‘Stability’ Trumps Democracy In Egypt

 



By Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin, 
March 24, 2012 
Courtesy Of "Anti-War"

Confronted with popular protest, the country’s unelected rulers have doubled down on repression, jailing peaceful activists and killing dozens of civilians who have the gall to exercise their rights. Those who state security forces haven’t killed for demanding democracy have been tear-gassed and brought before the perverted justice of a military court, even as the ruling clique promises the world and its red-eyed subjects democratic reform. Eventually.

Were it Syria or Iran, the rhetoric from Washington would be stern, aggressive even. But since the repressive ruling clique is the military junta in Egypt, the lectures are timid – and coupled with a handout. Indeed, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just announced, the Obama administration is waiving a legislative requirement that made military assistance to Egypt conditional on its rulers “implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.” This allows the U.S. government to send Egypt’s rulers $1.5 billion in taxpayer money, more than 85 percent of which is explicitly set aside for the armed forces.

If one only pays attention to what politicians say, ignoring what they do, this may come as a surprise. President Barack Obama, after all, has voiced support for the Arab Spring. He gave a speech in Cairo full of lofty words about the people of the region’s legitimate democratic aspirations. So why would his administration lavish a regime that cracks down on pro-democracy forces with money for weapons?

Simple: for America’s weapons makers, there’s big money at stake. According to “administration and congressional officials” speaking to the Washington Post, some of the biggest lobbyists for sending our tax dollars to Egypt are military contractors – BAE Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin among them – “eager to keep lucrative contracts attached to the annual aid.” These companies kept Hosni Mubarak’s military well stocked with fighter jets, tanks, armored personnel carriers, Apache helicopters, anti-aircraft missile batteries and aerial surveillance aircraft. For them, military rule is just good business.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, is in lockstep with its contractors and “does not want to risk its ties with the Egyptian military,” according to the Post. So that takes care of the military-industrial complex. And it doesn’t hurt the munitions-for-Egyptians cause that said military has pledged to buck popular opinion and maintain close relations with Israel. 

So with generals and General Electric whispering in his ear, Obama – not exactly the type to challenge military-industrial consensus – will be sending more than a billion dollars to subsidize a regime that has killed hundreds of people in the year since former dictator Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign.

“Given the human rights violations in Egypt, the US State Department cannot in good faith certify to the US Congress that the Egyptian government is protecting human rights,” Amnesty International wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Egypt’s military rulers, while promising a transition to civilian control, have “engaged in a wave of repression that has broken the promise of the uprising that began in January 2011 for a new future for the country,” according to the group. There have been killings of “numerous civilians,” along with the persecution of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their Egyptian and American employees for the crime of sowing discontent with seditious calls for civilian rule.

Clinton’s response: Whatever. On Friday, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed that Clinton had approved transmission of the aid on the grounds of “regional stability,” simply ignoring petty concerns about democracy and systematic human rights abuses.

“Secretary Clinton has certified to Congress that Egypt is meeting its obligations under its Peace Treaty with Israel,” Nuland said in a statement. “The Secretary has also waived legislative conditions related to Egypt’s democratic transition, on the basis of America’s national security interests, allowing for the continued flow of Foreign Military Financing to Egypt.” When push comes to shove, the demands of militarism trump the desire for democracy every time.

That’s the message even from most liberal Democrats: Democracy’s great and all, but it takes a back seat to stability and preserving the status quo.

“The interest of Egypt and surrounding area as well as the United States is well served by a strong and stable Egypt,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi during a recent trip to the region. “To the extent that that [military] assistance is in furtherance of that stability, we will certainly be there.” 

It sounds like Pelosi didn’t talk to many Egyptians on her trip, for they would have told her that if the U.S. had $1.5 billion just laying around, it would be better to use that to boost Egypt’s economy than its military. But that request would not go down well with the U.S. weapons makers who contribute to Pelosi and her colleagues’ election campaigns. And for the most part, it’s just not how foreign aid works.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy is one of the few senior Democrats who have called on the Obama administration to withhold funding for tyranny in Egypt, that task having largely been left – strangely enough – to conservative Republicans. In a letter to Secretary of State Clinton, Tennessee Senator Rand Paul and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann call for freezing the aid, saying that dispersing it now “would send the wrong message to the Egyptian government that U.S. taxpayers will subsidize the Egyptian military while it continues to oversee the crackdown on civil society and to commit human rights abuses.” 

That’s an argument both fiscal conservatives and liberal humanitarians should theoretically be able to get behind. But when Paul offered an amendment on the Senate floor to freeze the military aid, it was California Democrat Barbara Boxer who blocked it from being put to a vote. “We need to be smart and strategic when we have people in harm’s way in another country,” she lectured on the Senate floor, which makes perfect sense: if confronted with a repressive regime, it’s best to stay cool and subsidize its tools of repression.

In a recent report on post-Mubarak Egypt, the U.S. government’s Congressional Research Service noted a “tension” that has long existed in America’s relations with Egypt “and is expected to continue unabated and perhaps amplified as a result of the revolution”: the “pursuit of U.S. national security interests,” on the one hand, “the promotion of American values and universal human rights” on the other.

Here’s the thing, though: a bandit is no less a bandit because he talks a lot about being a saint. One’s true values are reflected in one’s actions, not words. And in the case of U.S. relations with Egypt, under Obama just as much as George W. Bush, those actions have been firmly in support of dictatorship and repressive – but pro-American – rule. Unfortunately, that doesn’t cause a tension with our values: it exposes them for what they are.

