Monday, January 31, 2011

Will Obama Take the Side of The Egyptian People or Mubarak's Regime & The Military

UPDATE: 4:26 PM ,Jan. 31, 2011.

Will America be on the wrong side of history once again???

"The whole world is watching. If the tanks of Tiananmen Square roll into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the people of the Middle East will know who to blame. Tell them "No," Mr. President."
from:
Whose side is Obama on anyway? By Joel Beinin and Mitchell Zimmerman via Salon.com, Jan.30, 2011


Al Jazeera English: Live Streaming
Watch the broadcast here. Last Modified: 28 Jan 2011 17:08 GMT


Live streaming from BBC:As it happened: Egypt unrest day five


Egyptian Uprising: Protesters Attacked While Praying Jan 29/2011



and the Guardian UK: The Guardian Live Updates/Streaming

And from The Telegraph .co.uk "Egypt protesters step up pressure on Mubarak
Thousands of people are on the streets of Cairo for a seventh day, defying the start of a curfew and calling for a general strike." Jan. 31, 2011




Group in Egypt promoting change have put a petition online with Change.org
Support the People's Revolution in Egypt/ ساند ثورة الشعب في مصر

Targeting: Ambassador Sameh Shoukry (السفير سامح شكري), President Hosni Mubarak (الرئيس حسني مبارك), General Habib Ibrahim El Adly (حبيب ابراهيم العادلي‎), see more...Ambassador Sameh Shoukry (السفير سامح شكري), President Hosni Mubarak (الرئيس حسني مبارك), General Habib Ibrahim El Adly (حبيب ابراهيم العادلي‎), and Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq (احمد محمد شفيق‎)
Started by: The January 25 Movement حركة يناير ٢٥

On January 25, we the people of Egypt took to the streets to demand our rights! We are not unified by one party, class or religion: we are not Muslim and we are not Christian, we are not rich and we are not poor - we are the multifaceted people of Egypt - Muslims and Christian's and Egyptians of all classes. We demand our civil, political and human rights. We demand the immediate resignation of the president and parliament. We demand a new constitution. We demand free and fair...

On January 25, we the people of Egypt took to the streets to demand our rights! We are not unified by one party, class or religion: we are not Muslim and we are not Christian, we are not rich and we are not poor - we are the multifaceted people of Egypt - Muslims and Christian's and Egyptians of all classes.

We demand our civil, political and human rights.
We demand the immediate resignation of the president and parliament.
We demand a new constitution.
We demand free and fair elections.
We demand the complete and total release of all political prisoners and detainees.
We demand the return of open access to all communication networks.
We demand that the police stop shooting at us, stop their brutality and stop their attacks on journalists.

We are the January 25 movement, and we are not going to stop until our demands are met! We call on Egyptians and internationals to lend a hand and help us win by signing this petition, which will be sent to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, officials in the interior and foreign ministries, and Egyptian embassies all over the world.

Winning this campaign depends on our ability to call on thousands of supporters like you. After signing this petition, please follow us on Facebook - just click 'Like' at the top of the page.

في 25 يناير، شعب مصرأخذ للشوارع للمطالبة بحقوقه!

نحن لا نمثل طرف واحد، أو طبقة أو دين : نحن لسنا المسلمين فقط أوالمسيحيين فقط، ونحن لسنا الأغنياء. نحن الشعب بأكمله وبأطرافه المتعددة -- المسلمين والمسيحيين والمصريين من جميع الطبقات.

نحن نطالب بحقوقنا المدنية والسياسية والإنسانية.

ونحن نطالب بتغيير في النظام كامل برمته -- بما في ذلك إسقاط الرئيس والبرلمان.

ونحن نطالب بوضع دستور جديد.

ونحن نطالب بانتخابات حرة ونزيهة.

إننا نطالب بالإفراج الكامل والشامل عن جميع السجناء والمعتقلين السياسيين

و نطالب بارجاع فتح الاتصال لجميع شبكات الاتصالات والإنترنت

ونطالب الشرطة وقف اعتداءاتها على الصحفيين.

ونحن نطالب بأن الشرطة توقف إطلاق النارعلى المواطنين واستخدام العنف ضد المتظاهرين

نحن حركة 25 يناير، ونحن لن تتوقف حتى تتحقق مطالبنا!

ندعو المصريين ومؤيدينا عالميا لدعمنا بتوقيع هذه العريضة، والتي سوف يتم إرسالها إلى الرئيس المصري حسني مبارك ومسؤولين في وزارتي الداخلية والخارجية ، والسفارات المصرية في جميع أنحاء العالم.

الإنتصار في هذه الحملة يعتمد على قدرتنا على دعوة الآلاف من المؤيديين مثلك. بعد التوقيع على هذه العريضة، يرجى المتابعةعلى فيس بوك -- انقر على كلمة ليك في الجزء العلوي من الصفحة


Mubarak shuts down AlJazeera Cairo bureau.

"Al Jazeera shut down as Mubarak fights for control of airwaves" By Catrina Stewart via the Independent ,Jan 31, 2011

Opinionated, critical and more than a little frenzied in its reporting, the Al Jazeera network's aggressive style has irked Arab governments by shining an unwelcome spotlight on dissent.

Now Egypt has shut down the Cairo operations of Al Jazeera as part of a crackdown against widespread anti-government demonstrations. The move comes at a time when Al Jazeera is arguably at its most influential in its 15-year history, galvanising popular support against the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia and prompting the ire of rattled regional leaders.

The pan-Arab channel, which is owned by the Emir of Qatar, was quick to denounce Egypt's move as "silencing the voices of the Egyptian people".


Of course in the case of the Egyptian uprising almost everything the US government or its media says is filtered through an American prism. The political crisis in Egypt didn't arise out of a vacuum . For decades various US administrations have supported and given billions to the Egyptian government mainly for its military even though they new about the poor human rights record and wide spread corruption of the Egyptian Regime. So we can't simply blame Obama for the situation though he can be criticised for not putting more pressure on Mubarak to bring about reforms. Though it could be argued that any reform can be brought about Egypt is the ousting of Mubarak and his Regime including all who are still loyal to that regime.

Of course as many have said before the USA's idea of political and economic reform is the notorious purple thumb-if you can cast a vote then you have democracy -not so much. It is only a free democratic state when all members of society are treated as equals with due respect and that each person has certain basic rights and freedoms and that includes minority groups who may need to be defended and protected by the National government. And what good is freedom when the doors are closed to educational and employment opportunities or to be free is to die because you don't have the proper medical coverage or a child is unable to take advantage of opportunities because of being malnourished in a society with plenty to go around .
The American mythos is of no help to the unfortunate ones in society because the defenders of America rapacious capitalism is that of everyone for himself and all against all.

So giving any substantive help to the poor the unemployed the mentally or physically impaired is a direct violation of the American Ayn Rand cult of selfishness , greed and materialism. Some will say they reject materialism because they are religious in some way yet American style Evangelical Christianity is a " Prosperiety Gospel" so they co-opt the teachings Jesus or whatever religious leaders they follow making them compatible with materialism and greed and selfishness.
In their view Jesus was basically a motivational speaker and was a middle class white guy who believed in the use of force and loved winners over losers the rich over the poor.
Odd how these pseudo-Christians opt for "Social Darwinism" nature as red in tooth and claw where life is brutal and short while rejecting Darwin's Evolutionary theory. Jesus rejected this amoral naturalist view of human beings because humans have a conscience or if you like a soul which should guide them in their treatment of others who are also human and all of whom have a soul whether the religious fanatics or atheists think otherwise.

For instance under George W. Bush corruption , lies, propaganda and a wanton disregard for the rule of law or ethical and moral principles . So why should the Egyptians or any other nation or its peoples trust anything the US government might say or promise. The Americans have made it quite clear that they have no respect for the United Nations, and other international bodies.

So the question is whether Obama is going to stand with the majority of Egyptians or stand with the Egyptian military and the dictator Mubarak or whatever strong man who might take Mubarak's place.
In China and Iran the Americans sided with the people and not with the authoritarian regimes.
But will the Neocons and neoliberals in his administration opt for the old amoral Kissinger or Madame Albright style "Real Politik".

Whose side is Obama on anyway? By Joel Beinin and Mitchell Zimmerman via Salon.com, Jan.30, 2011

A Tiananmen moment may be swiftly approaching in Cairo – except this time the tanks that could crush the movement for Egyptian democracy in a bloodbath were bought and paid for by U.S. dollars. And this time, our government has the power to prevent brutal repression and bloodshed and stand with the Egyptian people’s just and long overdue demands.

The Egyptian people are fighting, not only to end the 30-year reign of dictator Mubarak, but for democracy. So far, our government has continued its de facto support for the Mubarak regime by paying lip service to the need for "reform" at the same time that it lauds Mubarak as an ally and source of "stability" in the Middle East. President Obama and his spokespeople have carefully avoided the fundamental issue. The Egyptian people are not asking their government to reform itself. They are demanding an end to the entire autocratic and kleptocratic regime they have endured for even longer than Mubarak’s rule. They want democracy.

What may stand in the way? At this point, only one institution of Egyptian society: the U.S.-funded military machine. In the coming hours or days, the Army can either crush the people of Egypt under the treads of its tanks, ending aspirations for democracy for now, or the Army can make clear that it will not serve as an instrument of dictatorship. Mubarak will then flee, and the Egypt people can begin the messy but necessary process of building democracy in their country.

Because our government funds the Egyptian military machine, President Obama could send a clear and persuasive signal to the Egypt Army: the United States will not be prepared to continue funding the Egyptian military to the tune of $1.3 billion a year if the Army turns on its own people and begins shooting them down in the streets.

