maandag 31 januari 2011

Arab Regimes 42

De NRC van afgelopen vrijdag berichtte onnder de kop

  '#Jan25 opstand nog zonder leiders. Egypte De een protesteert tegen voedselprijzen, de ander tegen Mubarak'

het volgende:

De Egyptische opstand is vooralsnog een beweging zonder leiding of eenduidig verhaal. De betogers van de afgelopen dagen hebben geen politieke partij.

Deze nonsens is geschreven door een anonymus, die aangekondigd wordt als 'een medewerker'.

De NRC die nooit de oppositie in de Arabische wereld serieus heeft genomen, heeft nu geen contacten en weet dus niet wat er daadwerkelijk gebeurt. Uit eigen ervaring weet ik dat de oppositie in Egypte al vele decennia lang vooral aangevoerd wordt door de Moslim Broederschap, die op straat-, buurt-, wijk-, stads- en landelijk niveau comite's hebben die uiterst goed georganiseerd zijn en die nu de strijd op straat mede organiseren. Ze hebben 1 eis: weg met het collaborerende regime Mubarak. Vandaar mijn vraag aan NRC: wie is de 'medewerker' die al deze onzin in uw krant schrijft? Heeft hij/zij geen naam? Wat is het doel van deze misinformatie?

Nu maar weer echte informatie vanuit de angelsaksische wereld:



Egypt: Death Throes of a Dictatorship

Our writer joins protesters atop a Cairo tank as the army shows signs of backing the people against Mubarak's regime

By Robert Fisk
January 30, 2011 "
The Independent" -- The Egyptian tanks, the delirious protesters sitting atop them, the flags, the 40,000 protesters weeping and crying and cheering in Freedom Square and praying around them, the Muslim Brotherhood official sitting amid the tank passengers. Should this be compared to the liberation of Bucharest? Climbing on to an American-made battle tank myself, I could only remember those wonderful films of the liberation of Paris. A few hundred metres away, Hosni Mubarak's black-uniformed security police were still firing at demonstrators near the interior ministry. It was a wild, historical victory celebration, Mubarak's own tanks freeing his capital from his own dictatorship.

In the pantomime world of Mubarak himself – and of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Washington – the man who still claims to be president of Egypt swore in the most preposterous choice of vice-president in an attempt to soften the fury of the protesters – Omar Suleiman, Egypt's chief negotiator with Israel and his senior intelligence officer, a 75-year-old with years of visits to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and four heart attacks to his credit. How this elderly apparatchik might be expected to deal with the anger and joy of liberation of 80 million Egyptians is beyond imagination. When I told the demonstrators on the tank around me the news of Suleiman's appointment, they burst into laughter.

Their crews, in battledress and smiling and in some cases clapping their hands, made no attempt to wipe off the graffiti that the crowds had spray-painted on their tanks. "Mubarak Out – Get Out", and "Your regime is over, Mubarak" have now been plastered on almost every Egyptian tank on the streets of Cairo. On one of the tanks circling Freedom Square was a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Beltagi. Earlier, I had walked beside a convoy of tanks near the suburb of Garden City as crowds scrambled on to the machines to hand oranges to the crews, applauding them as Egyptian patriots. However crazed Mubarak's choice of vice-president and his gradual appointment of a powerless new government of cronies, the streets of Cairo proved what the United States and EU leaders have simply failed to grasp. It is over.

Mubarak's feeble attempts to claim that he must end violence on behalf of the Egyptian people – when his own security police have been responsible for most of the cruelty of the past five days – has elicited even further fury from those who have spent 30 years under his sometimes vicious dictatorship. For there are growing suspicions that much of the looting and arson was carried out by plainclothes cops – including the murder of 11 men in a rural village in the past 24 hours – in an attempt to destroy the integrity of the protesters campaigning to throw Mubarak out of power. The destruction of a number of communications centres by masked men – which must have been co-ordinated by some form of institution – has also raised suspicions that the plainclothes thugs who beat many of the demonstrators were to blame.

But the torching of police stations across Cairo and in Alexandria and Suez and other cities was obviously not carried out by plainclothes cops. Late on Friday, driving to Cairo 40 miles down the Alexandria highway, crowds of young men had lit fires across the highway and, when cars slowed down, demanded hundreds of dollars in cash. Yesterday morning, armed men were stealing cars from their owners in the centre of Cairo.

