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While I applaud the Obama speech as being one that more bold, more concise and articulately defined than any foreign policy speech I have heard in a very long time. I also applaud the Obama administrations position with regards to Israel and a clear stance on how we are to proceed with both them and the Palestinians.
However, there is another matter, Egypt itself. Egypt is the second largest benefactor of US foreign aid, and lets face it folks, it isn't exactly a human rights paradise either.
While Egypt is listed as a Semi-Presidential Republic, a more articulate description is as follows.
Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term, was held in September 2005. - Wiki
Aside from being a target of many human rights agencies for its less than stellar record, or even labeled by some as extremely poor, Egypt has also been a hot bed of Islamic radicalism, despite being the best government the US could buy.
Many scholars would argue that it is in fact Egypt where modern radical Islam in its contemporary context came into being. A man by the name of Sayyid Qutb who once studied in the US and came to despise the liberalization of western culture. It was said by Sayyid Qutb and a number of his followers that his brand of radical Islam was born when he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was later tortured by the US backed Egyptian government. The close ties between the US and Egypt were seen by many Muslims in a context of a Near East Muslim colony in which the US operated its strings. The governments often brutal methods of treating its citizens has had a lasting impact and results we all know too well today.
Sayyid Qubt went on teach a man known as Ayman Zawahiri who was the mentor of Osama Bin Laden and his teachings are oft studied by those in Al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.
So, will the Obama administration hold the nation of Egypt to the same standards he has laid out for others in the Middle East? Will this administration address the human rights abuses and issues that have been one of the catalyst for Islamic extremism? Will the US continue to pour foreign aid in to a nation such a this?
This is true - the Egyptian government has a very active anti-gay police that use vague laws to persecute homosexuals. Though homosexuality is not officially illegal there, the police have actively been arresting gays and using so called deviance laws against them. Teenage boys are being sent to hard labour camps due to their homosexuality or alleged homosexuality. This is a major issue that they should be held accountable for.
While I applaud the Obama speech as being one that more bold, more concise and articulately defined than any foreign policy speech I have heard in a very long time. I also applaud the Obama administrations position with regards to Israel and a clear stance on how we are to proceed with both them and the Palestinians.
However, there is another matter, Egypt itself. Egypt is the second largest benefactor of US foreign aid, and lets face it folks, it isn't exactly a human rights paradise either.
While Egypt is listed as a Semi-Presidential Republic, a more articulate description is as follows.
Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term, was held in September 2005. - Wiki
Aside from being a target of many human rights agencies for its less than stellar record, or even labeled by some as extremely poor, Egypt has also been a hot bed of Islamic radicalism, despite being the best government the US could buy.
Many scholars would argue that it is in fact Egypt where modern radical Islam in its contemporary context came into being. A man by the name of Sayyid Qutb who once studied in the US and came to despise the liberalization of western culture. It was said by Sayyid Qutb and a number of his followers that his brand of radical Islam was born when he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was later tortured by the US backed Egyptian government. The close ties between the US and Egypt were seen by many Muslims in a context of a Near East Muslim colony in which the US operated its strings. The governments often brutal methods of treating its citizens has had a lasting impact and results we all know too well today.
Sayyid Qubt went on teach a man known as Ayman Zawahiri who was the mentor of Osama Bin Laden and his teachings are oft studied by those in Al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.
So, will the Obama administration hold the nation of Egypt to the same standards he has laid out for others in the Middle East? Will this administration address the human rights abuses and issues that have been one of the catalyst for Islamic extremism? Will the US continue to pour foreign aid in to a nation such a this?
While I applaud the Obama speech as being one that more bold, more concise and articulately defined than any foreign policy speech I have heard in a very long time. I also applaud the Obama administrations position with regards to Israel and a clear stance on how we are to proceed with both them and the Palestinians.
However, there is another matter, Egypt itself. Egypt is the second largest benefactor of US foreign aid, and lets face it folks, it isn't exactly a human rights paradise either.
While Egypt is listed as a Semi-Presidential Republic, a more articulate description is as follows.
Although power is ostensibly organized under a multi-party semi-presidential system, whereby the executive power is theoretically divided between the President and the Prime Minister, in practice it rests almost solely with the President who traditionally has been elected in single-candidate elections for more than fifty years. Egypt also holds regular multi-party parliamentary elections. The last presidential election, in which Mubarak won a fifth consecutive term, was held in September 2005. - Wiki
Aside from being a target of many human rights agencies for its less than stellar record, or even labeled by some as extremely poor, Egypt has also been a hot bed of Islamic radicalism, despite being the best government the US could buy.
Many scholars would argue that it is in fact Egypt where modern radical Islam in its contemporary context came into being. A man by the name of Sayyid Qutb who once studied in the US and came to despise the liberalization of western culture. It was said by Sayyid Qutb and a number of his followers that his brand of radical Islam was born when he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and was later tortured by the US backed Egyptian government. The close ties between the US and Egypt were seen by many Muslims in a context of a Near East Muslim colony in which the US operated its strings. The governments often brutal methods of treating its citizens has had a lasting impact and results we all know too well today.
Sayyid Qubt went on teach a man known as Ayman Zawahiri who was the mentor of Osama Bin Laden and his teachings are oft studied by those in Al Qaeda and other Muslim extremist groups.
