YORAM ETTINGER: US MILITARY AID TO EGYPT…COUNTERPRODUCTIVE
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=667
One million demonstrators participated in the anti-Mubarak Tahrir Square
rallies. However, two million demonstrators joined the anti-US Muslim
Brotherhood Tahrir Square demonstration following the toppling of Mubarak,
highlighting the political trend in Egypt.
The transfer of advanced US military systems to Egypt – including the
co-production in Egypt of the M1A1 Abrams tank – undermines vital US
national security interests. It bolsters a regime which is at odds with the
values and the long-term interests of the USA, a potentially anti-US regime,
which is increasingly closer to Hamas and a safe haven for additional
anti-US terrorists. It accelerates the regional arms race and fuels Egyptian
imperialistic goals in the Sudan, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian
Peninsula. It rewards a regime which oppresses and executes its 9 million
Christian-Coptic minority and institutionalizes anti-Semitic and anti-US
hate-education. The transfer of advanced US military systems to Egypt is not
required to combat domestic terrorism and to safeguard the borders with
dramatically weaker Libya and Sudan. It is required to achieve a “strategic
parity with Israel” – a code name for launching a war on Israel. Such a
transfer defies Middle Eastern Egyptian realities.
For example, the most advanced US military systems, sold to the pro-US Shah
of Iran, could not avert the February 1979 ascension to power of the anti-US
Khomeini. Those systems made Iran a much more formidable threat to the US.
The 1951-1969 transformation of Libya’s Wheelus Air Base, into the largest
US air base outside the USA, did not foil Qaddafi’s coup in 1969.
The transfer of US military hardware to Jordan did not prevent King Hussein
from supporting Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The pile of advanced US military systems sold to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf States was not employed during the 1991 and 2003 US-Iraq wars. A
large scale US military deployment and US casualties were required to secure
recipients of US military hardware.
The recent seismic developments on the Arab Street, especially in Egypt,
have demonstrated how tenuous are Arab regimes, policies and alliances; how
unpredictable, volatile, unstable, treacherous and violent are inter and
intra Arab politics; and how uncontrollable they are by the USA.
The rising tide of fundamentalist Islam is apparent in Egypt, where the
anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas’ Big Brother – is favored to make
major gains in the coming election. Almost all Muslim Egyptian women undergo
circumcision (genital mutilation)! According to a December 2010 Pew Global
Attitudes, 95% of Egyptians support Islam’s large role in politics, 82%
favor the stoning of adulterers, 84% support the execution of apostates and
77% advocate the flogging or hand-amputation of thieves. Egypt produced
Bin-Laden’s chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri and the Blind Sheikh Rahman
of the 1993 Twin Tower terrorism.
Anti-US Egyptian sentiments are the derivative of sustained incitement by
educators, policy-makers and public opinion molders. For instance, the
Mubarak-controlled media and clergy celebrated 9/11 and contended that it
was a US conspiracy. Two weeks before 9/11, the Mubarak-controlled daily
Akhbar Al-Yom, incited: “The Statute of Liberty must be destroyed.” The
editor-in-chief of the Al Jumhuriyah daily, who was appointed by Mubarak,
wrote that “Iraqi swords would chop the neck of the US invader.”
Egypt has collaborated with Russia, China and especially with North Korea
(since 1981, with Saddam’s financial support) in the development of
ballistic, chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. Mubarak violated
US sanctions against Saddam and Qaddafi and voted consistently against the
US in the UN.
Notwithstanding the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, Egypt has conducted a
Cold War against Israel, promoting anti-Semitic hate-education, anti-Israel
positions at the UN, the Arab League, NGOs, the anti-Semitic Durbin
conferences and in Africa. Egypt has facilitated the flow of advanced
missiles to Hamas-controlled Gaza, spending 18% of GNP on its military,
while its economy crumbles.
The $40BN in U.S. military aid to Egypt ($1.3BN in 2012) is framed as an
investment in regional stability, supposedly advancing pro-US policies,
allegedly constraining anti-US elements, promoting regional peace and
democracy and ostensibly reducing the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. However, reality demonstrates that US military aid to Egypt
has been devastatingly counterproductive, with potential devastation yet to
occur.
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought”, éåøí àèéðâø, “áîçùáä
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