True Irony

Posted by guest blogger "Sayf Maslul"


1. Obama Signed The National Defense Authorization Act

The National Defense Authorization Act greatly expands the power and scope of the federal government to fight the War on Terror, including codifying into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial. Under the new law the US military has the power to carry out domestic anti-terrorism operations on US soil.

Source: [Forbes.com]

2. Obama Signed ACTA, and Weakening Congress Again

This time, President Obama has done it with the issue of protecting intellectual property rights on the internet. He signed an international treaty, ACTA, in October 2011 as an "Executive Agreement" rather than having it authorized by congress as a binding agreement, which, by law, must be approved by congress. Techdirt discusses this at length. 

Source: [OpEdNews.com]

3. Close The Guantanamo Bay Detention Center

As Candidate Obama: "As President, Barack Obama Will Close The Detention Facility At Guantanamo."

As President Obama: Obama Announces Changes To Guantanamo Detention Policy

On March 7, 2011, President Barack Obama signed an executive order making a number of changes to policies regarding those detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a reversal of his previous policy, the order resumes military trials for Gitmo detainees. It also establishes a "periodic review" process for for long-held Guantanamo detainees who have not been charged, convicted or designated for transfer, "but must continue to be detained because they 'in effect, remain at war with the United States,'" according to a White House fact-sheet.

The new policy was viewed by many media outlets as an acknowledgment by the administration that it could not keep Obama's campaign promise to close the Guantanamo facility.

Source: [PolitiFact.com]

4. Only days after clearing Congress, US President Barack Obama signed his name to H.R. 347 on Thursday, officially making it a federal offense to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States.
RT broke the news last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.

Under H.R. 347, which has more commonly been labeled the Trespass Bill by Congress, knowingly entering a restricted area that is under the jurisdiction of Secret Service protection can garner an arrest. 

The law is actually only a slight change to earlier legislation that made it an offense to knowingly and willfully commit such a crime. Under the Trespass Bill’s latest language chance, however, someone could end up in law enforcement custody for entering an area that they don’t realize is Secret Service protected and “engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct” or “impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.” 


Source: [Russia Today] 

Arab League Pro-Western Despots

By Stephen Lendman 
November 20th, 2011 
Courtesy Of "The Peoples Voice"

On November 12, New York Times writer Neil MacFarquhaqar headlined, "Arab League Votes to Suspend Syria Over Crackdown," saying:

"Syria's formal suspension is to start in four days, offering what senior Arab League officials described as a last chance for Mr. Assad to carry out a peace agreement his government had accepted....to halt violence directed toward civilians (and) withdraw all security forces from civilian areas...."

On October 10, a Times editorial headlined, "Enabling Mr. Assad," saying:

"There is a lot of shame to go around after the United Nations Security Council failed last week to pass a resolution condemning Syria's brutal crackdown."

Fact check

Since March, anti-goverment protests began and intensified. Replicating Libya's model, Western backed insurgents stoked violence. Insurrection spread from one city to another.

Trapped between waring sides, civilian casualties keep rising. Hundreds of security forces have been killed.

Imported weapons are used against them. Syria's wrongfully blamed for confronting an armed insurgency. Unresolved conflict rages.

At issue is destabilizing and toppling a Baath party controlled secular, anti-imperial regime, supporting Palestine, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran.

Washington and Israel want it replaced with a pro-Western Islamic republic puppet state similar to other subservient Arab ones.

Russia and China blocked America's (Western supported) Security Council resolution. If passed, it would have been a first against Syria, perhaps opening the way for greater conflict or war like against Libya.

Despite watered down language, both countries opposed options, including the UN Charter's Article 41 provisions, stating:

"The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decision, and it may call upon (UN members) to apply such measures."

"These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."

In other words, stiff sanctions further harming Syria's weakened economy might topple it. If not, war might follow.

"Despite the disgraceful outcome, the United States and Europe were right to push for a vote. It left no doubt which countries stand with Syria's courageous opposition and which stand with the ruthless autocrat."

Its bloodstained pages still wet over Libya, Times editors want another country ravaged, colonized and plundered.

They've fallen far from revealing Pentagon Papers secrets, exposing Johnson administration lies about America's Vietnam war.

The League of Arab States

Calling itself "a voluntary association of independent countries whose people are mainly Arabic speaking, (its) purposes are to strengthen ties among the member states, coordinate their policies, and promote their common interests."

In fact, pro-Western despots head most of its 22 member states. In 1942, Britain hoped to unite Arabs against Nazi Germany. In 1944, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan (Jordan and Palestine) agreed to form the League of Arab States.

In 1945, a formalized Arab League Pact inaugurated it. Years later, its charter members expanded to 22. In 1976, the Palestine Liberation Organization was admitted. In 1979, suspension followed Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. The league's headquarters relocated from Cairo to Tunis.

In 1987, diplomatic ties with Egypt were restored. In 1989, Egypt was readmitted and League headquarters returned to Cairo where it remains. Four observer states include Brazil, Eritrea, India and Venezuela. Effective November 16, Syria will be suspended.

In most Arab League states, constitutional and statute laws affirm Pan-Arabism. In practice, most ignore it. PLO de-Arabization was a US/Israeli Oslo prerequisite. Most Arab states went along.

In 1998, 12 PLO National Charter articles were deleted and 16 amended without Arab League objection. Most dealt with Palestinian Pan-Arabism.

Palestinians get rhetorical support only. Member states didn't condemn Israel's (2008-09) Gaza or (2006) Lebanon wars. Nor have formal measures rebuked its lawlessness, let alone isolated the Jewish state.

For over two decades through June 2001, former League Secretary-General Amr Mousa held top Mubarak regime posts, including foreign minister and other diplomatic positions.

