Hinting: Ehud Barak, the Israel defence minister, told the Wall Street Journal that his country might ask America for a further $20billion.
Israel are expected to ask for an additional $20billion in U.S. military aid in order to help the country deal with potential threats arising from the ongoing uprisings in the Middle East.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal defence minister Ehud Barak was reported as saying his country are considering making the request while the Arab world survey the wreckage of the ‘historic earthquake’.
Barak said Israel was worried that its top foes, Iran and Syria ‘might be the last to feel the heat’ of the revolts and that Egypt’s new leaders might, under public pressure, back away from its 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
‘The issue of qualitative military aid for Israel becomes more essential for us, and I believe also more essential for you,’ the U.S. newspaper quoted Barak as saying.
He continued: ‘A strong, responsible Israel can become a stabiliser in such a turbulent region.’
Without making a ‘daring’ peace offer, however, Israel cannot seek additional aid, Barak was quoted as saying.
Israel already receives $3billion in military aid a year from the U.S., but any increase in aid could hinge on the country’s relationship with enemies Palestine.
It is perhaps little surprise, then, that Barak also said that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to offer Palestinians a state within temporary borders, detailing for the first time an emerging Israeli plan for breaking the deadlocked peace negotiations.
State: The Gaza strip separates Israel and Palestinians, but they may be offered their own independent territory.
Though the Palestinians repeatedly have rejected provisional statehood, Barak said that Israel or the U.S. would have to give assurances that a full-fledged agreement on permanent statehood would follow.
Only afterwards, would the two sides would resolve key issues of the conflict, such as competing claims to Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees, Barak added.
No details of the plan were given, however, but with popular protests shaking up the Middle East, Netanyahu is under fierce international pressure to prove he is serious about getting peacemaking moving again, especially after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s West Bank settlement construction last month.
The prime minister is said to be planning a speech – possibly to be delivered in Washington – in which he will outline his plans.
Under pressure: The U.S and U.N. want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prove he is serious about getting peacemaking moving again.
It is not clear that the U.S. would support the idea of an interim accord, given the Palestinians’ categorical rejection of the notion.
A temporary state would not only give the Palestinians less territory than they demand, but Israel would also retain military control of the area.
The Palestinians are also afraid that it they agree to temporary borders, then they will never win a full-fledged, independent state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip.
Israel captured all three areas in 1967, then withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas militants overran the territory two years later.
‘If and when Israel offers its own thoughts on how to move the process forward, we will be listening attentively,’ White House spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington yesterday.
‘We do not know what the prime minister and his government are thinking at the present time.’
U.S.-led peace talks, launched six months ago with the ambitious goal of striking a final deal by September 2011, broke down shortly after they began over Israeli construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians demanded a freeze in both areas, but Israel refused, arguing that previous rounds of talks took place while settlement construction was under way and that the issue should be settled in negotiations.
With peacemaking stalled, the Palestinians have launched a campaign to seek international recognition of Palestinian statehood.
Their tentative plan is to seek U.N. General Assembly recognition in the fall, a move that might not win them an actual state but might isolate Israel.
Last week, Barak predicted a ‘tsunami’ of international pressure on Israel in the autumn and said that to protect its standing, the Israeli government had to take unspecified initiatives.
When Gaddaffi took power in 1969 (1st September), the oil production stood at 3 million barrels/day.
Today, after 25 years of embargo, it stands at 1,6 million barrels/day average.
The only company which continued normal production, mainly natural gas, was ENI (see previous links), maintaining the same gas production level throughout. ENI has the gas-export monopoly of Libya through their own pipe-line to Sicily.
Libya provides 25 % of the Italian gas consumption.
The drop in production is due to the lack of Western oil-professionals and modern equipment when the embargo started after 1969 and to something else: OIL POLITICS.
The only people who performed normally are the German oil companies, which kept the principle not to mix politics with business. This lead to an excellent relation between NOC and the 2 German oil companies RWE and WINTERSHALL. RWE just discovered 2 new oil fields in the Sirte Basin.
ENI kept the gas production at a normal level and the 2 German companies kept a normal oil production and even raised it.
All the Americans, British and French kept a very low technical staff level and delayed eternally to raise the production.
Libya, probably the biggest oil reserves of Africa, the whole Central and South-West part of the country is one big oil lake, together with Kufra at the Sudanese border, has been kept on the backburner by the major oil companies.
The Libyans themselves, by lack of skilled engineers and modern equipment during the embargo, have screwed up their existing fields.
Their giant Nasser field, discovered and producing since the ‘60’s, with an original production of 500.000 barrels/day, has today a production of 12.000 BPD of oil and 90.000 BPD of water, which necessitates separation and creates a dirty surface lake.
The Libyans drilled so many wells the wrong way that they created the water problem themselves.
The estimate of that field stands at more than 2 billion barrels possible production, perhaps even more.
The new blocks, leased by the major oil companies, are all too slow to come on stream, and that’s definitely due to politics, they keep the Libyan reserves in the ground. Libya gave BP exceptional conditions for their giant off-shore oil field, giving them 30 % of the revenue, against 17/19 % for all other foreign companies.
BP, promising an investment of 1 billion dollars, hasn’t spent a penny worth mentioning.
All the majors are guilty. Why?
Gaddaffi is much too strict and too powerful in his country and has squeezed, trough the skills of Shokri Ghanem, the maximum out of the majors.
Since the majors have the best of all worlds in chaos, I am 100 % sure that they want chaos and strife in Libya. For the moment they have a very weak negotiation position in Libya, as long as Gaddaffi is in charge. When Libya stumbles into chaos the people at the top will be in a very weak position to negotiate, a little bit like the other African oil producing countries. The people at the top get extremely rich but the country gets nothing.
In Libya today until a few weeks ago, there is a definite strife to get the people on equal comfortable footing.
The fact that the people in Benghazi and Tobruk have resurfaced with the original Cyrenaica Flag of king Idriss gives a very good indication, Cyrenaica wants to grab the control of Libya again and control over the Sirte and Tripoli tribes, which will never happen for a long period, even if Gaddaffi disappears.
UTA flight and Lockerbie
I refer to my previous comments on TBJ concerning Lockerbie. I am not changing one iota.
As far as the UTA flight is concerned, I know of the existence of a video concerning the UTA flight. Today the owner of this video, with proof that Gaddaffi had nothing to do with this, is considering making it public.
Several French nationals would really be in trouble, including politicians.
The UTA flight had the majority of the arms dealers with whom Mitterrand and his son were doing illegal arms business in Africa, on board. It solved a lot of problems for Mitterrand
Benghazi aids-children (Bulgarian Nurses)
When I spoke to a high ranking officer of the office of the Libyan General Attorney about the case of the 450 Benghazi aids-children, he told me that the Libyan authorities were at a loss about the motives of this case.
The Benghazi police had never found the motives behind this case. There were no financial motives and the police admitted to the General Attorney that they had been pretty rough with the nurses but couldn’t find a motive. The Benghazi police also claimed to have found the tainted blood in the personal private fridges of the nurses.
After what happened the last weeks, I think there is a plausible motive: riots and anti-Gaddaffi protests in Benghazi, which really took place at that time.
I also had a question why the Qatari’s were so quick to pay the 450 million euro compensation the parents received, one million per child, via the French and the Tripoli government. Everybody in Benghazi knows that the money came from Qatar.
Today Al Jazeerah, from Qatar, is at the forefront of the anti-Gaddaffi campaign in Libya. Al Jazeerah doesn’t even let one sound pro-Gaddaffi through.
Yusuf Al Qaradawi, the chief mentor of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is financed and covered by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Qatar government is owner of Al-Jazeerah.
I would not hesitate to reopen the file of the Benghazi children and check the real story, in cooperation with the doctor and the nurses. I think Benghazi doesn’t know the truth and their benefactors are a bunch of murdering gangsters.
Culture and Future
The tribal culture is ingrained in the Beduin psyche.
The destruction of the Gaddaffi Libyan structure towards a so-called democracy means for the people from Cyrenaica a bigger share of the Libyan wealth, meanwhile the “liberators”are looting all equipmewnt they can lay their hands upon. The Korean and Chinese construction companies which were working on a modern Libya until a few weeks ago, are completely looted, they have nothing anymore, no equipment, no office tools, no computers, everythoing is gone, and that is in “liberated”Cyrenaica. Heard anything about this from Al Jazeerah?
Armed groups of looters are roaming the dessert to steal everything they can from the deserted oil fields, all foreign engineers and workers left.
Result total production stop for years to come if Gaddaffi loses, who is going to decide which oilfield contractor can continue, which government is in charge, who is going to sell the oil and control the deliveries?
Sirte tribes will never allow Cyrenaica to control their oil fields.
The tribal system will take decades to transform itself into a real democracy and the man who was intensively working on it, Saif-al-Islam Gaddaffi, who has already prepared a constitution to start democracy and bring Libya into democracy, is now eventually cut short by the Western interference.
Saif refused the political job of “governor”of the country above the prime minister, job offered by his father 2 years ago. Saif insisted on a popular vote by the people of Libya so that he had a popular base.
Not too bad for the son of a dictator, no?
Saif is also the son of a Sirte Chief and a Cyrenaica mother, the perfect blend for a Libyan leaderSaif has fought the old conservatives around his father continuously for years and the Libyans know it.
Leave Libya sort out their own problems AND DON”T INTERFERE.
Gentlemen from Washington and Brussels, you fucked up Iran, Irak, Pakistan, Afghanistan, just to name a few of your successes, back off and let Libya sort itself out.
CONCLUSION
If the US does not interfere Gaddaffi stays, negotiations between tribes are already underway.
If the US Air Force and the Egyptian army, under civilian cover, do interfere, Gaddaffi loses and Libya is ready for decades of intertribal fights.
There will be no Libya anymore, just pieces of the country, fighting each other for years to come.
In this context a small remark:
Azzawiya and Misurata, where there are clashes today, are 2 ports.
The clashes are with small groups of people who arrive by small fishery boats from Cyrenaica. The local population has nothing whatsoever to do with this, but it’s definitely no joy for them to be in the cross fires. The local population just wants peace and I hope they can get it soon.
From personal experience and observation over 10 years.
Wisconsin Police Have Joined Protest Inside State Capitol
From inside the Wisconsin State Capitol, RAN ally Ryan Harvey reports:
“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”
Ryan reported on his Facebook page earlier today:
“Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’ Unreal.”
Of all the struggles going on in North Africa and the Middle East right now, the most difficult to unravel is the one in Libya.
What is the character of the opposition to the Gadhafi regime, which reportedly now controls the eastern city of Benghazi?
Is it just coincidence that the rebellion started in Benghazi, which is north of Libya’s richest oil fields as well as close to most of its oil and gas pipelines, refineries and its LNG port? Is there a plan to partition the country?
What is the risk of imperialist military intervention, which poses the gravest danger for the people of the entire region?
Libya is not like Egypt. Its leader, Moammar al-Gadhafi, has not been an imperialist puppet like Hosni Mubarak. For many years, Gadhafi was allied to countries and movements fighting imperialism. On taking power in 1969 through a military coup, he nationalized Libya’s oil and used much of that money to develop the Libyan economy. Conditions of life improved dramatically for the people.
For that, the imperialists were determined to grind Libya down. The U.S. actually launched air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986 that killed 60 people, including Gadhafi’s infant daughter – which is rarely mentioned by the corporate media. Devastating sanctions were imposed by both the U.S. and the U.N. to wreck the Libyan economy.
After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 and leveled much of Baghdad with a bombing campaign that the Pentagon exultantly called “shock and awe,” Gadhafi tried to ward off further threatened aggression on Libya by making big political and economic concessions to the imperialists. He opened the economy to foreign banks and corporations; he agreed to IMF demands for “structural adjustment,” privatizing many state-owned enterprises and cutting state subsidies on necessities like food and fuel.
The Libyan people are suffering from the same high prices and unemployment that underlie the rebellions elsewhere and that flow from the worldwide capitalist economic crisis.
There can be no doubt that the struggle sweeping the Arab world for political freedom and economic justice has also struck a chord in Libya. There can be no doubt that discontent with the Gadhafi regime is motivating a significant section of the population.
However, it is important for progressives to know that many of the people being promoted in the West as leaders of the opposition are long-time agents of imperialism. The BBC on Feb. 22 showed footage of crowds in Benghazi pulling down the green flag of the republic and replacing it with the flag of the overthrown monarch King Idris – who had been a puppet of U.S. and British imperialism.
The Western media are basing a great deal of their reporting on supposed facts provided by the exile group National Front for the Salvation of Libya, which was trained and financed by the U.S. CIA. Google the front’s name plus CIA and you will find hundreds of references.
The Wall Street Journal in a Feb. 23 editorial wrote that “The U.S. and Europe should help Libyans overthrow the Gadhafi regime.” There is no talk in the board rooms or the corridors of Washington about intervening to help the people of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or Bahrain overthrow their dictatorial rulers. Even with all the lip service being paid to the mass struggles rocking the region right now, that would be unthinkable. As for Egypt and Tunisia, the imperialists are pulling every string they can to get the masses off the streets.
There was no talk of U.S. intervention to help the Palestinian people of Gaza when thousands died from being blockaded, bombed and invaded by Israel. Just the opposite. The U.S. intervened to prevent condemnation of the Zionist settler state.
Imperialism’s interest in Libya is not hard to find. Bloomberg.com wrote on Feb. 22 that while Libya is Africa’s third-largest producer of oil, it has the continent’s largest proven reserves – 44.3 billion barrels. It is a country with a relatively small population but the potential to produce huge profits for the giant oil companies. That’s how the super-rich look at it, and that’s what underlies their professed concern for the people’s democratic rights in Libya.
Getting concessions out of Gadhafi is not enough for the imperialist oil barons. They want a government that they can own outright, lock, stock and barrel. They have never forgiven Gadhafi for overthrowing the monarchy and nationalizing the oil. Fidel Castro of Cuba in his column “Reflections” takes note of imperialism’s hunger for oil and warns that the U.S. is laying the basis for military intervention in Libya.
In the U.S., some forces are trying to mobilize a street-level campaign promoting such U.S. intervention. We should oppose this outright and remind any well-intentioned people of the millions killed and displaced by U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Progressive people are in sympathy with what they see as a popular movement in Libya. We can help such a movement most by supporting its just demands while rejecting imperialist intervention, in whatever form it may take. It is the people of Libya who must decide their future.
The U.S. Military Empire Meets Dictatorship in Bahrain
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The U.S. Empire includes 750-1,000 military bases in more than 130 countries. The reality of that extensive military empire has come to the forefront in Bahrain, where the authoritarian government in that country is cracking down on protestors with round-ups, jail, torture, and even extra-judicial execution.
Of course, it’s a familiar story, one that is confronting Americans every day. People are risking their lives in the attempt to oust brutal authoritarian dictatorships from power — dictatorships that are partners, allies, friends, and loyal members of the U.S. Empire … and recipients of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid that has been used not only to line the personal pockets of the dictators and their henchmen but also to fund the instruments of torture and pay the salaries of the jailers and torturers themselves.
Now, in Bahrain, we see another factor involved in the U.S. Empire’s support of dictatorship — U.S. foreign military bases — one of the many hundreds all across the world. The dictatorship in Bahrain has permitted the Empire to establish and maintain a base there for the Empire’s Fifth Fleet.
So, why should it surprise anyone that the U.S. government, especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would favor the “order and stability” that comes with dictatorship? Hey, democracy is unpredictable. People might not like the idea that a foreign regime maintains a huge military base within their nation. Look at the people of Okinawa, who are trying their best to end the longtime U.S. military occupation of their land. Wouldn’t most Americans resent it if foreign regimes, including Muslim ones, maintained enormous military bases here in the United States?
Dictators are easier to deal with when it comes to U.S. military bases, especially when billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money and military armaments (which can be used to suppress dissent) are placed into his hands of the dictatorship by the Empire. It all makes for a cozy relationship. We’ll line your pockets with cash and give you military armaments to maintain your dictatorship, and you’ll let us keep our military base.
The imperialists say that the Fifth Fleet ensures the flow of oil to the West. That’s inane. It’s sort of like the fly on the automobile wheel that convinces himself that his presence on the wheel is what is propelling the car. Or like the rooster who crows every morning and is convinced that his crowing is bringing up the sun.
It’s no different with respect to the U.S. Empire and its massive overseas military establishments. The Empire is convinced that its presence in the Middle East is what is ensuring the flow of oil needed by the West (including the U.S. government’s massive military machine that consumes so much of the oil).
Not so. The world would function quite well without the Empire’s presence. Owners of oil would sell their oil into the marketplace, just like people sell other things throughout the world. People sell things to make money. Venezuela, whose officials hate the U.S. government, nonetheless sells its own to the United States, not because the U.S Navy is forcing it to do so but because Venezuela wants the money.
Anyway, if owners decide not to sell what they own, that is their right. That’s part of what being an owner is all about — deciding whether to sell and on what terms.
The widespread protests in the Middle East are bringing the ugly reality of U.S. foreign policy into the consciousness of the American people. While most Americans are sympathizing with the people who are risking their lives in resistance to tyranny, Americans are also having to face the discomforting fact that their very own government is, in large part, responsible for the tyranny that those people are opposing. Through a combination of U.S. foreign aid and U.S. foreign military bases, the U.S. government has been partnering with, cozying up to, training, and supporting the tyrannical regimes that foreign citizens are now rebelling against.
Shouldn’t all this give pause to Americans and cause them to begin thinking about rejecting the paradigm of empire and intervention that has held our nation in its grip for so long, including an end to all foreign aid, the closure of all foreign military bases, and the bringing of all the troops home from everywhere and discharging them? As the people of the Middle East rise up against the dictatorships that have brutally oppressed them for so long, hasn’t the time arrived for the American people to restore the paradigm of a constitutionally limited republic and non-interventionism on which our nation was founded?
Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
As the Arab people continue to exercise unarmed yet mighty power, there is one place above all others that remains at the heart of the struggle, Palestine. Despite all the money, propaganda, weapons, false imprisonment, ethnic cleansing, torture and mass-murder wielded against them, they have endured, and they remain, unmovable, they are the people of Palestine. This Global revolution will never be complete until Palestine is free, and in this moment in time, we can listen to those who call for “calm” and “restraint”, or we can listen to our hearts, use our heads, and carry on to the next and most obvious step in this revolution, Palestine.
Resolute
The most powerful thing of all that has occurred in the ongoing uprisings is this, people have begun to believe, that ANYTHING is possible. I have lived with that knowledge for many years, I have seen, smelled and touched a better world. I have felt rage and I have cried, watching as my fellow human beings remained imprisoned within the chains of mental enslavement. And yet I knew, we were just one catalysing event away from massive acceleration in human consciousness and direct action. And in these days I have cried yet again, with tears of joy as I watched my Egyptian brothers and sisters what would have been considered impossible less than a month ago. And together we know, ANYTHING is possible.
Global Revolution Egypt
There are those who fear Israel, the Egyptian Military, or simply the unknown, but such people remain in the time when we were slaves. Well we are slaves no more, and for those of us absent of fear and powered by love of justice, we are going to Gaza. And as we march we shall not be alone, we shall carry with us the will of the people of the world who know what we know, Palestine will be free. We the people, we are the ultimate power, and we can do ANYTHING!
2,000,o00 Egyptians Chanting Free Palestine!
We are going to march to Gaza, we are going to liberate Gaza, to support the march go to;
The fight over Republican Governor Scott Walker’s Union-busting bill may have just begun. Here’s a run-down on the unfolding events.
February 21, 2011 |
Photo Credit: mrbula
The drama unfolding in Wisconsin enters its second week, and as tens of thousands of workers and their supporters ring the state’s capitol expressing outrage over Union-busting Republican Governor Scott Walker’s bill, the impasse doesn’t appear to be headed towards a resolution anytime soon. AlterNet has stayed on top of this momentous story, and here are the latest developments.
