Tagneed: the new me [Updated] التجنيد وأنا الجديد

/tagneed/: Arabic word that refers to the process of recruitment into armed forces / Being a soldier

Its rare that I write things about myself, but I thought it would be nice to share a bit. My expereince today excited me to express myself a bit, which is a good thing.

Backgrounder: Military service is compulsory for Egyptian males. The duration is determined by the level of education, the needs of the army and the post (either officer or soldier). Officers spend almost three years and soldiers spend about 14 months. Usually a number of the graduates of scientific majors such as engineering, medicine,....etc are recruited as officers while others are recruited as soldiers.  After accomplishing the service, the individual remains on call till the age of 30 or 32 (not sure), in case any military threats occurred.

well well well, from where to start?


In a long queue, waiting to give my mobile to the security, these two guys in front of me, talking and joking. The funky guy at some point talked very seriously about how this whole situation is nonsense, "the army should put the results on the internet, same as high school results instead of us lining up here" and the other replied while laughing loudly "or on the face (this renowned fucken abbreviation for facebook), army delivery, hahahaha".
ohhh fucken funny. as i look at them with my sleepy gonflee eyes, i just cant stop thinking, are new Egyptian generations 90% sissy or 92%???

after finally handing over the mobile, weeeeeew,  you join the gaaaaang bang.
you get under this huge iron umbrella and take a seat on one of the cold stony tiring benches. all these guys under the same roof, 3000 guys, 6000 eyes, balls and legs, all waiting for one hell of an important decision in their life,......are you going to spend one or three or zero years of your life in the army? are you leaving your family, putting all your professional, romantic, social, ....etc plans on hold and joining this whole new community for a part of your life? is it time to merge into this enormous institution and stop being yourself?
might seem a normal experience for you, but believe me you will unconsciously feel this suspense to know where exactly your life will be.

when you know its time for the army , your live turns grey because simply nothing is determined. everything is a 50%  chance. some take it too serious, some just revive this purely egyptian sense of destiny & god's will (kadaa wa kadar). i prefered the second option.
 
its one of the few moments in life where equality is alive and breathing. for hours, people from totally different backgrounds, all stuck together, waiting for long hours, and having the same chances of either to be recruited or not. you find guys from all types, all sitting there, guys whose confidence comes from their rayban glasses (although we arent sitting under the sun) and their style which reminds me with the guys who surrounded me while taking a brunch the day before at sequoya where everyone is posch and bling bling. but these same guys are currently  sitting side to side with guys who cant be except a reminder of how deep and miserable are the problems of this country.  contradictions are all around, or maybe its just the diversity of this country, black brown and white; rich, average and poor; adidas, abibos and abibas,....etc (in case you aren't egyptian, abibos is a chinese or a local replica of adidas, same lines and everything, just a d instead of a b)

while waiting for hours for any officer to come out and say anything you think a lot. well, you can speak alot but this implies that you have company, which wasnt my case. in fact, since i did my masters so this promo wasnt mine and knew no one who was applying for the army at the same time. well, anyway, i prefered to think, and mostly wonder about all those around me.
i wondered why we always distinguish between the people and the army, as if they are two different planets. it has been very flagrant after the revolution that we always point it out. arent they simply, me, my brother, my cousin, my friends? is the discipline they learn enough to make them new people, to give them new identity other than civilians? why is it they always look at us very angrily with their eyes, whose looks express disgust out of our disorder, attempts to steal places in the line, on our stupid questions, our desire to keep standing beside friends and not sit down, ...etc?? well, now i see why they are different, and actually i might feel like them in a few time.
but still, a major philosophical question is unanswered, is discipline enough to to give you a new identity? what gives you a new identity? what makes you categorized, a civilan not a military and vice versa, or any other categorization? are these categories even valid??

