This is the most sickening spin I have seen yet.
"Bush program helped lay the groundwork in Egypt; Vote monitors trained with funds from US" by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff / February 13, 2011
Related: The Downfall of a Once Great Reporter
She has simply mimicked the Globe, readers.
WASHINGTON — A small, controversial effort launched under President George W. Bush to fund and train election monitors in Egypt played a key role in the movement to topple President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
The program, which provided millions in direct funding to prodemocracy groups, helped dispatch 13,000 volunteers to observe Egypt’s parliamentary elections in December. Thousands of those monitors, angered by what they said was blatant election rigging, joined the protests. Some became outspoken leaders; others used the networking and communication skills they learned to help coordinate 18 days of rallies....
The evolving role of the monitors provides a measure of vindication for Bush administration officials and allies, including Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney....
This is gross propaganda, readers.
“I certainly feel vindicated,’’ said Charles King Mallory IV, a former aide to Elizabeth Cheney, who could not be reached for comment.
But it also raises questions about whether some Egyptians will see a grain of truth in Mubarak’s allegations that “foreign intervention’’ fomented the uprising.
And that is about all the truth you got from that guy -- one grain in an Egyptian desert.
Stephen McInerney, executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington-based advocacy and research group, said the protesters would probably still have been active without US support, but they wouldn’t be as well-organized.
“We didn’t fund them to start protests, but we did help support their development of skills and networking,’’ he said.
Now THAT I BELIEVE!!!!!
Mahmoud Ali Mohamed, head of the Egyptian Association for Supporting Democracy, the largest election monitoring organization in Egypt, said his monitors were dispatched to Tahrir Square on the first day of the protests to document attacks on demonstrators.
As the protests grew, he opened an operations room from which 320 volunteers took tips from the public about abuses by progovernment forces, and he wrote press releases publicizing attacks and arrests. Now his group is considering launching lawsuits against those who killed or hurt protesters.
He said December’s parliamentary election, viewed by many as the most fraudulent in Egypt since the 1970s, galvanized the entire nation.
When the government announced that the opposition won less than 12 seats in parliament, down from 95 in 2005, in the first round, Egyptians “understood that there was no fair election,’’ he said.
“In a way or another, it helped what is happening right now,’’ said, speaking through an interpreter in a telephone interview....
And that is where the Globe cuts me off.
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Thankfully:
The United States began to fund election monitors in Egypt as part of Bush’s push for democratic reform. For decades, the United States hesitated to apply too much pressure to repressive regimes in the Midddle East, believing that stability in the region was more important than democracy. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush said that policy would change. He asserted that repression produces instability in the long run and fuels religious extremism.
To bring his vision of promoting democracy to life, Elizabeth Cheney launched a State Department effort to support reforms, known as the Middle East Partnership Initiative, or MEPI.
The administration increased funding for good governance and democracy in Egypt, from $3.5 million in 2005 to $55 million in 2008....
Do bankrupt and tapped-out AmeriKan taxpayers really have that money to spare?
USAID spent $950,000 on civics textbooks for children that Egypt’s Education Ministry did not want to distribute.
As our kids see teacher lay-offs and work out of textbooks 30 years old!!
Funds were also spent on state-run media.
That's no surprise at all. U.S. pays for a lot of propaganda in this world.
So a small group of officials led by Cheney pushed for more than three years for permission to fund independent groups. “We were saying, ‘The situation [in Egypt] cannot hold,’ ’’ recalled Mallory, Cheney’s aide.
They faced fierce opposition from career US diplomats who didn’t want to upset a key ally. But in 2005, the initiative provided about $1.2 million in funding for five organizations to train political parties and candidates, strengthen the advocacy skills of civic leaders, and monitor elections. Last year, MEPI gave $1.3 million for such groups....
The government also gave $1.5 million to the National Democratic Institute, a Washington group, to train monitors and give them equipment....
Yeah, the "government gave," says the corporate media.
Where did they get that money, taxpayers?
But by the end of Bush’s second term, he softened his democracy push.
But he is RESPONSIBLE for the CURRENT SITUATION in EGYPT!!
Analysts and former US officials say Bush grew more wary of the effort after the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Islamist group in Egypt that has been critical of the United States, won 88 seats in the 2005 parliamentary election.
Oh, the guys that will be taking over now?
Related: What's Next in Egypt?
Oh, they not running in elections, huh?
US officials were also concerned by victories at the polls by the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, respectively. Indeed, analysts say, if the protesters’ demands are met and fair elections are held, there is no guarantee that the new government would be as friendly as the Mubarak government to the United States and Israel.
I think it is a GIVEN it will NOT BE no matter WHAT COMES NEXT!
“It is challenging because sometimes [people’s] decisions are not in keeping with American-style democracy or what we would like to see,’’ said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat who lobbied the Egyptian government last summer to allow monitors more access to the polls.
Yeah, "democracy" is ONLY GOOD if you VOTE FOR the PEOPLE WE WANT!
When Obama took office, his administration halved the amount of money available for democracy funding in Egypt, to $20 million in 2008, and allowed Egypt to have a veto again over some funds.
Donna Woolf, spokeswoman for the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative, blamed the difficult budget environment for the cut. But she said the Obama administration funneled more money to independent groups than Bush, with $2.6 million directly funding groups that don’t have the Egyptian government’s permission to operate.
Oh, so the Obama administration accelerated the coup.
“The vibrancy and strength of Egyptian civil society that’s been on display this past week is testament to the wisdom of our strategy,’’ she said in a statement.
After SUPPORTING the DICTATOR until almost the end!!
But many activists said Bush deserves the credit.
Excuse me, readers, but I have to go pray to the porcelain God for a minute.
“As a social scientist and an activist, I have to be honest, the Bush administration did more for what is happening in Egypt now,’’ said Saad Eddin Ibrahim, founder of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, which has used a share of the US funds to train volunteers.
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