Do We Have a Hostage Crisis in Egypt?
Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, was stopped at the Cairo airport Saturday and told that he was not allowed to leave Egypt. He has since been detained, without explanation. LaHood was in Egypt working for a group called the International Republican Institute, which promotes democracy abroad. His detention is said to be being worked at the highest levels of the US government. And it turns out that LaHood is one of six Americans being held in Egypt against their will and without explanation. There appears to be a rift between the US and Egypt lurking behind the detentions.
Just a day before Mr. LaHood was detained temporarily, President Obama had warned Egypt’s leader, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, that this year’s American military aid hinged on satisfying new Congressional legislation requiring that Egypt’s military government take tangible steps toward democracy, said three people briefed on the conversation.
Mr. Obama referred specifically to the criminal inquiry into several democracy-building groups with foreign financing, including the Republican Institute, the people who were briefed said, and he made clear that Egypt had not fulfilled the Congressional requirements, but Field Marshal Tantawi did not seem to believe him.
Then, after the travel ban on the Americans became public on Thursday, the administration made the warning public as well. “It is the prerogative of Congress to say that our future military aid is going to be conditioned on a democratic transition,” Michael H. Posner, an assistant secretary of state responsible for human rights issues, said at a previously scheduled press conference in Cairo on Thursday.
Raids last month on nongovernmental organizations, along with respect for basic rights, he said, are “very much a part of that package.” He said repeatedly that the military aid was now at stake and that the treatment of the American-backed groups had set off a Congressional outcry. “Obviously any action that creates tension with our government makes the whole package more difficult.”
This behavior on the part of the Egyptian government, whoever is on control of it at the moment, in unacceptable. The “new” Egypt seems to be on track to behave like the post-1979 Iran, something I predicted back when Mubarak fell but is still shocking to see. The hope at that time the “Arab spring” gathered force in Cairo was that Egypt might track Turkey and only become mildly Islamist while remaining mostly secular. The country’s elections have empowered true Islamists, though, and now we may be looking at the early stages of another hostage crisis as the new government goes hardline.
Americans of a certain age remember Tehran 1979 as one of the lowest chapters in American foreign relations. We had recently lost Vietnam, and in Iran we lost an imperfect but staunch ally, America seemed to be a weak sister on the world stage, and the Middle East became a far more dangerous place practically overnight as the ayatollahs took power and established the Islamic republic. The hostage crisis helped destroy the Carter presidency, and convinced a wide swath of the world that America had become a paper tiger. That crisis was in many ways the beginning of the Islamist war we face today in the form of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the regimes that back and use them as proxies to wage war against us.
Watching Cairo in 2011 and 2012 seems all too familiar. Those six Americans being held in Cairo must be released unconditionally, immediately.
Short story: screw ‘em. None of them will ever vote Republican. Straight up.
Long story: why are we giving any nation on the African continent foreign or military aid? The place is onem huge land mass of congenital corrupt hopeless losers.
Cut all aid to Africa. All of it. Let them save themselves or sink in their own corrupt mess.
How they vote shouldn’t mean a thing to whether a foreign dictatorship can hold them. And Sam LaHood is a Republican – check and Google the name of the group he was there in Egypt working for.
Let me paraphrase TR “LaHood Alive or Tantawi Dead!”
Why limit it to Africa? We should be giving foreign aid to no-one, esp when we’re borrowing money to do it.
Well, we have a second Jimmy the peanut farmer Carter in the White House, we might as well have a second hostage crisis. To bad Obama doesn’t have a beer loving brother, we could be enjoying Barrack Beer. The micro brew would probably be more successful than those Silicon Valley manufactured photovoltaic panels. No one actually makes anything in Silicon Valley anymore, too expensive. I wonder if Jimmy will have to give back his Nobel peace prize now that the Israel/Egyptian peace treaty is defacto defunct, kaput, history?
