Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context.
11 July 2013
Talk about a smoking gun!
As we suggested on 5 July 2013 in our first blog, “The pachyderm in the pyramid”, on the recent coup d’état in Egypt, it is a racing certainty that the United States, which is funding the Egyptian military to the tune of an estimated $ 1.3 billion in annual aid, was briefed in advance of the impending putsch and okayed it.
Now we have the smoking gun which proves it.
Or rather not a smoking gun but four ultra-sophisticated F-16 fighter jets.
The news today is that the United States is to go ahead with delivery of the planes to a military regime that only a week ago forcibly ousted a democratically elected president.
If that is not backing a military coup d’état, then we don’t know what is.
The decision by Washington to go ahead with the delivery of the jets makes it crystal-clear that the use of force by the Egyptian army to unseat President Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013 took place with the full backing of the United States. You do not send warplanes to putschists with whose exploits you disagree.
Given the long history of US implication in coup d’états against governments which it dislikes, it is quite feasible to suppose that the putsch was actually orchestrated by the United States.
US officials say Washington will deliver the four F-16 fighter jets to the Egypt in the next few weeks. They are part of an already agreed order of 20 planes. The first eight were sent to Egypt in January and the final eight are expected to be shipped later this year.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday 10 July 2013 that it would not be “in the best interests of the United States to make immediate changes to our assistance programmes”.
And what about the best interests of Egypt – now in riotous turmoil and without a government?
Regular readers of this blog will be unsurprised that it is not the best interests of Egypt that the US has in mind in sending the jets. As always, it is the best interests (as judged by the hawks on the Potomac) of the United States.
For it can hardly be in the interests of Egypt to receive further military hardware at a time when the country is being torn apart by continuing violent unrest – as a direct result of the coup d’état. Sending heavy weapons into a conflict zone is hardly the best way to bring about peace. Over fifty supporters of the ousted president have already been shot dead by the army.
Day after day the media continue to reiterate the Washington line that President Obama has not “made up his mind” as to whether a coup d’état did in fact take place on 3 July 2013.
However, we do not need to wait for Obama to make up his mind about this.
As we said in our 5 July blog, “However you spin it, four legs, a trunk and two tusks make an elephant. When the democratically elected leader of a state is overthrown by the army, this is a coup d’état. There is no other word for it.”
Like the rest of the world, Mr Obama knows perfectly well that a coup d’état took place.
However, he is coy about admitting this as under US law, the US Government cannot give aid to armed forces which have staged a putsch against a democratically elected leader.
Since, in fact, with the decision to deliver the F-16 warplanes, the US is resolved to continue to supply Egypt’s armed forces with US military hardware, it is hard to see how the US President can ever come to the conclusion that a putsch occurred.
In fact, perhaps nothing happened at all on 3 July 2013. Perhaps people just watched television as usual and then went to bed. Perhaps President Mohamed Morsi suddenly decided he had had enough of being president and thought he would fancy a spell in military custody instead. Perhaps those fifty supporters of the ousted president who were shot dead committed collective suicide instead of – as eye-witnesses attested – being killed by the army. In short, perhaps everything is hunky-dory, really, and everyone should go home and read a good book.
The barefaced hypocrisy of the US takes some beating.
The fact is that – not by any means for the first time – the US is giving its calculated approval to the violent ouster of a legitimate government which had the temerity to contest the supremacy of the global hegemon.
This is the Empire fighting back.
It is no different than it was when the Romans ruled the roost. Then too, when managing its network of colonies, the Empire always preferred a docile local dictator to the hotheads in the forum.
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You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts. For instance:
1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)
2. Partitocracy v. Democracy (20 July 2012)
3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)
4. Capitalism in practice (4 July 2012)
5.Ladder (21 June 2012)
6. A tale of two cities (1) (6 June 2012)
7. A tale of two cities (2) (7 June 2012)
8. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)
Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.
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