AlterNet, By Alex Kane: 4 Reasons America's Still Fubding the Egyptian Military

As they Slaughter Their Own People. As the Egyptian military brutally cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood over the last week, the question coursing through the U.S. media was what America's response would be. Would the U.S. only curb economic aid? Or would the U.S. just take symbolic steps? We've gotten some answers, but the overall response towards the Egyptian military coup and violence remains unclear. The U.S. has reportedly curbed some economic aid, though that's only a fraction of the overall cash the U.S. gives to Egypt. The Obama administration announced a largely symbolic step in the wake of the killing of hundreds of people: the cancellation of joint military exercises. AS for the more important question of what the U.S. would do about its $1.3 billion in annual military aid given to the Egyptian armed forces, the picture is muddled. Yesterday, The Daily Beast's Josh Rogin reported that the Obama administration had secretly suspended a portion of U.S. military aid in response to the Egyptian military takeover, according to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. Rogin reported that no aid be given to a government that came to power by way of a coup. So the U.S. is acting as if the Egyptian military's take over was a coup, which it was, while not publically saying so. But the White House today denied the report. "We are reviewing all of our assistance to Egypt. No policy decisions have been made at this point regarding the remaining assistance," a National Security Council spokeswoman told Yahoo! News. And even if Rogin's report was true, the key word is "temporary." The U.S. may have decided to suspend the aid for now, but it's likely that assistance would continue once the Egyptian military provides some democratic window dressing. Additionally, the reported suspension of aid only applies to the $525 million that has yet to be disbursed this year, a small fraction of the overall $1.3 billion the U.S. gives to the Egyptian military annually. So it's business as usual. The U.S. continues to fund the Egyptian military while its killing opponents of the coup and Islamists. Why is that? Here are 4 reasons why America funds the Egyptian military. 1. Israel. The flow of U.S. aid to Egypt began in 1979, when the Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was signed. The treaty, which ended years of acrimony between the two countries and barred any chance of a new war breaking out between them, has been kept stable because of U.S. aid to Egypt. As Harvard professor Stephen Walt has written, "the current level of U.S. aid to Egypt. As Harvard professor Stephen Walt has written, "the current level of U.S. aid to Egypt and Israel is a bribe dating back to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Egypt got the money as a reward for making peace and realigning with the West." The benefits to both countries were great. Egypt got to build up its military and focus internally. Israel had the most powerful military in the region taken off the table as a threat as it continued to colonize the West Bank and Gaza. And more recently, Israel and Egypt have worked hand in hand to contain the threat posed to Israel from Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza.