I am guessing that most of you know about the military crack down against President Morsi supporters in Egypt this week. Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood camped outside in Cairo (their version of an Occupy Movement) but this Wednesday it turned into a blood bath with over 600 people killed by the Egyptian military. It shouldn’t come as a surprise — the military is only doing what the military trains to do — blow stuff up and kill people. They don’t have time for words when guns will make their point faster.
I spoke with a few people about the events over there and they told me that the U.S. should just stay out of it and let the people of Egypt decide for themselves what government they want. That sounds so easy doesn’t it? I mean, really — we seem to stick our noses in everyone else’s business and it never turns out good. The U.S. spends one billion dollars a month on military aide for Egypt but that money does not go directly to them, instead it goes to U.S. Defense contractors — like Halliburton.
I KNOW that’s the reason President Obama refuses to call what happened a few weeks ago, a military coup. If he admitted that it was in fact a coup, then Halliburton and his war buddies would lose money and they won’t allow that to happen. Why should they? Those who make their money making weapons of war, depend on countries remaining in constant conflict. And there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of that. I am sure if we dug a little deeper we would find the U.S. “stirring the pot” while pretending to help out.
If the U.S. was really serious about nation building, they would take a lesson from history and would use the Marshall Plan, like we did in WWII. President Truman didn’t keep sending military equipment to European countries, he gave them billions in loans and allowed them the opportunity to rebuild for themselves.
There are 25 aerospace and defense contractors right here in Orange County. Killing people is big business and if we run out of customers because people in other countries decide to resolve conflict via peaceful means… well — we just can’t have that! We need permanent wars and conflict to keep our precious economy afloat!
*It’s not a coup…..it’s a coupe deville…..
It is not a business decision. Although Halliburton profits may increase because of wars, like in Irak, it is not the overriding decision determining foreign policy.
One of the key components of democracy, the right of the people to elect their leaders, fell apart and people are massively being killed in the name of democracy….It is a coup. The Obama’s administration failed to develop a coherent policy of promoting democracy and maintaining geopolitical interests in Egypt.
See interesting analysis in the links below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23721918
http://tomhayden.com/home/the-coup-in-egypt-an-arab-winter.html
Ricardo, I respectfully disagree, the U.S. doesn’t care about Democracy. They will support dictators as well… Its all about money. If Democracy were a concern, they wouldn’t write checks with OUR tax dollars to American interests. And it is not the job of the United States to keep countries happy.
Second of all…the Muslim Brotherhood is not innocent either. They have no intention of allowing citizens who believe in another religion other than…Islam…to live there in peace….they burned Christian churches that same week. Their religion dictates that they have to kill or control infidels…there is no compromising…
Inge, thanks for saying that you respectfully disagree. There is a mutual respect when we disagree, so next time we don’t have to say that we respectfully disagree.
The political/policy issues are generally very complex, we tend to oversimplify to easily understand them. Below is a summary by the BBC Middle East editor, that highlights the complexity of the situation in Egypt:
“Egypt crisis: How the euphoria turned to tragedy”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23724269
So the U.S. knows that The Muslim Brotherhood is Anti-Democratic and Anti-Christian but we thought they would serve as a controlled opposition group? So what went wrong exactly? Why the Coup?
Were they just set up to fail?
Why, it’s almost as if different and conflicting domestic interests compete to determine U.S. foreign policy!
*Kind of reminds us of all the different Tax Payer Advocacy Groups we have right here in the USA. About 150 different ones of our closes friends. Where do we start…..Howard Jarvis Tax Group, Against Government Waste and the list goes on and on. Everyone of them with their hand out for donations to “change the way government does business”. Excuse us……..how have they saved who in how long again? Uhlers Tax Group and more and more and more and more. Imagine…..would you call that a coup if they all call CBS on Monday Morning and complain? Nonsense, really….the bad guys in Egypt look just like the good guys who look just like Israeli Mossad Agents, who look like Arab CIA agents, who look like Hamas Leaders in drag, who look like they all want American heavy weapons and air support. Egypt, Iraq and Syria are a complete mess right now. We need a serious “hands off policy” for the foreseeable future.
It’s true… they were set up.
I think the “fail” part was unexpected. Which is why you have 600 dead there.
Ronanna you are making me crack up. CIA Mossad agents in Drag.
Sound about right to me.
I agree with you .
The U.S. and Israel are most likely creating as much havoc as possible in Syria, Egypt Iraq etc.