Update (by AlterNet Staff): Lauren Kelly draws attention to the bogus Republican “compromise” extended to protesters today:
The news out of Wisconsin today is that the state’s moderate Republicans have tossed out something of a compromise to the protesters. The proposed compromise “calls for most collective bargaining rights of public-employee unions to be eliminated—per Mr. Walker’s bill—but then reinstated in 2013.” The state’s Democrats are rejecting the offer, noting that unions have already compromised enough, having made concessions on their pension and healthcare. As Sen. Jon Erpenbach noted, “If it’s OK to collectively bargain in 2013, why isn’t it OK today?”
Meanwhile, Governor Walker continues to be a tool, releasing three bogus reasons why “collective bargaining is a fiscal issue.” Here’s FireDogLake on why his reasoning is so weak:
One concerns what health care plan teachers sign up for, which is mainly an issue of the Governor seemingly wanting to strip the health care choices of workers (if you like what you have, you can keep it!). The next is some gotcha issue about Viagra in Milwaukee, which state courts ruled against a few years later. The third, and the only state issue, is overtime rules for corrections officers. Somehow I’m not convinced that this is such a scourge. The President of the Wisconsin State Senate didn’t do the job on that either today.
Grasping at straws, that.
Update (by AlterNet Staff): Amid much excellent coverage of the Wisconsin union protests, Paul Krugman’s column in the Times yesterday is worthy of a close read:
[W]hat’s happening in Wisconsin isn’t about the state budget, despite [Wisconsin Governor Scott] Walker’s pretense that he’s just trying to be fiscally responsible. It is, instead, about power. What Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to do is to make Wisconsin — and eventually, America — less of a functioning democracy and more of a third-world-style oligarchy. And that’s why anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side.
Indeed. He goes on:
[I]t’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions. You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy.
*** Original article begins below ***
1. Democratic Lawmakers in Exile Want Fair Negotiations
According to the Huffington Post, the Democratic lawmakers who crossed state lines last week to block the passage of Walker’s bill aren’t going to return until the governor agrees to sit down and negotiate in good faith. Monday is the fifth day of their self-imposed exile. ”We’ll be here until Gov. Walker decides that he wants to talk,” Sen. Tim Carpenter (D) told Amanda Terkel on Saturday.
He added that so far, the governor refuses to meet with them or even return the phone calls from members of the Democratic caucus.
“He’s just hard-lined — will not talk, will not communicate, will not return phone calls,” said Carpenter. “In a democracy, I thought we were supposed to talk. But the thing is, he’s been a dictator, and just basically said this is the only thing. No amendments, and it’s going to be that way.”
On Sunday, AlterNet posted video of Wisconsin State Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, angrily chastising the GOP majority for pushing Scott Walker’s union-busting bill through without giving lawmakers time to read it or allowing for public hearings of any kind. You can watch it here.
2. Massive Crowds for State Workers as a Handful of Tea Partiers Arrive
Last week, Mother Jonesreported that masses of Tea Partiers would be bussed in by American Majority, a corporate-backed right-wing astro-turf operation, causing many progressive commenters to note the irony of the Tea Party’s new-found devotion to Big Government. As it turned out, approximately 2,000 arrived – along with Andrew Breitbart — only to find themselves out-numbered by pro-union demonstrators by a ratio as high as 35 to 1.
Fox “News” spent the whole weekend advancing the specter of thuggish unionists “rioting” at the capitol, which as usual turned out to be wrong. The Madison police Department issued a release after Saturday’s protests praising the demonstrators:
On behalf of all the law enforcement agencies that helped keep the peace on the Capitol Square Saturday, a very sincere thank you to all of those who showed up to exercise their First Amendment rights. You conducted yourselves with great decorum and civility, and if the eyes of the nation were upon Wisconsin, then you have shown how democracy can flourish even amongst those who passionately disagree.
According to MPD, there were a few minor scuffles, but no major incidents and no arrests through Saturday night. Kristine Mattis, who blogs at “Rebelpleb,” added that ”rumblings that protesters have “trashed” the capitol…[are] completely false. Members of unions, particularly the Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA) and the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants’ Association (MGAA), have been regularly organizing volunteer crews to clean up trash and litter.” Mattis adds that a sign in the Capitol Building informing visitors that firearms aren’t permitted within “only emerged, after five days of entirely peaceful protests, when the Tea Party arrived.”
3. Wisconsin Uprising Part of a Larger Awakening
On Sunday, economist Robert Kuttner wrote that “something important that was largely missing has been kindled. Popular protest against financial abuses, top-down class warfare, clueless Republicans, and misplaced austerity is finally in the air. The labor movement is leading, and even non-union Americans are realizing why organized labor is all about protecting the middle class generally.”
Wisconsin appears to be the beginning of a larger movement, and for good reason. According to CBS News, “Nine other Republican governors from Nevada to New Jersey are also targeting unions with various proposals: decreasing wages and bargaining power in some cases, increasing what workers contribute to pensions and benefits in others.”
On Sunday, we reported that America’s labor movement is readying for a second show-down with union-busting legislators on Monday, as Indiana considers a so-called “right to work” law similar to that proposed by Wisconsin’s governor. A South Bend Tribuneeditorial warned hoosiers to “beware of the ‘right-to-work’ hoax that politicians and CEOs are pushing. A right-to-work law won’t help business and it won’t help workers.” Organizers are preparing to do battle in Ohio and Florida as well.
On February 26, US Uncut — a grassroots coalition that’s modeled on the movement that faced tuition hikes in the UK and has been called a liberal answer to the Tea Parties — is organizing protests across the country. The theme: no austerity while corporate tax dodgers game the system. Find out more about US Uncut here – find a local protest and mark the date.
Also, in case you missed it, check out Naomi Klein’s interview with Chris Hayes here — the two discuss why Wisconsin is so important, and touch on Uncut US’s upcoming mobilization.
4. It’s a Ginned-Up “Crisis,” but Scott Walker Isn’t Entirely to Blame for Wisconsin’s Budget Gap
It’s been widely reported, including on AlterNet, that Scott Walker inherited a $120 million budget surplus, and then promptly created a budget deficit in order to break the backs of Wisconsin’s public employees’ unions.
Politifact did an analysis of this issue which shows that Walker in fact inherited a manageable, long-term budget gap and then spun it as an imminent crisis that must be addressed this year.
The reports stem from a a Jan. 31, 2011 memo prepared by Robert Lang, the director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, that was picked up by the Associated Press and a number of other outlets. It does state that Wisconsin was on course for a surplus this year, which the media reported that in good faith. The issue is what Politifact refers to as the memo’s “fine print.”
[It] outlines $258 million in unpaid bills or expected shortfalls in programs such as Medicaid services for the needy ($174 million alone), the public defender’s office and corrections. Additionally, the state owes Minnesota $58.7 million under a discontinued tax reciprocity deal.
The result, by our math and Lang’s, is the $137 million shortfall.
It’s important to understand that this doesn’t change the fact that Walker dishonestly portrayed his union-busting bill as a budget fix, which, as you’ll see below, it is not.
5. More Evidence that Walker’s Bill Has Nothing to do With Wages, Benefits and the State’s Budget Gap
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has a long history trying to break public sector unions. But last week, as the Milwaukee Business Timesreported, he insisted that ”his bill was strictly based on the need to cut the budget and was not based on any political agenda.” Indeed, the bill was introduced by the governor as an “emergency measure… needed to balance the state budget and give government the tools to manage during economic crisis.”
Here’s the problem, according to Walker’s release:
The state of Wisconsin is facing an immediate deficit of $137 million for the current fiscal year which ends July 1. In addition, bill collectors are waiting to collect over $225 million for a prior raid of the Patients’ Compensation Fund.
There is a $137 million shortfall for this year. Regarding the Patients’ Compensation Fund, Politifact reports that “a court ruling is pending in that matter, so the money might not have to be transferred until next budget year.”
But here are three important points from the governor’s release that show quite clearly that this bill has nothing at all to do with closing Wisconsin’s budget gap in the near-term — as an emergency measure that wasn’t even subject to public debate.
1. “The budget repair will also restructure the state debt, lowering the state’s interest rate, saving the state $165 million.” That’s right, restructuring the state’s outstanding debt yields more savings than the projected shortfall, and nobody is objecting to that provision.
2. ”It will require state employees to pay about 5.8% toward their pension (about the private sector national average) and about 12% of their healthcare benefits (about half the private sector national average). These changes will help the state save $30 million in the last three months of the current fiscal year.” Yes, those give-backs would yield less than 20 percent of what the debt restructuring would bring in. And, as I mentioned earlier, the public employees’ unions offered to make those concessions in exchange for losing the provision that would bar them from negotiating their benefits package in the future, and the GOP flatly refused the offer.
3. The collective bargaining provision wouldn’t kick in until after the current contracts expire, meaning that the measure would yield exactly zero savings in the current budget.
Random Lengths News‘ Paul Rosenberg caught this, and adds that Walker is also sitting on an “unused cache of $73 million” in the state’s economic development fund — “more than twice what’s being sought from public sector workers.”
AlterNet also reported over the weekend that while far too many pundits continue to buy Scott Walker’s spin that the Wisconsin uprising is a response to the state’s public employees being asked to shoulder more of the burden for their health-care and pension costs, the reality is that it’s really all about the union-busting.
According to the Milwaukee Business Times, the unions have in fact agreed to all of the GOP’s demands on wages and benefits, in exchange for Republicans dropping the provision that would strip them of the right to negotiate in the future:
Although union leaders and Wisconsin Democratic Senators are offering to accept the wage and benefit concessions Gov. Scott Walker is demanding, Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) said today a bill taking away collective bargaining rights from public employees is not negotiable.
Democrats and union leaders said they’re willing to agree to the parts of Walker’s budget repair bill that would double their health insurance contributions and require them to contribute 5.8 percent of their salary to their pensions. However, the union leaders want to keep their collective bargaining rights.
“I have been informed that all state and local public employees – including teachers – have agreed to the financial aspects of Governor Walker’s request,” Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Waunakee) said. “This includes Walker’s requested concessions on public employee health care and pension. In return they ask only that the provisions that deny their right to collectively bargain are removed. This will solve the budget challenge. This is a real opportunity for us to come together and resolve the issue and move on. It is incumbent upon Governor Walker to seriously consider and hopefully accept this offer as soon as possible.”
However, Fitzgerald said the terms of the bill are not negotiable, and he called upon Democrats who left the state this week to stall a vote on the bill to return to the Capitol.
On a related note, Business Insider, citing research by economist Menzie Chinn, reported that “Wisconsin’s public sector workers get paid LESS than the private sector.” Almost 5 percent less, even including healthcare and retirement benefits.
Now, we have some quick hits:
6. Bubba Arriving on the Scene?
Mike Elk reports that rumors are swirling around the capitol that Bill Clinton may be headed to Wisconsin as an act of solidarity with the unions that helped Hillary’s presidential campaign.
7. Foxed
Crooks and Liars highlighted a bogus smear being pushed by Fox “News” — one that originated, naturally, with one of ACORN-killer James O’Keefe’s former associates.
Raw Story reported that ”protesters shouted ‘Fox lies! Fox lies!’ throughout a Fox News segment on the demonstration in Wisconsin Friday.”
8. Business Community Unhappy With Walker?
Mike Elk also reported that Wisconsin’s local business community is showing signs of turning against Scott Walker.
9. Rage Against the Machine
The Wisconsin State Journalreports that “Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, Wayne Kramer, Street Dogs and other musicians just announced they’ll join pro-union protesters at the Capitol” today.
10. Egyptian Workers Express Solidarity with Wisconsin’s Public Workers
Michael Moore.com has posted a statement of support, ”from a place very close to Tahrir Square in Cairo,” by Kamal Abbas, the General Coordinator of the CTUWS, which is “an umbrella advocacy organization for independent unions in Egypt.” We posted this picture over the weekend:
What You Can Do — Big Weeks Ahead
The Wisconsin Uprising appears to be an opening shot in a genuinely grassroots push-back against the corporate Right’s attack on the labor movement and, more broadly, our social safety net. We’ll continue following events as they unfold.
In the meantime, you can send the protesters in Wisconsin a pizza! On Sunday, Ian’s Pizza on State Street announced on its Facebook page that it was suspending its normal in-store and delivery operations “to keep up with the high volume of calls it was receiving from people all over the country and the world seeking to buy pizza for the protesters at the Capitol.” According to New York Magazine, “Ian’s gave away 1,057 donated slices yesterday and delivered more than 300 pizzas. The blackboard behind the counter now has a running list of places where donations have come from, and it includes China and Egypt.”
Full text of Saif Gadaffi’s speech, as Transcribed and tweeted live
by @SultanAlQassemi with screenshots from AlJazeera.February 20, 2011
I saw that I had to speak to you. Many Libyans asked me to speak. I don’t have a paper or a document to read from.I will not speak in classical Arabic, I will speak in Libyan, I don’t have any papers, this is a talk from the heart & mind. We all know that the region is passing through an earthquake, a hurricane or change. If this change does not come from the govts it will come from the people, we have seen this in other Arab countries. Today I will tell you only truth only. We know that there are opposition figures living abroad who have support in Libya. There people try to use Facebook for a revolution to copy Egypt. These people want to bring Libya to what happened in Egypt & Tunisia. We saw this on facebook and on emails. The country did a pre-emptive move by arresting some people before the protests, shots were fired, people died. The anger was directed at the police in Benghazi. People wanted to storm the police stations, people died, funerals occurred. This is a summary of what happened in Bengazi, now there is a major Fitna and a threat to the unity of Libya. Of course there were many deaths, which angered many people in Benghazi, but why were there people killed? The army was under stress, it is not used to crowd control so they shot, but I called them. The army said that some protesters were drunk, others were on hallucinogens or drugs. The army has to defend its weapons. And the people were angry. So there were deaths, but in the end Libyans were killed.
There are thee parts behind this
1- Political Activists whom we agree with, 2- What happened in Bayda are Islamic elements. Bayda is my town, my mother is from there. People called me. They stole weapons and killed soldiers. They want to establish an Islamic Emirate in Bayda. Some people took drugs & were used by these protesters. 3. The third part are these children who took the drugs and were used. These are facts like it or not.
We have arrested tens of Arabs and Africans, poor people, millions were spent on them to use them by millionaire businessmen. There are people who want to establish a countries in parts of Libya to rule, Like the Islamic Emirate. One person said he is the Emir of Islamic Emirate of Darna. The Arabic Media is manipulating these events. This Arabic media is owned by Arabs who are distorting the facts but also our media failed to cover the events.
Then there are the Baltagiya who destroyed public property, they fled jails. There are our brothers who sit and drink coffee and watch TV and laugh at us when they see us burn our country.
It is no lie that the protesters are in control of the streets now. Libya is not Tunis or Egypt. Libya is different, if there was disturbance it will split to several states. It was three states before 60 years. Libya are Tribes not like Egypt. There are no political parties, it is made of tribes. Everyone knows each other. We will have a civil war like in 1936. American Oil Companies played a big part in unifying Libya. Who will manage this oil? How will we divide this oil amongst us? Who will spend on our hospitals? All this oil will be burnt by the Baltagiya (Thugs) they will burn it. There are no people there. 3/4s of our people live in the East in Benghazi, there is no oil there, who will spend on them? Your children will not go to schools or universities. There will be chaos, we will have to leave Libya if we can’t share oil. Everyone wants to become a Sheikh and an Emir, we are not Egypt or Tunisia so we are in front of a major challenge.
We all now have arms. At this time drunks are driving tanks in central Benghazi. So we all now have weapons. The powers who want to destroy Libya have weapons. There will be a war & no future. All the firms will leave, we have 500 housing units being built, they won’t be completed. Remember my words. 200 billion dollars of projects are now underway, they won’t be finished.
You can say we want democracy & rights, we can talk about it, we should have talked about it before. It’s this or war. Instead of crying over 200 deaths we will cry over 100,000s of deaths. You will all leave Libya, there will be nothing here. There will be no bread in Libya, it will be more expensive than gold.
Before we let weapons come between us, from tomorrow, in 48 hours, we will call or a new conference for new laws. We will call for new media laws, civil rights, lift the stupid punishments, we will have a constitution. Even the LEader Gaddafi said he wants a constitution. We can even have autonomous rule, with limited central govt powers. Brothers there are 200 billion dollars of projects at stake now. We will agree to all these issues immediately. We will then be able to keep our country, unlike our neighbors. We will do that without the problems of Egypt & Tunisia who are now suffering. There is no tourism there. We will have a new Libya, new flag, new anthem. Or else, be ready to start a civil war and chaos and forget oil and petrol.
What is happening in Bayda and Benghazi is very sad. How do you who live in Benghazi, will you visit Tripoli with a visa? The country will be divided like North and South Korea we will see each other through a fence. You will wait in line for months for a visa. If we don’t do the first scenario be ready for the second scenario:
The British FM called me. Be ready for a new colonial period from American and Britain. ou think they will accept an Islamic Emirate here, 30 minutes from Crete? The West will come and occupy you. Europe & the West will not agree to chaos in Libya, to export chaos and drugs so they will occupy us.
In any case, I have spoken to you, we uncovered cells from Egypt and Tunisia and Arabs. The Libyans who live in Europe and USA, their children go to school and they want you to fight. They are comfortable. They then want to come and rule us and Libya. They want us to kill each other then come, like in Iraq. The Tunisians and Egyptians who are here also have weapons, they want to divide Libya and take over the country.
We are in front of two choices, we can reform now, this is an historic moment, without it there will be nothing for decades. You will see worse than Yugoslavia if we don’t choose the first option. Gaddafi is not Mubarak or Ben Ali, a classical ruler, he is a leader of a people. 10,000s of Libyans are coming to defend him. Over coastline Libyans are coming to support Gaddafi. The army is also there, it will play a big part whatever the cost. The army will play a big role, it is not the army of Tunisia or Egypt. It will support Gaddafi to the last minute. Now in the Green Square people shoot so that they show the world that the army is shooting. We must be awake.
Now comes the role of the National Guard and the Army, we will not lose one inch of this land. 60 years ago they defended Libya from the colonialists, now they will defend it from drug addicts. Most of he Libyans are intelligent, they are not Baltagiya (thugs) Benghazi is a million and a half not the few thousands who are in the streets. We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet. We will not lose Libya. We will not let Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya and BBC trick us.
What is striking to all Arabs, and maybe to the whole world, is the blanket Arab support of the revolutionaries of Tahrir square and their honorable fight for freedom and dignity.
It seems that Tunisia was destined to be the catalyst for the greatest event in modern Arab history. And it seems that Mohammad Bouzeizi, who set fire to himself in protest against an insult to his personal dignity, triggered a revolt for the restoration of Arab dignity. But when Egypt is at the heart of events, it will be different from anything the Arab region has seen in the past few decades.
First, because the event was produced by the masses of Egypt, ‘the mother of the world’, the people who crossed the Suez Canal in the 1973 war, the people who built the pyramids, started the Arab revolutions of liberation from colonialism. Second, Egypt was forcefully taken out of the Arab-Israeli conflict by one tyrant and shamed, for three decades, by another through complicity with the enemy. This weakened and humiliated the Arabs who saw the West arming Israel with arrogance and intransigence while arming submissive regimes with dictatorship, oppression and tyranny. In this atmosphere of humiliation, Zionism prospered. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have enjoyed thirty years of quiet and security” during which Israel attacked Lebanon and Palestine on a daily basis, continued to build settlements and became entrenched in extremism. Third, the ‘free and democratic’ West remained unable, for 18 days, to support the revolution of freedom and democracy which they claim to support in other countries. One more reason is that the process of democracy, intended by George W. Bush and his generals to be marred by the shame of foreign occupation, is now crowned by the triumph of people’s will against oppression and tyranny.
What is striking to all Arabs, and maybe to the whole world, is the blanket Arab support of the revolutionaries of Tahrir square and their honorable fight for freedom and dignity, compared with the United States’ and the West’s opposition of this revolution.
The position taken by the United States, the West in general, and Israel towards this revolution should define the future of inter-Arab relations, on the one hand, and Western – Arab relations, on the other. The American position has been hesitant, contradictory and complicit with Israel and aimed at injecting Mubarak’s regime with life in a manner that should be embarrassing to a country which claims to defend freedom, and launches wars to spread democracy. The reason might be the shock and confusion of the American administration caused by the events in Tunisia, in the beginning, and then in Egypt, which befits a new century and ushers a new era in which Arabs make history and do not only keep its record. This position flies in the face of the values of democracy, freedom and human rights.
