By Debra Sweet

The terrible situation in Egypt and Syria may make one wish to look away, but we can't. In both countries, thousands have been killed, with horrifying massacres in the last weeks, and the U.S. government is deeply implicated.

Egypt:
The U.S. government backed a military coup removing the elected government of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The military, trained and supported under successive U.S. administrations, receiving more than $1.5B a year, killed over 1,000 Morsi supporters on August 14, including women and children.

Sunday's New York Times reported that the army is now expanding the definition of "Islamist," labeling union organizers, journalists, and progressive activists "spies" and "Islamists." Hosni Mubarak, target of the righteous Arab spring uprising, was released from prison.

But the U.S. will still not call it a coup. Obama's withholding, temporarily of "some" military aid notwithstanding, is face-saving only, conveying that U.S. interests lie only with maintaining Egypt's strong military as a buttress against change in the whole region. The suffering and poverty of the people in Egypt, enforced all these years by U.S. is of no concern to the U.S. government up against the needs of its global empire.

Syria:
But while the U.S. never contemplated an intervention to stop the killing in Egypt by an illegitimate government it supports, President Obama is already intervening in Syria, "supplying paramilitary material, intelligence, and training and working to define the politics of the armed opposition forces. Its close allies—especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey—are supplying weapons to these forces" according to Revolution.

The US Navy is putting ships into place for an action that could have huge consequences: the killing of many more civilians in urban areas in aerial attacks; the increase in violence on both sides (both of which have terrorized the people); the widening of war into Iraq, Iran, Lebanon? Nothing good or the people of Syria can come of this "humanitarian intervention."

David Swanson wrote Saturday Lying About Syria, and the Lying Liars Who Lie About the Lying:

“Threatening to attack Syria, and moving ships into position to do it, are significant, and illegal, and immoral actions. The president can claim not to have decided to push the button, but he can't pretend that all the preparations to do so just happen like the weather. Or he couldn't if newspapers reported news.

“(Yes, illegal. Read the U.N. Charter: ‘All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.’)”

Ask the population of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia — the most recent recipients of U.S. "humanitarian intervention" — how it has U.S. presence worked out?