Supporting its military junta, he'll seek Egypt's presidency next year. On July 1, 2011, Nabil Elaraby replaced him, another former Mubarak functionary.

Notably, Arab League states didn't stop:

• Israel's 1947-48 Nakba;



• its 1967 West Bank/Gaza/East Jerusalem occupation, as well as parts of Egypt and Syria at the time; Syria's Golan remains illegally occupied; so does Palestine for over 44 years;



• its 1982 Lebanon war and occupation of Southern Lebanon until 2000;



• its continued Lebanon Shebaa Farms occupation;



• Washington's 1991 Operation Desert Storm; and



• its 2003 Iraq war and occupation.

Recent Arab League Duplicity


In March 2011, League members backed UN Resolution 1973, Libya's no-fly zone prelude to war. Once it began, they supported NATO's campaign.

Backing Western imperialism, they condoned Libya's ravaging, including massacres too great to ignore. In March, they recognized puppet Transitional National Council (TNC) leadership. In August, they formally restored Libya's League membership after ousting Gaddafi at NATO's behest.

They're silent on NATO's plan to colonize, occupy and plunder another Arab State, as well as ongoing atrocities in Bahrain, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, and elsewhere in the region.

Since March, they supported Western-backed anti-Syrian insurgents, heading perhaps for more war, occupation, and regional instability.

On and off for months, half or more of League members attacked, killed, arrested, imprisoned, and/or brutalized their own people for protesting against political, economic and social injustice.

Effective November 16, Syria's membership will be suspended. Political and economic sanctions target it for battling Western-backed insurgents. Short of NATO bombing, doing so replicates Libya's regime change model.

A Syrian National Council (SNC) was established, similar to Libya's puppet Transitional National Council (TNC).

Originally formed in 2005, it was revived on August 23, 2011 in Istanbul, Turkey. It represents Western-backed internal opposition elements against the rights and interests of most Syrians.

It called for a Libyan-style "no-fly zone" and foreign intervention. It supplies intelligence to Washington, other Western nations, and Israel. If unconventional tactics fail, stepped up violence and war remain options.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Arab League officials said if Syria ignores Western demands, the League will formally recognize its SNC opposition. Informally, it's done. Bashar al-Assad's government is increasingly isolated.

SNC secretary-general Wael Merza said the decision marked "a historic day for Syria as a country, the Syrian revolution and the Arab League."

In fact, once again it showed League subservience to Western demands. Syria's Arab League representative said suspension breached the organization's charter, "serving a Western and American agenda." He added that it's "not worth the ink it was written with."

Obama called on international bodies to do more, saying:

"After the Assad regime flagrantly failed to keep its commitments, the Arab League has demonstrated leadership in its efforts to end the crisis and hold the Syrian government accountable."

"These significant steps expose the increasing diplomatic isolation of a regime that has systematically violated human rights and repressed peaceful protests."

In fact, America's by far the world's leading human and civil rights abuser, waging global wars on humanity. Syria and Iran know they're targets. So do other nonbelligerent states, whether run by despots, democrats or others in between.

Obama stopped short of calling for Assad's ouster. Some observers expect he'll do it. Joint Chiefs head Admiral Mike Mullen ruled out military intervention. Saying it means little if nonmilitary measures don't work.

Whether diplomatic, economic, or military, Arab League support is assured. Despots throughout the region back America's worst crimes.

Why not when they commit so many of their own against people who revile them.

Why else would Arab Spring uprisings have occurred and continue across the region without major media coverage.

Perhaps they'll notice if one, in fact, succeeds. Expect it, followed by others, inspiring people across Europe and America to press harder for real change.

Sustained struggle, pain and sacrifice is the only way to get it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

How To Analyze A State Department Briefing

Submitted By "Sayf Maslul" 

Understand what Clinton really means even though our empire prevents us from usually sharing this

information

Puppets In Revolt

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and the United States

By James Petras
Saturday, Jul 23, 2011
Courtesy Of "Axis Of Logic"

Introduction


Empires are built through the promotion and backing of local collaborators who act at the behest of imperial rulers. They are rewarded with the outward symbols of authority and financial handouts, even as it is understood that they hold their position only at the tolerance of their imperial superiors. Imperial collaborators are referred to by the occupied people and the colonial resistance as “puppets” or “traitors”; by western journalists and critics as “clients”; by the imperial scribes and officials as “loyal allies” as long as they remain obedient to their sponsors and paymaster.


Puppet rulers have a long and ignoble history during the 20th century. Subsequent to US invasions in Central America and the Caribbean a whole string of bloody puppet dictators were put in power to implement policies favorable to US corporations and banks and to back US regional dominance. Duvalier (father and son) in Haiti, Trujillo in the Dominion Republic, Batista in Cuba, Somoza (father and son) in Nicaragua and a host of other tyrants served to safeguard imperial military and economic interests, while plundering the economies and ruling with an iron fist.


Rule via puppets is characteristic of most empires. The British excelled in propping up tribal chiefs as tax collectors, backing Indian royalty to muster sepoys to serve under British generals. The French cultivated francophone African elite to provide cannon fodder for its imperial wars in Europe and Africa. “Late” imperial countries like Japan set up puppet regimes in Manchura and Germany promoted the Vichy puppets in occupied France and the Quisling regime in Norway.


Post-Colonial Rule: Nationalists and Neo-Colonial Puppets


Powerful national liberation, anti-colonial movements following World War II, challenged European and US imperial dominance in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Faced with the enormous costs of reconstruction in Europe and Japan and domestic mass movements opposed to continuing colonial wars, the US and Europe sought to retain their economic holdings, military bases via ‘political collaborators’. They would assume administrative, military and political responsibilities, forging new links between the formally independent country and their old and new imperial masters. The economic and military institutional continuities between colonial and post-colonial regimes were defined as ‘neo-colonialism’.