Arabs now realize that the main drive for Western policies in the Middle East is that Israel should impose its hegemony on the Arabs, take over their land and suppress their aspirations for freedom, dignity and democracy. They now know for sure that the West befriends some Arab rulers in as much as they befriend Israel; it is pleased with them in as much as they please Israel. Four hundred million Arabs do not mean anything to Barak Obama, Catherine Ashton and other Western politicians who have suddenly become mute while they have been extremely vociferous against Iran.
The primary concern of all Western policies in the region is Israel, then their interests in terms of oil, ransacking our peoples’ resources through laundering corrupt rulers’ money in their banks, companies and economies. It has become clear that the West looks at Arabs with Israeli eyes, which was once articulated by Golda Meir when she said that “a good Arab is an Arab buried three meters deep under”. We should recall that Arab decadence and the deterioration of their living conditions have been in direct correlation with Israel’s creation and expansion in the second half of the 20th century. Israel has spearheaded the campaign to distort the image of the Arabs and branding them with terrorism after 9/11. It also spearheaded efforts to drum up the American war on Iraq and launched its own wars on Lebanon and Gaza under European and American protection.
People like Elliot Abrams, a staunch neo-conservative, were adamant in claiming that Bush’s policies were the right ones and that he was right in wondering whether the peoples of the Middle East were capable of living freely, or whether they are doomed by their culture and history to live under despotism (quoting a speech by Bush in November 2003). The Egyptian answer today is that the Arab people can teach the world how to fight for freedom, but not the Bush way when he killed a million people for the sake of Israel. The answer given by the Egyptians to Obama and Bush supporters is: enough rhetoric; Arab people yearn for a freedom they make, their way and for their own historical, social and political reasons. They do not trust false friendships, illusory rhetoric and claims of embracing ‘Western values’. Now everything is absolutely clear, and no power in the world can deceive the Arabs again.
The spring of democracy ushered on our Arab streets is the greatest event in Arab history since the revolutions which put an end to Western colonialism and its lackey regimes. Liberation today is rooted in the Arab will based on their conviction that the age of submission and humiliation is over; and that the dawn of pride, dignity and freedom has arrived.
Western reactions show that the West has not yet recovered from the shock; and that’s quite natural. This shock should make a shift in Western thinking from branding Arabs with terrorism to acknowledging Arabs as major contributors to civilization, that they uphold important values, reject injustice, love freedom and are willing to die for democracy. The West should also realize that the Arab identity is the common element which brings Arabs together. It informs their conscience, and no power will be able to take it away from them.
Prof. Bouthaina Shaaban is Political and Media Advisor at the Syrian Presidency, and former Minister of Expatriates. She is also a writer and professor at Damascus University since 1985. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Warwick University. She was the spokesperson for Syria. She was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. She can be reached through nizar_kabibo@yahoo.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
(AaronDykesandAlexJones) – Soros-Hand in Middle East Strategy of Tension is Sign of New World Order’s Offshore Corporate Cartel, Not Leftist Agitators
Alex Jones breaks down the real factors behind Egypt’s uprising in a special video report where he rebuffs the theories of Glenn Beck, who tries to link the Muslim Brotherhood to radical socialism in the United States. While George Soros has significant influence over these mid-east events, he alone is not the ringmaster in the global game of chess. He is, rather, among those in control of an offshore globalist corporate cartel that dominates the finance of all nations and seeks influence over their domestic affairs.
For Beck, current events in Egypt are occurring as a result of their connection to his pet-list of far-Left idealogues, like Van Jones, and a host of organizations and unions allegedly linked to Soros. While many of these connections are legitimate, Beck obscures altogether the long history of Pentagon intervention in foreign politics. The CIA and U.S. military have, for decades, sponsored and created radical Islamic factions, including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban and more.
What is really underway is a complex series of destabilization efforts all across the Middle East region, and perhaps the making of a wider war. Unlike Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose pursuit of Communist infiltrators in the U.S. government was based upon real evidence but skewed to appear hysterical and exaggerated, Glenn Beck’s relentless “outing” of Communist influence in modern U.S. and foreign affairs tends to smokescreen the coordinated actions, covert and otherwise, of monopoly capitalists toying with the nations of the world on their “grand chessboard” map.
Glenn Beck is right to warn of a “New World Order,” but wrong to nod to Soros as its captain. Its operators include the most wealthy and dominant bloodlines and their strategic managers. Geo-politics looms large in the scope of perpetual war and rising unrest in the Middle East. Control over the region, along with Central Asia, is believed to be essential for global domination. This aspiring New World Order will divide these nations in order to conquer them, even as they consolidate the major regions under a larger world government.
ARC OF INSTABILITY: CONTROL THROUGH MIDDLE-EAST & CENTRAL ASIAN CHAOS IS THE KEY TO GLOBAL DOMINANCE
What really goes on behind the scenes, by those really in power, is staggering to comprehend, without the knowledge that true imperialists always seek to play both sides. Those who think world events are governed by emotion-driven blowback alone might think again; there is more going on. Under the direction of Wall Street, the United States has financed, built and stabilized our greatest enemies, including Nazi Germany, Communist China and Soviet Russia. Sophisticated technology, including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons were transferred to “enemy” states through diplomatic and intelligence channels, with little need for true espionage. Smaller and more tumultuous territories were later given these weapons and technologies as well.
“The Great Game” – 19th Century competition between British and Russian interests. In the 20th and 21st Centuries, this game continues, though modified by updated factors, in the quest for the new world order endgame via Central Asia lands (yes, the chess reference is deliberate).
Post-WWII redistribution of the territorial “pie” divided the world for a new era. Anglo-American & Western nations became the “First World,” the Soviet sphere, behind the Iron Curtain, became the “Second World.” Many former colonial areas in Latin America, Africa and Asia became the “emerging” and “developing” “Third World.”
Spykman’s Rimland (pictured above), coined during WWII by “godfather of containment” Nicholas Spykman, clearly illustrates the centralized pressures surrounding the crescent shaped swath dividing the First and Second World– from the Europe mainland, to Northern Africa and the Middle East nations, to lower and eastern Asia.
For many reasons, including the struggle for control of resources and dominance over the geo-political arena, this band of lands is destined to remain contentious. For those whose creed is “Ordo Ab Chao,” the chaos of war-torn regions means divisive energy from which to leverage political power.
The master geo-politicians like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger, working on behalf of the combined offshore global banking cartels, openly brag about their exploits on the “Grand Chessboard.” Through the Hegelian dialectic, our times are shaped by divisions over race, creed and nationality. Tension and conflict hold up the rule of corporate and military interests.
Literally hundreds of Third World governments have been over-turned by revolutions, assassinations, and staged coups under the guise of Cold War tensions fueled by the black ops warfare of the CIA/KGB factions.
Bitter disputes like those between Arab states and Israel or India and Pakistan assured those pulling the strings that the only stable governments and strong leaders that would emerge in the Spykman’s Rimland ‘arc of instability’ would be those controlled from behind the scenes. Even then, charismatic heads of state and petty dictators alike have always been dispensable.
Arab and Muslim groups have alternately been both allies and enemies to the West. The contradictions between the distinctions of friend and foe underscore the larger picture, the real story behind the wars and fight for global domination over resources, energy, politics and culture. Here are some of the most compelling bits of evidence that point towards a grand deception in the Middle East and long-term stratagem for perpetual conflict in the region:
• Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh was removed via a CIA destabilization coup in 1953 known as Operation Ajax [see Terrorstorm]. Mossadegh, who was educated in the West and had a moderate, secular rule, had defied the oil companies in attempt to nationalize energy profits.
• The Muslim Brotherhood, now pivotal in Egyptian political turmoil, has been Western sponsored for decades. The CIA and other intelligence agencies partnered with the Brotherhood in opposing Nasser, who died in 1970. Similarly, Israeli, British and U.S. intelligence proved to be behind the formation and leadership of Hamas, considered an anti-Western terrorist organization.
• The United States Department of Education and State Department sponsored pro-jihadist textbooks sent to Afghanistan to radicalize children to grow up and fight the Soviet menace. The books remained a scandal when they proved to have influenced a generation of fighters that would be associated with the Taliban and al Qaeda.
•In 1979, then National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and the contingent of U.S. backers saw these Afghans as “freedom fighters.” By the late 90s, they became more widely regarded as terrorists, who, by 2001, would grow to ‘hate our freedoms.’
• Brzezinski admitted in a 1998 interview with Nouvel Observateur that he had sponsored the Afghan warriors at least six months before the Soviet invasion, and remained “proud” of his role, quipping “What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”
• The United States partnered with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War during which over a million people were killed. The later wars/invasions under Bush, Sr., and Bush, Jr., were both waged with personal zeal against Hussein, who was patently armed and put into power by the West before he became a top enemy.
• The Clash of Civilizations thesis carved out by Samuel Huntington frames the geo-political debate of the 21st Century around divisive cultural and religious differences, citing the likelihood of widespread ideological conflict between massive regions, as in the likes of Western culture pitted against the Muslim world.
• Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden would be blamed for the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the 9/11 attacks. An examination of the real evidence behind America’s public enemy number one reveals that bin Laden was a U.S. asset known by the code name “Tim Osman.”
•Many of the alleged hijackers would be issued Visas to travel to the U.S. despite appearing on watchlists; their entry was approved by higher-ups and later became a scandal. Evidence put forward by FBI whistleblower and translator Sibel Edmonds indicates that the real 9/11 operation involved a ring of international intelligence including the U.S., the U.K., Israel, Turkey and others.
Anwar al-Awlaki, who has emerged as the post-9/11 terrorist ringleader allegedly responsible for the Fort Hood shooter, the Underwear Bomber, the Time Square hoax-bomb and other smaller-scale attacks, was revealed as a Pentagon asset. Declassified documents show he dined at the Pentagon in the months following 9/11 as an invited guest at an event sponsored by the office of the Secretary of Defense.
• The attempted 2009 Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound flight was blamed on one Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was subsequently arrested and now faces trial. The official terrorist incident story fell apart, however, when fellow passengers and Detroit-based attorneys, Kurt and Lori Haskell, witnessed a “sharp-dressed man” escorting the accused terrorist onto the flight without a passport. Despite the FBI’s initial story that Abdulmutallab acted alone without other incident, the Haskell’s also indicated seeing other suspects after landing and other suspicious individuals during and after the incident on board the flight. The Haskell’s story maintained credibility. Later testimony from Patrick F. Kennedy, Undersecretary of State for Management, revealed that an ‘unnamed agency’ objected to revoking Abdulmutallab’s visa, allegedly in order to pursue a wider case in the terror network. The incident helped bring in naked body scanners in airports and contributed to re-invigorating the phony War on Terror.
Egyptians triumphed over their police state without Western help or even moral support. During rigged parliamentary elections, the West barely raised an eyebrow. And when the protests began at Tahrir Square, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the Mubarak government was “stable” and “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”
Commentators have repeatedly referred to the Obama administration playing catch-up during the Egyptian revolution, yet its seeming inability to track fast-changing events was merely an expression of its unwillingness to embrace the direction those events were heading.
Immediately after Hosni Mubarak resigned, Jake Tapper from ABC News tweeted that he couldn’t find anyone in the administration who thought that whatever comes next would be better for U.S. interests than Mubarak had been.
The dictator’s departure is not being celebrated in Washington. The leaders of the free world have a singular lack of enthusiasm for freedom.
The administration has not merely repeatedly stumbled, but has functioned as a dead weight, attempting to slow the pace of what may become the most significant transformation in world order since the birth of Western colonial power.
America’s friends in Israel have been equally unenthusiastic about the turn of events. After Mubarak’s defiant speech on Thursday night when he insisted he would sit out his term as president, “Israel breathed a sigh of relief,” according to Israeli commentator, Alex Fishman. The respite must have felt dreadfully brief.
But if Americans want to grasp the significance of the Egyptian revolution, they need look no further than this country’s much bloodier assertion of people power: the American revolution.
For the first time in Egypt’s history, the Egyptian people have made a declaration of sovereignty and claimed their right of self-governance. Is that not something that every person on the planet who cherishes life and liberty can joyfully celebrate?
As Western leaders now line up, having no choice but to express their support for the revolution, while sagely offering guidance and assistance in managing an “orderly transition” to a democratic system, they do so with a palpable ambivalence.
People power is in jeopardy of sweeping the Middle East and undoing the carefully constructed “stability” through which for most of the last century the West has managed the control of its most vital resource: oil.
Worse for the United States, the Egyptian revolution now undermines the US government’s ability to sustain an unswerving loyalty to the preeminence of Israel’s security interests.
A democratic Egyptian government will not have the autocratic latitude that until now enabled Mubarak’s complicity in the siege of Gaza or his willingness to participate in the charade of a peace process going nowhere.
Stepping back from the most obvious regional implications of what is now unfolding, there is a more far-reaching dimension.
When in 1990 President George HW Bush used the phrase “new world order”, his words had an ominous ring both because they implied that this would be an American-defined order but also — on the brink of the first Gulf War — a militarily-imposed order. The new order was synonymous with the dubious claim that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented an American “victory” in the Cold War.
A new world order worthy of the name, however, should represent something much more significant than the strategic reapportioning of power on a geopolitical level. It should involve the reapportioning of power through which global affairs become the people’s affairs. It should mean that international relations can no longer be conducted within the confines of intrinsically undemocratic arenas where ordinary people have no voice.
The people-power unleashed in Egypt has the potential to serve as a democratizing force that not only threatens autocratic leaders in the Middle East but also technocratic and nominally democratic leaders in the West — those whose complacent style of governance has depended on the political passivity of the populations they nominally serve while providing ready access for corporate interests to exercise their undemocratic influence.
The West, far from representing a model of democracy ripe for export has instead long been mired in a post-democratic phase where the foundational concept of demos, the people, has withered.
Individual wealth has supplanted the need for social solidarity as citizenship has been substituted by consumerism. Our material self-sufficiency has robbed us of the experience of mutual reliance and worn thin the fabric of society.
In a new world order, a new democracy might spread not just further east but also further west.
There is also a bittersweet note in this moment.
The Western exporters of democracy delivered the war in Iraq and yet as we witness events unfold in Egypt, it’s hard not to wonder what might have been possible had the people of Iraq, without Western help or hindrance, been allowed the same opportunity to claim their own freedom.
This is cross-posted at Woodward’s site, War in Context.
Egypt’s Higher Military Council said in a statement received by RIA Novosti on Friday that it has no plans of assuming long-term power over the country after Hosni Mubarak resigned from his presidential post earlier in the day.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, 82, who ruled the country for almost 30 years, stepped down on Friday after 18 days of heated protests demanding his resignation.
“The Higher Military Council is not an alternative to the legal power that would please the Egyptian people,” the statement read.
The Higher Military Council also said it would make a number of announcements in the near future on governing the country.
The Higher Military Council expressed its appreciation to Mubarak for his contribution to strengthening and developing the country.
“We address with special thanks and appreciation to President Hosni Mubarak for his guarding of the highest national interests, in the days of peace and war, and for his contribution to affairs of the fatherland,” the statement read.
The unrest in the country that began on January 25 claimed the lives of at least 300 people and injured thousands. The majority of protestors behind the revolution are web-savvy young people who have not seen any other regime except for Mubarak’s.
After the announcement, Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the nationwide protests, erupted into loud cheers, chanting “Egypt is free, Egypt is free!”
The main accusations against Mubarak are that his regime fostered poverty, autocracy and large-scale corruption. The main goal of Egypt’s revolution was to replace Mubarak’s regime with a true democracy.
The unexpected resignation made Mubarak, who had earlier in the week said he would remain in office, the second Arab leader forced to quit from a civil uprising. Last month, Tunisia’s president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali resigned and fled the country amid massive protests against his regime.
Egyptian national TV reported that Mubarak and his family had left Cairo for his winter residence in Sharm el Sheikh, a popular resort in South Sinai.
In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, dear fellow citizens, my sons, the youth of Egypt, and daughters, I am addressing you tonight to the youth of Egypt in Tahrir Square, with all of its diversity.
I am addressing all of you from the heart, a speech from the father to his sons and daughters. I am telling you that I am very grateful and am so proud of you for being a symbolic generation that is calling for change to the better, that is dreaming for a better future, and is making the future.
I am telling you before anything, that the blood of the martyrs and the injured will not go in vain. And I would like to affirm, I will not hesitate to punish those who are responsible fiercely. I will hold those in charge who have violated the rights of our youth with the harshest punishment stipulated in the law.
I am telling families of the innocent victims that I have been so much in pain for their pain, and my heart ached for your heartache.
I am telling you that my response to your demands and your messages and your requests is my commitment that I will never go back on to. I am determined to fulfill what I have promised you in all honesty, and I’m determined to execute and carry out what I have promised without going back to the past.
This commitment is out of my conviction of your honesty and your movement and that your demands are the demands – legitimate and just demands. Any regime could make mistakes in any country, but what is more important is to acknowledge these mistakes and reform and correct them in a timely manner, and to hold those responsible for it accountable.
I am telling you, as a president of the country, I do not find it a mistake to listen to you and to respond to your requests and demands. But it is shameful and I will not, nor will ever accept to hear foreign dictations, whatever the source might be or whatever the context it came in.
My sons and daughters, the youth of Egypt, dear fellow citizens, I have announced, without any doubt, that I will not run for the next presidential elections and have said that I have given the country and served the country for 60 years in public service, during wartime and during peacetime.
I have told you my determination that I will hold steadfast to continue to take on my responsibility to protect the constitution and the rights of people until power is transferred to whomever the people choose during September, the upcoming September, and free and impartial elections that will be safeguarded by the freedom – the call for freedom.
This is the oath that I have taken before God and before you. And I will protect it and keep it until we reach – we take Egypt to the safety and security.
I have given you my vision to get out of this current situation, to accomplish what the youth and the people called for, within the respect for the legitimacy and the constitution in a way that will accomplish security, and security for our future and the demands of our people, and at the same time will guarantee a framework of peaceful transition of power.
Through a responsible dialogue between all factions in the society, with all honesty and transparency, I have given you this vision under commitment to take the country out of this current crisis, and I will continue to accomplish it. And I’m monitoring the situation hour by hour.
I’m looking forward to the support of all those who are careful about the security and want a secure Egypt, within a tangible time, with the harmony of the broad base of all Egyptians that will stay watchful to guard Egypt and under the command of its military forces.
We have started a national dialogue, a constructive one, that included the youth who have called for change and reform, and also with all the factions of opposition and of society. And this dialogue resulted in harmony, and preliminary harmony in opinions that has placed us on the beginning of the road to transfer to a better future that we have agreed on.
We also have agreed on a road map – a road map with a timetable. Day after day, we will continue the transition of power from now until September. This national dialogue has — has met and was formed under a constitutional committee that have looked into the constitution and what was required – and looked into what is required, and the constitution reforms that is demanded [inaudible].
We will also monitor the execution – the honest execution of what I have promised my people. I was careful that both committees that were formed – to be formed from Egyptians who are honorable and who are independent and impartial, and who are well-versed in law and constitution.
In addition to that, in reference to the loss of many Egyptians during these sad situations that have pained the hearts of all of us and have ached the conscience of all Egyptians. I have also requested to expedite investigations and to refer all investigations to the attorney general to take the necessary measures and steps – decisive steps.
I also received the first reports yesterday about the required constitutional reform – reforms that was suggested by the constitutional and law experts regarding the legislative reforms that were requested. I am also responding to what the committee has suggested. And based on the powers given to me according to the constitution, I have presented today a request asking the amendment of six constitutional articles, which is 76, 77, 88, 93 and 187, in addition to abolishing article number 79 in the constitution, with the affirmation and conviction that later on we can also amend the other articles that would be suggested by that constitutional committee, according to what it sees right.
Our priority now is to facilitate free election – free presidential elections and to stipulate a number of terms in the constitution and to guarantee a supervision of the upcoming elections to make sure it will be conducted in a free manner.
We – I have also looked into the provisions and the steps to look into the parliamentary elections, but those who have suggested to abolish article number 179 in the constitution will guarantee the balance between the constitution and between our security and the threat of terror, which will open the door to stopping the martial law, as soon as we regain stability and security and as soon as these circumstances — circumstances assure the stability.
