Thoughts on the earthquake
On January 5, 2011, Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed 26-year-old who had been illegally selling fruit on the street corners of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, died subsequent to massive burns after he set himself on fire the previous month. The police had shut him down, and he saw no other options.
His act of… bravery? desperation?… in December caught fire in the hearts of an anxious and ever more sullen population at the receiving end of an exploitative world system.
Tunisians poured into the streets with no idea that Bouazizi’s or their actions would trigger a tectonic shift in that same world system. This system is run by the United States of America, via the Dollar-Wall Street Regime and policed around the Mediterranean with the assistance of a despised, ethnically segregated and stratified settler state. At the center of this powder keg is feudal satrap regime, rolling in American dollars, and sitting atop the world’s largest remaining oil reserves – Saudi Arabia.
The ever-more-sclerotic superpower trudged forward into the bloody impasse of its Southwest Asian military adventure, preoccupied by a systemic crisis that is destabilizing the stuffed, entertained, and complacent middle class that is the basis of its own domestic security. What it discovered again and anew about itself is that it is trapped. It is trapped by its own rhetoric, trapped by its material dependencies, trapped by its own interlocking directorate, trapped by its electoral system that wages a periodic and massively escalating monetary civil war of the elite every two to four years.
The superpower still had the ability to slam Honduras against the wall, using the Reagan-era political mafia that has sheltered under the wing of the State Department. They’d been hands-on in Latin America for many decades, and so they could get away with overthrowing a tiny government to steal its telecom and intimidate its restless neighbors. But in North Africa and the Middle East, the superpower relied more exclusively on its satraps, and because they had never established the enmeshed power they enjoyed in Latin America, they lost the thread.
And Tunisia was not seen as strategic. Cables released by Wikileaks openly talked about the venality of the Ben Ali regime, and these cables added fuel to the situation for which young Mohammed Bouazizi would light the match.
*
In 2001, a Saudi Arabian who had helped the US finance and deploy a makeshift army into Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden, masterminded a shockingly simple, devastatingly effective, highly symbolic, asymmetric strike against the United States. We quickly forgot that bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian, and at war with the House of Saud in his own country since they refused him the chance to lead the potential defense against Iraq during the latter’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The strike of September 11, 2001, was never publicly discussed for its strategic significance; and apparently it was never likewise discussed by the National Command Authority or the Pentagon. They gave bin Laden exactly what he wanted: the United States, bogged down in an endlessly grinding guerrilla war that would further corrupt its body politic, force it to intensify its exploitation of its allies and trading partners to pay for it, and personalize the resentments and anger of the people throughout the region by putting American GI’s right in their faces while Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now Pakistan waded in blood.
In 2003, some people looked askance at those of us who said this all bode ill for the US position in the region, especially for the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordan – the Arab faces of US power, a power identified in the street as synonymous with the State of Israel. I would redirect their attention to the region now.
Tunisia provided the example and emboldened the people in the truly strategic states. The fault line slipped, and the ground is shifting.
As I write this, Hosni Mubarak appears to be at the end of his career, and Jordanians are in the street.
Egypt was the linchpin of the US-Israeli joint strategy in the region. One can hardly overestimate the significance of the change afoot.
Gaza may soon be dis-encircled. Hamas will be strengthened. Hezbollah has ascended in Lebanon. George Bush managed against his own intentions to secure a pro-Iranian state in Iraq. Afghanistan is lost but un-leavable. Pakistan is being destabilized.
One can only wonder now, how hard the tremors are hitting in Riyadh.
The Great Lakes of petroleum are under threat.
From Cairo to Amman, the world is changing.
kathy:
hey, this is off topic, but are you on facebook anymore? I can’t find you. I have a new blog entry that I think you’d want to publish here. It’s called Feminism or Barbarism: The Patriarchy Papers.
http://kmiriam.wordpress.com/feminism-or-barbarism-the-patriarchy-papers-2010/
in solidarity
Kathy
30 January 2011, 9:15 amTom:
Stan — as usual, thanks for providing your insight on this. Sunday morning and it appears that the MSM has received its marching orders: all networks are emphasizing the “1000s” of escaped, deadly criminals now running amok in Egypt, the looters, and the “Muslim Brotherhood.” Your comments clear the air.
30 January 2011, 9:44 amMichael Anderson:
Looks like Israel can barely restrain itself, according to some media reports (RealNews). I have wondered for years if Israel will be toast by the time this Middle-East petroleum creature feature is done.
30 January 2011, 10:24 amMark:
If the picture of Mubarek on the Saturday edition of the NYT is any indication, the political establishment of the US has pretty much written off Mubarek. My guess is that the NYT has many file photos of Mubarek on hand and while obviously the NYT doesn’t represent the enitire US political establishment, the choice of the photo for the Saturday edition (In which Mubarek resembles Dracula with bad makeup), was an indication of the anticipated outcome of the “earthquake” in Egypt. My feeling from print media and CNN is that the State Department has written off Mubarek and is, even at this very moment, working feverishly to steer the outcome of the fall of Mubarek into a direction that will enable the US to maintain it’s influence.
On another note. Now that Egypt is in play and Tunisia has fallen from attention, the door is open for the State Department to back some thug who will bring “stability.” I would encourage all to support in any way you can, the Tunisian people to elect their own leaders independant of influence from the “Indispensible Nation.”
Also, missing from most analysis are the programs the World Bank and the IMF have implemented in both Tunisia and Egypt. These countries have been cited as “examples” of the success of the structural adjustment programs imposed by the World Bank/IMF. These economic arangements have succeeded in impoverishing the great majority of Tunisians and Egyptians while enriching Wall Street and their Tunisian and Egyptian stooges. It’s a story that any Argentinian, Brazilian or Chilean knows full well and is the reason that so many countries in South America have elected leaders who defy the empire.
This is what makes these recent events so important. Apart from military and geo-strategic issues for the empire, the fall of Egypt and Tunisia repesent a repudiation of the “Washington Consensus” from a part of the world which has, up until now, remained firmly in the grip of US and Western economic planners.
30 January 2011, 7:58 pmMark folk:
American imperialism is decaying extremely rapidly historically. Lebanon put in a Hezbollah supported regime, and now there are no good choices for American imperialism in Egypt because Israel is such a strategic liability. I suppose the US will try for a pro-American Democracy that excludes the people, who hate Israel and US support of the Egyptian police state for 30 years.
I don’t see how it is possible but the US ruling class is very clever at manipulating public opinion. Egypt is cruical because it is the leading Arab state and the US has other dictators in power in West Asia and North Africa that it is supporting. The outcome for US imperialism ranges fro the bad to the disastrous, which is good news for the American people.
30 January 2011, 9:55 pmStan:
@Mark, neoliberalism and its policies/institutions (WB/WTO/IMF) are absolutely the source of the economic stress that was a precondition for these outbreaks. Saudi Arabia’s conditions have been deteriorating for years now, too.
@Kathy, I had to get off Facebook. It was making me nuts. I’ll get you up on the site today. Thanks for this.
31 January 2011, 6:50 amCurt:
Shit a scary thought just popped in to my head. I can not think of any reason at the moment why this scary thought is logically justified except events often twist and turn in unexpected directions.
The thought is that the collapse of Arab police states are events that will move the world towards WW !!!.
Of course everyone knows that my imagination is an untrained stallion.
Even if this scary thought is not enough to get me put away in a funny farm the fallout from these events may take 20 to 40 years to come to fruition.
So why is this thought scary? Because I had been sitting in my basement being quite pleased with how events have been going and I did not think about the worse case scenario. Worst case scenarios never really come true though do they? Besides I can not even imagine a worse case scenarion in which the liberation of of the Arab world would lead to a WWW.
