It's not our embassy....

12/29/09, Cairo: The repression, house arrests, and state of siege against those of us on the Gaza Freedom March is tightening here in Egypt.... and new channels of creative protest are being forged. There are many forms of protest today in Cairo over the Egyptian government's refusal to allow the Gaza Freedom Marchers into Gaza. At the US embassy, 42 or so people were brutally corralled and detained outside while attempting to lodge complaints -- one person was lifted up and tossed over security lines by Egyptian security forces. The U.S. Embassy staff claimed the detentions were carried out by Egyptian police in reaction to a protest outside the embassy (of which there was none), but the Egyptian commander on the scene told those detained the US embassy was directing things; A U.S. embassy 'observer' was overseeing the operation without identifying himself to the detainees.

As of late PM, the detainees were being allowed to register their grievances before embassy staff, and get told that blocking our entry into Gaza is a decision by the sovereign state of Egypt and it would be inappropriate for the US to interfere.

And we all know that the U.S would never tell any "sovereign state," like the Egyptian regime (the 3rd largest recipient of US "aid," and one of the countries to which the US sent detainees to be tortured under the rendition program)... what to do.

Yeah. Right.

It is, in reality, thru this "chain of command" that the orders flow that have locked us down in Cairo (along with a few dozen people with GFM who are under virtual house arrest in Al Arish near the Gaza border), in an attempt to further islolate the people in Gaza. It is through these channels that the vice around the Palestinians in Gaza is being imposed thru a deadly blockade. And now, a massive is being planned and built to shut down the tunnels through which Gazans get just enough to eat and live (mainstream news sources report that the US Army Corps of Engineers is involved in building the wall). All in the interests of global empire.

I am reminded of Bob Avakian's statement during the Iran hostage crisis: It's not our embassy, it's the embassy of the imperialist ruling class...  ("From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey From Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist," chapter 23).