bobbyw24
01-04-2012, 11:21 AM
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Friday’s lead stories in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal dealt with what both viewed as a national affront and outrage.
Egyptian soldiers, said the Post, “stormed the offices” of three U.S. “democracy-building organizations … in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-led government that could imperil its relations with the United States.”
The organizations: Freedom House, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.
Cairo contends that $65 million in “pro-democracy” funding that IRI, NDI and Freedom House received for use in Egypt constitutes “illegal foreign funding” to influence their elections.
“A Provocation in Egypt,” raged the Post.
An incensed Freedom House President David Kramer said the raids reveal that Egypt’s military “has no intention of allowing the establishment of genuine democracy.”
Leon Panetta phoned the head of the military regime. With $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid on the line, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi backed down. The raids will stop.
Yet this is not the first time U.S. “pro-democracy” groups have been charged with subverting regimes that fail to toe the Washington line.
http://buchanan.org/blog/our-innocents-abroad-4975
Friday’s lead stories in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal dealt with what both viewed as a national affront and outrage.
Egyptian soldiers, said the Post, “stormed the offices” of three U.S. “democracy-building organizations … in a dramatic escalation of a crackdown by the military-led government that could imperil its relations with the United States.”
The organizations: Freedom House, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute.
Cairo contends that $65 million in “pro-democracy” funding that IRI, NDI and Freedom House received for use in Egypt constitutes “illegal foreign funding” to influence their elections.
“A Provocation in Egypt,” raged the Post.
An incensed Freedom House President David Kramer said the raids reveal that Egypt’s military “has no intention of allowing the establishment of genuine democracy.”
Leon Panetta phoned the head of the military regime. With $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid on the line, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi backed down. The raids will stop.
Yet this is not the first time U.S. “pro-democracy” groups have been charged with subverting regimes that fail to toe the Washington line.
http://buchanan.org/blog/our-innocents-abroad-4975