Saviors in Uniform? (Updated, 2/2)

"The Army and the People Are One!" Don't count on it.

"The army is all good men but the police, every policeman is bad," explained Egyptian demonstrator Mustafa Abdel Wahab to Time magazine. Mr. Wahab is as tragically mistaken in the first assessment as he is correct in the second. 

In Egypt -- as is the case nearly everywhere else -- the police and army are what Alexander Hamilton called "correspondent appendages of military establishments." Not every individual soldier or policeman is exceptionally depraved, of course. But the institutional purpose of such establishments is to serve the depraved interests of those who control the State. This is why, as Hamilton pointed out, military bodies (which include police agencies) "have a tendency to destroy ... civil and political rights." Decades of "emergency" rule in Egypt have destroyed whatever trivial substantive differences may once have separated the police from the military. 

In the late summer of 1994 I spent a couple of weeks in Cairo covering a United Nations conference on population control. That event attracted thousands of people -- politicians, delegates, lobbyists, activists, and journalists -- from around the world. In anticipation of media scrutiny the Mubarak regime made a considerable effort to prettify itself. The cosmetic changes included issuing brand new white uniforms to the heavily-armed police officers who were deployed in small groups everywhere in downtown Cairo.

I remained in Cairo for a few days after the conference ended. It was my expectation that the departure of the Important People would bring about a change in the security situation. In a sense, I was correct: The white uniforms were put away, and the heavily-armed police who prowled the streets reverted to their standard military attire. Like other visitors, I had assumed that the high-profile police presence was the exception, rather than the rule. We were wrong.



The ongoing upheaval in Egypt offers a potent illustration of the fact that government police agencies are instruments of plunder, rather than protection -- and that protection of person and property is best handled privately.


When they weren't beating people in the streets or hauling them off to be murdered, plainclothes thugs from Egypt's Central Security Service (or Mukhabarat) brazenly looted private businesses or provided protection to those who did -- deputized criminals referred to by one protester on the scene as "prisoners who have been released by that bastard Mubarak in return for their services to beat up civilians." Egyptians not employed in the coercive sector responded by creating private anti-looting patrols. 

Private defense: Egyptians link arms to protect property.

Public loathing of the government's police force is widespread in Egypt, which is a healthy development in any society. However, as Mr. Wahab's comments illustrate, the growing disrepute of Egypt's police organs organs has actually enhanced the stature of the military.

Writes Steve Coll of The New Yorker: "There have been reports that protesters are relieved to see the Army in the streets; no doubt, as in many other like countries, the Army has more credibility than the corrupt and often torture-prone police." 

For 31 years, Hosni Mubarak has been a CIA sock puppet ruling through decree while maintaining a pretense of "legitimacy." Mubarak avoided naming a successor, most likely because Washington didn't give him permission to do so. In the terminal crisis of his reign, he has tapped Omar Suleiman, the head of the Mukhabarat secret police, to serve as vice president. Since Suleiman has been running Egypt's apparatus of imprisonment, torture, and murder for decades, this appointment wasn't really a promotion. And in his current position Suleiman would be in charge, even if somebody else is cast in the role of figurehead.

Dictator-in-waiting: Suleiman, left, with Israel's PM Netanyahu.

 Ian Black, Middle East editor for the London Guardian, points out that Suleiman "is the keeper of Egypt's and the president's secrets, a behind-the-scenes operator who has been intimately involved in the most sensitive issues of national security and foreign policy for nearly 20 years." 

Not only was he was the dungeon master and chief persecutor of Egypt's political dissidents, but he also coordinated rendition and torture operations with the CIA. He's also been a dutiful asset of the Pentagon, according to WikiLeaks. 

A Foreign Policy profile of Suleiman published two years ago points out that Suleiman was a rent boy for both sides during the Cold War circle-jerk: He attended "the Soviet Union's Frunze Military Academy" while Cairo was a Soviet client, and then "received training at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center" at Ft. Bragg in the 1980s. As head of the Mukhabarat, Suleiman was"one of a rare group of Egyptian officials who hold both a military rank ... and a civilian office...." His most important assignment was to monitor "Egypt's security apparatus for signs of internal coups." 

Unlike those who had previously held his position, Suleiman became a public figure several years ago as Mubarak -- who reportedly suffers from cancer-- became enfeebled. He and his handlers spent several years building internal coalitions and developing diplomatic contacts abroad. As Cairo-based journalist Issandr Amrani points out, "most Suleiman supporters recognize that to gain the presidency he would most likely have to carry out a coup -- perhaps a soft, constitutional one -- but a coup nonetheless."