Foreign aid gave birth to and enriched an ‘indigenous’ kleptocratic bourgeoisie which provided a fig leaf to imperial resource extraction. Military aid, training missions and overseas scholarships trained a new generation of military and civilian bureaucrats inculcated with imperial-centered ‘world views’ and loyalties. The military-police-administrative apparatus was perceived by imperial rulers as the best guarantor of the emerging order, given the fragility of neo-colonial rulership, their narrow base of appeal and the demands of the masses for substantive socio-economic structural changes to accompany political independence.


The post-colonial period was riven with long term large-scale anti-imperial social revolutions (China, Indo-China), military coups (throughout the three continents), international civil wars (Korea) and mostly successful nationalist-populist transformations (Iraq, India, Indonesia, Egypt, Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, etc.). The latter became the bases for the non-aligned movements. Outright ‘colonial settler regimes’ (South Africa, Israel/Palestine, Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) were the exception. Complex “associations”, depending on the specific power relations between empire and local elites, generally increased income, trade and investments for the decolonized newly independent countries. Independence created an internal dynamic based on large scale state intervention and a mixed economy.


The post-colonial period of radical nationalist and socialist uprisings, lasted less than a decade in most of the three continents. By the end of the 1970’s, imperial backed coups overthrew national-populist and socialist regimes in the Congo, Algeria, Indonesia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile and in numerous other countries. The newly independent radical regimes in the former Portuguese colonies, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and the nationalist regimes and movements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Latin America were severely weakened by the collapse of the USSR and China’s conversion to capitalism. The US appeared as the sole ‘superpower’ without a military and economic counterweight. US and European military and economic empire builders saw an opportunity to exploit natural resources, expropriate thousands of public enterprises, build a network of military bases and recruit new mercenary armies to extend imperial dominance.
The question arose as to the form the new US empire would take: the means through which the remaining nationalist rulers would be ousted. Equally important: with the demise of the USSR and China/Indo-China’s conversion to capitalism, what ideology or even ‘argument’ would serve to justify the powerful thrust of post-colonial, empire building?


Washington’s New World Order: Colonial Revivalism and Contemporary Puppetry


Western imperialism’s recovery from the defeats during the national independence struggles (1945-1970’s) included the massive rebuilding of a new imperial order. With the collapse of the USSR, the incorporation of Eastern Europe as imperial satellites and the subsequent conversion of radical nationalists (Angola, Mozambique etc.) to kleptocrat free marketers, a powerful thrust was given to White House visions of unlimited dominance, based on projections of uncontested unilateral military power.


The spread of ‘free market ideology’ between 1980 – 2000, based on the ascendancy of neo-liberal rulers throughout Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America and a large swathe of Asia opened the door for unprecedented pillage, privatizations (mostly the same thing) and the concentration of wealth. Corresponding to the pillage and the concentration of a unipolar military power, a group of ultra-militarists, so-called neo-conservatives ideologue, deeply imbued with the Israeli colonial mentality entered into the strategic decision-making positions in Washington, with tremendous leverage in European spheres of power – especially in England.


History went into reverse. The 1990’s were inaugurated with colonial style wars, launched against Iraq and Yugoslavia, leading to the break-up of states and the imposition of puppet regimes in (Northern Iraq) ‘Kurdistan’, Kosova, Montenegro and Macedonia (former Yugoslavia). Military success, quick and low cost victories, confirmed and hardened the beliefs of the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologues that empire building was the inevitable wave of the future. Only an appropriate political trigger was necessary to mobilize the financial and human resources to pursue the new military driven empire.


The events of 9/11/2001 were thoroughly exploited to launch sequential wars of colonial conquest.  In the name of a “world wide military crusade against terrorism”, plans were made, massive funds were allocated and a mass media propaganda blitz was launched, to justify a series of colonial wars


The new imperial order began with the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and the overthrow of the Taliban Islamic-nationalist regime, (which never had anything to do with 9/11). Afghanistan was occupied by the US – NATO – mercenary armies but not conquered. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq led to the regroupment of Islamic, nationalist and trade union anti-colonial forces and prolonged armed and civil resistance movements.  


Because of widespread nationalist and anti-Zionist influence within the existing Iraqi civilian, police and military apparatus, neo-conservative ideologues in Washington opted for the total dismantling of the state.  They attempted to refashion a colonial state based on sectarian leaders,  local tribal chiefdoms, foreign contractors and the appointment and ‘clearance’ of reliable exile politicians as ‘presidential or ‘prime ministerial’ national fig leafs for the colonized state.


Pakistan was a special case of imperial penetration, military intervention and political manipulation, linking large scale military aid, bribes and corruption to establish a puppet regime. The latter sanctioned sustained violations of sovereignty by US warplanes (“drones” and piloted), commando operations and the large scale mobilization of the Pakistan military for US counter-insurgency operations displacing millions of Pakistan ‘tribal’ peoples.


The Puppet Regime Imperative


Contrary to US and EU propaganda, the invasions and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the military interventions in Pakistan were never popular. They were actively and passively opposed by the vast majority of the population. No sooner were the colonial civil officials imposed by force of arms and efforts began to administer the country then passive popular and sporadic armed resistance emerged. The colonial officials were seen for what they were: an alien, exploitative, presence. Treasuries were looted, the entire economy was paralyzed, elementary services (water, electricity, sewage systems, etc.) did not function, and millions were uprooted. The wars and occupations radically decimated the pre-colonial society and the colonial officials were hard pressed to create a replacement.


