An article I received through email from the Carnegie Endowment http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/06/05/u.s.-strategy-toward-egypt-under-sisi/hcun rekindled a memory about a conversation I sat through one day while during April. It was between several of my Egyptian friends, they were animatedly discussing the upcoming vote, now past and Field Marshall Sisi won. There were three major opinions, probably shared by Egyptians around the world.
- Vote for Sisi
- Vote for Sabahi
- Not vote because it wouldn't matter
In the end it was obvious that Sisi would win, the Army are the hero's of Egypt, even when they are doing everything visibly bad. The "Revolution" was nearly not because the protester's, Brotherhood or not, began to be locked up, tortured, and interrogated many died at the hands of the military. Yes large numbers of people will say that these are incidents that were perpetrated by members of various organizations within the government, the Army is a part of the government! I am probably beating a dead horse when I say that.
The reason the article brings back the conversation is because after awhile of them going back and forth on the merits of each stance they asked me as an American how I felt. Naturally there was the standard "Yippee democracy" which probably should have been pronounced "democrazy"... When posed with how I felt the US government should work with Sisi; I couldn't come up with an answer. I knew that the US wasn't well looked upon after the ousting of Mubarak and Morsi because of the assistance we gave them. In defense of the US, we saw a country that was taking steps towards democracy and wanted to help the government continue to grow. However it was to early we should have waited to see where it was going. By the time "The Pharaoh" as Morsi went on to be known was removed from office by Sisi himself, playing right into the hands of the masses as the savior of Egypt and pretty much securing his seat in office, the US was seen as a menace to Democracy and the people of Egypt. But now we should move along to the whole point of this post. What should the US do? I agree completely with the urge to focus on programs for the people specifically, establishing political parties and the likes. I don't think we should talk about setting up funds for students without government involvement when (and I include myself in this) our student debt to the government is out of control.
All in all, I think the US involvement with Egypt should be kept to a level where we work with the citizens and not try to broker our way back in with the Government.
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