Infinitely more terrible was the vandalism at the Egyptian National Museum. After police abandoned this greatest of ancient treasuries, looters broke into the red-painted building and smashed 4,000-year-old pharaonic statues, Egyptian mummies and magnificent wooden boats, originally carved – complete with their miniature crews – to accompany kings to their graves. Glass cases containing priceless figurines were bashed in, the black-painted soldiers inside pushed over. Again, it must be added that there were rumours before the discovery that police caused this vandalism before they fled the museum on Friday night. Ghastly shades of the Baghdad museum in 2003. It wasn't as bad as that looting, but it was a most awful archeological disaster.

In my night journey from 6th October City to the capital, I had to slow down when darkened vehicles loomed out of the darkness. They were smashed, glass scattered across the road, slovenly policemen pointing rifles at my headlights. One jeep was half burned out. They were the wreckage of the anti-riot police force which the protesters forced out of Cairo on Friday. Those same demonstrators last night formed a massive circle around Freedom Square to pray, "Allah Alakbar" thundering into the night air over the city.

And there are also calls for revenge. An al-Jazeera television crew found 23 bodies in the Alexandria mortuary, apparently shot by the police. Several had horrifically mutilated faces. Eleven more bodies were discovered in a Cairo mortuary, relatives gathering around their bloody remains and screaming for retaliation against the police.

Cairo now changes from joy to sullen anger within minutes. Yesterday morning, I walked across the Nile river bridge to watch the ruins of Mubarak's 15-storey party headquarters burn. In front stood a vast poster advertising the benefits of the party – pictures of successful graduates, doctors and full employment, the promises which Mubarak's party had failed to deliver in 30 years – outlined by the golden fires curling from the blackened windows of the party headquarters. Thousands of Egyptians stood on the river bridge and on the motorway flyovers to take pictures of the fiercely burning building – and of the middle-aged looters still stealing chairs and desks from inside.

Yet the moment a Danish television team arrived to film exactly the same scenes, they were berated by scores of people who said that they had no right to film the fires, insisting that Egyptians were proud people who would never steal or commit arson. This was to become a theme during the day: that reporters had no right to report anything about this "liberation" that might reflect badly upon it. Yet they were still remarkably friendly and – despite Obama's pusillanimous statements on Friday night – there was not the slightest manifestation of hostility against the United States. "All we want – all – is Mubarak's departure and new elections and our freedom and honour," a 30-year-old psychiatrist told me. Behind her, crowds of young men were clearing up broken crash barriers and road intersection fences from the street – an ironic reflection on the well-known Cairo adage that Egyptians will never, ever clean their roads.

Mubarak's allegation that these demonstrations and arson – this combination was a theme of his speech refusing to leave Egypt – were part of a "sinister plan" is clearly at the centre of his claim to continued world recognition. Indeed, Obama's own response – about the need for reforms and an end to such violence – was an exact copy of all the lies Mubarak has been using to defend his regime for three decades. It was deeply amusing to Egyptians that Obama – in Cairo itself, after his election – had urged Arabs to grasp freedom and democracy. These aspirations disappeared entirely when he gave his tacit if uncomfortable support to the Egyptian president on Friday. The problem is the usual one: the lines of power and the lines of morality in Washington fail to intersect when US presidents have to deal with the Middle East. Moral leadership in America ceases to exist when the Arab and Israeli worlds have to be confronted.

And the Egyptian army is, needless to say, part of this equation. It receives much of the $1.3bn of annual aid from Washington. The commander of that army, General Tantawi – who just happened to be in Washington when the police tried to crush the demonstrators – has always been a very close personal friend of Mubarak. Not a good omen, perhaps, for the immediate future.

So the "liberation" of Cairo – where, grimly, there came news last night of the looting of the Qasr al-Aini hospital – has yet to run its full course. The end may be clear. The tragedy is not over.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27380.htm

Dyer: Uprising in Egypt: 'This Is How Regimes Fall'
By Gywnne Dyer

January 30, 2011 "
MWDN" -- By 3 p.m. on Friday afternoon, the protesters in central Cairo were chanting: "Where is the army? Come and see what the police are doing to us. We want the army." And that is the main question, really: where is the Egyptian army in all this?