So far, President Obama has spoken out for free expression in Egypt and has called for restraint by both sides – as though an unarmed populace, demanding democracy, were the physical or moral equivalent of a brutal state security apparatus. But our president has remained silent about the demonstrators’ goal: a democratic Egypt. In his June 2009 Cairo speech, when nothing was immediately at stake, President Obama uttered eloquent words of support for democracy. If he spoke out forcefully in support of the Egyptian people, as he did for the Tunisian people in his State of the Union address, he could tip events in a direction that would earn America the gratitude of the Egyptian people.

This would go far to undoing the damage to America’s standing in the Arab and Muslim world created by the catastrophically wrong-headed foreign policies of the George W. Bush era. It would also do more to undermine al-Qaeda’s international campaign of hatred and terrorism than has been achieved by two wars and over a trillion dollars in military spending.

The whole world is watching. If the tanks of Tiananmen Square roll into Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the people of the Middle East will know who to blame. Tell them "No," Mr. President.


This international story once again shows how the US media does such a poor job on reporting on international stories. They would rather have their paid for centrist or uberconservative pundits talk about what 's going rather than actually having reporters or "real journalist " report from where the action is taking place. If they do have journalist on the ground they are rarely experts in any real sense. At a real new network for a specific story it used to be that they would have journalist who have spent a few years in a particular country or region ie the Middle East, Europe, Asia etc. and who possibly speak the language of that particular region Arabic, Farsi, Pashto , Hindi ,or even Italian or French who may be able to deliver an intelligent well informed analysis. Instead these news agencies fill the time on television with self-described experts who are not really experts. Or they fly a journalist into a country which that journalist knows little about. But this is what you get when journalism and its loftier notions of integrity such as Bill Moyers et al speak about get traded in for news as merely entertainment or reflecting only one narrow point of view or just stuff to fill up the 24 hour news cycle.

They also interview pundits who have an opinion but it may be rather facile and superficial or just dead wrong . Or even worse is that these news outlets will depend on the opinions of ideologues such as Neocons, Neoliberals etc. whose opinions are going to be colored by their own ideology and whatever axe they have to grind. In other words they are far from being impartial witnesses. In some cases they may even use so called pundits who in the case of stories involving the Middle East the opinion they express may in fact be tainted by a racist or bigoted view of the groups involved in a story. For instance when it comes to stories about the Middle East or Arab and Muslim countries one can't blindly accept the opinion of someone who is a known Islamophobe or has a racist view of all Arabs. So the opinions of some people need to be taken with a grain of salt and a big dose of skepticism .
In some cases it should be that certain individuals should not be trotted out as experts and given a megaphone to spew their lies, propaganda, talking points, bigotry and prejudices.
The Mainstream Media more often than not is even before a story breaks have already certain prejudices embedded in their ongoing ideologically tainted narrative.




Al Jazeera's Egypt coverage embarrasses U.S. cable news channels by Alex pareene via Salon.com, Jan. 28, 2010
The English-language version of the Arab network is making the failures of cheap American cable "news" obvious

There is a curfew in effect in Egypt, but thousands of protesters remain in the streets in Cairo, Suez, Alexandria and across the rest of the country. President Hosni Mubarak is expected to speak soon. Police might've fired tear gas at praying demonstrators. And Fox reported on how ICE arrested some immigrant sex offenders in Virginia.

Fox, CNN and MSNBC are all acquitting themselves better than they did the day Tunisia's government collapsed. All of them have reporters in Cairo, and are airing footage of the demonstrations on the streets. But none of them are reporting on the situation as compellingly as Al Jazeera English, which has reporters across the country. And if you're in the United States, you can probably only see Al Jazeera English online. If you're watching Al Jazeera, you're seeing uninterrupted live video of the demonstrations, along with reporting from people actually on the scene, and not "analysis" from people in a studio. The cops were threatening to knock down the door of one of its reporters minutes ago. Fox has moved on to anchor babies. CNN reports that the ruling party building is on fire, but Al Jazeera is showing the fire live.

CNN, to its credit, is using coverage from the grown-ups at CNN International. MSNBC had Dan Senor (council on foreign relations) reporting from Davos. Yes, liberal MSNBC was getting live analysis from a neoconservative former spokesperson for the occupying U.S. government in Iraq. Fox just had former U.N. Ambassador and ultra-hawk John Bolton on to warn us about the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Jazeera had an opposition party leader on the phone.


All three of the major U.S. cable news networks are prefacing breaking news on their chyrons with the words "Al-Jazeera reports." Al Jazeera was criticized for being reluctant to cover the Egyptian protests as zealously as it covered Tunisia -- and I can't speak to that, because I obviously can't watch the Arab-language version of the channel -- but its English-language network is, today, mandatory viewing for anyone interested in the world-changing events currently happening in Egypt. The American networks barely qualify as an interesting supplement.




The Wrong Friends: The Uncomfortable Lesson of the Uprisings in the Middle East by: David Mednicoff | The Boston Globe |
Jan. 30, 2011


For decades, American policy in the Arab world has rested on the assumption that secular governments are better.

In a region prone to religious violence and sorely lacking in democratic government, the thinking goes, it is secular regimes that hold the most promise for change, and have been the easiest for us to support. Though perhaps never stated in such simple terms, this thinking underlies much of our diplomacy and analysis of a volatile and strategically important region.

It's easy to see why: A secular government is more like a modern Western democracy, and a better fit with our own tradition of separating church and state. We tend to believe that even if secular Arab regimes are oppressive, they represent at least a small step toward a more modern, stable, and democratic future for the region. Washington has funneled its greatest Arab aid to secular strongmen like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who openly trumpet the need to squelch Islamic political movements. It has dealt more warily with Islamic monarchies like Saudi Arabia.

But can today's secular governments really be the basis for a stable Middle East? The recent overthrow of the president of Tunisia suggests an uncomfortable answer. The Tunisian revolution was the biggest political news in the Arab world in years, triggering wide speculation on its deeper causes and how much it will spread to other countries. But one thing is undeniable: In a region full of monarchies and other unelected regimes, the government that fell — the one government unable to maintain enough hold on the public to weather a crisis — was the most secular one.

For over four decades, Tunisia's political leadership looked, if not like a model regime, then at least like a step in the right direction. Habib Bourguiba, its first independent leader, banished religion from a role in the state and actively promoted women's rights and education. Since ousting Bourguiba in 1987, ex-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali attracted Western ties and tourists, consistently fighting Islamism and raising fears about its influence. Despite an impressive general record of economic achievement, Ben Ali has just become the first modern Arab leader to be ousted through popular mobilization. In Egypt, the most populous Arab country, another secular regime struggles to fend off the seething anger of its people. And in secular Algeria and Yemen, copycat protests may be setting the stage for similar widespread demonstrations.

This rising tide of mass protests against Arab secular strongmen urges us to think again about the role of Islam and government. Decades of Western policy have pushed Middle Eastern governments toward secular reforms. But a more nuanced view of the region — one that values authenticity as much as Western dogma — suggests something different. If we are concerned about stability, balance, even openness, it may be Arab Islamic governments that offer a better route to those goals.

To most Western thinkers, suggesting a role for religion in government seems to be sailing against the wind of history. Europe's rise to industrial greatness, democracy, and global power came in the wake of deliberate secularization. Part of the enduring appeal of the American dream is its religious tolerance. Russia, China, and the rest of East Asia have all flourished economically, if undemocratically, under secular rule.

Yet the examples in the Arab world look very different. The Middle East and North Africa is the world region most lacking in democratic government, tempting policy makers to imagine that positive change, as it has elsewhere, will go hand-in-hand with secularization. But the Middle East is also the origin and heartland of Islam, a faith sustained in part through its ability to serve as a political order as well as a religious belief. Unlike Americans, who may be deeply religious but are also raised to believe in separate realms of church and state, many quite moderate Muslims see nothing strange in the notion of a government fully infused with religious purpose.

...If we think of "modern" governments as those that can accommodate change, freedom, and pluralism, then Islamic monarchies have satisfied this definition much more than secular republics in recent years. Certainly the thousands of protesters in Tunisia in the last month, and in Egypt at the moment, haven't seemed impressed with the achievements of their secularist leaders.

In fact, Arab monarchies that simulate aspects of the political Islamic past are not only comparatively stable, but better bets for controlled transitions to free governments. Recent global experience suggests that, despite the much-publicized intolerance of extremists, Islamic political ideas are compatible with democracy. Arab Islam's long history provides many concepts that resemble, without duplicating, Western democratic practices, such as town meeting ("majlis") and representative consultation ("shura"). Indeed, today's Arab kings have adapted such ideas to negotiate and build consensus around important policies. And there is ample evidence that Islamist political opposition parties compete fairly in Arab elections, when they are allowed to do so.

Washington's understandable concern about particularly aggressive manifestations of Islam such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban — and the anti-Americanism of Iran's Islamic revolution — has pushed us to hold almost monolithic views about the general nature of Muslim politics. But the bleak record of secular Middle Eastern states suggests that a sounder policy would be one more open to Islamic models of rule like Morocco and Qatar — nations sufficiently inoculated against direct attacks in the name of Islam that they can create public space for liberal education and open media. Such public space has already borne fruit in the form of increasing religious, secular, and mixed alternatives to express political views

"A People Defies Its Dictator, And a Nation's Future is in The Balance A brutal regime is fighting, bloodily, for its life." Robert Fisk reports from the streets of Cairo via Information Clearing house Jan. 29, 2011

"The Independent" -- It might be the end. It is certainly the beginning of the end. Across Egypt, tens of thousands of Arabs braved tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and live fire yesterday to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of dictatorship.

How does one describe a day that may prove to be so giant a page in Egypt's history? Maybe reporters should abandon their analyses and just tell the tale of what happened from morning to night in one of the world's most ancient cities. So here it is, the story from my notes, scribbled amid a defiant people in the face of thousands of plainclothes and uniformed police.