31 January 2011, 12:21 pmIf it comes I just hope that the US military performs magnificantly.
I am glad that my comments do not need to be moderated anymore.
Paul:
Hi All,
Just a question. How much longer will it be before we see similar events here in the US? How much longer can the foood stamps and entertainment hold out? Okay, so 2 questions.
1 February 2011, 12:50 pmm.c.:
Two experts were on msnbc yesterday talking about the muslim brotherhood, the oldest and largest political movement in post-wwi Egypt. The moderator asked the simple but important question, “are the muslim brotherhood & al qaeda very close?” Good Question!!! According to wikipedia, Ayman al-Zawahiri joined the muslim brotherhood by the age of 14, but left in his mid-20′s(1979?) to join the more radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. As an Egyptian medical doctor, he would have risen fairly quickly in their ranks, but went as far even to write a book or pamphlet according to one of the msnbc experts(I believe Peter Bergen) denouncing them. He(Bergen) said the two organizations hate each other. Let’s provisionally assume this is correct, which it very well might be. Who benefits by splintering the brotherhood? Mubarek?
1 February 2011, 12:55 pmMichael Anderson:
@ Paul:
We have not yet reached the type of authoritarian regime that has existed in Egypt (and other countries in the Middle East), even though we have an ‘inverse totalitarian’ type of system here. We think we’re free….
But, as Jackson Browne put it in “The Road and The Sky”:
“Don’t think it won’t happen just because it hasn’t happened yet.”
1 February 2011, 1:28 pmCharles:
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http://www.iranian.com/main/2011/jan/learn-our-mistakes
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1 February 2011, 2:31 pmMichael Anderson:
Looks like the fix may be in…..
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/profiling-omar-suleiman-one-most-powerful-spooks-middle-east
Profiling Omar Suleiman: “One Of The Most Powerful Spooks In The Middle East”
Tyler Durden’s picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/29/2011 11:31 -0500
A must read profile of who Egpyt’s “Next Strongman” would be comes from Foreign Policy Magazine from August 17, 2009, when the publication presented the two clear choices: Gamal Mubarak (last seen in London) and Omar Suleiman, the man just announced as Vice President. In a nutshell: this is just “more of the same” type of political tactics, certainly with the blessing of the US and the US’ power interests in the middle east.
1 February 2011, 5:59 pmMark folk:
Normally the best strategy of Obama and US imperialism would be to support ElBaradei. He is a bourgeois democrat with no strong organization and, although stubborn, would not pose problems for the US. However, Israeli imperialism has a strangle hold on US mideast policy and ElBaradei would be a disaster for Israeli imperialism Being subjected to mass pressure, he would have to abort the peace treaty with Israel and extremely complicate Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And Obama needs the support of the Israeli lobby to get elected.
So there is no good option for Obama and US imperialism. Fortunately. The current delay in removing Mubarak is largely stalling and, whatever happens, an Islamic regine of some kind will come to power. It can only be stalled by a massacre like the one in Indonesia in 1965 of a milliion persons, backed by the CIA and Obama’s stepfather, who was a Colenel under Suharto. But this appears too public to execute now, and would infuriate a billiion and a half Muslims.
1 February 2011, 6:46 pmMark folk:
Actually it appears that Obama-Mubarak are, in at least the initial stages, replaying the 1979 (losing0 strategy in the revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran. Just as Iraq in crucial ways replayed the Vietnam war. This is a terrible geo-political idea from the perspective of the US power system, but it serves the interests of Israel by delaying the revolution. And, most important, It gives Obama credibility with the Israeli Lobby.
It is an extremely bloody strategy; Koumaini estimated that 60,000 Iranians were killed, and God knows how many other casualties. The Financial Times journalist witnessed a battle at a bridge where the young men attacked the Security gunmen with rocks, sustaining scores of dead and thousands of wounded. If these battles are going on all over Egypt, the regime is doomed, drowning in the blood of the young. All to win an American election with margtinal differences between the candidates. But imperialism never gives up easily.
1 February 2011, 9:21 pmMark:
@Paul. When the ruler of Tunisia Ben Ali abdicated and left the country (After looting the Treasury taking the gold-not US Dollars) Many talking heads were asking what country would be next. There were already rumblings coming from Egypt, and of course everyone is now talking about the “Middle East,” but the first country I thought of was Mexico… Funny how no US talking head mentions the possibilty of revolution in this hemisphere…something I think is perfectly possible.
1 February 2011, 10:54 pmMark folk:
The Egyptians, Mark, are more politically intelligent than the Americans. When Obama promoted Change You Can Believe In, no one in Egypt was conned by it.
1 February 2011, 11:37 pmKim Sky:
dispiriting! mubarack’s speech and US-gov!!!&^^%$$#@$%%^&&&~~
wow. missing the opportunity of a life-time! mubarack to stay till the end of his term as ‘popularly’ ‘elected’ no less, president!
now we are to see real, true bloodshed, the 300+ are not enough for the US-regime. what complete sinister plans do the US have? i cannot figure it out. was aware of the plan to terrorize the populace and have the military come to the rescue, that didn’t work.
as the angry arab says: the US is willing to have millions of Arab oppressed, killed, and tortured to preserve the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty
*()^%&$###
2 February 2011, 1:00 amStan:
Mexico would definitely be the Richter 9. Or Brazil, if it joined ALBA, but Brazil has trapped itself in the neoliberal impasse like China by purchasing an enormous amount of US debt.
The last Mexican general election was a close call for the neoliberals, and they had to commit blatant fraud to pull it off. Distrito Federal is already the largest city in the hemisphere (and third only as a metro area to Tokyo and Seoul worldwide), and it is a cauldron of urban discontent with the majority of the population under 30. Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas states are already trying to spit the bit our of their mouths in the south. The state (and port) of Veracruz – third largest state in Mexico and bordering Oaxaca and Chiapas – is agitated by accumulating corruption scandals.
2 February 2011, 8:36 amMark folk:
Obama has opted for the Shah of Iran strategy to placate the Israeli Lobby which he needs to win the next election. It’s going to be extremely bloody, with elements of the military used to attack the protestors. They are already busing in ‘Mubarak supporters’ to attack the protestors with knives, rocks, clubs, etc. The military leadeship is financed by the US, and so will do its bidding. But what often happens in revolutionalry situations is that the enlissted men join the protestors, splitting the military. The officres ally with the secret police and security forces, who are well paid.
An enormous massacre, like the one in Indonesia that Obama’s stepfather participated in can’t be ruled out, since the young are very dertermined. Or they could finally win, but ousting the shah took a year. But US power now seems firmly behind Mubarak, while making the usual public relations noises to the contrary, Obama’s specialty.
2 February 2011, 1:07 pmMichael Anderson:
@ Mark:
I think you’re right:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/02/107915/chaos-in-cairo-as-mubarak-supporters.html
“Al Jazeera English, which has continued to broadcast via satellite, aired video of what it said were police identification cards that pro-democracy demonstrators had seized from some Mubarak supporters. Many Egyptians accuse the police of brutality against Mubarak’s opponents, and say that the police force melted away from the streets after demonstrations began in order to sow chaos.”
Anyone have any news of private merc activity here that follows this pattern?
2 February 2011, 2:04 pmMark folk:
Michael, how do you get Al Jazzeera English? It sites I’ve tried have been blacked out.
There were reports previously of police agents looting and vandalizing the national museam, the usual false flag provications to be blammed on the protesters.
It’s really impressive how Europe coordinates its public relations bullshit with the US. Obama sent Frank Wisner to coordinate with Mubarak; perhaps others were sent to Europe.
2 February 2011, 3:31 pmCharles:
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2 February 2011, 4:16 pmhttp://www.juancole.com/2011/02/why-egypt-2011-is-not-iran-1979.html
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Charles:
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201122124446797789.html
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2 February 2011, 4:17 pmCharles:
Inequality Drives Egyptians to Streets, But Ours Worse
By Laura Flanders
Inequality Drives Egyptians to Streets, But Ours Worse
GRITtv
February 1, 2011
…
http://grittv.org/2011/01/31/inequality-egypt-protest-us-mubarak-blankfein/
http://grittv.org/2011/01/31/inequality-egypt-protest-us-mubarak-blankfein/
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2 February 2011, 4:30 pmCharles:
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https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera
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2 February 2011, 4:34 pmCharles:
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http://links.org.au/node/2138
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2 February 2011, 4:34 pmMark folk:
Thanks,Charles
2 February 2011, 5:19 pmm.c.:
Has anyone noticed the earthquake which started in Tunisia and went to Algeria and Egypt, skipped Libya…. What, they don’t get Al Jazeera there?
2 February 2011, 8:59 pmMark folk:
The NYTimes front page states that the US has openly broke with Mubarak and there is an unbreakable rift and rupture between Obama and the power system of Egypt.
This is utter bullshit. It is simply more of Obama’s Inspriring Orwellian rhetoric while continuing to support Mubarak. Mubarak has now mobilized the goons of the intelligence agencies to attack the protesters while the army is standing by, watching. In liberation square alone there were 1500 casualties early in the evening according the the haad medical person of the clinic protesters have set up, before they have been fighting all night. This is just one site in Cairo. At the mational museam at three o’clock in the morning there, according the Juan Cole on KPFK in Los Angeles, the protesters are trying to keep the goons away from vandalizing the ancient exhibits.
There have been thousands of casualties at the beginning of the night and Mubarak is escalating attacks. Obama and Europe is calling for ‘restraint on both sides” while continuing to support Mubarak. The US is still financing his regime.
But the violence is radicalizing the rest of the world’s billion and half Muslims and the hatred is directed against the US and the West. After all, we’ve been here before with the Shah of Iran. But US supplied planes continue to buzz the protestoers and US supplied guns still shoot them. The young are incredibly brave, having been blooded no doubt for years by similar but lesser unprisings whited out of the Western media.
If Obama chooses to go with an all out massacre, as in Indinesia, it will put the US and some of the West on a very dangerous track to maintain their power. And it is conceviable that he might to win the next election. The current sstruggle has world implications.
2 February 2011, 9:56 pmMark folk:
CNN reports that Mubarak has brought in heavy machine guns and automatic weapons and the sound of this gunfire is reverberating in Cairo. The US doesn’t want this, so far, because they want the army to assume control, and violence against the people would split the military. Mubarak wants the military on his side, so may be deliberately de-legitimating the army in the eyes of the people. The US is still funding the military and Mubarak.
2 February 2011, 10:51 pmm.c.:
Its not only islamists who have been sent to jail. Ayman Nour, chair of the centrist secular El Ghad party has done time in the can too.
3 February 2011, 1:01 pmMark folk:
The Egyptina military does appear split. The general who has been apponted premier by Mubarak has apologized for the violence, calling it a ‘mistake’ and not ‘logical or reasonable.’ but the violence is still going on by Muburak’s plain clothes police and mercenary thugs. The army sometines intervenes, sometimes doesn’t.
As Noam Chomsky pointed out, the US power sructure has a standard playbook routine when its client state dictators are threantened, such as the Shah, or Suharto. First, hold on as long as possible by imprisioning, torturing and shooting the protestors. Second, when this is no longer sustainable, to make and obout face and state the US was always on the side of the people. Third, mainpulate the opposition to create another dictatorship, with a window dressing and facade of Democracy.
In the case of Egypt, the US hands are tied by the Israeli Lobby. Instead of allowing a harmless leader of the protesters to assume power, Obama is supporting a military power struture in Egypt, since any population figure must stop supporting Israel. This may require much more bloodshed. Hundreds have already been killed and thousands injured, but only a bloodbath can assure even a temporary friend to the US and Israel.
No matter what happens, emormous damage has been created for US and Israeli imperialism, and not merely in the Arab or Muslim countries. If an major uprising can occur there, why not in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa. US imperialism is crucially dependant on the passivity of the people. If they are no longer quiet, if they rise up, US imperialism is finished. And then it will be the turn of Europe and the US.
3 February 2011, 1:26 pmMark folk:
There is US ruling group opposition to Obama’s policy and that of the Israeli Lobby. The Rockafeller-based Council of Foreign Relations has tried to moderate the policy of the Israeli Lobby to better implement policies for American imperialism. However, the problem is that a significant fraction of the American ruling class are Jewish Neo-Zionists who identify with Israeli imperialism more than American imperialism.
Around Aipac and other ogans it has a formidable election and public relations machine. It therefore has power greater than its size, being united and active. Zbig Brzezinski has opposed their policies but with little effect.
The council is in favor of dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood, but Israel is adamantly opposed, and they largely control Obama in the Middle East. The current Council president Maass, a former foreign policy honcho in the State dept, states that the army has to make a decision by Friday, when a huge opposition rally is planned. That decision may be curcial historically for American imperialism, and thus the American people and the people of the world.
3 February 2011, 2:37 pmMichael Anderson:
A little aside to the demonstrations, for Stratfor. They are a pro-Israel, Straussian-Machiavellian-oriented outfit, but I found their analysis interesting….cuts both ways.
http://www.stratfor.com/print/182844?utm_source=SWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110203&utm_content=readmore&elq=6881d579a6e14ad5804d24b06cfeac05
Social Media as a Tool for Protest
“Internet services were reportedly restored in Egypt on Feb. 2 after being completely shut down for two days. Egyptian authorities unplugged the last Internet service provider (ISP) still operating Jan. 31 amidst ongoing protests across the country. The other four providers in Egypt — Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr — were shut down as the crisis boiled over on Jan. 27. Commentators immediately assumed this was a response to the organizational capabilities of social media websites that Cairo could not completely block from public access.
The role of social media in protests and revolutions has garnered considerable media attention in recent years. Current conventional wisdom has it that social networks have made regime change easier to organize and execute. An underlying assumption is that social media is making it more difficult to sustain an authoritarian regime — even for hardened autocracies like Iran and Myanmar — which could usher in a new wave of democratization around the globe. In a Jan. 27 YouTube interview, U.S. President Barack Obama went as far as to compare social networking to universal liberties such as freedom of speech.
Social media alone, however, do not instigate revolutions. They are no more responsible for the recent unrest in Tunisia and Egypt than cassette-tape recordings of Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini speeches were responsible for the 1979 revolution in Iran. Social media are tools that allow revolutionary groups to lower the costs of participation, organization, recruitment and training. But like any tool, social media have inherent weaknesses and strengths, and their effectiveness depends on how effectively leaders use them and how accessible they are to people who know how to use them.”
3 February 2011, 2:58 pmMark folk:
Obama is following the historical playbook on the ouster of US client despots; increasing the repression while claiming to be on the side of the people. This does not decieve the Egyptian people, but they do not vote in US elections, and the White House is playing to a domestic audience. Obama finds the attacks on journalists ‘unacceptable’ while not only accepting them but funding the organs that inflict them.
this is preliminary to the big rally in Cairo on Friday. Obama’s decision will determine whether there is a bloodbath.
3 February 2011, 4:27 pmMark folk:
Jounalists and human rights groups have been systematically assaulted, arrested, and their equipment destroyed or stolen by Mubarak goons in preperation for the big Cairo rally on Friday. This could only be done with the complicty of Obama and the US. Obama states publically that this goonism is unacceptable while privately accepting it. It creates a information vacuum for Friday if a massacre is planned. It doesn’t look good.
