Posts Tagged ‘Egypt of Mubarak’
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks: On how leaks affected “Arab Spring” uprising
Posted by: adonis49 on: September 17, 2011
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks: On how the leaks affected “Arab Spring” uprising
Julian Assange gave an extensive interview to Hans Ulrich Obrist, published in 4 parts in the French weekly Courrier International. To the question on the contribution of WikiLeaks on Arab uprising, Assange had this to say:
“We tried in WikiLeaks to have an impact on the Arab societies. At least, we managed to pour oil on the fire. Studying the interactions among the leaks and the uprising are still to be written. The Lebanese daily Al Akhbar (The Stories) started publishing in December 2010 analyses of the US diplomatic telegrams that related to Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.
The domain name of Al Akhbar was attacked and redirected to a porno site in Saudi Arabia. As Al Akhbar recovered from the attack, it had to face denials of services, and dealing with hackers erasing the contents of cables, articles, and pieces of analyses. WikiLeakes supporters intervened and redirected to us the official Tunisian sites.
The New Yorker divulged a leak from the US ambassador to Tunisia, exposing the rampant corruption of President Ben Ali and his entourage. One leak announced the readiness of the US to supporting the Tunisian army against Ben Ali. This piece of intelligence was a strong message and a signal to getting on the move. When we witnessed the Tunisian uprising, we knew that Egypt of Mubarak is next in line.
Consequently, we worked hard to release leaks concerning Mubarak’s vast and deep network of collaborators and far-reaching corruption to even small municipalities and shop owners. In collaboration with the British The Daily Telegraph, we published 480 telegram leaks on Libya of Qadhafi.
These leaks tarnished and weakened the massive support that the US and western States lavished on Mubarak and Qadhafi.
For example, vice President Joseph Biden, refrained from repeating that “The regime of Mubarak is most probably democratic“. Leaks exposed the close cooperation and technical support of the FBI with Egypt internal security services and procedures for torture activities, against human rights…
For example, another leaks divulged instructions to soccer clubs to not using Facebook and Twitter. The Egyptian revolutionary had a field day disseminating this leak of forbidding the usage of social platform.
From the 20 dailies we cooperated with, only The Daily Telegram thought it worthwhile analyzing leaks on Egypt and Libya and publishing any articles relative to these leaks they had.
Iraqis refuse foreign appointed governments: Qualitative shift in “Arab” mass uprising?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 26, 2011
The US troops have got to accelerate the withdrawal from Iraq: Iraqis are mass demonstrating in all provinces refusing the foreign appointed governments. The Iraqis, Shias, Sunnis, Christians, Arabs, Kurds…want no more to be subjugated to the masquerade of foreign formed government and hegemony.
After more than two decades of embargoes, preemptive occupation of their lands…; after two decades that resulted in the death of three millions out of famine, curable diseases, collateral damages, foreign induced and encouraged terrorist attacks, decimating mostly the toddlers and children, the youth in Iraq woke up to the Arab people taking matters in their hands against dictators, absolute monarchs, one-party regimes, mostly submitted to foreign policies and political pressures.
The modern youth in Iraq are shouting: “we have suffered enough for half a century and we can no longer go on with daily cheap death, infamy, humiliation, and indignities: All our calamities have to stop NOW.”
Iraqis are taking to the streets (women, children, elder people, youth…) and marching in every province. Mayors are abdicating in respect to the awakened national unity spirit and the demands for drastic reforms and daily subsistence.
All these bogus alienations by subversive foreign powers (US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt of Mubarak…), setting Iraqis against one another along religious and sectarian divides, along “national” or language divides, along political party dissensions of Baath, communists, religious denominations…all these faked dissensions have no currency any longer to be traded with.
The ways Maliki PM has been disregarding the plight of the Iraqis and viewing with contempt the wrath, boiling for months within Iraqi youth, are tolling the bell of foreign appointed institutions and government.
The Iraqi Kurds want nothing to do with Kurdish one-party rules of provinces: away with decades of decadence, massacres, oligarchy, robbing of State treasury…under bogus excuses of ethnic and language differences.
The Shias and Sunnis are revolting together in mass protests everywhere and demanding reforms and more application and focus on the people daily needs for survival.
World, make room for a new modern “Arab” awakening. Obscurantist and extremist Islamists are out from power. Modern youth, Arabs, Kurds, Berbers, Moslems, Christians, northern African, Near Eastern, Gulf States… are in and winning their future hands down.
Bi-Weekly Report (#16) on Lebanon and the Middle East (April 16, 2009)
On April 13, the date of the start of the civil war in Lebanon in 1975, contraband Mafioso of the Jaafar clan in the Bekaa Valley shot at a military convoy; they killed four soldiers and injured 13. CNN reported that the Lebanese army was supporting an internal directive to close down drug trafficking hot spots located in towns closed to government interventions, such as the large town of Erssal where stolen cars are parked and re-negotiated with the owners. This plan of entering and monitoring enclaves has been in execution for a couple of months with some success. Why this assault was triggered just on April 13, the date of the start of the civil war? Maybe the contraband militants wanted to dress up their action with political undertones, such as the Americans are intervening again in our internal affairs by providing arms to the Lebanese army in exchange of relieving Israel in its drug war across the border.
