Sixty years ago this week, the CIA directed a coup of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.
Sixty years later, the United States financially supported groups and politicians who fomented unrest in Egypt, leading to the coup of Egypt's democratically elected government.
How is it that U.S. presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama have duped the world into thinking the U.S. is on the side of democracy and human rights when it supports repressive autocrats, bombs civilians, tortures people, has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and spies on its own citizens?
Why should innocent people in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine and Cuba, among others, have to suffer so the United States can embark on its quest of full spectrum dominance?
Is there any way for citizens of the United States to understand how insulting it would be to people in those countries to hear American leaders talk about "national security" and "democracy"?
How can Egyptian leaders kill their own people and have it be OK with the U.S.?Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death for killing 148 of his own citizens. War on Iraq was sold, in part, because Saddam "killed his own people".
The Egyptian government killed as many as 1,000 of its own citizens last week, yet they're not "the bad guys" in the eyes of Washington.
The double-standard is obvious -- if you don't bow down to U.S. demands, Washington will come after you if you mow down protesters. But if you play ball with the U.S., you are free to kill your own people. And in the case of the military junta in Egypt, not only do you get spared the wrath of the U.S., you also get $1.3 billion in military assistance.
The Obama administration isn't cutting ties with the violent government of Egypt because doing so could slow down pursuit of U.S. world domination. Even warmongering, xenophobes like John McCain and Lindsey Graham are calling on the Obama administration to label what happened in Egypt as a coup. And with the pending release of Hosni Mubarak from jail, the Egyptian military junta needs a reality check before the country descends into further chaos. The U.S. has the power to help calm the situation by stopping military aid and by sincerely condemning violence against Egyptian protesters. But many are lobbying Washington to turn a blind eye to what is happening in strategically important Egypt.
AIPACAccording to Foreign Policy in Focus, "AIPAC ['America's pro-Israel lobby'], which was credited with helping kill an amendment to cut Egyptian aid in July [while the Muslim Brotherhood was in power], is now operating behind the scenes in private meetings with lawmakers to keep alive Cairo's funding, congressional aides from both political parties said."
Clearly, the Israeli government sees a friend in Egypt's de facto leader Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who was educated at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania.
ImperialistsAccording to the New York Times, "Most nations, including many close allies of the United States, require up to a week's notice before American warplanes are allowed to cross their territory. Not Egypt, which offers near-automatic approval for military overflights, to resupply the war effort in Afghanistan or to carry out counterterrorism operations in the Middle East, Southwest Asia or the Horn of Africa. Losing that route could significantly increase flight times to the region."
"Egypt has been a cornerstone for the U.S. military presence in the Middle East," said James Phillips, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
During the past year, more than 2,000 U.S. military aircraft flew through Egyptian airspace, supporting missions in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East, according to U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the region.
U.S. weapon manufacturersMost people are aware that by refusing to label what happened in Egypt as a "coup," the U.S. is still allowed to give "aid" to Egypt's non-elected government. U.S. weapon manufacturers surely are lobbying Washington to maintain this position since much of the $1.3 billion U.S. taxpayers send to Egypt ends up being used to purchase military equipment from U.S. weapon makers like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. "In large part, there are U.S. jobs that are reliant on the U.S.-Egypt strong military-to-military relationship," a senior State Department official said in 2012.
Washington will do what's best for the EmpireUltimately, the United States will do what it needs to do to assure that its pursuit of world domination is unhindered, regardless of what that means for people around the world. If that means supporting dictators who oppress their own people, as in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Ethiopia and now Egypt, Washington will do so.
Egypt's brutal interim leader General Sisi will likely have a short shelf life because his supporters in Washington will be pressured to find someone less offensive. The U.S. has certainly already sent out the (ironically named) National Endowment for Democracy and USAID to help secure the next leader of Egypt -- someone who will be a tool of the United States -- as the people of Egypt suffer and the U.S. Empire chugs along.