Egypt, an economic colony of the American empire, is burning.
The hungry rabble, dispossessed by Mubarak’s thirty-year, American-financed dictatorship, is stirring.
“Enough,” they say. “Mubarak must go.”
Cracks are beginning to appear in the Mubarak regime.
Firing upon the vast crowds of protesters will not save him.
It’s too late for conciliatory measures like dismissing his cabinet or promising economic reforms.
The Obama Administration is in a bind.
It certainly does not want the Suez Canal to be controlled by a renegade group like the Islamic Brotherhood, one of the major factions calling for Mubarak’s resignation. Along with the murderous, Zionist government of Israel, Egypt has been a solid American toe-hold in this region, the recipient of huge American bribes and payoffs in the form of ‘foreign aid’ for whistling America’s tune. America must appear to support the basic rights of the people – the rights of assembly and free speech – and to abhor acts of violence. But losing the Mubarak regime is losing a key ally in the region.
The people are fed up throughout the northern African and eastern Mediterranean countries. The central, catalyzing issue is bread. But they are also sick of the American-backed dictatorships. They are sick of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. They are sick of Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, profiling. They are sick of America’s presence, America’s interference.
The natives are restless. Keeping the uprising non-violent is an impossibility. Violence is necessary merely for the people to get the attention of their leaders. It is acceptable for the brutal regimes to use violence upon the people. But when the people take the moral high-road and reject violence they are dismissed. Only the immediate, physical threat can make entrenched bureaucracies move. This, unfortunately, is the state of the art in our times.
Let the tyrants fall one after another! It’s a good lesson for America’s political class: you can push your displays of power, your dazzling life-styles and your contempt for the people only so far.
When the slumbering dragon is awakened, it is already too late.