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16 February 2011
By Jacob G. Hornberger Count on U.S. officials, from Obama on down, along
with their conservative supporters, to bring some
hilarity into the events occurring in Egypt. Don't you
just love watching them on television providing their
advice and counsel to the Egyptian people on how to
achieve democracy and offering their guidance for the
future? "This is Earth calling the U.S. government. Come
in, U.S. government." Hey, dudes, have you so quickly forgotten the role
that the U.S. government has played in the tyrannical
regime that the Egyptian people have risked to lives
to resist? It was you people and your predecessors who
propped up the dictatorship against which the Egyptian
people finally revolted. It was you people who have
been paying the salaries of the dictator himself and
his team of oppressors and torturers for 30 years. It
was the U.S. government that was purchasing the tear
gas canisters and bullets. It was you people who were
providing the instruments of torture that the Mubarak
regime used against the people. It was you who were
funding the dictator's secret police. It was you who
were training and arming his military. It was you who
were partnering with his torture team to torture
people on behalf of your own torture team, the CIA, so
that U.S. officials could deceitfully say to the
American people, "We are an exceptional government
because we don't torture." It is the U.S. government, whose officials are now
offering their democracy-guidance services to the
Egyptian people, who is co-responsible for the
oppression and the tyranny under which the Egyptian
people have been suffering for the last 30 years. It
is you — the U.S. government, including the Congress,
the president, the Pentagon, and the CIA — who are the
enabler, the partner, the co-oppressor, the co-tyrant.
You knew what the Egyptian tyrants were doing to
their own people. You watched them. You assisted them.
You supported them. You gave them, year after year,
the billions of dollars in U.S.-taxpayer money that
paid for it all. And what was your rationale? "Our interests."
According to you, all that torture, oppression,
brutality, and tyranny, while no doubt "regrettable,"
was necessary to protect "our interests." Don't forget that your mindset was no different
when your brutal sanctions contributed to the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children for more 10
years. As your ambassador to the United Nations put
it, the deaths of all those innocent children were
"worth it." After all, "our interests" were at stakes!
And now, you have the gall to offer your
democracy-spreading guidance and advice to the victims
of the oppression, torture, brutality, and terror that
you supported and enabled for 30 years. Have you no
shame at all, especially given the fact that you are
simultaneously lamenting and grieving over the loss of
a "good friend," one who was willing to torture anyone
on your behalf whenever he was asked, and, even
better, deny that he was doing it? You're right: It's
not easy to find a good friend like that. No wonder
you're so sad about his loss of power. One question, President Obama: If victims of
Mubarak's U.S.-supported oppression and tyranny
retaliate with a terrorist attack against the United
States for the U.S. government's having knowingly
participated in the oppression and tyranny in Egypt,
will you respond in the same way that President Bush
responded after the 9/11 attacks, with the assertion,
"The terrorists just hate us for our values"? If so, you will be speaking the truth because
thanks to the U.S. government, dictatorship and
torture are American values. Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation. |