It began at the Istikama mosque on Giza Square: a grim thoroughfare of gaunt concrete apartment blocks and a line of riot police that stretched as far as the Nile. We all knew that Mohamed ElBaradei would be there for midday prayers and, at first, the crowd seemed small. The cops smoked cigarettes. If this was the end of the reign of Mubarak, it was a pretty unimpressive start.

But then, no sooner had the last prayers been uttered than the crowd of worshippers, perched above the highway, turned towards the police. "Mubarak, Mubarak," they shouted. "Saudi Arabia is waiting for you." That's when the water cannons were turned on the crowd – the police had every intention of fighting them even though not a stone had been thrown. The water smashed into the crowd and then the hoses were pointed directly at ElBaradei, who reeled back, drenched.

He had returned from Vienna a few hours earlier and few Egyptians think he will run Egypt – he claims to want to be a negotiator – but this was a disgrace. Egypt's most honoured politician, a Nobel prize winner who had held the post of the UN's top nuclear inspector, was drenched like a street urchin. That's what Mubarak thought of him, I suppose: just another trouble maker with a "hidden agenda" – that really is the language the Egyptian government is using right now.

And then the tear gas burst over the crowds. Perhaps there were a few thousand now, but as I walked beside them, something remarkable happened. From apartment blocks and dingy alleyways, from neighbouring streets, hundreds and then thousands of Egyptians swarmed on to the highway leading to Tahrir Square. This is the one tactic the police had decided to prevent. To have Mubarak's detractors in the very centre of Cairo would suggest that his rule was already over. The government had already cut the internet – slicing off Egypt from the rest of the world – and killed all of the mobile phone signals. It made no difference.

"We want the regime to fall," the crowds screamed. Not perhaps the most memorable cry of revolution but they shouted it again and again until they drowned out the pop of tear gas grenades. From all over Cairo they surged into the city, middle-class youngsters from Gazira, the poor from the slums of Beaulak al-Daqrour, marching steadily across the Nile bridges like an army – which, I guess, was what they were.

Still the gas grenades showered over them. Coughing and retching, they marched on. Many held their coats over their mouths or queued at a lemon shop where the owner squeezed fresh fruit into their mouths. Lemon juice – an antidote to tear gas – poured across the pavement into the gutter.

This was Cairo, of course, but these protests were taking place all over Egypt, not least in Suez, where 13 Egyptians have so far been killed. The demonstrations began not just at mosques but at Coptic churches. "I am a Christian, but I am an Egyptian first," a man called Mina told me. "I want Mubarak to go." And that is when the first bataggi arrived, pushing to the front of the police ranks in order to attack the protesters. They had metal rods and police truncheons – from where? – and sharpened sticks, and could be prosecuted for serious crimes if Mubarak's regime falls. They were vicious. One man whipped a youth over the back with a long yellow cable. He howled with pain. Across the city, the cops stood in ranks, legions of them, the sun glinting on their visors. The crowd were supposed to be afraid, but the police looked ugly, like hooded birds. Then the protesters reached the east bank of the Nile.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Cairo Protesters Stand Their Ground & Desperate Egyptian Government Shuts Down AlJazeera Bureau

Egyptian Protests -For updates and live streaming video/audio see:

Al Jazeera English: Live Streaming
Watch the broadcast here. Last Modified: 28 Jan 2011 17:08 GMT

Aljazeera might be blocked in some countries including the USA- Americans are FREE not to watch AlJazeera. Canada by the way has also at times blocked AlJazeera TV news.

Otherwise check out BBC & The Guardian.
Live streaming from BBC:As it happened: Egypt unrest day five

The Guardian Live Updates/Streaming




Egypt shuts down Al Jazeera bureau
Network's licences cancelled and accreditation of staff in Cairo withdrawn by order of information minister." Aljazeera Jan. 30, 2011


The Egyptian authorities are revoking the Al Jazeera Network's licence to broadcast from the country, and will be shutting down its bureau office in Cairo, state television has said.

"The information minister [Anas al-Fikki] ordered ... suspension of operations of Al Jazeera, cancelling of its licences and withdrawing accreditation to all its staff as of today," a statement on the official Mena news agency said on Sunday.

In a statement, Al Jazeera said it strongly denounces and condemns the closure of its bureau in Cairo by the Egyptian government. The network received notification from the Egyptian authorities on Sunday morning.

"Al Jazeera has received widespread global acclaim for their coverage on the ground across the length and breadth of Egypt," the statement said.

An Al Jazeera spokesman said that the company would continue its strong coverage regardless.

'Designed to stifle'

"Al Jazeera sees this as an act designed to stifle and repress the freedom of reporting by the network and its journalists," the statement said.

"In this time of deep turmoil and unrest in Egyptian society it is imperative that voices from all sides be heard; the closing of our bureau by the Egyptian government is aimed at censoring and silencing the voices of the Egyptian people.

"Al Jazeera assures its audiences in Egypt and across the world that it will continue its in-depth and comprehensive reporting on the events unfolding in Egypt.

"Al Jazeera journalists have brought unparallelled reporting from the ground from across Egypt in the face of great danger and extraordinary circumstances. Al Jazeera Network is appalled at this latest attack by the Egyptian regime to strike at its freedom to report independently on the unprecedented events in Egypt."

Will Obama administration defend the Free Press including Aljazeera or just ignore the situation .
The Americans have been blocking Aljazeera for a few years now s.
The US claims Aljazeera is just a Jihadist propaganda echo chamber.
Yet the US allows Fox News to broadcast even though it it is just a propaganda outlet for the Tea Party Republicans.
In my humble opinion Aljazeera is a more balanced news outlet than is Fox News.


"Cairo protesters stand their ground Warplanes and helicopters flew over the main square and more army trucks appeared in a show of force but no one moved." via Aljazeera Jan 30, 2011


Egyptian air force fighter planes buzzed low over Cairo, helicopters hovered above and extra troop trucks appeared in a central square where protesters were demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

State television said that a curfew has been imposed in the capital and the military urged the protesters to go home.

But the thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square choosed to stay on Sunday.

The show of defiance came as Egypt entered another turbulent day following a night of deadly unrest, when looters roamed the streets in the absence of police.

There were also reports of several prisons across the country being attacked and of fresh protests being staged in cities like Alexandria and Suez.

Thirty-four leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood were freed from the Wadi Natroun jail after guards abandoned their posts.

The protesters in Cairo, joined by hundreds of judges, had collected again in Tahrir Square on Sunday afternoon to demand the resignation of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.

Al Jazeera's correspondent, reporting from the scene, said that demonstrators confronted a fire truck, at which point army troops fired into the air in a bid to disperse them.

He said the protesters did not move back, and a tank commander then ordered the fire truck to leave. When the truck moved away from the square, the thousands of protesters erupted into applause and climbed onto the tank in celebration, hugging soldiers.

Main roads in Cairo have been blocked by military tanks and armoured personnel carriers, and large numbers of army personnel have been seen in other cities as well.

Reporting from Cairo earlier on Sunday, Al Jazeera's Dan Nolan said it was a "long way from business as usual" in the Egyptian capital on the first working day since protests peaked on Friday.

He said that extra military roadblocks had been set up in an apparent attempt to divert traffic away from Tahrir Square, which has been a focal point for demonstrators.

"It's still a very tense scene to have so much military in the capital city of the country."

Earlier in the morning, Al Jazeera's Jane Dutton, also in Cairo, reported that the city appeared deserted in the early hours.

"The streets are very dirty, there is debris everywhere. The police have just disappeared. Any security at this stage is in the hands of the army."

Al Jazeera's correspondents in the port city of Alexandria have also said that anti-government protests have begun there, with hundreds of people on the streets.

The air force in Cairo has been attempting to disperse protesters, with fighter planes flying low over Tahrir Square on Sunday.

Al Jazeera correspondents say the noise from the planes was deafening and that the planes repeatedly flew over the crowds.

The security situation in the capital has prompted the country's interior minister to hold meetings with top officials on Sunday.

Habib al Adli met Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the defence minister, and vice president Omar Soliman, state television reported.

As the police withdrew from streets across Egypt, Adli has been the target of growing criticism by the protesters who have called on him to resign.

The absence of police has given looters a free rein, forcing ordinary citizens to set up neighbourhood patrols.

According to Dina Magdi, an eyewitness, unidentified men on Sunday morning came out of the interior ministry compound in a car and dumped a body on a street. They then opened fire on people present in the area and fled. There were no immediate reports of casualties in that attack.

Also see related news on Aljazeera:

Tunisian leader returns from exile
Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the previously banned al-Nahda party, returns home after 21 years in the UK.
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2011 12:08 GMT
Sudan police clash with protesters
Anti-government demonstrators in Khartoum faced riot police in protests inspired by those in Egypt and Tunisia.
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2011 15:02 GMT
South Sudan voters chose secession
More than 99 per cent voted in favour of secession from the north in January referendum, preliminary results show.
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2011 09:50 GMT

And from Press TV:

Mubarak on TV demands Cabinet resignation

Iran TV reports 20 dead in clashes in Egypt
Egyptian president defends actions of Egyptian security forces against protesters

CAIRO — Embattled President Hosni Mubarak says he has asked his Cabinet to resign in his first appearance on television since protests erupted demanding his ouster.

He says he will press ahead with social, economic and political reforms. He calls anti-government protests part of plot to destabilize Egypt and destroy the legitimacy of his regime.

