The hypocrisy of western liberals is breathtaking: they publicly supported democracy, and now, when the people revolt against the tyrants on behalf of secular freedom and justice, not on behalf of religion, they are all deeply concerned. Why concern, why not joy that freedom is given a chance? Today, more than ever, Mao Zedong’s old motto is pertinent: “There is great chaos under heaven – the situation is excellent.”
Where, then, should Mubarak go? Here, the answer is also clear: to the Hague. If there is a leader who deserves to sit there, it is him.
The US wants Mubarak to stand down in favour of his chosen successor, Omar Sulieman – this seems to be an unprecedented move on the part of the US in the role of neocoloniser with any of its vassals. On Al Jazeera Catherine Ashton from the EU Council echoes the US line, assuring all that Suleiman will be in discussion ‘with opposition leaders yesterday today and tomorrow’. As Paul Barratt, ex-Australian Defence Secretary tweeted today:
@phbarratt: @Jinjirrie The paradigm remains “stability through repression”. #fail #
Europe’s future is at stake this week on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, as it was on Prague’s Wenceslas Square in 1989. This time, the reasons are geography and demography. The Arab arc of crisis, from Morocco to Jordan, is Europe’s near abroad. As a result of decades of migration, the young Arabs whom you see chanting angrily on the streets of Cairo, Tunis and Amman already have cousins in Madrid, Paris and London.
If these uprisings succeed, and what emerges is not another Islamist dictatorship, these young, often unemployed, frustrated men and women will see life chances at home. The gulf between their life experience in Casablanca and Madrid, Tunis and Paris, will gradually diminish – and with it that cultural cognitive dissonance which can lead to the Moroccan suicide bomber on a Madrid commuter train. As their homelands modernise, young Arabs – and nearly one third of the population of the north African littoral is between the age of 15 and 30 – will circulate across the Mediterranean, contributing to European economies, and to paying the pensions of rapidly ageing European societies. The examples of modernisation and reform will also resonate across the Islamic world.
“There is a lot of uncertainty out there and I would just caution against doing anything until we really understand what’s going on”, says McMullen of withdrawing aid to the Egyptian military. Translation: we don’t want the military to back the people, we want them behind the regime, which should be a regime we want.
The logical outcome to circumvent the current neocolonials’ plan whilst avoiding bloodshed may be in train – the Egyptian army to submit to the forthcoming pro-democracy people’s council presently being built in Tahrir Square. Army head, Tantawy is apparently in the square with his generals. Exiled Egyptian Al Qaradawi in Qatar has suggested guidelines for action. (via @SultanAlQassemi)
Al Qaradawi who now holds Qatari citizenship was banished from Egypt decades ago & is known for his anti-Mubarak regime statements.
Al Qaradawi speaking now on Qatar TV “If a leader is hated he just leave. You can’t lead a people by force” http://yfrog.com/h4174sj
Al Qaradawi “O Pharaoh (Mubarak) the time of Pharaohs is over. You cannot force yourself. If you were their ‘father’ why did you kill them?”
Al Qaradawi “Millions of people don’t want you. As long as this man is there Egypt will not be stable”
Al Qaradawi “If he was really their ‘father’ he would have mercy on them. (Tunisia’s) Ben Ali had better logic, he left the people”
Al Qaradawi “Do you have a drop of mercy in you? Yesterday snipers killed ten protesters (in Meydan Tahrir), aren’t these your children?
Al Qaradawi “Mubarak is responsible for that happened. What happened yesterday & the day before is unacceptable, even the PM said so”
Al Qaradawi “The Youth were there, not one policeman was killed, the protesters didn’t shoot. Until the Baltagiya came, rented by the state”
Al Qaradawi “The same Baltagiya who stop voters from voting. How can a leader use criminals against his own people?”
