It’s been tricky for President Bush to balance his support for spreading democracy with his support for our undemocratic allies. One place where he has been out of balance is Egypt, Bret Stephens argued in The Wall Street Journal.
Earlier this month, Bush met with Gamal Mubarak (in photo), who is positioning himself to succeed his father, President Hosni Mubarak, and Bush officials helped block an effort to reduce some of Egypt’s $1.7 billion in U.S. aid. Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists in Egypt were beaten, arrested and detained.
“Maybe there is no connection between the first and second set of events,” Stephens wrote. “Maybe Mr. Mubarak did not need tacit American acquiescence to embark on his latest campaign of repression. Maybe there are plausible reasons for the administration to go soft on the regime for now. But speak to opposition figures here and the sense of American betrayal is palpable.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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13 Comments
“The enmey of my enemy is my friend”. It worked in Iran, it worked in Iraq…lets just keep doing till it works out right!
Kind of hard to promote Democracy, if so called son of a current President is considered undemocratic? When Bush is a son of a current President.
The USA picks and chooses it’s battles, and Egypt isn’t one of them. Will just throw money at them like we always do. Actually I believe we give more aid to Egypt than Isreal.
There is nothing wrong with the son of a president becoming the president - if properly elected by the people. THAT is the slight hick-up in Egypt.
Joe
Israel receives over half { 30 billion } of all US Foreign Aid. Plus loan guarantees { last year 13 billion on one deal }. Now, with Wolfowitz in charge of the World Bank information is almost impossible to find.
The modern US has always supported stability over democracy, human rights, and other Enlightenment principles. Surprising for a nation that came out swinging against legally constituted authority for the intolerable ‘offenses’ of a tax on paper and tea.
IMHO one of the reasons that people around the world dislike the United States government is this very lack of support for the ‘revolutionary’ ideas of republican government upon which this nation was founded.
On the other hand, the world loves American culture. Look at blue jeans, Coke, iPods, immigration stats. America should use its cultural prowess to export our ideals to the world. We should educate as many children of the world’s elites as we can get our hands on. We should do far more humanitarian missions - like the one recently undertaken for the earthquakes in Kashmir - where the military used helicopters to ferry in supplies and medical help to an area all but closed off by the quake and the ensuing snowfall. We should make ourselves ‘beacons to the world’ in this way.
And we should call a spade a spade …and stand up (perhaps not publicly..perhaps through channels), even when it is against our economic interests, to support what we all know is right and oppose what we know is wrong. What might some of those things be? Opposition to child labor and torture come to mind…support for the rule of justice. And, for the most part, we should keep our military noses out of the rest of the world’s business. I wonder how we might react to China using its military globally in the way that we do?
The Bush administration has betrayed democracy right here in the US–they “purge” voter roles of suspected Democrats, they institute policies that make it harder for people to vote (see Blackwell in OH who refused voter registrations if they weren’t on the correct WEIGHT of paper), and they support the use of electronic voting machines which cannot be recounted or even verified as correct.
When he stole the election in 2000, he told the world where he stood on democracy–he’s only for it if it benefits him.
LH
Good show. Dead-on.
I don’t know of ANY country in the Middle East where that the US supports in which we foster democracy (which would require universal suffrage).
You’re right Ben. Even Israel is far from being a Democracy. More theocratic than anything else.
Why would we support democracy? We aren’t one…literally.
Infernal - we are pretty much a ‘democracy’ in the sense that the word is commonly used. That would include Representative Republics, Parliamentary systems, etc.
The “War on “Terrorism”What is Mr. Bush warring against?He says he’s conducting a “War on “terrorism,” but what is “terrorism?” Is it the violence of men flying airplanes into buildings in retaliation for years of murdering their people? Is it a man defending his home from Zionists who are destroying entire Palestinian villages and come with bulldozers to murder him and his family?Mr. Bush defies the American people in continuing to murder Iraqis, 3 years after invading that country, based on lies, but under the cloak of fighting the “war on Terrorism.” First in was to destroy their WMD, now it’s back to his old standby; fighting the “War on Terrorism.”Meanwhile the Iraqis are fighting the invading hordes of Americans and those “bought-off Iraqis who have thrown-in with them. Bush now says he’s fighting “terrorists” and if he stops, as the American People want him to, he says; “The Terrorists will have won.”What kind of nonsense is this?Mr. Bush says he wants Iraq to be stable before he leaves, but as long as he keeps bombing and shooting the Iraqis, how could they ever get stable? Or want to?Mr. Bush says he wants the Iraqi People to have an elected democratic government, but when he told the Palestinians to elect one, they did, but now he won’t recognize it or allow them to receive donations to feed their People { check it out, it’s for real }.Judges aren’t going to “buy” his “War on Terrorism” as his excuse for violating international law and committing daily war-crimes. Mr. Bush can’t even treat prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions and turns prisons into horrible medieval torture chambers. Mr. Bush even has his soldiers shoot the wounded.The whole civilized world considers Mr. Bush to be little more than dangerous laughingstock, while he has bragged that he doesn’t read newspapers { I don’t believe I’d have told that }.If Mr. Bush doesn’t know what the so-called “War on Terrorism” is all about, or for that matter, who or what a “terrorist” happens to be, then who does? Maybe it’s the wrong name?Perhaps Mr. Bush needs to reconsider that maybe the “War on Terrorism” is not good, but really a very very bad idea, and start listening to the American People?If not, then seek help.
Ed, the War on Terrorism is exactly like the War on Drugs, both nothing but meaningless rhetoric to let them do what they want to do.
Notice the rise in drug use and the larger variety of drugs to choose from since Nixon initiated the War on Drugs in 1971.
And how ’bout those Afghanistan poppy fields?