This New York Times story details some of the routine, casual, mindless brutality of the Egyptian secret police, the Mukhabarat. Until last week, the head of the Mukhabarat was Omar Suleiman, now the Vice President.
Think about that when you read that the U.S. is pressing the Egyptian opposition to come to terms with Suleiman.
Part of the problem is that any President in such a situation has to rely in part on the CIA for information. And the CIA works hard to maintain good relations with foreign intelligence services. It wouldn’t be surprising if documents from the CIA cast Suleiman in a good light. But the fact that his agency was one of those to which the CIA outsourced torture under the “rendition” program ought to make us all a little bit ashamed, if not sick to our stomachs. The guy our government wants to put in charge of the new Egypt was the manager of the local Fingernail Factory.
The cossacks work fort the czar, yo.
And… we must keep good relations with the intelligence community that the CIA finds useful. It worked so well with the ISI.
That’s not a particularly charitable characterization of what the US is pressing for, as best I can tell. The administration seems to be operating under the premise that the interim government would be transitional and temporary. Obviously there are reasons to be suspicious as to whether it would actually turn out that way, but that appears to be their position.
If, during transition, there is no clear mechanism put in place to protect the protesters, what will that say about us?
Putting the secret police in charge has worked so well in the former soviet union as well…