Billions in military spending failed to create a civil service capable of governance. The colonial rulers had severe problems locating willing collaborators with technical or administrative experience. Those willing to serve lacked even a modicum of popular acceptance.


The colonial conquest and occupation eventually settled on establishing a parallel collaborator regime which would be financed and subordinate to the imperial authorities. Imperial strategists believed they would provide a political façade to ‘legitimate’ and negotiate with the occupation.


The enticement to collaborate was the billions of dollars channeled into the colonized state apparatus (and easily plundered through phony ‘reconstruction’ projects) to compensate for the risks of political assassination by nationalist resistance fighters. At the pinnacle of the parallel regimes were the puppet rulers, each certified by the CIA for their loyalty, servility and willingness to sustain imperial supremacy over the occupied people. They obeyed Washington’s demands to privatize public enterprises and supported Pentagon recruitment of a mercenary army under colonial command.


Hamid Karzai was chosen as the puppet ruler in Afghanistan, based merely on his family ties with drug traffickers and compatibility with warlords and elders on the imperial payroll. His isolation was highlighted by the fact that even the presidential guard was made up of US Marines. In Iraq, US colonial officials in consultation with the White House and the CIA chose Nouri al Maliki as the “Prime Minister” based on his zealous “hands on” engagement in torturing resistance fighters suspected of attacking US occupation forces.


In Pakistan the US backed a convicted felon on the lam, Asif Ali Zardari as President. He repeatedly demonstrated his accommodating spirit by approving large scale, long term US aerial and ground operations on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border. Zardari emptied the Pakistani treasury and mobilized millions of soldiers to assault and displace frontier population centers sympathetic to the Afghan resistance.


Puppets in Action: Between Imperial Subservience and Mass Isolation


The three puppet regimes have provided a fig leaf for the imperial savaging of the colonized people of the countries they preside over. Nouri al Maliki has over the past 5 years, not only justified the US occupation but actively promoted the assassination and torture of thousands of anti-colonial activists and resistance fighters. He has sold billion dollar oil and gas concessions to overseas oil companies. He has presided over the theft (‘disappearance’ or “unaccountable”) of billions of dollars in oil revenues and US foreign aid (squeezed from US tax payers). Hamid Karzai, who has rarely ventured out of the presidential compound without his US Marine bodyguards, has been ineffective in gathering even token support except through his extended family. His main prop was narco warlord brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, killed by his CIA certified Chief of Security. Since Karzai’s domestic support is extremely narrow, his main functions include attending external donors meetings, issuing press statements and rubber stamping each increase (“surge”) in US troops. The intensified use of Special Forces death squads and drone warplanes, inflicting high civilian casualties, has further enraged Afghans. The entire civilian and military apparatus nominally under Karzai is unquestionably, penetrated by Taliban and other nationalist groups, making him totally dependent on the US troops and warlords and drug traffickers on the CIA payroll.


The Pakistani puppet Arif Ali Zardari, despite strong resistance from sectors of the military and intelligence agencies, and despite 85% popular hostility to the US, has plunged the country into a series of sustained large scale military offenses against Islamist communities in the Northeast territories, displacing over 4 million refugees. Under orders from the White House to escalate the war against Taliban sanctuaries and their Pakistan armed allies, Zardari has lost all credibility as a ‘national’ politician. He has outraged nationalist loyalties by ‘covertly’ approving US gross violations of sovereignty by allowing US Special Forces to operate from Pakistan bases in their murderous operations against local Islamic militants. The daily US drone bombing of civilians in villages, on highways and in markets has led to a near universal consensus of his puppet status.


While puppet rulers provide a useful façade for external propaganda purposes, their effectiveness diminishes to zero domestically, as their subservience before the imperial slaughter of non-combatants increases. The initial imperial propaganda ploy portraying the puppets as “associate” or “power-sharers” loses credibility as it becomes transparent that the puppet rulers are impotent to rectify imperial abuses. This is especially the case with pervasive human rights violations and the destruction of the economy. Foreign aid is widely perceived as nurturing widespread extortion, corruption and incompetent administration of basic services.


As the domestic resistance grows and as the imperial countries ‘will’ to continue a decade long war and occupation wanes, the puppet rulers, feel intense pressure to make, at least, token expressions of ‘independence’. The puppets begin to “talk back’ to the puppet-masters, attempting to play to the vast chorus of mass indignation over the most egregious occupation crimes against humanity. The colonial occupation begins to sink, under the weight of one-billion-dollars-per-week expenditures from depleted treasuries. The token troop withdrawals signal the growing importance and dependence on a highly suspect ‘native’ mercenary force, causing the puppets increasingly to fear for loss of office and life.


Puppet rulers begin to contemplate that it is time to probe the possibilities of making a deal with the resistance; time to voice popular indignation at civilian killings; time to praise the withdrawal of troops, but nothing consequential. No abandoning the protection of the imperial Praetorian Guard or, ‘god forbid’, the latest tranche of foreign aid. It’s an opportune time for Ali Zardari to criticize the US military intrusion, killing Bin Laden; time for Al Maliki to call on the US to “honor” its troop withdrawal in Iraq; time for Karzai to welcome the Afghan military takeover of a province of least resistance (Bamiyan). Are the puppets in some sort of ‘revolt’ against the puppet master? 


Washington apparently is annoyed: $800 million in aid to Pakistan has been held up pending greater military and intelligence collaboration in scourging the countryside and cities in search of Islamic resistance fighters. The Taliban assassination of Karzai’s brother and top political adviser Jan Mohamed Khan, important assets in buttering the puppet regime, signals that the puppet rulers’ occasional critical emotional ejaculations are not resonating with the Taliban “shadow government” which covers the nation and prepares a new military offensive.


