Ægypten: Fremtrædende medlemmer af regeringspartiet træder tilbage

MP Mamdouh Hosny, director of the Industry and Energy Committee and ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP) representative for the Ghirbal district in Alexandria, resigned from the party.

A source from within the Federation of Industries also revealed that a number of its members planned to resign from the party.

The same source said that Mahmoud Suleiman, the Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Chemical Industries and the NDP’s Economic Committee member in parliament, had also resigned from the party several days ago.

Al Masry Al Youm: Senior NDP officials resign from party.

Karzai: USA ønsker permanente baser i Afghanistan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Tuesday that the United States are seeking to establish permanent bases in Afghanistan to target al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in the region.

The bases would enable US troops to remain in the area beyond the planned transfer of security responsibility from US and NATO troops to Afghan forces by end of 2014, a process due to begin in the spring.

Addressing a press conference in his fortified presidential palace, Karzai said that his government was negotiating with US officials on a range of strategic agreements, including the establishment of permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

The president said that several US officials and senators had told him, 'Yes they want this (permanent bases) and we have been negotiating with them.'

'We believe that a long-term relationship with the United States is in the interest of Afghanistan,' Karzai said. He said he hoped for a relationship 'that brings security to Afghanistan, that brings economic prosperity to Afghanistan and an end to violence.'

Information Clearinghouse / Deutsche Presse Agentur.

Kina: Lad Ægypterne bestemme selv.

China said on Thursday foreign powers should stay out of Egypt's affairs, in an oblique swipe at the United States and some European countries that have put pressure on embattled President Hosni Mubarak to step down.

"China advocates that Egyptian affairs should be determined by the Egyptian people, and should not face outside interference," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said at a regular press briefing.

"We believe Egypt has the wisdom and ability to find the proper solution and get through this difficult time," he added.

Beijing's stance reflects its reluctance to criticise authoritarian governments in the developing world and its long-held policy of denouncing foreign interference in domestic affairs, especially external criticism of Chinese policies.

Reuters: China says Egypt should decide future on its own.

Wikileaks: Ægyptens torturbødler har modtaget træning hos FBI.

According to leaked diplomatic cables, the head of the Egyptian state security and investigative service (SSIS) thanked the US for “training opportunities” at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia. The SSIS has been repeatedly accused of using violence and brutality to help prop up the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. In April, 2009, the US ambassador in Cairo stated that “Egypt’s police and domestic security services continue to be dogged by persistent, credible allegations of abuse of detainees.

“The Interior Ministry uses SSIS to monitor and sometimes infiltrate the political opposition and civil society. SSIS suppresses political opposition through arrests, harassment and intimidation.”

In October, 2009, “credible” human rights lawyers representing alleged Hizbollah detainees provided details of the techniques employed by the SSIS. The cable states: “The lawyers told us in mid-October that they have compiled accounts from several defendants of GOE [Government of Egypt] torture by electric shocks, sleep deprivation, and stripping them naked for extended periods.

The Telegraph: WikiLeaks: Egyptian 'torturers' trained by FBI

Den ægyptiske hær tilbageholder og torturerer demonstranter

The Egyptian military has secretly detained hundreds and possibly thousands of suspected government opponents since mass protests against President Hosni Mubarak began, and at least some of these detainees have been tortured, according to testimony gathered by the Guardian.

The military has claimed to be neutral, merely keeping anti-Mubarak protesters and loyalists apart. But human rights campaigners say this is clearly no longer the case, accusing the army of involvement in both disappearances and torture – abuses Egyptians have for years associated with the notorious state security intelligence (SSI) but not the army [...]

Among those detained have been human rights activists, lawyers and journalists, but most have been released. However, Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights in Cairo, said hundreds, and possibly thousands, of ordinary people had "disappeared" into military custody across the country for no more than carrying a political flyer, attending the demonstrations or even the way they look. Many were still missing.

"Their range is very wide, from people who were at the protests or detained for breaking curfew to those who talked back at an army officer or were handed over to the army for looking suspicious or for looking like foreigners even if they were not," he said. "It's unusual and to the best of our knowledge it's also unprecedented for the army to be doing this."

The Guardian: Egypt's army 'involved in detentions and torture'.

Fremragende baggrundsartikel om Omar Suleiman

Under the Bush administration, in the context of "the global war on terror", US renditions became "extraordinary", meaning the objective of kidnapping and extra-legal transfer was no longer to bring a suspect to trial - but rather for interrogation to seek actionable intelligence. The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites - and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to other regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt’s torturer-in-chief. At least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt — Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib — was reportedly tortured by Suleiman himself....

...A far more infamous torture case, in which Suleiman also is directly implicated, is that of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. Unlike Habib, who was innocent of any ties to terror or militancy, al-Libi was allegedly a trainer at al-Khaldan camp in Afghanistan. He was captured by the Pakistanis while fleeing across the border in November 2001. He was sent to Bagram, and questioned by the FBI. But the CIA wanted to take over, which they did, and he was transported to a black site on the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea, then extraordinarily rendered to Egypt. Under torture there, al-Libi "confessed" knowledge about an al-Qaeda–Saddam connection, claiming that two al-Qaeda operatives had received training in Iraq for use in chemical and biological weapons. In early 2003, this was exactly the kind of information that the Bush administration was seeking to justify attacking Iraq and to persuade reluctant allies to go along. Indeed, al-Libi’s "confession" was one the central pieces of "evidence" presented at the United Nations by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to make the case for war...