He is defending security forces' crackdown on protesters.
Story: Egyptian military deploys in Cairo under curfew




Mubarak was in power for 30 years supported by the USA.
Mubarak expected his son to take over after his retirement .
Well no surprise the US also supports the dictatorial brutal Saudi monarchy.
So as usual the US is on the wrong side of history.
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON STANDS BY THE EGYPTIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR Rights
MSNBC




Iran 2009 vs Egypt 2011: Exposing US Government hypocrisy



Hillary Clinton with a straight face says what happens next is up to the Egyptian people Really???
America she claims never interfere in another country's affairs???
Ask the Iraqis and Afghans and Iranians, Syrians, Yemens, Algierians , Saudis etc. if this is true.
Since the invasion and illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan America has little to offer in the way of being a guardian of freedom , democracy and human rights and defending the rights and dignity of all peoples.
It seems not long ago that Hillary Clinton was all too happy to crush the popular uprising in Honduras against the military junta with its Death Squads and armed thugs.
The United States has had a notorious record in defending dictator and unseating and or assassinating leaders such as Salvadore Allende who was replaced by America's own hero and butcher Pinochet

The American government under Ronald Reagan supported and supplied with arms the so-called Contras who terrorized the people of Nicaragua because the US didn't like its popular government.

These days the US government runs a system of prisons where those incarcerated are tortured and abused on a daily basis and we are asked to trust the American government its military, the Pentagon and the CIA.

In this clip of Hillary Clinton we get a more critical stance on the Obama administration's reaction to how Mubarak is handling the crisis /uprising in Egypt.
Though she criticizes Mubarak 's heavy handed response to the popular uprising she does not insist that Mubarak step down


Hillary Clinton Speaks on Crisis in Egypt; Does Not Express Support for Mubarak
Jan. 28, 2011.




Hillary Clinton Meddling In Honduras





The Bush Neocon disciples give their views on the coup in Honduras.
They are for the Military Junta in Honduras and therefore against the people of Honduras.
They are against the Mullahs and the Iranian government and for the people.
Some Tea Party Republicans are for Mubarak and against the Egyptian people.
Clinto and Obama were slow to react to the Egytian uprising concerned that they should support their ally Mubarak while when this occurred in Iran they were quick to condemn the regime.

The right saw nothing wrong with the military staging a military Coup to oust a popular leader in Honduras . The problem was president Zelaya was pushing for reforms to guarantee the rights and freedoms of all Hondurans not just the elite whom the Americans like and support. The US is not interested in real reforms. Their idea of democracy is all tied into supposedly fair and honest elections. But when all the candidates are in favor of the same policies then the election becomes meaningless. This is to a great extent true about the USA where its difficult to tell the partys apart since both are pro-war, pro-big business believe in the myth of American exceptionalism that America is morally superior to all other nations etc.
Krauthammer et al. on the Honduras coup



First a rather hypocritical statement by Hillay Clinton saying that what happens next is up to the Egyptian people-she doesn't bother to mention US involvement in foreign and domestic affairs of Egypt over the last few decades in which the US gave military aid of 1.3 billion a year and that the US stood by and did nothing as the authoritarian Regime crushed all dissent- -Egypt has had a dismal human rights record
The USA has used Egypt for renditioning of prisoners (detainees)used as a stop-over
and has handed over prisoners to be tortured by Egyptian police and or military on the behalf of the US government and the American people.
Egypt has also been used in various ways to enforce the Israeli blockade of Gaza

The common folk of Egypt are demanding an end to the Mubarak regime and want to install a government which is more democratic and which respects the human rights and freedoms of the citizens of Egypt and not just the elites of the well to do, the well connected, the rich and powerful . Meanwhile the USA is sending mixed messages about the crisis because as we have seen in America the rule of law , human rights etc, are being ignored in its bogus war on terror.
The US administration will have one less country to rendition prisoners to to be tortured if the uprising is successful.
If the Obama and the American government were interested in reform they would have cut off all military aid to Egypt years ago instead of being Mubarak's enabler.  Now they are discussing the issues of aid to Egypt while secretly hoping the Egyptian people come to their senses and realize they will be beaten down once again by Mubarak or whomever replaces him as the new strong man of Egypt.

So the people of Egypt if they want to really bring about change in how they are governed they should in my humble opinion realize the US government is not on their side as such but is on the side of America's corporate , strategic and military interests.

The American government was reluctant to speak out against Mubarak's use of force against the anti-government demonstrators.
When Iran was experiencing the same sort of protest Hillary and Obama were quick to take the side of the people of Iran against the Mullahs.
Egypt has a human Rights record that is just as bad as the Iranian government or that of Saddam whom the Americans supported and provided with arms -of course we now know they were also supplying arms and money to the Iranian government in exchange hostages etc. Iran Contra Affair. Meanwhile the US was also sharing satelite intel to Saddam during the Iraq/Iran War. So how did that turn out for the USA. Meanwhile in Afghanistan the US supplied the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union fell and the Taliban took over Afghanistan. But the Americans never learn and go on supporting more often than not the worst people.
In Iran they had supported the Brutal Shah even after the Iranian people rose up and put others in charge .
When it is the extremes which get supported the more reasonable centrist who want to reform the country are either destroyed and or ignored .

Egypt facing revolution as Mubarak outlaws protests



Obama the Neocons Neoliberals are all for democracy and reform in countries that do not protect the citizens basic human rights and freedom except in countries led by American backed proxies or puppet regimes all in the name of American interests.
Odd how American's corporate and strategic interests always come before the interests of the citizens of other nations.

America was all for Saddam until they decided they were against him. As it appears now the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has more to with American and Israeli interests than with "bringing freedom and democracy" to the people of Iraq or of Afghanistan etc.

Is Obama condemning the use of violence by both sides or just those protesting. It seems the Mubarak government has been all too willing to use violence killing over 40 people this week.



"A People Defies Its Dictator, And a Nation's Future is in The Balance A brutal regime is fighting, bloodily, for its life." Robert Fisk reports from the streets of Cairo via Information Clearing house Jan. 29, 2011

"The Independent" -- It might be the end. It is certainly the beginning of the end. Across Egypt, tens of thousands of Arabs braved tear gas, water cannons, stun grenades and live fire yesterday to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak after more than 30 years of dictatorship.

How does one describe a day that may prove to be so giant a page in Egypt's history? Maybe reporters should abandon their analyses and just tell the tale of what happened from morning to night in one of the world's most ancient cities. So here it is, the story from my notes, scribbled amid a defiant people in the face of thousands of plainclothes and uniformed police.

It began at the Istikama mosque on Giza Square: a grim thoroughfare of gaunt concrete apartment blocks and a line of riot police that stretched as far as the Nile. We all knew that Mohamed ElBaradei would be there for midday prayers and, at first, the crowd seemed small. The cops smoked cigarettes. If this was the end of the reign of Mubarak, it was a pretty unimpressive start.

But then, no sooner had the last prayers been uttered than the crowd of worshippers, perched above the highway, turned towards the police. "Mubarak, Mubarak," they shouted. "Saudi Arabia is waiting for you." That's when the water cannons were turned on the crowd – the police had every intention of fighting them even though not a stone had been thrown. The water smashed into the crowd and then the hoses were pointed directly at ElBaradei, who reeled back, drenched.

He had returned from Vienna a few hours earlier and few Egyptians think he will run Egypt – he claims to want to be a negotiator – but this was a disgrace. Egypt's most honoured politician, a Nobel prize winner who had held the post of the UN's top nuclear inspector, was drenched like a street urchin. That's what Mubarak thought of him, I suppose: just another trouble maker with a "hidden agenda" – that really is the language the Egyptian government is using right now.

And then the tear gas burst over the crowds. Perhaps there were a few thousand now, but as I walked beside them, something remarkable happened. From apartment blocks and dingy alleyways, from neighbouring streets, hundreds and then thousands of Egyptians swarmed on to the highway leading to Tahrir Square. This is the one tactic the police had decided to prevent. To have Mubarak's detractors in the very centre of Cairo would suggest that his rule was already over. The government had already cut the internet – slicing off Egypt from the rest of the world – and killed all of the mobile phone signals. It made no difference.

"We want the regime to fall," the crowds screamed. Not perhaps the most memorable cry of revolution but they shouted it again and again until they drowned out the pop of tear gas grenades. From all over Cairo they surged into the city, middle-class youngsters from Gazira, the poor from the slums of Beaulak al-Daqrour, marching steadily across the Nile bridges like an army – which, I guess, was what they were.

Still the gas grenades showered over them. Coughing and retching, they marched on. Many held their coats over their mouths or queued at a lemon shop where the owner squeezed fresh fruit into their mouths. Lemon juice – an antidote to tear gas – poured across the pavement into the gutter.


and so it goes,
GORD.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Massive Protests in Egypt Against American Supported Mubarak's Brutal Ant-Democratic Regime

UPDATE: 6:23 11:00 PM.Jan.29, 2011.

Egyptian Protests -For updates and live streaming video/audio see:

Al Jazeera English: Live Streaming
Watch the broadcast here. Last Modified: 28 Jan 2011 17:08 GMT

Aljazeera might be blocked in some countries including the USA- Americans are FREE not to watch AlJazeera. Canada by the way has also at times blocked AlJazeera TV news.

Otherwise check out BBC & The Guardian.
Live streaming from BBC:As it happened: Egypt unrest day five

The Guardian Live Updates/Streaming

First a rather hypocritical statement by Hillay Clinto saying that what happens next is up to the Egyptian people-she doesn't bother to mention US involvement in foreign and domestic affairs of Egypt over the last few decades in which the US gave military aid of 1.3 billion a year and that the US stood by and did nothing as the authoritarian Regime crushed all dissent- -Egypt has had a dismal human rights record
The USA has used Egypt for renditioning of prisoners (detainees)used as a stop-over
and has handed over prisoners to be tortured by Egyptian police and or military on the behalf of the US government and the American people.
Egypt has also been used in various ways to enforce the Israeli blockade of Gaza

The common folk of Egypt are demanding an end to the Mubarak regime and want to install a government which is more democratic and which respects the human rights and freedoms of the citizens of Egypt and not just the elites of the well to do, the well connected, the rich and powerful . Meanwhile the USA is sending mixed messages about the crisis because as we have seen in America the rule of law , human rights etc, are being ignored in its bogus war on terror.
The US administration will have one less country to rendition prisoners to to be tortured if the uprising is successful.
If the Obama and the American government were interested in reform they would have cut off all military aid to Egypt years ago instead of being Mubarak's enabler.  Now they are discussing the issues of aid to Egypt while secretly hoping the Egyptian people come to their senses and realize they will be beaten down once again by Mubarak or whomever replaces him as the new strong man of Egypt.

