Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Two Must-Read Commentaries on the Egyptian Conflict, U.S. Assistance

To many other conservatives (and liberals as well), the Obama administration's refusal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt initially was surprising if not insulting. How dare the president and his many Democratic and Republican supporters on this issue fail to take immediate action! Despite deposed Egyptian President Morsi's shortcomings, he was democratically elected, wasn't he? No wonder the Egyptians are rebelling.

Rather than reiterate the well-reasoned  positions that conservative writers Andrew C. McCarthy and Thomas Sowell have taken on the situation, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor urges readers to deeply explore the very convincing and eye-opening commentaries from these men.

Things are not what they seem in Egypt. Those who support the "democratically elected" Morsi do not share  the American concept of democracy and freedom. Islamist radicals are attempting to retake the government, and it very well may be in U.S. national interests to steer far clear of this turmoil.

While congressional and White House debate over foreign aid in general and U.S. assistance to Egypt specifically is necessary (is there really a debate at the moment?), let's not be naive about what is happening in Egypt.

See Andrew McCarthy's "Egypt’s One Chance for Democracy-- Only capable armed forces can check the violent proclivities of Islamic supremacism" as well as "Reality versus mirages in Egypt -- Thomas Sowell drubs conservatives wanting to cut off aid to military force."

While readers are at it, also consider the following Monitor articles as critical and reliable resources in the debate over foreign aid to the region:

Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off?

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Obama Wants Egyptian Students to Get More from College

U.S. Modernization of Egyptian Air Force Continues as Planned (by Steve Peacock for Patriot Update)

-- S.P.

Andrew C. McCarthy

Steve Peacock on the "Grit & Grace Radio Show"

The "Grit & Grace Radio Show" has invited me to discuss my recent reporting on foreign aid to the Middle East/North Africa. Hosts Jennifer Meadows and Josh Bernstein will grill me in response to several recent articles I had written for WND and have since re-posted (under agreement with WND) here at U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (see "Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off?" and "Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships.")

The "Grit & Grace Radio Show," which is affiliated with ConservativeDailyNews.com, airs Tuesday and Thursday nights 8-10 p.m. (CST)/9-11 p.m. (EST). I'll notify Monitor readers when the specific show containing my interview is made available online.

Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships

Harpoon missile among weapons aboard patrol vessels

The U.S. Senate has rejected an effort to crack down on U.S. taxpayer monies being forwarded to the violence-ridden nation of Egypt, and now the Obama administration is preparing to send more heavily armed, missile-equipped naval patrol ships to the interim government there.

For that purpose, Washington is hiring private contractors to make the transoceanic delivery on its behalf.

This shipment of Fast Missile Craft, or FMC, comes at a time when congressional interest in suspending U.S. military aid to Egypt had heated up – to the point there was a Senate proposal to cut it off. That aid, according to federal law, must be suspended in response to military coups.

But the White House refuses to designate the military overthrow of deposed President Mohamed Morsi as a coup, and therefore has expressed no more than a commitment to review U.S.-Egyptian aid.

The U.S. Senate last week shot down, 86-13, Sen. Rand Paul’s proposed amendment to the transportation spending bill that would have redirected “certain foreign assistance to the government of Egypt as a result of the July 3, 2013, military coup d’état.”

Paul specifically sought to shift some of those funds to critical domestic bridge projects.

The Senate’s rejection of the Paul amendment now leaves the administration and its congressional supporters relatively free to proceed with their plans, so long as funds are approved for the U.S. Military Sealift Command endeavor.

Procurement documents that WND located through routine database research show that the MSC is now arranging to outsource the delivery of two of the advanced naval craft, which the contractor will bring under its care somewhere “within 100 miles of Pensacola,” Fla.

According to a U.S. Navy description, “The primary mission of the FMC is to conduct independent and joint operations, primarily against armed surface adversaries” in and around “coastal waterways of the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea and, in particular, the Suez Canal.”

