I am very puzzled by our donation of $2 billions/year to the Egyptian government, yet we are unable to extract ANY thing in return. The Egyptian government buys plastic explosives from us, then it turns a blind eye to its fanatical Islamists as they take the explosives and dig tunnels under the desert to give them away to the Palestinians in Gaza, who in turns blow up themselves and some Jews. We must hold Mubarak responsible for the weapon smuggling schemes, and for the 24X7 hate against us in his media.
It’s ironic. The original intent was to provide economic aid to prevent the rise of militant Islam and foster democracy in the country, another of Jimmy Carter’s failures. Just why we’ve converted most of it to military aid is beyond me, I see little benefit to the US in that. One of GWBs better ideas was holding foreign aid recipients to some standards in terms of economic and political freedom, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.