Our priority now is to regain confidence between citizens among themselves and to regain confidence in the international arena and to regain confidence about the reforms that we have pledged.
Egypt is going through some difficult times, and it is not right to continue in this discourse because it has affected our economy and we have lost day after day, and it is in danger — it is putting Egypt through a situation where people who have called for reform will be the first ones to be affected by it.
This time is not about me. It’s not about Hosni Mubarak. But the situation now is about Egypt and its present and the future of its citizens.
All Egyptians are in the same spot now, and we have to continue our national dialogue that we have started in the spirit of one team and away from disagreements and fighting so that we can take Egypt to the next step and to regain confidence in our economy and to let people feel secure and to stabilize the Egyptian street so that people can resume their daily life.
I was a young man, a youth just like all these youth, when I have learned the honor of the military system and to sacrifice for the country. I have spent my entire life defending its land and its sovereignty. I have witnessed and attended its wars with all its defeats and victories. I have lived during defeat and victory.
During the victory in 1973, my happiest days were when I lifted the Egyptian flag over Sinai. I have faced death several times when I was a pilot. I also faced it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and elsewhere. I did not submit nor yield to foreign dictations or others. I have kept the peace. I worked towards the Egyptian stability and security. I have worked to the revival in Egypt and the prosperity.
I did not seek authority. I trust that the majority — the vast majority of the Egyptian people know who is Hosni Mubarak, and it pains me to what I have — what I see today from some of my fellow citizens. And anyway, I am completely aware of the — what we are facing and I am convinced that Egypt is going through a historical — a historical moment that necessitates we should look into the higher and superior aspirations of the nation over any other goal or interest.
I have delegated to the vice president some of the power – the powers of the president according to the constitution. I am aware, fully aware, that Egypt will overcome the crisis and the resolve of its people will not be deflected and will [inaudible] again because of the – and will deflect the arrows of the enemies and those who [inaudible] against Egypt.
We will stand as Egyptians and we will prove our power and our resolve to overcome this through national dialogue. We will prove that we are not followers or puppets of anybody, nor we are receiving orders or dictations from anybody — any entity, and no one is making the decision for us except for the [inaudible] of the Egyptian [inaudible].
We will prove that with the spirit and the resolve of the Egyptian people, and with the unity and steadfastness of its people and with our resolve and to our glory and pride.
These are the main foundations of our civilization that have started over 7,000 years ago. That spirit will live in us as long as the Egyptian people – as long as the Egyptian people remain, that spirit will remain in us.
It will live amongst all of our people, farmers, intellectuals, workers. It will remain in the hearts of our senior citizens, our women, our children, Christians and Muslims alike, and in the hearts and minds of all those who are not born yet.
Let me say again that I have lived for this nation. I have kept my responsibilities. And Egypt will remain, above all, and above any individuals — Egypt will remain until I deliver and surrender its — it to others. This will be the land of my living and my death. It will remain a dear land to me. I will not leave it nor depart it until I am buried in the ground. Its people will remain in my heart, and it will remain — its people will remain upright and lifting up their heads.
May God keep Egypt secure and may God defend its people. And peace be upon you.
http://www.voltairenet.orgby Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya*
In this final article of our series on Egypt, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya reviews the different scenarios that could emerge from the intensifying popular rebellion, which range from disastrous to optimistic. Beyond that, this expert on the Middle East warns of a much darker agenda which may be afoot. Unable to control the situation, the U.S. and Israel are now working on the destabilization and division of Egypt to thwart a possible strategic challenge and to accelerate their long-standing goal of dividing the whole Arab world, as already achieved in the Sudan.
In response to massive anti-government protests in neighboring Egypt, Israel has increased its military budget.
The protests in Tunisia have had a domino effect in the Arab World. Egypt, the largest Arab country, is now electrified with popular uproar to remove the Mubarak regime in Cairo. It must be asked what effects would this event have? Will the U.S., Israel, and NATO simply watch the Egyptian people establish a free government?
The parable of the Arab dictators is like that of the spider’s web. Although the spider feels safe in its web, in reality the web is one of the frailest homes. All the Arab dictators and tyrants, from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are in fear now. Egypt is on the brink of what could amount to being one of the most important geo-political events in this century.
Pharaohs, ancient or modern, all have their end days. Mubarak’s days are numbered, but the powers behind him have not yet been defeated. Egypt is an important part of America’s global empire. The U.S. government, Tel Aviv, the E.U., and NATO all have significant interests in maintaining Egypt as a puppet regime.
The U.S. and Israel want to use the Egyptian Military to Police the Egyptian People
When protests started in Egypt, the heads of the Egyptian military all went to the U.S. and consulted with U.S. officials for orders. The Egyptians are well aware that the regime in Cairo is a pawn in the services of the U.S. and Israel. This is why Egyptian slogans are not only directed against the Mubarak regime but are also aimed against the U.S. and Israel, in similarity to some of the slogans of the Iranian Revolution. The U.S. has been involved in every aspect of the Egyptian government’s activities. Cairo has not made a single move without consulting both the White House and Tel Aviv. Israel has also permitted the Egyptian military to move into urban areas in the Sinai Peninsula.
The reality of the situation is that the U.S. government has worked against freedom in the Arab World and beyond. When President Obama says that there should be a period of “transition” in Egypt, it means that Mubarak and the Egyptian regime should stay intact. The U.S. does not want a people’s government in Cairo.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (L) and former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk attend the National Security Studies ’Security Challenges of the 21st Century’ Conference in Tel Aviv, December 2007.
Martin Indyk, a former Clinton Administration official at the U.S. National Security Council with an area of responsibility for the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and an individual closely tied to the Obama Administration, told The New York Times that the U.S. must work towards bringing the Egyptian military into control of Egypt until a “moderate and legitimate political leadership [can] emerge.” [1] Not only did Indyk call for a military takeover in Egypt, he also used U.S. State Department double-speak. What U.S. officials mean by “moderate” are dictatorships and regimes like Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Jordan, Morocco, and Ben Ali’s Tunisia. As for legitimacy, in the eyes of U.S. officials, it means individuals who will serve U.S. interests.
Tel Aviv is far less coy than the U.S. about the situation in Egypt. Out of fear of losing Cairo, Tel Aviv has been encouraging the Mubarak regime to unleash the full force of the Egyptian military on the civilian protesters. It has also been defending Mubarak internationally. In this regard, the Egyptian military’s primary role has always been to police the Egyptian people and to keep the Mubarak regime in power. U.S. military aid to Egypt is solely intended for this purpose.
Revolutionary Egypt: A Second Iran in the Middle East?
If the Egyptian people manage to establish a new and truly sovereign government, it would equate to a second Iran in the Middle East. This would cause a major regional and global geo-political shift. It would also deeply upset and cripple the interests of the U.S., Britain, Israel, France, the E.U., and NATO in what would amount to a colossal loss, like that of Iran in 1979.
If a new revolutionary government were to emerge in Cairo the bogus Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would be over, the starvation of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip would end, the cornerstone of Israeli military security would be gone, and the Iranian-Syrian Awliyaa (Alliance) could possibly gain a significant new member.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed Tel Aviv’s fears about Egypt allying with Iran and a new gateway of Iranian influence being opened in a speech by saying: “Tehran is waiting for the day in which darkness descends [in Egypt].” [2] Netanyahu is correct about one thing, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has been monitoring the events in Egypt very eagerly and the Iranians are awaiting the establishment of a new revolutionary government that could join Iran and the Resistance Bloc. Tehran has been overjoyed and Iran is abuzz with speeches by its officials about what they believe to be an “Islamic Awakening”.
While the Arab members of the Resistance Bloc have made low-key statements about the protests in Egypt, non-Arab Iran has been vocal in its support of the protesters in the Arab World. Syria has made low-key remarks, because of its own fears of revolt at home. Hezbollah and Hamas have also been relatively low-key on their stances about the protests in the Arab World, because they wish to avoid being targeted by the Arab regimes through accusations of meddling.
At every opportunity the so-called “moderate” Arab regimes seek to demonize these Arab players. On the other hand the Turkish government, which maintains close ties to the Arab regimes, has also been virtually silent about the protests in the Arab World.
Israel is preparing itself for the possible reality that an unfriendly government will be taking office in Cairo, which is what will happen if the Egyptian people are successful. Tel Aviv has secret military-security contingency plans for Egypt. In the words of Netanyahu to the Israeli Knesset: “A peace agreement does not guarantee the existence of peace [between Israel and Egypt], so in order to protect it and ourselves, in cases in which the agreement disappears or is violated due to regime change on the other side, we protect it with security arrangements on the ground.” [3]
Threats of U.S., Israeli, and NATO Military Intervention in Egypt: Recall the 1956 Invasion of Egypt?
1956 Suez war – Israeli conquest of Sinai.
There is also the chance of renewed war with Israel and even American and NATO military intervention in Egypt. The threat of military intervention in Egypt must be considered. In 1956, the British, the French, and the Israelis jointly attacked Egypt when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal. Recalling 1956, the U.S. and NATO could do the same. General James Mattis, the commander of U.S. Central Command said that the U.S. will deal with Egypt “diplomatically, economically, [and] militarily” should access to the Suez Canal be shut by Egypt to the U.S. and its allies. [4]
In 2008, Norman Podhoretz proposed a unthinkable nightmare scenario. In this nightmare scenario the Israelis would militarily occupy the oil refineries and naval ports of the Persian Gulf to insure “energy security” and they would also launch a so-called pre-emptive nuclear attack against Iran, Syria, and Egypt. [5]
In 2008, the main questions that arose were: “energy security” for whom and why attack Egypt, where the Mubarak government has been a staunch Israeli ally?
Would the Israelis attack Egypt if a revolutionary government emerged in Cairo? This is what essentially happened a few years after Gamal Abdel Nasser took power from Mohammed Naguib in Egypt. Also, is such a military attack on Egypt tied to Israel’s secret military-security contingency plans that Netanyahu assured the Israeli Knesset about.
Is such a nightmare scenario, which includes the use of nuclear weapons, a distinct possiblity? Podhoretz has close ties to both Israeli and U.S. officials. It should also be mentioned that Podhoretz is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom for his intellectual influence in the U.S. and is one of the original 1997 signatories of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) along with Elliot Abrams, Richard Cheney, John (Jeb) Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Steen Forbes Jr., and Paul Wolfowitz. The PNAC has essentially outlined plans for transforming America into a global empire through militarism overseas and domestic militarization.
“Managed Chaos” and the Threats of Balkanization in Egypt: The Yinon Plan at Work?
Egypt cannot be managed by the Mubarak regime, the U.S., Israel, and their allies anymore. Thus, the U.S., Israel, and their allies are now working to divide and destabilize Egypt, as the most powerful Arab state, so that no strategic challenge can emerge from Cairo. The attacks on the peaceful protestors in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square by Mubarak’s club-wielding thugs riding camels and horses was a stage-managed event to build public support outside of the Arab World for having a dictatorial strongman in Cairo. It epitomized every stereotype and incorrect Orientalist attitude about Arabs and the peoples of the Middle East. It would come as no surprise if the U.S., Israel, and Britain played direct or advisory roles in the event.
In a major departure from reality, the Mubarak regime’s state-controlled media is reporting popular support for Mubarak by millions of Egyptians and wide-spread approval of his speech and his “transitional government” plans. In a show of desperation, the same state-controlled media is also trying to blame Iran and its Arab allies for the Egyptian protests. Egyptian state-controlled media has reported that Iranian commandos and special forces, along with the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, have been on destabilization and sabotage missions against Egypt.
These types of accusations by the regime in Cairo are not new. Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan, and Mahmoud Abbas also all do the same. The Mubarak regime has blamed Iran, Hezbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement, Syria, and Hamas for meddling and inciting revolt several times in the past. When the Free Patriotic Movement criticized the Mubarak regime about the treatment of Egyptian Christians, the Mubarak regime accused Michel Aoun of sectarian sedition. On the other hand, Hezbollah was accused of attempting to create chaos in Egypt when Hassan Nasrallah asked the Egyptian people to show solidarity with the Palestinians and demand that their government allow humanitarian aid to go to the people of the Gaza Strip.
Managed Chaos at Work
Although Mubarak’s thugs are also creating chaos in Egypt to try to keep his regime in power, the doctrine of “managed chaos” is being used by external actors with the Israeli Yinon Plan in mind. Making Egyptians fight against one another and turning Egypt into a divided and insecure state, just like Anglo-American Iraq, appears to be the objective of the U.S., Israel, and their allies. The building tensions between Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Christians, which includes the attacks on Coptic churches, is tied to this project. In this context, on the thirteenth day of the protests in Egypt, the Mar Girgis Church in the Egyptian town of Rafah, next to Gaza and Israel, was attacked by armed men on motorcycles. [6]
The White House and Tel Aviv do not want a second Iran in the Middle East. They will do whatever they can to prevent the emergence of a strong and independent Egypt.
A free Egypt could prove to be a much bigger threat than non-Arab Iran within the Arab World to the objectives of the U.S., Israel, and NATO.
The Return of the Egyptian Eagle as the Champion of Arab Independence?
Egypt was once a major strategic challenge to the U.S., Israel, France, and Britain in the Arab World and Africa. Nasserite Egypt aided the Algerian Resistance against the French occupation of Algeria, openly supported the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation of their homes, supported the Yemenite Resistance against the British occupation in South Yemen, challenged the legitimacy of the British-installed Hashemites and the American-supported House of Saud, and offered support to national liberation and anti-imperialist movements. Cairo under a revolutionary government, whether deeply tied to Islam or not, could give the Arab World a new leader that would revive pan-Arabism, make Tel Aviv further nervous about trying to launch wars, and rally the Arabs and other peoples worldwide in revolt against the global confederacy formed by the U.S. and its allies.
Egypt is not free from bondage yet. The Egyptian people must also address the role of global capitalism in supporting the Mubarak regime. At the same time they must remain united. If they are successful, they will make a huge impact on the history of the current century.
Controverting majority opinion, F. William Engdahl maintains there is nothing spontaneous about the mass protest movements in Arab countries and sees them as a replay of the US-orchestrated colour revolutions that triggered regime change in post-Soviet countries. The same script and cast of characters are at hand: local opposition leaders coached by the NED and other US-funded organizations in the art of staging “spontaneous” uprisings. The contours of a US covert strategy for the region have been clear for some time. The question is: will it work?
Fast on the heels of the regime change in Tunisia came a popular-based protest movement launched on January 25 against the entrenched order of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Contrary to the carefully-cultivated impression that the Obama Administration is trying to retain the present regime of Mubarak, Washington in fact is orchestrating the Egyptian as well as other regional regime changes from Syria to Yemen to Jordan and well beyond in a process some refer to as “creative destruction”.
The template for such covert regime change has been developed by the Pentagon, US intelligence agencies and various think-tanks such as RAND Corporation over decades, beginning with the May 1968 destabilization of the De Gaulle presidency in France. This is the first time since the US-backed regime changes in Eastern Europe some two decades back that Washington has initiated simultaneous operations in many countries in a region. It is a strategy born of a certain desperation and one not without significant risk for the Pentagon and for the long-term Wall Street agenda. What the outcome will be for the peoples of the region and for the world is as yet unclear. Yet while the ultimate outcome of defiant street protests in Cairo and across Egypt and the Islamic world remains unclear, the broad outlines of a US covert strategy are already clear.
No one can dispute the genuine grievances motivating millions to take to the streets at risk of life. No one can defend atrocities of the Mubarak regime and its torture and repression of dissent. No one can dispute the explosive rise in food prices as Chicago and Wall Street commodity speculators, and the conversion of American farmland to the insane cultivation of corn for ethanol fuel drive grain prices through the roof. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, much of it from the USA. Chicago wheat futures rose by a staggering 74% between June and November 2010 leading to an Egyptian food price inflation of some 30% despite government subsidies.
What is widely ignored in the CNN and BBC and other Western media coverage of the Egypt events is the fact that whatever his excesses at home, Egypt’s Mubarak represented a major obstacle within the region to the larger US agenda.
To say relations between Obama and Mubarak were ice cold from the outset would be no exaggeration. Mubarak was staunchly opposed to Obama policies on Iran and how to deal with its nuclear program, on Obama policies towards the Persian Gulf states, to Syria and to Lebanon as well as to the Palestinians [1]. He was a formidable thorn in the larger Washington agenda for the entire region, Washington’s Greater Middle East Project, more recently redubbed the milder-sounding “New Middle East.”
As real as the factors are that are driving millions into the streets across North Africa and the Middle East, what cannot be ignored is the fact that Washington is deciding the timing and as they see it, trying to shape the ultimate outcome of comprehensive regime change destabilizations across the Islamic world. The day of the remarkably well-coordinated popular demonstrations demanding Mubarak step down, key members of the Egyptian military command including Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan were all in Washington as guests of the Pentagon. That conveniently neutralized the decisive force of the Army to stop the anti-Mubarak protests from growing in the critical early days [2].
The strategy had been in various State Department and Pentagon files since at least a decade or longer. After George W. Bush declared a War on Terror in 2001 it was called the Greater Middle East Project. Today it is known as the less threatening-sounding “New Middle East” project. It is a strategy to break open the states of the region from Morocco to Afghanistan, the region defined by David Rockefeller’s friend Samuel Huntington in his infamous Clash of Civilizations essay in Foreign Affairs.
Egypt rising?
The current Pentagon scenario for Egypt reads like a Cecil B. DeMille Hollywood spectacular, only this one with a cast of millions of Twitter-savvy well-trained youth, networks of Muslim Brotherhood operatives, working with a US-trained military. In the starring role of the new production at the moment is none other than a Nobel Peace Prize winner who conveniently appears to pull all the threads of opposition to the ancient regime into what appears as a seamless transition into a New Egypt under a self-proclaimed liberal democratic revolution.
Some background on the actors on the ground is useful before looking at what Washington’s long-term strategic plan might be for the Islamic world from North Africa to the Persian Gulf and ultimately into the Islamic populations of Central Asia, to the borders of China and Russia.
Washington ’soft’ revolutions
The protests that led to the abrupt firing of the entire Egyptian government by President Mubarak on the heels of the panicked flight of Tunisia’s Ben Ali into a Saudi exile are not at all as “spontaneous” as the Obama White House, Clinton State Department or CNN, BBC and other major media in the West make them to be.
Muslim Brotherhood logo
They are being organized in a Ukrainian-style high-tech electronic fashion with large internet-linked networks of youth tied to Mohammed ElBaradei and the banned and murky secret Muslim Brotherhood, whose links to British and American intelligence and freemasonry are widely reported [3].
At this point the anti-Mubarak movement looks like anything but a threat to US influence in the region, quite the opposite. It has all the footprints of another US-backed regime change along the model of the 2003-2004 Color Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine and the failed Green Revolution against Iran’s Ahmedinejad in 2009.
“January 25 Day of Anger” poster signed by April 6 movement.
The call for an Egyptian general strike and a January 25 Day of Anger that sparked the mass protests demanding Mubarak resign was issued by a Facebook-based organization calling itself the April 6 Movement. The protests were so substantial and well-organized that it forced Mubarak to ask his cabinet to resign and appoint a new vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, former Minister of Intelligence.
April 6 is headed by one Ahmed Maher Ibrahim, a 29-year-old civil engineer, who set up the Facebook site to support a workers’ call for a strike on April 6, 2008.
According to a New York Times account from 2009, some 800,000 Egyptians, most youth, were already then Facebook or Twitter members. In an interview with the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment, April 6 Movement head Maher stated, “Being the first youth movement in Egypt to use internet-based modes of communication like Facebook and Twitter, we aim to promote democracy by encouraging public involvement in the political process” [4].
Maher also announced that his April 6 Movement backs former UN International Atomic Energy Aagency (IAEA) head and declared Egyptian Presidential candidate, ElBaradei along with ElBaradei’s National Association for Change (NAC) coalition. The NAC includes among others George Ishak, a leader in Kefaya Movement, and Mohamed Saad El-Katatni, president of the parliamentary bloc of the controversial Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood. Today Kefaya is at the center of the unfolding Egyptian events. Not far in the background is the more discreet Muslim Brotherhood [5].
