Yesterday Joe Biden stated that he did not think that President Mubarak of Egypt was a dictator. He proceeded to explain how Mubarak has been a good ally to US interests in the region:
Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things that he’s been very responsible on relative to geopolitical interests in the region, Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with Israel. And I think that it would be—I would not refer to him as a dictator.
Based on this, the Vice President's definition of a dictator is predicated on compliance with US interests. The US government backing true dictators that consent to helping US business and strategic concerns is not a new revelation. You can go back throughout US history to find this sort of thing. For instance, it is common knowledge by historians now that the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in Chile by Augusto Pinochet was backed and some even argue led by the US. Pinochet turned out to be a brutal dictator. Pinochet's government killed at least 3,197 people and tortured about 29,000. Two-thirds of the cases listed in the report happened in 1973. The list of support for dictatorships is long. Here is a website I found that posts a good portion of these dictators:
http://www.bluebloggin.com/2008/01/11/history-of-us-backed-dictators-redux/
Most infamous and infuriating of these in many people's minds is Saddam Hussein. Wikileaks cables that were released recently suggest that the US encouraged Saddam to invade Kuwait only to turn our back on the dictator using it as a catalyst to micromanage the region for the next 20 years. We see the results today.
Ron Paul actually had the courage to bring this up in congress this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JANYT8FCik&feature=player_embedded
Although I disagree with Paul on most domestic issues, he is a champion of exposing US atrocities abroad. Representative Kucinich is more to my liking as an overall politician, and these are the two eccentric US politicians that come to mind. Now, Joe Biden may be notorious for saying stupid things, but what he said here is exactly in line with the US foreign policy stance for decades. Paul and Kucinic are marked as loonies or radicals for their dissidence. Meanwhile, the President has sidestepped his way with much prowess to encourage dissidence, but to not upset his ally Mubarak who also happens to be a brutal dictator that is being challenged by a wave of protests in Egypt. My hope is that Egypt and the other Middle East countries that are going through revolution right now do not get trapped by US style imperialism. That imperialism shows up as privitization of resources, backing dictators that systematically kill dissidents, and horrid sectionalism. That imperialism is what creates terrorists. Not religion. Not a hate for freedom. It is the western stranglehold on that region that has produced the terrorist ideology we see today. As long as a few people profit from this we cannot rely on our government to do anything to stop it.
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