After Feigning Love for Egyptian Democracy, U.S. Back To Openly Supporting Tyranny

[KoKo]

During the gushing coverage of the Tahrir protests, Americans were told almost none of this (just as most Arab Spring coverage generally omitted long-standing U.S. support for most of the targeted tyrants in the region). Instead, they were led to believe that the U.S. political class was squarely on the side of democracy and freedom in Egypt, heralding Obama’s statement that Egyptians have made clear that “nothing less than genuine democracy will carry the day.”

That pro-democracy script is long forgotten, as though it never existed. The U.S. political and media class are right back to openly supporting military autocracy in Egypt as enthusiastically as they supported the Mubarak regime. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who last year led the military coup against the democratically elected Egyptian government of the Muslim Brotherhood, is now a Washington favorite, despite (or because of) his merciless killing and imprisonment of dissidents, including Al Jazeera journalists. In June, Human Rights Watch noted the post-coup era has included the “worst incident of mass unlawful killings in Egypt’s recent history” and that “judicial authorities have handed down unprecedented large-scale death sentences and security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.” The group documented just last week:

Egyptian authorities have, by their own count, detained 22,000 people since the July 2013 military-backed ouster of the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsy. The broad arrest sweep has caught up many people who were peacefully expressing political opposition to Morsy’s overthrow and to the al-Sisi government. The actual number of arrests is probably higher. . . . There are credible accounts that a large number of detainees are being held incommunicado in military facilities, and that dozens have died in custody under circumstances of mistreatment or negligence that warrant investigation.

None of that has deterred U.S. support for the coup leaders. Months after the coup, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo and praised the military regime, actions The New York Times said ”reflected the Obama administration’s determination to work with a military leadership that ruthlessly put down protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood.” In July of this year, the U.S. released $550 million to the regime. In August, Kerry seemed to praise the coup itself; as The New York Times put it: he “offered an unexpected lift to Egypt’s military leaders . . . saying they had been ‘restoring democracy’ when they deposed the country’s first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi.” In mid-October, the Pentagon announced “that the U.S. plans to deliver 10 AH-64 Apache helicopters to Egypt.”

That was the background for Sisi’s meeting with Bill and Hillary Clinton in New York last week (pictured above). He also met with U.S. business leaders and the Chamber of Commerce, as well as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. Sisi then met with Obama himself (photo below), where the U.S. President “touted the longstanding relationship between the United States and Egypt as a cornerstone of American security policy in the Middle East.”

Continued at:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/02/feigned-american-support-egyptian-democracy-lasted-roughly-six-weeks/

[Fred Sanders]

1. America loves any dictator that serves the purpose of controlling the unwashed masses yearning for

freedom....as long as they share the profit of the labor.

Hypocrisy is the only word that applies.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. We have to ignore our own laws to keep sending these guys money.

The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act forbids providing assistance to governments installed by coups.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. Oh, and looks who is glad-handing the butcher of Cairo.

[Chathamization]

4. We need to completely reevaluate our foreign policy. Unfortunately, I’m not expecting that to happen

anytime soon. But it’s a terrible mess, largely run by incompetent individuals. There’s no need for us to be propping up dictators around the world (particularly since we try to overthrow other dictators on account of them being dictatorships). Is the Syrian regime really worse than the Egyptian, Saudi, Bahraini, etc. regimes?

Hopefully, like the recent awaking we’ve had about income inequality, someday we’ll have people realizing what a mess has been created internationally.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Great! This is the sort of strong leadership America needs in an ally!

OK, so there's a teeny problem with the whole democracy thing. Sheesh! Liberal leftists are always clamoring for their pony.


"This is America, Dude. Learn the rules!"