Thousands March in Egyptian Capital Calling for President’s Ouster

[Bernice Moore]

Jewish Prayers for Egypts Uprising;

http://www.truth-out.org/rabbi-michael-l...ising67606

[Ed Jewett]

WikiLeaks: Egyptian torturers trained by FBI 09 Feb 2011 The US provided officers from the Egyptian secret police with training at the FBI, despite allegations that they routinely tortured detainees and suppressed political opposition. 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... 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."

[Ed Jewett]

King Abdullah Rising To the Top of the Regime Change Line

10 02 2011 This is logical.

MOSTAQUE ALI
Negotiations should begin immediately if they have not already done so between the foreign ministries of Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf Arab countries about creating special funds for protecting their regimes from chaotic, Western funded Revolutions which bring utter Chaos, and Balkanisation to the Middle East. This is an issue of self preservation…….it was meaningless for the Shah of Iran to deposit $20 billion of the country's money in Western banks since frozen, after he was toppled by the USA/UK/France/Israel. It was meaningless for the Shah to have spent $28 billion in defense purchase from the USA (19691977.) only to be toppled by the USA/UK/France/Israel, because his weapons systems were worthless without Western spares.
It is meaningless for Egypt to buy $50 billion worth of arms from the USA if they destabilize Egypt, or put the nations money in Western Banks. Mubarak has a few billion $ which can be used to protect the country. It is worthless for Saudi Arabia to buy $100 billion worth of arms from the USA ……….if the USA after Egypt decides to destabilize the country in another color coded Revolution.
It does however make sense for the Middle East countries to work together, and help each other in the face of American treachery, and Imperial designs either for Eretz Israel, or their own Imperial goals.
____________________________

Exclusive: Saudis told Obama to back Mubarak

Hugh Tomlinson of the London Times.
Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up President Mubarak if the White House tries to force a swift change of regime in Egypt.
In a testy personal telephone call on January 29, King Abdullah told President Obama not to humiliate Mr Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth $1.5 billion annually.
America's closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity.
"Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated," a senior source in the Saudi capital told The Times.
Two sources confirmed details of the King's call, made four days after the people of Egypt took to the streets. The revelation of Saudi concerns sheds new light on America's apparent diplomatic paralysis and lays bare the biggest rift between the nations since the oil price shock of 1973.
The tough line from Riyadh is driven by concern that Western governments were too eager to shove aside Mr Mubarak when the uprising began, without proper consideration of what should follow him.
"With Egypt in chaos, the kingdom is Washington's only major ally left in the Arab world and the Saudis want the Americans to remember that," said a source in Riyadh.
Egypt is the fourth-highest recipient of American aid after Afghanistan, Pakistan and Israel, with most of the money going to the Armed Forces. Slashing this was seen as a key weapon in Washington's armoury should it wish to force Mr Mubarak from office, but Riyadh's intervention seriously undermines America's leverage.
The White House declined to comment yesterday, saying that the Administration did not divulge what other leaders said to Mr Obama. The King is in Morocco, recuperating from surgery on his back late last year in New York. Behind the scenes, however, the octogenarian monarch has been sticking his neck out for his longstanding friend in Cairo the pair are believed to be speaking daily.
Immediately after his phone call with Mr Obama, the King issued a statement of support for Mr Mubarak, blaming "intruders" for meddling in Egypt's security "in the name of freedom of expression, exploiting it to inject their destructive hatred".
Riyadh is feeling increasingly hemmed in by Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. The expulsion of the Mubarak regime would not only remove a key Saudi and American ally in the region but a major bulwark against Iranian expansionism. "[The uprising] is a very dangerous phenomenon. If we encourage it, anything could happen. Iran or al-Qaeda might take advantage," said a Saudi official.
The inconsistent messages from American politicians since the crisis in Egypt began have also irritated the kingdom. "There is certainly quite strong disagreement with the Americans on the messaging. They can understand why Western countries have taken the positions they have, but they are not convinced it's been thought through. They see the Americans as abandoning long-term allies," said a Western analyst in Riyadh.
Behind the scenes, the Saudi leadership has been urging Mr Mubarak for some time to begin the process of reform and was dismayed that last year's parliamentary elections were so blatantly rigged. Many Saudi citizens express private admiration for the courage of the protesters in Tahrir Square.
In the interests of stability, however, the kingdom has insisted that Washington should deal with Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian Vice-President, and not undermine him. The signs are that Washington has heeded the appeals for caution from Riyadh and elsewhere. The Administration, which appeared ready last week to sever America's 30-year alliance with Mr Mubarak, is now placing greater emphasis on stability in its public statements, while keeping up pressure on Mr Suleiman to push ahead with reforms.
The White House expressed frustration last night with the "lack of steps" Cairo has taken to meet protesters' demands. "It is clear that what the Government has thus far put forward has yet to meet a minimum threshold for the people of Egypt," said Robert Gibbs, President Obama's spokesman.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, accused the US of "imposing on a great country like Egypt", and brushed aside American calls for more freedom as "unhelpful".