...Omar Suleiman is not the man to bring democracy to the country. His hands are too dirty, and any 'stability' he might be imagined to bring to the country and the region comes at way too high a price. Hopefully, the Egyptians who are thronging the streets and demanding a new era of freedom will make his removal from power part of their demands, too.

Al Jazeera: Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo.

Dagens Citat: Chris Hedges.

Empires communicate in two languages. One language is expressed in imperatives. It is the language of command and force. This militarized language disdains human life and celebrates hypermasculinity. It demands. It makes no attempt to justify the flagrant theft of natural resources and wealth or the use of indiscriminate violence. When families are gunned down at a checkpoint in Iraq they are referred to as having been “lit up.” So it goes. The other language of empire is softer. It employs the vocabulary of ideals and lofty goals and insists that the power of empire is noble and benevolent. The language of beneficence is used to speak to those outside the centers of death and pillage, those who have not yet been totally broken, those who still must be seduced to hand over power to predators. The road traveled to total disempowerment, however, ends at the same place. It is the language used to get there that is different.

Chris Hedges: Recognizing the Language of Tyranny.

Reagans sande arv.

Professor i politologi, Peter Dreier, skriver i The Nation om Reagans sande arv:

...Many Americans credit Reagan with reducing the size of government. In reality, he increased government spending, cut taxes and turned the United States from a creditor to a debtor nation. During his presidency, Reagan escalated the military budget while slashing funds for domestic programs that assisted working-class Americans and protected consumers and the environment. Not surprisingly, both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush followed in Reagan’s footsteps.

But, unfortunately, so did Bill Clinton. During his first campaign for the presidency, Clinton correctly observed that “the Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.” But a few years later, as president, Clinton proclaimed, echoing Reagan, that “the era of big government is over,” which he carried out by slashing welfare benefits for poor children.

Indeed, Reagan’s most important domestic legacy is our government’s weakened ability to do its job protecting families, consumers, workers and the environment.

How did Reagan revise America’s thinking about the role of government? Before Reagan took office, the American public was already growing more skeptical about government and politicians, exacerbated by the lies told by Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon about the Vietnam war, Nixon’s Watergate scandal and President Jimmy Carter’s inability to deal with the twin problems of rising prices and unemployment, often called “stagflation.” But Reagan—with his avuncular style, optimism and just-plain-folks demeanor—turned government-bashing into an art form.

And he had a lot of help. Accompanying the Reagan era was the rise of a well-oiled corporate-funded conservative propaganda machine—including think tanks and lobby groups, endowed professorships at universities, legal advocacy organizations, magazines, and college student internships to train the next generation—designed to demonize activist government and glorify unregulated markets. Years before Rush Limbaugh began his radio ministry to his conservative congregation of ditto-heads, Reagan and this right-wing echo chamber were on the job.

Reagan’s fans give him credit for restoring the nation’s prosperity. But whatever economic growth occurred during the Reagan years mostly benefitted those already well off. The income gap between the rich and everyone else in America widened. Wages for the average worker declined and the nation’s homeownership rate fell. During Reagan’s two terms in the White House, the minimum wage was frozen at $3.35 an hour, while prices rose, thus eroding the standard of living of millions of low-wage workers. The number of people living beneath the federal poverty line rose from 26.1 million in 1979 to 32.7 million in 1988. Meanwhile, the rich got much richer. By the end of the decade, the richest 1 percent of Americans had 39 percent of the nation’s wealth....

The Nation: Reagan's Real Legacy.

Dina Guirguis: After Mubarak, What's Next for Egypt?

Egyptians seek a democratic transformation, not another military dictatorship or a theocracy. Hosni Mubarak should transfer his presidential powers and step down. A transitional national unity government representing diverse political forces and composed of respected independent figures should be installed; their first order of business should be to lift Egypt's notorious "emergency" law, with which Mubarak has governed the country for 30 years. Next, they should approve the formation of a committee of independent legal experts to draft a new constitution enshrining principles of true citizenship, religious and political pluralism, and the civil (non-religious) nature of the Egyptian state. The military should preserve and protect Egypt's newly drafted constitution and the civil nature of the state.

Washington Post: After Mubarak, What's Next for Egypt?

ElBaradei: Mubarak should leave office to keep his dignity.

Potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei said President Mubarak should retire and leave office to keep his dignity.

In an interview with On TV satellite channel late on Sunday, ElBaradei said the Egyptian regime had lost its credibility and legitimacy, describing it as "pharaonic" for depending on only one person. The young protestors in Tahrir Square think Mubarak's resignation will resolve many of the problems they are protesting about.

“I hope Mubarak will respond,” ElBaradei added. “The regime is eroding as National Democratic Party figures quit, and many ministers have been referred to trial. The regime depends solely on Mubarak. Speaking of a void that would occur if Mubarak leaves proves the whole regime depends on him--which should never happen in any country.”