4 February 2011, 1:26 amJames M:
One of the best Egyptian firsthand, on-the-ground blogs I’ve yet read:
http://inanities.org/2011/01/378/
(The above-linked post is particularly good.)
4 February 2011, 2:19 amMark folk:
It is increasingly likely that Obama is edging toward a huge massacre that his stepfather, an officer under Suharto, helped conduct in 1965 in Indonesia.
Obama’s penchent for blood has been demonstrated by the drone campaign against the homes and villages of Pakistan, where he was sent for a few weeks by the CIA front that he worked for after graudating Columbia, and being mentored by Brzenzinski. His mother worked in Pakistan for five years, and was a CIA asset according the Wayne Madsen.
It is apparent that what Obama means by an ‘orderly transition’ is the installation of Suliman, the head of the secret police and torture manager, who Pepe Escabar at Asia Times calls Sheik al-Torture. He has already largly rid Egypt of international media, and Essan Al-Amin at Counterpunch states there is no television viewing of the current demonstration Day of Departure.
Al-Amin states that the appointment of Suliman, after Mubarak leaves for London with his two sons and the estimated 25 billion dollars he’s looted, would split the opposition, the bourgeois supporting Suliman from whom all blessings flow. The ‘orderly transition’ would be portrayed in the Western media as a success of the revolution, hurray!, allowing the imposition of tha military dictatorship that protects Israel.
But since would not even fool a stray dog in Egypt, the continued oppostion of the young could only be met by a huge massacre to try to break the back of the uprising. It succeeded in Indonesia. Obama, old Hope n Change, would shed the usual crocidile tears and publically proclaim his adherance to Freedom&Democracy, always. And if successful, business as usual.
This mught be indulged in because a real revolution, or even a bourgeois democratic one, would by a massive defeat for US-Israel imperialism. Killing hungreds of thousands of people has always been the preferred option, even beforre the War on Terrorism. It’s a question of protecting Israel and the control and thus the price of oil. But especially Israel and the Israeli Lobby.
4 February 2011, 11:28 amm.c.:
Not much talk in U.S. MSM about the role of the United Nations in any moderator/election monitoring role in Egypt. Security Council or General Assembly anyone? I wonder if the Pentagon has plans on the books for senting in the Marines to occupy the Suez Canal Zone & the Sinai?
4 February 2011, 1:08 pmStan:
Not sure a massacre is in the making. Mubarak’s clique has problems with more than the street. There is a substantial nationalist fraction of the bourgeoisie in Egypt that has overlapping interests with the protean pro-democracy forces, and they have a strong tilt against neo-liberalism. This fraction is merged in ways, as I understand it, with key people in the military. For that matter, I really don’t think the US wields any kind of influence right now comparable to that which they wielded over Suharto or several of the Latin American reactionaries. But these security cops are certainly capable of getting out the machineguns… the question is whether the army will tolerate it. Mubarak himself has little to lose by going Tienanmen. I pray it doesn’t happen.
4 February 2011, 2:13 pmStan:
FULL
4 February 2011, 2:33 pmMark folk:
According to Amira Hess, a progressive journalist living in Gaza, the Palestinians are provided with food by the Israelis precisely to prevent such an uprising.
It is not only Mubarak that might go bloody, but his secret police vice-president, Suleman. Who Obama appears to want to put in, despite the constitution stating that is the president of Parliment that succeeds.
4 February 2011, 4:41 pmCharles:
I think the Mubarak regime made a fatal error in “thugging” several prominent US journalists ( including, according to my mother, someone from Fox News). They might as well have “thugged” personnel at the US embassy. The US media will never forgive them. I predict Mubarak is gone now.
Recall Somoza’s soldiers killing a US journalist. It did him in.
4 February 2011, 5:17 pmMark folk:
The Council of Foreign Relations, the Rockafeller group, echoes Stan’s point about the role of rising food prices on uprisings in poor countries. They also print a ‘must read’ article that states that the US aid programs are largely responsible for preventing Egypt from developing a governance that can, and wants to, increase food production.
The implication here is that the US power system is continuing to ignore the food problem, covering up with bullshit in the deplonatic media rather than on the earth. this is a basic problem that the US has not dealt with and is not dealing with it now.
This means that the Egptian people have no choice; they must have a revolution that increases attention to the production system for people. But the US, Israel and the Egyptian hierarchy don’t want to change, indeed, probably can’t change. There is an historical collision here between two historical forces. Everyone hopes that Stan is right, that no massacre is likely. Those young people are so gutsy and persistent. But I think that it is going to be a grim struggle.
4 February 2011, 10:49 pmStan:
Food and Finance
5 February 2011, 7:26 amMark folk:
The Council of Foreign Relations is a traditional organ of the US ruling class that has fostered political figures like Bbrzesinski and Kissinger, who determine US policy. It is a voice of power, routinely quoted by, for example, the Chinese when arguing what the US thinks. As Someone once said, the ruling ideas of a society are the ideas of the ruling class.
What is surprising about the Council’s discussion of the mideast revolutions is that they are quite willing to back away from them, cut America’s losses, and let who will, rule. Cook, their foreign analyst, has more or less stated, ‘win some, lose some’ and accepts the revolution as part of the inevibable decline of American imperialism. Maass, the Council president, a former State Dempartment head, tends in the same direction.
This is strongly opposed by the Neo-Zionists and the rulling group around them, such as the Bush family. They sent James Baker, the Bush consigliere and trouble shooter, to lecture the Council on the need for US imperialism, pretending that the rise of democracy and the Islam Brotherhood in Egypt would immediated lead to war with Israel.
this is a strong indication that the problem is not capitalism per se, but, rather, captialist IMPERIALISM. And especially racist imperialism. I an using the concept of ‘race’ here as a social, not biological, construct, consisting of any ethnic, cultural or national grouping which may have marginal biological features, notably skin shade. A Neo-Zionist dominated racism has replaced the traditional values, and racism, of the US ruling class and is dominating Obama’s policy. Indeed, the whole War on Terrorism was begun in a Jerusalum conference in 1979, attended by Bush 1 and other high American and Israeli officials. It helped Reagan defeat Carter the next year, and eventually helped defeat Bush 1 when he tried to rein in Israel.
This is Unmemtionable in the US media, which is strongly influenced by the Israeli Lobby and Neo-Zionism. The point here is that sheer economic motivations are trumped by racial motivations, NeoZionism dominating traditional American capitalism. Conseaquently marxism, which was formulated classically within the Western worldview of the White Man, needs to be revised to emphasize RACIAL oppression, of which class oppression is a restricted element. Obama is persuing a ‘transition’ to a military police state in Egypt not because of the economic interests of the US ruling class, but because of the racial interests of a Neo-Zionist section of the American ruling class. And racial domination leads to violence and war.
5 February 2011, 8:32 amMark folk:
Obama on Saterday has settled publically on a military dictatorship and has lined up Britain, France, Germany and, apparently, Turkey to go along with it. Mubarak will stay in power and Suleman, Mubarak’s secret police head and torture manager, will proportedly talk to some marginal opposition and fring people to pretend to Hope n Change. This is the only solution satisfactory to the Isreael Lobby who Obama needs to win the next election.
This dicatorship can only be maintained by an enormous massacre of the population. They have readied it by Suleman’s police thugs assaulting, arresting international journalists and breaking their equipment. The question now is will the enlisted men hold still for the massacre. And what about the rest of the billion and a half Muslims in the world.