The puppet ‘revolts’ neither influence the colonial master nor attract the anti-colonial masses. They signal the demise of a US attempt at colonial revivalism. It spells the end of the illusion of the neo-conservative and neo-liberal ideologists who fervently believed that US military power was capably of invading, occupying and ruling the Islamic world via shadow puppets projected over a mass of submissive peoples. The colonial example of Israel, a narrow strip of arid coastline, remains an anomaly in a sea of independent Islamic and secular states. Efforts by its US advocates to reproduce Israel’s relative consolidation through wars, occupations and puppet regimes has instead led to the bankruptcy of the US and the collapse of the colonial state. Puppets will be in flight; troops are in retreat; flags will be lowered and a period of prolonged civil war is in the offering. Can a democratic social revolution replace puppets and puppet masters? We in the United States live in a time of profound and deepening crises, in which rightwing extremism has penetrated the highest office and has seized the initiative for now but hopefully not forever. 


The overseas colonial wars are coming to a close, are domestic wars on the horizon? 

READ HIS BIO AND MORE ARTICLES
BY JAMES PETRAS ON AXIS OF LOGIC

James Petras' New Book:

The Arab Revolt and the Imperialist Counterattack 

FROM THE PREFACE: The popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia have overthrown the public face of the imperial-backed dictatorships in the region, and inspired supporters of popular democracy worldwide.

Clarity Press 05.03.2011
As the Arab revolt spreads from North Africa to the Gulf and deepens its demands to include socio-economic as well as political demands, the Empire is striking back. The ruling military junta in Egypt has cracked down on the prodemocracy movement and looks to its autocratic “partners” in the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula to drown the civil society movements in a blood bath.

While standing by the crumbling dictatorships elsewhere in the region, the United States, France and the United Kingdom raced to intervene when it seemed the revolt had spread to Libya. NATO was deployed, using the UN’s new “responsibility to protect” doctrine authorizing humanitarian intervention. Already NATO intervention has exceeded the UN mandate by bombing the Libyan capital and inflicting civilian casualties. Meanwhile, western governments openly pursue regime change in Libya while seeking to forestall it elsewhere.

These essays chronicle the growing militarization of US policy in North Africa and the Gulf and the historic confrontation between the Arab democratic revolution and the imperial backed satraps; between Libyans fighting for their independence and the Euro-American naval and air forces ravaging the country on behalf of their inept local clients.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO ORDER

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Washington Faces the Arab Revolts:
Sacrificing Dictators to Save the State

Egypt’s Social Movements, The CIA and Mossad

Roots of the Arab Revolts and Premature Celebrations

The Euro-US War on Libya

Official Lies and Misconceptions of Critics

Libya and Obama’s Defense of the ‘Rebel Uprising’

Contextualizing the ‘Arab Spring’:
Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power

APPENDIX:
Indicators of Social Well Being in Pre-invasion Libya

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AUTHOR

James Petras is a Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He is the author of 64 books published in 29 languages, and over 560 articles in professional journals, including the American Sociological Review, British Journal of Sociology, Social Research, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Journal of Peasant Studies. He has published over 2000 articles in nonprofessional journals such as the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, New Left Review, Partisan Review, Temps Moderne, Le Monde Diplomatique, and his commentary is widely carried on the internet. His publishers have included Random House, John Wiley, Westview, Routledge, Macmillan, Verso, Zed Books and Pluto Books. He is winner of the Life Time Career Award, Marxist Section, of the American Sociology Association, the Robert Kenny Award for Best Book, 2002, and the Best Dissertation, Western Political Science Association in 1968.

Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), Unmasking Globalisation(2001), System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author) Multinationals on Trial (2006). His most recent titles areThe Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States, (acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, Global Depression & Regional Wars, and War Crimes in Gaza and the Zionist Fifth Column in America. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America. He writes a monthly column for the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, and previously, for the Spanish daily, El Mundo. He received his B.A. from Boston University and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

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America's Libyans

Neo-Liberal Interventionism

By VIJAY PRASHAD
March 31, 2011
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"



Libya was not fated for an Arab Spring. As Aijaz Ahmad once put it, “every country gets the fascism it deserves.” In that spirit, every country gets the rebellion it deserves. Libya did not deliver the uplifting spactacles of Tunisia or Egypt. Its rebellion had a history that stretches back a hundred years, and one that was not so easy to shake off. That east-west divide smothered any attempt by the working-class in the western cities to rise to their full potential. Zintan was lost to Qaddafi briefly, but he took it back easily and then crushed the rebellion.

The upsurge from below enthused the lower orders of Qaddafi’s army in the east. They defected to the Benghazi rebels. Popular councils emerged in the cities and towns of the east. The east had sent a disproportionate number of its young to fight in Iraq. They did not go solely for the purposes of jihad, or only because they had admiration for al-Qaeda. A U. S. embassy official reported in 2008 (thank you Wikileaks) that the young men who went to Iraq did so in part because they could not effectively protest against Qaddafi.. The official went to Derna. Upon his return to Tripoli, he filed this memorandum for his superiors (08TRIPOLI120),

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil. Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB). A U. S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U. S. and eager “to create a strategic partnership between private companies and the government.” Jibril’s NEBD had collaborated with Ernst & Young and the Oxford Group to make the Libyan state more “efficient.” Jibril told the ambassador that “American companies and universities are welcome to join him” in the creation of new sectors outside hydrocarbons and that “we should take him up on his offer.” His Ph. D. in strategic planning from the University of Pittsburg is useful in this context.