ElBaradei said Egyptian youth took to the streets on 25 January to call for a free, democratic system that does not rely on individuals.

We shouldn’t concern ourselves with the US stance towards the protests in Egypt, he pointed out, saying change will be achieved by Egyptians.

He also said “I don’t think the Muslim Brotherhood will come to power. They told me they won’t nominate anyone for the presidential elections and will run for only 30 percent of parliamentary seats. They don’t represent the majority of Egyptians."

Al Masry Al Youm: ElBaradei: Mubarak should leave office to keep his dignity.

West Backs [Suleiman's] Gradual Egyptian Transition.

The United States and leading European nations on Saturday threw their weight behind Egypt’s vice president, Omar Suleiman, backing his attempt to defuse a popular uprising without immediately removing President Hosni Mubarak from power.

American officials said Mr. Suleiman had promised them an “orderly transition” that would include constitutional reform and outreach to opposition groups.

“That takes some time,” Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton said, speaking at a Munich security conference. “There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare.”

But the formal endorsement came as Mr. Suleiman appeared to reject the protesters’ main demands, including the immediate resignation of Mr. Mubarak and the dismantling of a political system built around one-party rule, according to leaders of a small, officially authorized opposition party who spoke with Mr. Suleiman on Saturday.

Nor has Mr. Suleiman, a former general, former intelligence chief and Mr. Mubarak’s longtime confidant, yet reached out to the leaders designated by the protesters to negotiate with the government, opposition groups said.

Instead of loosening its grip, the existing government appeared to be consolidating its power: The prime minister said police forces were returning to the streets, and an army general urged protesters to scale back their occupation of Tahrir Square.

NYTimes: West Backs Gradual Egyptian Transition.

Michael Irving Jensen og Søren Espersen diskuterer Ægypten

2 Detained Reporters Saw Police’s Methods

To New York Times journalisters vidnesbyrd omhandlende deres møde med det ægyptiske styres hemmelige politi.

Captivity was terrible. We felt powerless — uncertain about where and how long we would be held. But the worst part had nothing to do with our treatment. It was seeing — and in particular hearing through the walls of this dreadful facility — the abuse of Egyptians at the hands of their own government.

For one day, we were trapped in the brutal maze where Egyptians are lost for months or even years. Our detainment threw into haunting relief the abuses of security services, the police, the secret police and the intelligence service, and explained why they were at the forefront of complaints made by the protesters.

Many journalists shared this experience, and many were kept in worse conditions — some suffering from injuries as well.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, over the period we were held there were 30 detentions of journalists, 26 assaults and 8 instances of equipment being seized. We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men.

In the morning, we could hear the strained voice of a man with a French accent calling out in English: “Where am I? What is happening to me? Answer me. Answer me.”

This prompted us into action — pressing to be released with more urgency, and indeed fear, than before. A plainclothes officer who said his name was Marwan gestured to us. “Come to the door,” he said, “and look out.”

We saw more than 20 people, Westerners and Egyptians, blindfolded and handcuffed. The room had been empty when we arrived the evening before.

“We could be treating you a lot worse,” he said in a flat tone, the facts speaking for themselves. Marwan said Egyptians were being held in the thousands. During the night we heard them being beaten, screaming after every blow.

NYTimes: 2 Detained Reporters Saw Police’s Methods.

Chomsky: It's Not Radical Islam That Worries The US – It's Independence

The current hope appears to be Mubarak loyalist Gen. Omar Suleiman, just named Egypt’s vice president. Suleiman, the longtime head of the intelligence services, is despised by the rebelling public almost as much as the dictator himself.

A common refrain among pundits is that fear of radical Islam requires (reluctant) opposition to democracy on pragmatic grounds. While not without some merit, the formulation is misleading. The general threat has always been independence. In the Arab world, the United States and its allies have regularly supported radical Islamists, sometimes to prevent the threat of secular nationalism.

A familiar example is Saudi Arabia, the ideological center of radical Islam (and of Islamic terror). Another in a long list is Zia ul-Haq, the most brutal of Pakistan’s dictators and President Reagan’s favorite, who carried out a program of radical Islamization (with Saudi funding).

Chomsky: It's Not Radical Islam That Worries The US – It's Independence.

Dagens citat: Sarah Palin

"Time is our most precious resource. How we choose to spend time I think is a reflection on what's most important to us. I am going to read my Bible every day. I am going to dig in there and seek God's wisdom and direction in every step that I take so I prioritize time to make sure that daily devotion is available."

Kilde.

It Ain't Just Mubarak -- 7 of the Worst Dictators the U.S. Is Backing to the Hilt

Embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, whose regime has received billions in U.S. aid, has been in the global media spotlight of late. He's long been “our bastard,” but he's not alone.

Alternet: It Ain't Just Mubarak - 7 of the Worst Dictators the U.S. Is Backing to the Hilt.

Egypt: Exchanging a Dictator for a Torturer.