##


Saudi King Abdullah Promises Mubarak: "I Got Your Back"

10 02 2011 The Times": King of Saudi Arabia threatened to support Mubarak if Washington tried to impose rapid change

Newspaper "The Times" British "Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, threatened the support of President Hosni Mubarak and the duration of the necessary money if the White House tried to force a quick change of the ruling regime in Egypt."The paper reported that "King Abdullah held in the twenty-ninth of last month's telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama, told him of the angry tone in which not to display Mubarak to insult and humiliation." And achievement of the British newspaper adds reference to "King Abdullah has threatened to support the Mubarak regime in the event the United States withdrew its financial aid program to Egypt, which was made Washington to Cairo from which an annual $ 1.5 billion." The paper said that "the closest American ally in the Gulf clearly explained that he should be allowed to stay Egyptian President to oversee the transition to democracy in a peaceful manner, and then leaves the government with dignity

[Keith Millea]

Mubarak to announce stepping down in a few minutes.Hundreds of thousands gathered in LIBERATION SQUARE.

Watch live NOW at:



http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

[Keith Millea]

Mubarak to the People in historic speech:

:moon:

OH MY!

[Kenneth Kapel]

Mubarak actually said " F U Egyptian People ".

[Magda Hassan]

I got an email this morning from Vivienne who is Australian but was in Egypt last year as part of trying to break the siege of Gaza to bring humanitarian supplies. This is an email from her friend there a doctor. I feel so happy and sad for them at the same time. Happy for what they have achieved and sad for what they have yet to achieve.

Comments from a doctor friend of mine in Cairo - all are so ecstatic I hope their hopes for a better life are fully fulfilled. Vivienne

From Dr Taher


thanks vivienne for your participation and your concern
since tuesday 25/1 I have felt like I am a new person. first my tears rolled down my face every time I watched the news on FOREIGN channels (CNN, BCC, al jazeerah) and I felt this was egypt reborn. I helped resuscitate several protesters in the hospital during the friday of wrath and 3 young people died, one of them in my own hands. I couldn't sit and watch the news since that day. I took to Tahrir Square every day since then and have been one in hundreds of thousands of protesters every day. my belonging to the country has been shaken back to life and my respect and love for the egyptians burst in my heart.
tahrir was my utopia althroughout. there I saw the kind of people I want to belong to, the country I want to belong to, the unity I wanted to belong to. everybody was curteous, everybody was civil, everybody was cooperative. against the army of security agents, gangs of thugs or a relentless war of rumours and tarnishing, they stood their grounds. my love and respect for them grew every day, and so did, luckily, their supporters. I saw the crowd growing from a few thousands every day to more than a million. we were united by our common goal, but also by our solidarity and love for another, no matter the social background, religious creed or political conviction.
I lived my best days in Tahrir Square. Now I know I will miss it.
My only consolation is that we achieved our goal, got rid of the corrupt regime and will be looking forward to new democracy.

[Magda Hassan]

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/8...ce-protest

The New Republic
February 17, 2011

The Godfather of Middle Eastern Protest
Ezra Deutsch-Feldman

With the sudden success of nonviolent revolution in Egypt, attention has turned to the seemingly ubiquitous influence of Peter Ackerman, a former investment banker who became something of an intellectual godfather to the Middle Eastern protest movements. His group, the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, produced instructional videos for leaders of nonviolent revolutions, held conferences where would-be revolutionaries could meet and swap tactics, and even financed a video game meant to help organizers plan and practice grassroots uprisings. In 2005, our current editor-at-large Franklin Foer profiled Ackerman for TNR:

The State Department has begun paying attention to Ackerman for a good reason: His tactics are suited to the current political climate. The wars against Saddam Hussein and the Taliban have exhausted the U.S. appetite for forcible regime change. At the same time, the goal of promoting democracy in the Middle East and Central Asia remains. To be sure, there is a slew of NGOs that advise and finance democratic activists, but they specialize in working with movements as they approach full bloom especially as elections near. In places like Iran, however, there are few vibrant movements to foster. That's where Ackerman has found his niche.

