Who would have thought that a trial in Cuba and a revolution in Egypt would combine to expose the hypocrisy of the U.S. government?

In Cuba, a two-day trial of a U.S. government contractor named Alan Gross has wrapped up. No, there was no jury trial. In Cuba, people don't have a right to a jury trial, any more than they do at Guantánamo Bay. A panel of judges determines the guilt of the accused, just like at Gitmo. U.S. officials are complaining that Gross was held for a year without a trial, forgetting that at Gitmo there are men who have been held for 10 years without a trial. On neither side of Cuba are prisoners accorded the right of speedy trial.

But the real point is what Gross allegedly did to warrant a criminal prosecution in Cuba. Working for a U.S.A.I.D. "democracy-spreading" project, he got caught distributing satellite telephone equipment in Cuba, which is against the law in Cuba.

Needless to say, U.S. officials say that Gross' activities were simply part of the U.S. government's love of democracy and its innocent wish to spread democracy all over the world.

What nonsense! Save it for America's public schools.

Gross' activities were part of the decades-long obsession among U.S. officials to cause trouble in Cuba in the hopes of finally, once and for all, bringing regime change to Cuba, one in which Fidel Castro is ousted from power and replaced by a ruler who is loyal to the U.S. government, such as Castro's predecessor Fulgencio Batista.

Everybody knows that U.S.A.I.D. has long served as a cover for the CIA. And everyone also knows that the CIA has longed for the ouster of Fidel Castro from power since 1959. Let's not forget the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion and its countless assassination attempts against Castro. Let's not forget the cruel and brutal embargo that, in combination with Castro's socialist economic system, has squeezed the lifeblood out of the Cuban people for some 50 years.

Ironically, in the same weekend newspapers in which Gross' trial was being reported, the New York Times was providing a fascinating window into the U.S. military's longtime support of the military dictatorship in Egypt. The article begins with detailing the Pentagon's donation of millions of dollars for a 650-bed International Medical Center for Egyptian soldiers.

Think about that. Did you know that the Pentagon has the authority to donate millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer money to a brutal dictatorship's military forces? It's probably worth mentioning that the hospital was built under the regime of Bill Clinton, a liberal. I probably should also mention that the Egyptian military turned the hospital into a commercial enterprise as part of the dominant role that the military plays in the Egyptian economy.

The point here is very simple. The U.S. military and the CIA have absolutely no reservations about supporting, funding, working with, and partnering with dictatorships, especially military dictatorships. In fact, the sad truth is that the U.S. military and the CIA have long loved dictatorships, so long as the dictator is part of the U.S. Empire.

Pentagon and CIA officials know that dictators bring "order and stability" to a country, while democracy is oftentimes messy and unpredictable and can even result in a government that opposes the U.S. Empire. With military dictators, all the Empire needs to do is put large sums of money into the coffers of the dictator, which not only enriches the dictator and his henchmen personally but also strengthens their military, police, and intelligence forces in order to ensure their indefinite hold on power over the citizenry.

Not surprisingly, the Pentagon and CIA have always preferred military dictatorships to civilian dictatorships. There is an obvious kinship with military men who become dictators. They think alike and their mindsets are alike. Think about the Augusto Pinochet regime in Chile. Or the military dictatorship in Argentina. Or the string of military dictatorships that the CIA installed in Guatemala after the CIA ousted the democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz. In fact, think of all the brutal military dictatorships throughout Latin America, the ones who had the death squads and the rapists, whose forces were trained at the U.S. military's School of the Americas. More recently, recall the military dictatorship in Pakistan under Pervez Musharraf, a favorite of both the Pentagon and the CIA. The Pentagon and the CIA loved them all.

Torture? Nothing new here. It's long been part and parcel of U.S.-supported dictatorships. Don't forget the infamous torture manuals that the School of the Americas was handing out to its trainees for years. More recently, don't forget the infamous rendition-torture agreement between the U.S. government and Egypt's military dictatorship.

When the U.S. government was funding the Mubarak dictatorship with billions of dollars every year, when the Pentagon was working with and training their military counterparts in the Egyptian military, and when the CIA was entering into its rendition-torture partnership with the department of torture in Egypt, everyone knew what the primary purpose of the Egyptian military, police, and intelligence services was: to torture, terrorize, and brutalize the Egyptian people into not objecting to the military dictatorship's hold on power over them.

In fact, as the Egyptian people have learned — indeed, as the Iranian people have learned — as the people of Burma, North Korea, and elsewhere have learned — the primary purpose of such antiterrorist powers as arbitrary arrest, indefinite detention, torture, abuse, rape, and execution is not to secure information or a confession but rather to send a message to the citizenry: "Don't buck us or this is what will happen to you."

U.S. officials, including those in the Pentagon and the CIA, know all of this. That's the bargain they've made with dictators all over the world, including the Middle East and Latin America: "We will fund you, we will arm you, we will train your forces to ensure that you remain in power, and we will let you do whatever is necessary to your own people to ensure your grip on power. In return, all we ask is loyalty to the Empire in international affairs."

Castro's sin was not that he became a dictator. His sin was in not becoming a dictator that was subservient to the U.S. Empire. That's why they're still doing their best to make trouble in Cuba. Time will tell how big a price Alan Gross pays for participating in that scheme.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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