The heavy-hitting lobbyists of Washington, D.C. [capital city
of the U.S. Empire] hired by the Egyptian military dictators to spread their
propaganda among the movers and shakers of D.C. and protect that oppressive
regime's “interests” (namely keep the money for weaponry flowing and don't
impinge on how they run their country) have resigned their “Egyptian account”
after a son of a U.S. cabinet secretary and 5 other Americans working for U.S.
organizations recently raided by the Egyptian military, were prevented from
leaving Egypt. Apparently the lobbyists felt they went as far out on a limb for
this particular gang of killers as they could. Holding a child of a U.S.
cabinet secretary hostage- hard to tap dance around that one. [On Monday January
30th it was reported that 2 of the Americans are hiding out in the
U.S. Embassy in Cairo.]
The lobbyists were taking heat already for trying to defend
the original raids on the U.S. organizations, which are U.S.-funded and
supposedly support development of “democracy.” Seems their “talking points”
didn't go over too well among the D.C. elites. Obviously their ability to
“advocate” on behalf of other clients would be compromised by the stench of
disloyalty arising from defending a regime that is targeting U.S. agents. [On
Sunday January 29th, a gaggle of Egyptian generals flew into
Washington to do their own lobbying of the executive and legislative branches
of the U.S. Government.]
The lobbyists are the “Livingston Group,” based around
influence-peddling former Lousiana GOP Representative and adulterer Robert L.
Livingston; the “Moffett Group,” the kernel of which is former Connecticut
Democratic Toby Moffett, an alleged liberal; and the “Podesta Group,” which
revolves around Tony Podesta, a Clinton gang henchman who currently is tight
with the Obama regime, and who is rated by the NY Times as “one of the
most powerful lobbyists in Washington.” [Source: article referenced at end.]
These 3 Musketeers of amorality formed a joint operation for the purpose of
protecting Mubarak by keeping the U.S. in his corner, called the “PLM Group.”
(Gee, wonder what those clever initials stand for. Probably not Pusillanimous
Loathsome Motherfuckers.) According to filings required by law, this “group”
raked in about $4.5 million since 2007 doing this dirty work.
Moffitt is a “liberal,” and Livingston a “conservative,” and
I guess Podesta would be ”moderate” or “centrist.” Which just goes to show how
those ideological distinctions can actually be meaningless.
The embargoed son in question is Sam LaHood, spawn of
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The organizations the military raided a
few weeks ago were “Freedom [sic] House,” a cold war organization which
specialized in anti-Soviet propaganda, and which even today is mostly funded by
the U.S. Government through the State Department; and two “Institutes”
affiliated with the two corporate oligarchic U.S. parties; the “International
Republican Institute,” and the “International Democratic Institute.” (You probably can guess which is affiliated
with which party.) Both are entirely funded by Congress (i.e. we taxpayers),
and were created to outsource the kinds of political operations the CIA used to
perform. Since those operations were thoroughly exposed over time, the U.S.
decided that, what the heck, let's just
be brazen and do them openly. Doing them covertly highlighted their
illegitimacy (interfering in internal political affairs of sovereign countries,
often to subvert existing governments). Doing it overtly is not only easier and
more efficient than having to set up multiple cut-outs and conduits and engage
in serpentine maneuvers to hide what they're doing, it also enables the U.S. to
act like it's perfectly natural to interfere in the political affairs of other
nations.
Of course, the U.S. doesn't allow foreign governments to run
such operations in the U.S., but that's different, because the U.S. are the Good
Guys. (An analogous situation would be a foreign government funding and
advising the despised Occupy movement, for example.)
As for the reasons the U.S. spends some pocket change to
finance these beachheads of U.S. ideology in Egypt in the first place, one is
to hedge its bets on who's up and who's down in Egypt, and second is to feign
sympathy for people struggling for democracy in the Arab world, while
continuing to prop up the dictatorship with $1.5 billion a year in aid,
mostly for weapons, and tear gas to use on demonstrators, “rubber” bullets to
shoot out their eyes with, etc.
In response to holding
the Americans semi-hostage and exposing them to the tender mercies of the
Egyptian legal system, such as it is- at least they (probably) won't be “tried”
in military “court”- the U.S. let out a low growl, hinting that it might
suspend the payout to the Egyptian military (an ongoing bribe for staying
pacific towards Israel, selling it cheap natural gas, and helping oppress the
Palestinians in the Gaza strip, which it has a history of doing anyway, before
Israel conquered the territory in 1967).
