America Has Long Supported Egypt's Dictatorial Leadership → Washingtons Blog
America Has Long Supported Egypt's Dictatorial Leadership - Washingtons Blog

Friday, January 28, 2011

America Has Long Supported Egypt's Dictatorial Leadership


As I wrote Tuesday:

Egypt’s president Mubarak is a yes-man to the U.S., and the fall of the Tunisian and now Egyptian leaders are really the ouster of U.S. puppet regimes in the Middle East.

Indeed, Egypt was for many years the second-biggest recipient of American aid in the Middle East, behind Israel). As leading military publication Janes notes:
Egypt is reliant on US military aid to finance major equipment and this is worth just over 25 per cent of the total defence spend in 2008, US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is fixed at USD1.3 billion annually.
America has also long provided training to Egypt's army. See this and this.

And as Free Press notes, American companies have helped to maintain Egyptian leaders' dictatorial powers:
An American company — Boeing-owned Narus of Sunnyvale, CA — has sold Egypt "Deep Packet Inspection" (DPI) equipment that can be used to help the regime track, target and crush political dissent over the Internet and mobile phones.

The power to control the Internet and the resulting harm to democracy are so disturbing that the threshold for using DPI must be very high. That’s why, before DPI becomes more widely used around the world and at home, the U.S. government must establish clear and legitimate criteria for preventing the use of such surveillance and control technology.

In addition, Egypt has long tortured prisoners, and the U.S. used extraordinary rendition to fly prisoners to Egypt to be tortured. As Wikipedia notes:

In a New Yorker interview with CIA veteran Michael Scheuer, an author of the rendition program under the Clinton administration, writer Jane Mayer noted, "In 1995, American agents proposed the rendition program to Egypt, making clear that it had the resources to track, capture, and transport terrorist suspects globally — including access to a small fleet of aircraft. Egypt embraced the idea... 'What was clever was that some of the senior people in Al Qaeda were Egyptian,' Scheuer said. 'It served American purposes to get these people arrested, and Egyptian purposes to get these people back, where they could be interrogated.' Technically, U.S. law requires the CIA to seek 'assurances' from foreign governments that rendered suspects won’t be tortured. Scheuer told me that this was done, but he was 'not sure' if any documents confirming the arrangement were signed."[30] However, Scheuer testified before Congress that no such assurances were received.[31] He further acknowledged that treatment of prisoners may not have been "up to U.S. standards." However, he stated,

This is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program’s goal was to protect America, and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.[32]

Thereafter, with the approval of President Clinton and a presidential directive (PDD 39), the CIA instead elected to send suspects to Egypt, where they were turned over to the Egyptian Mukhabarat [Egypt's intelligence service].

Vice President Biden's attempt to defend President Mubarak by saying he's "not a dictator" is like Nixon saying "I am not a crook."

And the statement of CNBC's Erin Burnett to the effect that the U.S. must support Middle Eastern dictators to keep cheap oil flowing doesn't really help.

Make no mistake ... a revolution in Egypt is a refutation of American policy.

And see this.


3 comments:

  1. Great post and great links. Very helpful for putting this into historical context. Keep up the outstanding work of outing the truth on this blog!

    ReplyDelete
  2. And America is installing a new dictator as well.

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  3. Mubarak is just another in a long line of dictators “made in America,” so to speak. These sorts of monsters are trained, funded, armed and aided by our military with the express purpose of subverting governments around the world! Of course, aiding Mubarak is completely in line with America’s lengthy history of meddling in the affairs of completely sovereign nations, seeking more puppet regimes for the US to control!

    Here are a few quick examples:

    School of the Americas:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_for_Security_Cooperation

    “School of the Americas” is a facility of our own Department of Defense. Yet, this place has been a LITERAL TRAINING GROUND FOR TERRORISTS in South America! Shamefully, our Latin neighbor’s BIGGEST human rights violators, including DICTATORS, DRUG SMUGGLERS & CORRUPT POLICE, graduated from THIS SCHOOL! Their pictures of more notorious graduates, like Manuel Noriega and Augusto Pinochet, line the halls of the school, to CELEBRATE the grisely “achievements” their names carry!

    Saddam Hussein was also SUPPORTED, FUNDED and ARMED by our government in the past:

    Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein:
    The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984
    http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

    United States Support for Iraq During the Iran–Iraq War:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war

    Don’t forget about the USA’s toppling of IRAN’S DEMOCRACY in 1953, and our installation of dictator General Fazlollah Zahedi!

    Our CIA, at the request of the BRITISH GOVERNMENT (and its OIL companies), OVERTHREW THE DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF IRAN!!! This endeavor was called “OPERATION AJAX“:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ajax

    Sadly, the reason our government later supported Saddam was because it was still trying to clean up the GIGANTIC MESS IT STARTED 30 YEARS EARLIER!

    Also, don’t forget the USA’s toppling of PAKISTAN’S DEMOCRACY in 1977, and our installation of dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq:

    “Military coup in Pakistan with U.S. support. Army Chief Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrows the civilian government and hangs Prime *Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1979 after a sham trial.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coups_d%27%C3%A9tat_and_coup_attempts#1970_-_1979

    ReplyDelete

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