{Cross-posted at News and Views from Jews Down Under.}
The tidbit below was written by Michael Wilner and published at the Jerusalem Post.
WASHINGTON – The US has decided to alter its military aid to Egypt, the State Department said on Wednesday, after Sunday’s clashes in the Arab world’s most populous nation resulted in the deaths of 57 people.How is it that the Obama administration always seems to come down on the side of radical Jihadis?
The US will maintain military aid to Egypt tied by contracts with American defense firms, but will "continue to hold the delivery of certain large-scale military systems and cash assistance to the government pending credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government through free and fair elections," Jen Psaki, State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The State Department clarified, however, that it would continue to give Egypt support for counter-terrorism efforts in the Sinai peninsula, which borders Israel.
How is that?
Is it merely a coincidence?
We all know, of course, that the Mubarak government was a military dictatorship and that the current government is basically Mubarak Mark II but, from all accounts, huge numbers of Egyptians opposed the Muslim Brotherhood government of Morsi and supported the military coup that removed him and his people from power.
Good for the Egyptians.
The significance of the Arab Spring, which was so hailed as a great democratic movement throughout the Arab world was, in fact, the rise of political Islam. The entire time that the Obama administration praised the Arab Spring it was praising the rise of a political movement throughout that part of the world that had ties to Nazi Germany and that has no interest, or commitment to, human rights or social justice.
From my perspective, the progressive-left threw its own alleged values into the garbage by supporting Islamist thugs when it counted. And now - not surprisingly - the Obama administration is going to punish the very people who got rid of Morsi and his semi-fascistic crew of radical theocrats.
But, I cannot feel too bad about it for the simple reason that I have no interest whatsoever in seeing a militarized Egypt. The only thing that I want from Egypt is for its people and its leadership to stop screaming bloody murder concerning Jews and Israel.
When the Arab governments stop telling their people that the Jews are the worst people on the planet and that we need to be slaughtered, maybe then I will favor military aid to those governments.
Until then, however, not so much.
Let me qualify this with an observation I recently made and that in the current parlance, we hear about 'salafists'. And we're told that these fellows are on the furthest end of the furthest end - the ultras who are so extreme not even Osama wanted to deal with them. But if you peel away the labels and the history you discover (unremarkably) that 'salafists' is another name for "Wahhabist". The two are interchangeable. So - the point that Osama couldn't deal with them is patently false. He WAS them. Moreover they are the public face of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. Maybe a little shabbier but the same thing.
ReplyDeleteBut the issue for the Egyptian army isn't whether they have the weapons to kill Jews. They haven't asked for that. They've asked for a few attack helicopters a few tanks, a wing of F-16's. If they were truly preparing to kill the Jews they'd do what they did in 1973 and arm themselves to the teeth with every anti aircraft and anti armor missile they could. This aid was supposed to be destined for their Sinai operations where these 'salafists' have killed more than 400 Egyptian police and army this year. The Sinai is in free fall right now. Of course one could suggest that the Egyptian army uses that as a pretext to send a massive wave of tanks and planes into Israel but the haven't the capability to do that.
What Obama has done is help foment more violent anarchy in the Sinai. As a result this will drive the Egyptians into the arms of the Russians and Chinese. Their attack helicopters, APCs, tanks and small weapons are good enough. Their 'advisers' are capable. Egypt will have no choice but to go that way. Moreover, Russia has a BETTER reason to elicit their support in killing off Sunni fanatics since Sunni fanatics are running wild in the Caucuses and Russia now. Similarly the Chinese would like nothing better than to annihilate their own Sunni rebels the Uighurs in western China. So they all have something to gain from one another. But in any case, Obama doesn't want any part of it. Because while this aid sounds like a great deal of money - the loans and support that Qatar has floated them just to keep them fed a few more months is 20x that American aid. They could peel off some dinar and buy some weapons as required.
Egypt is one more place the US has bolted on. Pre emptively. For ideological reasons. Obama set out to leave the Mideast. Either he sees it as an insoluble problem or he harbors some sympathy for anyone who's fighting the current regimes or he wants to see it all burn down or he resents anyone who in his mind is connected to the British Empire in its waning days of post colonial WW2. Or who knows? The reasons might not matter. America is leaving the region and doesn't maintain the fiction that once gone we should still have any influence. He's happy to toss everything to Turkey, Iran or Russia. Soon he will bail on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the GCC states. Soon he will bail on Jordan. Soon he will bail on Yemen. And soon he will bail on Israel. He has said this clearly and repeatedly and if you don't know this you haven't been paying attention.
Trudy, as always you have much to say, but let's focus on this for the moment:
Delete'What Obama has done is help foment more violent anarchy in the Sinai. As a result this will drive the Egyptians into the arms of the Russians and Chinese.
Well, the times they are a definitely achangin.'
You have quite a particular view, and I respect that view, but you are probably somewhere to my right on the broader issue, to the extent that such things mean anything.
The key point, tho, is that Egypt may very well look toward Russia and China. They obviously cannot trust the United States under this administration. But, at the same time, I keep hearing noises about Israel doing likewise.
I wonder if we are not on the cusp of a geo-political shift?