Israel’s economy relies heavily on drug and slave trafficking; obviously, it is not in the interest of Israel to stop the influx of drugs from Lebanon; why should it buy drugs from Afghanistan or elsewhere when it is handier and less costly from its neighbors? Cost is the main factor. Israel is not worried on the supply side but is not happy to buy drugs at higher prices. Israel would like to transact with clans in Lebanon and not with heavy weight militias with strong political backing.
Egypt of Mubarak is playing the clown. Egypt’s justice of this three decades long dictatorship is famous for being politically guided and oriented at desires. It appears that a month before Israel launched its genocide attack on Gaza, and six months of total blockade before the genocide, a blockade that is still ongoing by Israel and Egypt, Egypt had detained a Lebanese citizen whom Hezbollah admitted to be a member. The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasr Allah, said in a televised speech last week that this member was aiding the Palestinians of Gaza in transporting (3attal) materials through tunnels, as if helping the Palestinians in a crime and not a badge of honor. Egypt’s justice would like you to believe that Hezbollah was organizing a vast network of cells for disturbing internal security. Egypt’s Foreign Minister would like you to believe that Iran, that became predominantly Shiaa only in the 18th century, hates Salladin (Salah El Deen), who freed Jerusalem from the Crusaders, because he replaced a Shiaa Fatimide dynasty in Egypt with a Sunni Ayubeed dynasty in the 12th century!
Mubarak should have thanked Hezbollah for relieving Egypt of the sustained US pressures and giving him a huge and sound excuse for maintaining a semblance of autonomy. Instead, Mubarak is left with no cards to lick the ass of the US Administration but to show public animosity to Hezbollah. Mubarak is like those going to Mecca while the Hajjis are returning; Mubarak did not get it yet: the US in no longer interested in Hezbollah; it has much bigger problems that to be pleased by Mubarak. How low can a mighty nation such as Egypt stoop so that its regime secures a misery two billions dollars in financial aids to distribute to its cronies and Presidential security?
The fact is, Saudi Arabia had been investing billions in the last 40 years on building new mosques in Egypt and hiring clerics to proselytize the ultra conservative and dark Wahhabit sect and for chant Saudi monarch’s praise on Friday’s prayers. The fact is that the Mubarak regime had lost the last shred of political credibility and viability for handling Arab disunity, as if the Arab States have ever experience the semblance of unity in 60 years. The Mubarak regime cowed in front of Israel and let the Palestinians of Gaza be massacred like sheep, like sitting ducks for three weeks. The fact is that the majority of the European leaders, instantly after the genocide, flocked to Charm El Sheikh to offer support and bolster Mubarak’s political standing; the European leaders wanted to believe that Mubarak had a long-term plan and could be the best mediator among the Palestinian factions, that Mubarak is the rock of the Arab League. The European leaders quickly realized that Mubarak is a cranky senile and an impotent old leader: after five months of negotiations the Palestinians failed to unite on a resolution and Gaza is suffering total blockade and daily Israeli raids. The fact is that the European leaders and Barak Obama of the USA pinpointed the heavy weight champs in this region: mainly Turkey and Iran and have no time to waste on re-visiting a Mubarak
Rumors in Lebanon and Egypt would like you to believe that Hezbollah unilaterally engaged war against “mighty” Israel in June 2006 to re-create the battle of Karbala without being defeated this time around (the battle where Hussein, son of Ali, was vanquished by Yazeed bin Muawiya around 700 AC). Rumors would like you to believe that the Sunni are not conservative, simply because they enjoyed political dominance through Islam’s history. The Sunni sect would like you to believe that, in theory and theologically, is “Haneef” (orthodox) abiding by the premises of following common denominators among the monolithic religious sects. The Sunni females would not hastily rejoin their males’ contentions. Ironically, the Wahabit sect of Saudi Arabia (the most reductive and close minded sect that ever existed) would like to be regarded as the leading Sunni sect.
Rumors would like you to believe that the Sunni are engaging in hate extremism against the Shiaa because implicitly; the Shiaa are planning to becoming the dominant political faction in Lebanon; as if this is not already a reality demographically and organizationally. The Shiaa have earned their spot under the sun because they resisted Israel’s consistent humiliation of Lebanon for over 60 years under various pretenses. Rumors would like you to believe that the Sunni started to be apprehensive of the Shiaa power as the Syrian mandate in Lebanon gave green light to the “Amal” militia (of Nabeeh Berry, currently the Parliament Chief) during the civil war to enter the Palestinian camps in Beirut and then giving sole monopoly for resisting Israel to Hezbollah. One fact remains: the Sunni around the Arab World and particularly in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are being indoctrinated on the Wahhabit Saudi Arabia extra conservative sect. Current terrorist activities among the Moslems are rooted in the Wahhabit sect’s culture, such as Al Qaeda of Ben Laden.
It appears that there was lately a power struggle within the Saudi family. The head of the Saudi secret services, former Ambassador to the USA “Emir” Bandar, plotted for his father, Defense Minister, to replace King Abdullah. I am not waging that the Wahhabit political proselytizing drive would end but at least a slowing down is comforting to many Moslem States.
Adonis Diaries 