So the people of Egypt if they want to really bring about change in how they are governed they should in my humble opinion realize the US government is not on their side as such but is on the side of America's corporate , strategic and military interests.


Obama Neocons Neoliberals all for democracy and reform in countries that do not protect the citizens basic human rights and freedom except in countries led by American backed proxies or puppet regimes all in the name of American interests.
Odd how American's corporate and strategic interests always come before the interests of the citizens of other nations.

America was all for Saddam until they decided they were against him. As it appears now the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has more to with American and Israeli interests than with "bringing freedom and democracy" to the people of Iraq or of Afghanistan etc.

Is Obama condemning the use of violence by both sides or just those protesting. It seems the Mubarak government has been all too willing to use violence killing over 40 people this week.

Hundreds held in Egypt protestsFrom AlJazeera Jan. 26, 2011



Fresh protests erupt in Egypt



And from America more BS about reform
American 1. 3 billion aid being used to beat up and kill protesters and America approves
The interviewer mentions social media and yet in the past week we discover Obama claims the right to shut down the entire internet if he wishes to.
So what's to prevent leaders such as Mubarak or those in Iran, North Korea or China etc.



Why should the Mubarak opposition agree to a cease fire - so that the government of Egypt can have time to round up all of the leaders and spokespersons who are leading the opposition or for the government to invent some sort "Terrorist conspiracy theory which would help keep America on Mubarak's side. In the past this is what such governments have done in other nations when faced with a popular uprising.

"Shameful: Egyptian Protesters Pelted With US-Made Tear Gas Canisters" by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd , via Alternet.org, Jan. 29, 2011

It's a familiar tale -- US supplies military aid to regimes with spotty histories. Regime uses aid against its own people. Suppressed find remnants of military gear stamped with US insignia.

Yesterday, Egyptian riot cops in Cairo let off countless canisters of tear gas into crowds in an attempt to disperse the massive protests against Mubarak's regime. When citizens picked them up to throw them back, they saw they were clearly labeled with directions and warning in English, and stamped with the words 'MADE IN THE USA.' To see a picture from the ground in Cairo of one of these canisters captured by Reuters, go here, and scroll down to photo 80.

The canister reads, 'FOR USE ONLY BY QUALIFIED PERSONNEL TRAINED IN THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT.' The man holding it is covering his mouth and nose with a protective scarf, one way to avoid breathing in tear gas' toxic fumes.

ABC reported the canisters were discovered in downtown Cairo in Tahir Square, a hub of yesterday's protests. The tear gas was manufactured by Combined Systems International of Jamestown, Pennsylvania. The US provides $1.3 billion dollars a year in military financing to Egypt. Aly Eltayeb, a 26-year-old graduate student from Boston who was protesting in Cairo for days, told ABC News, "The way I see it the U.S. administration supports dictators. U.S. political institution as a whole supports dictators in the Middle East as long as they do the torturing for them."

In Obama's Egypt speech last night, he called on Mubarak and the military to 'refrain from any violence against peaceful protesters':

Violence will not address the grievances of the Egyptian people. And suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. What's needed right now are concrete steps that advance the rights of the Egyptian people, a meaningful dialogue between the government and its citizens and a path of political change that leads to a future of greater freedom and greater opportunity and justice for the Egyptian people.

Meanwhile Bolton and Neocons as expected defend Mubarak and are against those demanding political and social reforms in Egypt.

No Longer Caring About Democracy, Bolton Disparages Egypt Protests And Defends Mubarak by Zaid Jilani Via Think Progress.org, Jan. 29, 2011

During the Bush years, one of the justifications the administration most relied on for many of its policies in the world was that it was engaging in “democracy promotion.” One of the most vocal members about this supposed cause was Bush administration U.N. ambassador John Bolton.

Throughout his tenure as a high-level administration official, Bolton repeatedly insisted that one of his top priorities was helping spread freedom, respect for human rights, and democracy throughout he world. He was instrumental in the Bush administration’s refusal to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, supposedly out of his objection to the poor human rights records of several of the council’s members.

Yet during an interview with right-wing radio host Mark Levine yesterday, Bolton used his time on the show to attack and undermine the pro-democracy protest movement currently underway in Egypt. The former U.N. ambassador claimed that the “real alternative” to the Mubarak government is not “Jeffersonian democracy” but rather the opposition Muslim Brotherhood. After Levine postulated that “every Jihadi nutjob is probably pouring into Egypt right now,” Bolton followed up by saying this is the “big opportunity” for jihadists and mocked the calls of the international community to restore internet services, saying that the “Muslim Brotherhood knows how to use Twitter just like naive college students do”:

LEVINE: So what do you make with what’s going on in Egypt right now?

BOLTON: Well, I think it’s a real crisis for the regime. I think the outpourings in the street that have now been joined by the Muslim Brotherhood really do put the issue squarely on the table [...] My take is that they are digging in for a fight, they intend to resist, and that the real alternative is not Jefferson democracy versus the Mubarak regime, but that it’s the Muslim Brotherhood versus the Mubarak regime, and that has enormous implications for the U.S., for Israel, and our other friends in the region.

LEVINE: See, that’s my take on it too. I’m not aware of these spontaneous Jeffersonian democracy drives in the Arab world. Maybe I could be missing something. Mike Ledeen makes the point, I think he’s right, that every Jihadi nutjob is probably pouring into Egypt right now.

BOLTON: Oh, this is the big opportunity. That’s why so much of the Obama administration opposition to it has been feckless. [...] And the Muslim Brotherhood knows how to use Twitter just like naive college students do. So I don’t disagree. There are a lot of people in the streets who have legitimate grievances, they want more open government, so even if Mubarak were to fall, those idealistic people aren’t going to create the new government, the Brotherhood is.

For starters, Bolton is conflating a much wider movement for democracy with the Egyptian Islamist political movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood. The current demonstrations started on January 25, a date which had no religious significance but rather marked the date of an anticolonial police revolt against the British. The protests, largely lead by Egypt’s more progressive younger generation, went on for days before the Brotherhood even became involved.

Second of all, while there are many legitimate concerns about the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood’s politics, they are not equivalent to anti-American jihadists. The Egyptian brotherhood “renounced violence years ago, but its relative moderation has made it the target of extreme vilification by more radical Islamists. Al Qaeda’s leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, started their political lives affiliated with the Brotherhood but both have denounced it for decades as too soft and a cat’s paw of Mubarak and America.” In other words, Bolton is attacking a mostly nonviolent Islamist movement that has acted as a bulwark against violent extremism. Following brutal attacks against Coptic Christians late last year, the Muslim Brotherhood unequivocally condemned the terrorism, calling for peace.

Lastly, and most importantly of all, as former CIA officer and chair of the Obama administration’s 2009 Afghanistan and Pakistan strategic policy review Bruce Reidel writes, “Egyptians will decide the outcome, not Washington. We should not try to pick Egyptians’ rulers. Every time we have done so, from Vietnam’s generals to Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai, we have had buyer’s remorse. … [We] should not be afraid of the Muslim Brotherhood. Living with it won’t be easy but it should not be seen as inevitably our enemy. We need not demonize it nor endorse it. In any case, Egyptians now will decide their fate.” In other words, supporting democracy overseas does not mean supporting only leaders who we have no disagreements with.

If Bolton is siding with Mubarak against the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people — which include but are far from limited to nonviolent Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood — he should no longer pretend to be a friend of democracy (something he admitted in 2010 when he said that democracy is “not always the answer“).

"How did the U.S. get in bed with Mubarak?"A historian explains how the U.S. became closely tied to the Mideast dictatorship by justin elliott Salon.com, jan. 29, 2011

Much of the media coverage of the protests in Egypt has noted that President Obama is in a tough position because the regime of Hosni Mubarak is an important ally of the United States.

So it's natural to ask: How and why did the United States become allies with Egypt in the first place? And how has the alliance, which includes an annual military aid package worth $1.3 billion, been sustained over the years?

To get some answers, I spoke with Joel Beinin, a Middle East history professor at Stanford who studies Egypt and who spent several years at the American University in Cairo in the 2000s
.


And it is no surprise that Bolton's friend Right-wing conservative anti-Islam Ayn Rand disciple Pam Geller of Atlas Shrugs is pro-Mubarak and against the average citizens of Egypt.

The blogger who still loves Mubarak
Pamela Geller cheers for mass arrests, worries that Obama will throw our "ally" under the bus by Alex Pareene via Salon.com Jan. 28, 2011


While some conservatives fancifully imagine that George W. Bush's foreign policy misadventures led to these demonstrations in the Arab world, and while others acknowledge that Mubarak is awful but the rest of those Muslims are even worse, one prominent conservative blogger is openly rooting for the repressive Mubarak regime to survive: Pamela "Atlas Shrugs" Geller.

Last night, a classic Geller headline: "GOOD NEWS: EGYPT ARRESTS MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD LEADERS."

In other words, members of the opposition were swept up and jailed in preparation for a day of demonstrations against the authoritatian government. And this opposition group was not even involved in the initial protests, though they joined in the ongoing demonstrations that began on Friday. "It's a good preventative measure no matter who wins this power struggle," Geller wrote.

But as the world became transfixed by the images out of Egypt today, Geller worried that Barack Obama might abandon our wonderful ally, Hosni Mubarak.

Mubarak has been a US ally for decades. We send three billion dollars a year to Egypt. And Egypt made a peace deal with Israel. But knowing Obama, he will throw another ally under the bus.