while sitting down, i also remembered my father's stories about the army. remembered when he was recruited as an officer then downgraded because of his history of political activity as a leader of a leftist radical underground students group. he described me that day when he and two other guys -amongst who was tarek el zomor, one of the guys who assasined sadat a couple of years later- where made soldiers instead of officers. remebered his story about the war reharsal they were having in the desert with live ammunition and when his tank got lost for 13 days till they found them, remembered his story about his tank named fatma, his story about the chemical war test,.... many stories actually.
anyway, as i remembered all these stuff, i kept thinking about the difference between the 70's which was a time of war and now. the stories of my friends about the army were hugely different, obviously they order food delivery in their units, they log on to the internet with their mobiles, they .......enough, they might be fucked up if any military personnel happened to read that.

time goes on with me wondering. on the background there was two distinct voices, the noise you hear in a mall when everyone cant just stop his dam tongue, and the other voice was the music put on. OH MY GOD. nonstop nationalist patriotic 60's style music. cool when you know the song, but i only recognized two out of the hundred displayed. seems they have this internal production of propaganda stuff, or maybe its just tv that have been filtering the songs to air, thanks god it did. some of the songs in the camp seemed like bollywood songs with a very high pitched sharp woman voice coming from far, bizarre music and then u just discover after a few minutes she is singing in arabic. by the way, most of the new songs are simply rubbish, we can talk about this later. 
i started getting this feeling i just had the night before after watching the second act of verdi's ernani in the opera: dizzy head, starter of maigrane & a backache. shit, not again.

so quickly, i  try to get distracted by anything, you look around and here you go. who is this tasteless bastard who chooses the colour of the banners and posters?  and then came to my mind this new poster they have on the vehicles, who the hell designed it? there is this soldier carrying a kid, who is almost falling from between his hands, and from far always it makes u feel the soldier is a cannibal, or holding some dead rabbit in his hand or something.
seriously, they do need some loads of  pr, marketing and communication courses, because many of the problems that happened have been caused by serious misunderstanding, miscommunication or lack of precision an ...... well thats not the subject so lets get back to the topic.

now, you got two things to run away from, the music and the posters. one option was to simply go buy a snack to eat


one hilarious thing was this little sign put over the cantine (small snacks kiosque) : Buying is optional and not compulsory. looool. i figured out later, there was this very widespread rumor (apparently inherited by generations), that the name calling wont start unless we finish all the stuff in the store and that they keep us waiting to keep buying all the stock. well, obviously not bcz we were done like 6 hours after and the store was still full with stuff.

 the second option was listening to music. luckily, i had my mp3 with me. very naturally, i put on one of my favourite songs, deep purple's sail away and i just discover my instinct led me to the right song at the right time. the lyrics were too perfect for the moment

If you're driftin' on an empty ocean  
                      With no wind to fill your sail  
The future, your horizon It's like searchin' for the holy grail
                       You feel there's no tomorrow  
As you look into the water below It's only your reflection  
                       And you still ain't got no place to go
Time will show When, I don't know
                             Sail away tomorrow Sailin' far away
To find it steal or borrow  
                             I'll be there someday Yeah, yeah
Oh woman, I keep returnin'  
                               To sing the same old song  
The story's been told, now I'm gettin' old
                                Tell me, where do I belong?
Feel like I'm goin' to surrender  
                                 Hard times I've had enough  
If I could find a place to hide my face I believe, I could get back up

Time will show When, I don't know
 
Sail away tomorrow Sailin' far away To find it steal or borrow But I'll be there someday Yeah, yeah
Sail away tomorrow Sailin' far away To find it steal or borrow But I'll be there someday Yeah, yeah
Sail away tomorrow Sailin' far away To find it steal or borrow But I'll be there someday Yeah, yeah, yeah, 

yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

finally, someone gets in.
a high commander, probably a general speaks and as usual (for me at least), proves again how bad is the army men with talking or arguing. he tries to make things simple and explain the recruitment process based on random choice, with numbers and examples. at some point we just have all our mouth open and at this exact same point he asks : is it possible with all these divisions and equations that anyone interfere in the process?? huh??". and as no one answers a guy volunteers and speaks loudly no sir. luckily he didnt repeat this shit explanation.
but what surprised me again was how at a certain moment he managed to make the people clap for him, actually twice. he finally showed he understands a little bit of communication skills when he spoke away from all the rhetoric stigmatized school shit he had been repeating for over 20 minutes. it shows how although these army guys really need some serious learning, they do have this sense or common back ground with the vast majority of egyptians, and hence manage to make them deserve this mystic legendary image, again luckily.

