A Russian Navy Base in Egypt? - Obama's skill at foreign policy knows no bounds

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Egypt later this month as part of a push by Moscow to replace the United States as the Egyptian military’s main patron.

The visit will take place after the Obama administration last month angered Egypt’s military by cutting deliveries of U.S. military arms and aid at a time when the military-dominated interim government is engaged in battles against Islamist terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula, and an insurgent Muslim Brotherhood opposed to the ouster of President Mohammad Morsi last summer.

According to U.S. officials, Putin will visit Cairo where he is expected to announce a major arms sales package as part of efforts to build closer military relations reports the Washington Free Beacon.

Egyptian diplomats visited Moscow last week to discuss the Putin visit to Cairo. News reports from the Egyptian capital said that Russia will resume arms sales, including advanced weaponry, following a cutoff of U.S. arms last month.

It would be the first time since the 1970s that Moscow will regain the foothold it lost in its close ties to Egypt when Egyptian President Anwar al Sadat expelled Soviet military advisers and ended purchases of Russian arms.

Egyptian officials have been careful to avoid upsetting the United States by openly discussing plans for a new alliance with Moscow. However, U.S. officials said Egyptian presidential aide Ahmad El-Muslimani’s comment that Putin‘s “positive stance” toward “the June 30 Revolution” had increased his popularity in the country was a clear indication the country was moving away from U.S. support.

Egypt is said to be seeking Russian fighter jets and Tor anti-aircraft missiles, along with upgrades of its Soviet-era tanks—all weapons systems that were blocked by the United States.

The Russian leader’s visit will follow the stop in Cairo last week by Secretary of State John Kerry who met last week with Egypt’s military leader, Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Russian Anti-aircraft missile system "Tor-M1"

With arms shipments from the US on hold, the Egyptian military is looking to

buy the Tor missile system from Russia.

 

Russian Navy Sukhoi Su 33 AWESOME footage on AIRCRAFT CARRIER

 

 

 

 

New Modern Russian Navy 2013

 

 

 

The Russian Navy - Coming soon to Egypt?

U.S. officials said al-Sisi pressed Kerry not to punish Egypt for its slow transition from the ousted Muslim Brotherhood government to a more democratic system.

The U.S. cutoff of arms was not discussed in meetings with Kerry, an indication that Egypt may be ready to seek new weapons from Russia, said officials who briefed reporters after the meeting.

Kerry told Egyptian leaders that “you need to make progress” toward relaxing emergency controls and initiate democratic reforms. He told the Egyptians to “help us help you to get the assistance” by making political reforms, one senior official told reporters Sunday.

The United States announced Oct. 9 it is holding up deliveries of arms and aid to Egypt, a key strategic ally in the volatile Middle East.

Items being withheld to protest the interim government’s slow progress in holding new elections includes a dozen F-16 jet fighters, about a dozen AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, four M-1/A-1 tank kits and a number of Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The administration also is holding up $260 million in aid to the Egypt government, and has frozen a $300 million loan guarantee that is part of U.S. military arms financing programs.

Putin’s expected visit and the Egyptian military’s shift away from the United States and toward Russia were first reported by the Free Beacon in August.

At that time, U.S. officials said the Egyptian military, which has had close ties to the Pentagon since the 1980s, was angered by the Obama administration’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Cairo has received more than $49 billion in U.S. aid, including military aid, since 1979.

In 1977, Sadat canceled all military contracts with the Soviet Union in favor of a partnership with Washington.

Officials said a serious threat facing the current Egyptian government is the growing activities of Islamist insurgents, including al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups, in the Sinai.

“The Egyptians are fighting for their lives in the Sinai,” said a U.S. official familiar with intelligence reports on the region. “Why is the administration cutting aid at this time?”

Pro-military news outlets in Egypt, in a sign of anger at the United States, for months have promoted Russia as a replacement for the United States.

Moscow is known to be seeking new bases and allies in the region as its foothold in Syria was undermined by the civil war there.

U.S. officials said the Egyptians publicly are playing down the planned shift by the military from the United States to Russia.

The shift is being described by Egyptian officials as a rebalancing of relations and a diversifying of its military hardware suppliers.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney said the administration’s failure to back the Egyptian military is undermining 60 years of diplomacy that made Egypt a lynchpin of the Arab-Israeli Peace Treaty.