Come to think of it, watching a current democratic president who got a Nobel peace prize for doing nothing screwing a former democratic president out of his Nobel peace prize by blowing up the Israel/Egyptian peace treaty is, well, priceless irony.
As I understand the situation at this hour on Friday morning, all six of the Americans are free but can’t leave Cairo. So, what happens if they all go to the U.S. Embassy and ask to stay?
Many thirty-something conservative pundits write that Ronald Reagan was elected because the country demanded conservative economic policies. Those who lived through Reagan’s 1980 election campaign know he won it because of the Iranian hostage crisis — an shameful episode in our history that has by and large been stuffed into the memory hole. The voters in 1980 hoped that Reagan would be as tough in office as he was in his campaign speeches and would “make the rubble bounce” in Tehran if they didn’t do our bidding. The MSM media back then was so disgusted with the Carter administration’s bad handling of the crisis that everything it tried was given a negative spin. They did this to influence Carter’s actions rather than to help a Republican get elected. Ultimately the media establishment came out in favor of Carter’s re-election by calling Reagan too warlike (the media misplayed their hand because they couldn’t believe the country would elect a “air-headed, has-been movie star”). If you think about it, given the mood of the country, Reagan ended up getting exactly the type of publicity he needed. Iran believed all it was reading about Reagan the wild man so as soon as he won the election they agreed to release the hostages. At that point, as far as the American public was concerned, Reagan’s presidency was a success — and he hadn’t even been inaugurated!
There are worse things that could happen than an Egyptian hostage crisis just like the Iranian one. (For example, the MSM media could pretend the crisis doesn’t exist in order to protect Obama. The major media outlets have, believe it or not, become a lot more politicized — call it corrupted if you wish — over the last 31 years.)
Reagan won because he was up against Carter. he would have won against anybody since as well because he talked straight.
he was not as conservative as I would like, regardless he was the best for the USA then any other in the last generation.
…Carter also took the interest rate to 20% ….with obama it will be gas prices that stop him.
oh look obama is turning blue holding his breath. NOT
the current group in the white house care not for those wanting a democracy. …under the bus with them …twice for trying to embarrass the administration for bringing it up!!
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
And there is no hostage crisis.
If the media admitted there was a hostage crisis, it would be forced to examine how the Muslim Brotherhood came to power with Buraq Hussein’s help. And they would have to examine his actions during the crisis in some detail. Ain’t ever gonna happen. No “Nightline” specials every evening. No public [or private] diplomacy. No interviews with the families of those held.
The Americans [like all Americans] are considered to be expendable by the MSM and the administration in pursuit of a higher goal. The apotheosis of Buraq Hussein Obama.
And some of the hostages being Republican or in favor of a constitutional republic is considered to be a feature and not a bug in the process.
Subotai Bahadur
Bryan – You wrote: “The hope at that time the “Arab spring” gathered force in Cairo was that Egypt might track Turkey … ” Egypt is tracking Turkey, because Turkey is no longer mildly Islamist, but extremely Islamist.
Hey, this is Cairo. Obama knows Cairo he is comfortable there. He knows that we “share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”
I think he should just fly over there and explain the situation. Obviously just a silly mixup – you know how kids are, that sort of thing.
Leave Michelle and the kids at home though. Bad things happen to western women in Cairo.
Obama’s Iran-Like Hostage Crisis
With the blessing of the Moslem Brotherhood, who Obama has been butt kissing for years, Sam LaHood and the other Americans trapped in Egypt are HOSTAGES not unlike what happened in 1979 Iran. Instead of quickly resolving the situation and letting them return home Egypt’s Islamist military junta has sent a delegation to Washington to negotiate the terms of their release with the Obama administration. The junta got Obama by the balls. This is an election year and the junta knows that Obama doesn’t want a full scale crisis like Carter had in 1979 as it could mean the end of his presidency. The junta is looking for concessions and will get them. What a joke. If Obama caves in, as he’s likely to, more of this kind of extortion will follow as it will set a precedent for the rest of the year up to Election Day.
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