US helps bring that about, they will then “like us” and they’ll read glowing posts about them on facebook. Not so and every thinking American knows this.
But who knows what the socialists’ motives actually might be although it can be guaranteed that whatever they are, they are bad for the US citizens. It’s almost comical that they cannot see the damage they are causing, intentionally but due to their arrogant intellectualism.
Carter thought that bribing sand-people nations would bring about peace and harmony when the critics of such actions believed it would bring about extortion and racketeering. Pundits of the times pooh-poohed these notions and look where we are today. The money cannot be recovered, which is doubly sinful because that’s money even a self-proclaimed leftist could’ve used to send several Shanequa’s to college to get that all-important social-justice degree and the fragile hatred in the areas run by tribal megalomaniacs is about to explode into the third muslim uprising against non-muslims the world has seen.
Most people knew that the elephant in the room after the fall of the Soviet Union was “what to do about the angry muslims” because their are millions of them and for generations they have been indoctrinated into hate against the West. Well, the elephant has now sat down in the living room, is eating your ice cream and has the remote.
What are we going to do about it? Apparently….nothing.
“Post-Mubarak Egypt has morphed into a dictatorless tyranny.” Others believe the continuing flow of money is “simply rewarding bad behavior,” as Egypt is now expressing warmth toward Iran, Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood — while spurning Washington.”
Wow, who could have seen THAT coming? Well, just about everybody outside of the Obama administration, that’s who. Oh, and of course, the people in the main stream media and the New York Times didn’t see it coming, either. They were too busy sucking up to Obama and saying what a genius he was in handling this new “Arab Spring.” Now we have radical Islamists about to take over most, if not all, of North Africa and both the Obama administration and the main stream media are wondering, “Gosh, how did that happen?”
After seeing how the Obama administration handled this whole mess, you have to come to either one of two conclusions. Either the Obama administration had no clue what it was doing when assisting the Egyptians in ousting Mubarak, or the Obama administration loves supporting radical Islamists, as when it refused to help depose the radical Islamists in Iran after their 2009 “elections.” I really, honestly, hope they are simply fools and are not consciously supporting radical Islamic killers, because that in and of itself would be a crime. It would also be a major blow to Israel, our only true ally in that part of the world. We really need 2012 to come as soon as possible so that we can get some adult leadership in the White House. It can’t come soon enough.
It is clear that you likely have never read the New York Times, or only read whatever headlines were reproduced for you from Fox News. The NYT repeatedly printed articles about the negative effect the toppling of Mubarak would have on the fight against terrorism, especially in regards to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the formation of a military dictatorship in Egypt.
While I agree that Obama handled the Arab Spring situation terribly, his administration did in fact see the current situation coming, which is why Obama, ever the “compromiser”, only called for Mubarak’s resignation weeks into the demonstration when it became clear that Mubarak was not going to survive the revolt.
Obama did nothing to help the Egyptians overthrow Mubarak, it was the Egyptian military who betrayed Mubarak for their own gain. After the Iranian “election”, it was impossible for the United States to be militarily involved due to military overexertion in Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, overthrowing Ahmadinejad would probably have resulted in a weak government unable or unwilling to combat terrorism, the same reason you so detest the overthrowing of Mubarak.
Again, I agree with you that Obama handled the situation terribly, but partisan feces slinging and spreading of misinformation makes reasonable dialogue and efforts to come up with real solutions all but impossible.
The Egyptian military has no reason to worry. We always reward our enemies and punish our friends! That’s what our fearless leader is all about!
I read in today’s news that Egyptians are performing forced “virginity tests”, apparently in the event that a woman is set on like the American reporter was by an Egyptian mob.
I guess they want to know after an assault whether or not a woman’s claim to being violated was accurate.
I also read that a Coptic Christian church (south of Cairo?) was surrounded and threatened with being burned to the ground.
Charming, these morons, who may well succeed in reducing yet another proud middle eastern country to dust and evil.
Let’s see, we will assist in propping up and arming the muslum brotherhood in Egypt and pay interest to the communist Chinese for the borrowed money.
Does this sound like being in the best interest of the U.S.A?
“wither” the Arab Spring, indeed.
There are a lot of things wrong with this picture. Egypt getting military aid is just one. Arming and training the West Bank Palestinians is another. Arming and training the Hezbollah run Lebanese army is another. Its time to wake up, its not roses that we are smelling. Get the Socialist thugs out of Washington!
Let`s see our government sends money to Pakistan, Afghanistan, hezbollah, hamas, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Yemen and many more of our enemies so they will keep giving Egypt all the money they want to buy weapons to kill Americans. You gotta love our muslim president!
Islam governs these theocratic, fascist, backward and corrupted countries.
What is to be expected?