anyway,  the explanation he did seemed to be a part of a new transparency policy. at the beginning of the day they called about 250 candidates who went inside the building and assisted in the whole process, video conference meeting with the high commander head of the department to choose the needed specialization, determine the dates, check on the random i don't know what, ....etc not much for me but still cool

after that, all i remember are lists and lists of names, specializations, birth dates, sit down, stop talking, shut the hell up, no questions now, any questions, noise, laughs, congrats, disgusted looks, tired eyes, sweating faces, and wondering eyes.........etc

well, it was time to know whether i am in and out.
Year 1988
If you arent any of the suspended cases mentioned before, then you shut up and listen. The following dates are to be given a postponement of the service
1 january 1988 till 12 january 1988
19 february 1988 till 25 february 1988
21 april til.......
may....
well thats it, he gave no suspension for the june dudes. i am in. starting april, i will be officially an egyptian army personnel serving a service of 14 months.
Army Army, here I come. 


They always say, you get to be a new person after that experience, will i?? probably yes. how will i be? I don't know.

A Syrian tent in Tahrir square خيمة سورية في ميدان التحرير المصري

Isreali settlers breaking into Al Aqsa Mosque محاولة مستوطنين إسرائيليين اقتحام المسجد الأقصى 19-2-2012

أضواء الشمال

In the Northern pole, lights occur in the sky. I don't have the capacity to explain the scientific reason, but usually they have an exceptionally wonderful view. Here is a video that shows some of these lights.

Twitter Analysis: Mapping the #feb17 hashtag

Watch Mapping the #feb17 hash-tag in Spotlight

Stratfor intelligence : The Arab Spring Revisited

Thought it would be beneficial and interesting to show how some western opinion and information makes view the Arab Spring , a year later.

The state of Cyberwar in the U.S.

2007 words - February 6, 2012 - Writing by Shawnna Robert; Editing by Charles Rault | © DiploNews, all rights reserved.

Summary:

Paris, France, February 6, 2012 — As a country that is used to being dominant in the more traditional sense, the U.S. has been working to come to grips with a new sense of supremacy as a result of cyber threats, says a report released today by DiploNews. Even with a team of people responding to a threat, all it takes is one skilled person to continue to execute a cyber attack unaffected and even unnoticed. Thus, the possibilities for supremacy do not favor those with the most money, staff, or equipment. Instead, supremacy belongs to the one with the most knowledge and who can hide himself and his work the best.
According to the DiploNews report, the U.S. has taken steps towards allowing cyberwarfare. The most recent step includes a bill President Barack Obama signed into law in early January, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. This bill includes an amendment in which Congress affirms that the Defense Department may wage cyberwar in the manner it deems fit while respecting existing laws and policies.
However, challenges remain in defining how U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) will use these policy and legal definitions in practice. Among these include: defining when a cyberattack has crossed the line from a civil offense to one that warrants a military response, identifying and locating the aggressor, responding with an underdeveloped international legal regime for defining and punishing cyber crimes, and defining precisely how responding to an attack or potential attack will manifest in practice. In remaining opaque in where it intends to draw the line in the sand, DiploNews finds that the U.S. is remaining flexible, fighting asymmetric threats by being asymmetric itself.

