Obama: Hands off Egypt

We must support the subordination of the military and police to civilian political and economic control and the stripping of the military and police of their stranglehold on the commanding heights of the national economy of Egypt. For a true representative governance to prevail the revolution must aim to free Egypt from military and police stranglehold over every aspect of national life. It is this process for a decisive change that we must all support.

As it is US arms and money that give sustenance to the army and police, that oxygen must be cut off and this can only be achieved through direct action to educate and stir up the American public to oppose the strangulation of "democracy" in Egypt by their executive. Those who want a new and truly representative order in Egypt must turn directly to the American public as it is the US executive and sections of the US legislature that are the real enemies of a true and representative governance in Egypt. Egyptians must understand that when the American public learned about the true nature of the executive execution of the Vietnam War, this informed American public forced the executive to withdraw from Vietnam. The challenge facing both pro-military and anti-Morsi forces is that of coming together to bring the military and police under civilian control and order, foremost.

What Egyptians must wake up to is the fact that the teargas, bullets, water cannons, the fighter jets, tanks, attack helicopters and all the weapons of mass intimidation being used against and to threaten them by the military and police have been paid for with American tax-payers’ money. It is therefore the American public and voters that the bullets and canisters collected plus all the evidence of US executive hands, meddling in the internal affairs of Egypt, must be directed at in an organised appeal. Every Egyptian living or sojourning in the US must make it their duty to appeal directly to their congressmen, senators and local executives of both the ruling Democratic Party and the Republican party to press the Obama administration to stop using tax payers’ money to fund the oppression and exploitation of the Egyptian people by the military and police. The American oxygen that keeps the military and police in power in Egypt can only be cut off by direct action of an awakened American public and voters.

The murderous and meddling hands of Obama must be exposed and to the American public to give peaceful co-existence and a true representative governance a chance in Egypt. The twin purpose of the revolution is to bring the army and police under civilian control and to sever their stranglehold on the national economy in order for true freedom and justice and equal opportunity for all to prevail in Egypt. Such is the path to an inclusive and non-extractive political and economic order.

The era of military and police domination and expropriation of every aspect of Egyptian socio-economic life is being brought to an end and the end is nigh and yet far away so far as Egyptians allow the security force to hoodwink them in order to keep having their way at the expense of the rest of society. Today in Egypt over 40% of the population is poor and strive to survive on less than two US dollars a day. Many sectors of the economy are restricted, through regulation, to the military-cum-police cabal and their businessmen side-kicks. For example, the media, iron and steel, automotive industry, alcoholic beverages and cement are all the extractive domains of politically connected businessmen and firms. The challenge facing the revolution therefore is the destruction and prevention of the development of these extractive political and economic institutions run by the narrow-minded ruling elite. Without inclusive political and economic institutions “democracy” becomes an illusion and only a counterfeit dollar note thrown into the begging hands of the blind.

Egypt, please wake up and boldly tell the Obama administration and the voting American public to take back their fighter jets, attack helicopters and weapons of mass intimidation and suppression as without these Egyptians can remove from their backs military and police dictatorship and introduce a new era of political tolerance, pluralism, inclusive economic practice for peaceful co-existence. It is only the Obama administration that is standing in the way of a “people’s victory” over years of military dictatorship.

OBAMA HANDS OFF EGYPT!!!

* Akyaaba Addai-Sebo is an independent consultant on National Interest and Preventive Diplomacy