Egypt, Israel: tools of imperialism

When Secretary of State John Kerry met on June 22 with Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the coup leader who now claims the presidency of Egypt, he proclaimed that things are now “normal” in Egypt so that el-Sisi can receive the official blessings of the U.S. government. This means the U.S. will continue to bankroll the Egyptian military to the immediate tune of $575 million, money that had been “frozen,” with lots more to come. It didn’t matter to Kerry or his masters in the U.S. ruling class that another 183 people, most of them in the Muslim Brotherhood, just received a mass death sentence from the regime.

To the Pentagon, this is a cheap way for the U.S. corporate ruling class to help keep the Middle East and its vast oil wealth under their control. When they have to send their own troops to subjugate a country that fights to hold onto its national sovereignty — read Syria, Libya and earlier Afghanistan and Iraq — it costs a lot more.

Likewise with the money the U.S. provides to Israel. A study released by the Congressional Research Service shows that Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the post-World-War-II era — $121 billion in non-inflation-adjusted dollars, most of it in military assistance. (“U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” Jeremy M. Sharp, April 11)

No, it’s not a “Jewish conspiracy.” It’s a capitalist conspiracy. Capitalists, whether they’re in Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Israel, are useful allies for the oligarchs — mostly WASPs — who run the U.S. government.

Right now, these oligarchs and their foreign policy “think tanks” are trying to figure out how to revive their assault on the Syrian state, which has successfully resisted two years of Saudi- and U.S.-bankrolled military attacks.

So Israel has stepped into the breach, bombing Syria on June 22 for no reason, except that it makes the U.S. rulers happy. They claim it is in “retaliation” for the disappearance of three Israeli teenagers. But no one knows what happened to the three. No group has claimed to have them. And if anyone had a reason for capturing the three young people, Syria would be far down on the list — actually not even there at all.

That doesn’t stop the handsomely paid pundits of the U.S. corporate media from trying to link this attack on Syria to the three missing teenagers. They managed to make it appear that Saddam Hussein of Iraq had something to do with the 9/11 attack, didn’t they? Even though he and Al-Qaeda were mortal enemies. But that didn’t stop the Pentagon from obliterating Iraq’s power plants, government buildings and thousands of people in the infamous “shock and awe” bombing blitz that leveled a good part of Baghdad.

U.S. intervention in the Middle East has been an unmitigated disaster — first for all the peoples of the region, who have paid for it with their blood, but also for the people of the U.S., whose blood and taxes have been hijacked to serve the interests of the billionaire owners of the petroleum-Pentagon-industrial complex.

U.S. out of the Middle East! No new U.S. war on Iraq! Money for jobs and human needs, not the Pentagon!