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Kerry: US Releasing Millions In Aid To Egypt, But With Promise Of Reform

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Photo Credit: APSecretary of State John Kerry said Sunday the United States will give Egypt $250 million more in aid, following President Mohammed Morsi’s pledges for political and economic reforms. However, Kerry also said the Obama administration will hold Morsi, who came to power in June as Egypt’s first freely elected president, to his commitment.

“The American people want to see the political and economic success of our long-time partners and friends in Egypt,” Kerry said in Cairo. “We look forward to continuing to work closely with all Egyptians. But “it is clear that more hard work and compromise will be required to restore unity, political stability and economic health to Egypt.”

Egypt was one of Kerry’s first stops on his first tour of Arab nations since becoming secretary. Kerry will be meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, in the Saudi capital Riyadh Monday.

While in Saudi Arabia Kerry will also meet with Saudi and Gulf Arab officials for talks expected to focus on the crisis in Syria and fears about Iran’s nuclear program.

Kerry’s two days of meetings in Egypt have proven tense and fraught with political peril. “I expect a lot,” Egyptian Defense Minister Abdul Al-Sisi told Kerry on Sunday. Kerry replied: “I expect a lot from you.”

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Islamists Rally For Egypt’s Mursi In Cairo

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Thousands of Islamists rallied in Cairo on Friday in support of Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood president who has been the target of protester rage in weeks of violent demonstrations.

Repeating the pattern of recent weeks, Mursi’s opponents rallied again on Friday, this time gathering outside El-Quba, one of the presidential palaces in the northern suburbs of Cairo. The activists dubbed it “Checkmate Friday”.

The protest, which drew several hundred people by afternoon descended into violence as night fell. State media reported that “troublemakers” had thrown rocks and petrol bombs. Security forces unleashed tear gas and water cannon, it said.

The pro-Mursi rally was called by a hardline Salafi Islamist group, Al-Gama’a al-Islamiya, in what it described as a protest under the banner “Together Against Violence”.

The group waged an armed insurrection against the state in the 1990s but its leadership renounced violence more than a decade ago. It has entered mainstream politics since autocratic president Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in 2011.

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Gingrich: The Bankruptcy & Collapse of Obama’s Pandering Islamic Strategy

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The real meaning of the violence of the last week across the Muslim world is the bankruptcy and collapse of the Obama strategy which began with his speech in Cairo. President Obama had a deep conviction that pandering to Islamic sympathies, identifying with the virtues of Islam and parroting phrases that sounded good would lead to a deeper acceptance of the United States by Muslims.

While reaching out to “mainstream Muslims,” the Obama strategy would wage selective war against designated enemies. The Obama administration decided to ignore concerns of sovereignty and to kill terrorists with stepped up drone attacks.

It apparently did not occur to the Obama team that the enemy could and would react.

The killing of the American ambassador to Libya was apparently a direct retaliation for the American killing in Pakistan of a Libyan senior al Qaeda commander. The Obama administration has desperately sought to spin all the violence as caused by one hostile anti-Muslim movie.

Once again Obama and the elite media blame America for the hostility of others. In their ideology it is much safer for America to be the bad guys. Then we can excuse the violence, the attack on embassies, the burning of the American flag, the destruction of American businesses and American schools. In the Obama-elite media worldview that is all somehow the result of American provocation.

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US Embassy in Cairo Makes Outrageous Statement Against First Amendment

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Yesterday, the US Embassy in Cairo put out a shameful statement in response to anger over an anti-Muslim film:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others

A stand against those who “abuse” their right to free speech is best suited to authoritarianism, and it’s absolutely grotesque to see American diplomats embracing it. The effort at appeasement was as inefficacious as it was depraved: The protests against the film in question turned more violent after the statement was issued, when the embassy wall was scaled and the American flag was torn down and burned.

By late this evening this was obvious at the White House: “The statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government,” a source characterized as a “senior administration official” tells Politico’s Byron Tau.

That’s all well and good; the statement does indeed look like it wasn’t carefully vetted (the missing period after “others” above isn’t my error — that’s how it is on the embassy website). But a not-for-attribution walk-back is hardly sufficient here. Somebody needs to be fired. Given that the embassy’s Twitter account spent the day defending the statement, it’s likely to be more than one somebody that needs to go, perhaps including Ambassador Anne Patterson herself.

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