Quote:Yesterday, the Egyptian regime announced it was prosecuting witnesses who say they saw a police officer murder an unarmed poet and activist during a demonstration, the latest in a long line of brutal human rights abuses that includes imprisoning journalists, prosecuting LGBT citizens, and mass executions of protesters. Last June, Human Rights Watch said that Egyptian “security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.”

Today, the White House announced that during a telephone call with Egyptian despot Abdelfattah al-Sisi, President Obama personally lifted the freeze on transferring weapons to the regime, and also affirmed that the $1.3 billion in military aid will continue unimpeded.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/...-dictator/

Supporting freedom and democracy worldwide.

This isn't popular among those on the right?

Actually, this is probably a good move. Or, perhaps more correctly, this may be the only viable option that we have.

A pragmatic foreign policy in the region must start by realizing that supporting freedom and democracy in western terms is probably not a realistic objective. This is a region that, for whatever reason, is generally not ready for western-style freedom and democracy. The folks in power in Egypt are no saints, but they are a far cry better than the Muslim Brotherhood or an Iranian-style theocracy, and those are the alternatives.

The argument against is that if we keep doing this in the Arab countries at the same time as we try to cultivate our relationship with Iran, we will inevitably find ourselves in the position of arming both sides for a war that we do not want to see happen.

There are indeed moderate Muslims, and our foreign policy should support and encourage them as much as possible. But we need to be very clear who a moderate Muslim is--and is not. A moderate Muslim is not someone who believes that women should take off their veils or that other traditional ideas should be abandoned in favor of westernization. A moderate Muslim is somebody who does not shout, "Death to America." And trying to force western concepts of freedom and justice onto moderate Muslims is how we turn said moderate Muslims into radical extremists. Unfortunately, neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations have seemed to understand this most basic of concepts.

If we are going to persist in applying pressure to westernize and modernize, we are going to meet considerable resistance. If we seek to overcome this resistance by buying favor in the form of ever bigger and better toys with which to kill each other, guess what, we're going to end up with a titanic struggle. We are already supplying arms to Israel and to many of the Arab countries. Add Iran, which I think is coming, and we'll be supplying all three corners in a three-cornered fight. If we are going to persist in meddling and micromanaging, we have no other choice but to do so. This does not end well.

The answer is to quit meddling and micromanaging. Unfortunately, the experience of the last two administrations has shown that neither evangelical Christians nor secular humanists are inclined to do that in a region with strong cultural differences--both from us and from each other.

We are going to piss you off by trying to micromanage you out of doing things the way your culture has for thousands of years. But we're going to make it up to you by giving you a bunch of toys to kill your enemies with. Sounds like a helluva plan to me. Any strategy that is going to work in this part of the world has to start from the position that we don't give a damn whether your women wear burkas or halter tops. I can't see us starting from there.

(04-06-2015 04:52 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  A pragmatic foreign policy in the region must start by realizing that supporting freedom and democracy in western terms is probably not a realistic objective. This is a region that, for whatever reason, is generally not ready for western-style freedom and democracy. The folks in power in Egypt are no saints, but they are a far cry better than the Muslim Brotherhood or an Iranian-style theocracy, and those are the alternatives.

It's not just not a realistic objective, but it's a self-antithetical objective, if that word makes sense, especially in Egypt. Promoting democratic voting tends to lead to the election of Islamist parties that can (but not always) carry their own autocratic and repressive regimes. As you intimate, the Arab Spring brought elections that put the Muslim Brotherhood in power, which did not exactly work out well for Egyptians.

Be a hypocrit or fore sake all of your interests.

That's the conundrum 40 years of bad policy has put us in.

(04-06-2015 04:52 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Actually, this is probably a good move. Or, perhaps more correctly, this may be the only viable option that we have.

A pragmatic foreign policy in the region must start by realizing that supporting freedom and democracy in western terms is probably not a realistic objective. This is a region that, for whatever reason, is generally not ready for western-style freedom and democracy. The folks in power in Egypt are no saints, but they are a far cry better than the Muslim Brotherhood or an Iranian-style theocracy, and those are the alternatives.

The argument against is that if we keep doing this in the Arab countries at the same time as we try to cultivate our relationship with Iran, we will inevitably find ourselves in the position of arming both sides for a war that we do not want to see happen.

There are indeed moderate Muslims, and our foreign policy should support and encourage them as much as possible. But we need to be very clear who a moderate Muslim is--and is not. A moderate Muslim is not someone who believes that women should take off their veils or that other traditional ideas should be abandoned in favor of westernization. A moderate Muslim is somebody who does not shout, "Death to America." And trying to force western concepts of freedom and justice onto moderate Muslims is how we turn said moderate Muslims into radical extremists. Unfortunately, neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations have seemed to understand this most basic of concepts.

If we are going to persist in applying pressure to westernize and modernize, we are going to meet considerable resistance. If we seek to overcome this resistance by buying favor in the form of ever bigger and better toys with which to kill each other, guess what, we're going to end up with a titanic struggle. We are already supplying arms to Israel and to many of the Arab countries. Add Iran, which I think is coming, and we'll be supplying all three corners in a three-cornered fight. If we are going to persist in meddling and micromanaging, we have no other choice but to do so. This does not end well.

The answer is to quit meddling and micromanaging. Unfortunately, the experience of the last two administrations has shown that neither evangelical Christians nor secular humanists are inclined to do that in a region with strong cultural differences--both from us and from each other.

We are going to piss you off by trying to micromanage you out of doing things the way your culture has for thousands of years. But we're going to make it up to you by giving you a bunch of toys to kill your enemies with. Sounds like a helluva plan to me. Any strategy that is going to work in this part of the world has to start from the position that we don't give a damn whether your women wear burkas or halter tops. I can't see us starting from there.

Very well thought out post.


I agree 100%