“By terminating our annual modernization and aid to the Egyptian military we are jeopardizing the peace treaty, weakening their military, endangering our preferred rights of overflight and the transiting of the Suez Canal,” McInerney said in an email. “Furthermore Gen. al Sisi is the first Arab leader to take on the Muslim Brotherhood overtly.”

The United States needs to support al Sisi and the interim government in the interest of regional stability, he added. “Israel desperately needs them backing the peace treaty,” McInerney said.

“Now the administration is about to let Egypt be under the hegemony of Russia with Russian Ports, which is unbelievable,” he said.

U.S. officials said there are indications the Russians also may be seeking an agreement with Egypt to set up a military base in Egypt to replace its now-threatened naval base at the Syrian port of Tartus.
.
Putin told Russian television in September that he supports stability in Egypt as soon as possible and promised that Russia would “facilitate this in every way.”

"Shore leave in Egypt sounds good sir."

 

The Russian naval base in Tartus, Syria.
Tartus hosts a Soviet-era naval supply and maintenance facility, under a 1971 agreement with Ba'athist Syria, which was—until the second year of the Syrian civil war—staffed by Russian naval personnel. Most recently, the facility hosts the Amur class floating workshop PM-138, capable of providing technical maintenance to Russian warships deployed in the Mediterranean.

 

Obama backs Muslim Brotherhood, cuts aid to Egypt's military

Obama Backs the Brotherhood

"People will see it as the United States dropping a friend.”

Officials and experts in Israel responded on with a mixture of disappointment and alarm to the news that the United States planned to reduce its military aid to Egypt.

Israel views the aid as part and parcel of its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, and essential to the maintenance of stability in the region.

But one Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy involved, warned that the implications of punitive cuts in Egypt’s aid could go far beyond the issue of Israeli-Egyptian relations. The United States is playing with fire, he said in the New York Times.
      

“You cannot disassemble the peace treaty and take out this part or that part,” the official said. “But there are other elements in this conundrum. This is not just about Israel. This is about America’s standing in the Arab world.”

      

Noting that military aid is not just about tank shipments but also a sign of presence and commitment, he added: “If America is seen to be turning its back on Egypt, an old ally, how will it be seen? People will see it as the United States dropping a friend.”

 

 

Mohamed Soliman, student leader for the Constitution Party, said cutting aid would be "disastrous" for Egypt and U.S. allies in the region.

Egypt "can't fight this war alone — the war on terror, defending the state, trying to secure the border between Egypt and Libya and trying to stop the influx of jihadists to Sinai," he said. "They need equipment, training, international support."

The US is suspending a large part of the $1.3bn (£810m) in aid it gives to Egypt's military.

The delivery of large-scale military systems as well as cash assistance to the Egyptian government would be withheld, said the state department.

It said "credible progress" must be made towards free and fair elections says BBC News.

A review was launched in August after a crackdown by the authorities on supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi left hundreds of people dead.

"We will continue to hold the delivery of certain large-scale military systems and cash assistance to the government pending credible progress toward an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government through free and fair elections," state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Officials said the freeze amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.

Washington also plans to halt a $260m cash transfer and a $300m loan guarantee. It is also halting the delivery of Apache helicopters, as well as Harpoon missiles and tank parts, officials said.

Former Joint Chiefs chairman: Obama plotted to destabilize regimes in Bahrain, Egypt

General Hugh Shelton

'Obama plotted to support the ruling Muslim Brotherhood

amid unprecedented unrest.'

The United States was said to have planned to destabilize at least two Arab countries over the last two years.

A former leading U.S. military commander asserted that the regime of Comrade Barack Obama worked to destabilize the governments of Bahrain and Egypt.

Retired General Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the administration’s drive against Bahrain, wracked by a Shi’ite revolt, was led by the intelligence community.

“America thought Bahrain was an easy prey that will serve as key to the collapse of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] regime and lead to giant oil companies controlling oil in the Gulf,” Shelton said reports the World Tribune.

In an interview on Fox News, Shelton said the administration plot was foiled by Bahraini King Hamad in 2011. He said Hamad agreed to a Saudi-sponsored decision by the GCC to send thousands of troops to Bahrain to help quell the Shi’ite revolt, attributed to Iran.

