Question: How much better then Obama would Meghan’s dad have been? Answer: Not much! John McCain and the drooling idiot Miss Lindsey Graham are a disgrace as McCain at least (I don’t expect anything from the girlie man Lindsey Graham) ought to know better. Too bad Mark Sanford turned out to be such a sleaze as he could have run against Graham.
by Matt Bradley
Egyptian government officials are working to resolve an escalating diplomatic feud over U.S. civil-society organizations, Sen. John McCain said during a visit to Egypt, signaling a detente only days before 16 Americans face trial on charges of having violated Egyptian laws on foreign funding for nongovernmental organizations.
Mr. McCain (R., Ariz.) and his delegation of four other senators, three of them Republicans, also hinted at warming relations between conservative American lawmakers and the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian Islamist group whose triumphant performance in parliamentary elections rattled U.S. nervesamong U.S. policy makers.
The warm comments mark a climbdown from previous threats by congressmen from both parties that the prosecution of American NGO staff will endanger the $1.3 billion in aid that Washington has given Egypt’s military each year since 1987.
Canceling the aid would rupture Washington’s alliance with one of its strongest security partners in the Middle East—a relationship that has buttressed Egypt’s peace with Israel for more than 30 years.
Despite months of warnings of a potential aid cut, the visiting senators projected a dramatically different posture toward Egypt’s government on Monday, portraying the dispute as little more than an inevitable collision between a new generation of Egyptian reformers and the repressive legal system they inherited.
Mr. McCain, who is chairman of the board of the International Republican Institute, one of the accused American NGOs, told reporters in Egypt’s capital that Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s de facto president, assured the senators that the leading council of generals is “working very diligently” to “resolve” the NGO issue.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Egypt’s newly elected Parliament also told the lawmakers that they would redraft a restrictive NGO law that the deposed regime of President Hosni Mubarak used to repress civil-society organizations.
“After talking with the Muslim Brotherhood, I was struck with their commitment to change the law because they believe it’s unfair,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who was traveling with Mr. McCain. Mr. Graham and other lawmakers praised the Brotherhood, whose Freedom and Justice Party won a plurality of nearly 50% of the seats in Parliament, as a strong potential partner for the future of U.S. relations with Egypt.
That marks a dramatic change from several months ago, when some Republican politicians reacted warily to the Brotherhood’s rising clout. In April 2011, Mr. Graham said he was suspicious of the Brotherhood’s “agenda,” and that “their motives are very much in question.”
“I was very apprehensive when I heard the election results,” Mr. Graham said on Monday. “But after visiting and talking with the Muslim Brotherhood I am hopeful that…we can have a relationship with Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is a strong political voice.”
[.....]
Egyptian prosecutors have said Saturday that the 16 Americans and 27 other NGO workers will face trial Feb. 26 on charges of having illegally run unregistered foreign organizations and having received foreign funds without government approval. American NGO officials say the government refused to register the groups legally despite their repeated applications.
[.....]
While the charges point to violations only of the country’s law on NGOs, Egyptian government officials and state-run media have publicly accused four U.S.-based groups of paying pro-democracy protesters to incite sedition against the country’s interim government.
Members of Egypt’s civil-society community say the case is a throwback to a Mubarak-era tactic of accusing dissenters of working for foreign saboteurs.
“As an American, I’m offended that people would say things about these organizations,” said Mr. Graham, who is also on the board of Mr. LaHood’s IRI.
Corrections & Amplifications
Ray LaHood is the U.S. transportation secretary. An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to him as treasury secretary.
Read the rest- U.S., Egypt look to settle nerves over aid, trial
Tags: John McCain, Matt Bradley
This is beyond cynical. Those so-called American politicians don’t give a rat’s a$$ about anybody except themselves. They don’t care if the world burns. Unspeakable.
McCain has a history of supporting Islamists.
Rodan wrote:
I wonder if that right there is a Cold War Relic. No, not McStain…although he is one too.
Rodan wrote:
Indeed.
Rodan wrote:
Although he is pro Israel which tells me that he cannot see the contradictions in that – he is a blithering idiot.
Speranza wrote:
jeez…with friends like that….
This is an example IMHO why we have not seen a major attack from one of the larger jihadi groups.
They have made the strategic decision for stealth jihad, lawfare, and the support of useful idiots, at least until they have gathered sufficient strength and crippled us from within. A major attack would galvanize us against the jihad and expose the useful idiots in a way even the complicit media cannot shield.
@ citizen_q:
yep, and it is working, we are doing the heavy lifting for them and founding the ummah.
since 9-11 the score is:
jihadi’s 7
usa 0
@ coldwarrior:
We should have started off that scoreboard with a number of high-profile kills courtesy of some W-88s at high velocity…
Iron Fist wrote:
a radioactive ummah.
@ Iron Fist:
@ coldwarrior:
Sooner or later it will come to something that horrific.
Our limp, deluded leaders and leadership is assuring it.
The fact that islam is being erased from the vocabulary in government agencies such as the FBI is front an center as clear an example as could be.
@ citizen_q:
Yes, they will do something horriffic (as though 9-11 wasn’t horriffic enough) and we will be forced to respond in kind. It is exactly the persuit of such a policy that leads Iran to seek nuclear weapons. The Iranians are crazy enough to want our retribution, in the name of their 12er insanity…
Iron Fist wrote:
Which is why I am thinking a nuclear first strike to be the best approach.
@ citizen_q:
Do unto others before they do unto you…
@ Iron Fist:
Yes, the golden rule.
We can always count on the surrender-monkey caucus to sell out America.
It keeps getting said: “South Carolina! too small for a country, too big for a lunatic asylum”