Geller continued to demonstrate the limits of her simplistic, binary understanding of the world. "I am all for political freedom," she wrote, except that she prefers Mubarak to, uh, political freedom.

Meanwhile Tea Party Republicans are pushing their own agenda to make America into a more Christianized state by backing legislation to promote Creationism /Intelligent Design in the public schools. And of course they are still warning their base that the "Homosexual Agenda" is more dangerous to America than are the real terrorists.

Oklahoma Lawmaker Sally Kern Proposes Bill That Forces Teachers To Question Evolution" by Paul Breer via Think Progress Jan. 28, 2011


State Rep. Sally Kern (R) has proposed the second anti-evolution bill this year in Oklahoma. Entitled the “Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act,” the bill, which will be first considered next month, would require the state and local authorities to “assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies” and permit teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review” the scientific strengths and weaknesses of “existing theories.” But the only topics mentioned in the bill as contestable are “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.”

In an attempt to legitimize the bill, Kern said, “It’s a simple fact that the presentation of some issues in science classes can lead to controversy, which can discourage teachers from engaging students in an open discussion of the issues.”

However,
Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education previously released a critique against a similar bill, SB 320 — which died in committee in February 2009 and only differs slightly from Kern’s bill — that said, “promoting the notion that there is some scientific controversy is just plain dishonest”:

‘Promoting the notion that there is some scientific controversy is just plain dishonest… Evolution as a process is supported by an enormous and continually growing body of evidence. Evolutionary theory has advanced substantially since Darwin’s time and, despite 150 years of direct research, no evidence in conflict with evolution has ever been found.’ With respect to the supposed ‘weaknesses’ of evolution, OESE added, ‘they are phony fabrications, invented and promoted by people who don’t like evolution.’

Kern is a relentless advocate for anti-evolution legislation in Oklahoma, so the newest bill comes as no surprise. Kern was the head sponsor of HB 2107, which would have called for “academic freedom” in connection to “biological or chemical origins of life.” The bill passed the House by a vote of 77-10 in March 2006, but then came to its demise when the legislature adjourned in May. Kern was also the lead sponsor for the House Concurrent Resolution 1043, which mandated the state board of education amend

Kern has frequently used Oklahoma’s education system as a prop for her grandstanding. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out, Kern fought vehemently against educational reforms to bolster Oklahoma’s chances in winning grants through the Race to the Top program, saying, “these are standards that are not American standards…Race to the Top is Obama’s baby.”

Kern also proclaimed that homosexuality is comparable to “toe-cancer” and that “it’s the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam. Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it’s the death knell of this country.”



and once again for all the right -wing's clamor about the need to support the troops they want to cut Veterans benefits.
But of course she and her Taliban Tea Party Republicans wouldn't dare make cuts to spending on new weapons systems or on salaries and contracts to American mercenaries such as Blackwater/XE Services or even call for more oversight of corporations employed by the US military and Pentagon.

Veterans Slam Rep. Bachmann’s Plan To Cut Vet Benefits: ‘Heartless,’ ‘Shows Contempt’ For Troops’ Sacrifice by Alex Seitz-Wald via Alternet.org, Jan. 28, 2011

In her tea party-fueled quest to cut government spending and social programs, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has unveiled a plan to cut $400 billion in federal spending that includes freezing the Veterans Affairs Department’s health care spending and cuts veterans’ disability benefits. The Air Force Times reports her plan would slice $4.5 billion from the VA, including reducing 150,000 veterans’ disability compensation and the amount they receive in Social Security Disability Income.

A host of veterans groups slammed Bachmann’s plan:

–Veterans of Foreign War national commander Richard L. Eubank said, “The only discussion the VFW wants is to tell the congresswoman that her plan is totally out of step with America’s commitment to our veterans.” “No way, no how, will we let this proposal get any traction in Congress,” said Eubank. “There are certain things you do not do when our nation is at war, and at the top of that list is not caring for our wounded and disabled servicemen and women when they return home,” he said. “I want her to look those disabled veterans in the eye and tell them their service and sacrifice is too expensive for the nation to bear.”

–The National Veterans Foundation’s Rich Rudnick told ThinkProgress that Bachmann’s plan is “terribly misguided,” saying, “veterans benefits are minimal to begin with” and that Bachmann’s scheme would be a “real step backwards.” “Cutting back on the VA right now would be showing contempt for American servicemembers’ sacrifices,” Rudnick said in a phone interview this afternoon.

–Disabled American Veterans Washington Headquarters Executive Director David Gorman said Bachmann’s plan is “[s]uch an ill-advised proposal [it] is nothing short of heartless.” “It is unconscionable that while our nation is at war someone would even think of forcing our wounded warriors to sacrifice even more than they already have,” Gorman said. “Their injuries and disabilities were the result of their service to the nation, and our nation must not shirk its responsibilities toward them. How do you tell a veteran who has lost a limb that he or she has not sacrificed enough? Yet Rep. Bachmann wants to do just that.”

–Veterans for Common Sense executive director Paul Sullivan “said cutting veterans’ health care spending is an ill-advised move at a time when the number of veterans continues to grow as troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan.” “It is really astonishing to see this,” he said.

–VoteVets.org Chairman Ashwin Madia said, “Michelle Bachmann’s plan would turn veterans away from the care they’ve earned and deserve. Congress voted for two wars that have created many veterans that now need help, and we cannot – and will not – turn our backs to them. That’s bad policy that I think even a majority of Republican voters will stand squarely against.”

In a statement to the Air Force Times, Bachmann “said her plan is intended for discussion purposes as an example of ways to cut federal spending.”

and so it goes,
GORD.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Obama Continues US Tradition Defending Friendly Dictators Military Juntas While Calling Dissidents "Enemies of The State" From Honduras, Burma, Yemen, To Egypt ad nausea

President Obama while claiming to champion the people of Tunisia who want reform and more rights and freedoms refuses to apologize for America's past support over two decades backing a ruthless dictatorship. But given American history or even the history so far of the Obama administration this is not surprising . After all it was his administration which backed the Coup d'etat in Honduras and still supports the Junta which suppressing free speech and the freedom to hold anti-government demonstrations. This is odd since in America the Anti-government Tea Party Republicans are permitted to publicly demonstrate hold their rallies and accuse the administration of being a Nazi/Communist totalitarians out to destroy America.
In America these right wing organizations and individuals can even call for the shooting, beheading and beating or just harassing any politician or academic , or media personality that dares to disagree with their extremist ideology of uberpatriotism and America's God Given Right to do as it pleases.
They claim that by definition it is impossible for America to do wrong since America is guided by the Christian God.

Laura Flanders points out Obama paid some sort of passing tribute to the citizens of Tunisia in his State of the Union Address but didn't bother to say anything about the people in Egypt now demonstrating against their heavy handed government which also suppressing the press and any form of dissent and has a reputation of torturing prisoners and committing other human rights violation. I would add he also didn't bother to mention America's other friends including Yemen and Algiers . Obama is just continuing the American tradition of cozying up to dictators and totalitarian regimes where there is no respect for human rights.

But we also know that the Obama administration has defended Israel in its commission of War Crimes and supplied Israel the weaponry including banned chemicals such as White Phosphorus and the anti-personnel Cluster Bombs. The Obama administration has also did all it could for instance to defend Sri Lanka from any real investigations into its actions against the Tamil Tigers and the innocent non-combatants who appear to have been beaten, bombed , raped or killed by the Sri Lanka government forces and we have seen the same pattern in Burma which is ruled by a vicious brutal dictatorship or Junta whom the Americans like because those in power insure that those who work in international companies owned by Americans, Canadians or British or other Western Countries have no rights whatsoever . But in the end it means big profits for those in power and the corporations they protect.

The only thing that really bothers these ruthless rapacious corporations and governments is when these things go public and for that they blame in their view the evil liberal press whom they believe should mind their own business or suffer the consequences . We know for instance that the US government and Military and that of Israel and other nations deliberately target and murder journalists who might dare print or videotape the truth.

We also know that President Obama and other national leaders insist they have the right to not just block signals from TV and news agencies they don't like such as AlJazeera but also to shut down social networking on the web and even shut down the Internet itself .

But as these characters in Washington keep reminding us notions such as human rights and the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg rulings in this post 9/11 world no longer apply are " merely quaint " as Condoleeza Rice infamously remarked.
So other nations if they had any real interest themselves in defending Human Rights and International Law they would stand up to the United States and they would insist that those American officials in the Whitehouse, Congress or Senate or in the military, the pentagon or CIA who committed War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity should be tried in the International Court and judged accordingly.

" Protests in Cairo Forgotten by Obama" by laura Flanders via Alternet, jan 26, 2011
In the State of the Union speech, Barack Obama did get applause for saying that the US stands with the people of Tunisia. Now, he didn’t mention the two decades of support the US had given the dictatorship.




"The Corruption Game What the Tunisian Revolution and WikiLeaks Tell Us about American Support for Corrupt Dictatorships in the Muslim World" By Juan Cole TomDispatch, jan. 25, 2011

January 25, 2011 "TomDispatch" -- Here’s one obvious lesson of the Tunisian Revolution of 2011: paranoia about Muslim fundamentalist movements and terrorism is causing Washington to make bad choices that will ultimately harm American interests and standing abroad. State Department cable traffic from capitals throughout the Greater Middle East, made public thanks to WikiLeaks, shows that U.S. policy-makers have a detailed and profound picture of the depths of corruption and nepotism that prevail among some “allies” in the region.

The same cable traffic indicates that, in a cynical Great Power calculation, Washington continues to sacrifice the prospects of the region’s youth on the altar of “security.” It is now forgotten that America’s biggest foreign policy headache, the Islamic Republic of Iran, arose in response to American backing for Mohammad Reza Pahlevi, the despised Shah who destroyed the Iranian left and centrist political parties, paving the way for the ayatollahs’ takeover in 1979.