Technically of course the Egyptians are correct: the U.S.
groups really are “subverting” the military government with their mostly
verbal support for greater democracy in Egypt, since more democracy can only
undermine the military's power. That's what subversion is- eroding the basis of
rule for rulers. Thus the Occupy movement in the U.S. is indeed subversive,
whatever it's conscious intent, and the politicians are “right” in a strictly
utilitarian sense to unleash their police punishers on them all across the
nation. Of course, from a human perspective, this is totally immoral and
vicious and underlines the illegitimacy of the rule of these creeps. The
creeps would disagree, of course, but that's the beauty of living in a “free”
country- we can disagree about that and the worse that happens to us is we get
pepper sprayed, and beaten, and arrested, and jailed, and have our property
stolen/destroyed by the state, and once in awhile we get murdered. And much
fewer of us are blinded by the police- or brain-damaged as the Oakland police
did to that military vet for the crime of standing at a protest- than in Egypt.
I should say- much fewer so far. (1)
One note about “Freedom House” before I move on: its main
propaganda stunt was issuing maps of the world that rated countries as “free,”
“partially free,” or “unfree.” Of course the U.S. was “free.” All socialist
countries were “unfree.” U.S.-backed dictatorships, like the murderous regimes
of Latin America, were “partially free.” There's a lot more that demonstrates
that “Freedom House” was nothing but a cold war propaganda mill, but that makes
the point sufficiently for now. Castro never killed thousands of Cubans with death
squads, never tortured prisoners, etc. Dictator, yes, but those a thousand
times worse got an indulgence from “Freedom House.” Of course the very word
“freedom” was long ago appropriated as a banner for U.S. ideology, used in
ideological warfare against U.S. enemies.
We know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that these three groups have
long been sore points with the Egyptian rulers, who complained to the U.S. Also
they were actually illegal under Egyptian law, insofar as they were
unregistered. (Kind of like AIPAC being an unregistered lobbyist for Israel.)
During the raids, computers, cellphones, documents were seized. This is of
course reminiscent of how progressive dissidents have been treated for years in
the U.S., most recently during the destruction of the Occupy Wall Street
movement's encampment at “Liberty” nee Zuccotti Park in New York City,
during which the regime of Michael Bloomberg Billionaire seized and destroyed
tens of thousands of dollars of personal property, deliberately smashing seized laptops and ruining 5,000 books the
occupiers had assembled for their library (unlike the Egyptian military, which
apparently did not destroy the seized property); and the Obama regime's
repression of Midwestern peace activists, whose homes have been raided and their
computers, personal papers, etc. seized by the FBI pursuant to an
“investigation” by political hitman, Chicago-based U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald. A grand jury has been empaneled to force activists to provide intel
on peace activities. See, dissent IS a crime in America,. All these activists
ever do is protest nonviolently. Of course in many ways Obama has been more
repressive than his predecessor, but that's a topic for another essay. In any
event, I have written a good deal about his various crimes against human
rights.
Speaking of repressive raids, these predate the Palmer raids
after World War I, going back to the 19th century. And under FBI instigation,
police conducted raids with premeditated murder in mind against Black Panther
Party headquarters in various cities. So the Egyptian raids on the U.S.
operatives is really kid glove stuff compared to what the U.S. does, regardless of the outraged squawkings of the
U.S. media and government. (As usual, it's redundant to add “hypocritical.” The
U.S. establishment is virtually always hypocritical.) In any event, it's been
standard procedure for the last decade at least for police to “preemptively”
raid the headquarters of protesters they don't like to confiscate (steal) their
equipment, banners, puppets, sound equipment, etc. Oftentimes bogus “terrorism”
or other criminal charges are fabricated. This occurs at attempts to protest
WTC meetings, political conventions, whatever. Mass roundups are common, and of
course the usual teargassing and clubbings to “disperse” protesters. The FBI is
engaged in an ongoing criminal conspiracy with other Federal repressive
agencies and state and local “law enforcement” to conduct this repression and
fabricate criminal charges, commit premeditated acts of violence, and make
false arrests.
Egypt has been a military oligarchy since officers led by
Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the King and ended the monarchy in the
early 1950s, becoming the first military dictator of the modern era. He was
succeeded by Anwar Sadat, hailed by the U.S. for splitting the Arab bloc
against Israel by trading peace and recognition of Israel for getting back the
Sinai peninsula. (Although the Israelis tried to chisel the Egyptians by
holding onto a desirable resort location at Taba, which they ultimately had
pried loose from their fingers.) After Sadat was assassinated by Islamic
fundamentalist soldiers angered by the rapproachement with Israel, as they
marched past Sadat during a military parade, his right hand man and “Vice
President,” General Hosni Mubarak, formerly head of the air force, became
“President.”
We don't see a fourth overt dictator now- instead we have an oligarchy, a group or class
dictatorship, whose informal head is the ranking senior officer, one Field
Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, longtime self-effacing backer of Mubarak
until it became expedient to chuck him overboard. Maybe the generals were
chafing under 30 years of Pharaonic pretensions by Mubarak, and the apparent
plan to have his son inherit his dictatorship, a la the Sadats of Syria.
