Iran : Current Convenient Existential Threat for Ziostan

In an article unwisely gloating about the success of the Stuxnet hit on Iranian nuclear energy development, Yossi Melman in Haaretz gets one thing right:

Israel will not attack Iran. At least not in the next few years. It will not attack, first and foremost, because the United States opposes such a move. Israel has never taken any independent step on a strategic issue of global importance without first coordinating or consulting with its allies, or at least without reaching the conclusion that the move would be received favorably in Washington.

Also in Haaretz, examining Barak’s defection from the Labor Party, Aluf Benn opines in contrast with Melman:

Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu share a worldview. Both enjoy smoking cigars and reading biographies of Winston Churchill. Both consider Israel a Western bastion in the heart of a hostile Muslim world. Both do not trust the Arabs and believe that there is “no partner” on the Palestinian side. And both consider the Iranian nuclear program a major threat to Israel and support a military operation against it.

The press conference of former Mossad chief Meir Dagan undermined the view of Barak and Netanyahu: If the timetable for an Iranian bomb has been pushed back to 2015, there is no need to send the bombers to Natanz this year. But they have not given in. Barak’s political-security chief at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, was quick to warn that the Iranian timetable is even shorter, and Dagan took back some of his statements yesterday at the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, apparently under pressure by the prime minister.

Netanyahu and Barak have hinted over the past two weeks that Israel is on the verge of a surprising diplomatic move. In his address to foreign reporters, Netanyahu promised that in 2011 “the truth will emerge” about who really wants peace in the region.

Well, Nutanyahoo, we have just seen who wants democracy in the region, and it isn’t you – for you, arab democracy is also a threat. Yet while people’s rights are being trampled, there will not be peace. Anyone who has actually experienced the fascist boot on their neck knows this. Therefore Nutanyahoo really doesn’t want peace either. Ziostan is at 144th position on the Global Peace Index. The Dark Prince mistakes peace for the sinister calm that follows genocide of Palestinians and home demolitions, whilst manufacturing convenient exaggerated threats from neighbours with no intention of attacking Ziostan. Thus Ziostanian militarism and its totalitarian drive for expansionism is sustained, the neocolonial defence industry is happy, Ziostan retains a preemptive claim on victimhood and support from Ziostan’s neocolonial sponsors and Ziostan-first lobby is ensured.

Rinse and repeat. Iraq yesterday, Iran today, then who’s next to be demonised by Ziostan from the ‘hostile sea of Arabs’ which surround it, regarded as undeserving of rights the Ziostanian ruling elite take for granted?

Palestine / Israel Links

Ex-IAEA chief: west ‘hyping’ Iran nuclear threat
Military strike on Iran is what unites Netanyahu and Barak
What a Joke – as if the US will permit the UN to make a decision for Israel. Before the UN makes a decision for us : Israeli rejection of a fair American peace proposal is liable to accelerate a decision by the UN General Assembly and to exacerbate the internal conflict in Israel.
Bulldozes from the Jewish National Fund demolished the Bedouin village for Al-Arakib for the ninth time yesterday and today.
Strength in numbers
Israel’s ‘Labor’ Party implodes : Barak Leaving Labor: Rats Leaving Sinking Ship
Gaza Diary day 24: visiting the Samounis
We Have a Dream – My Palestinian Partner and I’s Plea for Peace
More ‘Talk of Peace Talks’ hasbara : Netanyahu aides: Labor Party split will help advance peace talks with Palestinians
Did pop star Paradis cancel Israel concert over politics?
#BDS: Vanessa, n’y va pas!
To Exist is To Resist
Top UNRWA officials resign
A Gaza family’s tragedy
Gaza: Life and death in the buffer zone
MK praises resolve of Al-Araqib village

Tunisia

Long live the Autonomous Popular Resistance in Tunisia!
Cablegate And Tunisia : Suha And Laila
Tunisia: How the US got it wrong
Long live the Autonomous Popular Resistance in Tunisia!
To the tyrants of the Arab world…
Tunisia and reshaping the Arab world