Like armies everywhere, even in dictatorships, the Egyptian army does not like to use violence against its own people. It would much rather leave that sort of thing to the police, who are generally quite willing to do it. But in Alexandria, by mid-afternoon on Friday, the police had stopped fighting the protesters and started talking to them. This is how regimes end.

First of all the police realize that they face a genuine popular movement involving all classes and all walks of life, rather than the extremist agitators that the regime's propaganda says they are fighting. They realize that it would be wrong - and also very unwise - to go on bashing heads in the service of a regime that is likely to disappear quite soon. Best change sides before it is too late.

Then the army, seeing that the game is up, tells the dictator that it is time to get on the plane and go abroad to live with his money. Egypt's ruler, Hosni Mubarak, was a general before he became president, and he has always made sure that the military were at the head of the queue for money and privileges, but there is no gratitude in politics. They won't want to be dragged down with him.

All this could happen quite fast, or it could spread out over the next several weeks, but it is probably going to happen. Even autocratic and repressive regimes must have some sort of popular consent, because you cannot hire enough police to compel everybody to obey. They extort that consent through fear: the ordinary citizens' fear of losing their jobs, their freedom, even their lives. So when people lose their fear, the regime is toast.

It would require a truly horrendous massacre to re-instill the fear in Egyptians now, and at this stage neither the police nor the army are likely to be willing to do that. So what happens once Mubarak leaves? Nobody knows, because nobody is in charge of this revolution.

The first people out in the streets were young university graduates who face a lifetime of unemployment. Only days later, however, the demonstrations have swelled to include people of every social class and walk of life.

They have no program, just a conviction that it is high time for a change - Kifaya! ("Enough is enough"), as the nickname of an Egyptian opposition party that flourished in the middle of the last decade put it. Two-thirds of the 80 million Egyptians have been born since Mubarak came to power, and they are not grateful for the poverty, corruption and repression that define and confine their lives. But who can fix it all?

Washington and the other Western capitals that supported Mubarak for the past three decades are praying that the revolution will choose Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as its leader. He flew back into Egypt last Thursday, and the regime even takes him seriously enough to put him under house arrest. But he is probably not the Chosen One.

ElBaradei is a diplomat who has spent half of his life abroad and is seen by Western governments as a "safe pair of hands." He would be at best a figurehead, but a figurehead for what?

Since it would be the army that finally tells Mubarak to leave, the military would dominate the interim regime. They would not want to put yet another general out front, so they might decide that ElBaradei is the right candidate for interim leader, precisely because he has no independent power base. But there would then have to be elections, and ElBaradei would not even come close to winning.

The likely winner of a genuinely free Egyptian election, according to most opinion polls, would be the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brothers are not particularly radical as Islamists go, but the first thing they have promised to do if they win power is to hold a referendum on Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. And most Egyptians, according to the same polls, would vote to cancel it.

That would end the flow of official U.S. aid and private foreign investment that currently keeps the Egyptian economy more or less afloat, even though it would probably not lead to an actual war. And there is no reason to believe that an Islamic government could make the Egyptian economy grow any faster, although it would distribute the poverty more fairly.

These longer-term considerations, however, will have no impact on the events of the next few weeks, when Egypt's example may ignite similar revolts against decrepit regimes elsewhere in the Arab world - or not, as the case may be. But it's not just Tunisia any more. Egypt is the biggest Arab country by far, and culturally the most influential. What happens there really matters.

Gwynne Dyer is an independent London-based journalist whose columns appear in 45 countries. His latest book, "Climate Wars", was published recently in the United States by Oneworld.
 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27378.htm

The Egyptian Intifada; Mubarak's Time Is Up 

By Mike Whitney 

January 31, 2010 "
Information Clearing House-- Stocks plunged on Friday following a fifth day of protests in Cairo. Oil shot up more than $3 per barrel as investors grew nervous about potential disruptions to supply. The Dow Jones tumbled 166 points by day's end.

