Finian Cunningham / Global Research & Middle East Monitor – 2011-02-05 00:23:50
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23022
World Revolution Made in America.
The Biggest Battlefield yet to Come Will Be in the USA
Commentary by Finian Cunningham / Global Research
(January 31, 2011) — Overnight, the death toll among Egypt’s masses protesting for the overthrow of US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak has risen to over 150 and thousands injured. With telecommunication services blacked out by the authorities (and willingly obliged by the telecoms corporations), it is hard to verify the exact casualty figures. But it is undeniable that a massacre is occurring. And it is a massacre made in the US.
The US public needs to be very clear about this. The armed forces of the Mubarak regime are now killing and maiming civilians with weapons that are made in the US and supplied by the US at the rate of $1.5 billion a year — for the last 30 years.
Mubarak’s regime could not carry out its violent repression without the material and political support of Washington. For 30 years, the Mubarak regime could not have impoverished its mass of people, subjected them to terror, illegal incarceration, torture and killing without the material and political support of Washington (and other Western governments).
Now bitter irony heaped upon bitter irony, the Israeli regime is reported to be sending weapons to its partner-in-crimes against humanity in Cairo to put down the popular uprising. Israel, which receives $4-5 billion a year from Washington to crush Palestinian Arabs, is sending its surplus of US-made and US-supplied weapons to crush Egyptian Arabs.
The bottom line is that US weapons, whether sent directly or indirectly, are being used to massacre civilians who are simply demanding democracy, economic justice and human rights.
With millions of citizens taking to the streets in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria — and reports of similar unrest in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere across the Middle East and North Africa, it can be fairly said that a revolution in popular awakening is underway. And it is clear that these people are demanding an overthrow of decades-long regimes that have denied them, often brutally, democracy. Simple as that.
It is also crystal clear on which side of the struggle that the US government and its Western allies stand. Despite mealy-mouthed and disingenuous “support” being voiced from Western capitals for the demands of the people, these same capitals are steadfastly on the side of the corrupt status quo.
Think about that. The US and other Western governments are against democracy. They are for fascistic dictatorship, massive immiseration, countless other crimes against humanity and other “evils” that go with that, such as extremism that so haunts the West.
In many and very real ways, as Andrew Gavin Marshall (1) and others have pointed out, what is happening in the Middle East and North Africa is the beginning of a global awakening.
Right now, the streets of Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere look like battlefields. But the biggest battlefield yet to come will be in the US. And quite fittingly so. As the executive power upholding the capitalist order that has for decades spawned wars, violence, injustice, corruption and fascism around the world to achieve its undemocratic ends, the US is the primary site of struggle for democracy, not just in the US, but also for the rest of the world.
In past decades, the battle lines were obscured by lack of communications and propaganda diversions (the ‘evil Soviet empire, Vietnam, Latin American subversion, war on drugs, and, latterly, this phony war on terror, etc). But with mounting and unrelenting poverty across the US (and Europe), and global communications, the battle lines are now becoming apparent.
The real enemy is the US/Western diktat of capitalism — the economic system that enriches the few and impoverishes the majority because it is all about private profit, and increasingly elite private profit.
The people of the US and Europe are not mere observers to some kind of removed spectacle. They are intimately involved in this struggle. It is their governments that have already taken sides in this struggle. It is their governments that have sparked the revolution by creating these regimes in the first place.
It is their governments that form and inform the policies of these regimes. Because they are the very same policies of anti-democracy that are also being forced — and all too painfully being forced — on the people of the US and Europe: autocratic political monopoly under two- or three-party systems of servility, economic injustice, elite embezzlement, financial oligarchy, erosion of human rights, police state powers.
It’s a sliding scale of fascism that has as its epicentre Western capitals, and in particular Washington. The struggle for democracy is not just being fought for in the streets of the Middle East and North Africa.
The struggle is on every US and European street too — albeit latent and partially obscured for now. In this struggle, we are no longer Americans, European, Africans or Asians — the elites long ago gave up their pretense of patriotism in their quest for profits. We are people of the world who demand democracy — real, sustainable democracy that can not be delivered by Global capitalism.
The world is witnessing a world revolution. Its origins, of course, go back a long time to the tyrannies of Europe. But its latest phase began in the US. There, it will have to be finished. It is a vital task. Onerous yet potentially glorious for the sake of democracy, justice and peace in the world.
