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Post-Mubarak: How the U.S. Plans to Aid Democracy in Egypt

Massimo Calabresi
Time
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:08 UTC
Image
© Amr Nabil / AP
Antigovernment protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo display a giant poster that reads, "The Martyrs of the Revolution," on Feb. 10, 2011
Now that Hosni Mubarak is getting accustomed to life as an ex-dictator, Barack Obama and his foreign-policy aides have a new task. Washington has publicly called for an Egyptian transition to democracy, which Egypt has never known. To avoid a continuation of dictatorial rule under a new strongman - or a dangerous power vacuum as weaker players try to seize control - Egypt will need to see the lightning-fast development of long-suppressed political parties. So the U.S. is preparing a new package of assistance to Egyptian opposition groups, designed to help with constitutional reform, democratic development and election organizing, State Department officials tell TIME. The package is still being formulated, and the officials decline to say how much it would be worth or to which groups it would be directed.

White House officials declined to say whether any of the new money would be directed to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most prominent Islamist party.

The Obama Administration cut democracy-and-governance aid to Egyptian opposition groups in its first two years in office, from $45 million in George W. Bush's last budget to $25 million for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. The Obama Administration also stopped providing aid to groups that had not registered with the Egyptian government, drawing criticism from human-rights organizations. The Administration has had conversations with Egyptian government officials, including the Egyptian envoy to the U.S., Ambassador Sameh Shoukry, about the provision of new aid, sources tell TIME.
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Who are Egypt's Protesters? And why should we care?

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer
Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:04 UTC
Image
© Movements.org
This revolution has been brought to you by...
AlJazeera, CNN, BBC, and many more have flooded our TV screens showing us the passionate youth of Egypt struggling in the streets for democracy. Quotations, videos, photographs and narratives have moved people all around the world. Millions of Egyptians, it was claimed by AlJazeera, took to the streets on the "Day of Departure." BBC's Jon Leyne said it seemed as if "all of Egypt" had come to Tahrir Square. It was a glorious time to be alive for many, almost like living amongst the pages of a Hollywood script.

The protesters were depicted as superficially and as ambiguously as possible. We were told that the Muslim Brotherhood played but a small role in the protests and that the vast majority of them were secular, young, and craving "change." We were introduced to Nobel Peace Prize Laurette Mohamed ElBaradei, a man returning to his country after "standing up" to the United States during his time as director-general of the IAEA.

But, like a Hollywood script, after a terribly short, finite amount of time and brain numbing suspended disbelief, the credits begin to roll and we see who was responsible for the entertaining tale we just watched.
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Egypt's Mohamed ElBaradei creates National Front for Change

Amro Hassan and Jeffrey Fleishman
Los Angeles Times
Thu, 24 Feb 2011 07:57 UTC
Image
© AFP/Getty Images
From left, former United Nations nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian lawmaker Hamdin Sabahi and former presidential candidate Ayman Nour confer during a meeting of opposition figures in Cairo last year.
The former head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency says the new group will push 'for constitutional reforms and social justice.' What many want to know is: Will he run for president?

Reporting from Cairo - After a meeting this week with opposition groups, the Egyptian who gained international renown as head of the U.N.'s nuclear agency stepped up pressure on his government by announcing the establishment of the National Front for Change.

"An agreement was reached to set up the new front, which is opened to all Egyptians from different political orientations. Its main target will be pushing for constitutional reforms and social justice," Mohamed ElBaradei, the former International Atomic Energy Agency chief, was quoted as saying in the independent daily Al Dustour.

"We have also formed a preparatory committee whose role will be setting the general guidelines on how the Egyptian Constitution can be changed, and how transparency for the upcoming elections can be reached," he added.

But the question left lingering was: Will ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, run for president in 2011?

The bespectacled diplomat, who left his U.N. post in November, has been coy. He has not, publicly at least, divulged his long-range strategy. Is he using his international clout to force social and political change, or is he building momentum for a bid against the ruling National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak?
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MIB

Egypt Today, Thailand Tomorrow

Tony Cartalucci
Activist Post
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 07:51 UTC
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Egypt is still reeling in the midst of a foreign-backed color revolution. The protests led by International Crisis Group trustee Mohamed ElBaradei and his "National Front for Change," have been assembling their forces and building up an opposition for over a year. ElBaradei's April 6 Movement had actually been in the US in 2008 to attend the US State Department and corporate sponsored Alliance for Youth Movements inaugural summit, before beginning their campaign and protests for ElBaradei. There are also the independent labor unions, organized and supported by the US National Endowment for Democracy(NED) funded NGO, the Solidarity Center joining ElBaradei's calls for "change."

With Mubarak declaring his resignation and the military taking over, it will be days, perhaps weeks before we can determine if the foreign-backed color revolution was successful and to what degree. The US State Department is already preparing a "new package" of assistance to Egyptian opposition groups, specifically to reform the constitution and compete in elections. That's right, the US State Department that hosted the Egyptian protesters back in 2008 in New York City will now be funding their front ahead of elections to see their handiwork through to the end.

Who is Backing Them and Why?

The Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM) is yet another tentacle of the globocrat combine crawling forth on behalf of the US Government and the big-businesses that own it. Everyone from the RAND Corporation to the Council on Foreign Relations and all the mega-corporations they represent are using AYM to literally recruit, train, organize and support an army of exploited youth activists to carry out US foreign policy abroad on behalf of corporate interests.
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Eagle

Joint Chiefs chairman to reassure Jordan, Israel

Robert Burns
Associated Press
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 01:43 UTC
Image
© Chad J. McNeeley/Navy
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Washington - With Egypt's military leading a hoped-for drive to democracy, President Barack Obama's senior military adviser was heading to the Mideast on Saturday to reassure two key allies - Jordan, facing its own rumblings of civil unrest, and Israel, which sees its security at stake in a wider transformation of the Arab world.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was stopping first in Amman for meetings Sunday with senior Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah II. Jordan has seen five weeks of protests inspired by unrest in Tunisia and later Egypt, though the numbers of marchers has been decreasing.

Mullen was then scheduled to travel to Tel Aviv for meetings and ceremonies Sunday and Monday marking the retirement of his Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, and talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres. Mullen had no plans to visit Egypt on this trip.

Israel is deeply worried about the prospect that Hosni Mubarak's ouster could lead to the emergence of a government less friendly to the Jewish state.

Israel and Egypt fought four bitter wars before a peace treaty was reached in 1979. Mubarak, who gave up power Friday after 30 years of rule, steadfastly honored the peace deal after succeeding Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by Egyptian extremists two years after signing it.
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Gear

The New Machiavellis

Saman Mohammadi
Excavator
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 21:09 UTC
"Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." - Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives; Pg. 35.

"Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." - Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard; Pg. 211.

"The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor." - Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard; Pg. 24-25.
A general consensus is emerging that in the quest for American hegemony America's plutocrats and warhawks staged a new pearl harbor (the September 11 attacks) on American soil to get the American people fired up once more about an external threat, and then manipulated their feelings of fear, patriotism, and revenge to launch a global war on terrorism, and military invasions of various countries in the Middle East.

The need for a new pearl harbor to arouse the American people and give them a new historical mission was a key observation made in a report published in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative thinktank, called Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century. The September 11, 2001 attacks fulfilled the necons' wish. In their minds they are benevolent authoritarians and heroes because they believe that they gave America a wake up call in the form of a grand act of violence and terrorism on the country's biggest stage. In reality, though, they acted as high-level rioters who incited the America people, and terrorized their psyche - and by spreading American state terrorism around the globe, they have also terrorized the world's psyche.
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Briefcase

Egypt: Hosni Mubarak used last 18 days in power to secure his fortune

Philip Sherwell, Robert Mendick, & Nick Meo
Telegraph UK
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 20:37 UTC
Image
© Reuters
The price of Brent crude rose sharply early on Friday when it appeared that President Mubarak would cling to power
Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said.

The former Egyptian president is accused of amassing a fortune of more than £3 billion - although some suggest it could be as much as £40 billion - during his 30 years in power. It is claimed his wealth was tied up in foreign banks, investments, bullion and properties in London, New York, Paris and Beverly Hills.

In the knowledge his downfall was imminent, Mr Mubarak is understood to have attempted to place his assets out of reach of potential investigators.
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Bomb

Bomb blast kills 28 in Iraq


Press TV
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:26 UTC
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In this Press TV file photo, Security forces, emergency responders and civilians stand near a destroyed building after a car bomb attack in Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011.
A bomb explosion has claimed the lives of 28 people, all Shia pilgrims, and has wounded 22 others in Iraq's northern Salahudin Province, police say.

The explosion took place Saturday afternoon when a bomber struck a bus carrying Shia pilgrims outside Samarra, 110 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source said, Xinhua reported.

The attack comes two days after a similar incident killed nine people in the same area.

An explosives-laden vehicle went off near worshippers in the small Shia town of Dujail in Salahudin Province on Thursday killing nine people and wounding 43 others.
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Star of David

Israel staggered by Egypt protests, social tensions at home

Jean Shaoul
Axis of Logic
Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:57 UTC
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The right-wing Israeli government of Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been staggered by the massive demonstrations and strike wave engulfing Egypt, its critical Arab ally in the region, and the simultaneous emergence of social opposition in Israel itself.

In recent weeks, there have been several demonstrations in Israel's predominantly Arab towns in support of the Egypt protests, including a small one in Tel Aviv of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. In addition, Israel's newspapers have noted in passing expressions of public sympathy for the mass protests in Egypt calling for an end to the Mubarak regime.

Not so the Israeli government. In speech after speech, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has warned that should the Mubarak dictatorship fall, chaos will prevail. Though the Muslim Brotherhood do not have majority support and have made very clear their intention not to lead protests against Mubarak, Netanyahu constantly raises the spectre of the Islamic revolution in Iran: the Islamists, meaning the Muslim Brotherhood, will take control in Egypt, abrogate the 1978-9 peace deal at Camp David, and march on Israel.
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Chess

Bahrain says supports Egyptian people's choice

Martina Fuchs
Reuters
Sat, 12 Feb 2011 10:08 UTC
Bahrain dinars

Dubai - Bahrain respects the choice of the Egyptian people, the pro-government Al Watan newspaper quoted a government statement as saying on Saturday, a day after mass protests in Egypt forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

The island kingdom, where a Sunni minority reigns over a Shi'ite majority, said it is confident in the ability of the Egyptian Higher Military Council to establish security and stability, the paper reported.

Mubarak's 30 years of autocratic rule ended on Friday after 18 days of street protests, just four weeks after Tunisians toppled their own ageing strongman.
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