Al Qaradawi “The Prime Minister says ‘I don’t know who did this?’ The gov did this”
Al Qaradawi “Like the poem goes, if you did know then it is a problem, and if you didn’t know then the problem is greater”
Al Qaradawi “Just because you want to stay seven months? You will kill your people for seven months? Leave now, go rest, you are 82”
Al Qaradawi “I call on Mubarak to leave. I call on his regime to leave. To the Egyptian army, protect your people, you fought for them”
Al Qaradawi “During King Farouk time the Egyptian army fought for Palestine, it can be the saviour of the Egyptian people”
Al Qaradawi “Sadly the army let the Baltagiya shoot the people over the last two day. Shots in the head, some are in critical condition too”
Al Qaradawi “This army that fought for Egypt I tell them stop this now, you must take responsibility. The VP is the President, the same”
Al Qaradawi “The regime will go but the state will stay. The army must protect, I’m not calling on them to rule, just protect your people”
Al Qaradawi “Take this power from the Vice President & give it to the people. The Parliament Speaker is a fraud, even Mubarak agreed”
Al Qaradawi “The Army must install an independent temporary supreme judge who will run the state, that is my wish now”
Al Qaradawi preaching in a Qatari mosque to Meydan Tahrir protesters. (extreme left) http://yfrog.com/h8twcxj
Al Qaradawi “Today we will pray for the souls of the martyred protesters of Egypt & of Tunisia”
Al Qaradawi said that the Qatari Embassy in Cairo has been closed because of the protests on Mustafa Mahmoud square.
Let the revolutionary spirit blossom for Egyptians, Tunisians, Jordanians, Sudanese, Yemenis and spread to all crevices of the world where dark tyranny stalks the people for the benefit of foreign satraps!
The Israeli cabinet has approved the Sheshinski Committee’s recommendations to raise the royalties on Israel’s gas fields from 33 to 55-65 percent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that most of the extra billions of dollars collected by the government will be allocated to education.
The statement from French Pre-sident Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero urged a “quick and orderly transition to a broad-based government.” “That transition process must start now,” it said.
RT @SultanAlQassemi: Scene only seen in Mecca before. 100s of thousands of Meydan Tahrir protesters pray together. http://yfrog.com/h8dsscvj
RT @SultanAlQassemi: There are 2 prayers at Meydan Tahrir, Muslims & Christians praying simultaneous…ly. Gathering est at over one million.
RT @MoatazMedhat: @Jinjirrie @SultanAlQassemi Actually it is estimated there are 2 Millions praying in Tahrir.#Egypt #jan25
RT @SultanAlQassemi: Al Jazeera estimates there are two million protesters. I don’t think they are wrong.
RT @avinunu: “No to Suleiman, Mossad agent, agent of America” – Amman protest speech #jan25
RT @avinunu: “No to Mubarak, son of Israel” Amman protestor #Jo #jan26 http://yfrog.com/h5twlsqlj
RT @SultanAlQassemi: Here’s the list of Committee of Wise-Leaders (disappointingly, they’re all men) http://bit.ly/hziimT Click English Version (Mousa is on it)
‘1610 GMT: Al Arabiya reports that the 10-man wise men committee has gotten positive feedback from President Mubarak about handing over power to VP Omar Suleiman. No one else has confirmed this’
The manoeuvres at the top of the regime have transparently been choreographed in Washington. Mubarak’s declaration on Tuesday night followed hard on the heels of a visit from the Obama administration’s envoy, Frank Wisner, a paid lobbyist of the Egyptian government, who was reported to have “urged” the Egyptian president not to stand again.
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 before its bailout with taxpayers’ money.
From the Guardian:
11.31pm GMT: Frank Wisner, the US special envoy sent by Obama to talk to Egypt’s government, is on his way back to the US, empty-handed it would appear. AP reports:
The White House had attempted to nudge Mubarak to the exits, dispatching former US Ambassador Frank Wisner as a special envoy to deliver the message to him. But by Wednesday, Wisner was on his way back to the United States.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the delicacy of the matter, suggested Wisner had been seeking specific pledges from Mubarak beyond just a promise not to stand for re-election. The official would not elaborate, but the administration has made no secret of the fact that it wants the state of emergency lifted and would prefer to see Mubarak’s son, Gamal, not try to succeed his father. Mubarak mentioned neither in his address Tuesday night.
Wisner is a veteran of “economic espionage” and is believed to have used his diplomatic cover to advance US governmental and corporate economic interests while he served as a diplomat to Asia. A member of Wisner’s staff told InterPress Services in 1997 that “if anybody asked the CIA to help promote US business in India, it was probably Frank”.
I understand if they expect a domestic audience to swoon for this sort of rhetoric, but do they actually expect that there is anyone in the Middle East, anywhere, who will take seriously the righteous objections of Hilary Clinton — the American Secretary of State and close Mubarak family friend — to the rise of an oppressive military dictatorship in the Middle East? Is anyone there really going to believe that it’s that government’s lack of respect for human rights — rather than its refusal to serve American interests and heed its various dictates — that is motivating the hostility and threats?