Of all Ackerman's whiz-bang ideas, he's most enamored with the development of a video game named after A Force More Powerful that allows players to practice their dictator-toppling skills virtually. On a winter morning, I went to a suburban Baltimore office park to play a beta version. Ackerman has spent $3 million outsourcing the project to a company called BreakAway Games, which helped produce the popular Civilization series. Its offices were creepily quiet.

To provide insights into the mind of the dictator, Ackerman sent Otpor veterans to consult with BreakAway, and you could see their influence in the game's Serb flair. The opening screen showed a map of a generic Balkan country with towns named after Darko Milicic and other Serbian NBA players. I clicked on a town, providing an overhead view of buildings and streets. A message informed me that a student leader of my movement had been imprisoned. My immediate task, the game told me, was to free him.

More recently Ackerman has stepped up his involvement. He worked with Bob Helvey to train Iranian-Americans, many of whom worked for Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah.

Azar Nafisi has introduced him to the Iranian human rights community. And the ICNC has made some preliminary contacts with the referendum movement he most broad-based and promising of the opposition coalitions, uniting monarchists, communists, and Islamists behind a simple demand for a vote on the regime's future. According to his friends, Ackerman and his circle have begun to kick around creative ideas for challenging the mullahs. What if every Iranian withdrew money from the ATMs at once, overwhelming the country's financial system? What if they boycotted state-run industries?

Ultimately, he envisions events unfolding as they did in Serbia, with a small, well-trained, nonviolent vanguard introducing the idea of resistance to the masses.

When the Rose Revolution began in the fall of 2003, there was little reason to hope for a happy ending. Twelve years earlier, the former Soviet Republic of Georgia had stepped from communism into civil war. The old Communist eminence Eduard Shevardnadze may have brought greater stability when he took over the government in 1992, but his corrupt rule also generated huge new pools of ill will among the populace. Some of this disgust manifested itself in small, peaceful street protests. But it was also expressed in aborted mutinies and failed assassination attempts on the despot, meaning that, over the post-Soviet era, the peaceful and the violent commingled, leading to bloody crackdowns.

As the Rose Revolutionaries, a group of liberal dissidents, prepared to campaign against Shevardnadze, their leaders vowed to introduce a new culture of resistance better suited to a nation that had lost patience with the cycle of uprising and repression.

The movement would tolerate no guns. Its leaders studied the methods of American civil rights activists and dog-eared the writings of Harvard University researcher Gene Sharp, a theorist of nonviolent struggle.

For a time, this strategy nurtured a fledgling movement with a few hundred adherents. But, as the movement grew, its grip on its followers became more tenuous. Demonstrations swelled into large, angry throngs that had no knowledge of the Nashville sit-ins and zero familiarity with Sharp. Once again, the threat of violence loomed. "Our revolution happened so quickly. Everything became spontaneous," one of the movement's leaders, Giorgi Meladze, told me. "That's where the film came in."
....
The full contents of this article are available to subscribers with archive access only.

[Magda Hassan]

This Isn't All About Mubarak

Egypt's Workers Revolt

By MIKE WHITNEY

"The revolution in Egypt is an expression of the will of the people, the determination of the people, the commitment of the people....Muslims and Christians have worked together in this revolution, as have the Islamic groups, secular parties, nationalist parties, and intellectuals....In fact every sector has played part in this revolution: the young, the old, women, men, clerics, artists, intellectuals, workers, and farmers."
-- Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah

The real story about what's going on in Egypt is being suppressed in the US because it doesn't jibe with the "ain't capitalism great" theme that the media loves to reiterate ad nauseam. The truth is that the main economic policies that Washington exports through bribery and coercion have ignited massive labor unrest which has set the Middle East ablaze. Mubarak is the first casualty in this war against neoliberalism, but there will be many more to come. In fact, Mubarak's resignation is probably just a sop to Egyptian workers, hoping that they'll follow the military's advice and sheepishly return to their sweatshops so fatcat CEOs in Berlin and Chicago can extract a few more farthings from their labor. But that probably won't happen, because the 18 days in Tahrir Square has had a transformative affect on the consciousness of 80 million Egyptians who've suddenly "had enough". The people have awaken from their slumber and now they're ready to rumble.
The revolution started long before the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and it will continue for a long time to come. Workers everywhere are rebelling against the miserable conditions, slave wages and "privatization", the crown jewel of neoliberalism. The privatization of state industries in Egypt is the proximate cause of the current uprising. It's led to a general slide in living standards to the point where people would rather face a policeman's truncheon than endure more-of-the-same. Here's an excerpt from Foreign Policy which helps to explain what's going on:

"In the sprawling factories of El-Mahalla el-Kubra, a gritty, industrial town a few hours' drive north of Cairo, lies what many say is the heart of the Egyptian revolution. "This is our Sidi Bouzid," says Muhammad Marai, a labor activist, referring to the town in Tunisia where a frustrated street vendor set himself on fire, sparking the revolution there.
Indeed, the roots of the mass uprising that swept dictator Hosni Mubarak from power lie in the central role this dust-swept company town played years ago in sparking workers' strikes and grassroots movements countrywide. And it is the symbolic core of the latest shift in the revolution: a wave of strikes meant to tackle social and economic inequities, which has brought parts of Egypt to a standstill.
More than 24,000 workers at dozens of state-owned and private textile mills, in particular the mammoth Egypt Spinning and Weaving plant, went on strike and occupied factories for six days in 2006, winning a pay raise and some health benefits. Similar actions took place in 2007....
"After Mahalla in 2008, the first weaknesses in the regime appeared," says Gamal Eid of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information. "Nothing was the same in Egypt after that." ("Egypt's Cauldron of Revolt", Anand Gopal, Foreign Policy)

Compare this story to the narrative that appears in the US media, that the revolution was triggered by Twitter-happy "twenty somethings" text messaging their friends while buzzing around Cairo. It's utter nonsense. This revolution has working class roots, which is why the establishment press refuses to explain what's really going on. Any talk about "class" is verboten in US media because it tends to reflect poorly on the deep-pocket robber barons who created the greatest extremes in inequality in the history of the world. Here's more from Michael Collins at The Economic populist:

"Egypt began a series of reforms in the 1990's that stacked the deck against workers and farmers. The government sold off the large state enterprises. New owners had little incentive to keep people in jobs or jobs in Egypt. The government enacted new measures to protect large farmers, with peasant farmers left on their own.
When conservative Prime Minister, Ahmed Nafiz, took power in 2004, the situation became desperate. With the help of a new anti labor law, pressure mounted on Egypt's industrial workers. The ETUF had little to offer in support and frequently overruled the votes to strike of local chapters....
The same labor movement that staged the 2006 strike and a follow up in 2007, called for a national strike on April 6, 2008 to raise the nation's minimum wage and protest high food prices. Mubarak's government sent in police who took over the factory in hopes of preventing the strike. Conflict broke out with violence on the part of police toward the union members calling for the strike. Police arrested workers. Trials, convictions and prison sentences followed quickly. Other members continued to protest.
An Egyptian writer noted, "In the 6 April uprising, the demands of the workers and the general population overlapped. People called for lower food prices as workers called for a minimum wage."
In addition, the April 6 Youth Movement emerged as a key player advancing the aims of the national strike. This is the same organization that has been central to rallying crowds throughout the country." ("Forces Behind the Egyptian Revolution", Michael Collins, The Economic Populist)

See? This isn't about removing a despot. It's about class warfare, of which no one will speak in western media.
The revolution signals the rise of organized labor and a frontal assault on the Washington Consensus and the race-to-the-bottom regime that has pushed Egyptian workers to the breaking point. This didn't happen overnight; these forces have been coalescing for a very long time and now the tinder has been lit.
This is a struggle for workers rights and political power as much as it is about wages and conditions. Mubarak's resignation has emboldened the people and strengthened their resolve to affect real structural change. This is their chance to shape the future, which is why Washington is so worried. This is also why US-backed NGOs and their agents were actively trying to depose Mubarak, because they believed that by removing the tyrant, they could appease the masses and send them merrily back to their factories and sweatshops with a pat on the head. But that's not the way it's playing out. Workers seem to know intuitively that Mubarak is just replaceable cog in the imperial mechanism. So far, they have not been placated, subdued or co-opted, although the Obama crew and their junta-leader Tatawi will undoubtedly keep trying. Here's an excerpt from an interview Mona El-Ghobashy, assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, on Democracy Now which adds a bit of context to what's happening in Cairo:

