by Ajamu Baraka
The author, a member of the Green Shadow cabinet, says the “U.S. government is deeply implicated in the murder, injury and arrest of thousands of Egyptians, perpetrated by the military regime using U.S.-supplied military equipment and U.S. trained military personnel.” President Obama needs to call the coup by its name – and defund the Egyptian generals.”
We Condemn Massacre of Egyptian Civilians and U.S. Military Ties
by Ajamu Baraka
"It would not be in the best interests of the United States to immediately change our assistance programs to Egypt” – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney in response to the overthrow of President Morsi.
The right to peacefully assemble is an internationally recognized human right that must be protected under all circumstances. The more than five hundred men, women and children who were slaughtered by Egyptian military forces as they attempted to exercise that fundamental right is a crime that demands not only international condemnation but also criminal prosecution of those responsible. The attacks on anti-military demonstrators also compel us to demand that the Obama Administration end its immoral prevarication and call the Egyptian coup what it now clearly is – a coup.
The U.S. defense industry receives the bulk of the billion-dollar U.S. military aid package to the Egyptian military in a corrupt lateral transfer of public resources from the government to those industries. The Obama Administration should not let such interests dictate the political and moral position of the U.S. government. The U.S. government is deeply implicated in the murder, injury and arrest of thousands of Egyptians, perpetrated by the military regime using U.S.-supplied military equipment and U.S. trained military personnel.
“The attacks on anti-military demonstrators also compel us to demand that the Obama Administration end its immoral prevarication and call the Egyptian coup what it now clearly is – a coup.”
As the eminent international jurist Richard Falk said:
“The murder of hundreds of innocent supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the declaration of the state of emergency makes Western diplomatic calls for compromise, inclusion, and mutual restraint irrelevant, and pathetic.”
We agree. We also understand the agenda of the anti-democratic financial and corporate elite and their representatives in the Republican and Democratic Parties. That agenda and the principles that inform that agenda were brazenly displayed in a Wall Street Journal editorial:
“Egyptians would be lucky if their new ruling generals turn out to be in the mold of Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, who took over power amid chaos but hired free-market reformers and midwifed a transition to democracy.”
For the financial and corporate elite and their hired guns in the two parties, it is order and the advancement of capitalist market relations and profits that is the priority. It does not matter to them that thousands of human beings were murdered, raped, tortured and disappeared during the 17-year reign of Augusto Pinochet.
“Call on the Obama Administration to end American financing of the Egyptian military.”
That is why it is so important for those of us who believe in human rights, the possibility of real democracy, and basic human decency, to call on the Obama Administration to end American financing of the Egyptian military. Cutting off that financing is not only required by the Foreign Assistance Act, it is a necessary step in ending the use of U.S. military aid as a foreign policy tool in general.
On July 30th, the Green Shadow Cabinet explained that:
“Continued U.S. funding of the Egyptian military reinforces the old power structure and impedes Egyptian progress toward democracy. The removal of U.S. military funding will only strengthen democratic forces within Egypt, shifting the balance of power toward civil society.”
Given the mass murders committed by the new military regime this week, what possible excuse could the Obama Administration have for maintaining U.S. financial support for General Sisi?
Ajamu Baraka serves as Public Intervenor for Human Rights in the Democracy Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet of the United States. See also his website at http://www.ajamubaraka.com/
The House Ways and Means subpoenas against peace and justice organizations, paired with the State Department's designation of Cuba as the center of global terrorism, represent a coordinated…
In this week’s segment, we discuss sportswashing and the rationale of the calls to boycott the U.S. and the recent World Cup. But we begin with the Trump administration’s domestic repression and…
The Trump administration has accelerated its attacks on leftist organizations and individuals while also justifying its genocidal siege of Cuba with the release of the document "Cuba: The Capital of…
Austin Cole is a Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) National Co-Coordinator. BAP and other organizations called on the international community to boycott the 2026 World Cup, which was held in the United…
Black political self-determination is always tenuous, even when Black people hold office. Now that DSA and other leftists are winning elections, the contradictions of Black politics are becoming more…