Former IAEA Director-General Mohammed ElBaradei taking center stage in opposition front to President Hosni Mubarak.
ElBaradei at this point is being projected as the central figure in a future Egyptian parliamentary democratic change. Curiously, though he has not lived in Egypt for the past thirty years, he has won the backing of every imaginable part of the Eyptian political spectrum from communists to Muslim Brotherhood to Kefaya and April 6 young activists [6]. Judging from the calm demeanour ElBaradei presents these days to CNN interviewers, he also likely has the backing of leading Egyptian generals opposed to the Mubarak rule for whatever reasons as well as some very influential persons in Washington.
Kefaya—Pentagon ’non-violent warfare’
Egyptian woman wearing sticker of the Kefaya (enough) Movement, the main force behind ElBaradei’s candidature.
Kefaya is at the heart of mobilizing the Egyptian protest demonstrations that back ElBaradei’s candidacy. The word Kefaya translates to “enough!”
Curiously, the planners at the Washington National Endowment for Democracy (NED) [7] and related color revolution NGOs apparently were bereft of creative new catchy names for their Egyptian Color Revolution. In their November 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia, the US-financed NGOs chose the catch word, Kmara! In order to identify the youth-based regime change movement. Kmara in Georgian also means “enough!”
Like Kefaya, Kmara in Georgia was also built by the Washington-financed trainers from the NED and other groups such as Gene Sharp’s misleadingly-named Albert Einstein Institution which uses what Sharp once identified as “non-violence as a method of warfare” [8].
The various youth networks in Georgia as in Kefaya were carefully trained as a loose, decentralized network of cells, deliberately avoiding a central organization that could be broken and could have brought the movement to a halt. Training of activists in techniques of non-violent resistance was done at sports facilities, making it appear innocuous. Activists were also given training in political marketing, media relations, mobilization and recruiting skills. The formal name of Kefaya is Egyptian Movement for Change. It was founded in 2004 by select Egyptian intellectuals at the home of Abu ‘l-Ala Madi, leader of the al-Wasat party, a party reportedly created by the Muslim Brotherhood [9] . Kefaya was created as a coalition movement united only by the call for an end Mubarak’s rule.
Kefaya as part of the amorphous April 6 Movement capitalized early on new social media and digital technology as its main means of mobilization. In particular, political blogging, posting uncensored youtube shorts and photographic images were skillfully and extremely professionally used. At a rally already back in December 2009 Kefaya had announced support for the candidacy of Mohammed ElBaradei for the 2011 Egyptian elections [10].
RAND and Kefaya
No less a US defense establishment think-tank than the RAND Corporation has conducted a detailed study of Kefaya. The Kefaya study as RAND themselves note, was “sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Department of the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelligence Community” [11].
A nicer bunch of democratically-oriented gentlemen and women could hardly be found.
In their 2008 report to the Pentagon, the RAND researchers noted the following in relation to Egypt’s Kefaya:
“The United States has professed an interest in greater democratization in the Arab world, particularly since the September 2001 attacks by terrorists from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Lebanon. This interest has been part of an effort to reduce destabilizing political violence and terrorism. As President George W. Bush noted in a 2003 address to the National Endowment for Democracy, ’As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export’ (The White House, 2003). The United States has used varying means to pursue democratization, including a military intervention that, though launched for other reasons, had the installation of a democratic government as one of its end goals. However, indigenous reform movements are best positioned to advance democratization in their own country“ [12].
RAND researchers have spent years perfecting techniques of unconventional regime change under the name “swarming,” the method of deploying mass mobs of digitally-linked youth in hit-and-run protest formations moving like swarms of bees [13].
Washington and the stable of “human rights” and “democracy” and “non-violence” NGOs it oversees, over the past decade or more has increasingly relied on sophisticated “spontaneous” nurturing of local indigenous protest movements to create pro-Washington regime change and to advance the Pentagon agenda of global Full Spectrum Dominance. As the RAND study of Kefaya states in its concluding recommendations to the Pentagon:
“The US government already supports reform efforts through organizations such as the US Agency for International Development and the United Nations Development Programme. Given the current negative popular standing of the United States in the region, US support for reform initiatives is best carried out through nongovernmental and non-profit institutions” [14].
The RAND 2008 study was even more concrete about future US Government support for Egyptian and other “reform” movements:
“The US government should encourage non-governmental organizations to offer training to reformers, including guidance on coalition building and how to deal with internal differences in pursuit of democratic reform. Academic institutions (or even non-governmental organizations associated with US political parties, such as the International Republican Institute or the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs) could carry out such training, which would equip reform leaders to reconcile their differences peacefully and democratically.
Fourth, the United States should help reformers obtain and use information technology, perhaps by offering incentives for US companies to invest in the region’s communications infrastructure and information technology. US information technology companies could also help ensure that the Web sites of reformers can remain in operation and could invest in technologies such as anonymizers that could offer some shelter from government scrutiny. This could also be accomplished by employing technological safegaurds to prevent regimes from sabotaging the Web sites of reformers” [15].
As their Kefaya monograph states, it was prepared in 2008 by the “RAND National Security Research Division’s Alternative Strategy Initiative, sponsored by the Rapid Reaction Technology Office in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics”.
The Alternative Strategy Initiative, just to underscore the point, includes “research on creative use of the media, radicalization of youth, civic involvement to stem sectarian violence, the provision of social services to mobilize aggrieved sectors of indigenous populations, and the topic of this volume, alternative movements” [16].
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks with “Egyptian activists promoting freedom and democracy”, prior to meetings at the State Department in Washington, DC, May 28, 2009.
In May 2009 just before Obama’s Cairo trip to meet Mubarak, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a number of the young Egyptian activists in Washington under the auspices of Freedom House, another “human rights” Washington-based NGO with a long history of involvement in US-sponsored regime change from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine and other Color Revolutions. Clinton and Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman met the sixteen activists at the end of a two-month “fellowship” organized by Freedom House’s New Generation program [17]
Freedom House and Washington’s government-funded regime change NGO, National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are at the heart of the uprisings now sweeping across the Islamic world. They fit the geographic context of what George W. Bush proclaimed after 2001 as his Greater Middle East Project to bring “democracy” and “liberal free market” economic reform to the Islamic countries from Afghanistan to Morocco. When Washington talks about introducing “liberal free market reform” people should watch out. It is little more than code for bringing those economies under the yoke of the dollar system and all that implies.
Washington’s NED in a larger agenda
If we make a list of the countries in the region which are undergoing mass-based protest movements since the Tunisian and Egyptian events and overlay them onto a map, we find an almost perfect convergence between the protest countries today and the original map of the Washington Greater Middle East Project that was first unveiled during the George W. Bush Presidency after 2001.
Washington’s NED has been quietly engaged in preparing a wave of regime destabilizations across North Africa and the Middle East since the 2001-2003 US military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The list of where the NED is active is revealing. Its website lists Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Sudan as well, interestingly, as Israel. Coincidentally these countries are almost all today subject to “spontaneous” popular regime-change uprisings.
The International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs mentioned by the RAND document study of Kefaya are subsidiary organizations of the Washington-based and US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy.
The NED is the coordinating Washington agency for regime destabilization and change. It is active from Tibet to Ukraine, from Venezuela to Tunisia, from Kuwait to Morocco in reshaping the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union into what George H.W. Bush in a 1991 speech to Congress proclaimed triumphantly as the dawn of a New World Order [18].
As the architect and first head of the NED, Allen Weinstein told the Washington Post in 1991 that, “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA” [19].
The NED Board of Directors includes or has included former Defense Secretary and CIA Deputy head Frank Carlucci of the Carlyle Group; retired General Wesley Clark of NATO; neo-conservative warhawk Zalmay Khalilzad who was architect of George W. Bush’s Afghan invasion and later ambassador to Afghanistan as well as to occupied Iraq. Another NED board member, Vin Weber, co-chaired a major independent task force on US Policy toward Reform in the Arab World with former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and was a founding member of the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century think-tank with Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, which advocated forced regime change in Iraq as early as 1998 [20].
The NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a yearly appropriation for its international work from the US Congress. The National Endowment for Democracy is dependent on the US taxpayer for funding, but because NED is not a government agency, it is not subject to normal Congressional oversight.
NED money is channelled into target countries through four “core foundations”—the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, linked to the Democratic Party; the International Republican Institute tied to the Republican Party; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity linked to the AFL-CIO US labor federation as well as the US State Department; and the Center for International Private Enterprise linked to the free-market US Chamber of Commerce.
The late political analyst Barbara Conry noted that,
“NED has taken advantage of its alleged private status to influence foreign elections, an activity that is beyond the scope of AID or USIA and would otherwise be possible only through a CIA covert operation. Such activities, it may also be worth noting, would be illegal for foreign groups operating in the United States“ [21].
Significantly the NED details its various projects today in Islamic countries, including in addition to Egypt, in Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan. In short, most every country which is presently feeling the earthquake effects of the reform protests sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa is a target of NED [22].
In 2005 US President George W. Bush made a speech to the NED. In a long, rambling discourse which equated “Islamic radicalism” with the evils of communism as the new enemy, and using a deliberately softer term “broader Middle East” for the term Greater Middle East that had aroused much distruct in the Islamic world, Bush stated,
“The fifth element of our strategy in the war on terror is to deny the militants future recruits by replacing hatred and resentment with democracy and hope across the broader Middle East. This is a difficult and long-term project, yet there’s no alternative to it. Our future and the future of that region are linked. If the broader Middle East is left to grow in bitterness, if countries remain in misery, while radicals stir the resentments of millions, then that part of the world will be a source of endless conflict and mounting danger, and for our generation and the next. If the peoples of that region are permitted to choose their own destiny, and advance by their own energy and by their participation as free men and women, then the extremists will be marginalized, and the flow of violent radicalism to the rest of the world will slow, and eventually end…We’re encouraging our friends in the Middle East, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to take the path of reform, to strengthen their own societies in the fight against terror by respecting the rights and choices of their own people. We’re standing with dissidents and exiles against oppressive regimes, because we know that the dissidents of today will be the democratic leaders of tomorrow… “ [23].
The US Project for a ’Greater Middle East’
The spreading regime change operations from Tunisia to Sudan, from Yemen to Egypt to Syria are best viewed in the context of a long-standing Pentagon and State Department strategy for the entire Islamic world from Kabul in Afghanistan to Rabat in Morocco.
The rough outlines of the Washington strategy, based in part on their successful regime change operations in the former Warsaw Pact communist bloc of Eastern Europe, were drawn up by former Pentagon consultant and neo-conservative, Richard Perle and later Bush official Douglas Feith in a white paper they drew up for the then-new Israeli Likud regime of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996.
That policy recommendation was titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. It was the first Washington think-tank paper to openly call for removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq, for an aggressive military stance toward the Palestinians, striking Syria and Syrian targets in Lebanon [24]. Reportedly, the Netanyahu government at that time buried the Perle-Feith report, as being far too risky.
By the time of the events of September 11, 2001 and the return to Washington of the arch-warhawk neoconservatives around Perle and others, the Bush Administration put highest priority on an expanded version of the Perle-Feith paper, calling it their Greater Middle East Project. Feith was named Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense.
Behind the facade of proclaiming democratic reforms of autocratic regimes in the entire region, the Greater Middle East was and is a blueprint to extend US military control and to break open the statist economies in the entire span of states from Morocco to the borders of China and Russia.
In May 2009, before the rubble from the US bombing of Baghdad had cleared, George W. Bush, a President not remembered as a great friend of democracy, proclaimed a policy of “spreading democracy” to the entire region and explicitly noted that that meant “the establishment of a US-Middle East free trade area within a decade” [25].
Prior to the June 2004 G8 Summit on Sea Island, Georgia, Washington issued a working paper, “G8-Greater Middle East Partnership”. Under the section titled Economic Opportunities was Washington’s dramatic call for “an economic transformation similar in magnitude to that undertaken by the formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe”.
The US paper said that the key to this would be the strengthening of the private sector as the way to prosperity and democracy. It misleadingly claimed it would be done via the miracle of microfinance where as the paper put it, “a mere $100 million a year for five years will lift 1.2 million entrepreneurs (750,000 of them women) out of poverty, through $400 loans to each” [26].
The US plan envisioned takeover of regional banking and financial affairs by new institutions ostensibly international but, like World Bank and IMF, de facto controlled by Washington, including WTO. The goal of Washington’s long-term project is to completely control the oil, to completely control the oil revenue flows, to completely control the entire economies of the region, from Morocco to the borders of China and all in between. It is a project as bold as it is desperate.
The G8 Map of Washington’s Greater Middle East extends right to the borders of China and Russia and West to Morocco.
Once the G8 US paper was leaked in 2004 in the Arabic Al-Hayat, opposition to it spread widely across the region, with a major protest to the US definition of the Greater Middle East. As an article in the French Le Monde Diplomatique in April 2004 noted, “besides the Arab countries, it covers Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Israel, whose only common denominator is that they lie in the zone where hostility to the US is strongest, in which Islamic fundamentalism in its anti-Western form is most rife” [27]. It should be noted that the NED is also active inside Israel with a number of programs.
Notably, in 2004 it was vehement opposition from two Middle East leaders—Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and the King of Saudi Arabia—that forced the ideological zealots of the Bush Administration to temporarily put the Project for the Greater Middle East on a back burner.
Will it work?
At this writing it is unclear what the ultimate upshot of the latest US-led destabilizations across the Islamic world will bring. It is not clear what will result for Washington and the advocates of a US-dominated New World Order. Their agenda is clearly one of creating a Greater Middle East under firm US grip as a major control of the capital flows and energy flows of a future China, Russia and a European Union that might one day entertain thoughts of drifting away from that American order.
It has huge potential implications for the future of Israel as well. As one US commentator put it, “The Israeli calculation today is that if ’Mubarak goes’ (which is usually stated as ’If America lets Mubarak go’), Egypt goes. If Tunisia goes (same elaboration), Morocco and Algeria go. Turkey has already gone (for which the Israelis have only themselves to blame). Syria is gone (in part because Israel wanted to cut it off from Sea of Galilee water access). Gaza has gone to Hamas, and the Palestine Authority might soon be gone too (to Hamas?). That leaves Israel amid the ruins of a policy of military domination of the region” [28].
The Washington strategy of “creative destruction” is clearly causing sleepless nights not only in the Islamic world but also reportedly in Tel Aviv, and ultimately by now also in Beijing and Moscow and across Central Asia.
[1] DEBKA, “Mubarak believes a US-backed Egyptian military faction plotted his ouster“, February 4, 2011. DEBKA is open about its good ties to Israeli intelligence and security agencies. While its writings must be read with that in mind, certain reports they publish often contain interesting leads for further investigation.
[3] The Center for Grassroots Oversight, “1954-1970: CIA and the Muslim Brotherhood ally to oppose Egyptian President Nasser“. According to the late Miles Copeland, a CIA official stationed in Egypt during the Nasser era, the CIA allied with the Muslim Brotherhood which was opposed to Nasser’s secular regime as well as his nationalist opposition to brotherhood pan-Islamic ideology.
[13] For a more detailed discussion of the RAND “swarming” techniques see F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, Edition.Engdahl, 2009, pp. 34-41.
[18] George Herbert Walker Bush, “State of the Union Address to Congress”, 29 January 1991. In the speech Bush at one point declared in a triumphant air of celebration of the collapse of the Sovoiet Union, “What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea—a new world order…”.
[19] Allen Weinstein, quoted in David Ignatius, “Openness is the Secret to Democracy”, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September 1991, pp. 24-25.
Connecticut’s newspaper The Day noted on January 24th:
Connecticut National Guard Detachment 2, Company I, 185th Aviation Regiment of Groton has mobilized and will deploy to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, to support the Multinational Force and Observers.
The unit left Connecticut Jan. 15 for Fort Benning, Ga., for further training and validation. The unit operates C-23C Sherpa aircraft and has deployed three times in the last seven years in support of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The unit will provide an on-demand aviation asset to the Multinational Force and Observers commander to support its mission of supervising the security provisions of the Egypt/ Israel Peace Treaty.
The Pentagon is moving U.S. warships and other military assets to make sure it is prepared in case evacuation of U.S. citizens from Egypt becomes necessary, officials said Friday.
The Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship carrying 700 to 800 troops from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, and the Ponce have arrived in the Red Sea, putting them off Egypt’s shores in case the situation worsens.
Pentagon officials emphasized that military intervention in Egypt was not being contemplated and that the warships were being moved only for contingency purposes in case evacuations became necessary.
In addition to the Marines, the Kearsarge normally carries around four dozen helicopters and harrier jets that would permit evacuations and other humanitarian operations, the officials said. More than 1,000 Marines from the Kearsarge were sent to Afghanistan last month on a temporary deployment, leaving roughly one-third still aboard, officials said.
In carrying out her mission, Kearsarge not only transports and lands ashore troops, but also tanks, trucks, artillery, and the complete logistic support needed to supply an assault.
The assault support system aboard ship coordinates horizontal and vertical movement of troops, cargo and vehicles. Monorail trains, moving at speeds up to 600 ft/min (3 m/s), transport cargo and supplies from storage and staging areas throughout the ship to a 13,600 square feet (1,260 m2) well deck which opens to the sea through huge gates in the ship’s stern. There, the cargo, troops and vehicles are loaded aboard landing craft for transit to the beach. The air cushion landing craft can “fly” out of the dry well deck, or the well deck can be flooded so conventional landing craft can float out on their way to the beach.
Simultaneously, helicopters are brought from the hangar deck to the flight deck by two deck-edge elevators and loaded with supplies from three massive cargo elevators.
Kearsarge’s armament suite includes the NATO RIM-7 Sea Sparrow point defense system for anti-aircraft support, RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, 25 mm chain guns and the Phalanx close-in weapon system to counter threats from low-flying aircraft and close-in small craft. Missile decoy launchers augment the anti-ship missile defenses.
However, the Kearsarge has also been used in missions to evacuate people stranded in war zones. Wikipedia describes this unique dual capability:
Kearsarge is fully capable of amphibious assault, advance force and special purpose operations, as well as non-combatant evacuation and other humanitarian missions. Since her commissioning, she has performed these missions the world over, including evacuating non-combatants from Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 31 May 1997 and rescuing Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady from Serb-controlled territory in Bosnia on 8 June 1995. Additionally, Kearsarge is fully equipped with state of the art command and control (C&C) systems for flagship command duty, and her medical facilities are second in capability only to the Navy’s hospital ships, USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) and Mercy (T-AH-19). These facilities allowed Kearsarge to serve a dual role during the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as a platform for bombing missions against Serb forces in Operation Allied Force, and as a treatment facility for Albanian refugees in Operation Shining Hope.
The Los Angeles Times continues:
In addition, the aircraft carrier Enterprise is in the eastern Mediterranean. The Pentagon originally announced that the carrier was heading through the Suez Canal for the Arabian Gulf, but the crisis in Egypt appears to have prompted a decision to keep it in the Mediterranean at least temporarily.
Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea (as well as the Red Sea):
The Enterprise is the longest naval vessel in the world, and is powered by eight nuclear reactors. The Enterprise does not appear to have any dual role for evacuations, but is simply an offensive aircraft carrier.
Therefore, I see no clear indication that the U.S. government has affirmatively decided to directly involve our military in Egypt. However, it is obvious that the government is at least planning for the possibility.
A “very senior” member of the US Marine corps is telling people “multiple platoons” are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us.There is a system within the US Marines that alerts the immediate families of high-ranking marines when their marine will soon be deployed to an emergency situation where they will not be able to talk to their spouses or families.
That alert just went out, says our source.
This senior Marine told our source that the Pentagon will deploy “multiple platoons” to Egypt over the next few days and that the official reason will be ‘to assist in the evacuation of US citizens.”
Our source was told that “the chances they were going over there went from 70% yesterday to 100% today.”
Minimally explored in all the coverage of the momentous Egyptian uprising taking place over the last 10 days are the Israeli connections.
A central and critical reality is that it is US tax money that has propped up Hosni Mubarak’s despotic regime over the past 30 years, and that this money has flowed, from the beginning, largely on behalf of Israel.