Thumbs up for tyranny!

Well, how about a "People Power" coup, orchestrated with the help of the kind folks in Washington? That appears to be what we're seeing in Egypt now, and we could conceivably see something similar here in the United States before the decade is over.

The convulsion in Cairo brings to mind Brig. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap's essay "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012," which was published in the Winter 1992—93 issue of the U.S. Army War College journal Parameters -- a subject I have discussed before.

Dunlap used the literary device of a smuggled prison letter composed by "Prisoner 222305759," condemned to death for "treason" by the American military junta of Gen. E.T. Brutus. Following a series of military disasters overseas and domestic crises at home, Brutus staged a coup in the name of protecting "public order" from the corruption of the political class. 

In the decades leading up to the putsch, the "Prisoner" recalled, "The one institution of government in which people retained faith was the military." Even as the public lamented the corruption and profligacy of Big Government, they had nothing but bottomless respect for the Regime's chief instrument of death and property destruction. The military retained its prestige in spite of the fact that its structural defects -- made painfully visible by a long, bloody, and futile war in the Gulf --  left it "unfit to engage an authentic military opponent."

While the military was no longer well-suited to fight and win wars, its subtle integration into every element of domestic life made it perfectly suited to carry out a coup: 

"Eventually, people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood. Now troops are an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country. In many of the areas where much of our burgeoning population of elderly Americans live — [military dictator] Brutus calls them 'National Security Zones' — the military is often the only law enforcement agency. Consequently, the military was ideally positioned in thousands of communities to support the coup."

During Egypt's long "state of emergency," its army managed to lose two wars abroad, while fine-tuning its skills as an instrument of domestic suppression. Granted, it has announced that it will not fire on Egyptian citizens, which is always a welcome development. But why should the Egyptian Army fire on protesters, given that the citizen uprising is helping to entrench military rule, rather than end it?

With our own economy unraveling and our political class becoming shamelessly predatory and unbearably impudent, it's not difficult to imagine a similar scenario playing out in America, with Tea Party Republicans -- for whom the military (which in our system includes our own "torture-prone" police) is sacrosanct --  eagerly welcoming a military coup as "liberation" from Big Government. Perhaps Field Marshal Stanley McChrystal -- formerly military proconsul in Afghanistan, most recently seen flogging Soviet-style "national service" in the pages of Newsweek -- could be tapped to play the role of America's Omar Suleiman. 

UPDATE 

"`Why don't you protect us?' some protesters shouted at the soldiers, who replied they did not have orders to do so and told people to go home." 

This on-scene account from Tahrir Square described a coordinated attack by a mob of "pro-government protesters," some of whom were mounted on horses or camels. The assailants -- criminal subcontractors in the employ of the regime -- used clubs, whips, straight razors, and machetes. They acted with complete impunity, beating and killing at whim. Among their targets were journalists attempting to document the pogrom: Anderson Cooper discovered that international celebrity conferred no protection.

Among those chronicling the scene are Graeme Wood of The Atlantic, who was present in Tahrir Square during the last mass protest -- the 2003 demonstrations against Washington's assault on Iraq. 

"During those protests, the police encircled the protesters and let them scream for a couple days, Wood recalls. "Late at night, I stood among the police, asking them about their hometowns in Upper Egypt. Then, around midnight, they were called to attention, told to harden their lines, and finally to march toward the remaining protesters, letting none escape. Truncheons came down, and within a few minutes they had rounded everyone up into paddy wagons, and the square resumed its light evening traffic."

While blood is being shed in Tahrir Square, government-organized bands of criminals are looting everything in sight. The police are actively protecting the thugs and looters. Meanwhile, the "good men" in the Army do nothing to protect those who had trusted them.

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Dum spiro, pugno!

The Enemy At Their Backs

The fundamental perversity of the Bush Regime's escalation in Iraq isn't found in the fact that the “surge” reinforces a failed policy. It is that the US troops being sent by Bush into Iraq are confronting a Sunni insurgency that is being materially aided by the same administration. This is perversity compounded with betrayal, and compounded once again with murderous mendacity as the Bush Regime seeks to blame Shi'ite Iran for Iraq's Sunni insurgency as a way of propagating a wider war in the region.