Wikileaks Links

Whistleblower Rudolf Elmer hands over Swiss bank documents

Other Links

How blogging and hip-hop are undermining the US military from within
Our world is addicted to risk to fund our lifestyle
Rome told bishops not to report abuse
Secret inquiries into secret crimes – ‘The news over the weekend that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has asked the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (the IGIS) to inquire into new claims that the Australian government was complicit in a CIA rendition to Egypt (where he was tortured) of former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib should be met with some scepticism.’
Tribute to Patrice Lumumba On The 50th Anniversary Of His Assassination
Child detentions ‘unlawful’, High Court to be told

After the Tyrant of Tunisia Fled

Whilst Ben Ali commiserates with 1.5 tons of gold and his new Saudi hosts on the loss of his holiday homes and yachts which he and his family pilfered, the Dark Prince of Ziostan seizes upon the tyrant’s ousting as yet another reason to delay the peace talks charade. ‘Talking of Peace Talks’ is a customary game played with international elites by the Ziostanian ruling class when they are not aggressing some neighbour or Palestinians unworthy of democracy, which is perceived as a risk by Ziostan’s elite to their ‘stability, security and peace’. It is a pleasant, hands-across-the-waters effusive pastime which obscures even more enjoyable activities like home demolitions, accelerated land theft throughout the West Bank, Occupied Jerusalem and the Negev, shooting motorists, or small boys and old men who stray too close to the Gaza apartheid fence when struggling to eke out a living collecting stones and pebbles to rebuild their famous landmark – the largest civilian prison on the planet. The main game though for Ziostan, its strategy, tactic and aim, is expansionism, the taking of territory which wondrously can be justified in retrospect or even in advance, for Ziostan’s constant demand for ‘stability, security and peace’ is paramount before the most rudimentary needs for survival of those they oppress.

It is two years since Ziostan declared its massacre of the people of Gaza over, and the hideous, illegal siege remains, with the full complicity of the global political community which has chosen shining, privileged, packaged ziocolony to rule over and occupy Palestinians. Ziostan commandeered more than 3 million dunam of cultivated fields and villages during and after their genocide and expulsion of Palestinians, the Nakba, in 1948. The inconvenience of the continued presence of suffering, protesting Palestinians as a distraction from fiercely marketed tactical Ziostanian victimhood is perceived as a small price to pay in order to usurp the balance of Palestinian land and resources which Ziostan covets. Those who resist Ziostanian power even in non-violent ways, including children, are often summarily jailed, labelled terrorists and tortured. There will be no need for two states if Ziostan can appropriate all Palestinian land without resistance or approbation from the international community. The ‘talk of peace talks’ charade provides window dressing for the international ruling class and ameloriates criticism within Ziostan itself. Failure of ‘peace talks’ is routinely blamed upon Palestinians unwilling to surrender one more dunam of their indigenous birthright and heritage or to forgo the right of return guaranteed by international law. Conscience is no impediment to the elite of Ziostan, for as with other elites, Ziostanians do not flinch from their righteous dispossession of those whom they perceive as lesser humans or not human at all.

The Dark Prince remains aloof from many of his own people as he is from Palestinians and transfixed by the hunt, does not understand the lessons presently before him. Yet neither he nor the rest of his ziofascist retinue or contrived brute force, theft and calumny can withstand the people’s search for real security and peace based soundly on justice and equal rights and backed with a growing solidarity movement focussed on boycotts, divestments and sanctions. Tinpot dictatorial sociopaths with Uzis, F15s, dungeons, pain, the whole banal sex and death repertoire have limited appeal – fascistic crises and spectacles lose their lustre after their twisted motivations are exposed.

Perhaps when Nutanyahoo is finally ousted by a united people hungry for real democracy, he too can apply to Saudia for a political sinecure or respite.

In Egypt, Abul Gheit reacts furiously and with unconscious irony to Clinton’s hypocritical statements:

“We hope that the summit will adopt Egypt’s proposal which would be a message from the Arab to the Western and European world saying ‘Do not dare interfere in our affairs”, he was quoted as saying by the official MENA news agency.

