As recently as Jan. 27, when Joe Biden appeared
on the “PBS NewsHour,” the official U.S. line about the despot of Egypt
was enough to make Orwell’s coffin spin. Was it time for Mubarak to go?
“No,” Biden replied. “I think the time has come for President Mubarak to
begin to move in the direction that -- to be more responsive to some . .
. of the needs of the people out there.”
The interviewer, Jim Lehrer, is hardly a tough
questioner of red-white-and-blue officialdom, but he did press the vice
president on whether Mubarak was a dictator. Biden replied: “Mubarak has
been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very
responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the
Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to
normalizing relationship with -- with Israel. . . . I would not refer to
him as a dictator.”
Secretary of State Clinton is correct when she
says that Iran’s regime is “awful.” I caught a glimpse six years ago, at
Tehran University, when police and Basij thugs broke up a peaceful
demonstration for women’s rights. Over lunch one day, an Iranian talked
about the torture of friends in prison and described the people in
charge as “monsters.” These days, the repression in Iran is far worse.
Meanwhile, the torture of political prisoners in
Saudi Arabia is no less horrific -- while the U.S. government’s winks
and nods toward the Saudi regime are no less pernicious today than they
were for decades while Mubarak’s henchmen did their foul deeds in Egypt.
In both cases, the cruelty has been OK with Washington since it has
been perpetrated by (cue Biden) “an ally of ours in a number of things”
that has been “very responsible . . . relative to geopolitical interest
in the region.”
On the same day as Clinton’s selectively
righteous speech blasting an awful regime in the Middle East, my
colleagues at RootsAction launched “An Open Letter to the People of Egypt.”
“From the United States, we watched as you stood
up for democracy, faced huge obstacles and used nonviolent action to
depose a dictator,” the letter says. “We send you our congratulations
and appreciation for showing us -- and people all over the planet -- the
power of mobilized humanity in the quest for justice and freedom.”
The letter adds: “As Americans, we have a
responsibility to reset U.S. government policies in Egypt and the entire
region. Last week, thousands of us signed a letter
demanding that Obama apologize for our country’s three decades of
support for the Mubarak regime. Now, in the absence of a presidential
apology, we take it upon ourselves to apologize. We resolve to work for
human rights in solidarity with you, calling for a swift transition for
democracy in Egypt. We intend to work so that U.S. foreign policy truly
becomes aligned with the values of democracy and human rights.”
Signing the open letter
is a statement of solidarity with pro-democracy movements -- and a
rejection of Washington’s ongoing double standard on human rights. But
our words won’t accomplish much unless we match them with effective
political organizing in the days and years ahead.
Norman Solomon is president of the Institute for Public Accuracy and a senior fellow at RootsAction.