The Israeli embassy has been shut down in Egypt's capital and it's diplomatic staff has been flown to Tel Aviv (allegedly) disguised as tourists.. The Star of David has been lowered and is no longer visible anywhere in Cairo.

There are reports that the United States is behind the demonstrations and is hoping to replace Hosni Mubarak with another US client. But these reports are grossly exaggerated. The protests are a homegrown reaction to high unemployment and ongoing police state repression. Photos of young dissidents gathered atop tanks and armored vehicles arm-in-arm with Egyptian regulars illustrate the tenuousness of Mubarak's position. He faces a popular uprising that is likely to continue until he is removed from office and forced to leave the country.

The US State Department has been working feverishly behind the scenes to influence the transition to another US-friendly client. Mubarak has already appointed two vice presidents who have been approved by Washington. Both have good relations with Israel.

This appeared on the Angry Arab website (although there's no way to verify the information):

"A source from within the Presidential Guard has claimed to my friends in Cairo that the army intends to end the protests on Sunday, by any means necessary even if it meant violence and bloodshed. Junta goons are causing chaos in Cairo to claim an unstable situation which will extend until Saturday. Then under the guise of bringing back order, they will "crush them with any amount of force needed!". The sources are unsure of the American role but believe the Americans will go with it."

The Netanyahu administration is clearly concerned about the deteriorating situation and has instructed government officials to avoid talking to the press. So far, there are no reports of troop movements on Israel's southern border.

The stakes could not be higher for Israel. A charismatic Egyptian leader could put an end to Camp David and demand a settlement to the Palestinian issue. The 40-year military occupation and UN Resolution 242 would again divide the two nations leaving Israel with no allies in the region except for Jordan. Israel's policy of seizing Palestinian land and abusing Palestinians would have to be reviewed and changed. Thus, the fall of Mubarak could dramatically improve the prospects for peace in the Middle East.

As the Mubarak regime becomes more wobbly, agents provocateur from the various intelligence services will carry out false flag operations designed to intimidate the public and derail the revolution. The US is determined to maintain its grip on power. But Washington does not own Egypt nor does it control events on the ground. It's powers, while impressive, are more limited than many realize. The Egyptian intifada is gaining momentum. It won't stop until Mubarak is gone. After that, no one knows what will happen.


Who's Behind The Uprising In Egypt?

