Syria Speeding Up
February 19th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Three weeks ago I wrote that Syria was not about to experience a popular revolution. Although I’m no longer sure of anything after the events in Tunisia and Egypt (and Libya, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and Bahrain) – and although it’s made me unpopular in certain quarters – I’m sticking to my original judgement. No revolution in Syria just yet.
Until a month ago, I would have have agreed with Joshua Landis (quoted here) that many, perhaps a comfortable majority of Syrians were not particularly interested in ‘democracy.’ Before either I or Landis is accused of orientalism, let me say that human and civil rights are not identical with democracy. Any Syrian who knows he’s alive wants his (or her) human and civil rights respected, but many fear that ‘democracy’ would lead to sectarian fragmentation. This is an entirely logical fear: the ‘democracies’ to the west and east of Syria – Lebanon and Iraq – are strife-torn sectarian democracies. Sectarian identification remains a problem in Syria. A freedom-loving Alawi friend of mine was put off the failed ‘day of rage’ facebook group because he found so many anti-Alawi comments posted there. Other Syrians were put off when they realised that many of the posts came from Hariri groups in Lebanon.
Latest from Libya
February 18th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Our friend in Tripoli reports:
It was only one day and it has already witnessed the burial service of 30 martyrs in Hawari cemetery in Benghazi. A source from al-Jalaa hospital in Benghazi confirmed that most of the dead people are between the ages of 13 to 36 years old, including 40 to 50 injured people. The number of martyrs and injured people are growing all around the cities of east Libya and hospitals in Benghazi issued urgent calls for all types of blood.
Today I believe things are getting worse, Gaddafi’s regime has cut all means of communication (land lines, cell phones, internet), water, electricity and gas services from Benghazi, Darna, Zentan, and several cities in east Libya, yet Benghazi is winning by keeping its highly increased courageous spirits and the determination to put an end to the 42 years of oppression.
Today some people from different corners of Tripoli (like Fashloom & Joumhouriya Street) are repeatedly trying to go on demonstrations against the regime but they were immediately oppressed by the backbones of Gaddafi’s regime, who are paid and armed to stop by all means any chance of peaceful demonstrations.
Not forget to mention that on the 16th of February, the night before the Day of Rage’ in Libya, the Libyana company, a Libyan mobile phone company owned by Saif El Islam (one of Geddafi‘s sons) circulated messages to people’s cell phones warning them against crossing ” The Four Red Lines”:
Clinton’s goons assault a 71-year-old veteran even as she berates Iran for violence against protesters
February 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
There is of course the further irony of the fact that she is speaking at a conference on Internet Freedom even as her government has spent the past few months trying to suppress websites associated with Wikileaks and to have its founder extradited. As the great Ray McGovern says: straight out of Kafka!
The Trials of Bradley Manning: A Defense
February 18th, 2011 § 3 Comments
For the past seven months, US Army Private First Class Manning has been held in solitary confinement in the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. Twenty-five thousand other Americans are also in prolonged solitary confinement, but the conditions of Manning’s pre-trial detention have been sufficiently brutal for the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Torture to announce an investigation.
Pfc. Manning is alleged to have obtained documents, both classified and unclassified, from the Department of Defense and the State Department via the Internet and provided them to WikiLeaks. (That “alleged” is important because the federal informant who fingered Manning, Adrian Lamo, is a felon convicted of computer-hacking crimes. He was also involuntarily committed to a psychiatric institution in the month before he levelled his accusation. All of this makes him a less than reliable witness.) At any rate, the records allegedly downloaded by Manning revealed clear instances of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, widespread torture committed by the Iraqi authorities with the full knowledge of the U.S. military, previously unknown estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed at U.S. military checkpoints, and the massive Iraqi civilian death toll caused by the American invasion.
For bringing to light this critical but long-suppressed information, Pfc. Manning has been treated not as a whistleblower, but as a criminal and a spy. He is charged with violating not only Army regulations but also the Espionage Act of 1917, making him the fifth American to be charged under the act for leaking classified documents to the media. A court-martial will likely be convened in the spring or summer.
Blood in Libya
February 18th, 2011 § 2 Comments
bread, freedom, human dignity
A report from a friend in Tripoli. She must remain nameless.
I’m here and safe for now, al-hamdullah. There is no internet in Libya, and maybe there will be no electricity in the coming days. I uploaded software late at night to get the internet, and very few have access to this software.
