US Works for Dictatorship [particularly in N Africa] --- The Independent (UK) Leading article: Western hypocrisy towards the Arab world stands exposed Saturday, 29 January 2011 Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt...the arc of popular discontent continues to grow. But it is the tumultuous scenes from Egypt this week, culminating in the running battles in many cities yesterday, that highlight the volatility of the situation – and the dilemma for the United States and the rest of the Western world. That such a dilemma exists at all is largely of our own making. We have long observed a double standard in relations with most Arab countries. We turned a blind eye to internal repression and stagnation, so long as the appearance of internal stability was preserved and the oil routes remained secure. The consequence was a chain of undemocratic regimes from North Africa to the Gulf, which enjoyed US and British patronage. This is the state of affairs that persists pretty much to this day. As demands for change reverberate further and further from Tunisia, the hypocrisy separating the West's words and deeds can no longer be sustained. How rich an irony it was to hear Tony Blair – the man who so heedlessly helped to topple Saddam Hussein – speak yesterday of the need above all for stability in Egypt. --- MSNBC Jan 29, 2011 Something enormously important is happening half a world away from us tonight. the nation of egypt is probably changing forever, and it may not stop there. what appears to be a revolution is under way, led by protesters in the streets against the almost 30-year rule of president hosni mubarak. late tonight local time he went on television, gave a speech talking about freedom and democracy. he said he's going to replace his entire government tomorrow. we learn tonight he spoke with president obama for 30 minutes. Egypt is now in a state of revolt. Waves of thousands of protesters rushed riot police, who drove them back with water cannons and tear gas. [Note that one picture I will post to nhmakingwaves.org shows a Cairo protester holding up a tear gas canister, labeled in english: "For use only by qualified personel... Made in USA." Clearly US leaders have long considered Egypt's regime qualified to be heavily armed, despite their repression.] The protesters now call themselves revolutionaries, launched bottles, stones and molotov cocktails. they tore up the streets to throw blocks of pavement at riot police. As evening fell, police vehicles were attacked and set on fire. Embattled President Hosni Mubarak fired his Cabinet early Saturday and promised reforms after protesters engulfed his country in chaos — battling police with stones and firebombs, burning down the ruling party headquarters and defying a night curfew enforced by a military deployment. Flames rose in cities across Egypt. While crowds looted buildings of the ruling National Democratic Party neighboring the Egyptian Museum, home of King Tutankhamun's treasures, young men could be seen forming a human barricade in front of the museum to protect it. Security officials said there were protests in at least 11 of the country's 28 provinces, and unrest roiled major cities like Alexandria, Suez, Assiut and Port Said. Demonstrators were seen dragging blooded, unconsciousness fellow protesters to waiting cars and on to hospitals. No official number of wounded, or updated death toll, was immediately available. Mubarak now seems faced with the choice between a harsher crackdown and major concessions to tens of thousands of rich, poor and middle-class protesters united in rage against a regime seen as corrupt, abusive and neglectful of the nearly half of Egypt's 80 million people who live below the poverty line of $2 a day. Demonstrators wielding rocks, glass and sticks chased hundreds of riot police away from the main square in downtown Cairo and several of the policemen stripped off their uniforms and badges and joined the demonstrators. An Associated Press reporter saw the protesters cheering the police who joined them and hoisting them on their shoulders. "We are the ones who will bring change," said 21-year-old Ahmed Sharif. "If we do nothing, things will get worse. Change must come!" Many say the fruits of growth in this formerly socialist economy have been funneled almost entirely to a politically connected elite, leaving average Egyptians surrounded by unattainable symbols of wealth such as luxury housing and high-priced electronics as they struggle to find jobs, pay daily bills and find affordable housing. Some of the most serious violence Friday was in Suez, where protesters seized weapons stored in a police station and asked the policemen inside to leave the building before they burned it down. They also set ablaze about 20 police trucks parked nearby. Demonstrators exchanged fire with policemen trying to stop them from storming another police station and one protester was killed in the gun battle. --- TIME.com CNN.com Jan. 28, 2011 Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, a voice of moderation in the protest movement, told Al Jazeera interviewers that "we are prepared to engage with the regime to ensure a smooth and orderly transition, but there is no question that Mubarak will have to leave." That puts the Obama Administration in a difficult position, because the democratic rebellion in Egypt threatens to sweep away a pillar of support for U.S. regional strategy. Mubarak has ordered the military onto the streets to enforce the curfew, but their arrival has been welcomed by protestors. Al Jazeera reports scenes in