Maybe the Mubarak clique was getting too greedy too. Anyway, with winks and
nods, the U.S. and the military signalled to each other to withdraw support
from Mubarak. (Cynical, opportunistic American rights now excoriate Obama for
“abandoning a loyal U.S. ally” and opening the door to fundamentalists, blah
blah. What can you say about such assholes? They talk out of both sides of
their mouths, prattling om about “freedom,” “democracy,” “liberty,” -but never
human rights, tellingly- while backing any and all dictators who will play ball
with the U.S. and oppress their own people to the putative benefit of American
“interests” (rarely spelled out, although doing what Israel wants is invariably
one of these “interests “in the Middle East, it seems).
Of course, nobody likes the title “dictator” these days. They
prefer to pretend they're democrats. As
is the custom for modern dictators, Mubarak, over his 30 year tyranny,
periodically staged “elections” in which he “won” “reelection” to another
“term.” Since no opposition was ever allowed to organize enough to build a big
enough following to really challenge him (and fools who actually ran against
him were usually clapped in prison after the “elections,” which tended to deter
anyone of real stature from challenging him) he may even have “won.” Certainly his election-stealing went more
smoothly than the 2000 stolen U.S. presidential election. (The GOP managed to steal 2004 under the
radar, in Ohio.)
Egypt certainly is a dictatorship. The military rulers
control the broadcast media, which they have used to blatantly lie about the
current unrest and deny all the killings, maimings, and woundings they've been
committing. In the year since Mubarak got his walking papers, 12,000 dissidents
have been sentenced in military “courts” to prison, often bloggers guilty of
“insulting” the military. This is more than were railroaded by these courts
during Mubarak's 30 year reign. Also torture is routine, which means it is
institutionalized, as is sexual degradation of female prisoners. (They
“inspect” their vaginas, for example, calling this “virginity tests.” Very
important to check women for virginity. See how virtuous the military goons
are?)
(1)
The U.S. power structure just underlined my
point the very day I wrote this, Sunday 1/29/12. The police in Oakland, CA, and
New York City made mass arrests of Occupy movement people and reporters on the
scene. In New York 300 were arrested, mostly using the standard bogus catch-all
charge of “disorderly conduct” as the excuse. (The ones the cops beat up were
charges with “assault,” also standard operating procedure.) In Oakland, the
police went on another violence spree with their flash-bang grenades, beanbag
projectiles, tear gas, etc., and arrested 400 people to prevent the movement
from establishing a base in an abandoned building. This illustrates the usually
invisible use of “Property rights” as a means of repression. You don’t have the
right to actually be anywhere without capital to purchase space in the world.
The Oakland political machinery already
has ruled the parks and streets- public spaces- off limits for the movement.
They are determined, as are all the ruling powers in the U.S., to prevent this
movement from taking hold. They see what happened in Egypt in elsewhwere. And
the U.S. has plenty of experience smothering nascent movements in their
cradles. [Of course the corporate media mostly blacks it all out, except for
brief mentions that justify the police “actions” and demonize the protesters as
violent, unruly, even filthy. An example of covering the butts of their thug
enforcers is on page one of the Wall
Street Journal the day after, January 30th: “Violence flared in
Oakland, Calif., between authorities and Occupy protesters in a planned
showdown.” No, violence didn’t “flare between.” The police violently attacked
the protest movement. And “planned showdown” is a sinister falsehood, positing
a criminal conspiracy by protesters to confront police. You have to go to
genuine journalists to find out what happened, such as at democracynow.org, “Occupy Oakland: Over 400 Arrested as PoliceFire Tear Gas, Flash Grenades at Protesters,” 1/30/12.]
Predictably, an Oakland pol has
already played the terrorism card, calling the attempt to set up a base in an
abandoned building “domestic terrorism.”* That's a signal to the police, like
telling a dog “sic ‘em!” Branding dissent “terrorism” is a standard move from
the repression playbook. With the draconian laws pushed through using the
9/11/01 attacks as justification- the American rulers’ very own Reichstag fire,
not just their “Pearl Harbor” to justify invading Iraq and waging permanent
global “war,”- they now have the means to strip people of all rights and
imprison them indefinitely, even without trial in military gulag, as per the
“defense approrpriations” bill just signed by Obama. (“Liberal” Senator Carl
Levin was behind the indefinite imprisonment without trial, charges, legal
representation section of the bill.)
*[Oakland City Council member Ignacio
de la Fuente: “It’s an escalation with our—I think that basically what, in my
opinion, amounts to kind of a domestic terrorism, when these people start
taking buildings, and they start costing the city incredible amount of
resources.” Cost “them” money- taxpayer money, which protesters are forced to
pay too- and you’re a terrorist. The definition of “terrorism” just keeps
expanding. Pretty soon looking at one of these oppressors wrong will be a “terrorist
act.” I mean, what if they got scared? That’s terrorism!]
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