MENA said he was responding to a question from one of its journalists who asked if the summit could adopt a common position concerning Western bids to interfere in Arab affairs.

On Thursday, Clinton urged Arab leaders to work with their peoples to implement reforms or see extremists fill the void, warning the “region’s foundations are sinking”.

The region’s peoples “have grown tired of corrupt institutions”, Clinton told Arab counterparts in Qatar attending the Forum for the Future, a 2004 US initiative aimed at promoting such partnerships.

“In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand. The new and dynamic Middle East that I have seen needs firmer ground if it is to take root and grow everywhere,” she said.

Clinton said the region’s leaders “in partnership with their peoples” have the capacity to build a bold new future where entrepreneurship and political freedoms are encouraged.

“It’s time to see civil society not as a threat but as a partner,” she said.

“Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while but not forever.

“Others will fill the vacuum,” if leaders failed to offer a positive vision to give “young people meaningful ways to contribute”, Clinton warned.

Abul Gheit also dismissed the notion that people in the Arab world could be inspired by Tunisia, where violent protests forced president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali to abandon his post.

“The talk about the spread of what happened in Tunisia to other countries is nonsense. Each society has its own circumstances,” Abul Gheit told reporters in Sharm El Sheikh.

“If the Tunisian people decide to take that approach, it’s their business.

“Egypt has said that the Tunisian people’s will is what counts,” said the foreign minister.

“Those who imagine things and seek to escalate the situation will not achieve their goals.

“The most important thing is the will of the Tunisian people. Nobody is resisting it,” Abul Gheit added..

It is most important for dictators to resist the will of the people – yet even Pharaohs may fall when the people no longer tolerate their cruelty and corruption.

Related Links

Netanyahu: Tunisia turmoil shows instability of entire Mideast
Netanyahu seizes on Tunisian turmoil as yet another pretext for iron wall
Uneasy calm in Tunisia as power talks continue
Brave soldier Netanyahu is turning out to be coward
Riots in Algeria
The Candid Guide to Arab Dictators
New Wikileaks: US Knew Tunisian Gov. Rotten Corrupt, Supported Ben Ali Anyway

Palestine / Israel Links

Peres: Probe of Leftist NGOs harms Israeli democracy (What democracy?)

Other Links

Floods, prices and mortality
Joe Hallett commentary: Snooping on journalist’s family is new low for Democrats
Ezili Dantò’s Note on the arrival of Jean Claude Duvalier into Haiti today
1974 – South East Queensland – Cyclone Wanda

Resistance to Israeli Apartheid – Freedom Will Come

The successful ousting of US-backed dictator Ben Ali by a concerted mass movement of the Tunisian people must surely send a shiver of horror through the zionist usurpers and other oppressors.

In the past few days, there have been two major BDS wins – Vanessa Paradis, partner of Johnny Depp, has cancelled her concert, while major UK retailer, John Lewis, has stopped stocking Ahava products.

Worthy of note also is Marrickville Mayor Fiona Byrne’s article on ABC Unleashed, discussing her council’s historic decision to boycott Israeli products.

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, Silvan Shalom (should be Vice Prime Minister), eats his foot up to the ankle:

The fall of Tunisia’s regime headed by Zine El Abidine Ben Alican have serious repercussions, said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom.

In an interview on Israeli radio Friday night, Shalom said that he comes from a family of Tunisian immigrants.

“I fear that we now stand before a new and very critical phase in the Arab world. If the current Tunisian regime collapses, it will not affect Israel’s present national security in a significant way,” he said. “But we can, however, assume that these developments would set a precedent that could be repeated in other countries, possibly affecting directly the stability of our system.”

Shalom added that if regimes neighbouring the Israeli state were replaced by democratic systems, Israeli national security might significantly be threatened. The new systems would defend or adopt agendas that are inherently opposed to Israeli national security, he said.

The deputy indicated that Israel and most of the Arab regimes have a common interest in fighting what he referred to as “Islamic fundamentalism” and its “radical” organisations which threaten Israel.

This threat, he added, is the reason behind much of the direct and indirect intelligence and security coordination between Israel and the Arab regimes.