FMC are equipped with a variety of missiles as well as a Close-In Weapon System, which can detect and attack incoming anti-ship missiles. Each vessel holds a crew of 40 personnel.

Other armaments aboard the Fast Missile Craft, an Ambassador IV-Class patrol ship built by VT Halter Marine in the United States, include eight RGM-84L Boeing Harpoon surface-to-surface missiles, (SSM) Block II missiles, one 76mm Super Rapid gun, one MK31 Raytheon Rolling Airframe Missile system with MK49 guided missile launching system and a guided missile round pack that can support 21 canister-mounted missiles. Also one Raytheon MK15 Mod 21 Phalanx Block 1B 20mm close-in weapon system and two deck-mounted 7.62mm M60 machine guns.

The Harpoon missiles can travel in excess of 67 miles with high subsonic speeds carrying nearly 500 pounds of explosives.

The beginnings of the FMC program precede the recent controversy over the military coup. Indeed, the George W. Bush administration in 2003 first reached out to contractors in search of someone capable of executing the then-conceptual aid initiative for Egypt.

The U.S. Navy since has awarded over $800 million in contracts to VT Halter Marine of Pascagoula, Miss., to carry out the Egypt FMC program. One already has been delivered, and the company in March 2010 had announced a $165 million contract to build a fourth FMC, slated for delivery by the end of 2013.

The new document explicitly reveals that “Egyptian military” personnel must be permitted to board and accompany the contractor vessels when the massive cargo containers embark from Florida en route to Alexandria, Egypt.

The inclusion of Egyptian military representatives, who will be unarmed, is “to maintain cargo integrity for the voyage,” the solicitation says.

Two cargo containers each 200 feet long with a combined hauling capability of 1,600 metric tons will deliver FMCs to Egypt. Each FMC must have a quarter-billion-dollar insurance policy, payable to the U.S. government in the event of a disaster.

An MSC spokesperson said the solicitation documents that WND discovered are exactly what the public affairs office possesses, and therefore it is unable to offer more information.

“We just fulfill the charter” for the requested contractor ships, she said.

However, when pressed to elaborate on the project’s explicit plan to have the Egyptian military board the contractor vessels for the entirety of the voyage, the spokesperson referred WND’s inquiry to the Department of Defense, specifically the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory told WND he had nothing to add to the information in the procurement documents.

The Heavylift Cargo Transport initiative – Solicitation no. N00033-13-R-5218 – is sensitive enough to require advance screening of crew personnel by the El Paso Intelligence Center, or EPIC, a multi-agency tactical operational unit.

The U.S. Department of Justice created EPIC in the ’70s primarily to support U.S.-Mexico border and counternarcotics operations. The center has since expanded its mission in support of law enforcement and counterintelligence initiatives from the local- to international level.

EPIC will be tasked with approving – or disapproving – contractor shipping-crew members.

Although MSC set an August 15 contractor bid-submission deadline, the solicitation emphasized that “funds are not currently available for this procurement. In the event funds remain unavailable, this procurement will be canceled without an award being made.”

In other Egypt-specific U.S. funding matters:

1) A $10 billion aviation-support project at the U.S. Department of State continues work with contractors on how the government may divvy up these awards through the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, or INL.

Although Egypt is not the sole focus of this endeavor – which had been in the planning stages long before Morsi’s ouster – INL nonetheless has been eying Egypt as a possible target for counterdrug operations. Current INL-contractor aviation activities are taking place in Central Florida, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Guatemala, and Iraq, it says.

“However, it is anticipated that performance may extend into other worldwide locations and the contractor(s) must be able to quickly extend operations to new locations on short notice, for limited duration. Recent examples of such include Sudan, Honduras, Malta, Libya, and Egypt.”

2) The Naval Surface Warfare Center said it intends to award a no-bid sole-source contract to Unified Industries, Inc., or UII, to train the Egyptian Air Force, or EAF, in technical measurements and calibration.

