The US gives an amount of foreign military financing, sometimes reported as $1.3 billion, other times as $1.5 billion per year to Egypt's military. What exactly is bought with this money is kept secret from the people of the United States and from the people of Egypt. While the details of the disbursement is unclear, the intention that these funds be used to hold Egypt's military accountable to the US rather than the people of Egypt is clear. Even after a new constitution is written, the US and its pro-US military dictatorship in Egypt hope to prevent civilian oversight of the military budget and therefore of the US' relationship with the body the US hopes will set Egypt's foreign policy regardless of the will of Egypt's voters.
The new majority is likely to increase the difficulty of sustaining the United States’ close military and political partnership with post-Mubarak Egypt, though the military has said it plans to maintain a monopoly over many aspects of foreign affairs.Given that the Barack Obama administration hopes any future Egyptian democracy does not extend to control over foreign policy and the US' secret payments to the military dictatorship are a mechanism for maintaining this non-accountability to the Egyptian people, we would expect that the people of Egypt do not want US aid to ocntinue. That is what we see.
Egyptians' opposition to U.S. economic aid continued to climb in early 2012. More than eight in 10 Egyptians in February said they opposed U.S. economic aid, up 11 percentage points since December and up 30 points since April 2011 when Gallup first posed the question.The US can and should unilaterally make public how this foreign military financing is spent. That's what a country would do if aimed to advance the US' proclaimed founding value of democracy. Instead Barack Obama advances the racist proposition that democracy for more than 85 million Egyptians is subordinate as a goal to fewer than six million Jewish people having an enforced political majority state in Palestine.
Barack Obama's position is disgusting, but it is good to see the people of Egypt are increasingly able to see it for what it is.
4 comments:
Arnold, I suppose it is not about "the people of Egypt are increasingly able to see it for what it is", it is about Egyptian people now have more opportunity to voice their long-standing view of "USA aid". People from outside, mostly non-versed in how imperialist "aid" works, could be surprised, but Egyptians sure know better. To me, of course, it is NOT a surprise, because I see Egyptians as people with common sense, and so, they should be against such "aid", as they are.
They don't want US aid, but they certainly won't want the economic ramifications of losing that aid. If Egyptians think that they "got more than they bargained for" in their coup last year, wait till they see what cutting off the aid spigot is going to be like.
Or steve70638 cannot read, or he thinks that 80% of Egyptians are idiots, who do not know what is better for them.
"what cutting off the aid spigot is going to be like"? Like SCAF the puppets of USA are NOT going to line their pockets and pay USA back in sovereignty of Egypt ? I am sure all 80% of Egyptians are going to don mourning gear after understanding it :)
Hello mate great blog postt
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