What’s going on in Egypt? I’ve been asked this quite a few times by teachers, fellow students, and even parents. I feel as though the revolution that has been taking place for the past couple years in that country has not been given enough attention in out classes, on the news, or just in daily life. What began as protests to make the Egyptian President, Mubarak, to step down from his seat of power has exploded into enormous riots on the streets of Cairo and other large cities, killings of presidential supporters, and general chaos in government.

What appears to be the biggest challenge facing Egypt at the moment is the fact that the Presidents that step up to power always seem to have the wrong idea in mind when it comes to aiding the country. Morsi, the President elected into power after Mubarak stepped down, knew that his country was in danger of falling apart, but his actions to prevent such a tragedy were misguided and ultimately resulted in even more controversy. He was brought down by the government, and a new leader, Adly Monsour, took reign over a collapsing country. With people protesting over the removal  of Morsi from presidency, Monsour had no real power in his position, and declared a state of emergency. These events were all brought upon the country because people believed they knew what would help the country, but as it turns out, it only made things worse. This is the primary challenge in Egypt.

The latest new regarding the U.S. involvement in Egypt was that President Obama condemned the actions that the Egyptian government has been allowing to happen, yet he decided not to cancel the $1.3 billion annual provision for military aid. Seeing as we have just recently gotten ourselves into this ISIS debacle in Syria and Iraq, it seems wrong to prolong our involvement in just about anything. What this means is that Obama should pull our country out of Egypt. They have been making decisions that have been generally detrimental to the state of their country since the revolution began, and yet we still decide to help them out. This should no longer continue, as it is clear that there will be no differences in the actions of Egypt in the  near future, and our involvement elsewhere is more important.

The natural reaction of the media in the U.S. is almost always to show just how victimized the people of a country in turmoil are. In the case of Egypt, it is no different. Whenever a bit on Egypt is shown in the news, it almost always shows protesters who are justified in their actions because the big bad government wronged them. I believe the situation described in the media is true, but they make it seem so much more dramatic than it actually is. The media makes the people seem horribly, irrevocably victimized by the government, yet in reality, the severity is much less than the media makes it seem.