Israel is generally a significant factor in events in the Middle East, and to understand ongoing happenings it is important to understand the historic and current Israeli connections.
The violent creation, perpetuation, and expansion of a state based on ethnic expulsion of the majority inhabitants has been central to Middle East dynamics ever since Israel was created by European and American Zionists in 1948 as a self-identified “Jewish State.”
Israeli leaders and outside observers realized from the very beginning that the only way to maintain such a violently imposed, ethnically based nation-state was through military dominance of the region. For Israel to achieve this military dominance required two things:
(1) The creation of a military more powerful than all the others in the region combined. Israel has achieved this through a uniquely massive influx of US tax dollars and technology, occasionally purloined but largely procured through the machinations of its lobby. (Among other things, Israel has several hundred nuclear weapons, a fact almost never mentioned by American media or the American government.)
(2) The prevention of any other nation in the region from becoming a threat. Israel has attained this goal through several strategies: divide and conquer techniques, direct invasions and attacks (or pushing the U.S. to carry out attacks), and the propping up of despots who would openly or tacitly agree (sometimes in return for similarly large influxes of American tax money) not to support the rights of those oppressed and ethnically cleansed by Israel.
For the past 30-plus years, Egypt has been among those despotic regimes supported by the U.S. and Israel in return for turning its back on Palestinians.
The Egypt-Israeli peace treaty of 1979 has occasionally been mentioned in news reports on the current uprising. That treaty was an arrangement in which the Egyptian leader of the time, Anwar Sadat, stopped opposing Israel’s previous ethnic cleansing of close to a million indigenous Palestinian Muslims and Christians (at least 750,000 in 1947-49 and an additional 200,000 in 1967). This removed the most populous and politically significant country from the Arab front opposing Israel’s illegal actions and led the way for other nations to “normalize” relations with the abnormal situation in Palestine.
In return, Israel gave back to Egypt the Sinai, Egyptian land it had illegally annexed in its 1967 war of aggression. (Egypt had almost managed to re-conquer this land and more in 1973, but the most massive airlift in American history, engineered by Henry Kissinger under pressure from the Israeli lobby, was sent to Israel, preventing this outcome.)
Also in return, the United States agreed to give Egypt more US tax money than any other nation, with the exception of Israel. Since 1979, Egypt has received an annual average of close to $2 billion in economic and political aid from American taxpayers (most of whom have known nothing about this use of our money). The arrangement has allowed Mubarak to stay in power for decades despite periodic attempts by Egyptians to free themselves from his ruthless rule.
At the same time, it’s important to note that the U.S., as broker of the peace treaty, gave Israel even greater rewards: guaranteeing Israel’s oil supplies for the next fifteen years; assuring Israel of American support in the event of violations; committing to be “responsive” to Israel’s military and economic requirements; and promising a variety of major transfers of technology and aid, including $3 billion to relocate two Israeli air bases out of the Sinai, where, as journalist Donald Neff noted, they had no right to be in the first place.
In fact, the American financial arrangement with Israel, which had begun years before Egypt’s, has been far cozier than Egypt’s: Israel gets considerably more money from the US, even though its population is one-tenth of Egypt’s; there is little U.S. oversight of how it uses that money; and, unlike Egypt, which receives its allotment monthly, Israel receives its handout in a lump sum at the very beginning of the fiscal year (which means that Americans then pay interest for the rest of the year on money that the government has already given away, while Israel makes interest on it).
In the cases of both Israel and Egypt, the Israel lobby’s role in procuring this U.S. tax money has been central. While this fact is largely missing from US media reports and many liberal/left analyses, it is frequently referred to in Israeli and Jewish media. For example, a current Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) report states: “The question of whether to stake a claim in the protests against 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak’s autocracy is a key one for the pro-Israel lobby and pro-Israel lawmakers because of the role they have played in making Egypt one of the greatest beneficiaries of U.S. aid.”
As conditions change in Egypt, U.S. lawmakers known for their allegiance to Israel are evaluating what to do about U.S aid. Many such Israel partisans have particularly powerful and relevant positions, such as Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the foreign operations subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Middle East subcommittee; Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), ranking member on the Foreign Affairs committee and the author of last year’s sweeping Iran sanctions law; and Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev), member of the subcommittee on the Middle East of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. A person close to the Israel lobby notes: “No matter what happens, clearly one of the top criteria Congress is likely to use is Egypt’s approach to its peace treaty obligations with Israel.”
Through the years a variety of Egyptian groups have opposed the Egyptian regime, some using violence (while the regime has used greater violence against them). This is virtually always reported without context and in extremely negative terms, without noting that it is routine for resistance movements to use violence; the American Revolutionary War was not known for its nonviolence. Yet, Israeli-centric U.S. media rarely discuss this.
In recent years, Mubarak has collaborated with Israel in closing off the Gaza Strip, largely imprisoning 1.5 million men, women, and children, resulting in a humanitarian disaster in which children suffer malnutrition, stunting, and trauma, and 300 Gazan patients have died through lack of essential medical supplies or being denied exit passes for medical care. Egyptian citizens, furious at their nation’s complicity in this cruelty, have been powerless to stop it.
Israel has long worked to create enmity between Egypt and the U.S. In the early 1950s the Israeli secret service, the Mossad, hatched a plan to firebomb areas in Egypt where Americans gathered — and to make these attacks appear to be the work of Muslim extremists. The plot was discovered and caused a scandal in Israel known as the “Lavon Affair,” but few Americans have ever heard of it. Some analysts suspect that other such plots succeeded and that the little-known Israeli attack on the U.S. Navy ship USS Liberty may have been a similar false-flag operation. (Certainly, there is little doubt that the U.S. would have attacked Egypt if Liberty crewmembers had not succeeded, against all odds, in getting a distress signal out before Israel succeeded in sinking the ship with all men aboard.)
Another little-discussed result of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty was the creation of an international peacekeeping force in the Sinai, known as the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), charged with mediating between Egypt and Israel. It is telling that this force was not placed on Israeli land but instead occupies Egyptian territory.
Its current head is Ambassador David M. Satterfield, an American diplomat who served extensively in the Middle East, was Senior Advisor on Iraq for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and held a number of other high positions in the state department, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of State.
In 2005 Satterfield was named as having provided classified information to an official of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC. According to documents, Satterfield had discussed secret national security matters in at least two meetings with AIPAC official Steven J. Rosen, who was subsequently indicted by the U.S. Justice Department (later quashed over the objections of the FBI.)
In 2004 Satterfield presided at a State Department conference on the 1967 war. A Washington Report on Middle East Affairsreport on this conference stated that Satterfield repeatedly referred to Palestinian terrorism while failing to mention Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians. The article reports “Satterfield’s remarks dampened audience expectations for an even-handed U.S. approach to peacemaking.”
Among those in the audience at the conference’s panel on the USS Liberty, though not on the panel itself were USS Liberty survivors, trying to tell their story. State Department moderator Marc Susser quickly cut them off, and his treatment of the survivors reportedly “bordered on abusive.”
Now, David Satterfield is heading up international forces occupying Egyptian land charged with being a “neutral” mediator between Egypt and Israel.
It is unknown whether his conversations with AIPAC continue.
Mohamed ElBaradei (left) meets with President Obama
February 3, 2011
The tactics of the Obama administration towards Egypt has flowed from two strategic aims at this point: defending the Egyptian capitalist neo-colonialist state and maintaining Egypt as the key player of American imperialist foreign policy in the Mediterranean, North Africa and throughout the Middle East.
The poor people of Egypt and the insurgent masses must not permit themselves the slightest illusion in the intention and plans of President Barack Obama. The president and his advisors in the Pentagon and the CIA are determined to contain, defuse and eventually crush the revolutionary movement.
The events in the last few weeks took the Obama administration by surprise. The Obama administration did not foresee the mass revolt against Washington’s long time asset, the Egyptian head-of-state Hosni Mubarak. Even as tens of thousands of people and young were defying the police violence last Tuesday, at this point US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was vouching for the constancy of the Mubarak government.
The US is heavily invested—politically, economically and military—in the Mubarak regime. Its reluctance to dispense summarily with the dictator is not an expression of sentimentality. Rather, the United States fears that the too hasty scraping of Mubarak will demoralize and emasculate the confidence of other dictators on the CIA payroll in the dependability and trustworthiness of Washington and its support. However, in the final analysis, Mubarak’s fate is of a secondary matter. Of exceptionally greater concern to Washington is the survival of the Egyptian military and security services upon which capitalist rule depends.
At this point, the Obama administration is concerned that an attempt to use the army to crack down on the protestors could lead to the military’s collapse. It is not certain that the troops can be relied on to shoot down citizens on the streets of Alexandria, Cairo, Dum Yat, Abu Mena and other cities that may be the only way to save Mubarak.
US policymakers are haunted by the precedent of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. For Washington had not prepared a political alternative to the Shah, Reza Pahlavi, and the Iranian military cracked beneath the pressure of the revolution. The result was the loss of a critical client state in the Persian Gulf.
Short term US policy is to shore up the Egyptian military and intelligence apparatus—hence we see the appointment of the intelligence chief and former general Omar Suleiman as vice president—and to prepare a political alternative to Mubarak if he decides not to step down. But it should be noted that any replacement that was to be endorsed and certified by Washington will be nothing but a puppet providing a pseudo-democratic illusion for a new military regime.
The one candidate for this task is a Mohamed ElBaradei, who at this point is being put forward and endorsed by most of the US media. A faithful envoy of the Egyptian comprador ruling elite, ElBaradei flew back from his home in Vienna last week for the explicit purpose of heading off a revolutionary overthrow of the Mubarak regime.
The Muslim Brotherhood has agreed to back ElBaradei as a way to have political patronage from Washington.
Clinton made the absurd and ridiculous statement: “We continue to urge the Egyptian government, as the United States has for 30 years, to respond to the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people and begin to take concrete steps to implement democratic and economic reform.”
What has this 30-year campaign for democratic reform in Egypt consisted of? Piling Mubarak with $1.5 billion a year in aid, overwhelmingly military, and lauding him as a dependable and steadfast supporter in the war against Iraq, the defense of Israel and the “War on Terror.” Not only has the US been in cahoots with the Mubarak regimes murder and torture of political opponents, but the US had also used Mubarak’s intelligence agencies and police as tortures-for-hire in
Washington’s policy of kidnapping and “renditioning” alleged terrorist.
The Obama administration knows and understands that whatever government that it subsidizes will not end the political disaster in Egypt. For it is impossible for any capitalist regime to meet a single one of the social and political demands of masses—for jobs, an end to poverty in the cities and countryside, and the abolition of the brutally repressive police organizations.
The social crises can’t be handled by the comprador government of Egypt in alliance with Israel that has been an essential component of the country’s strategic role in the Middle East since the trip of President Anwar Sadat, Mubarak’s predecessor, to Jerusalem in 1977. The money corrupt Egyptian elite is too completely tied to US imperialism to face or carry out any genuine reform in the country.
One can be more than certain that behind all of the events that is currently going on in Egypt, behind the scenes the American Pentagon is looking into the inventory of every regiment, brigade, and branch of the Egyptian military to decide which forces can be relied upon to carry out protecting American interests in the region.
In an interview posted on Youtupe, Jon B. Alterman of the Center for Strategic and international Studies in Washington says: “As in Tunisia, the protests appear to represent a largely leaderless movement with no clear agenda and no way to seize power.”
It’s this political vacuum that the US and its clients want to exploit. The development of revolutionary forces requires a clear political strategy, based on an understanding of the historical background, the international context and the class dynamics of the revolution. The mass movement cannot have any confidence in any pseudo-democratic reformer and the more than compromised representatives of the Egyptian elite.
Three Israeli planes landed at Cairo’s Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds.
The International Network for Rights and Development has claimed that Israeli logistical support has been sent to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak to help his regime confront demonstrations demanding that he steps down as head of state. According to reports by the non-governmental organisation, three Israeli planes landed at Cairo’s Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds.
In the statement circulated by the International Network, it was disclosed that Egyptian security forces received the complete cargoes on three Israeli planes which were, it is claimed, carrying an abundant supply of internationally proscribed gas to disperse unwanted crowds. If the reports are accurate, this suggests that the Egyptian regime is preparing for the worse in defence of its position, despite the country sinking into chaos.
On Sunday 30 January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israeli government ministers in a public statement saying: “Our efforts aim at the continued maintenance of stability and security in the region… and I remind you that peace between the Israeli establishment and Egypt has endured for over three decades… we currently strive to guarantee the continuity of these relations.” Netanyahu added, “We are following the events unfolding in Egypt and the region with vigilance… and it is incumbent at this time that we show responsibility, self-restraint and maximum consideration for the situation… in the hope that the peaceful relations between the Israeli establishment and Egypt continue…”
The Israeli prime minister urged Israeli government ministers to refrain from making any additional statements to the media.
” The military was greeted warmly on the streets of Cairo. Crowds roared with approval as one soldier was carried through Tahrir square today holding a flower in his hand. Dozens of people clambered onto tanks as they rode around the square. Throughout the day people chanted: “The people, the army: one hand.”
# Protesters have an army officer shouldered who joined in their protests in Cairo. # Image Credit: EPA
CAIRO, EGYPT– I grew up in Egypt. I spent half my life here. But Saturday, when my plane from JFK airport touched down in Cairo, I arrived in a different country than the one I had known all my life. This is not Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt anymore and, regardless of what happens, it will never be again.
In Tahrir Square, thousands of Egyptians–men and women, young and old, rich and poor–gathered today to celebrate their victory over the regime’s hated police and state security forces and to call on Mubarak to step down and leave once and for all. They talked about the massive protest on Friday, the culmination of three days of demonstrations that began on January 25th to mark National Police Day. It was an act of popular revolt the likes of which many Egyptians never thought they would see during Mubarak’s reign. “The regime has been convincing us very well that we cannot do it, but Tunisians gave us an idea and it took us only three days and we did it,” said Ahmad El Esseily, a 35 year-old author and TV/radio talk show host who took park in the demonstrations. “We are a lot of people and we are strong.”
In Cairo, tens of thousands of people–from all walks of life–faced off against riot police armed with shields, batons, and seemingly endless supplies of tear gas. People talked about Friday’s protest like a war; a war they’d won. “Despite the tear gas and the beatings, we just kept coming, wave after wave of us,” one protester said. “When some of us would tire, others would head in. We gave each other courage.” After several hours, the police were forced into a full retreat. Then, as the army was sent in, they disappeared.
The military was greeted warmly on the streets of Cairo. Crowds roared with approval as one soldier was carried through Tahrir square today holding a flower in his hand. Dozens of people clambered onto tanks as they rode around the square. Throughout the day people chanted: “The people, the army: one hand.”
While the police and state security forces are notorious in Egypt for torture, corruption and brutality, the army has not interacted with the civilian population for more than 30 years and is only proudly remembered for having delivered a victory in the 1973 war with Israel. A 4pm curfew set for today was casually ignored with people convinced the army would not harm them. The police were a different story. Their brutality the past few days–decades in fact–has been well documented.
Saturday, some of the police forces were holed up inside their headquarters in the Interior Ministry building near the end of a street connected to Tahrir Square. When protesters neared the building, the police began firing live ammunition at the crowd, forcing them to flee back to the square. Three bloodied people were carried out. “The police are killing us,” one man yelled desperately while on the phone with al Jazeera from outside the building. When the firing stopped, defiant protesters began approaching the building again. In the background, the smoking, blackened shell of Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party headquarters served as an ominous reminder of their intentions.
At this point it seems clear the people are not leaving the streets. They own them now and they are refusing to go until Mubarak does. They chanted, “Mubarak, the plane is waiting for you at the airport,” and “Wake up Mubarak, today is your last day.”
At one point, a rumor spread through Tahrir Square that Mubarak had fled the country. A massive cheer rippled through the crowd. People began jumping up and down in joy. One man wept uncontrollably. When it turned out not to be true, the cheers quickly ended but it provided a brief glimpse of the sheer raw desire for Mubarak’s ouster. Reports now indicate that Mubarak’s two sons and his wife, Suzanne, have fled Egypt, as have some of his closest business cronies. Many people believe that is a sign that Hosni will not be far behind.
There is a great sense of pride that this is a leaderless movement organized by the people. A genuine popular revolt. It was not organized by opposition movements, though they have now joined the protesters in Tahrir. The Muslim Brotherhood was out in full force today. At one point they began chanting “Allah Akbar” only to be drowned out by much louder chants of “Muslim, Christian, we are all Egyptian.”
* Egyptian anti-government protesters pray in front of an Egyptian army tank during a protest in Tahrir square in Cairo. * Image Credit: AP
As the sun set over Cairo, silence fell upon Tahrir square as thousands stopped to pray in the street while others stood atop tanks. After the sunset prayer, they held a ‘ganaza’–a prayer for those killed in the demonstrations. Darkness fell and the protesters, thousands of them, have vowed to stay in the square, sleeping out in the open, until Mubarak is ousted.
Meanwhile, across Cairo there is not a policeman in sight and there are reports of looting and violence. People worry that Mubarak is intentionally trying to create chaos to somehow convince people that he is needed. The strategy is failing. Residents have taken matters into their own hands, helping to direct traffic and forming armed neighborhood watches, complete with checkpoints and shift changes, in districts across the city.
This is the Egypt I arrived in today. Fearless and determined. It cannot go back to what it was. It will never be the same.
The Hidden Evil (The financial elite’s covert war against the civilian population)
Isn’t she beautiful ?
Revolution ( in the US a constitutional right )
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
……………………
and ….. JFK in his own words !
In a speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961, President Kennedy said:
“No president should fear public scrutiny of his program, for from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition; and both are necessary. . . . Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed, and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian law makers once decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment.”
Abraham Lincoln said, just before his assassination:
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country...Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
Hmmmm.
“Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten”. Cree Indian Prophecy
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Facebook's $104 billion initial public offering on Friday transformed thousands of young people into instant millionaires - as well as a few billionaires - and already the booming luxury market in Silicon Valley is experiencing an upswing. Multi-million dollar mansions and $100,000 Porsches are flying off local shelves in the Palo Alto, Santa Clara and […]
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Under cover of the night around twelve police cars stopped five journalists when they were heading back to where they are staying in Chicago during the NATO summit. All five have been covering protests against the NATO summit for the past few days. The five journalists included Luke Rudkowksi, who streams as @Lukewearechange, Tim Pool, who streams as @Timcas […]
Midwestern rural communities are being devastated by energy companies searching for a form of sand to use in their destructive fracking operations elsewhere in rural America.
Not all politicians are created equal. And not all are treated equally. Therein lies an issue deserving a closer look: whether vulnerable Democrats are targeted for destruction.
Much like the NATO summit, the system is set up not to spread wealth but to preserve and protect it, not to relieve chaos but to contain and punish it.
Bill Moyers talks to Simon Johnson, once chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and now MIT professor, about the (possible) fall of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan.
Rahm Emanuel runs Chicago like he ran the Obama White House: with an iron fist and a foul mouth – and the NATO summit, being held in the Windy City, is the perfect occasion for him to demonstrate just how “tough” he can be. “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean [...]
A three-judge panel has rejected evidence that could help clear Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi of terrorism charges, causing Hashemi's team of lawyers to quit the case in protest. Meanwhile, at least two Iraqis were killed and eight more were wounded.
Hopes by Iran hawks here to get the U.S. Congress to wield the threat of a U.S. military attack on the Islamic Republic on the eve of next week’s critical negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program appear to have fallen unexpectedly short. While the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly Thursday to reject "any U.S. policy that [...]
I strongly oppose H Res 568, a resolution "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the importance of preventing the Government of Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability." Once again we see on the "suspension" calendar, which is customarily reserved for non-controversial legislation, a resolution designed t […]
On what is now the 17th day of our walk from Madison to Chicago, the number 165 does not seem to encapsulate all the progress we have made. We are 17 days and 165 miles away from the day I drove into Madison, where news arrived that Air Force One had descended on pre-dawn Kabul [...]
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NATO arrives everywhere violently. Chicago was no exception. During summit activities, city cops are enforcers. They specialize in serving wealth, power, and imperial interests. more...
