Hail to the Chief

When the Center for American Progress’ Think Progress blog recently compiled all of the inspiring foreign policy successes of our nation’s strong and resolute Commander-in-Chief, they listed — alongside the assassination of a U.S. citizen without due process and increased deference to Israel — what they hailed as the President’s having “supported democratic transition in Egypt.” President Obama apparently deserves credit for this notwithstanding the fact that his administration supported President Mubarak up to the very last minute [...]and Obama, once Mubarak’s fall became inevitable, tried to engineer the empowerment of Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s long-time trusted lieutenant most responsible for its policies of torture and brutality.

[...]

[T]he actual Egyptian people don’t share CAP’s view that President Obama deserves credit for supporting their transition to democracy, as multiple polls over the last 18 months show that the U.S. is viewed even more unfavorably in that country than it was during the Bush years.

  Glenn Greenwald

A truly amazing feat for Obama.

Egyptians obviously have come to realize, as many Americans have as well, that President’s Obama’s pretty, pretty speeches are often not backed up — or are even aggressively negated — by his subsequent actions.

My guess is that the Egyptians and all other foreigners are able to come to that realization much sooner than Americans.

All of this is likely to get worse as a result of yesterday’s disclosures by Amnesty International that, even as the Egyptian military brutally attacked protesters, the U.S. continued to arm them with crowd-control weaponry.

We have to. We had hopes those people would be satisfied with American democracy, but they’re demanding Democracy.

A shipment for the Egyptian Ministry of Interior arrived from the US on 26 November carrying at least seven tons of “ammunition smoke” – which includes chemical irritants and riot control agents such as tear gas.

[...]

The other two shipments Amnesty documents contained a combined total of 38 tons of ammunition.

  Amnesty

Well, I hope we kept enough for the Wall Street Occupiers.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.