By Dan Boylan
With cropped hair, lightweight combat boots and body armor, thugs understood how clearly they made their point by simply fingering the triggers of their AK-47s. The American who stood nearby probably found a long afternoon shadow to watch them from as they ransacked his Cairo office.
The American is a lean, 36-year-old with a bit of twinkle in his eye. He is the country director for the International Republican Institute (IRI), a US-funded pro-democracy organization that has monitored Egypt’s ongoing parliamentary elections. His name is Sam LaHood and he happens to be US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s son. He also happens to be a friend of mine.
In late December the thugs, accompanied by Egyptian officials, stormed IRI and 17 other pro-democracy and human rights organizations. They claimed Egypt would not tolerate foreign interference in its affairs. At Sam’s office, which they closed, they confiscated documents, computers and sealed the front door with wax.
Early last year Egyptians occupied Cairo’s Tahrir Square to end 30 years of rule by the dictator Hosni Mubarak. The Arab Spring inspired the world. But fast-forward a year and the democratic transition faces potential suffocation by an Egyptian military scrambling to control one of the world’s oldest civilizations.
Last weekend at Cairo International Airport, with a runway originally built by the US to serve Allied Forces in WWII, Egyptian officials barred Sam from boarding his plane. “I asked why I was denied and they said they didn’t know. I asked how to fix it, and they said they didn’t know,” Sam said. His flight to Dubai departed without him.
Last time I saw Sam was actually in Dubai, the Casablanca of the 9/11 wars, a few years back. We had met in 2005 at the US Embassy, Baghdad, at the height of the war’s tragedy and chaos and at first I was reticent. During that time, his father was a Republican Congressman. When you are deep inside headquarters at war, the last person you wanted to deal with was another soft son of Washington posing as an operative. Such men bumbled all over Baghdad.
Sam was the opposite. He operated like his father Ray, who in 2009 crossed isles to serve as the highest-ranking Republican in President Barrack Obama’s administration. Ray advocates progressive transportation policy. Ray believes in reality.
In Baghdad, Sam put country and reality above delusion and buried himself in the details of Saddam Hussein’s trial. He quickly proved himself worthy of the old adage: amateurs talk grand strategy and professionals talk logistics.
When Sam and I caught up in Dubai we did so at a massive new media campus bursting with Arabic language news channels and media outlets. We both knew Al-Qaeda and the Iraq War were not direct military threats to the United States. Instead they were direct propaganda threats to our nation’s relations with the greater Muslim world.
There at that sparkly Dubai Media City campus you could see Middle Eastern media brightening before our eyes. You could almost feel the Arab spring. You could easily worry about how America would navigate such events.
Last I heard, Sam, a genuine American field operative who fights for the right reasons, was holed up in the US Embassy waiting for Egypt’s government to either try and jail him or send him home.
Outside the embassy, a chaotic, beautiful and ancient people with their pyramids, Nile River and 81 million souls wonders what America means these days. I’m sure Sam showed them our best when they let him.
Get home safe Sam.
Dan Boylan spent much of last decade as a media advisor to the US Military and US State Department in more than 30 countries.