UII will provide subject matter consultation to EAF Metrology Engineering and Calibration Center, which is planning to build a facility at the Cairo West Air Base in Cairo. The Navy did not disclose an estimated contract cost.

3) The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, extended until August 15 the deadline for contractors to submit letters of interest in a project to improve the Egyptian university system.

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor recently reported, the USAID Higher Education Partnership Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the needs of this North African nation’s business community.

A similar version of this article was published via WND.com Aug. 3, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to its author, Steve Peacock.

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Have U.S. 'Investments' in Mideast Paid Off? (WND)

My latest via WND. -- S.P.

Contradictory claims of total dollar figures for U.S. foreign aid circulate around the Internet, containing oft-repeated figures that may or may not reflect reality. In response to those conflicting claims, WND has compiled a list of significant U.S. aid totals based on a review of congressional and Obama administration documents and databases.

As the debate often focuses on whether the U.S. receives, in financial parlance, an adequate return on its investment, WND decided to first focus on arguably the world’s greatest hot spot, the Middle East/North Africa, or MENA, home to three of the top 10 recipients of U.S. assistance: Israel, Egypt, and Jordan.

Though the aid totals are significantly less for Saudi Arabia and Gaza/West Bank, we have included them due to the role that the Saudis and Palestinians play on the MENA world stage.

Continued at WND.com...

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Feds Plan to Give Egypt Armed-to-the-Teeth Ships WND

My latest from WND. -- S.P.

The U.S. Senate has rejected an effort to crack down on U.S. taxpayer monies being forwarded to the violence-ridden nation of Egypt, and now the Obama administration is preparing to send more heavily armed, missile-equipped naval patrol ships to the interim government there.

For that purpose, Washington is hiring private contractors to make the transoceanic delivery on its behalf.

Read more at WND.com...

Follow @tradeaidmonitor

U.S. Modernization of Egyptian Air Force Continues as Planned (PatriotUpdate.com)

My latest from Patriot Update.

White House Claims Egyptian Aid Is In U.S. National Interest, Does Not Say How

 

Obama Wants Egyptian Students to Get More from College

Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2013 shakes hands with now-deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

President Obama wants to ensure all American adults obtain at least a year of college or career training while regaining America’s role as “world leader in college completion,” the U.S. Department of Education recently touted. The Obama administration then launched a new program to bring about such developments – in Egypt.

According to a U.S. Agency for International Development “concept paper” that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor obtained through routine database research, “Egypt now confronts a serious knowledge and skills deficit” that impedes its ability to compete globally.

U.S. taxpayers, some of whom this September will pay upwards of $45,000 annually for their own college educations, now face the additional burden of helping Egyptians make better use of their advanced degrees.

Those degrees are failing to produce adequate returns on their investments, USAID says, leading to “educated unemployment,” a phenomenon in which Egyptian college grads “are almost 10 times as likely to be unemployed than individuals with primary educations.”

USAID’s Higher Education Partnership Program hopes to bring together the government of Egypt, Egyptian institutions of higher learning and the private sector in a collaborative effort to meet the needs of this North African nation’s business community.

The U.S. has an interest in helping Egypt as it “transitions towards a democracy,” the document said.

The agency said the Egyptian education system – containing 35 universities and eight regional technical colleges consisting of 45 middle technical institutes – is the largest in the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt, however, has failed to invest “sufficient resources for these institutions to flourish as engines of knowledge transfer and creation.”

Existing institutions are struggling to “produce graduates with the skills employers seek, posing constraints for growth opportunities, particularly in high skilled economic sectors.”

USAID noted that the nation “is steeped in a tradition of education and scholarship,” pointing out that Egyptian scholars have made significant advancements in the sciences, engineering, mathematics and medicine dating back to “Pharaonic times and the Islamic Caliphate.”