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DUBAI, (SANA)- A militant group called 'al-Nusra Front', which is connected with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing which targeted the city of Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria, that killed nine people and injured more than 100 others
MOSCOW, (SANA) – The Syrian community in Russia condemned on Sunday the terrorist attacks witnessed in Syria, the latest of which was the terrorist bombing in Deir Ezzor province, stressing that these attacks will not defeat the determination of the Syrian people.
MOSCOW, (SANA) – Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that during the G8 Summit in Camp David, Russia adhered to its stance which states that the situation in Syria cannot be resolved through exerting pressure via force or otherwise on the Syria government
CAMP DAVID, U.S, (SANA)- The Group of 8 Summit called on all sides in Syria to immediately halt violence and carry out the plan of the UN envoy Kofi Annan
MOSCOW, (SANA)- Russia on Friday expressed condemnation of the terrorist attempt that targeted the international observers in Syria, saying it was aimed at foiling the plan of the UN envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan
PROVINCES, (SANA)- Head of the UN observer mission to Syria, Gen. Robert Mood, said on Friday the mission is working at finding a successful way to be deployed in Syria thanks to the advanced level of cooperation by the Syrian government, the UN Presidency and the contributor countries
TUNIS, (SANA) – Tunisian authorities on Friday admitted that there are Tunisian citizens who were killed or arrested in Syria, and that they were members of the armed terrorist groups
NEW YORK,UNITED NATIONS (SANA)_ U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that he believed al Qaeda was responsible for two suicide car bombs at al-Qaza Zone in Damascus on May the 10th
Maan News Agency | May 21, 2012 (updated) BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An Israeli human rights group released footage on Sunday of settlers firing on Nablus-village a day earlier, and called on Israel’s military to investigate the assailants, as well as the army’s role. Settlers entered Asira al-Qibliya on Saturday and threw rocks at propertie […]
LIVE BLOG ▶ PALESTINIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE | #PalHunger LIVE BLOG ▶ Commemorating 64 Years of Catastrophe in Palestine | #Nakba64 LIVE BLOG ▶ Israel Attacks Gaza May 17, 2012 & lies about it | #GazaUnderAttack continuous updated آخر الأخبار والتحديثات May 21, 2012 | 23382 Days Since Al-Nakba & Gaza has been under siege [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 08:45 PM ] THE HAGUE (PIC)– The Palestinian community in the Netherlands held, on Saturday, a conference to mark the 64th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba in the capital Amsterdam, with the participation of the former PM of Netherlands, Dries van Agt, and with a large presence of the Palestinian community [...]
Al-Qassam Website | 21-05-2012,08:37 Al Qassam website (PressTV) – Palestinian refugees want their next generation to go back home to a free “Palestinian state” and to build their country themselves, a young Palestinian refugee tells Press TV. The comment comes as Palestinians commemorated the 64th anniversary of Nakba Day on May 15; when over 750,000 […]
Monday May 21, 2012 03:31 by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC Palestinian medical sources reported Sunday that a Palestinian youth was injured near the Etzion Israeli settlement, between Bethlehem and Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The soldiers then stepped on his palms to pose for pictures as the resident continued to bleed. Salah Sghayyar – [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 08:06 PM ] OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC)– A Palestinian researcher revealed that more than two thirds of Jerusalemites owe money to the Israeli occupation’s different organs and departments. The Jerusalemite activist and researcher, Fakhri Abu Diab, said that Israeli official data showed that there are over 43 thousand debt files in […]
LIVE BLOG ▶ PALESTINIANS ON HUNGER STRIKE | #PalHunger LIVE BLOG ▶ Commemorating 64 Years of Catastrophe in Palestine | #Nakba64 LIVE BLOG ▶ Israel Attacks Gaza May 17, 2012 & lies about it | #GazaUnderAttack continuous updated آخر الأخبار والتحديثات May 20, 2012 | 23381 Days Since Al-Nakba & Gaza has been under siege [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 05:44 PM ] AL-KHALIL, (PIC)– A Palestinian teen was seriously injured near Gush Etzion settlement to the north of Al-Khalil after Israeli occupation forces (IOF) fired at him. Medical sources said that the 17-year-old youth Salah Zaghir was seriously wounded in his abdomen after an Israeli soldier fired at him near [...]
[ PIC 20/05/2012 - 05:52 PM ] GAZA, (PIC)– Spokesman of Hamas in Gaza Fawzi Barhoum has charged that the Jewish settlers’ storming of the Aqsa mosque on Sunday fell in line with the religious war waged by the Israeli occupation government against the Palestinian people. Barhoum told the PIC that the repeated visits by [...]
Maan News Agency | May 20, 2012 GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A young Palestinian farmer was shot by Israeli soldiers while working on his land in the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday, a medical official said. Waheed, 22, is in a moderate condition in Nasser hospital after suffering a bullet wound in the thigh, emergency [...]
New Delhi, May 21, IRNA – Terming the cultural relations between India and Iran as “extensive” and “uninterrupted”, an Indian scholar Monday emphasized the need to further strengthen the ties between the two nations.-1391/03/01-16:06
Mahshahr, Khuzestan Prov, May 21, IRNA – Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Monday that the Iranian nation is well capable of reaching the industrial and scientific peaks in the world.-1391/03/01-13:17
Tehran, May 21, IRNA — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message on the International Day for Biological Diversity, May 22, 2012, while warning that between 30 and 35 per cent of critical marine environments are estimated to have been destroyed called for national and international actions to preserve marine biodiversity.-1391/03/01-11:24
Vienna, May 21, IRNA -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Yukiya Amano, says he is positive about visiting Iran.-1391/03/01-00:25
Commander of the Iranian Army’s Ground Forces Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan has announced the army’s plans for a military drill in the central province of Isfahan.
Small British companies say the government is shutting them out of the Olympics trade boost despite earlier ‘selling’ the games to taxpayers as an economic boon.
China's oil imports from Iran have increased by 53.2 percent in April to 388,034 barrels per day (bpd) from 253,302 bpd a month earlier, Chinese customs data shows.
China has urged all parties involved in the upcoming talks between Iran and six major world powers in Baghdad to make efforts to “build up mutual trust.”
Military authorities at Britain’s RAF Kinloss army base in Scotland have kept silent on the risk of chemical weapons contamination at the base, which is shortly to host more than 900 army personnel.
Protesters have interrupted a commencement speech by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Colby College in Maine, the US, where he was advising audience to serve others.
The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.
The dumping of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean constitutes a potential trigger to a process of global radioactive contamination... Eventually all major regions of the World will be affected.
The Economic Collapse | During an appearance on Meet The Press on Sunday, Jim Cramer of CNBC boldly predicted that "financial anarchy" is coming to Europe.
The American Dream | With the way that things are heading in this country, it is not surprising that there are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today.
The horror stories about the Transportation Security Administration are indisputable. In the post 911 environment, civil liberties routinely ignored or eliminated, become a mere memory in a country that once prided itself as the beacon of freedom for the entire world. The TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA, the Federal Emergency [...]
When Cohen attempts to bond with his protagonist Dictator Aladeen, he actually speaks in his mother tongue, Hebrew. Cohen speaks Hebrew because Aladeen is not an Arab dictator, he is actually an Israeli patriot like Cohen himself.
By Dr. Ismail Salami In an organized act of brutality, a number of US soldiers went on a house-to-house shooting spree in Zangabad village, Kandahar in March and massacred 16 people including nine children while they were sleeping and all Washington had to say were a few words of condolence and apology nonchalantly strung together [...]
There is much to both question and criticize about NATO but primary is the fact that America has created an international organization that is not answerable to international or constitutional laws and is still mired in a cold war mentality.
My Recent Comment on Prof. Richard Falk's Blog Highlighting the Failures of the Mainstream Media to Cover the Hunger Strike Aimed a Calling Attention to Israel's Violations of the Universal Human Rights of Palestinians.
Russian Aurora has discharged a preemptive salvo against the Atlantic freedom vultures in America, which have camped out at sweet home Chicago. No, it wasn’t another Bolshevik mutiny at the legendary cruiser in St Petersburg; it was an audacious Russian think tank, Institute for Foreign Policy Research & Initiatives, www.invissin.ru that boarded ritzy Ma […]
Fed Prez Who Owns Over $1 Million in Gold Greek Bailout May Have to Be $19.7 Billion Higher Greece misses another bailout deadline - Reuters Foreclosure deal deadline arrives, not all states are...
Video - Sen. Rand Paul on the Senate Floor - Jan. 31, 2012 This law is approximately 40 years overdue, and it took a neophyte Senator to be the first to propose such legislation in the history of...
Video - Nigel Farage - Feb. 1, 2012 Transcript "Well, Congratulations everybody. Davud Cameron had you worried for a bit. You thought he was even a eurosceptic. But it's okay, you had a quiet word...
Counterfeit Value Derivatives: Follow the Bouncing Ball Bailout Battle - The IMF vs. Germany Summary of Bernanke's testimony before Congress Bernanke: Deficit reduction must be top priority 47...
In the matter of the Scarborough Shoal mess, the Philippines started it and the infamous Chinese nine-dash line encompassing almost the entire South China Sea looks like an audacious claim drawn from an appetite for aggression. A closer look reveals that there is some genuine method to Beijing's madness, and a chance that gas and greed, rather than inte […]
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization hopes that If you can't beat them in Pashtunistan, you can at least corral them in the home of the blues, with NATO's Chicago summit planned to instill in members the "common values" behind drone warfare and base expansion. As riot police lock down the city, some partners likely fear they've mar […]
Hopes by Iran hawks for the United States Congress to provide enough ammunition to threaten Iran with a military strike on the eve of critical talks over Tehran's nuclear program have fallen unexpectedly short. The House has retracted its talons, while over in the Senate a new sanctions bill was blocked by Republicans because it wasn't sufficiently […]
The possibility of direct talks between the United States and Iran emerged in January when new sanctions gave the White House political cover to revert to a policy of engagement. However, Tehran's profound mistrust of American sincerity hampers progress. The only sensible way forward is to let bygones be bygones and work through an intermediary such as […]
China's refusal to use its leverage as North Korea's friend and protector to halt its provocations strengthens the United States alliance system that Beijing considers a tool of encirclement. As Pyongyang blithely continues with missile launches and other acts that undermine China in the international arena, it seems hard to image a policy more dam […]
What the US Can Learn from China by Ann Lee This book forces the reader to confront China's growth in the midst of America's decline, drawing attention to the reasons US politics became too self-serving, too short-sighted and too partisan. The author doesn't argue the Chinese approach is flawless, but she does hold up China's single-minde […]
The transition to a new constitution and the rule of law cannot be achieved overnight (South Africa's model constitution was seven years in the making). Yet the rush to get Nepal's new code into shape has been seemly, with the result that it will not have legitimacy, simply because politicians have failed to hear the dissenting voices of the people […]
Western opinion has largely greeted China's early attempts at innovation with skepticism. Yet companies such as Tsing Capital and Chrysalix Venture Capital are discovering entrepreneurs whose concepts represent a potential next wave of innovative technologies that could impact the world. - Benjamin A Shobert
The United States is to permit investment by US companies in Myanmar, while a ban will remain on imports from the still largely military-run country. Critics say the move is too early, with armed conflict still raging in the north, and will inevitably benefit human-rights abusers.- Carey L Biron
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is now officially worth close to US$20 billion after successfully bringing off the initial public offering for his young social network site. Fans keen to grab a piece of the company may have to pay 50% more than the initial price when the shares start trading Friday. Martin J Young surveys the week's developments in com […]
EXCLUSIVE PICTURES Schoolgirls from the Muhammad Tufaha School in Nablus have held a craft exhibition under the title "Flowers of Spring", which featured their work from across the academic year. The exhibition was supervised by craft instructor Maha Al-Qadomi and was attended by local officials, parents and students. Many of the exhibits underline […]
Recently, millions of Egyptians crowded round TV sets in Cairo to watch two presidential candidates debate their country's future. For citizens more used to having a political system imposed on them than joining in the discussion, they seem to have adapted quickly. Cheers and applause broke out as the candidates each exploited their opponent's weak […]
Introduction The status of prisoners of war is a very complicated issue in international humanitarian law. Many people think - wrongly - that all of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are to be considered as prisoners of war. International humanitarian law, in particular the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 and its protocols, gives a very precise defi […]
khalid@memonitor.org.uk (Dr Abdulrahman Muhammad Ali)
Love it or hate it, the BBC is perhaps the most powerful media institution in the world. Not even the Murdoch empire in its heyday matched the scale and impact of the BBC's operations. Yet, in the last week, it has suffered two embarrassing setbacks in the aftermath of which its funders, the British public, are entitled to a change of policy. For almost […]
A group of illegal Jewish settlers, accompanied by an Israeli government minister and a number of members of the Knesset (Israeli parliament), broke into the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday morning, 17 May, amid a state of alert and while being heavily guarded by Israeli occupation forces. Mahmoud Abu Atta, a spokesman for the Al-Aqsa for Endowment […]
A poll conducted by the BBC World Service has ranked Israel in third place among the worst countries in the world, keeping company with North Korea and only just ahead of Iran and Pakistan. The results of the global poll, organised by the BBC and covering 22 countries, showed that Israel stands among the countries with the most negative influence on the worl […]
A report on Israel radio has revealed that manifestations of racial discrimination are widespread across Israeli society. The racism is particularly evident between Jews and Arabs, but there is also evidence of racism between Jews themselves and against African refugees who come to work in Israel. The report noted instances of attempted arson attacks on buil […]
Hebrew media sources have revealed the extent of support in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, for a law which would ban the commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) in Israeli universities and educational institutions. Yedioth Ahronoth reported that the Chairman of the Knesset Education Committee, Alex Miller, is behind the introduction of t […]
The Minister of Public Works and Housing in Gaza, Dr. Youssef Al-Mansi, has signed an agreement with the Qatar Charity for the reconstruction of 75 houses for some of the Gaza Strip's poorest people. Funding will also be made available for the project from the Gulf Cooperation Council's financial allocation for the reconstruction of Gaza. The agree […]
Israel's Minister of Defence has said that any political agreement with the Palestinians will exclude a number of settlements in the occupied West Bank. Ehud Barak claimed that the Zionist state will not "abandon" the illegal settlements of Ofra and Beit El near Ramallah. Barak told Israeli Army Radio, "In any map I can think of for final […]
The City of Chicago has filed charges against three Occupy activists, Jared Chase, Brent Beterly, and Brian Jacob Church, including possession of explosives or incendiary devices, material support for terrorism, and conspiracy. Chicago police during anti-NATO protests. (photo: Mikasi) read more
The local press was quickly at the scene but Twitter broke the story first. Though the hour was late, Yemen’s social media was still very much awake. A US drone’s missiles had just slammed into a convoy of vehicles in a remote part of Yemen, killing three alleged militants. read more
See below for livestream and Twitter updates... Thousands of protesters are in Chicago today for a "People's G8" in a call led by National Nurses United (NNU) to demand an economy for the 99% and heal the "financial traumas faced by real people at the hands of Wall Street." read more […]
Today, the Cornucopia Institute released a report titled The Organic Watergate, revealing widespread corruption in the USDA's organic food monitoring panel -- the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). read more
The US House of Representatives this morning endorsed the policy of indefinite detention without trial of terrorist suspects, including US citizens seized on American soil, by failing to pass an amendment that would halt the practice. The final vote to defeat the amendment -- part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization ACt (NDAA) -- was 182-237. read mor […]
Updated: 6:15 p.m. EST with a clarified quote*. In the seemingly endless war over abortion rights in America, battles are waged in legislatures, in courts and, most recently, on the Internet. The strategy of using abortion-related keywords to send a woman searching the web for abortion information More...
On Monday, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski announced changes that would modernize the agency’s Lifeline program to give greater broadband Internet access to low-income Americans. Lifeline has traditionally provided “discounts on one basic monthly telephone service (wireline or wireless) for qualified subscribers.” While announci […]
Sangeeta Ghosh, assistant corporate counsel for Kent County, Mich., says should the 51-year-old man charged in two cases of failing to disclose his HIV-positive status to sexual partners make bail, the county is prepared to ask a court to force him to take antiretroviral medications. “The county is More...
Former Michigan state Rep. Jack Hoogendyk is likely to announce next week that he will challenge Congressman Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) in the GOP primary in August. Hoogendyk unsuccessfully challenged Upton for the seat two years ago, when he was able to garner only 43 percent of the vote, More...
The Foundation for Government Accountability debuted a new website Monday — an online database of the salaries of Florida’s public employees: FloridaOpenGov.org. The website is almost a replica of a project by Foundation President Tarren Bragdon at his last place of employment, the Maine Heritage Policy Center. More...
Going to court may be “the best way” to resolve a dispute over water rights between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Ski Areas Association, according to a former Forest Service ski area permit coordinator. “Frankly, litigation may be the best way forward on this issue,” Ed Ryerson More...
Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has blocked the state’s Personhood affiliate from introducing a bill that would define life from the moment of conception, on the grounds that it is “too vague” as written. Though “fetal personhood” measures across the country have been criticized for that very reason, Personhood Arkansas More...
With the beginning of session only days away, Florida legislators have been busy filing a slew of anti-abortion bills. Add yet another to the list: a measure outlawing race- and gender-based abortions. The bill was filed by state Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood. House Bill 1327, or the “Susan B. More...
Kalley King Yanta, a former anchor for a Minneapolis-based television station and an anti-abortion-rights activist, has joined the Minnesota for Marriage group to anchor videos intended to convince Minnesotans to vote for the anti-gay-marriage amendment on the ballot in 2012. The videos — and Yanta — have come under More...
An alleged admission by a 51-year-old Comstock Park, Mich., man that he attempted to infect hundreds of people with HIV through unprotected sexual activity and needle-sharing has sparked a media feeding frenzy, which HIV activists and legal experts have roundly censured as “sensationalist.” In spite of the national condemnation, More...
[Oxfam] As the Camp David G8 Summit winds down, international agency Oxfam criticized G8 leaders for failing to renew measurable funding and policy commitments to help address global food security. Leaders were unwilling to continue current efforts to invest in developing country agriculture, even as they set a new goal of helping 50 million people lift them […]
[Garowe Online] Mogadishu - Multiple explosions in Mogadishu's busy Bakara market and another blast in east Mogadishu killed 8 and injured more than 15 on Saturday, Radio Garowe reports.
[Daily News] SOME 35 NGOs have teamed up to petition the government, urging it to allocate adequate budget for maternal and newborn health during the 2012/2013 financial year.
[Aswat Masriya] Cairo - Campaign of presidential candidate Hisham Bastawisi denied reports that he may withdraw for another candidate, insisting on his intention to run the race until the end.
[UN News] The United Nations envoy in Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, today expressed concern over recent violent clashes in the northern city of Hargeisa, located in Somaliland, between Somaliland security forces and citizens which allegedly resulted in the deaths on both sides.
[Sudan Tribune] Khartoum - The chairman of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP) saw little change in Khartoum's position regarding the resumption of negotiations with Juba during his talks today with Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir.
[African Arguments] Meles Zenawi is the cleverest and most engaging president in Africa - at least when he talks to visiting outsiders. When he speaks to his fellow Ethiopians, he is severe and dogmatic.
[Sudan Tribune] Juba - South Sudan on Sunday said it is time the international community imposes "steep sanctions" on the government of neighbouring Sudan for its "deliberate" failure to comply with a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution calling for an end to hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of troops from the contested region of […]
[West Cape News] MPs are set to invite the Department of State Security to debate proposed changes made by political parties to the controversial Protection of State Information Bill.
[AEP] Libyans are scheduled to go to the polls in June 2012 to elect 200 members of the National Public Conference in the country's first democratic elections since Col. Muammar Gaddafi took the reign of power in 1969.
Indonesia will send spa therapists to work in Italy's tourist industry, with Arbatax Park Resort, an Italian business, agreeing to pay 1,000 euros per month (US$1272) to each Indonesian spa worker it ...
The Independent Journalists Alliance (AJI) is planning to report the murder case of Bernas daily journalist Fuad Muhammad Syarifuddin, also known as Udin, to the United Nations.“Should the case ...
