There are some things you just can't make up. Picture this: a child is acting rowdy in the classroom. The teacher, in an effort to get him to behave, threatens the child that he will not get a chocolate bar until he remedies his behavior. While telling him this, the teacher offers the child a six course meal for lunch which includes chocolate cake for dessert. Sound strange? Try this on for size. The United States withholds $200 million dollars in aid to Egypt, citing that Egypt needs to meet certain conditions to receive this sum. These conditions are better observance of human rights, leaving the judiciary to their own devices and tightening the Gaza border. Makes sense so far. that is until the US gives Egypt $1.3 billion in military aid. And then states with sizable gravitas that the Egyptian army must be modernized. Pray tell, what is it exactly that the US is trying to tell us? What's the message here? Whatever it is, it seems it got slightly tread upon by the billions in military armaments steamrolling into Cairo. This must be some sort of joke, or possibly the emptiest gesture of all time. The most pathetic appeasement possible, an insult to whichever human rights advocate some senator must have promised that "we will do something about it. If you're going to cop out, at least make it respectable, like say 50-50 or something. Or better yet, don't cop out at all. Stick to your guns (literally). We all know that the US plows Egypt with military aid (more than the other type, you know, food and the like) for reasons that have to do with the regional balance of power. As well as keeping weapons manufacturer's back home busy with the $1.3 billion order every year. And we also know that the guns are more important to the US than the poor sods who have lost more than their dignity over the years. So why the pretence? Why aren't they, in classic parlance, keeping it real? Well probably because there's an image to maintain, of democracy and human rights and such stuff that is dissipating worldwide by the day. They should speak to the advertising execs and the spin doctors, who'll tell them they've scored a massive own goal PR wise. Which leads one to believe that is all just an orchestrated song and dance, like so many times before, so a statement of intent can be made, by both sides. Everyone comes out smelling like roses to their respective subjects and the more important business, to the tune of $1.3 billion, gets done. Next year, just send the weapons. We have an army to modernize