State Department cables published via WikiLeaks are remarkably revealing when it comes to the way Tunisian strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his extended family (including his wife Leila’s Trabelsi clan) fastened upon the Tunisian economy and sucked it dry. The riveting descriptions of U.S. diplomats make the presidential “family” sound like True Blood’s vampires overpowering Bontemps, Louisiana.

In July of 2009, for instance, the U.S. ambassador dined with Nesrine Ben Ali el-Materi and Sakher el-Materi, the president’s daughter and son-in-law, at their sumptuous mansion. Materi, who rose through nepotism to dominate Tunisia’s media, provided a 12-course dinner with Kiwi juice -- “not normally available here” -- and “ice cream and frozen yoghurt he had flown in from Saint Tropez,” all served by an enormous staff of well-paid servants. The ambassador remarked on the couple’s pet tiger, “Pasha,” which consumed “four chickens a day” at a time of extreme economic hardship for ordinary Tunisians.

Other cables detail the way the Ben Ali and Trabelsi clans engaged in a Tunisian version of insider trading, using their knowledge of the president’s upcoming economic decisions to scarf up real estate and companies they knew would suddenly spike in value. In 2006, the U.S. ambassador estimated that 50% of the economic elite of Tunisia was related by blood or marriage to the president, a degree of nepotism hard to match outside some of the Persian Gulf monarchies.

Despite full knowledge of the corruption and tyranny of the regime, the U.S. embassy concluded in July 2009: “Notwithstanding the frustrations of doing business here, we cannot write off Tunisia. We have too much at stake. We have an interest in preventing al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other extremist groups from establishing a foothold here. We have an interest in keeping the Tunisian military professional and neutral.”

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More Weakileaks documents examined and McClatchy Newspapers delivers its verdict on what they mean.
In this case the cables gives us the background on why Obama's decision to close Gunatanamo has been postponed again and again.
We of course knew the Republicans and Tea Party thugs and their media echo chamber were against but now we know there were Democrats and people in Obama's administration who were against closing Gitmo or any of America's foreign prisons in Iraq or Afghanistan .

How Congress Helped Thwart Obama's Plan to Close Guantanamo by: Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy Newspapers | Report Jan. 22,2011


Two years after the newly minted Obama administration moved to undo what had become one of the most controversial legacies of the George W. Bush presidency by ordering the closure of the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a trove of State Department documents made public by the website WikiLeaks is providing new information about why that effort failed.

Key among the factors, the cables suggest: Congress' refusal to allow any of the captives to be brought to the United States.

In cable after cable sent to the State Department in Washington, American diplomats make it clear that the unwillingness of the United States to resettle a single detainee in this country — even from among 17 ethnic Muslim Uighurs considered enemies of China's communist government — made other countries reluctant to take in detainees.

Europe balked and said the United States should go first. Yemen at one point proposed the United States move the detainees from Cuba to America's SuperMax prison in the Colorado Rockies. Saudi Arabia's king suggested the military plant micro-chips in Guantanamo captives before setting them free.

A January 2009 cable from Paris is a case in point: France's chief diplomat on security matters insisted, the cable said, that, as a precondition of France's resettling Guantanamo captives the United States wants to let go, "the U.S. must agree to resettle some of these same LOW-RISK DETAINEES in the U.S.'' In the end, France took two.

Closing the Guantanamo detention center had been a key promise of the Obama presidential campaign, and the new President Barack Obama moved quickly to fulfill it.

Just two days after taking the oath of office, on Jan. 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order instructing the military to close Guantanamo within a year. European countries were effusive in their praise.

But as the second anniversary of that order passed Saturday, the prison camps remain open, and the prospects of their closure appear dim. Prosecutors are poised to ramp up the military trials that Obama once condemned, and the new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon of California, last week said the U.S. should grow the population to perhaps 800 from the current 173.

Many factors worked to thwart Obama's plans to close the camps — from a tangled bureaucracy to fears that released detainees would become terrorists. But Congress' prohibition on resettling any of the detainees in the United States hamstrung the administration's global search for countries willing to take the captives in.

So as usual morality , the rule of law .common decency carry no weight when it comes to protecting America's interest that is its empire there are no restrictions or boundaries regarding how to protect those interests. Torture, murder, plundering launching pre-emptive wars or backing ruthless dictators its all the same to many Americans. And yet Americans are always going on about the rule of law and their Bill of Rights and go around quoting Thomas Paine and Jefferson and Jesus and the Bible to argue what a morally upright nation it is.

Unfortunately the United States politicians and its military and security forces such as the CIA do not take part in moral or ethical or religious debates about their actions and practices. So ecesses such as the use of torture renditions assassinations setting up Death Squads in various countries killing not just armed combatants but also politicians, lawyers, social workers, community organizers , academics, scholars , journalist who dare to reject their governments which are supported by the USA.


"Video: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner and Victim of US Rendition and Torture Speaks" by Andy Worthington 24.1.11

Last week, NBC News surprised everyone by featuring an interview conducted in Pakistan with Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a former Guantánamo prisoner — and an innocent man seized in Indonesia in January 2002, at a time when the Bush administration was out of control, kidnapping men around the world and subjecting them to “extraordinary rendition” and torture in foreign prisons on the the merest suspicion that they were connected to terrorist activities.

Madni, an Islamic scholar, was rendered to Egypt and tortured because, on a trip to Indonesia to sort out his late father’s affairs, he was recorded by Indonesian intelligence with a group of young Indonesian Islamists who were under surveillance, and who, in their conversation, discussed the shoe bomber Richard Reid, who had been captured the month before. When the information was passed to US intelligence and he was picked up, the prevailing opinion about him based on interviews after his capture — that he was nothing more than a “blowhard,” who “wanted us to believe he was more important than he was,” and that he would be held for a few days, “then booted out of jail,” as a US intelligence official told Ray Bonner of the New York Times in 2005 — was ignored, and someone higher up the chain of comand ordered his rendition to Egypt.








Torture at the Justice Department? Better Not to Ask by Ray McGovern via CommonDreams.org , Jan. 25, 2011


On Sunday, I attended an informal talk given in a parish hall by the Justice Department's Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. His topic: "The way his work for justice is defined by his faith."

During the Q&A after his talk, I had a chance to pose some questions:

Question: Thanks Tom, for making yourself available to us. You raise the issue of torture, and intimated that there is consensus among Catholics that torture is wrong. Polling conducted two years ago indicates that this is far from the case.

[According to the Catholic News Agency, a survey by the Pew Center Forum on Religion & Public Life found that Catholics are more likely than the general U.S. population to favor the use of torture against suspected terrorists. More than half the Catholics surveyed said that torture could be often or sometimes justified, while another 27 percent said the practice could rarely be justified. Only 20 percent said it could never be justified.]

You are head of the Civil Rights Division at Justice. I am sure you would agree that a person's right not to be tortured is a civil right.

Your immediate boss, Attorney General Eric Holder has stated in testimony to Congress that waterboarding is torture. President Obama has said the same thing. Now the President...that is former President George W. Bush...has written a book in which he brags about authorizing waterboarding and says he would do it again. Former Vice President Dick Cheney earlier endorsed waterboarding.

Like you, Tom, I went to a Jesuit high school, and I know what a syllogism is. If waterboarding is torture, and those who authorized it now admit that and brag about it, is not your boss Eric Holder bound by his oath of office to prosecute those who admit having done that?

I refer here not only to those tortured at Guantanamo, at the huge prison complex at Bagram, Afghanistan, and at "black sites" around the world where my former colleagues at CIA were given carte blanche to ply their trade. I refer also to American citizens like José Padilla born, like me, in New York City, who was deprived of his civil rights and subjected to the cruelest forms of debilitating torture right here in the U.S.A.

Again, you are head of the Civil Rights Division at Justice. You have talked a good bit about conscience. Your boss, the Attorney General, appears unwilling to see to it that the law be faithfully executed. Has your faith or your conscience led you to raise this subject with Eric Holder?

Perez: It's a matter of prosecutorial discretion. We have discussed these matters, and I am not about to reveal information on those discussions.

Question: Your talk is billed as a discussion of how your faith defines your work for justice. I am not asking you to reveal information about the discussions you have been part of at the Justice Department; I am asking you how you come at the issue of torture from a faith perspective.

Perez: You are very clever; but I am not going to let myself be drawn into this discussion. Next questioner...

So what Perez is saying is that when it comes security and Realpolitik morality, ethics,  common decency, human rights etc. are meaningless.

And as we know another tradition in America is wanton corruption even in the attempt to rebuild a country the US invaded. But it doesn't matter because some US corporations were allowed to make a killing along with a few Afghanis.
Ah well we know in Iraq there are still billions unaccounted for but don't expect the Tea Party Republicans to complain about corporations sucking the country dry. No that's just capitalism at work as Obama would say.

And as Rachell Maddow in her judgment called Obama's State of The Union Address "a solemn prayer to Capitalism" - winners take all and those who fail should stop whining because that's how this vicious nasty little game is played. 

But heaven forbid some person living in poverty in the United States might get a raise  of a few dollars more a month in their welfare payments or unemployment benefits to reflect the rise in the Cost of Living. If we didn't have our own loony Neocons running Canada we could suggest that many of these people would be better off here but unfortunately this mean spirited form of rapacious winner take all attitude has taken over our country as well.


" There Is No Plan" by Justin Elliott Jan. 26, Salon.com

That's how an inspector general describes the $11 billion effort to build facilities for the Afghan army

The United States is at risk of blowing over $11 billion on building facilities for the Afghan military because of waste and poor planning, according to the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.

The revelation came in testimony this week before a congressional commission that is looking at U.S. spending in Afghanistan.

