Don't Look Now, the Emperor has no Clothes!

The final outcome of the Egyptian revolution is unknown, but a clear result now evident to the world, is the exposure of US hypocrisy for its preaching’s on the virtues of democracy. The rest of the world has seen through our 30 year 1.3 billion dollar annual support of Mubarak, for even during the protests, Hillary Clinton supported the dictator, while US envoy to Egypt Frank Wisner, said it was “critical” that we support Mubarak, exposing the nakedness of advocating democracy while supporting dictatorships.

Amazingly however, some in this country do not comprehend that their country is an exporter and supporter of dictatorships around the world. For those in denial, and understandably it is difficult to admit your own government is hypocritical and supports dictators, consider a variety of countries around the world.

We are currently participating, with Israel, in the starvation of Gazans, because at our insistence they held and election, and to our shock and dismay Hamas emerged victorious in a legitimate election. Immediately the US and Israel teamed up with our faithful puppet dictator in Egypt, Mr. Mubarak, to starve Gazans until they reverse themselves and vote according to our wishes. The starvation continues today, and apparently will continue until Gazans reverse their vote. If they would only vote the way we want, they might be allowed to eat.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah has emerged as the controlling party, a situation we and Israel cannot accept, so we are doing our best to topple the government by rigging the investigation of the assassination of their Prime Minister, Rafiq Hariri. The US government is trying it’s best to rig this so Hezbollah will be blamed and discredited, and the citizens of Lebanon will then vote according to our wishes as well. Hezbollah has seen through the scheme, and exposed it to the citizens of Lebanon. Contrary to mainstream US propaganda, Hezbollah is not labeled as a “terrorist” organization by most countries in the world; only four nations, including the US, Israel, Canada, and the Netherlands, do. If the US can rig the investigation and blame Hezbollah for the assassination, it would be easier to convince other nations that Hezbollah is a “terrorist” organization. Hezbollah appears primarily interested in successfully resisting the frequent Israeli invasions of Lebanon, and providing for the social needs and defense of its people.

In nearby Haiti, a rigged election was held last November. At US insistence, the largest majority was excluded from participation, and Haitians resisted the interference by boycotting the election with 75% of eligible voters staying home. This is akin to Republicans excluding Democrats from the next election and claiming victory, which I am sure they would love to do, if allowed. Even after the boycotted failed November election, the US stepped in and helped create an election committee that changed the results of the November election by throwing out the second place finisher and elevating the third place finisher to second, allowing him to participate in an upcoming special runoff election.

The only democratic election ever held in Haiti saw the triumph of the people’s candidate, the former Jesuit priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The US however did not like Mr. Aristide, or his legitimate democratic victory, and participated in two attempts to overthrow him, finally succeeding and exiling him to a foreign nation forever. One of his major crimes and a reason for his ouster by the US was his insistence that the Haitian workers deserved a minimum wage of one dollar per day. Recently the notorious US backed former brutal dictator, Baby Doc Duvalier, who murdered and looted at will, and who was driven from power years ago, made his way back to Haiti, and the US remained silent about his return. Even more recently Jean-Bertrand Aristide announced his intention to return to Haiti. In the middle of the glorious Egyptian rebellion, Hillary Clinton made a quick and pretty secretive trip to Haiti, where she applied great pressure on the current government to push on with the rigged election, and also put tremendous pressure on the government to make sure that Aristide was not allowed to return to his country. Immediately after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the US government’s response was to send 27,000 soldiers, allegedly to prevent riots and looting, but the real purpose was to insure that Aristide loyalists could not attempt to bring the people’s choice back home. So much for democracy in Haiti.

Now that the people of Tunisia and Egypt have managed to overthrow their dictators, both backed and supported by the US government, the drive for democracy is spreading wildly throughout the Middle East. There are currently democratic struggles in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, and Djibouti, all of whom have brutal repressive governments, and all backed and supported by the US government.

A study of US interference in Latin and South America nations, and its support of repressive regimes, would encompass too much for this short piece, but may come later.

Don’t look now but the Emperor has no clothes; he is naked and exposed. The rhetoric regarding the spreading of democracy is just that; it is “feel good” rhetoric designed primarily for the naive public. The US government really does not want democracy; we have a special fondness for puppet dictators who will do our bidding by taking US bribe money, but that is apparently not sitting well with the protestors in the streets of all the dictatorships we support.

