Not Even Iraq Got This Bad

As of 6 p.m., the death toll is 278.

Down with Tyranny:

U.S. law states that if a democratically-elected government is overthrown in a military coup, U.S. aid stops until democracy is restored. After the Egyptian military coup against Morsi, Congress and Obama were complicit in breaking the law, while U.S. corporate media cheered. So who will arrest them all?

Californians were bedding down when the killing started. In DC everyone was fast asleep. In Europe people were just having their morning coffee. A speaker on stage in Raba'a pleaded with the army: "Don't kill us, we are not Israelis, we're not terrorists, we are Muslims, we are Egyptians." It didn't work. The massacre began, all entrances to and exits from the area carefully sealed with barbed wire, snipers strategically placed on rooftops. Early Wednesday morning, the Egyptian security forces made a move that has been anticipated all week-- they started murdering unarmed pro-Morsi protesters in Cairo-- with weapons U.S. aid provides them. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee should be especially proud of their premature award to Obama now. Corporate media reports made it sound a lot tamer than it was:

Egyptian security forces have begun clearing two protest camps in Cairo occupied by supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

Reports say 15 people have been killed as police cut off side streets and bursts of gunfire were heard.

Teargas is being fired and helicopters flew overhead as security forces moved on the camps in the east and west of the city.

...The interior ministry issued a statement saying security forces were taking "necessary measures" against the protest at the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the east of Cairo and the protest in Nahda Square in the east.

Hundreds have been arrested and Egypt's rail system has been suspended and major highways into Cairo shut down to keep sympathizers from coming to the capital to help the penned-up protesters. Journalists are being brutalized and arrested by the security forces as well, of course. Egypt has an official story it wants to get out-- like "a policeman was killed," rather than the real story: hundreds of protesters were slaughtered and thousands injured-- and independent journalists are a nuisance. There are reports though that protests have flared up in Alexandria, Suez and Aswan.

The ministry announced protesters would not be hunted down and murdered like dogs, indicating, of course, that the military planned out an operation that included hunting down protesters and murdering them like dogs. Al Jazeera was reporting that bulldozers plowed into the camps. "Many people are being killed right now... What we can expect is only worse," said Laila, a member of Egypt's Anti-Coup Alliance, a pro-Morsi group. "What's happening now is a crime against humanity."

I've been following the discussion via #egypt on Twitter for the last several hours and shocked by the number of people who say "there are two sides to every story" as the security apparatus systematically massacres the protesters in a well-planned military operation. I'm not even talking about the myriad Egyptian coup stooges pushing state propaganda-- just the kinds of sad sacks who always say that kind of stuff about whatever happens anywhere. I learned long ago and now know better than to ever take any "official" description of events at face value. There is a reason the military immediately targeted the media today. They do not want any independent verification of their brutality and aggression. As for "pro-Morsi" forces on the attack-- or burning Coptic churches-- I'd be far more likely to look for Sisi agents provacateurs. And by the way, anyone heard from the last elected president of Egypt recently. Is he alive?

The West made a big mistake-- for which it is still paying dearly-- by pushing a coup against Iran's popular prime minister, Mohamed Mossadeq 60 years ago. Didn't the U.S. security apparatus learn anything from that unmitigated disaster. Does Obama understand what he's doing by siding with the military against Egypt's people? And now the military dictatorship has declared a state of emergency-- suspension of due process, martial law, ability to kill protesters with impunity-- for a month, which had something to do with the Arab Spring... since people were upset that Hosni Mubarak's state of emergency lasted 30 years.

Americans like democracy... at least in theory. When the results don't synch up with U.S. (i.e., corporate) interests-- screw democracy, especially in American client states! It would be so mean and paranoid to even think that Obama sent McCain and his sidekick Lindsey to Cairo to give Sisi the greenlight for today's massacre. Oh well, at least no one is being shot down like dogs in North Carolina... yet.

Somewhere in the bowels of the State Department, there's an Egypt expert who spent the last year begging Hilary Clinton and President Obama to use our monetary control over the Eygptian military to stop the slow strangulation of President Morsi's government and give democracy a chance to work.

Right now he's extremely drunk, glued to Al-Jazeera and sobbing "I told them this would happen. I told them this would happen."