Shelton, who met Hamad during his assignment to the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet, based in Manama, said the administration plot harmed relations with both Bahrain as well as neighboring Saudi Arabia. He said Riyad ended any trust in Washington after it was found to have helped the Shi’ites in Bahrain.

The former Joint Chiefs chairman, who served under President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush, said Egypt stopped a drive by Obama to destabilize their country in 2013. Shelton said Egyptian Defense Minister Abdul Fatah Sisi, a former intelligence chief, also detected a U.S. plot to support the ruling Muslim Brotherhood amid unprecedented unrest.

On July 3, Sisi led a coup that overthrew Egypt’s first Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi.

“Had Gen. Al Sisi not deposed Morsi, Egypt would have today become another Syria and its military would have been destroyed,” Shelton said. Shelton, who did not disclose his sources of information, said Arab allies of the United States have moved away from Washington. He cited the new alliance between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates against the Brotherhood.

“I expect calm to be restored in Egypt,” Shelton said. “Gen. Al Sisi has put an end to the new Middle East project.”

Michael Savage blasts religious leaders on Egypt

Near Silence While Churches Burn.

Why do Western religious and political leaders

hate their own culture and support Islamists?

Conservative talk show host Dr. Michael Savage castigated American religious leaders for remaining silent while Coptic Christians in Egypt were being persecuted. He reserved his harshest condemnation for the “pet” rabbis who inevitably get invited to schmooze at the White House.

“What happened to ‘never again’?” Savage wondered, adding, “That’s why the synagogues and churches are largely empty. People go there for spiritual renewal and they come home with a sour stomach."

“People would go every week if there was a fiery leader who would talk about the truth and spirituality and what was going on in the world,” he contended.

Savage also condemned Obama’s decision to halt military aid to Egypt’s generals. By doing so, Savage said, the president is tacitly supporting the Muslim Brotherhood – as are the likes of George Soros and the Clintons (FREE audio).

“Soros and the Clintons gain by the rise of the Islamists,” he explained. “By defeating the king of Saudi Arabia, they think they can gain control of all the oil wealth.

“And by supporting the Islamists in Egypt over the generals, Soros and the Clintons think they can control the most populous Muslim nation on earth,” Savage said.

Read more at (www.wnd.com/2013)


The Savage Nation - August 19 2013
Coptic Christians are being slaughtered in Egypt by Muslim Brotherhood mob.

Muslims burn schools, churches, train children to kill

Muslim Terrorism

Burning Christian churches and schools today while

training future generations to hate

Nothing has changed over the centuries. 

For 1,400 years Christians have battled Jihad and invasion by aggressive, intolerant and terroristic Islam.  The first contact was at the Battle of Mu'tah in 629 AD.  The story is always the same.  Jihadists attack all non-believers in the name of the Religion of Peace.

Non-believers have only two choices:  death or to live as oppressed 2nd class citizens in the own nation.

The horror and savagery in Egypt not only exposes the Muslim Brotherhood to the world for who and what they are, but it also exposes the true agenda of a silent UN (whose existence appears now to be solely to work towards the final destruction of Israel) and those governments (Obama's included) that support the vicious Islamic goals of Islamic supremacist groups.

Clearly the agenda of the sharia-compliant world media is evident in their cover-up and silence about these crimes against humanity.

Muslim Brotherhood operatives have direct access to the White House. Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for policy development; Mohammed Elibiary, a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council; Rashad Hussain, the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference; Salam al-Marayati, co-founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); and Eboo Patel, a member of President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships.

Hamas-CAIR leader Ahmed Bedier's brother was killed last week fighting alongside the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Bedier and his brother were involved in the Muslim Brotherhood overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. When Ahmed Bedier returned from Egypt in 2011, he visited the White House twice.

The media will not divulge these dangerous facts. You must. You must get this information out to your email lists, facebook pages, twitter feeds and water cooler discussions. The future of the free world depends on it.

See more at Atlas Shrugs.com


Muslim Brotherhood supporters burn down a Christian school in Egypt 
Happened in Beni Suef, dozens of Churches and Christian schools have been burnt to the ground by the Muslim Brotherhood in the past few days.

Egypt: "Peaceful" Muslim Brotherhood Burns Christian Churches

It's never too early to teach a child to hate.



