>> welcome to al jazeera, i'm tony harris. former egyptian president hosni mubarak is expected to be released in the next 24 hours a court ordered him to be freed while prosecutors investigate corruption allegations against him. the u.n. is holding an emergency meeting to discuss reports of a chemical weapons report in syria. hundreds of people died in an attack near damascus. the syrian government denies the charges but there are many calls for the u.n. to investigate. >> the secretary general is aware that a number of the member states have expressed

grave concern about the possible use of chemical weapons in syria. the secretary general reaffirms his determination of a thorough investigation into the alleged incidents brought against the state. >> bradley manning was dishonorly discharged and forfeited of his pay. i'm tony harris.

welcome. it's violent and turbulent in

we need -. and there have been mistakes.

>> one is a coalition building and how do you talk about democracy in to what he had forth as the leading country and how it fell apart.

my name is jonathan betz. i'm from dallas, texas, and i'm an anchor for al jazeera america. >>my name is ranjani chakraborty, i'm from houston, texas. >>i'm kim bondy. >>nicole deford. >>and i'm from new orleans. >>san francisco, california. when i was a little kid, i just really loved the news. >>news was always important in my family. >>i knew as a kid that was exactly what i wanted to do. >>i learned to read by reading the newspaper with my great-grandfather every morning. >>and i love being able to tell other people stories. >>this is it, i want to be a part of this. >>this is what really drove me to al jazeera america.

>> very much followed one of the

two main camps. when they were aligned with the brotherhood and morsi, they kind of towed that line because they were against th. and like she said, they have no problem with a crackdown on the brotherhood by the military. and right now they really don't have leadership that is in the public sphere. they don't have someone who can speak on their behalf. they don't have someone who represents their opinions, and that makes it very difficult for them to really have a voice in decision-making. >> the military is talking about cracking down on terrorism. and here in america, how we react, how is that playing back home in egypt? what are people seeing when they hear that kind of dialogue from

military leaders? >> based on my conversations with friends and family at home there is an alternate perspective. the media is controlled by the diehard military supporters of the coup. one problem is there is no opposition media. there is misinformation problem. and then the other problem that may be coming from the american playbook post 9/11 to scare the population into supporting aggressive and heavy-handed response to a problem. most egyptians are very.

the staff, that period was a big disappointment. so many of them feel maybe they should give up on democracy, focus on economy, and if people have to die, so be it.

>> welcome back. you're watching inside story.

president obama condemned the egyptian military's crackdown on protesters, but he stopped short of suspending aid. the u.s. has given military ai d to egypt since 1979 as part of the egyptian-israeli peace deal. the egyptians use that money in one of three ways. first of all buying weapons, tanks, helicopters anti-air missiles purchased from u.s. companies. then there are equipment upgrades, and to keep the equipment in working order also through a network of american and egyptian companies. we have associate professor of the texas a&m school of law, and in atlanta lawrence, fellow of american progress lawrence, what is the u.sdoes the u.s. need fr?

>> they would like stability in the region. the military right now is providing stability as they did on under saddat and mubarak. we would like to see people take control of their own destiny. we would like to see people have the economic opportunities they should have, which we were hoping would come under president morsi when you had a democratic president. that didn't happen. so the united states is trying to balance it's competing interest. it wants stability in the region. it needs the egyptian military to keep control of the cyanide . on the other hand as the country

devalues that we have, you know, we have abhor and we're saddened by the things that the military is doing since they took power. we tried to talk them out of a lot of it, so we're not giving them all the aid that we used to, but we don't want to cut it off completely because we want to have some leverage. two things about the aid that people don't realize. that started in 1979. $1.3 billion in 2013 is a lot less than it was in 1979, and the saudis are more than willing to come in as well as the u.a.e. and take up whatever slack that we pull back on. >> now lawrence mentioned the sinai. why is that at the hard of this in some ways? >> well, i wrote a piece recently called "sinai's role in morsi's ouster." i showed the findings of my research which shows that i

think sinai was the determinative factor or one of the main determinative factors that decided they needed to intervene and oust morsi because ththe detear ration of sinai was happening rapidly. when morsi came into power it exponentially happene happened. you have this situation where you have anti-missiles, anti anti-tank, self proclaimed extremists coming in from abroad, and you had kind of the perfect storm. morsi's response was too soft for the military. i think the military thought that the national security of the country was at stake, and they had to interconvenient to get rid of him.

>> lawrence talked about the proportion of american dollars, and how they really are on the grand scale. where else is money coming from, and who is it going to. >> the brotherhood believe most of the money is coming from qatar, and they have their own significant business interests at the same time. they're also partially funding themselves. but the liberal camp does not really have financial resources, this has been one of their challenges because it has prevented them partially from building a significant presence in the political sphere. >> are we seeing perhaps an unique relationship right now between saudi arabia and israel in terms of their motivation and what happens in egypt? >> yes, their interests have definitely converged, and we know there is significant pressure from the israeli government on the u.s. to be more supportive of the military

regime and interim government in egypt. the other issue is that if the u.s.' influence in egypt wanes even further we'll see russia and china potentially establishing a beach head in the middle east by being supportive of the military, of course that is something that the u.s. national interests would be frightened by. >> what would that mean for egypt if russia and china get involved? >> there is a reshifting of foreign influence in egypt, and sisi is clearly making overtures to the gulf. there is influence. i want to make one statement as a law professor. it's one thing to say we don't want to lose our place in egypt but it's another thing to violate our own laws.

>> thanks for watching.