The Bush administration talks about oppression in Burma but turns a blind eye to the massive crack down in Egypt on opposition. And why is this?
Chris Hedges of Truthdig Writes a Must Read editorial on our relationship with Egypt, that tortures for us in exchange for billions in US aid.
"We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens’ expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies we tell to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, the despotism we empower abroad will become the despotism we soon experience at home. "
Here is an example of the great job that Egypt does for us with your money.
Those rounded up by American or Egyptian security agents are never granted legal rights. The abductors are often hooded or masked...and whisked to Egypt or perhaps Morocco or Jordan. When these suspects arrive in Cairo they vanish into black holes as swiftly as dissident Egyptians. It is the same dirty and seamless process.
This is great article and I urge you to read it. It shows that no one is ignorant of what is going on in American torture gulags. The only people who don’t know are the Americans.
The United States has subsidized Egypt’s armed forces with over $38 billion in aid. Egypt receives about $2 billion annually—$1.3 billion in foreign military financing and about $815 million in economic and support fund assistance—making it the second largest regular recipient of conventional U.S. military and economic aid, after Israel.
We have nothing left to say to the Mubarak regime. The torture practiced in Egypt is the torture we employ for our own ends. The cries that rise up from these fetid cells in Egypt condemn not only the Mubarak dictatorship but the moral rot that has beset the American state.
I think Bono put it perfectly, and it was edited out at a recent publically broadcast awards ceremony: You don't have to become a monster to stop a monster.
We have become the very thing we seek to destroy.
That’s where we are folks, morally, about where Egypt is. Great job Bushies. Great job wingnuts.
Hope you’re fucking happy with what you’ve done to my country.
http://www.truthdig.com/...