In the latest vestige of his tantrum over the deposing of his Muslim Brotherhood friends, President Obama has decided to secretly suspend U.S. military aid to Egypt.
The leak came from Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont who was once actually kicked off of the Senate foreign Relations committee when he was caught leaking classified intel, but who somehow still remains a U.S. senator.
According to David Carle, a spokesman for Leahy, President Obama still lacks the stones to officially label Morsi's ouster a coup, but is cutting off Egypt's aid anyway.
“After sequestration withholding, approximately $585 million remains unobligated. So, that is the amount that is unobligated,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday. “But it would be inaccurate to say that a policy decision has been made with respect to the remaining assistance funding.”
But two administration officials told The Daily Beast that administration lawyers decided it was best to observe the law restricting military aid on a temporary basis, as if there had been a coup designation, while at the same time deciding that the law did not require a public announcement on whether a coup took place.
“The decision was we’re going to avoid saying it was a coup, but to stay on the safe side of the law, we are going to act as if the designation has been made for now,” said one administration official. “By not announcing the decision, it gives the administration the flexibility to reverse it.”
Several parts of the aid are now temporarily on hold, including the disbursement of the $585 million of $1.3 billion in fiscal 2013 foreign military financing still not delivered to the Egyptian military, the delivery of Apache helicopters that the Egyptian government has already paid for, and the depositing of economic support funds for programs that would directly benefit the Egyptian government, despite official administration denials, the administration officials said.
In other words, they had to scramble for some kind of explanation once Senator Leahy let the cat out of the bag.
Just another example of President Obama ignoring congress when he wanted to send his Muslim Brotherhood buddies military aid and ignoring congress again once the Brotherhood was out of the picture.
In reality, this is a ridiculous decision that will pretty much end any influence we have in the region. Egypt will have no problem obtaining Russian armaments, as I pointed out earlier.
Which leads to a question. How many huge screw ups, scandals and serious errors in judgement is a president allowed? Does he get extra leeway because of a subservient press or party affiliation? Or do the American people just get to live with the consequences?
Gamal Nasser did something similar when his plans threatened to alienate Egypt from Europe and the NATO countries back in the day. The Egyptian army bought tooling from Sweden to make their own rifles (The 7.92 Hakim battle rifle is a prime example of this), but also bought a considerable number of weapons from the Soviet bloc as well, such as SKS carbines, Yugoslav mausers and Czech VZ 52 rifles. Ultimately, Egypt replaced them all with the AK 47, and they apparently have the tooling and equipment to make more if they have to.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, they'll probably resort to the old fallback of getting vehicles and heavier weapons from the Russians in response.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Obama's job performance.
ReplyDeletei bet this latest action drops hussein's j/a/r to 47%.
OT
ReplyDeleteEgypt replaced them all with the AK 47, and they apparently have the tooling and equipment to make more if they have to.
why bother making them. the russians have announced they are destroying 3.5 million AKs per year over the next 3 years. due to the glut in the market driving the price down. also the chinese knock-offs spilling into the market. doing the math, that figgers out to "about" one AK every 10 seconds.