Egypt protests – live updates What lay behind Obama’s friendship with Mubarak? Erdogan is Brilliant Egypt: much too early to celebrate Google, Facebook, Twitter sound off on Egypt
RT @ArabRevolution: @VodafoneEgypt actively supporting Mubarak regime. SMS sent to Egyptians http://yfrog.com/gzhf7fvj BOYCOTT @VodafoneUK #
RT @jeremyscahill URGENT Cairo #journalists reporters GET OUT of your HOTEL ROOMS NOW http://bit.ly/gFRvZg #Jan25 RT NOW @chrislhayes #
@PJCrowley The perpetrators of today’s violence in #Egypt must be held accountable, and the government should tell its supporters to eschew violence. #
. @PJCrowley Take careful note ‘Pro-Mubarak supporters are recognizably police, says Peter Beaumont. ‘ http://tinyurl.com/4a8urur #
. @PJCrowley Some of the attackers caught. Their IDs showed them to be policemen dressed in civilians clothes.’ http://tinyurl.com/4nuvurn #
. @PJCrowley RT @alaa: Further proof there is police among the thugs, they’re now shooting tear gas #Jan25 # Protestor consoles Egyptian army officer
On January 15, the US mobilised the Connecticut National Guard Detachment 2, Company I, 185th Aviation Regiment of Groton to be deployed to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, “to support the Multinational Force and Observers”.
The unit left Connecticut Jan. 15 for Fort Benning, Ga., for further training and validation. The unit operates C-23C Sherpa aircraft and has deployed three times in the last seven years in support of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The unit will provide an on-demand aviation asset to the Multinational Force and Observers commander to support its mission of supervising the security provisions of the Egypt/ Israel Peace Treaty.
Chief Warrant Officer Four James Smith of Ivoryton commands the aviation unit.
Here’s a list of US deployments in the Sinai and a breakdown of the constituency of the multinational force.
The US contributes three units collectively known as Task Force Sinai:[8]
* Force HQ – 40 personnel
* Infantry Battalion (USBATT – drawn from National Guard units)- 425 personnel currently members of the Illinois Army National Guard to be replaced in early 2011 by the Maryland National Guard[9]
* Support Battalion – 235 personnel consisting of:
o Headquarters
o Medical Company consisting of Dental, Medical, Physical Therapy, Veterinarian, and Preventative Medicine.
o Explosive Ordnance Disposal Detachment (EOD)
o Aviation Company
As far as I can discover, the deployment has yet to reach its eventual destination and was routine.
The entrance of Egyptian military forces into Sinai is prohibited by the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, to which the US is a guarantor. Lisa Goldman and myself tried to get a reply from the IDF Spokesman, to no avail. The spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, Yigal Palmor, gave Goldman the following response: “We will have to analyze the situation. We are under clear instructions not to make any comment on the Egyptian situation, no matter what. So it’s not as though we’ll have an answer later on. You’ll just have to wait and see, okay?”
Several foreign policy scholars and former officials have been urging the U.S. administration for months to prepare for the end of the Hosni Mubarak era and the instability that would accompany it.
The United States has no plans to redeploy troops or ships in response to the unrest roiling Egypt and the instability in Tunisia and Jordan, the head of the U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.
On a visit to London, Gen. James Mattis said military leaders and lawmakers were closely watching developments, but stressed that he had no orders to rearrange his forces in response.
“These issues do not call for a military solution right now,” Mattis said. “There’s no reason right now for any shift in military forces, or anything like that. I’ve not received any orders.”
Mattis spells out the primary US strategic interest:
… he said it was unlikely events in Egypt would lead to difficulties for ships passing through the Suez Canal – another major concern for lawmakers and businesses.
The canal is the key route to the Mediterranean and used to avoid the longer and perilous path around Africa to the Atlantic Ocean.
“When you look at the fiscal impact of that on whoever is in a position of authority in Egypt, I just can’t imagine a motive to shut that down,” said Mattis, who succeeded Gen. David Petraeus as head of the military’s Central Command in August.
President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as “untouchable compensation” for making and maintaining peace with Israel. The tangible benefits to our mil-mil relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace. We believe, however, that our relationship can accomplish much more. Over the last year, we have engaged MOD leaders on developing shared strategic objectives to address current and emerging threats, including border security, counter terrorism, civil defense, and peacekeeping. Our efforts thus far have met with limited success.
