Fulsome U.S. Support for the Egyptian Police State Four Years After Arab Spring

It is easy to criticize the daily-newspaper industry as a "mask of enlightenment," a for-profit potpourri of the mundane and rudimentary that is increasingly obsolete in our digital age. Indeed, it is not hard to imagine in the not too distant future that only one or two dailies will be left: one conservative and one "liberal," national in scope and each representing a camp within the permanent, invisible government.

That being said, daily newspapers are still the foundation of any kind of articulate cultural consciousness that we possess as a body politic. What is trending on Twitter cannot -- I hope -- replace the daily newspaper.

Now and again the editorial board of The New York Times will publish a broadside that is the direct opposite of the muck they usually stovepipe on behalf of the United States Government. This morning is case in point. "Abetting Egypt’s Dictatorship" highlights the absolute bankruptcy of the self-proclaimed U.S. leadership on human rights when it comes Egypt. Let me quote it at length:

Senior administration officials see Egypt as an indispensable ally in the campaign against the Islamic State as well as in other foreign policy priorities in the region. But the Egyptian government’s crackdown on Islamist movements, including moderate ones who denounce the use of violence, is likely to lead to broader radicalization in communities that have no way to further their objectives and voice their grievances.

Since Mr. Sisi took power in July 2013, following a wave of protests against the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist, it has become increasingly clear that the Egyptian government has no intention of building democratic institutions or tolerating opposing views.

Civil society and pro-democracy organizations have been threatened or forced to shut down. The news media is tightly controlled, and protests are banned. Nearly all leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that became the dominant political force in the country after the Arab Spring protests, are locked up.

While American officials have voiced concern about these trends in boilerplate language, they continue to provide Egypt with $1.3 billion in military aid each year and have only taken modest steps to condition the aid improvements in democratic governance. Much of the time, they merely express hope that progress is being made, while ignoring a level of brutality and repression that is worse than in the era of Hosni Mubarak.

The government, clearly eager for foreign investment, wants to appear as a legitimately elected government playing a constructive role in the region. But it is becoming increasingly clear that Egypt has become a dictatorship that justifies its abuses under the pretext of containing the threat posed by radical Islamists. A parliamentary election that was to be held this month has been indefinitely postponed. Journalists are languishing in jail. Courts have imposed mass death sentences following proceedings that lasted just minutes. While some American lawmakers have raised alarm and sought to cut off, or condition, the military aid package in recent years, they have been outmaneuvered by those who think that standing by the Sisi regime is a necessary evil in a volatile part of the world.

Last year, Congress gave the White House authority to keep Egypt’s military aid flowing without having to certify that the government respects human rights and is taking steps to govern democratically, conditions that had been in the previous spending bill. And, for the first time, lawmakers gave the State Department the right to keep as a classified secret its rationale for disbursing the aid.

Administration officials said that Mr. Kerry favors continuing the military aid and is awaiting a final decision from the White House. If the aid is extended, the United States would be abetting Egypt’s ruthless business as usual.

The restoration of Egypt's police state under Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, crushing the Arab Spring democracy movment, I think, in one form or another, is the trend that elites in all nations want to emulate. It is going to be hard to accomplish. But clearly it is the direction we are headed.