US duplicity in Egypt

While extolling democracy the Obama administration tiptoed through the struggle for democracy in Egypt trying not to offend anyone, but creating the appearance of supporting dictatorship in Egypt. He justified his lack of action by saying we did not want to interfere in Egyptian affairs, a specious argument because the US has been interfering for the past thirty years by propping up Mubarak and his military. We supported a brutal and murderous dictator for the past 30 years who could not have survived one minute without US backing, and to now argue that we did not want to interfere is disingenuous.

While praising the virtues of democracy in Egypt, at no time did the administration support the protests of millions and join the chant: “He must go”. Instead Obama repeatedly called for a “gradual transition” and suggested that Egyptians were incapable of setting up a fair election in 60 days. At no time did Obama, or anyone in his administration, call for a cessation of US aid to Mubarak pending a fair election certified by Jimmy Carter’s international organization.Indeed, some in the administration including Hillary Clinton called for US support of Mubarak even after the revolt had begun. Robert Fisk, journalist for The Independent, and generally recognized as one of the best journalists in the world, said: “Obama Administration Has Been Gutless and Cowardly in Dealing with the Mubarak Regime”1 and he described Hillary Clinton’s language regarding the rebellion as “cowardly.

Two nations in the world who did not like the happenings in Egypt were Israel and the US, with Netanyahu urging support of the Mubarak “regime” in Egypt, and urging Obama not to be too critical of Mubarak in the first days of the rebellion, for fear of undermining him. While stalling for time, the US held a series of talks and negotiations behind closed doors. Apparently we wanted to delay in order to secure the position of Suleiman in the next government. Because he was formerly a tool of the CIA , received military training in the US, was a lifelong friend of Mubarak, was the director of Egypt’s secret police for 10 years, worked with the US in carrying out our rendition program, is very close to the Egyptian military, is nicknamed the “torturer in chief” because of his brutal background, and most of all because Wikileaks cables indicate that was he was man that Israel wanted to emerge as the new “dictator”, we got behind him in the back rooms of closed door negotiations.

Israeli fondness for Suleiman is evidenced in headlines such as: London: Omar Suleiman, the new vice-president of Egypt, told the Israelis he wanted to start "cleansing the Sinai" of Palestinian arms smugglers, according to leaked cables.2
And this one: WikiLeaks: Suleiman vowed to prevent Hamas rule in Gaza. 3 Suleiman, long a quisling of the US and Israel, was being “set up” behind the scenes, as the next dictator of Egypt.

Adam Shatz in the London Book of Review article After Mubarak said:
Mubarak, when he stands down, is not likely to be missed by many people in Egypt, where he has pledged to spend his last days, but he will be missed in Washington and, above all, in Tel Aviv. Mubarak and Omar Suleiman, now the interim vice president, worked closely with Israel on everything from the Gaza blockade to intelligence-gathering; they allowed Israeli warships into the Suez Canal to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza from Sudan, and did their best to stir up tensions between Fatah and Hamas. 4

Further proof of Israel’s dismay is reported by New Zealand’s Scoop Independent News in Franklin Lamb’s article: As Tahrir Square goes so goes the Middle East? which states: Former Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer has defended Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, saying his collapse will be a “tremendous loss” for Israel. The former army general praised Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for supporting Israel for thirty years, Israel's Arutz Sheva newspaper reported. 5

The New York Times on February 4, 2011 in its article U.S. Trying to Balance Israel’s Needs in the Face of Egyptian Reform stated the obvious by saying: The Israelis are saying, après Mubarak, le deluge,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. And that, in turn, Mr. Levy said, “gets to the core of what is the American interest in this. It’s Israel. It’s not worry about whether the Egyptians are going to close down the Suez Canal, or even the narrower terror issue. It really can be distilled down to one thing, and that’s Israel.” 6

So once again, following a tradition of history, the US will support a dictator in Egypt, not of course because it does anything good for the US, but because that’s what Israel wants, and most observant folks have come to realize it’s the tail wagging the dog.

Time will tell how this will play out, but make no mistake about it, we will do our very best to insure it is not good for the Egyptian people nor the American public.


