Malaysia human trafficking TPP

U.S. Government Enthusiastically Tweets About Arm Sales to the Brutal and Autocratic Egyptian Regime

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In case you’ve been living under a geopolitical rock for the last couple of years, you’d know that despite a brief period of time during which Egypt appeared headed toward a democratic form of government, it went from one brutal dictator to another. As was the case during Hosni Mubarak’s decades of rule, this is precisely how the U.S. government likes it. So much so, that U.S. officials are not only selling arms to the latest despot, General Abdelfattah al-Sisi, but they are actively bragging about it on Twitter.

Glenn Greenwald reports at the Intercept:

The Egyptian regime run by the despotic General Abdelfattah al-Sisi is one of the world’s most brutal and repressive. Last year, Human Rights Watch documented that that Egyptian “security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.” Just two months ago, the group warned that the abuses have “escalated,” and that Sisi, “governing by decree in the absence of an elected parliament, ha[s] provided near total impunity for security force abuses and issued a raft of laws that severely curtailed civil and political rights, effectively erasing the human rights gains of the 2011 uprising that ousted the longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.”

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U.S. Government Reinstates Arm Sales to Bahrain Despite Rampant Human Rights Abuses

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One of the many destructive myths Americans like to tell themselves is that the U.S. government is a staunch defender of human rights and democracy around the world. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes its true, there are plenty of well intentioned individuals and organizations across America that do care very deeply about such things; the U.S. government just isn’t one of them. The facts on the ground clearly prove this to be the case. The only thing those in charge care about is raw imperial power and money. Of course, they know this. They also know that keeping the myth alive is extremely important in order to maintain the moral high ground and some degree of legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The most recent example of what a sham the government’s purported commitment to human rights is, was last week’s revelation that the State Department may be prepared to upgrade Malaysia’s trafficking in persons ranking just to move the TPP forward. Here’s an excerpt from the post, To Pass TPP, U.S. State Dept. Upgrades Malaysia’s Human Trafficking Ranking Despite Discovery of Mass Graves:

Earlier this week, we wrote about a troubling move by the US State Department to “upgrade” Malaysia from a “tier 3″ country to a “tier 2″ country regarding human trafficking. This move came despite a near total lack of evidence of any improvement by Malaysia. In fact, just two months ago 139 mass graves were discovered for migrant workers who had been trafficked and/or held for ransom. And the US ambassador to Malaysia had publicly criticized the country for failing to tackle its massive human trafficking problem.

Today, we learn about how the U.S. government has reinstated arm sales to Bahrain despite horrific human rights abuses. From International Business Times:

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