Mubarak Defies a Humiliated America, Emulating Netanyahu

[kpete]

Mubarak Defies a Humiliated America, Emulating Netanyahu

Posted on 02/03/2011 by Juan Cole

It should be remembered that Egypt’s elite of multi-millionaires has benefited enormously from its set of corrupt bargains with the US and Israel and from the maintenance of a martial law regime that deflects labor demands and pesky human rights critiques. It is no wonder that to defend his billions and those of his cronies, Hosni Mubarak was perfectly willing to order thousands of his security thugs into the Tahrir Square to beat up and expel the demonstrators, leaving 7 dead and over 800 wounded, 200 of them just on Thursday morning.

It might seem surprising that Mubarak was so willing to defy the Obama administration’s clear hint that he sould quickly transition out of power. In fact, Mubarak’s slap in the face of President Obama will not be punished and it is nothing new. It shows again American toothlessness and weakness in the Middle East, and will encourage the enemies of the US to treat it with similar disdain.

The tail has long wagged the dog in American Middle East policy. The rotten order of the modern Middle East has been based on wily local elites stealing their way to billions while they took all the aid they could from the United States, even as they bit the hand that fed them. First the justification was the putative threat of International Communism (which however actually only managed to gather up for itself the dust of Hadramawt in South Yemen and the mangy goats milling around broken-down Afghan villages). More recently the cover story has been the supposed threat of radical Islam, which is a tiny fringe phenomenon in most of the Middle East that in some large part was sowed by US support for the extremists in the Cold War as a foil to the phantom of International Communism. And then there is the set of myths around Israel, that it is necessary for the well-being of the world’s Jews, that it is an asset to US security, that it is a great ethical enterprise– all of which are patently false.

On such altars are the labor activists, youthful idealists, human rights workers, and democracy proponents in Egypt being sacrificed with the silver dagger of filthy lucre.

the rest:
http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/mubarak-defies-a-humiliated-america-emulating-netanyahu.html

[seabeyond]

1. u.s. is not humiliated. a fabricated headline. taking this event, the situation on ground

to make a cutsey head line.... humiliate. wrong.

obama is doing his job and it is not about entertainment for the rest of us.

obama does, mubarak does, the people do.....

[Webster Green]

5. Only because we're too fucking stupid to be humiliated.

We suck. We always seem to support the thugs. Why is that? Because we're thugs as well.

[texshelters]

7. Yep, we support those that push the U.S. corporate agenda,

http://texshelters.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/security-threats-u-s-foreign-policy/

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[seabeyond]

9. reality sucks.... when you find an utopia, let me know. nt

[Webster Green]

11. Great argument.

Really fucking brilliant!

[Enrique]

2. Netanyahu: 'America is a thing you can move very easily'

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkpoint-washington/2010/07/netanyahu_america_is_a_thing_y.html

"I know what America is," Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way."



That said, I'm not 100% sure we didn't give Mubarak a green light behind the scenes. :shrug:

[Bragi]

8. You wrote:

I'm not 100% sure we didn't give Mubarak a green light behind the scenes.

Or was it just incompetence? That's what I'm not sure about.

What I am certain of is that the WH failure to clearly support the main demand of pro-democracy protesters -- that Mubarak leave right away -- sure has been devastating.

[ProSense]

3. What is Cole suggesting?

It might seem surprising that Mubarak was so willing to defy the Obama administration’s clear hint that he sould quickly transition out of power. In fact, Mubarak’s slap in the face of President Obama will not be punished and it is nothing new. It shows again American toothlessness and weakness in the Middle East, and will encourage the enemies of the US to treat it with similar disdain.

The U.S. can cut aid, impose sanctions, but what is "toothless"? Who are the "enemies"?

[klook]

4. The U.S.'s torturers-by-proxy

Will they ever have to pay for their role in the Extraordinary Rendition program?

[Bragi]

6. Here's Cole's key points...

The key points re: Egypt are at the end:

So it can come as no surprise that Obama, Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been humiliated by Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. They told him to transition out of power. Instead, he on Wednesday and Thursday initiated the Massacre of Liberation Square, which has wounded nearly 1,000 people, most of them peaceful protesters.

Just as Netanyahu takes Washington’s billions but then pisses all over American policy objectives with regard to erecting a Palestinian State Lite, so Mubarak has stuffed tens of billions of dollars from Washington into his government’s pockets but has humiliated and endangered the United States.

When Netanyahu steals Palestinian property or deprives Gaza Palestinians of their livelihoods, and when Mubarak uses American military aid to crush a popular demonstration, they underline to the peoples of the Middle East that their corrupt and unacceptable situation is underwritten by Washington. That message generates fury at the United States.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/mubarak-defies-a-humiliated-america-emulating-netanyahu.html

[azul]

10. Unfortunately, for civil society, Americans are bored and too thick

to be humiliated by another foreign country trying to gain democracy from oppressive governments.

They saw the Iraq Show, and how that didn't really turn out so well when we got all involved, and so don't want to pay for any more nation building fraudulent profiteers. They are too busy paying off the debts from that and other adventures to get worked-up about others being freed when they aren't.

"a martial law regime that deflects labor demands and pesky human rights critiques" -Hello

-Just guessing as to why so many kind Americans are apathetic to revolution and incapable of being humiliated these modern days.