An article on U.S. foreign aid to Egypt by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank goes a long way in showing how conservative and liberal statists continue to lead our nation down a road of corrupted morals and values. The article, entitled “Rand Paul Rebuked by Fellow Republicans on Foreign Aid,” mocks Paul for the overwhelming 83-13 defeat by the U.S. Senate of his proposal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt in the wake of the military coup that ousted democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi.
For Paul’s temerity in proposing the aid-cut off, Milbank refers to him as an “isolationist gadfly.” Milbank adds that Paul was up against “his party’s most respected voices on foreign policy.”
The final vote, Milbank said, “reinforced the proud tradition of internationalism” in the Senate. He said that the vote shows that “the internationalists still dominate” the Republican Party and that it shows that there has been no growth in the “isolationist sentiment.”
One of those “respected voices,” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, declared, “One of the reasons we are the greatest nation is because of the values we extend around the world and the fact that we have a voice of calm.”
So, let’s examine what exactly all that “proud tradition of internationalism” and “values we extend around the world” are all about.
Egypt is run by a military dictatorship. No one can deny that. The enormous military establishment is the foundation for the country. It decides everything. Everything else within the government — the president, the legislature, and the judiciary — are subject to the will of the military.
This is not a new phenomenon. Egypt has been run by a military dictatorship for decades.
And guess who has fortified that military dictatorship for the past several decades.
You got it — the U.S. government, thanks to those people in the U.S. Congress who “reinforce the proud traditions of internationalism” and who “extend our values around the world” by taxing the American people and sending the money to the military brutes in Egypt.
That’s what these people are so proud of — that they have built up, fortified, and reinforced one of the most tyrannical and brutal military dictatorships in the world, one that is loyal to the U.S. national-security state.
Why were the Egyptian people so insistent on removing Egyptian military strongman Hosni Mubarak from power? It was because he was a brutal dictator, one that would grab dissenters, cart them off to torture centers, torture them brutally, and keep them incarcerated indefinitely until they got their minds straight.
But it was never Mubarak that was the root of Egypt’s tyranny. The tyranny under which the Egyptian people have long suffered is based in the military establishment itself, not in the particular military henchman appointed president.
Thus, when the democratically elected Morsi behaved in ways that the military didn’t approve of, it should have surprised anyone that the military would simply oust him from power and announce new elections. Again, the military dictatorship is in charge. Everything else is subject to its will.
How has Egypt’s military tyranny become so strong? In large part through the U.S. taxpayer money that has been funneled into the coffers of the dictatorship for 30 years. $1.3 billion per year, primarily in weaponry to ensure that the military maintains its iron grip over the Egyptian people and the Egyptian economy.
And for what purpose? To ensure that the Egyptian military has the power to suppress any effort to overthrow it. That is, to ensure the continuation of the harsh military tyranny over the Egyptian people.
And it works! Given strict gun-control laws in Egypt, there is nothing the Egyptian people can do to overthrow the U.S.-supported military tyranny under which they suffer. If they try to do so violently — a fundamental right that is expressed in America’s Declaration of Independence — the military dictatorship labels them “terrorists” and treats them accordingly.
And so does the U.S. government! It too considers anyone who tries to violently overthrow its Egyptian partner and ally a “terrorist.” That’s in fact why U.S. officials convicted New York lawyer Lynn Stewart of “terrorism.” They said that she was exhorting Egyptians to violently overthrow the Egyptian military regime. It’s also why U.S. officials exhort the Egyptian people not to resort to violence, an approach that, not coincidentally, leaves the U.S.-supported military dictatorship in control.
That’s what all that “internationalism” and statist “values” are all about — partnering with and supporting brutal dictatorships, especially military ones and helping those dictatorships maintain “order and stability” through the killing, torture, and incarceration of those who would oppose the tyranny.
Oh, and let’s not forget that the Egyptian military dictatorship was one of the U.S. national-security state’s rendition-torture partners — a partner that could be counted on to receive, torture, abuse, and incarcerate kidnap victims delivered to it by the U.S. military and the CIA. In the minds of the “internationalists” and the “extenders of American values,” that is one loyal ally, one that deserves to be continually flooded with U.S. taxpayer aid.
The worst part of all this is that American statists really do believe in all this dictatorial and tyrannical junk. They really do believe that the Egyptian military dictatorship is the key to “transitioning” to freedom, democracy and a prospering economy. The statist belief in military dictatorship abroad is, of course, not a good sign for the American people here at home.