As it now stands, the United States appears content to contemplate exchanging Hosni Mubarak for Egypt's new Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master--that is, one dictator for another-- to maintain the status quo. Of course, Israel must sign off on this deal, assuring the U.S. that Egypt can remain as its main base in the region, straddling as it does North Africa and the Middle East. Without it, the U.S. would most definitely have to rethink its entire neo-colonial policies in the region.

As for Suleiman, he looks to be a nasty piece of work....

Mother jones: Egypt: Exchanging a Dictator for a Torturer.

Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?

It seems as if the world is entering the beginnings of a new revolutionary era: the era of the ‘Global Political Awakening.’ While this ‘awakening’ is materializing in different regions, different nations and under different circumstances, it is being largely influenced by global conditions. The global domination by the major Western powers, principally the United States, over the past 65 years, and more broadly, centuries, is reaching a turning point. The people of the world are restless, resentful, and enraged. Change, it seems, is in the air. As the above quotes from Brzezinski indicate, this development on the world scene is the most radical and potentially dangerous threat to global power structures and empire. It is not a threat simply to the nations in which the protests arise or seek change, but perhaps to a greater degree, it is a threat to the imperial Western powers, international institutions, multinational corporations and banks that prop up, arm, support and profit from these oppressive regimes around the world. Thus, America and the West are faced with a monumental strategic challenge: what can be done to stem the Global Political Awakening? Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the chief architects of American foreign policy, and arguably one of the intellectual pioneers of the system of globalization. Thus, his warnings about the 'Global Political Awakening' are directly in reference to its nature as a threat to the prevailing global hierarchy. As such, we must view the 'Awakening' as the greatest hope for humanity. Certainly, there will be mainy failures, problems, and regressions; but the 'Awakening' has begun, it is underway, and it cannot be so easily co-opted or controlled as many might assume.

The reflex action of the imperial powers is to further arm and support the oppressive regimes, as well as the potential to organize a destabilization through covert operations or open warfare (as is being done in Yemen). The alterantive is to undertake a strategy of "democratization" in which Western NGOs, aid agencies and civil society organizations establish strong contacts and relationships with the domestic civil society in these regions and nations. The objective of this strategy is to organize, fund and help direct the domestic civil society to produce a democratic system made in the image of the West, and thus maintain continuity in the international hierarchy. Essentially, the project of "democratization" implies creating the outward visible constructs of a democratic state (multi-party elections, active civil society, "independent" media, etc) and yet maintain continuity in subservience to the World Bank, IMF, multinational corporations and Western powers.

It appears that both of these strategies are being simultaneously imposed in the Arab world: enforcing and supporting state oppression and building ties with civil society organizations. The problem for the West, however, is that they have not had the ability to yet establish strong and dependent ties with civil society groups in much of the region, as ironically, the oppressive regimes they propped up were and are unsurprisingly resistant to such measures. In this sense, we must not cast aside these protests and uprisings as being instigated by the West, but rather that they emerged organically, and the West is subsequently attempting to co-opt and control the emerging movements.

Global Research: Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?

Frankrig stopper våbenhandel med Ægypten.

The French prime minister's office has confirmed that France has suspended sales of arms and tear gas to Egypt.

The decision was made by the prime minister's office at a Jan. 27 meeting, an aide to Prime Minister Francois Fillon told Agence France Press on Saturday, confirming a report on the website of the French daily Le Monde.

Export permits to send police equipment to Egypt, such as tear gas grenades, were suspended Jan. 25, the aide told AFP.

Group releases photos of uncontacted tribe to raise awareness.

(CNN) -- In an effort to ramp up pressure for Peru to crack down on illegal loggers in its region of the Amazon, an indigenous rights organization has released what it says are photos of an uncontacted tribe in Brazil that is threatened by the logging across the border.
Survival International says the previously unpublished aerial photos, which it released Monday, show members of an uncontacted Brazilian tribe that is likely to get drawn into conflicts with Peruvian tribes who are fleeing their homes because of the logging.

Shibley Telhami - Upheaval in Egypt: Not about the U.S.

When the Bush administration used the Iraq War as a vehicle to spread democratic change in the Middle East, anger with the United States on foreign policy issues — particularly Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict — and deep suspicion of U.S. intentions put the genuine democracy advocates in the region on the defensive. The outcome has been that, every year since the Iraq War began, polls of Arabs revealed their sense that the Middle East is even less democratic than before.

As we witness the remarkable and inspiring events in both Tunisia and Egypt, one has to wonder whether these events could have taken place even earlier had there not been the diversion of the Iraq War — and whether these upheavals might have swept away Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship without shots being fired from the outside.

Even in Iran, where there is obvious public opposition to the clerical regime, as indicated by the contestation over the 2009 presidential election, one wonders whether the Iranian people might succeed if the regime were robbed of its ability to point fingers at the West.

Politico.

Shamir Hamid: Understanding Revolutionary Egypt.

Leder af Brookings Institutes Doha Center, Shamir Hamid, om Det Muslimske Broderskab og deres mest sandsynlige rolle i et post-Mubarak Ægypten.

I was in Egypt covering the Nov. 28 parliamentary elections - quite possibly the most rigged in the country's history. In Medinat Nasr and Shubra, I talked to the Muslim Brotherhood "whips" (the representatives who count the votes). They ran me through all the violations, one by one. They didn't seem angry as much as resigned.

