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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA will meet with national security aides later today to discuss the future of US aid to Egypt in the wake of its military-backed government’s fierce crackdown on Islamists.
But the White House insisted that reports it had already cut assistance were wrong, saying that military and economic grants were merely under review.
The meeting at the White House between Obama and top members of his National Security Council was due to begin shortly, said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman.
Earnest denied reports that Washington has already made a decision to secretly freeze aid to Egypt’s military rulers.
The comments came after the Daily Beast website said US assistance had been “secretly pulled” by the Obama administration.
Earnest said there had been no final decision on a review of US aid to Egypt launched after the ousting of president Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected leader.
“That review that the president ordered in early July has not concluded,” Earnest said.
“Reports to the contrary that suggest that assistance to Egypt has been cut off are not accurate.”
In an increasingly complex game of semantics on $1.3 billion of annual US military aid to Egypt, Earnest insisted that the flow of aid was not a “faucet” that could be turned off and on.
“This is not a faucet in which you just turn the spigot and assistance continues to flow,” Earnest said.
“Assistance is provided episodically, assistance is provided in tranches… This is not a matter of turning the dial one way or the other.”
Earlier, an aide to Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who heads the subcommittee on foreign operations, said the flow of aid had been “stopped.”
Meanwhile, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has condemned the detention of it spiritual leader Mohammad Badie, who was arrested over allegations of incitement to violence and murder.
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I bet if it was Iran, they would manage to not only find the faucet, they would be able to turn it off so tight, not one drop of aid would get through. They would also ensure that no country on earth would even dare think of trying to bypass any embargo.
But hey, a military coup is OK long as it suits American foreign policy of destabilizing the region.
Cathal, the US is not out to destabilize this region.
The MB were on their way to turning Egypt it into another Iran. Thankfully, they have been given the boot. Popular rising, the police, the army, the CIA I don’t care who is did it as long as the woman hating, gay lynching, Coptic Christian murdering, church burning, Koran thumping nut jobs are gone.
@Declan, Cathal has a point though. This time around the military overthrew the democratically elected government and where the US would normally have cut off funding, they didn’t. Now the Muslim Brotherhood is not only out of government but are looking at being banned from the political stage altogether. The buck stops with the US who has supported this very un-democratic situation and Egypt is now on the verge of a civil war.
A good question would be: Did America cut funding to Egypt while Morsi was in power?
Cowen, have you not read the news? The Obama administration cut off funding to Egypts military soon after the coup. This situation is making all people nervous.
Not cutting off aid would actually be coherent policy making. There’s nothing great about a democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood. They’re one man one vote one time sort of people. More chance of human rights and the rule of law under the military, even if they don’t have a mandate.
Cutoff or sent the last scheduled payment for the year?
The MB were elected. Yes they passed an Islamic Constitution but the people voted two-thirds for it in a referendum. If we in the West support the spread of democracy then we can’t pick and choose winners or losers. On Radio 1 in recent days a journalist mentioned that the military burned churches in 2011 in order to discredit the MB. They have always been portrayed as “terrorists” by the military as an excuse not to hand over power.
Emily the Islamist government of Turkey has been re-elected three times. I think Morsi should have been allowed serve his term and see whether these claims are true or not.Excluding Islamists from democratic politics only drives them to terrorism.
Absolutely Eamonn. Until you can maintain that democracy itslef had been destroyed by those in power, it’s just ludicrous to destroy it yourself by your own military. There is a reason that the Rubicon was a massive symbol of the loss of democracy in ancient Rome and the start of a military dictatorship.
From our outside perspective, disagreeing with the democratic process of another country and backing a military coup, democracy itself is discredited by the very people who complain that there is little enough democracy in the Middle East. If you deny people the right to political representation in a democracy, then they certainly won’t be turning to democratic means to fight for their “rights” as they see them.
I rarely agree with US foreign policy – I do hope though that they are treating the erosion of the democratic process in Egypt as a wider shift away from the Western core values that, ironically, people maintain have been saved by deposing the MB. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so messed up.
discussing future of aid my arse,
discussing how to destabilise the region further, more like.
USA aid = munitions
America already give them enough guns how about cancelling that?
Agitation policy of the USA is sick.
Oh give it a rest, its not like the Irish or the europeans will do anything about.Sit on the side and bitch and moan about it.Only wish Romney was running things rather than this Obama fool…
Why? What do you reckon Mittington J Romney the turd and his magic underpants would do different??
True, not a damn thing. Whether you vote for the elephant or the donkey, you still getting the same people in the background who run the show.
That might be true Cowenwatch, but god forbid the day when instead the military is as involved in regime change as it has been in Egypt for the last 60 years. Democracy can be very ineffective, but there are many reasons we keep it – those reasons are the alternatives.
The Egyptian regime claims to be fighting Islamic ‘”terrorism”. Why then are they planning to try secularist Mohammad ElBaradei for “breaking national trust”? The reason is that he resigned from the puppet government over the bloodshed in recent days. That is why he fled to Austria on 19th August.. Morsi was criticised for restricting the ability of the courts to suspend the elected parliament. But the courts are stacked with Mubarak appointees who have been frustrating democratic change since the 2011 revolution. It has been said Morsi imposed an islamist Constitution. In fact a referendum was held an two-thirds voted for it. So we need to see through the smokescreen coming from the military.
Can we really believe anything that comes out of Washington anymore….? Especially when it comes to the middle east, Libya as we know it is dead in the water, Syria’s fighting for its life on a cliff edge and Egypt’s heading that way too.
Also TheJournal seems to be ignoring the claims by the Turkish PM that he has evidence that Israels had a big hand in the de-stabilising crisis in Egypt.
latest poll from Pew research shows 52% want aid cut off.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/egypt-poll_n_3782095.html
America doesnt care about democracy outside its borders. All they care about is access to the Suez Canal (transit route for 8% of international shipping), securing oil supplies, and of course protecting the colonial power of Israel.
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