5 February 2011, 11:42 amMark folk:
Actually, Obama and the US power system doesn’t have to worry about the populations of the Muslim countries because they already hate the US-Israeli power systems. They hate them for their Freedoms to kill, mutilate, imprison and torture Muslims to steal their oil, gas, homes and homelands, and other property. And US support for Egyptian despots reassures the other client-despots that the US will stand by them, while being for Freedom&Democracy, always.
So the question boils down to the recruits of the Egyptian military. Which way will they point the guns, or will they point them at all.
5 February 2011, 1:52 pmWinston Warfield:
I hate to think it, but it looks like the Zionist/Obama/Mubarak stategy is to wait out the peaceful demonstrators, who will eventually run out of energy (imagine their exhaustion at this point), and will have to return to their homes. Mubarak&Co., Obama, Clinton, et al understand the Egyptian secret police can’t handle huge angry crowds, as has been shown, as their street tactical plan to penetrate the demo and break it up with terror didn’t work. The power of the unarmed democracy movement is in its capacity to mass, and force Mubarak’s thugs and gangsters to back down. It is when the demonstrations dissipate that the counterrevolution will commence, in absolute secrecy. This is what the demonstrators have been articulating and what is driving them to hang on. I don’t believe there will be a big, public, massacre by the army, as there was in Tienamen Square. The army cannot be relied upon to carry out such a monstrous crime, and Washington has repeatedly insisted that there be no “violence”. What Obama and Clinton mean by that is that there be no PUBLIC violence. “The Street” in the Arab world is too volatile, and Obama et al know that. But the Mukhbarat can and will carry out professionalized state terror; indeed it has already begun, as reported by NYT reporters who were rounded up and spent a horrific night listening to the screams of victims, before their citizenship and white-skin privilege enabled their release. This is what those brave people in Egypt, examples of the best of what our species is capable, citizens of the world, now are dreading, as thier numbers dwindle and their leaders have begun to disappear. My heart is just sick at the knowledge of it. The monstrous nature of neoliberal political control, with its lofty rhetoric and sadistic prisons, is just beyond the ability to digest. When Obama and Clinton get on TeeVee and pontificate, it’s profoundly disgusting. I’m open to being convinced my assessment of the Egypt situation is too negative, and want to be convinced otherwise. Anyone?
6 February 2011, 9:41 amWinston Warfield:
Well, perhaps I’m being too negative. According to Huffpost’s latest headline, the interim government has agreed to major demands, including the release of pro-democracy detainees, to allow more parties into free elections, to lift the hated Emergency Decree which has been in place since Sadat’s assassination, and so forth. Is this true? Aljazeera isn’t saying (yet) this has been agreed to, and I tend to view them as most trustworthy. Is it a trick? Or, has it been decided in Egypt, with no doubt pressure from Washington, that some substantive concessions are necessary. In other words, the power and legitimacy of the mass uprising is now being accepted. Far better for there to be heated negotiations in meetings, than settling all this with weapons. Maybe we’re seeing the emergence of a wholly new paradign for people’s liberation, spontaneous, internet/Twitter/cellphone fueled, fast-moving, seemingly chaotic, and unarmed. But, far less chaotic than armed conflict, to be sure. At this point, it is too soon to tell, of course.
6 February 2011, 1:22 pmMark folk:
So. After the talks the positions have chrystalized. It is the Shah of Iran scenario. Obama, the US power system, and the West are for an orderly transition to a new military dictatorship. To safeguard Israeli imperialism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The protestors are agaainst the corrupt military hierarchy supported by the West. I(t’s a long, long time until September.
In the US, I would guess that what might be the best option is emphasizing how the Isreli lobby has hijacked US, and Western, foreign policy.It is necessasry to emphasizse in the American mind, such as it is, the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which the Israeli Lobby has done so much to conflate and obscure. there is ruling class support for such a position, and now is the time to exploit it.
6 February 2011, 3:40 pmStan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/08egypt.html
They don’t sound worn out yet to me. It looks like they are entering a new stage of the struggle. Fighting in the streets is only a first step. The genie is out of the bottle now; the people have lost their fear. Don’t be discouraged by the blathering of the US Commentariat. They are always trying to speak new realities into existence. Just because Mubarak says they have accepted a US-approved plan means nothing to those in the street, who have hundreds of tactical options going into the future that can throw sand into the gears again and again, all the while consolidating organizational forms that facilitate decision making.
They have to move on to different tactics now, and that doesn’t mean street protests. There’s an idea out there that revolutions happen from a lot of people tearing shit up in the streets, but that is only a catalytic event. Now there is the tough work of hammering out consensus among the disparate groups who oppose the regime. In Russia, the February Revolution subsided and re-emerged in October.
Of course Obama/Clinton want Suleyman. He’s a longstanding and high level CIA asset, and the US’s main surrogate there. I don’t see any indication that the mass of the Egyptian population is falling for this. But the US doesn’t have control of the levers on this one, no matter how much posturing it does, because neither Mubarak nor Suleyman do.
And the international press is there to stay, especially – as Charles pointed out above – since they made the grievous tactical error of attacking them and forced the US to condemn those attacks. That makes it very difficult for the government to attempt a widespread decapitation of the movements underwriting this phenomenon.
Egyptians now don’t even bother to hate Clinton and her minions. They are strong enough now to settle for ridicule.
7 February 2011, 7:35 amMark folk:
If the military dictatorship quells the street demonstrations, they’ve won. This, in my opinion can only be done by massacre. The attacks on the international journalists are still occurring, led by the secret police head Suleman, and, in my opinion, with the tacit consent of Western imperialism.
The Russian rvolution was not led by the Bolshiviks, it was a spontanous uprising led by women workers on Women’s Day. Neither the Menshaviks or Bolshivaks were trying for a social revolution, but both were resigned to a democratic reolution that would put in capitalists.
But the capitalissts could not stop the war. So the Bolohiviks seized power, in the October revolution, which was pretty much a simple change of the senteries to socialist ones. Everyone wanted something to be done to end the war.
7 February 2011, 12:25 pmm.c.:
Somewhere I read Egypt is the world’s largest importer of grain. They are one of the world’s largest growers of cotton but don’t have the water(?) and soil to grow grain? Is this true?
7 February 2011, 3:06 pmCharles:
The Russian rvolution was not led by the Bolshiviks
^^^^^^^
Yes it was LOL
7 February 2011, 4:21 pmCharles:
I’m open to being convinced my assessment of the Egypt situation is too negative, and want to be convinced otherwise. Anyone?
^^^^^^^^
7 February 2011, 4:28 pmAsk yourself critical, skeptical questions about your own statements. Do criticism/self-criticism ? Read Al Jazeera and see if they disagree with u.
Henry:
The Division of Egypt: Threats of US, Israeli, and NATO Military Intervention?
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, February 7, 2011
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.
Pharoahs, ancient or modern, all have their end days. Mubarak’s day 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.
More:
7 February 2011, 5:26 pmhttp://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23102
m.c.:
Egypt produces cotton, but according to wiki is not a top 10 world producer. Rice, sugarcane, sugar beets are other agricultural products. Why do they import so much grain? Is this a silly question?
7 February 2011, 9:24 pmCurt:
m.c. sometime n Januar our local store had strawberries from Egypt for sale. I like strawberries but I did not byu any. Strawberries grown in Egypt should be for Egyptains.
8 February 2011, 4:21 pmI can wait until June for local strawberries to be ripe, or maybe I will cheat and buy some Spanish Strawberries in March. Say Spanish strawberries can at least be sent here by rail. They do not have to be flown in.
In and of itself I do not see it as a really big deal if Egypt had to import grain. If they used their agricultural productivity to specilize in fruits and vegitables they might actually be able to export strawberries after Egyptians have had a chance to fill up on them and do not want anymore. They, collectively speaking could then trade some strawberries for grain, or cheese, or some of my art work.
