America's role in the Egyptian Revolution

Following up on our class discussion, i thought it interesting to explore the idea of America's involvement in the Egyptian Revolution, specifically whether to interviene or to let the revolution take it's course.

Egypt has always been a valuable ally and vice versa is also true, America funds a major part of the Egyptian military. For 30 years American has aided Egypt with 1.5 billion dollars which went into military training, military equipment and in short the country's defense. Even to mention that on top of that, Egypt received a nearly 1 billion dollar subsidy annually from 1979 is to fully bring to fruition America's role in the protection of this ally. America's non-involvement in this revolution would lead to some major reexamination of the relationship between the two countries. However this could potentially have just cause.

Hosni Mubarak's actions with this money were less than heroic to say the least. Using this power for his own intentions he jailed 100,000 Egyptian nationalists and assigned his police force to torture many more. He also rerouted a lot of the "ally money" into private bankaccounts for his wife, sons and some of his close businessmen. These actions could easily justify a neutral stance on the revolution even a stance against the revolution would not be absurd.

In retort to these negative stances on Egypt's revolution, this very revolution is about freedom, a value that the country of America was built upon. It is guaranteed in the declaration of independence. To go against this very ideal is to become hypocritical and to double back on our own beliefs. Is this acceptable? As a country can we knowingly and willingly sacrifice our own ideals just for the economical and military benefits?

I believe in this case it is more than this. This revolution is about freedom, but more importantly it is about breaking free from a dictator. A dictator that puts his own agenda before the very country he rules. In this case, i feel as though to become a hypocrite is a minor price to pay for what is right.