Shalom emphasised that a democratic Arab world would end this present allegiance, because a democratic system would be governed by a public generally opposed to Israel.

At least Silvan is honest about Israel’s whole-hearted approval of tyranny, unlike the duplicitous US/EU condominium and vile PA collaborators. Ynet zioshill, Smadar Peri, starts laying groundwork to drive arabs back where zionists feel they belong – under the boot.

In Haaretz, Nutanyahoo chants the time-tested hasbaramantra of peace, stability and security, echoing the prevaricative US litany. Both perpetually fail to mention justice and equal rights as a precursor to their disingenuous outcomes. Again, Shalom was more forthright.

Let the righteous ostracism of the unjustifiable, inexcusable apartheid zionist entity continue and prosper until the criminal apartheid wall falls, the filthy Occupation ends and Palestinian people attain the civil and political rights enjoyed by Jewish Israelis in one democratic state in all of Palestine / Israel!

Related Links

Israel dreading a democratic Arab world
New Wikileaks: US Knew Tunisian Gov. Rotten Corrupt, Supported Ben Ali Anyway
Tunisia swears in interim leader
Tunisia: U.S. Backing Dictatorship over Pro-Democracy Movement
James Zogby During The TUNISIAN Revolution?
“Irish Artists’ Pledge to Boycott Israel” reaches 200 signatories
A SECOND OPEN LETTER TO THOMAS QUASTHOFF
Chomsky: who says Israeli apartheid can’t last forever?
La famille Ben Ali se serait enfuie de Tunisie avec 1,5 tonne d’or : Ben Ali’s family absconds with 1.5 tons of gold
Intensified colonisation by zionist occupation
US covering up for its own perfidious support of the dictator – US: WikiLeaks Cables Not the Cause of Tunisia Uprising
The Candid Guide to Arab Dictators

Palestine / Israel Links

‘Jewish group tells Fox to fire Glenn Beck’
Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay
Documenting the Crimes of Torture Committed by the CIA, EU and Israeli trained “Palestinian Authority” in the West Bank [.pdf]
Netanyahu to propose Knesset panel also investigate funding of rightist NGOs
Bedouin village razed again; residents: Fascist state
Israeli government invades Muslim quarter to expand Jewish ‘Western Wall’ site

Wikileaks Links

US Geneva mission under investigation
Joke of the Day : Miss America 2011: “Wikileaks was actually based on espionage.”
OHB-System Disclaims Wikileaks Report of CEO Comments on Galileo

Other Links

Afghanistan: NATO strike kills 6 of a family in Kunar
Fined for Helping Iraqi Kids : Bert Sacks vs. the US Government
Gillard announces an Independent review of the intelligence community
Former dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier returns to Haiti
Looking Behind the Mug-Shot Grin of an Accused Killer
ACMA: ABC and BBC may hamper Murdoch’s paid content model

US War Criminals : Where are they now? Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright - The Price Is Ongoing
The Price Is Ongoing

From an August 09 Wikileaks cable, Madeleine Albright, apologist for US genocide in Iraq, was once more elevated, this time within NATO:

(U) According to Rasmussen the twelve individuals were chosen in order represent a broad range of Allies, as well as to bring a broad range of skills and expertise to the job.
They are:

– Madeleine Albright as Chair of the Experts Group, the United States, former Secretary of State

To recap on Albright’s sociopathic admission:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.

–60 Minutes (5/12/96)

The disgraceful US sanctions and its successive wars of plunder and aggression against Iraq have been highlighted through Wikileaks’ publication of the relevant cable chronicling April Glaspie’s duplicitous ‘Green Light’ to Saddam. A year after the deranged Albright made her appalling statement, she was confirmed by the US Senate as Clinton’s Secretary of State.

