The world is watching nervously as millions of Egyptians continue their protests in Tahrir Square after the military announced that Mohamed Morsi is no longer President of Egypt. There is another gathering of Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Morsi. Some of them are pledging to “fight to the death” to prevent Morsi’s ouster. The U.S. apparently had not anticipated this turn. Ambassador Anne Patterson had said the U.S discouraged the protests and President Obama had refused to withdraw support of Morsi. The White House is now stressing “…that it does not support any particular party in Egypt, but rather the democratic processThe Administration has demonstrated that it learned from the Benghazi fiasco where military help wasn’t ready for the attacks in which the ambassador and three other Americans were killed. The Washington Post reported in a copyrighted article that all nonessential embassy personnel have been ordered to leave Egypt. There are also reports that military resources are on alert.

It is obvious that many Egyptians had become overwhelmingly frustrated and angry over the actions by Morsi and his government to make Egypt into a pure Islamic State. Perhaps Mr. Morsi and his government should have put their focus on the economic problems that created the demonstrations that put them in power. Food and fuel had become increasingly scarce and more expensive and unemployment had increased. Driving millions of people to spend their days and nights in the square is unlikely to solve any economic problems and undoubtedly will have long-term effects on tourism. Tourism accounted for 13% of GDP and employed one in seven workers in 2010. There were fourteen million tourists that visited that year, but there was a thirty percent drop in 2011. I can’t imagine how few tourists there are in Egypt today. (economist.com)

We have to hope that whoever governs Egypt in the future will focus on the needs of its citizens. People unable to find or afford the basic necessities of life are likely to be willing to support ongoing turmoil, and violence will become more likely. I have no idea what the U.S. can do, but perhaps they should support something replicating the efforts by Herbert Hoover and others as  private citizens and the American Relief Administration (ARA) in Europe and Russia after World War I. Famines were killing millions of people. The ARA set up a system of import and distribution that was feeding over ten million people a day in just the Soviet Union. Future relations with the Soviets weren’t influenced, but perhaps Egyptians would be more appreciative. Are you listening, Mr. Romney?