The death toll in Benghazi is growing, almost 80 are dead just in 3 days. It’s getting dirty here and the media coverage is too little. We are not getting the international attention and I am afraid if the Libyan protesters are ignored, this murderer will seal Libya off from the world and ruthlessly kill any protest before they even have the chance to begin.
Yesterday, I left work and I went to Sahat el-Ghadra, where all his thugs were supporting him. They got all kids out of schools and forced them to carry posters of his pictures and everyone to hang the stupid Libyan flag inside their cars and … the number of flags around Tripoli are more than the number of bloody flags you can see in the US.
State Dept should limit self to Twitter communications
February 18th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Lately I have been concerned about the job security of PJ Crowley, usual emcee of the U.S. State Department daily press briefings.
The bio on his Twitter account reads:
As U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, I carry out the Secretary’s mandate to help people understand the importance of U.S. foreign policy.”
However, recent performances would appear to be in direct contravention of this goal (see here, here and here).
Acting Deputy Department Spokesman Mark C. Toner meanwhile replaced Crowley at yesterday’s briefing, although there have thus far been no reports that Crowley has followed recently deposed U.S. allies into a coma. As the following excerpts demonstrate, Toner’s performance confirms that State Dept. employment in fact hinges upon one’s ability to be vague and self-contradictory:
ON VIETNAM
Toner reports that “we are deeply saddened by the apparent sinking of a tourist boat in Halong Bay in northern Vietnam today.”
QUESTION: Sorry, you said apparently sank?
MR. TONER: It sank, okay.
QUESTION: Yeah, it either did or didn’t.
MR. TONER: It did sink. I’m confirming that it sank.
Social networks, social revolution
February 17th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Al Jazeera Empire: Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have become the new weapons of mass mobilisation. Are social networks triggering social revolution? And where will the next domino fall?
Zionism Contra Democracy
February 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
by Stephen J. Sniegoski
Author’s Prologue: I write this article as the bottoms-up Egyptian democratic revolution has just brought down what had seemed until very recently to be the solid regime of Hosni Mubarak. It was an amazing accomplishment achieved by the power of the whole people—something that is often sloganized but never realized. And the fact that this was accomplished without violence on the part of the revolutionaries is equally amazing. While one can only admire the courage and tenacity of the Egyptian people and take pleasure in their jubilation, it is also necessary to look at the ongoing realities, with the recognition that the process is only beginning, and that there are intelligent minds, cold, calculating, and totally unsympathetic to the aspirations of the common people of the Middle East, who are already developing sophisticated strategies to thwart its fruition.
Despite the usual mantra about Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East, it is quite apparent that the Jewish exclusivist state has been, and in fact must be, opposed to democracy in the Middle East. The fact that it is a state based on Jewish exclusivity means that it must treat the Palestinians in an undemocratic manner in both the occupied territories and in Israel itself, because the Palestinians pose an existential threat to the Jewish state by virtue of their very existence.
Moreover, the negative reaction of Israel and its devotees to the revolution for democracy in Egypt illustrates that Israel’s detrimental effect on democracy goes far beyond the boundaries of historic Palestine. Israeli leaders are terrified that this democratic revolution might bring about a radical change in Egypt’s foreign policy, since Mubarak had acquiesced to and actually in some ways facilitated Israel’s regional hegemony, which the general public neither in Egypt nor anywhere else in the Middle East would voluntarily support.
“Diplomatic Immunity” or Murder with Impunity? And Who’s a Diplomat Anyway?
February 17th, 2011 § 7 Comments
by Huma Dar
On Thursday, 27th of January, 2011, while the world was busy watching — or ignoring, as the case might be — the inspiring Egyptian Revolution, in broad daylight, in a very busy part of Lahore (Pakistan), in front of hundreds of eye-witnesses, American contractor, Raymond Davis, murders two or by some accounts even three people: Muhammad Faheem (aka Faheem Shamshad?) (age 26), Faizan Haider (age 22), and Ibad-ur-Rehman. Davis shoots the former two, who had allegedly threatened to rob him, from within his locked car, with seven bullets — each bullet expertly and fatally finding its mark. The windshield shows the piercing trajectory of the fatal bullets, but otherwise remains miraculously unshattered. Davis, then, emerges calmly from his well-equipped car (see descriptions below), shoots Faizan from the back while Faizan was running away (how “dangerous” is that?! does the excuse of “self-defence” hold when one of the victims was running away?), takes photographs and videos of both his victims with his cellphone, gets back into his car, and drives off unruffled, to flee the scene. Faizan Haider was still alive — he expired later in the hospital. What an act of “responsibility” from a “diplomat” of the self-ascribed global policeman!