Sheldon Richman adequately disposes of Albright’s bleating attempt to recant in her autobiography:

Albright has just published her memoirs, Madam Secretary, in which she clarifies her statement. Here’s what she writes:

I must have been crazy; I should have answered the question by reframing it and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it. Saddam Hussein could have prevented any child from suffering simply by meeting his obligations…. As soon as I had spoken, I wished for the power to freeze time and take back those words. My reply had been a terrible mistake, hasty, clumsy and wrong. Nothing matters more than the lives of innocent people. I had fallen into the trap and said something I simply did not mean. That was no one’s fault but my own. (p. 275)

In the paragraph before this one she complains about the 60 Minutes report because “little effort was made to explain Saddam’s culpability, his misuse of Iraqi resources, or the fact that we were not embargoing medicine or food.”

When one reviews the facts, it is clear that Albright’s explanation is woefully inadequate. First, it contains an apparent contradiction. She says food and medicine were not embargoed, but then she says Saddam Hussein could have avoided the suffering “simply by meeting his obligations.” Does that mean more food would have been available had Hussein done what the U.S. government wanted? If so, weren’t American officials at least partly responsible for the harm done to the Iraqi people? Hussein certainly did not let his people starve. The New York Times and Washington Post have reported that in answer to the sanctions, Saddam Hussein maintained an elaborate food-rationing program for rich and poor, presumably to hold the loyalty of the Iraqi people, which the sanctions were supposedly intended to dissolve. Iraqis are reported to be reluctant to give up the program even though Hussein is gone and the sanctions are over.

Albright is being disingenuous. Although food wasn’t formally embargoed when the sanctions began in 1990, Iraq was hampered in importing it because initially Iraqi oil couldn’t be exported. No exports, no imports. The UN’s “oil for food” program, started six years later, after Hussein dropped his opposition, was supposed to remedy that. But it didn’t entirely. Counterpunch.org reported in 1999, “Proceeds from such oil sales are banked in New York…. Thirty-four percent is skimmed off for disbursement to outside parties with claims on Iraq, such as the Kuwaitis, as well as to meet the costs of the UN effort in Iraq. A further thirteen percent goes to meet the needs of the Kurdish autonomous area in the north.” With the remaining limited amount of money, the Iraqi government could order “food, medicine, medical equipment, infrastructure equipment to repair water and sanitation” and other things. But — and here’s the rub — the U.S. government could veto or delay any items ordered. And it did.

As Joy Gordon reported in the November 2001 Harper’s,

The United States has fought aggressively throughout the last decade to purposefully minimize the humanitarian goods that enter the country…. Since August 1991 the United States has blocked most purchases of materials necessary for Iraq to generate electricity, as well as equipment for radio, telephone, and other communications. Often restrictions have hinged on the withholding of a single essential element, rendering many approved items useless. For example, Iraq was allowed to purchase a sewage-treatment plant but was blocked from buying the generator necessary to run it; this in a country that has been pouring 300,000 tons of raw sewage daily into its rivers.

For Albright to say that food and medicine were not embargoed is to evade the fact that critical public-health needs could not be addressed because of the sanctions. Preventing a society from purifying its water and treating its sewage is a particularly brutal way to inflict harm, especially on its children. Disease was rampant, and infant mortality rose because of the sanctions. Let’s not forget that destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure was a deliberate aim of the U.S. bombing during the 1991 Gulf War.

No wonder two UN humanitarian coordinators quit over the sanctions. As one of them, Denis Halliday, said when he left in 1998, “I’ve been using the word ‘genocide’ because this is a deliberate policy to destroy the people of Iraq. I’m afraid I have no other view.”

Albright now writes that her answer to Stahl was “crazy” and that she regretted it “as soon as [she] had spoken.” Yet she did not take back her words between 1996 and Sept. 11, 2001. According to journalist Matt Welch, after being plagued by student protesters she “quietly” expressed regret for her statement in a speech at the University Southern California shortly after 9/11. But neither her office nor the Clinton administration issued a prominent clarification to the American people or the world. Could that be because her initial answer was sincere and that her belated apology was issued with her legacy in mind? We can be sure of one thing: word of her response spread throughout the Arab world. Maybe even among some of the 9/11 terrorists.

Albright resigned from her position on the NYSE Board in 2005 after the Grasso scandal.