Today, though, the Brotherhood finds itself in a markedly different situation. They are the country's largest, best organized opposition force at a time when anti-regime protesters are searching for leadership, and not finding it. But this leadership void has also placed Egypt's Islamists in the unenviable position of being a potentially decisive force just as the world becomes increasingly nervous at the prospect of their rise.

The Brotherhood -- the slow, bumbling giant it is -- is unlikely to fully awaken just yet. The group has always believed that it had history on its side. Whenever I would ask Brotherhood leader Esam al-Erian why they didn't seem to have a clear strategy for change, he would just sit back and say, "we are patient." Now, it knows for sure: One day, Egypt will become democratic. And one day it will be in government, although most likely as junior partner in a liberal-leftist coalition.

Foreign Policy - Shamir Hamid: Understanding Revolutionary Egypt.

Juan Cole: Top Ten Accomplishments of Egypt Demonstrators.

The protest movement in Egypt scored several victories on Friday, but did not actually succeed in getting President Hosni Mubarak to step down. Their accomplishments include:

1. The hundreds of thousands (the Egyptian Arabic press is saying a million nationwide) of demonstrators showed that they had not been cowed by the vicious attacks of Ministry of Interior goons on Wednesday and Thursday, which killed 7 and wounded over 1,000.

2. By their determination and steadfastness, they put the Egyptian army in the position of having to protect them from further attacks by the petty criminals and plainclothes secret police deployed by the Interior Ministry. The alternative would have been a bloodbath that could have destabilized the country and would have attracted further international condemnation.

3. They showed that they still have substantial momentum and that the cosmetic changes made in the government (switching out corrupt businessmen for authoritarian generals as cabinet ministers) have not actually met their demands for reform.

4. They showed that they are a broad-based, multi-class movement, with working-class Egyptians clearly making up a significant proportion of the crowd in Tahrir Square.

5. They demonstrated that they are a nation-wide movement, bringing hundreds of thousands out in Alexandria, Suez, Ismailiya, Mansoura, Luxor, Aswan and elsewhere.

6. They put pressure on the Obama administration to hold Mubarak’s feet to the fire about an early departure.

7. They so reassured Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that they are the future of Egypt that he took the risk of calling for Mubarak to step down.

8. By making a Mubarak departure seem sure, they tempted new presidential candidates into the arena, as with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, who visited the crowds at Tahrir Square to some acclaim.

9. The optimism created by crowd actions caused Nobel prize winner Mohamed Elbaradei to make an about-face and affirm that he would be willing to run for president if drafted.

10. Gave cover to to Ayman Nur of the Tomorrow (Ghad) Party and other leaders of opposition political parties to continue to demand Mubarak’s departure.

Juan Cole.

Foreign Policy: Egypt sacks top party bosses.

In a seeming tactical victory for the thousands of protesters still occupying Cairo's Tahrir Square, top members of Egypt's ruling party resigned Saturday, according to Egyptian state television.

Safwat el-Sherif, the widely reviled chief of the National Democratic Party, is out, to be replaced by Hossam al-Badrawy, a doctor who was previously the party's secretary for business. Gone, too, is Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, as well as the other four members of the Steering Committee that runs the NDP.

Protesters were clearly not satisfied by the announcement.

"It's a good step, a good tactical gain for the protest movement," said Ghad Party secretary-general Wael Nawara, calling instead for the full dissolution of the NDP. "So far they have not responded to any of our demands," he said. "Instead they have been sacrificing scapegoats."

Foreign Policy: Egypt sacks top party bosses.

Reuters: Intellectuals lead Milan rally against Berlusconi.

(Reuters) - Writers, intellectuals and a former president of the constitutional court rallied in Milan on Saturday against scandal-hit Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, accusing him of wrecking Italy's international reputation.

Reuters.

NYTimes: Obama Backs Suleiman-Led Transition

The Obama administration on Saturday formally threw its weight behind a gradual transition in Egypt, backing attempts by the country’s vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, to broker a compromise with opposition groups and prepare for new elections in September.

Nytimes.

Analyse af Professor Paul Amar.

Professor i internationale og globale studier ved University of California, Paul Amar, har skrevet en læsværdig (meta)analyse, der går i rette med det Amar anser for letbenede binære analyser af oprøret i Ægyptens gader.

...Many international media commentators – and some academic and political analysts – are having a hard time understanding the complexity of forces driving and responding to these momentous events. This confusion is driven by the binary "good guys versus bad guys" lenses most used to view this uprising. Such perspectives obscure more than they illuminate.

There are three prominent binary models out there and each one carries its own baggage: (1) People versus Dictatorship, a perspective that leads to liberal naïveté and confusion about the active role of military and elites in this uprising; (2) Seculars versus Islamists, a model that leads to a 1980s-style call for "stability" and Islamophobic fears about the containment of the supposedly extremist "Arab street"; or, (3) Old Guard versus Frustrated Youth, a lens which imposes a 1960s-style romance on the protests but cannot begin to explain the structural and institutional dynamics driving the uprising, nor account for the key roles played by many 70-year-old Nasser-era figures.