With Jalil and Jibril are the February 17 movement’s men. They take their name from an uprising in Benghazi on February 17, 2006 that was crushed by Qaddafi. These men (Fathi Boukhris, Farj Charrani, Mustafa Gheriani and All Ounes Mansouri) are all entrepreneurs. Gheriani told Jon Lee Anderson that they are “Western-educated intellectuals” who would lead the new state, not the “confused mobs or religious extremists.”

In December 23, 2010, before the Tunisian uprising, Boukhris, Charrani and Mansouri went to Paris to meet with Qaddafi’s old aide-de-camp, Nuri Mesmari, who had defected to the Concorde-Lafayette hotel. Mesmari was singing to the DGSE and Sarkozy about the weaknesses in the Libyan state. His man in Benghazi was Colonel Abdallah Gehani of the air defense corps. But Gehani would not be the chosen military leader. The CIA already had its man in mind. He would soon be in place.

By March 14, the military wing of the Benghazi rebellion had been turned over to an ex-Colonel of the Libyan army, Khalifa Heftir and to the former interior minister, General Abdel Fateh Younis. Heftir made his name in Qaddafi’s war against Chad in the 1980s. At some point in that conflict, Heftir turned against Qaddafi, joined the Libyan National Salvation Front, and operated his resistance out of Chad. When the US-supported government of Chad, led by Hisséne Habré fell in 1990, Heftir fled Chad for the United States. It is interesting that an ex-Colonel of the Libyan army was able to so easily gain entry into the United States. Also of interest is the fact that Heftir took up residence in Vienna, Virginia, less than seven miles away from Langley, Virginia, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. In Vienna, Heftir formed the Libyan National Army. In 1996, Heftir’s Army attempted an armed rebellion against Qaddafi in the eastern part of Libya. It failed. But that did not stop his plans. History called him back fifteen years later. In March 2011, Heftir flew into Benghazi to take command of the defected troops, joining Younis whose troops had been routed from Ras Lanouf on March 12. They faced the advance of Qaddafi’s forces toward Benghazi. It was in this context, with the uprising now firmly usurped by a neo-liberal political leadership and a CIA-backed military leadership, that talk of a no-fly zone emerged (Resolution 1973 went through the Council on March 19, and the bombing began immediately). The U. S. and France provided crucial air support for the rebels.

With the hands on the political and military tiller firmly in the U. S. camp, it is no surprise that the armed response has escalated. UN Resolution 1973 (March 19) created a no-fly zone to protect civilians. Within hours it was clear that the no-fly zone was used to provide air support for the rebel army. The U. S. and France said that no ground forces would be used. Technology has rendered the idea of “ground forces” redundant. The U. S. brought its AC130 gunships and A10s into operation over the skies of Libya. These are not designed to help patrol the sky, but are capable of hovering in the sky and firing at ground troops and at heavy machinery with its cannons (including a 40mm Bofors cannon) and machine guns. The AC130 is essentially “boots in the air,” and its presence shows that the U. S. arsenal (even under NATO command) is no longer patrolling the skies, but is actively engaged against the Qaddafi forces on the ground. In addition, the U. S. inserted a phrase in Resolution 1973 that opened the door to eventual arms provision to the rebels (the phrase is notwithstanding paragraph 9 of 1970, which essentially means that Resolution 1973 will allow member states to “take all necessary measures” including arms delivery, notwithstanding the arms embargo of Resolution 1970).

On March 26, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told the press that the resolution provided the U. S. with “flexibility within that to take that action [supply military equipment] if we thought that were the right way to go.” In other words, the arms embargo is flexible. On March 27, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told NBC’s David Gregory that on the question of arms supply, “No decision has been made about that at this point.” Escalation is on the horizon.

The troops of Qaddafi and of the rebels swing back and forth between Ras Lanuf and Ajtabia like a pendulum. U. S. and French air strikes have degraded the forces of the regime, but they have not yet destroyed them. The civil war continues. If the U. S. and France start to supply the rebels, it is likely that in the long haul Qaddafi’s troops will dissolve into an insurgency. In which case, Libya is likely to enter a protracted period of deep instability. The figures in place in Benghazi from the political and military side would hope to ride into Tripoli on their own tanks, but under NATO air cover. They have many to whom they owe much. People like Mahmoud Jibril and Khalifa Heftir will be more accountable to their patrons in Paris and Washington than to the people of Libya, whose blood is being spilled on both sides for an outcome that is unlikely to benefit them.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu 

The Strategic Alliance Between Algeria and The US

Two-Sided Love Affair

By ROB PRINCE
Weekend Edition
April 1 - 3, 2011
Courtesy Of "CounterPunch"

At about the time that the United States, the European Union and NATO were putting the final touches on their not-so `humanitarian’ interventionalism in Libya, U.S. Middle East policy was developing along quite different lines in Algeria.

On March 4-7, in Algiers, the United States and Algeria formed what both countries are referring to as `a new contact group’ for counter-terrorism collaboration, cementing even further a decade of close intelligence and military cooperation between the two countries.

Underlining the importance of the security arrangement, the United States sent Daniel Benjamin, the U.S. State Department’s Coordinator for Counter Terrorism, to attend. The Algerian side was represented by Algerian presidential advisor, Kamel Rezzag Bara.

At a press conference Benjamin welcomed `the inaugural meeting of the bilateral contact group,’. 

He asserted the U.S. intended to work with Algeria to `counter groups that seek to launch attacks against innocents’. The crusader bombast and confrontational style of the Bush years has been replaced by a much softer touch stylistically at least. Poised, cutting a handsome `Kennedy-like’ image, Benjamin chose his words carefully.