"There's a pre-history to this revolt. Egyptian politics didn't begin on January 25th. In fact,....Egypt has actually been gripped by a rather extraordinary wave of social protest since at least 2000. This is by no means new. It's by no means post-February 13th. This is something that's been happening and peaked in 2006 and 2007, which lends the protest that broke out among civil servants, police officers and other state employees yesterdayit lends it an extra weight. ... What this shows is a convergence of the old style of protest with a completely changed political environment. That's the significance of it....
So, for us to be able to really understand the significance of what's happening today, we have to link it to the fabric of Egyptian politics starting in 2000, for simplicity's sake, but protests actually occurred in the 1990s, as well. One of the largest protests was a quarry workers' strike in 1996 that really shook the country at the time. Of course, nobody remembers this now.
But again, the point I want to emphasize is, we are entering in a period, as Issandr mentioned, a real revolutionary moment in Egyptian politics where this constitution and parliament are suspended, but at the same time we have this roiling social structure where almost each and every sector of the population is taking to the streets, grasping the political opportunity afforded by the change of the regime, but they are doing this because they already know how to do that. They know how to encamp on the streets. They know how to negotiate with the government ministers. They know how many people to put on a street corner to make sure that the government minister comes and talks to them on the street corner. That's why this is significant, not because this is a rebirth of Egyptian politics after February 13th." ( Mona El-Ghobashy, Democracy Now)

The Obama administration isn't "pulling the strings" in this revolution, in fact, they're hanging on by the skin of their teeth. The US has very little control over events on the ground and all of their efforts are focused on "damage control". That's why Obama continues to make his silly pronouncements every day, cautioning protesters to remain peaceful and invoking the words of Martin Luther King to calm the waters. But no one's paying any attention to Obama. He's completely irrelevant. Nor do they care that Hillary Clinton wants Congress to allocate more money for "to bolster the rise of secular political parties". Whatever for?? The horse has already left the barn.
The Egyptian military isn't in control either, which is why they keep issuing conflicting communiques--one minute celebrating the triumph of Tahrir Square and the next minute threatening a crackdown if people don't return to work. Once the military commits to a given-strategy, and starts mowing down striking workers en masse, then the real revolution will begin and a new political reality will begin to emerge. Nothing galvanizes the attention or stirs one's class roots more than blood in the streets.
And, there's no set-way to conduct a revolution, no blueprint for success. Every revolution is different, as unique as the aspirations of the people involved. Rosa Luxemburg realized this when she said:

"The modern working class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight... That's exactly what is laudable about it, that's exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers' movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation."

The Egyptian people have avoided a full-blown confrontation with government forces with impressive nimbleness. But the threat of a crackdown is still very real. Workers have laid out their demands, and in this new environment of political activism, it's unlikely that they will back down until they achieve their goals. They're not taken-in by Mubarak's departure. They know that the "new boss, is same as the old boss". As the Center for Trade Unions and Worker's Service's states in their manifesto, this isn't just about "decent wages" or "medical care" any more. Egypt's working people "refuse to live a life of humiliation."
From the Center for Trade Unions manifesto:

"....300 young persons have paid with their lives as a price for our freedom and to free us from the humiliation of slavery that we suffer from. And now the road, the path is open for all of us....
Freedom is not just the demand of youth only ....we want freedom so that we can express our demands and rights … so we can find a way to monitor the wealth of our country, the result of our hard work that is being stolen … and so we can re-distribute with some sense of justice … so that different sectors of society who have been oppressed can get more of what it is owed to them so they don't have to needlessly suffer from hunger and illness."

The Egyptian people want what's owed to them---their freedom, their dignity, and a fair share of the pie. And it looks like they might get it all.
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney02172011.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

Mubarak is the first casualty in this war against neoliberalism, but there will be many more to come

Amen to that. :mexican: