I don't get it

I don't pretend to understand modern politics and positioning. Give me the ancient world any day! But, I have to agree with this astute Canadian blogger on Egypt:

All the United States can say is the corrupt autocratic leader needs to deliver on concrete reforms. Initially they couldn’t even utter the word democracy. Nor have they threatened to pull the 1.5 billion dollars of funding. 1.5 billion dollars they could probably using patching that 1.6 trillion dollar deficit they are running.

Al Jazeera is kicked out the country. Not CNN, not the BBC, not the CBC, but Al Jazeera. Is it perhaps because their hard hitting and honest reporting is more of a threat than western media? I don’t know for sure. Perhaps they just have more people on the ground and constitute an more viable threat to the government.

Egypt isn’t the only country uncomfortable with Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera’s channel isn’t available in most of the United States.

Has the west lost its place in championing human rights, free expression and democracy?

<idle musing>
I fear he is correct. Here's something I read over the weekend (I hope the formatting sticks). It describes the west only too well—and the U.S. especially:

“‘Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion!
How long must this go on?’
Will not your creditors suddenly arise?
Will they not wake up and make you tremble?
Then you will become their prey.

Because you have plundered many nations, the peoples who are left will plunder you.
For you have shed human blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.
“Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high
to escape the clutches of ruin!
You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life.
The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it.
“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!
Has not the LORD Almighty determined that the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire, that the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.—Hab. 2:6b-14 TNIV

</idle musing>