'Our friends the Egyptians' thwart democracy
The United States has spent $69 billion on foreign aid to Egypt since 1948. Since 2004, it has spent $180 million promoting democracy in Egypt. But Egypt is no more democratic than it ever was, and now a US government audit explains why: Egypt doesn't want a democracy. More than $180 million in U.S. foreign aid to promote democracy in Egypt over the past four years has produced few measurable results, in part because the Egyptian government has stymied the effort, a newly released government audit says.But it's okay now. In the Age of Obama, democracy is no better than any other form of government, and therefore we won't act pompously by promoting it anymore.
The "impact of (American-funded) democracy and governance programs was unnoticeable" in Egypt, said the report by the U.S. Agency for International Development's inspector general. USAID auditors based their conclusions on international indexes of press freedom, corruption, civil liberties and political rights.
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In 2004, the George W. Bush administration nearly doubled annual funding for democracy promotion in Egypt, the audit shows, from $24 million to $45 million. The report says, however, that "a major contributing factor to the limited achievements for some of these programs (was) a lack of support from the Government of Egypt." For example, the audit says, the government canceled, without explanation, a training program on anti-corruption and political reform.
And after USAID spent $618,000 to train 2,100 poll watchers in 2007 local elections, most were denied access to the polling places.
The audit also cites missteps by USAID grant recipients fueled by poor agency management. One grantee, it says, got $1.2 million to provide civic training to 600 teachers and 30,000 students, but actually trained only 330 teachers and about 2,000 students, less than 8% of the target.
Another grantee received $950,000 to publish a children's book on civic education but could not verify that any schoolchildren actually received the book, the audit says.
What could go wrong?
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:52 PM
2 Comments:
The Egyptians don't want it because they know free elections will bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. One may dislike the Mubarak dictatorship but Egyptians still have a little freedom today. They will have none under an Islamist regime.
The Palestinian case is instructive. There are NO free elections in Gaza. And Hamas has dispensed with even the appearance of a democratic facade to build a totalitarian regime. In the Arab World, free elections would mean one man, one vote, one time. Algeria faced an Islamist takeover until it was thwarted by the army. To have a democracy, you have to have the substance as well as the process. Arab countries are not yet at the level where there is genuine respect for civil society and individual freedoms. The most enlightened Arab regimes are at the best autocracies, like Egypt's. That's not to say things can't get better but if the alternative is the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel and the West are definitely better off living with the Mubarak regime, for all its shortcomings.
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