Stop the massacre in Egypt!

Workers World condemns the latest massacre of Muslim Brotherhood supporters demonstrating in Cairo. It was ordered by the U.S.-trained Egyptian generals who had earlier carried out the military coup that ousted elected President Mohamed Morsi.

This bloody slaughter, along with the appointment of 17 Army and two police generals as governors of the 27 Egyptian governorates, plus the coup regime’s declaration of a one-month “state of emergency,” should wipe out any remaining doubts about the ousting of Morsi. It was an outright military coup. His democratic right to govern based on an election has far more legitimacy than any general’s diktat.

The generals’ action was directed not only against the government, which had lost some popular support, but also against the Egyptian workers and farmers. It is aimed at restoring the dictatorial regime overthrown in 2011. The last “state of emergency” lasted three decades. During that entire time the Egyptian army and state, under dictator Hosni Mubarak, served as a bastion of U.S. imperialist domination of the region.

There is already evidence that some of those individuals and organizations who had argued that the military was acting on behalf of the mass dissatisfaction with the Morsi government are now revising their opinion.

In its early history the Egyptian Army was seen as a patriotic, nationalist force defending Egyptian interests. However, as WW analyst Joyce Chediac said in a recent talk published in Workers World, “For the past four decades the officer corps has been armed and trained by the Pentagon — at a cost of $1.3 billion a year. The interest of the officers is diametrically opposed to the interests of the rank-and-file soldiers and the people as a whole.”

As evidence of the close U.S. ties with the generals, Washington’s criticism of the massacre and the state of emergency has been minimal. This is so even though its diplomats had been publicly attempting — and failing — to arrange an agreement that would avoid a showdown but leave the Muslim Brotherhood subordinate to the generals.

Whatever U.S. imperialism’s temporary tactics, as WW contributing editor Fred Goldstein wrote in WW on Aug. 8, “A reliable and stable Egypt, which guards the interests of imperialism, is the key to the U.S. ruling class’ policy of domination in the Middle East. And the real foundation of Washington and the Pentagon’s grip on Egypt is the Egyptian military.”

Egypt’s workers and poor — whether they currently follow the Muslim Brotherhood, are in labor unions or are more oriented toward the secular organizations — all share a class interest of fighting against imperialism and capitalism in Egypt. Only if it is possible to forge unity in struggle based on class interests will it be possible to break up and push from power the repressive, pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist military.

The imperialist powers, and especially the U.S., have the main responsibility for the poverty of the Egyptian masses and the turmoil in Egypt. Revolutionary working-class organizations in the United States must do what is possible to get the U.S. out of North Africa and Western Asia. We must also explain to U.S. workers the need for solidarity with the Egyptian people and against spending tax money to aid the dictatorships and monarchies in the region or the Israeli settler state.

Stop the massacre in Egypt! End military rule! Free the elected government! U.S. and other imperialist powers out of the Middle East!