 

Egyptian Monastery Cancels Mass for First Time In 1,600 Years Over Muslim Brotherhood Attacks

Egypt  -  Minya churches canceled on Sunday the second mass, holding only a brief one. Meanwhile, prayers did not take place at other churches which were attacked.

Priest Selwanes Lotfy of the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram monastery in Degla, south of Minya, said, “We did not hold prayers in the monastery on Sunday for the first time in 1,600 years.”

“Supporters of deposed President [Mohamed Morsy] destroyed the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram monastery, which includes three churches, one of which is an archaeological site. One of the extremists wrote on the monastery wall ‘donate to the martyrs’ mosque,’” Lotfy added.

(Egypt Independent)

 

What to do about Egypt?

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Let's burn a church for Allah.

By Gary;

Egypt is a massive clusterfuck of a problem for the West.

What do you do?

• Support the neo-fascist military that has ruled Egypt with an iron hand since 1952, raping the country and treating it as their personal bank account?
• Or support the Islamist President and Parliament chosen by the people of Egypt in free elections?

What a bitch.

Americans like to pretend that they believe in freedom and democracy. But "ideals" never stopped the U.S. from backing a wide assortment of dictators, Kings and thugs all over the world as long as they supported the U.S.  So backing the dictatorial Egyptian army yet again would be nothing new for us.


Egypt's Christians have been totally screwed by Muslims since 642AD. 
Other than sending in a Western army what is it exactly we could do?
Western boots on the ground would only spark total anarchy.  Even
backing Egypt's military could create anarchy because a majority of Egyptians
voted for the Islamists. 

 

I don't have a problem with Egyptians freely voting for a more religious state.  It is none of anyone's business as long as there is no violence against its own citizens or its neighbors.

In some ways I don't blame the Islamists for being pissed.  After all the majority of Egyptians voted for them in free elections.  But burning down churches tells you what they really believe, and it is not democracy.

One thing that does bother me is the American political class hammering on the discrimination against Egyptian Christians as an excuse to get us involved in another nation's civil war.

The fact of the matter is those same conservatives who are wringing their hands about the poor Christians today were totally oblivious to the attacks and discrimination against them when the U.S. backed military dictatorship was in power.

Let's bottom line this.  Christians have been totally screwed by militant, dictatorial Islam since  the Muslim conquest of Egypt back in 639–642AD.

For the last 1,400 years Egypt has not been some magical wonderland where Christians, Jews and Muslims have joined together to sing Kumbayah and live in peace.

No matter which faction if the Religion of Peace ruled Egypt the non-Muslims were always treated like crap.  They were forced to be second class citizens in their own nation.

So what to do?

It does not make me feel any better that the Islamist Dictator Saudi King Abdullah has called on Arabs to stand together against "attempts to destabilize" Egypt in a strong message of support for the country's military leadership.

Wonderful.  Islamist wackos on all sides.

I don't give a damn about Egypt.  They have been solving their own problems for 7,000 years.  But I think the time is here for the Western nations to back the Egyptian military's attempt to keep order.

But even if order is restored it will not protect the Christians in the long run from the so-called "moderate" Muslims who dislike Christians almost as much as the Islamists.

Still a temporary peace would be something.  So let's load up the planes with ammo for the military and have them put down the Islamists.

Muslim Brotherhood Torch Catholic School
Muslim Brotherhood supporters marked the Christian stores with a black “x”. Flashbacks to Jews in Germany and Kristellnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, where marked Jewish businesses were destroyed.
.
After torching a Franciscan school, Islamists paraded three nuns on the streets like “prisoners of war” before a Muslim woman offered them refuge. Two other women working at the school were sexually harassed and abused as they fought their way through a mob.
.
"We are nuns. We rely on God and the angels to protect us," said Sister Manal . "At the end, they paraded us like prisoners of war and hurled abuse at us as they led us from one alley to another without telling us where they were taking us," she said.
.

The incident at the Franciscan school was repeated at Minya where a Catholic school was razed to the ground by an arson attack and a Christian orphanage was also torched.

.
"I am terrified and unable to focus," said Boulos Fahmy, the pastor of a Catholic church a short distance away from Manal's school. "I am expecting an attack on my church any time now," he said Saturday.
.
Bishoy Alfons Naguib, a 33-year-old businessman from Minya, has a similarly harrowing story.
.

