The Obama Administration seems fine with staying the course on Egypt, which means bankrolling the military junta that seized power last month. After five days of massacres leaving huge numbers of people dead, a lot of people are having second thoughts.
Even Senators who stake out pro-aid positions as a matter of course like Sens. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) and Bob Corker (R – TN) are now on the side of cutting aid, insisting that it can’t possibly be sustained after the violent crackdowns on protest.
Not that everyone’s on board. Rep. Peter King (R – NY) is still on the coup bandwagon, insisting that the ousted government had “not demonstrated a commitment to democracy,” despite being actually elected in real elections. King says the US needs to keep the aid, $1.5 billion annually, flowing toward Egypt’s military.
Administration officials have argued that the aid is buying the US influence, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have amounted to much, far too little to prevent the military from killing huge numbers of civilians in the streets. Sen. Rand Paul (R – KY), one of the leaders in the call to end aid, says that the funds aren’t “winning the hearts and minds of the Egyptian people.”
Indeed, if anything the aid is buying a lot of anti-US sentiment, as a brutal crackdown continues apace with a de facto US imprimatur, and US funding. Meanwhile, the junta is suggesting they’re “reconsidering” ties in retaliation for the extremely tepid criticism the US has offered to this point, though this seems unlikely as well since from their perspective US ties just means cashing the occasional $1.5 billion check.
The answere to senators from corporates losing their profits supplying Egypt with arms is going to be this: how many of the employees do you want us to throw out, with that many and that much costs cutting, we are willing to cut that much of the arm supply to Egypt.
The Egyptian government apparently declared McCain and Graham to be officially "persona non grata" … that's progress … these guys have a softspot for Islamist jihadists in Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
The two militant groups you mentioned are diametrically opposed to each other, which makes your comment meaningless neutral and your logic nonsensical.
Yeah, but any comment that bashes McCain has got something going for it.
Funny how politicians establish a conclusion, and then come up with supporting reasoning. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
A half century of militarize imperialism, this is what the Brotherhood strives to abolish and who knows, they could just pull it off. What with the lower half of Egypt living on $2 to $3.40 a day wages, what with the upper half of society living in luxury and hoarding all the wealth, surely sooner or later this all has to come to a screeching halt.
As long as Israel is opposed to cutting off the aid to Egypt, the aid will not be cut off because Israel does not see the interruption of such aid is in its own interest. Remember that these senators serve the interests of AIPAC and Israel and not those of the American people. Consequently you can guess who's going to win.
"Administration officials have argued that the aid is buying the US influence, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have amounted to much,"
Who says the US money isn't buying influence? They're getting rid of the Moslem brotherhood (not so friendly to Israel) and going back to military rule (very friendly to Israel).
Loads of nonsense.
Aid will continue until ISREAL orders its suspension. For now however Isreal supports the junta that has seized power and they will NOT PERMIT the US aid to be cut.
I'm glad that more senators support obeying the law but I'm still confused on the reason for their change of heart after AIPAC laid down the law. It looks like the senators who have had a change of heart really don't want to obey the law but want to control Egypt through carrots and sticks. The US can cut it and Saudi Arabia says it will pick up the slack. Saudi Arabia assures everyone that the brutal Egyptian military will have plenty of resources to take out its enemies in Egypt. Egypt doesn't need American foreign aid so it has no compelling reason to obey these senators.