Since the US has been caught redhanded spying on UN diplomats and others via Wikileaks cables, the ‘unparalled serpent’ Albright should hand in her jewelled bug brooch collection.

Future forecast – Albright should be in the dock at Le Hague, not wafting around Europe at lofty heights plotting more mass murder.

Related Links

Madeleine Albright
Democracy Now! Confronts Madeline Albright on the Iraq Sanctions: Was It Worth The Price?
Clinton aide’s idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane
Madeleine Albright at Wikipedia – needs updating
Baghdad gets less than one hour of electricity a day
For Albright and Rice, Josef Korbel Is Tie that Binds
Clinton’s New Foreign Affairs Team: Good on Bosnia, Bad on Palestine
The Missing Pieces in The Missing Peace – Dennis Ross
The genesis of the US tilt toward Saddam – American Dreamers:

‘JONATHAN HOLMES: The Soviet Union was the main enemy in the ’70s and early ’80s. But there were others too. In 1979, a certain Saddam Hussein became dictator in Baghdad. That year in the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz was studying America’s war plans for the Persian Gulf. He and his assistant Dennis Ross warned that the new Iraqi leader could soon become a threat to the oil-rich Gulf States.

DENNIS ROSS, FORMER US MIDDLE EAST NEGOTIATOR: At that point, the Arab neighbours were looking at Iraq as a kind of bulwark against the Iranians. We were looking beyond that, saying, “Look, we’re not so sure that Iraq has such benign intentions towards its neighbours. And if it becomes very powerful, we’re going to find that it may use its power either directly or coercively.”

JONATHAN HOLMES: You actually recommended effectively setting up what became Central Command, didn’t you?

DENNIS ROSS: Absolutely. Much of what we subsequently did in the Gulf and the basis for what we even do today was drawn from that study which Paul directed.

JONATHAN HOLMES: But within a year, a much more dangerous challenge had appeared in the Gulf. The Iranian Revolution replaced America’s closest friend, the Shah, with a charismatic and implacable enemy, the Ayatollah Khomeini. As Saddam Hussein fought a bloody eight-year war against Iran, the Reagan Administration overcame its moral distaste for tyrants. He was treated as a favoured American ally.

PHYLLIS BENNIS, INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES: Throughout the1980s, it was United States resources from a…particularly from a country right here outside of Washington, DC, a small company called the American Type Culture Collection, that sold Iraq the seed stock for biological weapons, the seed stock for E. coli, for anthrax, for botulism, for a host of horrific diseases. And even at that time, it was known that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and against Kurdish civilians. And yet, Donald Rumsfeld, who was then a special envoy of President Reagan, went to Baghdad simply to shake hands with Saddam Hussein and urge the reopening of full diplomatic relations.’

Text: Condoleezza Rice at the Republican National Convention

RICE: And tonight, we gather to acknowledge this remarkable truth: The future belongs to liberty, fueled by markets in trade, protected by the rule of law and propelled by the fundamental rights of the individual. Information and knowledge can no longer be bottled up by the state. Prosperity flows to those who can tap the genius of their people.

George W. Bush will never allow America and our allies to be blackmailed. And make no mistake about it, blackmail is what the outlaw states seeking long-range ballistic missiles have in mind.

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Chomsky: who says Israeli apartheid can’t last forever?
South African Jewish group prepares war-crimes charges against Livni in advance of visit
Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay
Israël : Vanessa Paradis annule son concert à Tel Aviv

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Assange: Wikileaks timing “no coincidence”
Swiss whistleblower Rudolf Elmer plans to hand over offshore banking secrets of the rich and famous to WikiLeaks

Other Links

Combat in Our Genes?

In Solidarity, People Have the Power; Communication & Information are Tools

Ben AliBen Ali, cruel, corrupt dictator of Tunisia for the past 23 years, has fled to Saudi Arabia where he’s esconced with his kindred American-sponsored oppressors and nutjobs. Viva Tunisia, Abajo con La Bestia, Tierra y Libertad!

