Our Friends

Egypt has been in a near perpetual "State of Emergency" since 1967.  What this means is that much power is given to the executive to arrest, shut down, censor, etc. etc.  Read more about it here.  There are police on many, many corners in Cairo, and on a recent bus ride to Port Said, the bus was stopped, Breanna and I were asked off the bus, and men with guns in military uniforms examined our passports, wrote down our names, and for some reason we had to wait for clearance to proceed.  They did the same with a Czech couple with EU passports on the bus after ours.  Unfortunately, a couple of Asians were not permitted to continue their trip, and were forced to get on a bus back to Cairo while a friend of their's (nationality unknown to yours truly) continued to their end destination.

This police state has stymied bloggers, protests, and likely has had effects on the Israeli-Palestinian debacle.  Yes, it's a debacle.  There isn't even conflict anymore, it all feels like shenanigans from each side.  More importantly, though, it raises the question of who are the US's friends?

Basically, the peanut-farmer from Virginia got Israel and Egypt together, had them sign the Camp David Accords, and then Israel and Egypt stopped fighting each other.  This was near the end of the 1970s.  Since 1979, and as of 2004, (Mubarak, the current President in Egypt, took office in 1981 after Sadat's assassination) the US had given over $50 billion to Egypt (roughly $2 billion a year in cash and military aid).  Egypt has been in  police state that entire time.

Foreign Policy calls Egypt a potential "bomb" for Obama in 2010, and there are parliamentary elections this year that will undoubtedly make Afghanistan look somewhat legitimate.  Really, though, the question is what precedent is America setting when it supports a country as, um, un-democratic as Egypt?  A police state that cracks down on civil liberties?  Is the Suez canal still that important to us?  Is Israel really that weak (note: we pay them more than Egypt)?

Saddam Hussein ran a fascist authoritarian dictatorship.  We removed him from office, and installed some sort of democracy.  While Egypt and Mubarak may not be as brutal, how are things that different?

In the mean time, read a nice little tale about the 8 year-old Cub Scout terrorist.