'Algeria’s future should be in its own hands’, Benjamin told an audience of Algerian journalists. He continued, `The U.S. supports the democratization process in Algeria and elsewhere in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel.’ In response to a question, Benjamin categorically stated that `the United States does not seek any more military bases in Africa’.   Benjamin went on to state `the future of Algeria is for Algerians to determine”.

In response to a question, Benjamin categorically stated that `the United States does not seek any more military bases in Africa’.

Indeed, the rhetoric was impeccable. If only it matched the reality!

Take, for instance, the comment that the United States does not seek military bases in Africa. The United States has been `frantically’ looking for an African home for AFRICOM, the African command center created during the Bush years to deal with Africa’s strategic importance in terms of oil and rare minerals, and to counter China’s growing influence throughout the continent.

It seems African countries – even allies – don’t believe that AFRICOM is a Peace Corps-like outfit concerned with development and fighting AIDs. Despite repeated U.S. denials to the contrary, African leaders fear it is something more sinister, Imagine!

Furthermore the United States has at least one military base of some size and significance in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa. There is  evidence that another one existed for a number of years in Tamanrassett, deep in the Algerian Sahara out of which U.S. Special Forces operated.

U.S. and Algerian security cooperation is more than a decade old, beginning sometime just after the ending of Algeria’s `dirty war’ in 1999. One could argue it began even earlier with a number of visits by then Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney to Algeria to cut oil and gas deals with the North African country despite the fact that Algeria was bogged down in what is referred to as `The Dirty War’, a civil war that nearly split the country apart.

Willing to open its oil and gas deposits to U.S. companies, the Algerian government was also able to convince the Bush Administration in the days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack that it stood with the United States as a partner in global war on terrorism; unbeknownst to many, the relations between the two countries improved considerably. Then in 2002-2003, the US, in collusion with its new regional ally Algeria, launched a second front in its global war on terrorism across the Sahara and Sahelian regions of Africa.

What seems to be the chemistry to bring these unlikely allies together? If British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan is to be believed – and he makes an excellent case – U.S.-Algerian cooperation `countering terrorism’ has been little more than a pretext for a strategic military alliance in which both countries gained in different ways. The actual relationship bears little of the moral rectitude suggested in Benjamin’s remarks.

“For Algeria, the partnership has meant increased access to U.S. military and surveillance technology which it was denied during the 1990s due to the `dirty war’. In the name of fighting terrorism, the alliance also extends Algerian influence over its southern neighbors in the Sahara and Sahel:  Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania. 

“For the United States, the arrangement permits Washington to `piggy back’ on Algerian security concerns, real and imagined, to create a security network that today extends in the north, from Algeria in the north – one of Africa’s most prolific oil and natural gas producing countries, to Nigeria on Africa’s western coast, another of the continent’s great oil producing countries.

“The Algerian-U.S. relationship,  a marriage of convenience,  was cemented not long after 9-11 by a rather bizarre, if not surrealistic and apparently heavily contrived set of circumstances that fit the needs of both. The Bush Administration, with Dick Cheney taking the lead, wanted to open a second front on the `global war on terrorism’  (GWOT)  in Africa focusing on the Sahara.”  

Only one minor problem: there was virtually no terrorism, no terrorist groups in the area. Indeed, despite its natural hazards, in 2001-2, the Sahara was arguably one of the safest places to travel anywhere in the world. If Keenan is correct, the Algerian Departement de Reseignement et Securite (DRS), the Algerian Security Service, in cooperation with the U.S. military – under the auspices then of EUCOM based in Germany -fabricated an incident and then blew it all out of proportion in the medias of both countries.

In The Dark Sahara, Keenan makes the case that the kidnapping of German speaking tourists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2002 was managed by the Algerian DRS with the knowledge if not complicity of the U.S. Special Forces with whom the Algerians worked rather closely. He substantiates claims that:

“The so-called Islamic groups which participated in the kidnappings were either penetrated or run by the DRS.

There was no `terrorist' pipeline from Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda in Afghanstan through to Africa.

“The whole kidnapping incident was essentially staged, and then blown out of proportion by both the Algerian press (with close ties to its security establishment) to create the myth of the Saharan terrorist threat.

My favorite part of this pervasive scam is the likelihood that the `leader’ of the Islamic fundamentalist group, a fellow named El Para, was an Algerian DRS operative who trained in counter insurgency for two years at Ft. Bragg North Carolina. Keenan claims El Para was in constant contact with his Algerian security handlers during the entire time of the 2002 kidnapping.” 

As a result, the Algerian military and security forces got their high tech death and communication toys, and the Bush Administration its pretext to deepen its military involvement in Africa.

Keenan’s hypothesis fits the Bush GWOT pattern to a tee: Military intervention requires embellishing or fabricating an impending threat. An elaborate disinformation campaign is launched.

The remoteness of the Sahara makes verifying fabrication difficult, permitting Algerians and the U.S. military to liberally embellish the truth. Who could disprove what was or was not going on in the southeastern corner of Algeria or northwestern Niger?

But then they didn’t reckon with Jeremy Keenan, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Sahara, his decades long human connection with the Tuareg peoples who live there, and his unflagging sense of decency and unwillingness not to go along with a dangerous political charade.

There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; across the Sahara and the Sahel, a terrorist threat with links to Al Qaeda was more a scheme hatched by the DRS in Algiers than a viable Islamic resistance movement. We’ve been conned once again.

Rob Prince lectures in International Studies at the University of Denver. He can be reached at robertjprince@comcast.net