President Obama has had to face up to memories of the US-backed repression in Central America during a visit that coincided with the anniversary of the assassination of the legendary Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, on 24 March 1980. Protesters in El Salvador also demanded that Obama rework or scrap the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which has crippled agriculture in the country.
Former senior CIA analyst-turned-peace activist Ray McGovern was forcibly ejected and injured when he stood up and turned his back towards Hillary Clinton in silent protest during her ‘Freedom Speech’.
While people power protests in the Arab world are in the spotlight, the corporate media seem to have downplayed the public sector workers’ 100,000-strong protest in Wisconsin over moves to strip them of their collective bargaining rights.
We know that the United States provides military aid to the Mubarak regime. But where does much of the money actually end up (leaving aside the ‘commissions’)? According to Amy Goodman of truthdig.com: … Mostly to U.S. corporations. I asked William Hartung of the New America Foundation to explain: “It’s a form of corporate welfare for companies like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, because it goes to Egypt, then it comes back for F-16 aircraft, for M-1 tanks, for aircraft engines, for all kinds of missiles, for guns, for tear-gas canisters [from] a company called Combined Systems International, which actually has its name on the side of the canisters that have been found on the streets there.”
Events unfolding in Egypt have gripped the attention of people all around the world. The writing is clearly on the wall for the US-backed dictator Mubarak. Oddly enough, I was just watching a documentary on the last days of the Marcos regime (US-backed too) and there are some uncanny similarities. The United States only withdrew support for Marcos in the last minute when confronted with a huge display of People Power. The US government unceremoniously whisked him away to a safe haven in Hawaii. He thus escaped from justice and the wrath of the people of the Philippines. It is also interesting to see that some of the looters, arsonists and ‘rioters’ are suspected to be police or other security personnel. (Robert Fisk provides an eye-witness account in ZNet.) If that’s true, then it shouldn’t come as a surprise as such ‘black ops’ tactics among security apparatus, not to mention [Read more]