Mahfouz's Prophesy

Department

Art

Document Type

Editorial

Publication Date

2-15-2011

Abstract

During the past sixty years US politicians have convinced Americans citizens that some of the world’s tyrants and dictators are “strong and dependable allies of the US.” To wit the State Department’s official statements about Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak during the first few days of the uprising that has swept Egypt like a firestorm.

The emergence of two super powers soon after World War II set the stage for a politically and ideologically polarized world; Communism became our arch enemy, and anti-communist dictators, regardless of their tyrannical rule, became our allies “in the fight to keep communism from spreading around the world.” Is this not how we were sold on the Vietnam War?

Perceived to have Communist sympathies, Muhammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s duly elected Prime Minister, was ousted from office in 1953 in a CIA orchestrated coup de dat. His Majesty Shahanashah Reza Pahlavi, King of Kings, was propped up on the Iranian Imperial Peacock Throne. The CIA would eventually train his SAVAK secret police in the art of torture. Twenty six years later, the Shah fled Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini triumphed into Tehran to supposedly save the Iranians from a tyrant who’d become an American puppet. The results have not been pleasant for Iranians, the Near East, and the world. Closer to home, in 1973 the CIA orchestrated another coup de tat in Chile; Augusto Pinochet, “a strong ally,” ruled brutally and tyrannically until his removal in 1990.

Publication Title

CounterPunch

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