The most powerful nation on earth whose sole superpower status is only just now being challenged for the first time in twenty years by China. A nation that since the second world war has manipulated whole nations and determined what governments are acceptable to maintain our economic influence:
The US multinational United Fruit Company has been considered the quintessential representative of American imperialism in Central America. Not only did the company enjoy enormous privileges in that region, but also counted on authoritarian governments in dealing with labor unrest. The literature assumes that United Fruit and the dictators were natural allies due to their opposition to organized unionism.
Like Central and South America before them the Middle East has been subject to our economic needs backed by the menaces and actions of our military machine; yet by and large most Americans remain ignorant of the reality on the ground. Rich writes today:
General ignorance or as Rich more delicately states: Wallflowers at the revolution.
And so now — as the world’s most unstable neighborhood explodes before our eyes — does anyone seriously believe that most Americans are up to speed? Our government may be scrambling, but that’s nothing compared to its constituents. After a near-decade of fighting wars in the Arab world, we can still barely distinguish Sunni from Shia.
I still come across the meme "they hate us for our freedom", yet by and large they hate us [if in fact they do] for keeping theirs at bay.
Then Rich hits the nail on the head which will be used by many in our political system and is already the favorite line of the right:
Given the disconnect between America and the Arab world, it’s no wonder that Americans are invested in the fights for freedom in Egypt and its neighboring dictatorships only up to a point. We’ve been inculcated to assume that whoever comes out on top is ipso facto a jihadist.
Hence we will end up supporting the same system with a different thug in charge.
America yesterday swung its support behind Egypt's vice-president, Omar Suleiman, and the political transition he is leading, calling for a process of orderly reform.
So we will now back the suave sophisticated English speaking Omar Suleiman as the voice of reason in Egypt without hesitation.
A Soviet-trained, former army man, Suleiman looked set to fill the "shadowy intelligence chief" mould when he took over the GIS.
Walker acknowledged that the GIS head was involved in "some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way".
Ah torture, our personal torturer quite often in the last 10 years, yes, but as you know we are keen on looking forward not back. The reason for this refusal to look back on our part is often the fact that it is unpalatable, re: the war on drugs in Central and South America.
Supporting Omar Suleimanwould keep a whole can of worms firmly in the past
Grey writes that Suleiman approved these flights, part of a system of torture that Amnesty International calls systematic. "Egypt then came in for much criticism," Grey writes. "Its record both on human rights and on repressing democracy was lambasted annually by both Congress and the State Department. But in secret, men like Omar Suleiman ... did our work, the sort of work that Western countries have no appetite to do themselves."
You know we don't want to cause our ex-president and his posse any unsavory problems.
Yet Omar Suleiman is our man in Egypt
Technically, U.S. law required the C.I.A. to seek "assurances" from Egypt that rendered suspects wouldn’t face torture. But under Suleiman’s reign at the intelligence service, such assurances were considered close to worthless. As Michael Scheuer, a former C.I.A. officer who helped set up the practice of rendition, later testified before Congress, even if such "assurances" were written in indelible ink, "they weren’t worth a bucket of warm spit."
Wiki-Leaks has more on our rising star in Egypt
In effect all we will be doing is supporting the continuation of the same regime, once again ignoring the reality on the ground. Our man doesn't mean he is theirs.
Smooth transition usually means returning to business as usual, this is the same foreign policy we have been using for nearly 70 years, except of course we when we decide the government in power is not to our taste, then we come over all "shock and awe" neoconservative.
All Empires are inward looking having little regard for others and are convinced of their own exceptionalism, they all go the same way in the end.