I guess in the end that makes me as much a globalist as Clinton but one with a protectionist attitude like Patrick Buchannon. Only protections for everyone, not just US factory workers. With protections for the people of each region to develope their own talents.
Maybe I should add that I have a plan, a secret plan that no one knows about except me, to achieve this goal.
If someone wants to aquire this plan they should send a wire transfer to the account of Mr. Curt Kastens for the amount of 445,000.00 Euros, at the Kreissparkasse Heinsberg, the IBAN is DE 70 3125 1220 0006 311492. The swift code is WELA DE D 1ERK.
This offer is valid for a limited time only. Payment must be recieved by the 14th of Febuary. This offer comes with a limited money back guarantee. If you decide with in 5 working days of recieving this plan that it is unlikely to work you may ask for a refund of 430,000 Euros.
No information provided by requestees will be shared by me with third parties. This offer is a vladid offer. I kid you not.
Someone has gone through a heck of a lot of trouble to Meess up my bank account though. People with that type of time and power on their hands should bring up my bank account balance to where it should properly be. My house in, New Rochelle, New York is badly in need of repairs. It is about time that I bought a new house closer to where I work as well.
Can I get a witness?!
Can I get a witness?!
Can I perhaps get an Amen?
22:20
Curt:
Say your timing is one minute off.
8 February 2011, 4:23 pmLet us syncronize our watches now.
Curt:
WTF, if they didnt do it, then who did?!!
8 February 2011, 5:06 pmIs someone perhaps implying that in one dimension my account number begins with 70 and that in another dimentsion my account number begins with 63? Why that would mean that the two diminsions have in some small way merged.
No I can not believe it. It is surely a case of someone peeing and claiming that it is raining.
Some people will believe anything.
::
Stan:
Greenwald on the Egyptian mirror
9 February 2011, 7:59 amWinston Warfield:
My God, I was so wrong with my negativity regarding the Egyptian revolution, born of, yes, cynicism and bitterness. This is the most inspiring event in recent memory. The more I read about these young people, their unimaginable courage and dignity, the more I am moved. Did you see Asmaa Mahfouz’s Youtube video (democracynow.org)? Here is a 26-year-old woman, openly defying one of the more savage dictatorships on earth, whose simple, straightforward words on the internet inspired a 300K turnout at Tahrir Square, sparking the Revolution on the Nile. I showed it to my 18-year-old son, steeped in U.S. misygonist culture, because I wanted him to see what women are capable of. You were right, Stan, the worm has turned, and new tactics are being devised every day by the Egyptian people. They are staying ahead of all efforts to manipulate and deflate the resistance. We in Americorp are in school watching this unfold. I’m taking notes.
9 February 2011, 1:54 pmDeAnander:
L Flanders on the mote in our neighbour’s eye
Not like here in the Greatest Country on Earth, eh?
9 February 2011, 2:47 pmCharles:
^^^^^^^^^
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwIY6ivf70A
Brave Egyptian women
9 February 2011, 2:47 pmCharles:
Women of Egypt
https://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268523&id=586357675&fbid=493689677675
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
9 February 2011, 2:49 pmCharles:
If someone wants to aquire this plan they should send a wire transfer to the account of Mr. Curt Kastens for the amount of 445,000.00 Euros, at the Kreissparkasse Heinsberg, the IBAN is DE 70 3125 1220 0006 311492. The swift code is WELA DE D 1ERK.
^^^^^
9 February 2011, 2:56 pmLOL Didn’t you get the email ? U won the Irish Sweepstakes !
Charles:
Wither an Egyptian state away ? The ancient Egyptian state withered away hey hey
http://www.zcommunications.org/whither-egypt-by-gilbert-achcar
Whither Egypt?
10 February 2011, 9:47 amm.c.:
I’ll throw this in here. Forgot where the original thread is; Counterpunch had something a few days ago. Reading in yesterday’s NYT. The American former SF soldier in Pakistan who recently shot through the windshield of his rental car and killed two Pakistani young men in Lahore. Evidently right after the shooting he called for help from his cell phone. A vehicle with the U.S. Consulate in Lahore rushes to the scene the wrong way on a one-way street running over a cyclist, who later dies in a hospital. This is a microcosm of U.S. foreign policy. I thought the whole idea was to win hearts & minds….
10 February 2011, 12:41 pmm.c.:
The NYT & the CP article vary somewhat on facts. Maybe true events will come out in the wash….
10 February 2011, 1:34 pmHenry:
A little interesting history seems appropriate just now:
Why the War? The Kuwait Connection
by Murray N. Rothbard
This originally appeared in the May 1991 Rothbard-Rockwell Report
Why, exactly, did we go to war in the Gulf?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard257.html
11 February 2011, 4:09 amWinston Warfield:
Check out this NYT piece on the tactical agility of the Egypt resistance. They are staying inside Mubarak’s and Washington’s decision cycle, using cybertools and misdirection to outwit the secret police, are carefully building momentum and paying attention to tempo. It’s brilliant.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/world/middleeast/10youth.html?_r=2&ref=world
11 February 2011, 10:18 amCurt:
In the link that Winston provided some comments were made about institutions and institutional government.
11 February 2011, 12:22 pmFor example “a government in which institutions are stronger than individuals.”
I have been making my list and checking it twice the last few days. It is nothing new. A list of institutions that I think have failed miserably to promote the general welfare in US Society.
1. The politicians (all three branches of the Federal Government)
2. The US military (failed to protect us from the internal enemies…..the politicians) of course the Generals will say “promote the general welfare means general’s welfare.”
3. The Press
4. The Legal Proffession
5. The Bangsters
6. The Clergy.
What is new is one institution I have identified that MIGHT not have let America down. I am not sure about this since I have not seen the inside of a college for many years. But that would be the colleges.
Can a person who graduated from a 4 year degree granting institution today leave that institution with out having heard from at least some proffessors that the US political system is a massive continuing criminal enterprise?
Not that the students would necissarily believe or chose to confront the system. Would they at least get some classes in which the proffessors would promote the idea that the US government (society?) is not a force for good in the world?
Just wondering if the US is 0 for 7 or 1 and 6.
Curt:
continued from above.
11 February 2011, 7:57 pm7. Federal Law Enforcement. (FBI, Secret Service, US Marshals, ATF) Keeping the people of America safe from little scum who steal dollars by the thousands and kill people one at a time (in the overwhelming majority of cases). Protecting the system that allows people to steal by the billions and would not hesitate to kill by the thousands, who knows maybe even the millions to keep the system going. Protecting the system by disrupting the activities of those people who have tried to defend society from the system.
Of course I would expect an FBI agent to say, look most of us are not racist facsist scum but the director can put those kind of people in to jobs that need someone of that mentality. But my accusation is, just what the hell have those members of the FBI, or US SS who think of themselves as good people done to disrupt the activities of the facists? Did you not know what was going on? Are you blind?
How long has the name J. Edgar Hoover been on the name of the FBI building? The people of the FBI do not even complain about working in a building named after a nazi. Or sure he killed nazis but it was not about policy it was only about which nazis should be in charge.
So now I am wondering if the US is 0 for 8 or 1 and 7.
With such a dismal record over so many seasons is it any wonder that some of the fans want to run the owners out of town and send them to work in a mined Chinese coal mine.
Mark folk:
The Eygptian people are acting in a coordinated way so there must be an informal leadership group coordinating action. They probably try to keep in the background because the police and army have abducted, imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of Eygptians not reported in the American media.
The military officers who have assumed power are Mubarak loyalists who have been corrupted by US money and will promote US,Israel and Western policies. But there are not subtle enough about this for the West, keeping the Emergency Rule in place to massacre the people and destroy the revolution. Obama and the West want an Orderly Transition.