According to Arnold Fields, the outgoing special inspector general who has audited various projects in Afghanistan, the money spent on construction of facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is at risk for three reasons: first, "lack of a comprehensive plan"; second, the projects audited to date are "seriously behind schedule"; and third, "it is not clear how Afghanistan is going to be able to provide the operations and maintenance required to sustain any of these investments without continuing financial support from the United States after the current operations and maintenance contract expires in 2015."


For a bit more on torture here's Rachel Maddow interviewing former guard at Guantanamo:



and so it goes,
GORD.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

"Palestine Papers" Pub.By Al Jazeera Undermines Israeli Anti-Palestinian Propaganda : Palestinians Make Concessions Israelis Not So Much

The Palestine Papers reveal the extent to which the Obama administration orchestrated this 2009 handshake [EPA]
Obama negotiating with Palestinians in Bad Faith ???
Palestinians upset over Obama's  refusal to accept agreements made by Condoleeza Rice of which the Palestinians approved.

The Palestine Papers published at Al Jazeera reveal Obama more interested in gaining points in Public Relations and more interested  in the "Optics" that is photo ops etc. than in real negotiations???

Palestinians make big concessions while Israel makes none. Israel wants all Arabs or Palestinians out of Israel so it can become a pure Jewish state. Otherwise they want total and absolute control over Palestinians in Gaza , the West Bank and occupied territories.





The US problem dealing with documents made public by wikileaks has gotten worse as Al Jazeera on its own publishes seceret documents pertaining to US/Palestinian/Israeli negotiations over the last ten years or so. Here is a sampling of the upshot of what these documents reveal about such negotiations. The Bush administration's negotiations in the capable hands of Condoleeza Rice at the very least set some preconditions of negotiations which the Palestinians could accept ie returning to the borders pre 1967 war- putting a halt to building new settlements or expanding older ones and that the right to return would be discussed.

We can only hope that other major news agencies will take on the same responsibility to make governments more accountable for their actions. It highlights how many of these powerful politicians diplomats, bureaucrats see it all as a game while battles rage and people are killed, injured, incarcerated or tortured.


Release of Palestine Papers by Al Jazeera undermines Israeli propaganda that the Palestinians refuse to negotiate in good faith . The documents reveal Israeis acting in "Bad Faith" while Obama is shown not that enthusiastic about an agreement unless it is mostly in Israel's favor.

Two decades of secret Israeli-Palestinian accords leaked to media worldwide Al-Jazeera TV begins leaking 1,600 secret documents: PA agreed to concede almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, accept Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. By Jack Khoury and Haaretz Service Jan. 23, 2011

Al-Jazeera TV and The Guardian revealed Sunday the details of 1,600 confidential documents on negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians over the last two decades.

The documents leaked so far mostly reveal secret concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators on the issues of the right of return of Palestinian refugees, territorial concessions, and the recognition of Israel

and :


The Palestine papers: Al-Jazeera trumps WikiLeaks Palestinian documents on Mideast negotiations revealed by Al-Jazeera TV are testimony that the Palestinians are willing to go the distance for peace. By Akiva Eldar  Haaretz.com ,Jan. 24, 2011

The leaked documents completely discredit the claim that there is "no peace partner" made by the leader of the newly formed Atzmaut faction, Ehud Barak, and his boss , Benjamin Netanyahu.

The documents are testimony that the Palestinians are willing to go the distance for peace: They will relinquish their claims on the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, the Etzion settlement bloc and the settlements along the Green Line. This would all be in return for territories on the western side of this line, including the region of Gilboa and Mount Hebron.

According to a map that was shown to me two weeks ago, the major territorial disputes remain over Ariel, Elkana, Ma’aleh Adumim and the Har Homa suburb of East Jerusalem (which was built after the 1993 Oslo Accords).

The documents in Al-Jazeera’s hands also confirm that the Palestinian leadership would be willing to abdicate sole autonomy in the Old City of Jerusalem and keep it under special rule.

The timing of the document leaks raises suspicions that the temporary Palestinian State border plan, submitted by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, was submitted as a pre-emptive strike against the Palestinian draft. A deeper look into the content of the documents reveals a significant gap between the Palestinian expectations, and the pittance that Lieberman has thrown at them in his proposal.

After reading the documents, calling Lieberman's drivel a "national plan" would be like calling the parliamentary investigation into left-wing organizations an initiative geared towards increasing transparency in NGOs in Israel.

The map that Lieberman has "offered" the Palestinians as an interim arrangement (45-50 percent of the West Bank with land swaps) cannot hold a candle to the map that Ehud Barak and former President Bill Clinton offered them (94-96 percent, plus passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank). Lieberman's map also falls far short of the map that Olmert presented Abbas (93.5 percent plus the passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank). 

and from Aljazeera they have set up a section dealing with the issues pertinent to the documents with accessible PDF files of the Documents themselves in English.


The Palestine Papers show that Obama 's negotiations were more to do with public relations and "optics" than with substantive negotiations with both sides making concessions.

Obama negotiates in Bad Faith with the Palestinians and gives Israel what it wants while going back on agreements made earlier by the previous Bush administration.

The Obama Way: Window Dressing & PR not real negotiations
Obama wanted to avoid any of the core issues ie the right of return, Israel to stop building settlements and that the borders be returned to where they were pre- 1967 six day war UN resolutions. As far as the Palestinians were concerned Condoleeza Rice on behalf of the USA had agreed to begin talks based on agreeing to the pre-1967 borders.


The Obama Way -(Note : all videos from Al Jazeera online.)





The Palestine Papers : Deep frustrations with Obama Obama pressured PA negotiators to restart talks and refused to honour one of the Bush administration's key promises. Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 24 Jan 2011



Jerusalem – It was all smiles in late September 2009, when Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, shook hands at the United Nations. Barack Obama, the US president, brought the men together for a trilateral meeting that he hailed as a chance to revive stalled talks between the two sides, an opportunity to "move forward".

In reality, there was little reason for optimism, and Obama knew it: Less than a week before the handshake, Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority (PA), told a senior Obama adviser that a trilateral meeting would be ruinous for the PA. "It’s like having a gun to my head, damned if you do and damned if you don’t," Erekat told David Hale.

Erekat also warned that Obama’s failure to secure a complete settlement freeze from the Israeli government would damage the credibility of the young administration, a suggestion Hale abruptly dismissed.

Hale: We cannot force a sovereign government. We can use persuasion and negotiations and shared interests.

Erekat: Of course you could if you wanted. How do you think this will reflect on the credibility of the US, if you can’t get this done?

Hale: We make the call on our own credibility.

Sixteen months later, though, Erekat’s concerns seem well-founded: talks have stalled, settlements continue to expand, and the optimism that Obama created with his campaign rhetoric and his Cairo speech has largely evaporated.

The Palestine Papers portray an Obama administration deeply concerned with the "optics" of the peace process. The White House leaned heavily on Palestinian negotiators to restart talks, without resolving any of the substantive concerns – particularly settlement growth – raised by the PA. And Obama refused to honour one of the Bush administration’s key promises to the Palestinians, a decision that Erekat said deeply hurt the PA’s credibility
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Expelling Israel's Arab population? Israeli negotiators, including Tzipi Livni, proposed "swapping" some of Israel's Arab villages into a Palestinian state. Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 24 Jan 2011

Identity and Nationality- Israelis want to export as many Palestinians out of Israel as possible and to deny Palestinian refugees the " Right to Return" to create a pure Jewish State.




The Right of Return of Palestinian Refugees the Children of the Nakba who became refugees when Israel was founded and war broke out in 1948. Many Palestinians ran to escape the violence expecting as traditionally happened that once the fighting stopped the civilian non-combatants would return to their homes. Israel has always denied the Palestinian refugees the right to return.






The Palestine Papers: PA selling short the refugees
Palestinian Authority proposed that only a handful of the nearly six million Palestinian refugees be allowed to return.Laila Al-Arian 25 Jan 2011


They are known as the "Children of the Nakba" - a generation of Palestinians that witnessed, and survived, the forced expulsion and violence in 1948 committed by Zionist paramilitaries on behalf of the nascent state of Israel.

They each have a story about how they or their parents managed to escape their homeland over 60 years ago - and their wounds are still raw.

Some six million Palestinian refugees are scattered around the world, including more than 400,000 in Lebanon. Here, they are deprived of basic rights, not permitted to buy or sell property, and are banned from more than 70 job categories. Mired in abject poverty, they are dependent on an increasingly incapable United Nations agency for aid.
A "symbolic number" of returnees

The Palestine Papers show that Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiators were prepared to make major concessions on the refugees’ right of return: on the numbers potentially allowed to return to their homes in what is now Israel; on whether refugees would be able to vote on any peace agreement; and on how many would be able to settle in a future Palestinian state.

The Palestine Papers Main US negotiators Key American politicians featuring in The Palestine Papers Aljazeera.net, Jan 23, 2011

The Palestine Papers:PA stonewalled the Goldstone vote
PA, with US encouragement, delayed a UN vote on the Goldstone Report into war crimes committed during Israel's Gaza war.S. Farhan Mustafa Last Modified: 26 Jan 2011


On October 2, 2009, the UN Human Rights Council was widely expected to pass a resolution supporting the Goldstone Report, the UN’s probe of war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

The Council instead agreed to delay a vote on the report until March 2010, following major reservations expressed by the Palestinian Authority, the United States and Israel.

A UNHRC endorsement of the report would have brought Israeli officials one step closer to prosecution before a war crimes tribunal, an event many Palestinians were anxious to see.

But, as The Palestine Papers reveal, the Palestinian Authority apparently sacrificed a potential victory for Palestinian victims in exchange for favorable assurances on negotiations from the United States and, they hoped, from Israel.

Palistinians willing participants or bamboozled by US negotiators into not taking steps to make Israel accountable for its War Crimes in the Gaza war
.




and so it goes,
GORD.