The White House announced plans on Monday to help “Arab Spring” countries swept by revolutions with more than $800 million in economic aid, while maintaining U.S. military aid to Egypt.In his annual budget message to Congress, President Barack Obama asked that military aid to Egypt be kept at the level of recent years — $1.3 billion — despite a crisis triggered by an Egyptian probe targeting American democracy activists.The proposals are part of Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2013, which begins October 1. His requests need the approval of Congress, where some lawmakers want to cut overseas spending to address U.S. budget shortfalls and are particularly angry at Egypt.Obama proposed $51.6 billion in funding for the U.S. State Department and foreign aid overall, when $8.2 billion in assistance to war zones is included. The “core budget” for the category would increase by 1.6 percent, officials said.Most of the economic aid for the Arab Spring countries — $770 million — would go to establish a new “Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund,” the president said in his budget plan.
And what would that be nurturing? This is what they have in mind:
In a recent sermon, the General Guide of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Badi’, set out his vision for his movement and for Egypt in the post-revolutionary era. Citing Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Bana, he stated that the movement has two goals. The immediate goal is to prepare the hearts and minds of its members, which involves “purifying the soul, amending behavior, and preparing the spirit, the mind and the body for a long struggle.” The second, long-term, goal is to affect “a total reform of all domains of life,” which will eventually result in establishment of an Islamic state governed according to Koranic law – first in Egypt and eventually in the entire world.Badi’ stressed that this long-term goal can only be achieved by gradual stages: by “reforming the individual, then restructuring the family, then building society and the government, then [establishing] the rightly guided Caliphate, and [finally achieving] mastership of the world.” He also emphasized that this must be achieved through cooperation among all the forces and sectors in Egypt, and without any coercion: “All these purposes and goals… must be realized… through unity of ranks [not division], by persuasion, not coercion, and by love, not by force.” Badi’ warned against the “attempts to split up the united ranks [of the nation] and drive a wedge between young and old, men and women, Muslims and Christians, and [different religious] schools and groups,” saying that the Egyptian nation will need all of its human resources in order to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Finally, he advised his followers not to follow their emotions but to manipulate the circumstances rationally and realistically: “Do not fight the ways of the world because they are overpowering. [Instead], try to overcome them, use them, change their course, and pit some of them against others.”
Obama wants us to pay for that! And what has Obama gotten us thus far? Nothing but bad news.
NOTE: Visit Flopping Aces to read the comment section, and/or post a comment.Remember the bad old days of George W. Bush, when cowboy foreign policy turned the world against America?Remember how the dulcet tones and apology tours of Mr. Hope & Change would remake the globe in our favor?Ah, never mind. The parade of horribles is on the march, and some former allies are leading the way.Egypt, where President Obama tossed Hosni Mubarak under the bus, is rapidly becoming an Islamist state. The arrest and pending trials of 19 Americans working for nongovernmental agencies puts an exclamation point on how far Egypt has moved away from our orbit.The Palestinians, blowing off the warning that our aid dollars cannot be used to support a government that includes Hamas, are moving toward a unity government—one that includes Hamas.Three years of begging with the thugs running Syria got us a slaughter of civilians we are powerless to stop.Libya, where we helped overthrow Qaddafi, is splintering, with the militias we supported starting to fight one another for power.Nothing has changed in Iran, except the mullahs are three years closer to a nuclear bomb.Russia has accepted our “reset” concessions and responded by sticking its thumb in our eye from Iran to Syria.Meanwhile, how many new allies have we made in the past three years? None.