Report:

Cyber Security is a complicated domain. Perpetrators may be foreign nations, criminal groups, hackers, hacktivists, disgruntled insiders, or terrorists. The attacker may have multiple motivations, including the theft or exploitation of data, interruption of communication services, or even the destruction of networks or connected systems that civilians and militaries rely on to function. Vulnerable targets can be overcome without warning, and an effective response can take days or weeks to cobble together.
Even with a team of people responding to a threat, all it takes is one skilled person to continue to execute an attack unaffected and even unnoticed. Thus, the possibilities for supremacy do not favor those with the most money, staff, or equipment. Instead, supremacy belongs to the one with the most knowledge and who can hide himself and his work the best. In cyberspace, the attacker functions like a sniper, except his physical location can be anywhere in the world. As a country that is used to being dominant in the more traditional sense, this concept of supremacy is one that the U.S. has been working to come to grips with.

The U.S. recognizes that cyberspace is unique in that civilians and militaries alike build and rely on massive interconnected networks and systems to function. As a result, it put the Pentagon and CYBERCOM in control of the military aspects of deterring and responding to a cyber attack while the Department of Homeland Security is in control of the civilian aspects. This is simplistically described as DHS taking care of the .gov and .com domains, and CYBERCOM taking care of the .mil domain. The 2011 U.S. cyberspace policy review focuses on the civilian aspect of cybersecurity, and many of the goals revolved around establishing communication and management strategies for preparing for and warding off cyber attacks, including increasing interagency cooperation and public awareness. The 2012 U.S. defense review mentions the cyber threat in several places: deterring and defeating aggression in all spaces, including cyberspace; projecting power despite anti-access measures by implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept, a cross-domain capability sharing instrument; and by operating effectively in cyberspace by investing in advanced network defense and operation capabilities. Despite the threat of cyber attacks, the U.S. hopes to preserve internet freedom by dissuading and deterring potential aggressors by removing the benefit of waging an attack. Both actors play a role in in achieving this, and ultimately, DHS and CYBERCOM will both play a large role in defining if an attack warrants a civilian response or a military response.

The U.S. congress began discussing the potential for a cyber attack to lead to war in the early 2000’s. The discussions became more sophisticated in the years and after 9/11. The realization of cyberspace as an operational domain of concern for U.S. military was formalized in 2009 when Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered loosely affiliated joint task forces consolidate into what is now known as U.S. Cyber Command, which began operation in May of 2010.  With this move, the U.S. worked to anticipate and reduce problems that would arise from having too loose a network tracking and fighting cyber attacks from what would probably need to be a tight-knit network to be able to launch a successful attack. In the last month, U.S. Congress approved and President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 with a curious addition. At section 954, the U.S. Congress affirmed that the Department of Defense may wage cyberwar to defend the U.S. and its allies and interests. It acknowledged that the evolving nature of cyberspace means there is no precedent for how to define the military aspects of cyber attacks, so it provided the Department of Defense the flexibility to act so long as its actions, both offensive and defensive, respect both its current policy and legal regimes and the War Powers Resolution.

While the U.S. has taken steps towards allowing cyberwarfare, challenges remain in defining how it will use these policy and legal definitions in practice. First and foremost, militaries generally have identifiable enemies whose attacks come with a traceable return address. With the rise of terrorism and other asymmetric threats, the military has already needed to become more flexible in how it tracks and responds to threats, yet cyber attacks are another new breed of threat. Identifying who the attacker actually is can take weeks or months to determine, and even then the true identity of the source of an attack may still be in question.

Even if the U.S. is able to identify the true source of an attack, knowing how to respond in a measured and legal way will be a challenge. For instance, under whose jurisdiction does an attack fall under and which laws apply to an offender if an attack is waged from a different country or multiple countries, with data traveling through even more countries to reach its destination? Internationally, codified law regarding cyberwar and the rules of engagement is in a state of underdevelopment. There is no one body with the responsibility to coordinate global cyber security policy. Paradoxically, even though NATO members are expected to share cyber information, transparency and information sharing between countries concerning their capabilities, vulnerabilities, policies, and goals is still a challenge despite the speed at which these technologies allow communication to take place. In locations where no laws or outdated laws exist and someone is caught committing a cybercrime, the pre-existing criminal laws will provide the basis from which to punish the civilian offender. On a grander scale, however, there is no agreement internationally on the definitions of and punishment for engaging in cybercrime and cyberwar. In these instances, like before, the already agreed on rules of war will likely need to be relied on to provide the basis for a response to cyber threats. The fact that the U.S. may legally use its laws of war to engage in cyberwarfare does not resolve the international legal aspects of preempting or intercepting an attack.

