Seventy-eight percent of Egyptians believe that the US is “hypocritical” because it does not follow the international laws it promotes in other countries, a recent World Public Opinion poll showed.
The poll also showed that 62 percent of Egyptians believe that the US abuses its power to serve its own interests, leaving only 34 percent saying that the US more often treats Egypt fairly.
The World Public Opinion Organization, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world and managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland, released the poll on July 7, 2009 and surveyed 19,923 respondents in 20 nations that comprise 62 percent of the world’s population.
While people in 13 nations say they have confidence in President Barack Obama, the US foreign policy continues to receive heavy criticism.
“The US is criticized for coercing other nations with its superior power, failing to abide by international law, and for how it is dealing with climate change,” the study said, “Overall, views are mixed on whether the US is playing a mainly positive or negative role in the world.”
In all but four nations — Egypt, Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey — a majority or plurality says that the US is “generally cooperative with other countries.”

Wolfgang you are a racist, and you are the last one to talk about “freedom.” You send your troops to the Islamic World, and help out the Americans in their dirty war in Afghanistan. You treat foreigners and immigrants like shit in your country. You even have legal clauses that allows you to carry out “preemptive detentions” against demonstrators (like those you conducted against the anti-G8 protesters). No wonder then that your Ambassador to Cairo, Bernd Erbel, would come out in praise of Mubarak’s regime recently saying:

Egypt is a country that enjoys enough freedom and democracy to overcome any negatives that take place in the Egyptian Society. The European community respects Egypt ’s special status in dealing with its internal problems as a strong country that aces its challenges in a constructive manner and on the highest level.

And no wonder that your Orientalist chairman of the German Chamber of Commerce in Egypt would come out praising the son of the dictator, Gamal Mubarak, saying:

There is a Pharaonic tradition that the son assumes power after his father. There are many countries that speak a lot about democracy and elections and have now disastrous conditions like Kenya and Brazil…

That’s the “freedom” you understand indeed.

The spokesperson for the US State Department has said that Egypt is undergoing a “process of political reform” but offered no position regarding the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments.
“You have to put this in the wider context of political and economic reform in Egypt,” McCormack said in response to questions about the speed of the referendum process and concerns over new anti-terror, judicial and electoral laws included in the proposed constitutional amendments.
“I don’t want to offer at this point too detailed an explanation of our views,” McCormack maintained.
“I, quite frankly, don’t want to insert the United States government in the middle of what should be a domestic political event in Egypt.”
McCormack’s statements seemed to contrast with those of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice two years ago, who in a June 2005 speech at the American University in Cairo said “the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty” and that it was “time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy.”
“For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither,” Rice said.
“Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.”
In Cairo, US Embassy spokesman John Berry told The Daily Star Egypt that Ambassador Francis Ricciardone did not have a comment at this time and that “for whatever reason, we don’t have a statement yet coming out from Washington.”
When asked if the US Embassy in Cairo could comment on the upcoming referendum, Berry said, “I don’t think we are [commenting].”
Berry referred The Daily Star Egypt to the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in Washington, DC, which in turn referred to McCormack’s statements Tuesday.

A policy plan signed by Egypt and the European Union, worth 558 million euros ($733 million) to Egypt over four years, has much more carrot than stick when it comes to politics and human rights, experts said on Wednesday.
Political analysts and politicians said they doubted the European Union (EU) would ever threaten to withhold any of the aid money to punish the Egyptian government for any abuses.
“The aim is not to penalize but rather to encourage. The European approach will be very patient, very incremental and very supportive,” said a diplomat who asked not to be named.
The European diplomat said the money was already allocated to sectors and programs agreed by the two sides and the Europeans had no intention of linking it to performance benchmarks.