The blogonewspunditwitosphere is swarming with theoreticians, some suggesting Wikileaks played an integral role, others admiring social media, still others more measured and analytic, and others highlighting the dangers of social media for protestors.

Being well-enmeshed in the social media arena, I have perceived continuous international solidarity for the Tunisian revolution, with people’s liberation movements against injustice across the Middle East and elsewhere that tyranny blooms darkly. Yet while information, communication and cyberactivism essentially grease the wheels of change, it is suffering people under the boot who put their lives at risk on the front line, doing the really heavy lifting and organisation.

Few commentators outside the African/Middle East region have examined the impact of “Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian who set himself on fire in protest against unemployment and poverty” who “has become a symbol of Tunisian sacrifices for freedom”, or extolled the involvement of Tunisian trade unions, grassroots solidarity movements and opposition parties. As Qunfuz notes:

The dictator, thief and Western client Zein al-Abdine Ben Ali, beloved until a few hours ago in Paris and Washington, has been driven from Tunisia. His reign was ended not by a military or palace coup but by an extraordinarily broad-based popular movement which has brought together trades unions and professional associations, students and schoolchildren, the unemployed and farmers, leftists, liberals and intelligent Islamists, men and women. One of the people’s most prominent slogans will resonate throughout the Arab world and beyond: la khowf ba’ad al-yowm, or No Fear From Now On.

Egyptian blogger, Zeinobia, further dispels colonial western mythology which minimises the achievement of the Tunisian people.

No one has a hand in the success of this revolution except the people of Tunisia , no Islamists nor communists , it was a pure people’s action. Those who only woke up on the revolution last Friday have these lame excuses and explanations because they did not follow the matter since the 17th of December 2010. I am proud to say that I have followed it since the beginning ,this is a real people’s revolution. The people of the world do not understand what is happening because it happened too fast. The Tunisian people are highly educated , they have the highest level of literacy in the Arab world and Africa combined together , they know their rights very well and they have suffered a lot. They know what they know and did.

With a tangible, similar grassroots movement for liberation within Egypt and elsewhere, Mubarak and his fellow puppet dictators must be very nervous indeed. How will the neocolonial empire regard the potential tumbling of its house of cards? what of the actions of the Israeli coloniser if Egypt follows the Tunisian trajectory? would Israel then shift its convenient ‘existential threat’ tactic to focus on Egypt rather than Iran?

Remembering Muriawec’s Grand Strategy “Iraq is the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot, Egypt the prize” theorem which ignited some in the Pentagon and inspired neozioconservatives, what are these dark forces ruminating? will the empire choose to relinquish power and opt for sleazy neoliberal ‘polite rape’ or are we heading toward a stark regional standoff where it is increasingly exposed and isolated as the major hand supporting tyranny?

The imperial entity and its cronies supported the Tunisian dictatorship, as it was considered to be a reliable partner in the duplicitous ‘war on terrorism’.

During a 2004 visit by Ben Ali to the White House, in advance of Tunisia’s hosting of an Arab League summit, George Bush, the then US president, praised his guest as an ally in the war on terrorism, and praised Tunisia’s reforms in “press freedom” and the holding of “free and competitive elections”.

The same was repeated in 2008 by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who praised the improved “sphere of liberties” when human rights abuses were rampant in Tunisia. In once instance, at least 200 people were prosecuted against the backdrop of socio-economic protests in one southern mining town, Redhayef.

When certain European officials criticised Tunisia’s human rights record, they generally praised its economic performance.

For US and European leaders, Tunisia’s deposed president had been considered a staunch ally in the war on terrorism and against Islamist extremism.

In solidarity, we can keep reminding each other through many convenient means that the main game is for money, impunity, power positioning and control of resources against equal human rights, liberty and justice. Unless power is wrested from the ruling class, unless all are equally subject to the rule of law, the cards have merely been shuffled.