While U.S. forces have the right and ability to, when it deems necessary, use a military to respond to specific threats, cyberspace is unique in that civilians and militaries alike build and rely on massive interconnected networks and systems to function. The murky line between a civilian infringement and a military infringement will be a source of a grand debate when a dramatic international crisis as a result of hackers eventually occurs. The U.S. Congress did discuss examples of a military response, including releasing worms, bringing down power grids, and disabling websites. However, the Defense Department has chosen to be rather vague in publicly defining what an attack warranting a military response will look like and the precise rules of engagement for cyberwar. Reports suggest that development for the next strategy is already in progress. The field is complex, and perhaps there is a fear that a scenario no one has planned a contingency for will occur. For the U.S., then, a publicly declared strategy will likely limit the number of politically viable responses it could wage against a cyber attacker. In remaining opaque in where it intends to draw the line in the sand, the U.S. is remaining flexible, fighting asymmetric threats by being asymmetric itself.

In recent engagements, the U.S. came close to using large-scale cyberwar techniques, yet for different reasons chose not to use them. In Iraq, plans were reportedly drafted to restrict access to funds by Saddam that were never used. In part, according to sources, because by the time they were authorized it was too late for them to have any bearing on the outcome of the war. The delay apparently was the result of a concern that due to the interconnected nature of banks that the efforts would bring down some banking operations in Europe. During the engagement with Libya, there was speculation in the press that the U.S. was considering using cyberwarfare to tamper with Libyan electronic warning systems. It is said that critics shot the idea down because of, among other reasons, the fear that such a an action might set a precedent for other nations to follow suit. However, considering that the U.S. is leading the way in the use of drone attacks in military engagements, it is unlikely that these hesitations are the result of a sense of moral responsibility.

Even the rich U.S. is unable to keep up with the bleeding edge of technology; many times, by the time funds are approved and distributed the equipment and training the money was earmarked to purchase is outdated. Governments are notoriously slow to keep up with technology as the manufacturing of bleeding edge computer technologies is largely a civilian operation now, where as manufacturing tanks and guns is a bit harder to do without a government to fund the manufacturing process. As a result, the U.S. has to rely on its strong relationship with private sector contractors to remain equipped with the newest machines. It has been suggested that success in future conflicts of all kinds will depend more on the popular perception of the engagements rather than the will of the governments involved. Perhaps, instead of morality, the U.S. is not yet ready politically, intellectually, legally, and structurally for an onslaught of retaliation from its global enemies. The recent signing into law of the Defense Authorization Act brings the U.S. one step closer to resolving the political and legal weaknesses, though the others remain.

These problems are not isolated to the U.S., of course. Chapter 5 of The North Atlantic Treaty states that all other member states will consider an armed attack against another member as an attack against them all. In allowing the Defense Department to engage in cyberwar to protect its allies, the U.S. Congress implicitly addressed this question in the National Defense Authorization Act. However, this potential to use Chapter 5 in a cyberwar suffers from the same problem as defining the difference between a civil attack and one that requires a military response. Estonia experienced a country-crippling attack back in 2007 which the Estonian Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo called a cyberwar. While the self-defense clause was not invoked, following the attack the member states started working towards being ready and able to support each other in the event of a cyber attack. Officials carefully support this change under Chapter 4, in which the members agree to consult each other for opinions on territorial integrity and security, making cyber security a national responsibility.