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a new Cabinet, warning that it will have to fulfill its duties in a difficult global economic climate.Putin, who won a third term in March's election, ...
Al-Jazeera says it will launch two sports channels in the United States in August.The Qatar-based broadcaster says it plans to show league football from Spain, France and Italy as well as the Copa ...
Parents are protesting a decision by SDN Mutis state elementary school in Timor Tengah Utara, East Nusa Tenggara, to reduce its scholarship stipends for underprivileged students.SDN Mutis principal ...
Sixty of the 200 tickets for a meet and greet session with players from Inter Milan have been sold, with each ticket priced at Rp 25 million (US$2,693).The event, to be held at Hotel Mulia Senayan in ...
Presidential spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha admits that the government has failed to fulfill all the aspirations of the people since Indonesia entered the reform era following the fall of the ...
Former president director of state-owned railway operator PT Kereta Api, Ronny Wahyudi, and former financial director Achmad Kuntjoro face life sentences for allegedly embezzling Rp 100 billion ...
Indonesia’s family planning program remains stagnant due to poor access to reproductive and sexual health services, which could further affect the country’s success in achieving its targets for ...
The hullabaloo on whether the Manila concert of American pop superstar Lady Gaga would corrupt the morals of the Filipino youth has made it to the pages of international publications like The New ...
A spokesperson from the Israel Foreign Ministry refuted an Anatolia news agency news report which said the Israeli president has requested permission to deploy at least 20,000 soldiers to Greek Cyprus in exchange for building a gas terminal on the island.
A group of masked assailants threw a Molotov cocktail onto a public bus along the Taksim-Osmanbey route when the bus stopped at a red light near the Okmeydanı Şark Kahvesi, setting the bus on fire, in İstanbul's Şişli district on Sunday.
Six teenagers attending a picnic organized by a district Quran course drowned over the weekend in İskenderun, Hatay, when they were swept away by strong currents after going for a swim in the sea.
Turkish-Iraqi ties have been further strained after the burning of a Turkish flag during a protest near the Turkish Consulate General in Basra on Saturday and threats by protesters against Turkish firms operating in the city.
Residents of a Beirut suburb fired heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other on Sunday, the latest violence to raise fears that Syria's turmoil was spilling over the border into its neighbour.
Turkish police on Monday detained three people, including two Turks, for their suspected involvement in a plot to abduct a defected Syrian colonel who fled to Turkey.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived in Pakistan's capital city Islamabad late on Sunday as the formal guest of his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani.
Syria briefly closed its Bab al-Hawa border gate with Turkey on Saturday, apparently because of a military operation carried out by Syrian troops against a village near the border.
Amid a mounting controversy over the source of intelligence that led to the killing of 34 civilians on the Turkish-Iraqi border by military jets in December, President Abdullah Gül said on Saturday that there was no cover-up of the incident and that the truth will definitely be brought to light.
Former member of the Egyptian Brotherhood Abolfotoh leads in the presidential elections held by Egyptian embassies abroad, according to partial results.
European shares bounced back from five-month lows today as investors bought into some stocks and sectors that had been particularly badly hit in the previous week's sell-off, although charts signalled that the downtrend could resume again.
British nuke submarine HMS Talent was dispatched last night to the Malvinas Islands with Tomahawk warheads on what could be a warning signal to Argentina, according to UK’s sensationalist tabloid The Sun.
The UN nuclear supervisor flies to Tehran looking for a deal to inspect suspected weapons sites - a potential breakthrough that Iran may hope could persuade the West to start lifting sanctions and deflect threats of war.
Former Vice-President Julio Cobos said he believes Buenos Aires governor Daniel Scioli “is the most presidential candidate in the Justicialist Party,” therefore his deputy governor “tries to put bumps in the road.”
Syrian army shelling killed 16 people, including children, in the town of Souran in the central province of Hama, the British-based rights group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
NATO leaders gather in Chicago for a summit that will chart a path out of Afghanistan, as Western nations seek to fend off fissures in their alliance and ensure Afghanistan can hold a still-potent Taliban at bay when foreign troops withdraw.
Venezuela's economy grew 5.6% in the first quarter of 2012 confirmed planning and finance minister Jorge Giordani and Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV) president Nelson Merentes on Thursday. read more
A German news website has revealed that the German government has been pushing for Eurozone countries to adopt a more active role in backing the current Venezuelan opposition coalition, the Roundtable of Democratic Unity (MUD), in the run up to this year’s presidential elections. read more
A total of 312,725 international tourists have visited Venezuela between January and April 2012, a figure which represents almost a 50% increase compared with the same period last year. read more
The government has revealed that there are about 3.7 million independent workers in Venezuela who could potentially benefit from the reforms to the Law on Social Security in Venezuela, enacted on April 21 by President Hugo Chávez. read more
Government representatives and private media have said opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles’ campaign is “stagnating” as he fails to gain support, while journalists also marched yesterday protesting violent attacks committed against them by Capriles’ supporters. read more
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez returned to Venezuela on Friday night, announcing a successful conclusion to his radiotherapy treatment in Cuba and his intention to return to the frontline of Venezuelan politics. Meanwhile, polls show him extending his advantage over rival Henrique Capriles Radonski. read more […]
Venezuelan alternative news website Aporrea.org reached its tenth anniversary today, marking a milestone in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution. read more
The Canadian Boat to Gaza, in cooperation, with international initiatives in the US, Australia and other countries, is launching a new initiative to challenge the illegal and inhumane Israeli blockade of Gaza, the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping. This new initiative: Gaza’s Ark, will build a boat in Gaza, using existing resources. A crew of intern […]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (London, May 4, 2012) Last summer, “Omer” posted a video saying he had been turned down as a passenger on board one of Free Gaza’s boats because he is gay. Within a few days, he was discovered to be a fake, apparently recording his statement coordinated with the Israeli government press office. Yesterday, Jon Ronson from the Guardian, f […]
April 11, 2012 During the Israeli “Operation Cast Lead” in Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009, Dr. Gilbert was one of only two outside doctors in Gaza. Last week the International Criminal Court, to the protests of Amnesty International and other groups, stated it would not issue prosecutions for the Israeli Operation. Recently Gilbert, co-author of “Eyes in Gaza,” retur […]
I spent the early afternoon at a demonstration attended by several thousand people. The Hamas authorities refused to allow the people to march to the border, and clashes broke out with the police. .When we finally found a way to get around the Hamas cordon, we found shabob (Kids from roughly the age of 12 to 25) at Erez Crossing. They were throwing stones a […]
We don't usualy post blogs, but this one from Audacity of Hope passenger, Johnny Barber, is eloquent and timely. He is currently in Gaza as a photojournalist and puts a face and a family to the murdered men, women and children from last week. http://onebrightpearl-jb.blogspot.fr/2012/03/hey-will-never-beg.html
How long before South Africans are accused of being anti-Semites? South Africa to ban labeling West Bank settlement products as 'made in Israel', Amira Hass Minister of Trade and Industry says South Africa recognizes the State of Israel only within … Continue reading →
Inspired by the donkeys of the Gaza zoo, Israeli architect Malkit Shoshan exposes the inhumanities of Zionism in a Dutch exhibit that has stirred critics across Europe
Time magazine crowns Benjamin Netanyahu in its latest cover article, although he comes across as the leader of a country on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Suspect linked to rape of two women in north Israel on Sunday surrenders to officers near his home; attorney of man suspected of aiding to alleged rapists says alibi solid
During Knesset session on wave of violence, Commander Aharon Aksol says employing foreign migrants would curb phenomenon. MK Danon: Solution is simple – deportation
Palestinian cell indicted in attempted kidnapping of Yael Shahak and 8-year-old daughter, now she recalls incident: 'Look in his eyes changed and he became crazed'
Robert ScheerEven after it was known that Jamie Dimon’s bank blew more than $2 billion, Barack Obama still had praise for the intellect of his political backer.
The EditorsThe president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is a testament to the generations of activists who waged a brave and often lonely battle for gay rights.
Chris MooneyPolitical watchdogs like PolitiFact and the Washington Post's "Fact-Checker" are accused of favoring Democrats—but it is the facts themselves that have a liberal bias.
Nato has told AFP that a US warship in the Mediterranean armed with interceptor missiles and a radar system in Turkey have come under Nato command out of a base in Rammstein, Germany. The move is phase one of a Europe-based missile shield system to be fully operational by 2018.
Nato should consider opening up its Partnership for Peace scheme to post-Arab-Spring democracies, writes Jos Boonstra.Related StoriesEU takes aim at Israeli settler productsObama presses EU leaders on growth
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen may lose her parliamentary seat to far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon in next month's parliamentary elections. An Ifop-Fiducial poll showed Le Pen would win 34% of first round votes to 29% for Melenchon but would be beaten 55-45% in the 17 June second round.
Denmark is planning to label products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, foreign minister Villy Søvndal told Politiken Friday. In a similar move, South Africa's trade ministry Saturday said Israeli products made on Palestinian land must be marked "Made in Occupied Palestinian Territories." Israel described the move as "racist. […]
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi was awarded the European Union's Media Prize at this year’s film festival in Cannes. The 60,000 euro prize is meant to help fund his next film.
More than 20,000 people demonstrated in Frankfurt on Sunday against austerity measures in Europe and the power of banks. Activists from the ”Occupy Frankfurt” set up tents outside the European Central Bank’s headquarter after police cleared out an earlier encampment at the same place last week.
French leader Hollande has said he will call for joint eurozone debt at Wednesday's EU summit, despite German opposition.Related StoriesGreece struggling to manage asylum seekersEuropean Commission should be EU government, says GermanyObama presses EU leaders on growth
A weekend summit of G8 leaders stressed the need for the eurozone to focus on keeping Greece inside the euro. But plans are reportedly being drafted to deal with its potential exit.Related StoriesEuropean Commission should be EU government, says GermanyHollande to confront Merkel on eurobonds at EU summit[Opinion] Nato: Do what you do best
Turkey Thursday accused Israeli airplanes of violating the airspace of northern Cyprus - recognised only by Turkey. Ankara said the Israeli plan was driven off by Turkish fighter planes. The incident happened on Monday and comes as Turkey and Israel's relations have soured recently.
The space agency Nasa is training a team of astronauts to land on asteroids after a three million mile journey – dwarfing the mere 239,000 miles travelled to the moon. The mission, planned for the next decade, would land on an asteroid travelling at more than 50,000 miles an hour. The astronauts will drive vehicles [...]
The European banking industry has suffered another crushing blow after Moody’s ratings agency downgraded the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks, citing the weakened government’s ability to support some banks. The agency downgraded the long-term debt and deposit ratings by one to three notches for 16 Spanish banks and Santander UK PLC, a UK-domiciled subsidia […]
NASA’s Kepler space telescope has recorded the number of superflares or enormous releases of magnetic energy that can damage a nearby orbiting planet. According to the report published in the journal Nature, superflares are much less frequent on slow-rotating stars like our Sun. The biggest recorded flare on the Sun happened on September 1, 1859 [...]
For the first time in US history, racial and ethnic minorities outnumber its white majority – white births make up fewer than half the children born in the country, according to the US Census Bureau. The new 2011 census, which was made public on Thursday, reveals non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 per cent of all [...]
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has warned the West against launching ‘hasty wars’, which may increase regional tensions and even trigger a nuclear war. “Sometimes these [military] actions — which undermine state sovereignty — could result in a fully-fledged regional war, and even — although I do not want to scare anyone […]
New poll results released on Monday showed former U.S. House speaker Newt Gingrich on top of the GOP field and benefiting from the exit of Herman Cain from the presidential campaign.
Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri has completed the line-up of the new cabinet, state TV reported Monday. Ganzouri led the Egyptian gov't under the Mubarak regime from Jan. 1996 to Oct. 1999.
The most senior security policy adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron told a committee of the Houses of Parliament on Monday that it was highly unlikely that there would be any British military intervention in Syria.
Obama Monday urged Republican lawmakers in Congress to join Democrats and approve the extension of payroll tax cuts next year to revive the U.S. economy.
Abbas announced Monday that the Palestinians are ready to present their visions concerning all the permanent status issues to end the conflict with Israel.
Europe's powerhouses France and Germany agreed Monday on a series of reforms aimed at changing the European Union (EU) treaty to impose tough control of eurozone budgets.
Russia's Central Election Commission (CEC) announced Monday that the ruling United Russia party won 49.54 percent of the votes after 95.71 percent of the ballots were counted.
Syria has responded positively to the Arab League (AL) protocol on an observer mission, but proposed "minor amendments" to the plan, a foreign ministry spokesman said Monday.
Pakistan said on Monday that it wants solid outcome of Bonn Conference on the future of Afghanistan to promote peace and reconciliation in the war- shattered country.
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny on Sunday called for tougher measures for next year's budget, reminding the public that the country is running a deficit of 16 billion euros (21.46 billion U.S. dollars).
Seit 2007 habe ich gezögert von folgendem zu berichten und meine damalige Einsicht immer wieder verdrängt. Aber irgendwann kommt alles Verdrängte an die Oberfläche. Zunächst einmal wird dem aufmerksamen Leser aufgefallen sein, daß ich in meiner Besprechung des skandalösen Begleitbandes zu OROP Wüste den zweiten Teil des Büchleins, der von Richard Blasband zu […]
Einer der brillantesten Wissenschaftler, Rassenkundler und Kenner der jüdischen Geschichte: Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Houston Stewart Chamberlain (* 9. September 1855 in Portsmouth, England; † 9. Januar 1927 in Bayreuth) war ein Schriftsteller, Verfasser zahlreicher populärwissenschaftlicher Werke, unter anderem zu Richard Wagner, Immanuel Kant und Johann […]
Um den Tag der energetischen Wurzel des Neuanfanges mitgestalten zu können, gibt es viele Möglichkeiten… Die Intuition einer lieben Leserin brachte uns auf die Idee, Orte ausfindig zu machen, die Pfingstsonntag um 14:30 Uhr durchaus eine Reise wert sind! Für den Süden Deutschlands sind zwei Orte zu nennen, an denen wir Pfingstsonntag um 14:30 Uhr [...] […]
Grausamer Drogenkrieg in Mexiko: Im Norden des Landes wurden 23 Tote gefunden. Mehrere Leichen hingen von einer Autobahnbrücke, die Köpfe der anderen Opfer lagen vor einem Rathaus. Neue Gewaltexzesse im mexikanischen Drogenkrieg: 23 Tote sind in der Grenzstadt Nuevo Laredo in Nordmexiko entdeckt worden. Neun Menschen hingen am Freitag von einer Autobahnbrück […]
Der Sozialist Hollande setzt mit der 30prozentigen Kürzung ebenso ein Zeichen wie die konservative Kanzlerin mit der 5,7prozentigen Erhöhung Es ist eine symbolische Geste, wenn der frisch gewählte französische Präsident Hollande sich und seinen Ministern zu Beginn schon einmal eine 30prozentige Gehaltskürzung verordnet. Gleichwohl setzt die neue Regierung da […]
Blockupy – Erfolg oder Niederlage? Mehr als 25.000 Menschen sollen heute (gestern) in der Frankfurter Innenstadt nach Veranstalterangaben gegen die Politik der EU-Troika demonstriert haben Das Spektrum der Demonstranten reichte von Gewerkschaften, der Linkspartei, Attac bis den außerparlamentarischen Bündnissen Ums Ganze und der Interventionistischen L […]
Der Dreiteiler basiert auf dem Roman “Joseph Balsamo” von Alexandre Dumas Abenteurer, Hochstapler, Magier, Goldmacher, Geisterbeschwörer – “Graf” Cagliostro suchte im 18. Jahrhundert fast alle Hauptstädte und Höfe Europas heim. Im Jahre 1791 wurde er von der Inquisition verurteilt und verschwand bis an sein Lebensende hinter Ker […]
Wir verlangen, dass wir genau wie die Frauen mit einem Tag geehrt werden, da wir ständig Opfer von Missbrauch, Demütigungen, verbalen, physischen und sexuellen Attacken sind. Außerdem muss folgendes beachtet werden: Wer ist der Einzige der sich traut, alles aufzuessen, was ihm vorgesetzt wird, ohne zu mucksen ? Der selbstlose Mann ! Wer hebt die [...]
Foto: EPA Hawaii und Kalifornien sind von riesengroßen Wellen bedroht, die so hoch wie jene sein können, die im vorigen Frühling Japan heimgesucht haben. Ergebnisse einer vor Kurzem im Institut für Bergkunde im Bundesstaat New Mexiko durchgeführten Studie zeigten, dass der Bruch der Erdkruste am Meerboden südlich von Aleuten ein Erdbeben der Stärke 9 heraufb […]
Dokumentation: Die Rede von Parkschützer Matthias von Herrmann auf der heutigen 124. Montagsdemonstration der Stuttgarter Bürgerbewegung für den Kopfbahnhof und gegen das verkehrsindustrielle Umbauprogramm "Stuttgart 21" (S21).
Rund 500 Demonstranten versammelten sich vor dem Haus des Bürgermeisters von Chicago Rahm Emanuel, um gegen die kürzliche Schliessung der psychiatrischen Kliniken als Teil einer Reihe von Kundgebungen und Märsche zeitgleich mit einem NATO-Gipfel zu protestieren. Die Menschen hatten Transparente mitgebracht mit den Slogans “food not bombs”, “seize the peace” […]
Griechenland: Nachdem vorher der Botschafter der Berliner Republik in Athen, Wolfgang Dold, und der deutsche EU-Parlamentspräsident Martin Schulz (SPD/SPE) bei ihm rausgeschlichen kamen, hat der Vorsitzende der Koalition der Radikalen SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, auch dem britischen "Guardian" eine Audienz gegeben. Auszüge des Interviews im Wortlaut: […]
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society warnte am 17.Mai davor, dass Paul Watson in Costa Rica nicht sicher ist und um sein Leben fürchten muss. Die taiwanesische Haifang-Mafia hat seit Jahren ein Kopfgeld in Höhe von 20.000 Dollar auf den Captain ausgesetzt. “Wir wissen, dass der Arm der taiwanesischen Fischerei-Mafia nicht nur bis zur illegalen Fischerei in Cost […]
Sie hat nichts mit dem Ereignis zu tun, das ihm den Namen gab: Die riesige Rallye für Frieden , an deren Ende die Ermordung Yitzhak Rabins war. Diese Rallye war in jeder Hinsicht anders. Es war ein fröhliches Ereignis. Dutzende von NGOs, viele von ihnen klein, einige von ihnen etwas größer, jede mit einer anderen Agenda, kamen zusammen, um den sozialen Prote […]
Heute hat Angela Mutti Merkel versucht, ihrem griechischen Volk ein Referendum zu geben.. Leider gab es da ein kleines Mißverständnis. Dabei will sie nur ständig das Beste. Und zwar mit Zinsen. Heute hat also Mutti – wer würde ihr schon was antun? Einfach abwählen?! Niemals! Ihr Muttimörder! – dem griechischen Volk ein Referendum über blühende [. […]
Videos und updates In ganz Frankfurt und Randgebiete ist das Recht auf Bewegungsfreiheit, Meinungsäusserungen und Pressefreiheit ausser Kraft gesetzt, denn die Repressalien der Polizei erstrecken sich auf Kontrollen und Platzverweise für alle Besucher, einschliesslich Touristen und Einwohner. Auch am heutigen Freitag kamen tausende Menschen in die Innenstadt […]
Liedermacher Konstantin Wecker auf dem Paulsplatz zu den Blockupy-Protesten: Wecker: “Begräbnis demokratischer Rechte” Livestreams und updates von den “Bloccupy”-Protesten. Ohrfeige nach Karlsruhe aus der Main-Metropole: die Bürger verhalten sich wie Bürger, die zur Verteidigung der Verfassung sowie für das Gemeinwohl der Gesellschaft […]
Mit diesem 565 Seiten umfassenden Gesetz wäre ein Freibrief durch einen kurzen Paragraf in Statut 1021 für das Militär in Kraft getreten, jeden Bürger auf unbestimmte Zeit ohne ein ordentliches Gerichtsverfahren zu inhaftieren, dem vorgeworfen wird, wissentlich oder unwissentlich Unterstützung des Terrorismus zu leisten.