Related Links

Arab Activism: Brought to you by a White Man
2011-01-15 What the US state cables on Tunisia said
The Press Release The ADC Did Not Release On The Revolution In TUNISIA
Tunisian poet Echebbi’s words hold warning for tyrants of Arab world
Timeline: Tunisia’s civil unrest
Tunisians cautious on concessions
Talk Morocco on the Tunisian Uprising
Social media and the Tunisian revolution
What if Tunisia’s revolution ended up like Iran’s?
Could Tunisia Be The Next Twitter Revolution? Ctd
Wikileaks disclosures play key role in Ben Ali’s outing
For the Arab World, a Potent Lesson
“Centrism” and the Rule of Law
Was What Happened in Tunisia a Twitter Revolution?
The First Middle Eastern Revolution since 1979
#Tunisia a small country, without natural resources, but… #sidibouzid
This Is The Wikileak That Sparked The Tunisian Crisis
Tunisia: the Uprising Has a Hashtag
Tunisian president toppled
Tunisia’s bitter cyberwar
‘First Wikileaks Revolution’: Tunisia riots blamed on cables which revealed country’s corruption
The rebirth of Arab activism
Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution: Unprecedented, but uncertain
Tunisia Uprising 2010/11
Ousted president in Saudi Arabia
Profile: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali – Tunisian president flees amid a wave of deadly social protests in a dramatic end to his 23 years in power.
photo of police in uniforms pillaging & looting shops #sidibouzid
Tonight we are all Tunisians
The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
Pro-U.S. President Flees Tunisia: That WikiLeaks Angle
Joy as Tunisian President Flees Offers Lesson to Arab Leaders
Not Twitter, Not WikiLeaks: A Human Revolution
Tunisia: Can We Please Stop Talking About ‘Twitter Revolutions’

Today’s Palestine / Israel Links

Israeli bulldozers do the talking
Israeli occupation to build a hotel on the ruins of the Qashala cemetery
Israel grouchy with its collaborating oppressors? blocks delivery of Russian armored vehicles to Palestinian territories
Latest Chapter in Mideast Tension Is Dennis Ross vs. George Mitchell
AIPAC’s Man, Dennis Ross, Now In Charge of Middle East
World-renowned computer scientist suffers harrowing mid-air IQ drop
Palin doesn’t threaten pogroms
Glenn Beck’s Jewish Obsession Plus More On Iran Sanctions Idiocy
CPJ condemns Israeli security for humiliating screening
Leading UK store backs settlement boycott
Salah Ad-Din Al-Husseini, Prominent Palestinian poet dies in Cairo
Orthodox publication openly calls for death camps
Pro-Israel Control of Obama’s Middle East Policy

Today’s Wikileaks Links

Blacklisting WikiLeaks
John Pilger’s Investigation Into the War on WikiLeaks and His Interview With Julian Assange
NSW Greens MP explains why Wikileaks matters
Belarusian Helsinki Commitee & Frontline, HR organisations, targeted by Lukashenka
Government-controlled newspaper accuses EU countries of plotting Lukashenka’s overthrow
More opposition activists have homes searched by KGB
More Shamir shenanigans, and someone else is noticing:
This is how many of us feel about Wikileaks
WikiLeaks covers Belarus’ banking sector
“… Below is the full version of the document provided to the online Naviny.by newspaper by representative of the WikiLeaks media organization Israel Shamir.”
Unpublished Wikileaks Cables Appear on State-Backed Belarussian Website
Belarus: Widespread searches and judicial harassment of human rights defenders following Presidential Elections
Unredacted WikiLeaks Cables Leaked to Internet

Other Links

The United States as Jared Loughner: How the State Sanctifies Murder
Brazil’s environment chief resigns over controversial Amazon dam
More than 610 killed in Brazil flooding, mudslides
Alastair Campbell diaries: How Blair’s Bible reading prompted Iraq ‘wobble’
PHR’s new report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, “for the first time medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of men who endured torture by US personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. These men were never charged with any crime.”
USA Today Edits the Count of the Dead in Iraq
Obama in Tucson: Shame, Hypocrisy and Deceit
Australian floods: Why were we so surprised?
Kuwait: Physical assault, arbitrary detention and fears of unfair trial against human rights defender Dr Obaid Alwasmi
No Victors in Lebanon
Aboriginal languages in NSW