His home supplies store on a main commercial street in the provincial capital, also called Minya, was torched this week and the flames consumed everything inside.

.
"A neighbor called me and said the store was on fire. When I arrived, three extremists with knifes approached me menacingly when they realized I was the owner," recounted Naguib. His father and brother pleaded with the men to spare him. Luckily, he said, someone shouted that a Christian boy was filming the proceedings using his cell phone, so the crowd rushed toward the boy shouting "Nusrani, Nusrani," the Quranic word for Christians which has become a derogatory way of referring to them in today's Egypt.
.
"On our Mustafa Fahmy street, the Islamists had earlier painted a red X on Muslim stores and a black X on Christian stores," he said. "You can be sure that the ones with a red X are intact."
.
In the four days since security forces cleared two sit-in camps by supporters of Egypt’s ousted president, Islamists have attacked dozens of Coptic churches along with homes and businesses owned by the Christian minority. The campaign of intimidation appears to be a warning to Christians outside Cairo to stand down from political activism.
(Yahoo - Associated Press)

Islamic Insanity
Damaged pharaonic objects lie on the floor of the Malawi Antiquities Museum after it was ransacked and looted between the evening of Thursday, Aug. 15 and the morning of Friday, Aug. 16, 2013, in Malawi, south of Minya, Egypt.
(news.yahoo.com)

They Come from Two Different Worlds

These two photos (above and below) really say it all about Egypt and the Middle East. Society is divided between modern and traditional. Each thinks they know the correct way to live and each will not give in to the other side.

  

Islamist Church Burnings

The damaged interior of the Saint Moussa Church is seen a day after it was torched in
sectarian violence following the dispersal of two Cairo sit-ins of supporters of the
ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, in Minya, south of Cairo, Egypt,
Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013.

(Photo: AP)

The Tragedy of Egyptian Democracy



The Tanks are Back in Town

Move along.  Nothing to see here.

Don't worry.  We will have elections later.

By Gary;

Egypt.  The military is back and the wacko Islamists are out.  Both a happy and a sad day for the first ever elected government of Egypt.

Unlike many so-called "Conservatives" in America I was excited by the Arab Spring.  Here we had an Internet powered revolution against 12,000 years of Egyptian military dictatorships.  The people wanted a voice instead of the government being run just for the well-connected Elites of society.

While I was happy that Egypt was moving toward their first ever free elections, most American Conservatives were pulling their hair out because the U.S. was not backing a corrupt military dictatorship with all our power against a People's Revolution. 

Ratings driven fools like Rush and Hannity never spelled out what they would have done.  Would they have ordered the dictatorship to fire machine guns into crowds of hundreds of thousands of Egyptians?  No, the radio and TV talking heads are often full of BS.  It is all white hot talk for ratings and cold hard cash.

In any case, not all revolutions turn out well.

• The American Revolution ended in a peacefully created government.
• The English Revolution cut off the head of King Charles I and created a dictatorship by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell.
• The French Revolution killed upwards of 40,000 people with lots and lots of head chopping and bringing the dictatorship of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
• Other revolutions in Mexico, Russia and China have been very violent.

The point is the Egyptian Revolution is still a work in progress.  God knows where it will go.

The one thing I do know, it is none of America's business what form of government the people of Egypt select as long as they are not attacking their neighbors or committing mass murder.

Egypt has ruled themselves for 12,000 years.  They do not need the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Britain or the UAE telling them what to do.

Let us give Egypt calm encouragement to move towards peacefully adopting democracy.  But let us leave them the Hell alone to do it.


Laser light show in Tahrir Square Protesters cheer at anti government slogans in Cairo, Egypt 

Back in 2011 Egypt had free elections



Free elections.
And yes Democrats in the US, they had ballot security and ID laws for voting.

They Come from Two Different Worlds

These two photos (above and below) really say it all about Egypt and the Middle East.  Society is divided between modern and traditional.  Each thinks they know the correct way to live and they will not give in to the other side.

But traditional or modern, both sides eagerly wanted to cast their vote in the
first ever free election in Egyptian history.

EGYPTIAN ELECTIONS
An Egyptian woman looks at a ballot as she votes in Maadi, a suburb
of Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Nov. 28, 2011.
.
The Egyptians had a Hell of a lot more choices for their
Parliament than Americans have in their elections.