After several months of violent crackdowns by the Egyptian military on its own people, it’s being reported that the U.S. government has decided to reel in some of the “military aid” that it doles out to the country.
Naturally, curtailing any type of “leverage” that the U.S. may hold over another nation, will tend to irritate your typical neocon — like Jeffrey Goldberg, for example.
You see, in Goldberg’s world, when the average American clocks into his/her job, it’s not for their own benefit, or for their family, but for the American elites, who decided 100 years ago to turn the world into a giant Risk game board.
In order to keep the money flowing to Egypt, Goldberg must somehow create imaginary fears, so here’s his attempt:
But curtailing aid raises some difficult questions for U.S. allies in the region, for the Middle East peace process and for American national security.
Goldberg forgot to add: “and the Earth may stop spinning”…
It also raises a question about the utility of half-measures — because partially cutting off aid would mainly be a gesture of disapproval, rather than a profound shift in policy designed to move Egypt onto a different path.
The U.S. government should not be “designing to move” any nation onto any path. U.S. policy with every single nation should be exactly the same: Peace, Commerce, and No Entangling Alliances. Any policy that moves beyond that invites trouble.
U.S. allies already don’t trust the friendship of President Barack Obama’s administration. And they — the Arabs in particular — fear that they’ll be pushed aside in favor of either a more isolationist approach to the world or, worse, an American rapprochement with Iran, which they don’t trust at all. Obviously, the opportunities here for meddlesome would-be superpowers — Russia, most notably — also loom large in the minds of nervous allies.
Why should anyone trust a U.S. friendship? Henry Kissinger even said himself, “To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal”. Military Empires are very fickle. One day you’re a hero and a provider of “stability”, and the next there’s a bomb falling from the sky with your name on it.
Goldberg, as you probably noticed, made sure to throw in the Iranian and Russian bogeymen. You can’t manufacture fear without mentioning them both.
But let’s think about this from an Egyptian citizen’s point of view. How do you think they feel about being shot at with U.S. tanks and weapons? For 30 years, the U.S. propped up the Mubarak dictatorship. What kind of feelings do you think that would stir up for the average Egyptian citizen? Is it possible that this crazy U.S. policy is what actually creates animosity towards the U.S. and what really makes the U.S. unsafe?
Egypt is just one piece of the puzzle. The U.S. props up various dictatorships in the Middle East, and has military bases peppered all over the area. The fear should not be that the U.S. pulls back (in this tiny way), but that it continues to expand in conquering the Middle East.
Sadly, even with a token reduction in Egyptian military aid, there are few signs that the ultimate goal for the Middle East has changed.
