No matter what's happening in the world - no matter how bad things get - you can count on one thing. John McCain loves being in front of the cameras. Every weekend, like clockwork, he picks a topic and presents it to as many news shows as possible. This weekend it was aid to Egypt.
McCain has decided that the removal of Morsi constitutes a coup d'etat, and the US can no longer send Egypt its annual $1.5 Billion.
"Reluctantly," McCain says. "I believe that we have to suspend aid until such time as there is a new Constitution and a free and fair election."
To make his case, Senator McCain is leaning heavily on this section of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act:
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to the government of any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.
So, technically, he may be correct. Egypt's current situation certainly seems to fit the description of a coup. However, something just doesn't add up.
This is the same John McCain who has been fighting to fund, and arm, Al Qaeda-backed rebels in Syria. In Egypt, he's the same guy who - even before Obama - called for Hosni Mubarak to step down, a move that ultimately installed the current Muslim Brotherhood supported government. Prior to Mubarak's departure, McCain even suggested that halting Egyptian aid should be "on the table" if Mubarak refused to go.
In 2011, when he got his wish and the Egyptian military finally allowed Mubarak to "resign," McCain made no such call for suspension of aid. Nor did he have a problem with continued aid to Haiti or Honduras during similar situations. So what's different here?
As long as Morsi has been in power, McCain's been more than willing to look the other way while Egypt rattled the sabre against our Israeli allies. He did suggest cutting off aid in 2012, when Egypt seemed unable (or unwilling) to protect our Cairo embassy, but that stance was short lived. This year, he turned around and fought Rand Paul's bill that would have prohibited the transfer of U.S. F-16s to the Muslim Brotherhood government.
Aid to Egypt should have been eliminated back when the Brotherhood took control, or it should have been suspended since the U.S. simply can't afford it. ...But it wasn't.
It's time for John McCain to tell us why his new found love of "non-involvement" applies to the removal of a radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood patsy, but was nowhere to be found when we were installing and arming the same.