While it helps that the U.S. and its partners conduct tabletop exercises, it will be difficult to know when or if NATO forces are able to genuinely project unquestioned superiority and a monopoly on force and violence in the cyber space in a way that will successfully deter potential aggressors by removing the benefit from waging an attack. Military strength has easily verifiable metrics that one may use to measure with: number of weapons, amount of money spent, age and service cycle of equipment, military population. Again, while the number of people sitting behind a computer increases the likelihood that an attack can be found and blocked before any serious damage can occur, it only takes one clever hacker at one computer to evade the blockade and prolong the crisis. The response team is only as strong as its weakest link. While the U.S. is certainly not the weakest link, U.S. policies and efforts cannot secure cyberspace on their own. Unilateral and even bilateral efforts in this realm are inferior to a global, holistic approach to defining norms and establishing a legal regime that is able to keep up with dynamic technology development. Eventually, either a new international body will need to emerge to address these issues or an existing body will need to adapt. However, consensus on what mechanism to use will be hard to come by. Russia and China prefer the UN model and the non-interventionist protections the charter provides. In contrast, the U.S. and its close allies claim that the UN is too slow to appropriately address cyber issues and prefer to look to the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cyber-Crime instead.

http://www.diplonews.com/reports/2012/20120205_L_CyberWar.php#report 


About DiploNews:
As part of its ongoing efforts to deliver timely analysis to its clients, DiploNews recently reviewed the state of the United States' trajectory towards recognizing cyberwar as a space for the Defense Department to operate in both in policy and law.

DiploNews's global team of information and intelligence professionals provides an audience of decision-makers and news consumers around the world with a unique monitoring and insight into geopolitical and diplomatic developments. The company uses a wide array of human and electronic sources directly treated by our analytical center.

Egypt gets dumped by its Washington lobbyists

 

Posted By Josh Rogin Saturday, January 28, 2012 - 9:04 AM  

All three of the lobbying firms representing the Egyptian government in Washington, D.C., dropped Egypt as a client late Friday amid widespread criticism of the ruling military council's raid of U.S. NGOs in Cairo and its refusal to let American NGO workers leave the country.
The Livingston Group, run by former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA), the Moffett Group, run by former Rep. Toby Moffett (D-CT), and the Podesta Group, run by Tony Podesta, unanimously severed their combined $90,000 per month contract with the Egyptian government, Politico reported late Friday, quoting Livingston directly. The three firms had formed what is known as the PLM Group, a lobbying entity created to advocate on behalf of the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed in February 2011 after 18 days of massive street protests. According to the disclosure filings, Egypt has paid PLM more than $4 million since 2007.

The trio came under fire last week for circulating talking points defending Egypt's Dec. 29 raid of several NGOs working to train political parties in Egypt, including three organizations partially funded by the U.S. government. The groups had been working in Egypt for years without being technically registered with the government, but now stand accused of fomenting unrest against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which has been ruling the country since Mubarak's ouster.

"It is bad enough when the actions of American lobbyists conflict with U.S. national interests. It is far worse when their influence-peddling undermines American values, as the Egyptian government's lobbyists in Washington are doing in this instance," said Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in a Jan. 24 statement. McCain is the chairman of the board of the International Republican Institute (IRI), one of the groups that had their Cairo offices raided. The other two groups were the National Democratic Institute, whose board is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Freedom House.
The anger in Washington against the Egyptian government reached a boiling point when it was revealed Jan. 26 that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's son Sam LaHood, the head of IRI's Cairo office, had been barred from leaving Egypt by the government along with five other U.S. citizens.
"To have an American lobbyist lobbying for a government where these activities are taking place -- is there no shame in this town?" said Rep. Frank Wolf on Thursday.

On Friday, Sam LaHood told NPR that he and the other Americans trapped in Egypt could face criminal charges, lengthy trials, and years of prison time.
"If we are referred to trial," LaHood said. "The trial could last up to a year ... and the potential penalty is six months to five years in jail."
The lobbying groups buckled under the public pressure, recognizing that they couldn't influence the SCAF's actions in this case and that their association with the military council was harming their broader image. For years, these firms have been defending the Egyptian military's $1.3 billion annual aid package on Capitol Hill and lobbying for non-military aid to go through the government, and not directly to independent organizations as many democracy advocates urged.