To map out a more comprehensive view, it may be helpful to identify the moving parts within the military and police institutions of the security state and how clashes within and between these coercive institutions relate to shifting class hierarchies and capital formations...

Al Jazeera: Mubarak's phantom presidency.

Democracy Now! Special Two-Hour Show On Egypt

democracynow on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Slavoj Zizek & Tariq Rmadan on Riz Khan

Pentagon Paid Billions To Contractors Suspended For Fraud.

"The military paid a total of $285 billion to more than 100 contractors between 2007 and '09, even though those same companies were defrauding taxpayers in the same period, according to a new Defense Department report.

What's perhaps most shocking is that billions of dollars went to contractors who had been either suspended or debarred for misusing taxpayer funds. The Pentagon also spent $270 billion on 91 contractors involved in civil fraud cases that resulted in judgments of more than $1 million. Another $682 million went to 30 contractors convicted of criminal fraud."

Huffington Post: Pentagon Paid Billions To Contractors Suspended For Fraud.

Video: Police Van Running Down Protesters in Egypt

Ægypten-ekspert Shadi Hamid om Det Muslimske Broderskab

While there are legitimate concerns about the group's positions on both domestic and foreign policy, the Brotherhood of today is not the Brotherhood of yesterday. Decades ago, it renounced violence. More recently, the group has publicly committed itself, in Arabic, to many of the foundational components of democratic life, including alternation of power, popular sovereignty, and judicial independence. In its political programs, the Brotherhood has largely stripped its programs of traditional Islamist content. Where the Brotherhood once talked endlessly about "application of shariah law" (tatbiq al-shariah), it now settles for vague expressions promoting Islamic values and morals. Meanwhile, its vocabulary has shifted from favoring an "Islamic state" to a "civil, democratic state with an Islamic reference."

The Brotherhood, to be sure, is not a force for liberalism, nor is it likely to become so anytime soon. The group holds views that most Americans would be uncomfortable with, including on women's rights and segregation of the sexes. But we're not voting in Egyptian elections; Egyptians are.

Ultimately, though, American fears about the Brotherhood are not about gender equality or religious freedom. After all, one of America's closest allies is the most theocratic country in the world. Saudi Arabia, as conservative as it is, supports U.S. security objectives in the region. The real concern is whether the Brotherhood, known for its inflammatory rhetoric against Israel and the United States, would work against U.S. regional interests. Crucially, would it attempt to cancel the peace treaty with Israel—long the cornerstone of the U.S.-Egypt relationship? Such an outcome is unlikely; the Brotherhood is well aware that this is a red line for the international community. Any new, transitional government—which will be tasked with rebuilding a battered country—will not want to harm its relationship with Washington and risk losing billions of dollars in much-needed assistance.

Slate: Should We Fear The Muslim Brotherhood.

Robert Fisk live fra Ægypten på Democracy Now.

Den legendariske journalist Robert Fisk gav i går et interview til det progressive amerikanske nyhedsmedie Democracy Now.

"One of the blights of history will now involve a U.S. president who held out his hand to the Islamic world and then clenched his fist when it fought a dictatorship and demanded democracy"

Democracy Now.

USAs diktatorvenner.

PÅ Salon.com kan man læse om USAs øvrige diktatorvenner, nærmere bestemt Saudi-Arabiens konge Abdullah, Jordans konge Abdullah II, Guineas Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Uzbekistans Islam Karimov og Turkmenistans Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Salon.com: What other dictators does the U.S. support?

Shamir Hamid: "Two models of democratic change are emerging."

Mellemøstekspert Shamir Hamid: "...Two models of democratic change are emerging. One is the Tunisia-Egypt-Yemen model of overturning the regime. This would seem to apply in republics, where protesters have one simple, overarching demand – that the president give up power. The person of the president, because of his dominating, partisan role, provides a rallying point for protesters. This is conducive to opposition unity. They disagree on a lot, but last they can agree on the most important thing.

The other model of change focuses around constitutional reform in the Arab monarchies. In countries like Jordan and Morocco, there are reasonably free elections. But elections have limited relevance because it’s the king who has final decision-making authority. The problem here is not necessarily the king himself but the institution of the monarchy and its disproportionate power. The solution, then, is constitutional reform that shifts power away from the king toward an elected parliament and an independent judiciary. This is what opposition groups are calling for in Jordan.

While different, both models are about altering political structures rather than gradual, slow reform. Leaders have not caught on. They seem to still think they can offer half-measures to appease their people. But the lesson of Tunisia and Egypt – as well as Yemen, Jordan, and many others – is that Arab populations, after waiting and waiting, have run out of patience."

Noam Chomsky: “This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember”

In recent weeks, popular uprisings in the Arab world have led to the ouster of Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the imminent end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, a new Jordanian government, and a pledge by Yemen’s longtime dictator to leave office at the end of his term. We speak to MIT Professor Noam Chomsky about what this means for the future of the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy in the region. When asked about President Obama’s remarks last night on Mubarak, Chomsky said: "Obama very carefully didn’t say anything... He’s doing what U.S. leaders regularly do. As I said, there is a playbook: whenever a favored dictator is in trouble, try to sustain him, hold on; if at some point it becomes impossible, switch sides."