Despite such an “impressive legacy,” Egypt currently lacks the infrastructure and labor force necessary “to transform the country into a vibrant center of innovation and economic prosperity.”

The agency issued a Request for Information, or RFI, to solicit feedback from contractors potentially interested in carrying out the endeavor, which could create up to 20 “university and technical college partnerships” focusing on a range of “shared priority areas” among private industry and the respective governments of Egypt and the United States.

The Obama administration in 2011 separately had been planning to provide technical assistance to Egypt to explore the creation of a nationwide system of community colleges. It remains unclear whether it ever carried out that initiative, as a thorough search of the FedBizOpps contractor database produced zero contract awards for the endeavor.

The following is a rundown of other recent U.S. foreign aid-related developments. The list is by no means exhaustive, but simply offers a snapshot of additional federal spending, both small and large.

AFRICA

The Bureau of the Public Debt at the U.S. Department of the Treasury is buying a 10-seat Toyota Land Cruiser for the U.S. African Development Foundation in the Liberian capital of Monrovia. Other than offering 14 pages of contract clauses and vehicle specifications, Treasury disclosed little else about this procurement.

Treasury separately is buying a Toyota Fortuner 4×4 for the foundation’s Malawi operations and a Toyota Land Cruiser for its Zambian facility.

KYRGYZSTAN

USAID is recruiting private-sector advisers for deployment to Kyrgyzstan, officially known as the Kyrgyz Republic, to help manage a $50 million portfolio of U.S.-funded development projects.

“Because of its proximity to South Asia and its potential to contribute to stability in nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Kyrgyz Republic is of considerable geopolitical and strategic interest” to the U.S, the agency says in a Personal Contracting Services notice.

The base salary range for both the Senior Development transition specialist and the senior private sector development specialist is $84,697-$110,104.

MOZAMBIQUE

USAID will deploy an education specialist to Mozambique to help implement this southeast African nation’s new basic education program. The contractor annually will earn between $85,000 and $110,000.

Separately, USAID plans to build six rural health centers across Mozambique potentially costing $10 million. It also intends to construct three pharmaceutical warehouses costing upwards of $5 million each.

PACIFIC ISLANDS

USAID is launching the Pacific-American Climate Fund, a project to provide grants for endeavors whose aim is to “reduce long-term vulnerabilities associated with climate change and achieve sustainable climate-resilient development.”

Subject to the availability of funds, USAID expects to have a budget of about $24 million devoted to climate change adaptation efforts in island countries such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa and Solomon Islands.

PAKISTAN

USAID is deploying to Islamabad a senior adviser for government-to-government direct assistance. An agency solicitation did not disclose further details about the position.

WORLDWIDE

The latest contract in USAID’s International Rule of Law Technical Assistance Services project has been awarded to Casals & Associates Inc., a subsidiary of government contracting giant DynCorp International.

The agency did not specify how or where Casals will provide services in the endeavor, which is based on the United Nations principle that “all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the state itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights law.”

Up to $500 million in Indefinite Quantity Contracts, or IQCs, could be given to Casals and other selected vendors over the next five years.

This article originally appeared June 28 via WND. Rights gave reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock, under agreement with WND.

 

Obama Wants Egyptian Students to Get More From College (WND)

President Obama wants to ensure all American adults obtain at least a year of college or career training while regaining America’s role as “world leader in college completion,” the U.S. Department of Education recently touted. The Obama administration then launched a new program to bring about such developments – in Egypt.

Read more at WND.com...

You're Being Lied to About the Muslim Riots: Commentary

Brian Lilley of the Canadian media outlet Sun News offers this brutally honest and brave account of what really took place around the Muslim world on and around this past September 11th.

Thank you Mr. Lilley for having the guts to take an honest look at these horrific situations -- meaning both the murderous attacks as well as the gutless and mindless mainstream media coverage of (and the Obama administration's response to) these global events. -- Steve Peacock