1 http://iranian.com/main/news/2011/02/03/robert-fisk-obama-administration-has-been-gutless-and-cowardly-dealing-mubarak-regim

2 http://www.zeenews.com/news686373.html

3 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4027149,00.html

4 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n04/adam-shatz/after-mubarak

5 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1102/S00040/as-tahrir-square-goes-so-goes-the-middle-east.htm

6 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05israel.html?_r=1

Obama's lost moment and failure in Egypt

This will be very difficult for Obama supporters to accept, but the violence in Egypt is due in part to disastrous American foreign policy. Recent US administrations have little if any sense of what the feeling of the street has been in Egypt; and because Mr. Mubarak was happy with his 1.3 billion dollar bribe each year, the administration naively assumed the street was happy. During the past few administrations there has been a cleansing within the state department, and anyone who showed sympathy for either the growth of democracy in Egypt, or sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people, has been driven from the state department by forces loyal to Israel, who only see the Middle East from an Israeli perspective. The end result is the US had no real “ears on the ground” in the streets of Egypt, and the Obama administration was caught flat footed and surprised at the rapid demise of Mr. Mubarak.

When the masses took to the street, the same folks in the state department continued to look at things from the perspective of Israel, and therefore were reluctant to jump on the bandwagon of democracy. Israel is frightened of democracy in Arab countries, because they fear the masses will not support the starvation of Gaza, or be as willing to take their cues from Israel and the US. When the revolt became widespread, and hatred for dictatorship became evident, with a protest of over 2 million in Tahrir Square, Obama and the state department began an exercise in doublespeak. Hillary Clinton’s language toward the revolt can best be described as “cowardly”, and the President took the political “fence position” by trying to play both sides. An opportunity to show true leadership by aggressively supporting the movement for democracy was lost, and so was the reputation of the US. Once again the hypocrisy of the administration’s constant rhetoric about the spread of democracy was exposed by inaction and unwillingness to really stand for democracy in Egypt. Some argue that Obama’s position pleased no one at all.

The Obama administration had many effective cards to play, but chose to bluff with inaction and useless rhetoric. He could have immediately called for the resignation of Mubarak, which would have been admired by the street of every Arab nation in the Middle East, but he chose rhetoric. Another option might have been to announce that all aid to Egypt was immediately suspended, and would not be resumed until Egypt had a fair and democratic election, as certified by an organization such as Jimmy Carter’s. He choose not to do this either.

Instead the President seemingly followed the orders of Mr. Netanyahu, who urged him not to say anything derogatory about Mr. Mubarak, fearing comments would undermine what authority Mubarak had left. Clearly Israel was quite content with the dictator Mubarak, for he took US money and towed the line of both Israel and the US. A democratic Egypt might not be so subservient.

A game changing moment in history was lost by Obama’s unwillingness to get behind the movement for democracy, as he had done in places such as Iran. Comparing Obama’s enthusiasm for the street protests and demonstrations against the Iranian government, with his lack of support for protestors seeking democracy in Egypt, speaks volumes.

Now it appears the peaceful protests have turned ugly, and violent forces have emerged as things dragged on, and the Mubarak forces have regrouped.
The President bears some responsibility for this violence, for his inaction was interpreted as tacit support for the dictator. His hesitancy allowed the Mubarak forces to retaliate. Had the president acted decisively, by immediately calling for Mubarak to leave, the issue would have been pretty much resolved, for Mubarak could not survive withouy US support. The kind of government that would have emerged after the fall of Mubarak was the unknown that frightened the president to inaction. Someone must have calculated it was better to stand by the puppet dictator, than to risk getting a government that would be unwilling to do our bidding, or the bidding of Israel.

It now is apparent that the reason for the stalling and inaction was purposeful. The administration has been secretly jockeying for position in selecting the next leader of Egypt. Sources say the administration is pushing for the newly appointed Vice President of Egypt, who formerly was the Director of Egypt’s Intelligence Directorate for ten years. Suleiman, the Vice President, the torturer in chief for ten years, is also very close to the army, and has established ties to the US and the CIA; and indeed some suggest that the US is merely trying to substitute one dictator for a new one.

It is entirely possible that there will be massive violence with things spinning completely out of control, and it would not be a surprise to see the mysterious “suicide bombers” emerge in Egypt, as they have in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Unfortunately a moment in history was lost by a President who appeared to be like the proverbial deer in the headlights, and many in the Arab world continue to see the US as strong on the rhetoric of democracy, but very weak on actions to promote true democracy anywhere in the Middle East.