Source: Democracy Now.

Wikileaks: U.S. intelligence collaboration with Omar Suleiman “most successful”

New cables released by Wikileaks reveal that the U.S. government has been quietly anticipating as well as cultivating Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy chief, as the top candidate to take over the country should anything happen to President Hosni Mubarak. On Saturday, this expectation was proved correct when Mubarak named Suleiman to the post of vice-president making him the first in line to assume power.

An intelligence official who trained at the U.S. Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, Suleiman became head of the spy agency in 1993 which brought him into close contact with the Central Intelligence Agency. Recently he took up a more public role as chief Egyptian interlocuter with Israel to discuss the peace process with Hamas and Fatah, the rival Palestinian factions.

Wikileaks: Egypt - U.S. intelligence collaboration with Omar Suleiman “most successful”

Om Amerikansk-produceret tåregas mod oprørene.

Pensioneret CIA-veteran om USAs udenrigspolitik i Mellemøsten.

Tidligere CIA-mand Robert Grenier kommenterer på oprøret i Ægypten og irrelevansen af den amerikanske administrations udmeldinger.

"...the US's entire frame of reference in the region is hopelessly outdated, and no longer has meaning: As if the street protesters in Tunis and Cairo could possibly care what the US thinks or says; as if the political and economic reform which president Obama stubbornly urges on Mubarak while Cairo burns could possibly satisfy those risking their lives to overcome nearly three decades of his repression; as if the two-state solution in Palestine for which the US has so thoroughly compromised itself, and for whose support the US administration still praises Mubarak, has even the slightest hope of realisation; as if the exercise in brutal and demeaning collective punishment inflicted upon Gaza, and for whose enforcement the US, again, still credits Mubarak could possibly produce a decent or just outcome; as if the US refusal to deal with Hezbollah as anything but a terrorist organisation bore any relation to current political realities in the Levant."

Al-Jazeera: The Triviality of US Mideast Policy.

Why the Army Won’t Shoot Protesters

"Khalid Ibrahim Al-Laisi has been a soldier in the Egyptian army for 20 years. Today, far from shooting protesters, he says the time has come "to revolt against oppression."

"A high-ranking Egyptian official confirmed that the Egyptian Army will not shoot at protesting people. The officers are expressing the sentiment of the soldiers, says Al-Laisi. "Who are we going to shoot? Our brothers and sisters?"

IPS News: Why the Army Won’t Shoot Protesters.

Žižek: Why fear the Arab revolutionary spirit?

Den slovenske filosof og samfundsrevser, Slavoj Žižek, kommenterer på den revolutionære arabiske ånd i The Guardian:

What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime, its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries, genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or nationalism, has been proven wrong.

Juan Cole: Why Egypt 2011 is not Iran 1979.

Den amerikanske professor i Mellemøstens historie Juan Cole har en interessant komparativ analyse af den iranske revolution og det ægyptiske oprør på sin blog.

"Egypt is, unlike Iran, not primarily an oil state. Its sources of revenue are tourism, Suez Canal tolls, manufactured and agricultural exports, and strategic rent (the $1.5 bn. or so in aid from the US comes under this heading). Egypt depends on the rest of the world for grain imports. Were it to adopt a radical and defiant ideology like that of Iran, all its major sources of income would suddenly evaporate, and it might have trouble even just getting enough imported food. Moreover, the social forces making the revolution in Egypt have a significantly different profile and different dynamics than in Iran. [...] The white collar and labor activists are far more central to the organization of the Egyptian protests than had been their counterparts in the Iranian Revolution. The Egyptian “bazaar” is much less tied to the Muslim clergy than was the case in Iran, and far less likely to fund clerical politicians. Whereas Iran’s bazaar merchants often suffered from Western competition, Egypt’s bazaar depends centrally on Western tourism. Secular parties, if we count the NDP, have an organizational advantage over the religious ones, since they have been freer to meet and act under Mubarak. It is not clear that the law banning religious parties will be changed, in which case the Brotherhood would again be stuck with running its candidates under other rubrics. And, Sunni Muslims don’t have a doctrine of owing implicit obedience to their clergy, and the clergy are not as important in Sunni religious life as the Shiite Ayatollahs are in Iran. The Muslim Brotherhood, a largely lay organization, has a lot of support, but it is not clear that they could gain more than about a third of seats even if they were able to run in free elections."

Dagens citat: Tony Blair om Mubarak.

"Where you stand on him depends on whether you've worked with him from the outside or on the inside. I've worked with him on the Middle East peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians so this is somebody I'm constantly in contact with and working with and on that issue, I have to say, he's been immensely courageous and a force for good"

Kilde.

Venstres udenrigspolitiske ordfører: Vi skal takke Bush for frihedskamp i Mellemøsten

Venstres udenrigspolitiske ordfører forsøger i et interview i Berlingske Tidende, at hvidvaske Bush og mener, at "demokratiseringen" af Irak - læs: det statsterroristiske massemord på Iraks befolkning - er blandt årsagerne til at man nu ser oprør i Ægypten og Tunesien.