Finian Cunningham is a journalist and musician.finianpcunningham@yahoo.ie, www.myspace.com/finiancunninghammusic
NOTES:
(1) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22963
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Israel Places Resources at Suleiman’s Disposal
To Protect the Egyptian Regime
Middle East Monitor
(February1, 2011) — The Zionist state [the state of Israel] has offered to place “all its capabilities” at the disposal of General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Vice President of Egypt for the “protection of the regime in Egypt”.
Well-placed Israeli sources have disclosed that the Zionist state [op cit.] has offered to place “all its capabilities” at the disposal of General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Vice President of Egypt, for the “protection of the regime in Egypt”. This offer includes the implementation of “various operations to end the popular revolution”. Israel has also asked Suleiman to work on preventing arms being smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
An official in Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called Suleiman, who is also the director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, and expressed his concern about the situation in Egypt.
Netanyahu apparently suggested the possibility of Israeli intelligence personnel undertaking various specialist operations to bring an end to the demonstrations. The source added that Netanyahu and Suleiman also discussed ways of securing the border between Israel and Egypt.
The Hebrew newspaper Ma’ariv revealed that in recent days highly placed individuals in Netanyahu’s office have conducted a series of telephone conversations with Suleiman to impress on the Vice President the necessity of coordinating on security with Israel. The telephone conversations were described as “urgent” and were designed to alert the Egyptians about the consequences of losing control of the tunnels described by many as Gaza’s “lifeline” during the Israeli blockade.
Israel is, claims Ma’ariv, concerned about increased activity in the tunnels “given the developments in progress inside Egypt” which have seen the Egyptian army “softening its anti-smuggling activities”. In addition, it is claimed that there has been an increase in the number of illegal immigrants entering Israel from Egyptian territory.
Sources inside the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel does not rule out General Suleiman “sacrificing his ties to Israel in order to satisfy the Egyptian street and bestow a measure of legitimacy on his appointment in the general opinion of the public”.
Suleiman maintains strong ties with Israeli officials and was responsible for several files linked to the Zionist state, including those relating to the ceasefire and a possible prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
Rights NGO Claims that Israeli Planes
Carrying Crowd Dispersal Weapons
Have Arrived in Egypt
Middle East Monitor
TEL AVIV (January 31, 2011) — Three Israeli planes landed at Cairo’s Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds.
The International Network for Rights and Development has claimed that Israeli logistical support has been sent to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak to help his regime confront demonstrations demanding that he steps down as head of state. According to reports by the non-governmental organisation, three Israeli planes landed at Cairo’s Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds.
In the statement circulated by the International Network, it was disclosed that Egyptian security forces received the complete cargoes on three Israeli planes which were, it is claimed, carrying an abundant supply of internationally proscribed gas to disperse unwanted crowds. If the reports are accurate, this suggests that the Egyptian regime is preparing for the worse in defence of its position, despite the country sinking into chaos.
On Sunday 30 January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israeli government ministers in a public statement saying: “Our efforts aim at the continued maintenance of stability and security in the region… and I remind you that peace between the Israeli establishment and Egypt has endured for over three decades… we currently strive to guarantee the continuity of these relations.”
Netanyahu added, “We are following the events unfolding in Egypt and the region with vigilance… and it is incumbent at this time that we show responsibility, self-restraint and maximum consideration for the situation… in the hope that the peaceful relations between the Israeli establishment and Egypt continue…”
The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli government ministers to refrain from making any additional statements to the media.
Israel Bombs Gaza Tunnels as
Palestinians Try to Cross Border into Egypt
Middle East Monitor
(February 2, 2011) — Unconfirmed reports claim that Palestinians from the beleaguered Gaza Strip have been attempting to cross the Rafah border into Egyptian territory in order to assist the popular uprising against the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Security along the Rafah border, which has been sealed-off by Israel for more than four years, has been stepped up significantly in recent days.
However, Palestinians supportive of the uprising are reported to be using the smuggling tunnels, which serve as Gaza’s lifeline, to get into Egypt. Israel, a staunch supporter of Mubarak’s repressive regime, is reported to have responded by bombing the tunnels. No casualties have as yet been reported.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