“Transition” is a codeword. Just as Bush used religious codewords to signal to the religious loonies, Obama is using Transition as a codeword to signal to the political Elite. It is part of what political scientists and historians call ‘tansition theory,’ managing a change from a client despot to plutocratic Democracy. Phillip Foner, in Who Owns History? describes it this way:
“…the transition from authoritarian government to democracy is best accomplished not by revolutionary upheaval but by negotiations between reformers in the ruling regime and moderates among the opposition….democracy functions best when political issues center on superficial problems rather than on deep social divisiions [the rich and poor, or racial divisions.]…major social questions (such as the redistribution of wealth) must be kept off the political agenda.”
In the case of Egypt, the problem is immensely complicated by the Israeli Lobby who has a strangle hold on US policy. Obama needs the Israeli Lobby to win the next Election, for which he already has begun collection funds. HIs money campaign, led by neo-Zionists in Hollywood Jeffery Katzenberg and David Gellen, hopes to collect a billion dollars, up from the half billion in his last campaign. So an Orlderly Transition is extremely important to his Election, since the NeoZionists will be watching closely.
12 February 2011, 2:00 pmCurt:
I just read that an arrest warrant has been issued for former Pakistani Ruler General Mussaraf in connection with the murder of Benazir Bhutto.
13 February 2011, 3:34 pmSo, I wonder is this a significant action at all on the part of the Pakistani Government?
If they make a strong case it might be significant.
I say might becasue people who do not want to believe it will say that the case against Mussaraf is a conspiracy motivated by a Venndetta. Those who want to believe it will believe it even if there is evidence that evidence against Mussaraf is a frame up. Maybe like OJ he is both guilty and framed.
Mark folk:
here’s the background of Frank Wisner who Obama sent to talk to Mubarak.
***
As the Egyptian revolt swells, the U.S. National Security Council considered that the handling of the situation by Margaret Scobey, their Ambassador in Cairo, was not good enough
Ms Scobey is a career diplomat with a significant track record in the Middle East, but lacks experience in secret operations. Without prejudging the future, she has spared no effort to meet with the greatest number of players and establish ties with all the camps
For the National Security Council, it is not enough to simply safeguard the interests of the United States. It is absolutely indispensable to preserve the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal, which implies having to choose the next country leadership. Thus, the NSC called on Frank G. Wisner, former Ambassador to Egypt (1986-91), and dispatched him urgently to Cairo where he arrived on 31 January 2011.
Mr. Wisner is the son of Frank G. Wisner Sr., co-founder of the CIA and Gladio. Together with Allen Dulles, Wisner Sr. was one of the architects of the U.S. secret intervention doctrine: support those democracies which make a “good choice”, oppose those which make the wrong choice.
As for Frank G. Wisner Jr., he has always worked for the Agency and continues to do so, serving in particular as one of the Directors of Refugees International.
Ambassador Wisner, a personal friend of President Hosni Mubarak, has been tasked with organising his low-key destitution. His arrival was discretely preceded by a telephone call from Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to his Egyptian counterpart General Sami Enan – the Egyptian army is trained and equipped by the Pentagon. Officially, Mullen commended him for his restraint, a message which was perfectly deciphered by Cairo which, a few minutes later, announced that the army regarded the protests as legitimate.
Frank G. Wisner Jr. is not known to the U.S. public either as a diplomat or as a master spy, but as an unscrupulous financier. He was part of the Enron power elite involved in the fraudulent bankrupcy of the corporation that ruined countless small investors and, later, as Vice Chairman of American International Group whose share prices plummeted by 95% during the 2008 financial crisis, prior to its bailout with taxpayers’ money.
Although not at all known in France, Wisner Jr. has nevertheless played a major role in that country’s recent history. He married Christine de Ganay (Pal Sarkozy’s second wife) and, in that capacity, reared Nicolas Sarkozy during his New York years. It was he who introduced then-teenage Sarkozy to CIA insiders and facilitated his entry into French political circles. One of Wisner’s sons was Sarkozy’s English-speaking political campaign spokesman; another one of his children became one of the pillars of the Carlyle Group, the asset management firm controlled by the Bush and Bin Laden families.
In addition, it was Frank G. Wisner who strongly recommended his friend Bernard Kouchner as French Foreign Minister with the mission to mobilise European states in favour of Kosovo’s independence.
14 February 2011, 3:11 amMichael Anderson:
I’m beginning to think that the G20 had a major hand in this so-called “revolt” in Egypt (and perhaps some other places) to gain new markets for capitalist expansion—capitalism being in the crisis (!) state that it is at present, and Israel be damned.
Only this time the energy source will be people, not oil. The Nazis (oh, God, I violated Godwin’s Law—again!) scientifically calculated how to work people to death. I’m sure this knowledge will be (has been) passed on…
14 February 2011, 1:33 pmm.c.:
Sharm el-Sheikh, home of Hosni Mubarak’s summer home is kind of like the Cabo San Lucas of the Red Sea, i.e. a resort playground for the rich and powerful. A major Egyptian Naval Base, close to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, & Israel w/ its own international airport. One of the reporters from cnn or msnbc yesterday or the day before reported that the Bin Laden family has a compound close to the former Egyptian pres. and theirs is more grand than his.
15 February 2011, 1:02 pmCharles:
Bourgeois media celebrates international revolution ?! Am I on Candid Camera ?
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/02/15/muslim.world.unrest/index.html?hpt=T1
After Egypt, people power hits like a tsunami
15 February 2011, 4:22 pmBy Moni Basu, CNN
Mark folk:
According to China’s People’s Daily, strikes are now spreading across
Egypt while the military vainly call for workers to go back to work. this is going to be difficult for the military because the economy is ruled by a kind of military plutocracy. The generals are paid off by US imperialism and they steal whatever they can. Mubarak’s family reportedly stole in excess of 50 billion dollars over the thirty years that he ran Eyypt for US-Israel. This form of plutocracy has left the economy in terrible shape, with very low wages and massive unemployment.
The military are trying to develop “Democracy” as fast as they can, it appears, but there doesn’t seem to be any way they can solve the economic problem. It is exacerbated by the high price of grain, bid up by speculator’s in the commodities market. the problem is the same in all of the Mideast and North Africa, although the oil states have more money to play with, which diminishes the hardship.
In the ‘non-violent’ Egyptian revolution, the offical figures are about 400 killed and 5500 injured, these being minimum figures. They will no doubt increase, because it appears that the only solution is revolution or massacre. Win or die. The US is pushing the generals for some compremize, but they appear as oblivious as Muraabak. Who they previously served loyally.
16 February 2011, 8:59 pmStan:
In 2005, when there was still an antiwar movement, I met Michael Schwartz when he invited me to Stoneybrook to debate a faculty neocon. I had been an admirer of his analysis of the internal politics of Iraq and written him, and we began corresponding. He is back, here, with a very thoughtful analysis of the substrates of success in Egypt.
FULL
17 February 2011, 7:35 amTom:
Thanks, Stan, for posting Schwartz’s article. That is the clearest explanation I have see to date.
17 February 2011, 10:06 amMark folk:
Swartz is of coruse right that the strikes and economic struggle magnify the demonstrations and give them muscle. tht is why socialists of the world in the 20th century emphasized strikes as a major weapon, brought on by demonstrations. Once a strike wave begins, there is no telling where it will end. the srikes of Cairo are being repeated in Wisconsin.
But Swartz emphasisis on the incompetence of Obama and the CIA is quite wrong. The CIA did not predict the Muslim uprising because nobody can. A series of demonstrations occur over historical time, some successful, some not, and suddenly, often for not reason ahyone can discern, the people rise up en masse. Louis XV may have said ‘after us the deluge,’ but he didn’t say when. Nobody can, because it can’t be predicted that precisely.
