Egypt: After the Bloodshed, The Torture Will Come

By Erc Margolis

Egypt’s US-financed armed forces have gone to war against Egypt’s people. Arab spring has become Arab winter.

So far, army and security police have scored brilliant battlefield victories against unarmed men, women and children, killing and wounding thousands who were demanding a return to democratic government.

The latest Cairo protests by supporters of the elected Morsi government have been scattered by gunfire and huge armored bulldozers resembling the giant vehicles used by Israel to smash Palestinian barricades and protesters. All Egyptians opposing the Sisi dictatorship are now officially, “terrorists.”

Egypt’s generals and hard right Mubarakist supporters have ditched any pretense of civilian government and now rely on the bayonet and tank. The men with the guns make the rules.

This is the third fairly elected Arab government to be overthrown or besieged, like Gaza, by Western-backed military regimes. Unlike Algeria, where the first elected government was crushed, Egypt’s Islamists have no arms and are unlikely to be able to mount serious domestic resistance aside from some pinprick attacks in Upper Egypt and Sinai.

The bloody Mubarakist counter-revolution, financed by Saudi Arabia and some Gulf monarchies, has put the United States, Egypt’s patron, into a serious jam. Washington was forced to denounce the coup and ongoing state repression as “deplorable,” in the words of US State Secretary John Kerry.

However, weeks earlier the clearly confused Kerry had praised the coup that overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected government as “restoring democracy.” He refused to brand the military putsch a coup, for that would have meant cutting off annual $1.3 billion in US payments to Egypt’s armed forces, a key US ally. President Obama has simply ducked the whole issue.

Since Washington preaches democracy, civilian rule, and human rights, it can’t be seen to be openly backing Egypt’s brutal military and security forces. So the Obama administration has been pussyfooting around events in Egypt, pleased to see Egypt’s generals in charge and the Islamists out of power, but unwilling to say so.

US Mideast policy is run from five different power centers: the White House, State Department, Pentagon, CIA and Congress. America’s powerful pro-Israel lobby gives Congress its marching orders over Egypt, controlling financial aid, food supplies and weapons deliveries. In effect, Israel is a sixth player in this game.

Read the rest here.