The key question is, will the localized incident in
Mahalla spark a wider movement? The government is clearly
focused on containing unrest. Even while the riots were
still winding down, PM Nazif traveled to Mahalla, paid
bonuses to factory workers and praised those who did not join
in the riots (ref D). The government has also accelerated
arrests of activists in Cairo (ref E). The organizers of the
April 6 strike — distinct from Mahalla — have already
called, via Facebook, for a follow-on national strike on May
4, Mubarak’s eightieth birthday. Even regime insiders have
acknowledged the political savvy behind this tactic —
channeling current outrage towards the next big event. The
GOE responded with a press release announcing that President
Mubarak will give a May 5 speech to “underline Egypt’s keen
to desire to protect the rights of laborers and accentuate
the role they can play in the development process …. and to
reiterate the government’s commitment to safeguard the
interests of workers against any backlashes they might face
as a result of the economic reform program.” More broadly,
the government continues to address the shortage of
subsidized bread by using military bakeries and distribution
Another strain of this criticism, articulated most forcefully by Yediot Aharonot columnist Eitan Haber, who was a top aide to Yitzhak Rabin, is that this sends a dreadful message to Israel.
Obama threw Mubarak “to the dogs,” Haber wrote in a column that appeared on Monday.
“America, which waves the banner of ‘citizens rights,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘freedom of information,’ turned its back in a day on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.
Obama sold Mubarak for the pot of lentils of popularity among the Egyptian masses,” Haber wrote, adding that the US president did this without a true understanding of the Middle East.
“Our conclusion in Israel needs to be that the man sitting in the White House is liable to ‘sell’ us over night.
The thought that the US might not stand by our side in the day of need causes chills. God help us.”
This theme was also picked up by former Mossad head Danny Yatom, who said in an Israel Radio interview that the US treatment of Mubarak was a dangerous message to Washington’s allies in the region – including Israel – that they could not rely on America.
Yatom said Washington’s first error was not in more aggressively supporting the opposition in Iran when it took to the streets against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the summer of 2009.
By contrast, Yatom said, “there is an important relationship” between the US and Egypt, with Egypt an important layer in Washington’s regional policy.
“The way Obama and Hillary Clinton abandoned Mubarak at once is very problematic, and I think hints to other allies – for instance Israel – that these things can happen under certain grave circumstances to us as well, and to others.”
Yatom said the US erred in talking – as Clinton did on Sunday – of an orderly transition to lasting democracy, and should have instead sufficed with demanding reform.
They should have supported him [Mubarak], but demand more reform,” he said. “I think he would have responded.”
From Tunisia, to Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan and Yemen, people are rising up against the waning US empire’s puppet dictators while the US pays begrudging lip service to their struggle or like Biden, sacrifices the democratic aspirations of Egyptians to Israel and US geopolitical scheming (he means resources and militarisation). The price, once again for empire, is worth it? After all, these are only brown people who happen to be living where the resources which the US covets are situated. Several patronising US blogocrats of various shades of white supremacy have expressed less than admirable support for the courageous Egyptian people – surely these annoying foreign brown people should wait until the empire tells them it is convenient for them to pursue regime change, the government leaders they acquire after the revolution may be even more unappealing than their current torturous US allied villains. For neocon Laurent Murawiec afficionados, the dream of Egypt being the ‘prize’ for empire is surely now a nightmare.
Later, @PJCrowley tweeted “We are concerned that communication services, including the Internet, social media and even this #tweet, are being blocked in #Egypt.” #
The people’s demonstrations express heartfelt grassroots impatience to be rid of oppression – an impetus echoed also by Iranians attempting to dislodge their current repressive nexus. In Egypt,
At least four persons have died so far, 600 have been arrested and many more injured. Protests are flaring up in Cairo, 6th of October City, Suez, Mahalla al-Kubra and Alexandria.
“Young people are standing in the way of heavily armed armored vehicles and stopping them. People are genuinely frustrated,” Khaled al-Balashy, editor-in-chief of al-Badil newspaper told IPS.
“That was the first time I see people literally sacrificing their lives in face of police brutality,” al-Balashy said. “They think nothing worse could happen to them. This is unprecedented. And the changes will be equally unprecedented. It is a matter of time.”
Diaa Rashwan, an analyst with the semi-official al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies noted that the protests are now calling for regime change, not for the usual government benefits or reduction in food prices.
… the administration at least twice threatened to cut funding to the Palestinian Authority if elections were called and anyone other than Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad remained in power.
And it actively works with Israeli and Palestinian security services to deny the democratic will of Palestinians.
What is clear, then, is that Obama not only prefers the status quo, but the United States will actively subvert democracy in order to ensure that governments that will follow its policies remain in power.