En ret interessant holdning i lys af, at Bush-administrationerne aktivt støttede diktatorerne i både Tunesien og Ægypten. Desværre er det næppe blot mangel på viden der ligger til grund for hans udtalelse, for han er trods alt næppe så ignorant, så der er sandsynligvis tale om noget så fuldstændig utilgiveligt som et bevidst forsøg på at legitimere en amerikansk præsident som har forvoldt hundredetusinders død og ødelæggelsen af mange fleres liv. Ikke dermed sagt at det er specielt overraskende, for legitimering af statslige voldshandlinger er vel desværre hvad man kan forvente af en udenrigspolitisk ordfører som selv stemte for at Danmark skulle deltage i angrebskrigen mod Irak.

Futuristic Design: Floating City for Climate Refugees.

Read more on Inhabitat.com

Breakthrough promises $1.50 per gallon synthetic gasoline with no carbon emissions

UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.

According to Stephen Voller CEO at Cella Energy, the technology was developed using advanced materials science, taking high energy materials and encapsulating them using a nanostructuring technique called coaxial electrospraying.

“We have developed new micro-beads that can be used in an existing gasoline or petrol vehicle to replace oil-based fuels,” said Voller. “Early indications are that the micro-beads can be used in existing vehicles without engine modification.”

“The materials are hydrogen-based, and so when used produce no carbon emissions at the point of use, in a similar way to electric vehicles”, said Voller.

The technology has been developed over a four-year top secret programme at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, UK.

The development team is led by Professor Stephen Bennington in collaboration with scientists from University College London and Oxford University.

Professor Bennington, Chief Scientific Officer at Cella Energy said, “our technology is based on materials called complex hydrides that contain hydrogen. When encapsulated using our unique patented process, they are safer to handle than regular gasoline.”

Source.

Anbefaling af mediekritisk analyse.

Hermed de varmeste anbefalinger af en fremragende mediekritisk analyse med titlen "Krig er..." af mediekritikeren Uffe Kaels Auring som driver Medieoplysning.dk.

Erich Fromm on doubt.

“To ‛doubt’ [..] does not imply a psychological state of inability to arrive at decisions or convictions, as is the case in obsessional doubt, but the readiness and capacity for crititical questioning of the assumptions and institutions which have become idols under the name of common sense, logic, and what is supposed to be ‛natural’. This radical questioning is possible only if one does not take the concepts of one's society or even of an entire historical period – like Western culture since the Renaissance - for granted, and furthermore if one enlarges the scope of one's awareness and penetrates into the unconscious aspects of one's thinking. Radical doubt is an act of uncovering and discovering; it is the dawning of the awareness that the Emperor is naked, and that his splendid garments are nothing but the product of one's fantasy.”

Erich Fromm i sit forord til Ivan Illich “Celebration of Awareness”.

ACLU: ‘Unjustified homicides’ go unpunished at military prisons.

The American Civil Liberties Union has said it identified 25 to 30 cases of "unjustified homicide" in US-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

After filing a Freedom of Information request in 2009, the civil rights group last week obtained 2,624 pages of documents from the US military detailing investigations into 190 deaths in custody at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

The Defense Department says many of those deaths were due to illness, natural causes or inmate-on-inmate violence, but the ACLU alleges it has identified more than two dozen deaths it sees as being unjustified.

"So far, the documents released by the government raise more questions than they answer, but they do confirm one troubling fact: that no senior officials have been held to account for the widespread abuse of detainees," the ACLU said in a statement, as quoted at CNN. "Without real accountability for these abuses, we risk inviting more abuse in the future."

The ACLU noted that heart problems accounted for more than 25 percent of deaths, an unusually high number that "could potentially raise serious questions about the conditions of confinement or interrogation of the detainees."

The civil rights group says that while many of the deaths were previously known, some had never been revealed publicly. CNN reports:

In one such case, a detainee was killed by an unnamed sergeant who walked into a room where the detainee was lying wounded "and assaulted him ... then shot him twice thus killing him," one of the investigating documents says. The sergeant than instructed the other soldiers present to lie about the incident. Later, the document says an unnamed corporal then shot the deceased detainee in the head after finding his corpse.
In another example, documents note a soldier "committed the offense of murder when he shot and killed an unarmed Afghan male." But, according to the ACLU, the individual was found not guilty of murder by general court-martial.
The Defense Department defended its record, saying that the very existence of the thousands of pages of documents shows it takes in-custody deaths seriously. Army spokesman Lt. Col. David H. Patterson said that of the 190 deaths, 43 had US soldiers or personnel as suspects, resulting in 13 findings of probable cause for murder, and 19 separate convictions.

The ACLU's document release came the same week as the Obama administration let it be known it plans to resume the use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, a move the ACLU described "strik[ing] a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law."

"The decision to proceed with commissions ... raises serious questions about whether commissions are being used as a forum to hide the use of torture and base convictions on evidence that would be too untrustworthy to be admitted in any real court," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

"Unlike federal courts, which have well-established rules of procedure and evidence, the military commissions rules do not comply with US and international law," Shamsi added.

Source.