Alexandria of soldiers shaking hands with protestors defying the curfew. At the 6th of October Bridge over the Nile, demonstrators attacked a moving police truck with molotov cocktails, it then backed up, running over one person and then police opened fired with live ammunition. Some of the fiercest clashes have come in the industrial city of Suez, where protestors have forced the police into retreat, taking over two police stations. --- antiwar.com January 28, 2011 With the eyes of the world already on Egypt, WikiLeaks released a massive collection of cables related to Egypt today, detailing broad-based repression of political dissident. But the Obama Administration didn’t need those outlets detailing the level of brutality in the Mubarak regime, cables show that they were fully aware of it from the start. NGOs described torture as “endemic” and said hundreds of cases of torture against petty criminals, political dissidents, even random bystanders, were occurring daily in Cairo alone. The Obama Administration continues to insist they have been pushing for “reforms” but the cables reveal that it isn’t the case, and that even broaching the subject of police brutality led to harsh rebukes by Egypt that the US would be supporting “Communists.” The official US response was to increase funding for the police in hopes that more money and better training would lead them to torture less. Even then, officials confirmed Egypt “has not begun serious work on trying to transform the police and security service.” --- antiwar.com (Inter Press Service) January 28, 2011 The massive public release by al-Jazeera and London’s Guardian newspaper of thousands of secret Palestinian documents detailing how much the Western-backed leaders of the Palestine Authority (PA) were willing to give up in peace negotiations with Israel over the past decade and how little Washington was prepared to back them up in the face of Israeli intransigence has dealt a serious – very possibly fatal – blow to the political credibility of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Since Camp David, Washington has provided Cairo with an average of 800 million dollars a year in economic assistance and about 1.3 billion dollars a year in military aid. Egypt’s top military officers, whose loyalty to Mubarak is widely assumed, have been in Washington this week for the latest in a series of regular consultations with their U.S. counterparts. Despite ritual U.S. complaints about corruption and the country’s human rights record and appeals for political reform, Washington has steadfastly stuck by the 82-year-old Mubarak as the principal guarantor of peace with Israel. Early in the week, it looked as though the Obama administration was hewing to that tradition. As hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against the regime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Tuesday insisted that "the country was stable". At the State of the Union Address later that evening, Obama, in his only reference to the popular unrest sweeping the region, declared that "The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia," but failed to mention the situation in Egypt. On Thursday the State Department was still describing the regime as a "valuable ally and partner of the United States." "(A)uthoritarian regimes (like Mubarak’s) are the foundation of the America-led regional order," noted Marc Lynch, a Mideast specialist at George Washington University on his foreignpolicy.com blog. "For all the U.S. talk about democracy promotion, the goal has always been to strengthen and legitimize these allies." --- antiwar.com January 25, 2011 In the wake of the Tunisian riots which ousted Tunisia's so-called President, the question amongst many analysts is which of the myriad dictators in the region will be next. Indeed, much of Cairo was virtually shut down today as thousands of anti-Mubarak protesters defied warnings and took to the streets demanding the president’s ouster. Smaller protesters were reorted in a number of other Egyptian cities as well. Reports so far say that at least two protesters and one Egyptian police officer have been killed in the fighting in Cairo, At least 60 people in Suez were also wounded by the use of tear gas. --- mondoweiss.net January 27, 2011 In an interview of State Dep't spokesman P.J. Crowley by Al Jazeera, Crowley was asked why the U.S. with all its leverage over Egypt doesn't pressure it to call off the dogs and let the society move toward democracy? Says Crowley: "We respect what Egypt contributes to the region, it is a stabilizing force, it has made its own peace with Israel, and is pursuing normal relations with Israel, we think that's important, we think that's a model that the region should adopt broadly speaking. At the same time, we recognize that Egypt, Tunisia other countries do need to reform." In terms of denial of political participation, internal repression, use of secret police, torture, and summary punishment and execution, it is difficult to distinguish Hosni Mubarak from Saddam Hussein. But what a difference in the U.S. political slant. Neocon war plotters, up to and including the president, said Saddam Hussein was a Hitler-like figure who threatened humanity; so regime change was urgent. By contrast, the brutal, kleptocratic thug Mubarak is lauded as ‘a stabilizing force.’ --- antiwar.com January 26, 2011 As the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia inspires others across the region to attempt to oust their (mostly US-backed) dictators, all eyes are on Egypt. But what is the official Obama Administration position on Egypt? The reports conflict dramatically. Though publicly they are calling for “reforms” as the Egyptian government looks to crack down on public protest and censor the media, the story from those familiar with their private talks are starkly different. Egyptian officials have repeatedly indicated that the Obama Administration has offered their unquestioning support on a number of occasions since the protests began, and insisted that "stability" is their top priority in the region. --- Christian Science Monitor January 27, 2011 Joe Biden says Egypt's Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn't step down... ... and wonders what the Egyptian protesters want. Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the PBS NewsHour tonight about the gathering Egypt protests. Mr. Biden's comments are unlikely to be well-received by regime opponents, as they fit a narrative of steadfast US support for a government they want to bring down. At least eight protesters and one policeman have died this week in Egypt. Since the US provides about $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt a year, the repressive apparatus of the state is seen by many in Egypt as hand in glove with the US. Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.” --- The Washington Post January 20, 2011 Tunisia's popular revolution should have been a wake-up call to the rotting autocracy of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and his supporters in the Obama administration. Instead, Cairo is moving to retrench, with the tacit blessing of President Obama. On Tuesday, Obama called Mubarak; according to a White House "readout," they discussed "a broad range of issues, to include the New Year's attack on a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, developments in Tunisia and Lebanon, and how best to advance Middle East peace." According to both the statement and my own sources, here is what the two did not discuss: the need for change of any kind in Egypt. This in spite of the fact that Mubarak just staged a rigged parliamentary election in which his opposition was systematically and sometimes brutally suppressed. By failing to mention reform, Obama effectively placed a public U.S. bet on Mubarak's ability to prevent any spread of Tunisia's unrest. According to the White House statement, the president "shared with President Mubarak that the United States is calling for calm and an end to violence..." The statement went on to repeat U.S. support for democracy in Tunisia -- a position the administration adopted only after Ben Ali's overthrow. --- NY Times January 15, 2011 Cables from American diplomats in Tunisia portray a deepening ambivalence toward the rule of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, expressing alarm about popular resentment of the blatant corruption of the country’s first family but also gratitude for Mr. Ben Ali’s cooperation against terrorism and the stability he long imposed. Those cables, from the cache obtained by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks and made public in recent weeks, helped fuel the anger on the streets that culminated Friday with Mr. Ben Ali’s flight after 23 years in power. --- antiwar.com January 27, 2011 “Yemen is not like Tunisia,” Yemen's Interior Minister insisted today. But tens of thousands of angry protesters are on the streets of the capital today, demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Indeed, while every nation is at least a little different from the others the stark similarities between the various dictatorships across Northern Africa and the Middle East are not lost on the populations of those nations. In Yemen, where the first protests on Sunday sparked arrests and even bigger protests, and led President Saleh to promise that he wouldn’t run for an addition term in office. The US gave a luke-warm reaction to the protests against Saleh, who they have been eagerly backing, saying that Yemenis have “the right to express themselves” but stopping far short even of the vague calls for “reform” they made in Egypt. --- Aljazeera.net 28 Jan 2011 Thousands took to the street across Jordan demanding the prime minister step down. In the third consecutive Friday of protests, about 3,500 opposition activists from Jordan's main Islamist opposition group, trade unions and leftist organisations gathered in the capital, waving colourful banners reading: "Send the corrupt guys to court". Another 2,500 people also took to the streets in six other cities across the country. --- BBC 22 January 2011 Algerian police have broken up an anti-government demonstration by about 300 people in the centre of the capital, Algiers, calling for greater freedoms. Several protesters were injured and a number are reported to have been arrested. Seven police officers were also hurt, according to state media. The leader of the opposition Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) said those held included its parliamentary leader. The protest followed rioting in several cities set off by rising food prices. Demonstrations are banned in Algeria because of a state of emergency in place since 1992. --- [I didn't have time to include the extensive reports from CBS News, the New Yorker, and other mainstream sources in recent years talking about the CIA's use of Egypt for 'extraordinary rendition." Essentially, when the US military or CIA aren't satisfied with the abusive interrogations they give detainees in secret bases around the world, they fly prisoners to Egypt to be tortured. Like US "free trade" policies, abuse is outsourced. ]