If the administration has taken such an anti-democratic line with Palestinians, imagine how it must feel about the protests that have just exploded in Egypt, where substantive democratic change and a truly representative government would no doubt be far less amenable to US policies and strategic objectives regarding Israel and the war on terror than is Mubarak’s.
Faced with the overwhelming calumny and injustice of its oppressors evidenced in the Palestine Papers, dispossessed Palestinians are steadfast, continuing to insist on their rights.
For Amar al-Masaid, 28, history was something he lived with every day. “Our country was taken by force,” he said, amid jumbo boxes of cornflakes, tins of spam and chocolate Santa Clauses in his family’s shop. “They invaded us. They are a colonial power. We will never make any compromise. We will never sell our land. It would be better to stay with the Jews under occupation that give up our rights.”
His family had fled from Deir Aban in 1948; his father still has the deeds to the land they lost. “If you ask a little baby in these camps where their home is, they will answer you,” he said.
On cue, seven-year-old Dahoud and his sister Ranim, five, arrived to buy dried coconut, sent by their mother. Where did they come from? “Palestine,” said the boy; his sister whispered “Al-Maliha,” an Arab village south of Jerusalem until 1948, now home to a huge Israeli shopping mall and sports stadium.
According al-Masaid, the refugees live in a prison. Look around you, he said gesturing at the wall looming a couple of hundred yards away.
Nearby, 63-year-old Mousa al-Masaid, wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh, was passionately dismissive about the recent disclosures of negotiations. “I don’t care what they say on al-Jazeera,” he said. “All I care about is going back to my homeland. You want me to give up my land for peace? To hell with peace! I would rather live under the rule of monkeys than give up my land for peace.”
The Palestinian negotiators did not represent him, he said, and had no right to bargain away his homeland on his behalf.
The offices of the Palestinian ambassador to the UK have been occupied by a group of students who are demanding new Palestinian national council elections.
At 1pm today, around a dozen Palestinian students from a number of British universities arrived at the Palestinian general delegation to the UK in Hammersmith, west London.
Although they had made an appointment to see the ambassador, Professor Manuel Hassassian, they arrived in large numbers and with computers and banners.
A spokesman for the students said they had been moved to stage a peaceful sit-in by the release of leaked Palestinian papers over the last few days.
“The documents confirmed what we had known all along — that they are out of touch with the people,” the spokesman said.
As well as calling for new elections, the students — from Oxford, SOAS, LSE, City and Westminster universities — are demanding a more inclusive political process that reflects and engages all Palestinians.
“We are ready to stay as long as necessary until our message has been received and understood,” he said.
The ambassador, whose office has been occupied, has asked the students to leave the room but has told them they are welcome to remain in the building.
“They told me they wanted to hold a sit-in in my office. I told them: ‘You’re welcome. This is your embassy. This is your home’,” he said.
Hassassian also said he had agreed to pass their demands on to the Palestinian government, but needed his office back if he was to relay them.
“We are being very hospitable and we hope that they respect our hospitality,” he said.
Two Metropolitan police officers entered the embassy a little after 4pm, and chatted to the ambassador and protesters.
The Palestinian students have issued a demand for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation to be restored “as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.
@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa on Al Jazeera Arabic “The only replies from the govt were on the security front, no political concessions were offered” #Jan25 #
@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa “What we want is for President Mubarak to announce he will not run again for presidency or appoint his son as president” #Jan25 #
@SultanAlQassemi Hassan Nafaa “We want the parliament to be reformed. We want to hear Mubarak say ‘I understand your demands & we will comply'” #Jan25 #
@SultanAlQassemi FYI: Hassan Nafaa is Professor & Chairman of the Political Science department at Cairo University & anti-inheritance of power campaigner #
@SultanAlQassemi Poetry #Jan25 “O Security Officers, who will you protect when the Pashas flee Egypt like others have done? Carry two sheilds instead of one” #
@SultanAlQassemi Poetry of #Jan25 “And he wants to appoint his genius son for us as well? After 30 years!” Tamim Al Bargouthi poetry on Al Jazeera Mubasher. #
RT @ummhajarforpal: All known ways 2 stay online in #Egypt + HOWTO make gasmask http://wp.me/p16sn9-2QP #jan25 #bloggers Please RB & RT!!!
Later, @PJCrowley tweeted “We are concerned that communication services, including the Internet, social media and even this #tweet, are being blocked in #Egypt.” 