So, will the Obama administration hold the nation of Egypt to the same standards he has laid out for others in the Middle East? Will this administration address the human rights abuses and issues that have been one of the catalyst for Islamic extremism? Will the US continue to pour foreign aid in to a nation such a this?
They should have been cut off right after 9-11 when their people danced in the streets.
Casper
Egypt is a not a free country and I am not thrilled at all about the aid they receive. Though it would be difficult to cut them off and not Israel and still be seen as an honest broker in the region. Personally I would like to see military aid to both nations cut off, but I do not see a strong chance of this happening anytime soon.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We haven't held anybody to any standards in the Middle East yet. So giving aid to a crappy Government in the Middle East is just standard operating procedure. We support all sorts of Middle East undemocratic governments. ie Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves here. We haven't held anybody to any standards in the Middle East yet. So giving aid to a crappy Government in the Middle East is just standard operating procedure. We support all sorts of Middle East undemocratic governments. ie Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.
The US has two sets of standards, one for those nations which it either owns or offers unquestioning support of and those nations that deviate from this in the tiniest amount.
The notion of democracy in the Middle East is something only talked about in speeches and there is a reasoning behind our support of so many dictatorships and even denouncing democratic desires of people as Bush did with Hu in China while condemning the desire for democracy in Taiwan.
When you support a dictator, it is simply good economics. You control the man, he controls the military, the people are then under your control or at the least, your influence. If you have a democracy, then you are beholden to an entire population of people who might just disagree with you are wish no quarter with you, as is in the case of Hamas or Iran in 1953. If there were democracies in the Middle East today, Israel would likely be at war before dawn, so as our foreign policy has been promulgated for the past 40 years, we like our dictators cheap and loyal. Kind of like Saddam was there for a while until he became too Americanized and got greedy.
I believe we are witnessing a massive shift in US foreign policy in the region and I doubt it sits well with the old timers of the Kissinger flair who promoted destabilization as a means of regional control. I'm only curious as to how balanced this approach will be and if Obama will ask or demand the same level of standards for all the players.
The US has two sets of standards, one for those nations which it either owns or offers unquestioning support of and those nations that deviate from this in the tiniest amount.
The notion of democracy in the Middle East is something only talked about in speeches and there is a reasoning behind our support of so many dictatorships and even denouncing democratic desires of people as Bush did with Hu in China while condemning the desire for democracy in Taiwan.
When you support a dictator, it is simply good economics. You control the man, he controls the military, the people are then under your control or at the least, your influence. If you have a democracy, then you are beholden to an entire population of people who might just disagree with you are wish no quarter with you, as is in the case of Hamas or Iran in 1953. If there were democracies in the Middle East today, Israel would likely be at war before dawn, so as our foreign policy has been promulgated for the past 40 years, we like our dictators cheap and loyal. Kind of like Saddam was there for a while until he became too Americanized and got greedy.
I believe we are witnessing a massive shift in US foreign policy in the region and I doubt it sits well with the old timers of the Kissinger flair who promoted destabilization as a means of regional control. I'm only curious as to how balanced this approach will be and if Obama will ask or demand the same level of standards for all the players.
There is a down side to this theory though. A lot of times while a dictator may control the people for a while they may end up hating the dictator, and if he receives a lot of support from America they may end up hating the American government as well. This could turn out a number of ways from places like Greece and Indonesia where people eventually, more or less forgave America's support for the dictator, and are willing to still ally or work with America, to places like Iran, and Cuba where people still resent America's support of the Shah and Batista respectively. Essentially while it may be short term beneficial to back a dictator it can often be long-term harmful, after all there are not many countries were America has supported a democratic government that also hate us.
I hope Obama does take an approach that requires balance and promotes democracy because I do think the democratic peace theory is correct and as such that is the best potential way to stabilize the entire world. The question is will he and others in the world work for this goal or not.
Edit: I would also like to note that I do not think most Arab countries would declare war with Israel if they were democracies and in fact many of the places that might currently have US backed regimes ie Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In other nations that are not US backed a such as Syria majorities of the population favor peace with Israel if certain conditions are met.
In many places that are American backed dictatorships the mosque is often the only remaining area where dissent may be voiced. As such virulent Anti-Americanism grows there because of perceived American support of not only Israel, but often more importantly tyrannical Arab governments.
Last edited by Randomstudent; 06-06-2009 at 10:30 PM..
This is the problem: who replaces Mubarek? Egypt, unlike Israel, doesn't have a tradition of democracy. And if we cut off aid, will Saudi interests rush in?
I think it's a long process to getting Egypt off the teat.
We support all sorts of Middle East undemocratic governments. ie Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc.
This one's a no-brainer. Yet another example of creating facts to fit an agenda. It's annoying. Cite your source. You won't. There isn't any.
Israel is, and always has been classified as a democracy. In fact it is the only free country in it's entire region:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw09/MOF09_MENA.pdf (broken link)
This fact is really so non-debatable. I only bring it up as an example of how in general you say things off the top of your head because they fit into your ideological view. If you want to respond, please respond to this point about Israeli democracy. Don't go off on a tangent rant.
Last edited by lamontnow; 06-07-2009 at 08:01 AM..
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