And Obama is not incompetent, not at all. As professor Petras, Ralph Nader, Stan Smith, Paul Street, and others have stated or implied, Obama is one of the most talented political con men of modern times. He has a CIA background and a professional view of manipulating power. We are being led into a neo-police state by a real professional.
His ‘vacillation’ is his usual form of doubletruth, proclaim one thing for progressives and do the opposite for oppressive power. He is now supporting a Mubarak military council, led by Field Marshall Tantawi, to spread Freedom&Democracy in Egypt. While they continue to kill, imprison and torture militants and retain the Emergency Law that legalizes it. And Obama supports them while publically protesting the violence as being against Amerian values. This isn’t incompetance;; its the stadard Orwellian duplicy of the War on Terrorism.
18 February 2011, 10:46 amMark folk:
The revolutionists are now implementing the Shah of Iran strategy, the strategy that overthrew the Shah. they are meeting at the main square every Friday, the Muslim sabbath, and assembling periodically to mourn their dead. the difference is that there are now uprisings all over the Muslim area of the mideast and north Africa, which reinforce each other.
I don’t see what the US can do, while fettered to Israel, to serve the interests of US imperialism. Outside of wringing its hands and proclaiming that US power is for Freedom&Democracy. The pathetic farce of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan, dragging US puppets Mubarak, Abbas and the JOrdinian king on stage while excluding Hamas, who actually has rank and file support, has helped to sideline the US. And claiming that a US contractor who murdered two Pakistani in Pakistan is a diplomat is positively bizarre, even if the US can bribe the Pakistani president, possibly the most corrupt political figure in the world.
It may well be as the Chinese say, it is simply part of the US decay of power, which is taking an extremely rapid historical turn. Surprisingly, they don’t seem much interested publically, perhaps because the uprisings make them nervous. Perhaps there is no right thing to do, the War on Terrorism, which was a war on Muslims, chickens coming home to roost. But it seems to me that US imperialism is stuck unless it can free itself somehow from the ISraeli lobby, and I don’t see how it can in the near future.
18 February 2011, 6:12 pmMark folk:
The Muslim uprisings may well be destroying US imperialism, certainly damaging it. they are spreading and intensifying, beginning now in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In Bahrain, where the US fifth fleet is anchored, the monarchy is firing live ammunition into the crowd. the insurgents are using the Shah strategy, assembling for funerals and demonstrations for their killed, leading to more killed, and more funerals and demonstrations.
obama, the CEO of the Amereian corporate state, is continuing to follow his Owellian strategy of supporting repression in practice while condeming it with Inspiring rhetoric. Just as Obama last year visited Egypt, support Mubarak, Sec of State Clinton visited Baharain last month, supporting the monarchy. When told by members of parlement about its repression, she stated she saw the glass as “half full,” citing reforms.
US policy is stuck because the Israeli lobby is a vapire squid that has its tentacles around the US power system. The US just vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Counsel condemning Israel’s continuing to increase settlements, while denying in rhetoric that it was supporting Israel settlement policy. Obama, according the Sybal Edmonds just appointed another Zionist to mideast policy making. He must have the Israeli Lobby for the next election. the only elected presidents since world war 2 who lost their second elections, Carter and Bush 1, did so because of the opposition of the Israeli lobby.
If US-Isaaeli imperialism is sufficiently damaged, the US may be forced to withdraw from many of its bases. It will increase the financial pressure and Chalmers Johnson in his trioloy of books predicted that US insolvancy would end American imperialism. US policy is increasingly discredited by the people ruled by American-backed dictators in Muslim countries, as has occurred in Soutern America. Already no African country will allow the US military to put its headquarters in its country, the US being forced to put it in Stuttgart, Germany.
But as the US retreats from the rest of the world, the incipient police state in the US, disguised by plutocratic Democracy, may well get stronger. Having destoyed most of the unions by globalization, for example, it is now going after public service unions. but as US perception management frays as American power is seen as increasingly despotic, perhaps American workers will oppose US power and mobilize outside the unions, as is happening in the Muslum countries.
Should this happen, the Orwellian stragegy will lose its effectiveness, and the American people will become less politically deluded, inert and braindead.
At that point it can form a leadership organ of some kind which has legitimacy and effectiveness. But this is an historical strategy that may take years to crystalize. In the meantime we are in a depression with a real unemployment rate of about 23%, which the media is calling a Recovery. There are no jobs for the young getting out of high school and college, and Obama is now decreasing the financial support to the population while INCREASING the military budget while the media is stating publically that he is decreasing it.
militarism is deceasingly effective in a time of mass uprisings. But no one can predict accurately how intense they will be in the future or what form they will take. Or what form US-Israeli power will take.
19 February 2011, 5:23 amStan:
FULL
19 February 2011, 8:16 pmMark folk:
The food crisis is also linked to capitalist speculation in commodities, and in the political policy of increasing the price for a countries farmers, a politicaly powerful bloc. In the 80′s under Reagan the UN had a resolution decaring that food was a right of people. All UN coountries who voted, voted for this resolution. With one exception. There was one vote against this resolution. Care to guess what power system voted against it?
20 February 2011, 10:46 am***
The massacre of the demonstrators has been more public in Libya, Barhaain, and other small countries, in Lybia straffed by helecopters. US power publically deplores the military-polcie violence while supplying them with weaponsw and ammunition in the usual Orwellian policy. But the Shah strategy is in effect. The military-police kill the demonstrators, they assemble for the funerals and demonstrate, more killings, more funerals. More demonstrations, more strikes. The recipe for revolution.
Peter Michaels:
Stan, could this movement gain enough momentum to provide a serious setback to the global financial empire? Is it possible that these populist uprisings could give birth to populist governments? When a new government is formed after such an upheaval, does it owe the debts of the old regime?
22 February 2011, 3:00 amCharles:
The Egyptian Struggle May Inspire A Working Class Struggle Against Entrenched Power In Many Other Parts of the World.
http://ccarrico.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/the-egyptian-struggle-may-inspire-a-working-class-struggle-against-entrenched-power-in-many-other-parts-of-the-world/
^^^^^^^^^^
7 March 2011, 8:50 amStan:
Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Bahrain is backfiring.
FULL
and the bigger picture inside Bahrain
FULL
16 March 2011, 6:31 pmStan:
FULL
23 March 2011, 1:05 pmStan:
FULL
13 April 2011, 12:18 pmCurt:
I just had this thought. I really have no idea if it has a validity. I just throw it out for people to mull over. Kind of what you do when you are brainstorming. Maybe it is stupid. Maybe there is something behind it.
13 April 2011, 3:32 pmI do not know how inluential the US was behind the founding of Israel. I does seem apparent that by the 1960s the US MIC had made Israel an appendage of the US. Yet there has been a great effort to try to portray Israel as not only an independent actor but as a tail that actually wags the dog. This game is important to give the US plausible denabilty concerning Israeli actions.
When I look back at the historical context of the apparent beginning of this relationship I see that it comes at a time that the US MIC seriously planned for nuclear war. OK it might be that the official policy was against first use of nuclear weapons at the time but I can not remember exactly. Even if that were so it would tend to reinforce what I am about to say.
The US Israeli Special Relationship was not really very old when Isreal became a nuclear power. I think that you know now where I am headed with this.
To spell it out it is that the people who were responsible for foraging this special relationship around 1960 forsaw using Israel as a “front man” for nuclear intimidation, blackmail, or extortion, however you want to say it.
Is this idea such old news that it is no longer worth talking about? Or is it to insignificant to talk about? Or is the love of the American people to support Israel during its momement of Armagedon so strong that it is irrelevant?