Flynt Leverett, a former member of Bush's National Security Council, comments about this multi-layered deception in Seymour Hersh's latest report for The New Yorker:

“The administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when – if you look at the actual casualty numbers – the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude.... This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”

That “open door” would most likely be exploited sometime in the coming month, reports former CIA officer Philip Giraldi in the current issue of The American Conservative:

“A Kuwaiti newspaper, relying on confidential sources in the Emirate's government, predicts that the attack will take place before the first week of April, when Tony Blair steps down as British prime minister, under the assumption that he will provide political cover as well as material support in the form of minesweepers. As Kuwait's government, host to the sprawling US base Camp Doha and a prime target for Iranian retaliation, has been in the loop for planning vis-a-vis Iran, the suggested date has a high level of credibility.”

The trigger for war, Giraldi continues, might be pulled as a result of “a Gulf of Tonkin type incident in which Iran fires on or otherwise interferes with a US warship. As two carrier groups [led by the USS John Stennis and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower] will basically fill the shallow and narrow waters of the Persian Gulf, the potential for an incident is obviously very high.”

Hersh reports that “a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the president, within twenty-four hours.”

Those operational plans obviously assume that Imperator Bush can and will commit our nation to a full-fledged shooting war with Iran without congressional action of any kind, much less the formal declaration of war that is a non-negotiable constitutional requirement.

At present, the Democrat-controlled Senate is too busy dithering and equivocating about the non-declaration of war against Iraq it issued in late 2002 to forestall the Regime's transparent efforts to expand the war to include Iran.

Most of the Democratic leadership appears to be amenable to an attack on Iran: As Giraldi writes: “Those who hope that Democrats will stop the rush to war need only note the repeated excoriation of Iran by party leaders like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Charles Schumer. Howard Dean has declared that the US attack on Iraq was directed against the `wrong enemy' while Iran is the `right enemy.'”

Meanwhile, those elements of the Right that aren't full-fledged members of the Bushcult are, for the most part, ignoring the Regime's drive for war with Iran. In some cases – as with the guys leading this outfit, an organization of wonderful people whose agenda, alas, is set by someone whose trumpet is so uncertain it's most likely a Flugelhorn – even some paleo-conservatives offer equivocal support for the prospective war (or even nuclear annihilation of Iran's entire population – scroll down here for a detailed discussion of this point).

At present, the only impediments to a full-scale war are, first, the relative moderation and discipline of the regime in Tehran (contemplate, for a second, what this says about the irrationality of our rulers in Washington), and whatever countervailing influence within the Pentagon is being exercised by a group of command-level officers who have reportedly threatened to resign if the Bush Regime attacks Iran.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” reported a British Intelligence source to the London Times. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

“The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table,” noted the Times.

Whether or not the Regime gets its war with Iran, its ongoing war in Iraq and covert actions throughout the region have materially aided both the radical Shi'ites aligned with Tehran – who are running the government in Baghdad – and the radical Sunnis who are aligned with al-Qaeda.

Hersh's current analysis in The New Yorker points out that the Bush administration, the Saudis, and the Israelis have all thrown money and material support to elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian-born Sunni terrorist network, created in 1928, that is the ancestor of every Muslim terrorist group of any consequence. This includes the diffuse and over-rated (but undeniably murderous) fraternity called al-Qaeda.

This campaign is being carried out, according to Hersh, by the same cast of malefactors that brought us the Iran-Contra scandal in the mid-1980s – which provided military and intelligence aid to Tehran in its war with Iraq.

The Brotherhood is seen by the Washington-Riyahd-Tel Aviv axis as a surrogate in the unfolding regional war between the Sunnis and Shi'ites. The interest of Saudi Arabia's Sunnis is obvious. Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, whom Hersh interviewed in Beirut, accuses Washington and Tel Aviv of instigating “fitna” -- an Arabic word referring to “insurrection and fragmentation within Islam.”

Nasrallah believes that the objective is to create a “new Middle East” in which “Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in the region,” surrounded by a relatively docile collection of small sectarian mini-states.

Yes, Nasrallah is a terrorist leader aligned with Iran. But his projections line up nicely with the strategy devised by the architects of the current Iraq war: Take down Iraq, Iran, and Syria, “democratize” Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and plant a permanent US military presence in the region.

It's not clear how long the Bush Regime has been running a covert war against Iran, and collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Sunni groups in the region. What is clear is that every US soldier who is killed or maimed by Sunni insurgents in Iraq is as much a victim of the enemy at his back in Washington – the real enemy – as he is of the insurgents who surround him.

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