The Cable reported that in late 2010, Bob Livingston personally called Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) to get him to kill a Senate resolution calling for greater respect for human rights and democracy in Egypt. Wicker placed a hold on the resolution and it died in the Senate.
Egypt's lobbyists were also responsible for negotiating an endowment the Egyptian government wanted from the Obama administration. But the Mubarak regime demanded the money be given with no annual Congressional oversight, and the negotiations broke down.

Congress did place new restrictions on military aid to Egypt in the most recent appropriations bill passed in December, as a way of pressing the SCAF to move faster toward handing over its executive powers to an elected government.

According to the legislation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton must certify that the Egyptian government is living up to the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty and that the SCAF is supporting the transition to civilian rule. Multiple congressional aides told The Cable Friday that the aid is now in serious jeopardy.
"Needless to say, this whole crisis is going to make it a lot more difficult for the secretary of state to meet the certification requirements to continue providing assistance to Egypt," one senior Senate aide told The Cable. "People up here are completely seized with this issue. They're putting their friends in a really awful spot."
Another senior Senate aide noted that the Obama administration is doing a lot of work behind the scenes to deescalate the crisis, which is threatening to do long-term harm to the official U.S.-Egypt relationship.
President Barack Obama brought up the raids in a call last week with SCAF leader Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, according to the White House. Clinton, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Lahood have been working the phones hard, calling contacts in Egypt to send strong messages and implore them to change course. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Labor, and Human Rights Michael Posner was in Egypt on Jan. 26 and met with high-level Egyptian officials.

"Since the NGO raids in late December, the Obama administration has repeatedly provided paths for the SCAF to deescalate this crisis. Instead they keep escalating -- doubling down on a bad bet that, in the end, will prove ruinous to them," the Senate aide said. "Three weeks ago no one in Congress thought there was a chance in hell that aid to the Egyptian military could ever come under serious threat. It is now an increasingly and shockingly real prospect."

Ironically, McCain and Lieberman had been among the U.S. leaders most supportive of the SCAF and its role in maintaining stability during Egypt's fragile transition.
Many in Washington believe that the SCAF is being heavily influenced on this issue by one civilian Egyptian official, Fayza Abul-Naga, the minister of international cooperation and a holdover from the Mubarak era. In a speech this week, she disavowed the SCAF's previous promises to return the NGOs' raided possessions and cease harassing them as she lashed out at the American NGO groups.

Lorne Craner, the president of IRI, said in an interview Friday with The Cable that there is bad blood between Abul-Naga's ministry and the NGO groups. "Some people say that the people who used to get the money, for example the minister of international cooperation, resent the fact that they are not getting all of the funding," Craner said.

Meanwhile, the Americans and several of their locally hired staffers are enduring hours-long interviews as they await a possible arrest, which would only escalate the crisis.
"Things have gone from bad to worse," Craner said. "You start to think about Americans getting arrested on the streets of Cairo and sitting in a cage in some Cairo court ... And these are our allies."
UPDATE: On Sunday the Egyptian Embassy in Washington issued a statement claiming they dumped the PLM Group, not the other way around:

The Government of Egypt had decided to terminate its contractual relationship with the PLM Group. This decision was transmitted to the Group's principals on January 27^th 2012 through an official letter, as the contract stipulates, that either party has the right to terminate the relation within a 60 days prior notice.
It is surprising that a distorted version of this fact is being circulated in some media outlets. It is equally disturbing that articles and media coverage of the issue were made without an attempt to contact the Egyptian Embassy to check the factual basis of the stories reported.
This Press Release attempts to clarify the situation in line with the official documents related to the matter including the letter of termination which was recently transmitted by the Embassy to the PLM Group. 

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/28/egypt_gets_dumped_by_its_washington_lobbyists