From US frying pan to US fire

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/21/2011



Many Yellow “PeNoys” like to draw parallels between what’s happening in Egypt and the Middle East, on the one hand, and the Philippines in 1986, on the other. What they don’t realize is that the similarities aren’t as happy and sanguine as they are forcing themselves to believe.

Hidden beneath the veneer of revelry and jubilation is the truth that many have learned over the years, succinctly depicted in a title of Michel Chossudovsky’s recent article, entitled, “Dictators” do not dictate, they obey orders.” We know that these Third World “dictators” only obey their superior dictator, the imperial United States of America. Whenever these authoritarian figures present any impulse of recalcitrance, the giant dictator simply puts its foot down, crushes these small tin-pot dictators, and sets up new ones.

The Western-dominated (if not controlled) international mainstream media and their local derivatives present only one side of the growing turmoil and, in particular, leaders such as Mubarak. Despite these efforts, Western media cannot hide the fact that these autocrats have mainly acted for and in behalf of the US for over a generation. However they try to present an image of US and Western consensus in supporting a transition to “democratic” politics in these countries today, such efforts are merely belied by what’s happening on the ground.

In Egypt, as in all the other US-dominated states in turmoil, the Establishment (or the status quo) is still in control. The Egyptian transition government, for instance, is still under the former general and intelligence chief Suleiman and the Egyptian Army. Of course, the evicted Mubarak now undergoes the obligatory demonization by the same Western media that lionized him for a quarter of a century. The usual snippets of Mubarak’s “billions of dollars stacked away in Switzerland” have become a very effective tool in focusing all the rage against just one man to divert popular fury from the real hegemonic dictator.

And since The Great Dictator’s puppet Mubarak had already outlived his usefulness, he had to go (so the argument goes). But was this the only reason? Webster Tarpley, a geopolitical analyst with a sterling record of accuracy and a wide network of intelligence sources, wrote on Feb. 18 an article entitled, “Mubarak toppled by CIA because he opposed US plans for war with Iran; US eyes seizure of Suez Canal; Was this the threat that forced Mubarak to quit?”

For the West to have effectively excluded China, Russia, and Iran access to that vital trade route, Mubarak may have already shown a limit to his submissiveness. After all, it clearly appeared when he refused exile despite Western media’s insinuations of such a fate for him. Further, as he declared, “I’ll die in Egypt,” the West now seems to have obliged, as latest reports by the likes of CBS, BBC, and Al Jazeera (though still unconfirmed) say Mubarak is already in a coma. Could this be a psywar for an accession to exile?

Our own strongman Ferdinand Marcos was in many ways in the same position; yet he was not by any means as simplistic in his authoritarian rule as other tin-pot dictators proved. Marcos opened relations with socialist countries; achieved food self-sufficiency; and aspired for industrialization — all requisites of economic sovereignty and stable growth. He even attempted to establish a sovereign currency with his Bagong Lipunan notes — all these becoming too much for his US masters, so much so that he was forcibly abducted to Hawaii instead of being airlifted to Paoay as he wished.

Indonesia’s Suharto, meanwhile, was another US-sponsored dictator who was removed when the Indonesian state refused to give up East Timor, which the US had put under that nation’s care at the height of the Cold War, fearing communist takeover. As Indonesia developed a sense of sovereignty and even attempted to acquire the entire East German Navy (which the West adamantly objected to), the imperialist forces made sure that the nation’s permanent control of the East Timor oil shelf would not be realized.

As the Philippines has become the poster child for such managed transitions — it is only fitting to ask: “Transitions to what?” From strong one-man rule, isn’t it the case that the shift has only been toward greater control by the Western hegemonic dictatorship through financial totalitarianism?

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, research associate of the Center for Research on Globalization, traces all this to global capitalism in “Struggle for self-determination in the Arab world: The alliance between Arab dictators and global capital.” In it, he devotes a sub-section describing “Arab leaders as comprador elites serving foreign interests” which says: “…Class polarization has grown as the gap between the rich and the poor widens… The Arab people grasp the fact that their ruling class and governments are not only corrupt regimes, but also comprador elites, namely the local representatives of foreign corporations, governments, and interests… properly called parasite or parasitic elites, because they siphon off local wealth and resources on behalf of their neo-colonial masters. This structure of comprador elites prevails in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority… almost all Arab finance ministers are affiliated to the major global banking institutions. All of them also strictly adhere to the Washington Consensus of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.” Exact duplicate copies of the Philippines

The 25th anniversary of the Yellow transition from Marcos — a leader who attempted to develop an economically self-sufficient and sovereign Philippine state — is merely reliving the degeneration of this country into a nation run to the ground by a parasitic comprador corporatocratic society, where poverty and hunger, economic retrogression and mendicancy, moral collapse and social decay have reached unprecedented proportions.

The Filipino people, the patriotic military cells, as well as the economic middle class that are all under threat of extinction must, as Nazemroaya says of the Arab peoples, “grasp the fact that their ruling class are not only corrupt but are parasites” that must be extinguished before genuine popular political and economic liberation can come.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “Sorry Yellow Movement” with Charito Planas, Prof. Rene Ofreneo, and Linggoy Alcuaz; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)