Now that Syria’s chemical weapons use and its aftermath have been plastered in the frontage of every news media outlet, the Egyptian coup..errhm i mean, crisis, has taken a back seat in the list of pressing issue . The revolution started out with a positive cause of deposing a ruthless dictator who had nearly untethered control for 30 years with foreign support, but what is happening now looks similar to the Mubarak regime under the guise of provisional “military led government.” The Military has control over the airwaves. The news organizations that are not approved by the military are widely cracked down and its journalists jailed.
All of this to the average American citizen is irrelevant or at best tragic, what everyone should be considered about is the aid that the US sends in billions of dollars to Egypt. The United States cannot legally send aid to a foreign government that had a coup. So even though the US has “suspended” aid until further “revision.” The State Departments official stance towards this is to not change course citing that it doesn’t have to “make a formal determination.”
This is what is most troubling over all, an official policy to ignore a mandate for provisional aid. But even more comical is the visit by Sen. Michelle Bachmann and Lindsey Graham to Egypt where Bachmann infamously uttered the following sentence “We’ve seen the threat that the Muslim Brotherhood has posed around the world,” she said Saturday. “We stand against this great evil. We are not for them. We remember who caused 9/11 in America. We remember who it was that killed 3,000 brave Americans. We have not forgotten. We know that you have dealt with that enemy as well.”
Despite the idiocy, revisionist history and short term memory of a tragic event, what is most troubling is that a representative of the US government uncritically supporting a undemocratic government crackdown on pro-democracy groups and using 9/11 as a moral and false equivalent to justify it.
The next steps taken by the US have to be considered carefully since it’s questionable financial support of a government appears to be a dictatorship in its infancy stage is already ill advised and hypocritical of its extolled value placed on “democracy.”
With all the events happening in the Middle East, I believe it is important to discuss and have clear the involvement of the United States with those countries. As you mention in your post, the financial support given to Egypt is so enormous that it should be carefully revised. Those same resources could be used for American citizens.
The truth is that Americans aren’t even exposed to this the information as they are exposed to other things. That is why we have little comments on what’s going on, or we just choose what most Americans say just because the heard it on CNN or Fox News. News channels deliver the news a certain type of way so that you can agree with what they are saying. They might advertise car bombing and riots and then talk about Egyptians and Syrians parallel so that you think you are drawing your own ideas when you are not. News channels persuade and influence you to think a certain way without you even knowing it.