By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
"Here's a crash course on the Egyptian military dictatorship's sinister worldview compared with the courage displayed by people power.
Exhibit A: Vice President Omar "Sheik al-Torture" Suleiman's message to the revolution. Pay special attention to the end of the interview. [1]
Context: this is the horse Washington has decided to bet on, the conductor of an "orderly transition", essentially Mubarakism with a face-lifted military management. Suleiman, in his own words, believes Egypt "is not ready for democracy".
Curiously, the US State Department now stresses that "elements" of the Egyptian military were active in the ultra hardcore crackdown on activists and journalists last week (human-rights groups now stress over 10,000 people may have been harassed/detained since January 25). This happens to be the same military widely praised for its neutrality and restraint by US President Barack Obama last week, and Pentagon supremo Robert Gates on Tuesday.....
Young Egyptians want Western-style democracy, free and fair elections, a free press and most of all, a truly representative, sovereign government. Yet that does not entail remaining a slave of US foreign policy. And at the same time it does not imply that Egypt wants a Sunni replica of supreme leader-run Iran.
As revolutionary Latin America has coined it, la luta continua. The struggle continues. If only, unequivocally, Obama would position the United States in the right side of history. I leave you with a possible soundtrack for the days and weeks ahead, by Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum and others: [3]
I heard them say the revolution won't be televised
al-Jazeera proved them wrong, Twitter has them paralyzed ..."
Asia Times
"Here's a crash course on the Egyptian military dictatorship's sinister worldview compared with the courage displayed by people power.
Exhibit A: Vice President Omar "Sheik al-Torture" Suleiman's message to the revolution. Pay special attention to the end of the interview. [1]
Context: this is the horse Washington has decided to bet on, the conductor of an "orderly transition", essentially Mubarakism with a face-lifted military management. Suleiman, in his own words, believes Egypt "is not ready for democracy".
Curiously, the US State Department now stresses that "elements" of the Egyptian military were active in the ultra hardcore crackdown on activists and journalists last week (human-rights groups now stress over 10,000 people may have been harassed/detained since January 25). This happens to be the same military widely praised for its neutrality and restraint by US President Barack Obama last week, and Pentagon supremo Robert Gates on Tuesday.....
Young Egyptians want Western-style democracy, free and fair elections, a free press and most of all, a truly representative, sovereign government. Yet that does not entail remaining a slave of US foreign policy. And at the same time it does not imply that Egypt wants a Sunni replica of supreme leader-run Iran.
As revolutionary Latin America has coined it, la luta continua. The struggle continues. If only, unequivocally, Obama would position the United States in the right side of history. I leave you with a possible soundtrack for the days and weeks ahead, by Syrian-American rapper Omar Offendum and others: [3]
I heard them say the revolution won't be televised
al-Jazeera proved them wrong, Twitter has them paralyzed ..."
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