Rude Awakening! 
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
January 31, 2010 "Information Clearing House-- Eyes fixed on Egypt, the consensus is that we are witnessing a global awakening.  Mesmerized by the crowds, mainstream media reports, and 'pundits' analysis, we have abandoned our ability to think critically -- we fail to ask the right question: Why is the mainstream media in the U.S., the propaganda apparatus of the State and interest groups, condemning the Egyptian leader --  America and Israel's most subservient ally?  
Clearly, we no longer suffer from short term memory in this country -- we suffer from a total loss of memory. 
We tend to forget that well over a year ago, political actors in America and allied nations had full knowledge that Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was terminally ill.  Certain that his reign was coming to a close, they devised a plan to compensate the inevitable loss of Mubarak's  unconditional support.   A plan was put into motion to assist orchestrate an uprising which would benefit their interests.   The idea was to support the uprising so that an ally could be placed in Egypt without raising suspicion.  Not only would America be seen as a benevolent force acting in good faith, contrary to its hypocritical policies, but perhaps more importantly for  the decision makers, Israel's interests  would be served - again - at the expense of the Arab world.     
Who would be the wiser for it?  It seems the public has fallen for the plan.  
Media 'pundits' are eager to blame the timing of the protests in Egypt on economic hardships.  Citing Egypt's jobless and inordinate poverty, they would have us believe that the American 'social media', Tweeter in particular, has prompted and aided the protests.  They would have us believe that in spite of the fact that the Egyptians cry over the price of wheat, they have cell phones and access to social media. We are to accept that the poor, hungry, and jobless Egyptians are revolting against their lot by 'tweeting' in English.   
Their access to modern technology aside, we are told to accept that the knowledge of English among 80 million Egyptians is so strong that they can 'tweet' -- fully comfortable with tweeter abbreviations and acronyms.   Else, we are to believe that Egypt is busy 'tweeting' in Arabic even if Twitter does not lend itself to Arabic any more than it does to Persian. 
When Iran's opposition leader, Mir-Hossein Mousavi compared the Egypt uprising to the  2009 post-election protests in Iran, he had a point.  Both had an outside source.  During the 2009 protests in Iran, 'tweets' were traced back to Israel (see link).  The rumors and support for the "opposition" initiated in the West though Tehran Bureau -- partnered with the American PBS.  A CNN desk was created to give the protests full coverage.   
America has been attempting to undermine Iran's government for over 30 years.  The media has helped to demonize the regime.  Why would the media treat  this obedient tyrant the same way? The mainstream media, as well as the 'left' are reporting on Egypt's protests round the clock.   It is important to ask why.  
For decades, the American government and allies have snuffed nationalist sentiments in the region in favor of dictators.  Iran's Mossadegh, a fierce secular nationalist, who was democratically elected to be prime minister of Iran, was removed by a CIA-backed coup when he nationalized Iran’s oil and the oppressive Shah put in power.  This political action led to the 1979 revolution.    America lost a valuable puppet in the region. 
Similarly, the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt's patriotic Nasser led to his demise, paving the way for the eventual installation of a puppet regime - Mubarak.   
But Mubarak is dying.  Fearful of losing an important ally in Egypt's Mubarak, the political elite in America have undertaken a calculated risk: siding with the Egyptians to promote 'democracy' - hoping to help put in place one of their own.    How likely is it that they will prevail in Egypt where they failed in Iran? Could  it be that apprehensive about the future of Egypt, more importantly, its alliance with and subordination to Israel, the Noble Laureate option is being played?        
Amongst the neoliberals, a new wave of thinking emerged which endorsed the idea of promoting 'democracy'  ("liberal Imperialism") in order to evolve hegemonism to imperialism.  Their thinking emphasized the 'character of the political leadership'.  A wave of books centered on 'democratic transitions' that focused on the character of the leader with the right ideas appeared.  They planned to emphasis new successful leaders such as Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Lech  Walesa in order to promote their own in  places of interest. 
These neoliberals believed that "transition to 'democracy' required focusing on "political strategies" and introducing "indeterminancy" and "uncertainty" into the process of political change which they believed would be ground for cautious optimism that 'democracy' could catch on.  Laureates were appointed: Shirin Ebadi, El Baradei, Obama, Liu Xiaobo...
Mr. ElBaradei, the Nobel Laureate and former chief of IAEA, applauded the violation of the NNPT with his acceptance speech as he praised the Bush-India nuclear deal - an NPT violation.  Ally S. Korea's NPT violations were given a pass under his supervision, as well as that of Egypt's.  In violation of the spirit of the NPT, he allowed the illegal referral of Iran to the UN Security Council.     Mr. ElBaradei had proven himself worthy of American trust - he could be relied on and deserved a Nobel prize.   He announced his readiness to run for president of Egypt.    
Although not supported by protestors (no doubt placing him under house arrest will give him a boost), ElBaradei's return to Egypt enables the American politicians to speak from both sides of their mouths -- supporting the protestors' rights while supporting their ally.   How could they go wrong?  The thought process in this country (and elsewhere) has been guided and controlled by mainstream media and pundits, many of them  neoconservatives.  Curiously, the 24-7 media and its pundits have steered clear of ElBaradei and his arrest.   
Sadly, the American political elite love Einstein's science but ignore his wisdom.   When Einstein alerted FDR to the possibility of a nuclear weapon by the Germans, he was listened to and the way was paved for the Manhattan Project.   America developed the heinous weapons of mass murder and dropped it on hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizen in the name of peace.   Regrettably, as the Middle East and Africa react to America's decades of neocolonialist policies, Einstein's definition of insanity --"doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" -- is more apt than ever.      
America (and her allies) has practiced the same damning foreign policy for several decades, each time expecting a new result.  This political insanity manifests itself as the decision makers interfere in sovereignty of other countries - believing that they can continue to fool all the people all the time.   Their controlled chaos may get out of hand and following the painful 'pangs' of neocolonial rule, we may witness the birth of a new world order.   
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich has a degree in Public Diplomacy from USC Annenberg for Communication and Journalism.  She is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the role of lobby groups in influencing US foreign policy. 

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