Question: Is Mr. Obama Doing Everything He Can About the Carnage in Egypt – Or is Mr. Obama Doing Nothing?

The Surprising Answer

The murderous rampage of the military in Egypt continues, with the announcement that the army killed a lot of civilians it was holding in custody.

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Supporters of the ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, marched through the streets of the Maahdi neighborhood of Cairo on Sunday.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and claimed that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

The government offered conflicting details throughout the day, once saying the detainees had suffocated to death in the van from tear gas to suppress an escape attempt, but later insisting that the Islamists died in a prison where they were taken.

In either case, the deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time those killed were in government custody at the time.

There are few things more brutal than killing prisoners.  But the answer to the question, is the U. S. doing everything it can or is it doing nothing, that answer is yes. The U. S. is doing everything it can because doing nothing is all it can do, it has absolutely no influence in this matter.

Yes, the U. S. could cut off military and other aid to Egypt.  Doing to would not matter a whit.  It would make no difference other than making some politicians feel good.  The new reality is that the U. S. is a world power, but that power is very limited, and it is non-existent in the internal affairs of Egypt. 

Sorry interventionists, your day is over.  Not because you are not right to want this nation to do something about a horror, but because reality trumps fantasy.   Always has, always will.