Congratulations to Liberia’s Pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Africa, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman of Yemen.
The importance of women’s role around the world elevated, with the Nobel committee making a statement and headline news, offers another change in the status quo. This is truly something to celebrate.
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday to three campaigning women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their nonviolent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia — Africa’s first elected female president — her compatriot, peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner.
[...] Most of the recipients in the award’s 110-year history have been men and Friday’s decision seemed designed to give impetus to the cause for women’s rights around the world.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, and Tawakul Karman stand on their own courage, their own actions leading to the changes still evolving in their corners of the world. They certainly didn’t need Secy. Clinton to tell them their own passions and purpose.
However, it was Hillary Rodham Clinton who has tirelessly trumpeted to the world to wake up to what women’s contributions to their countries mean to the world and anyone wanting stability to rein in still developing, often troubled, regions.
As the Washington Post reported in January, 2010, the Hillary Effect was already in full swing around the world, because of Hillary’s presence, her footprint.
“Hillary Clinton is so visible” as secretary of state, said Amelia Matos Sumbana, who just arrived as ambassador from Mozambique. “She makes it easier for presidents to pick a woman for Washington.”
No one in the Obama administration has worked harder in the last few years to put women’s rights in the forefront of changing countries more than Secy. Clinton. No one has so relentlessly made the case that women can close the gap in stabilizing a troubled country, including setting a burgeoning economy on firmer ground.
It’s the case she began making when she was first lady and went to Beijing, China to give her now famous speech on “human rights are women’s rights.” It has been one of her main missions as secretary of state to bring focus to the roles of women in their government and the importance of their voices being heard. Clinton’s historic and very difficult visit to the Congo revealed the depths of her commitment.
The stability of countries depends on women being engaged in their government, as well as their voices heard and heeded.
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to three women changing their worlds sends a message around the globe that has the potential to inspire more women to be brave, becoming the catalyst for even more progress.
Breaking news: U.S. born radical cleric Al-Alwaki, believed to have strong Al-Queda ties, has been killed in Yemen. A U.S. drone is said to have taken him out.
… Lincoln saw an unresolvable tension between the Constitution of a democratic republic and the policies of aggrandizement and intemperate self-interest that lead from the manners of freedom to the slavish love of power. He spoke of the difference between the work of establishing a constitutional republic and the longer task of maintaining it. But maintaining it against what? Lincoln’s answer was always the same: against the internal pressure of greed, and the external pressure of war. The predicament of the country in 1861, he said, “forces us to ask: ‘Is there, in all republics, this inherent, and fatal weakness? Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?’”
We are now ten years into a policy shared by two successive administrations to plant a new understanding of the spirit of the laws in America. That policy has pretended there is a “trade-off” between liberty and security, and that in a time of crisis, security ought to have the upper hand. The Cheney-Bush and Obama administrations have accustomed us to laws and language concerned above all with the “protection” of citizens — as if there were something higher or more worth protecting than the liberty that is guaranteed by our laws and the framework of laws, the Constitution. [...]
Pres. Obama started bombing Libya out of humanitarian reasoning, with there no strategic interest there for the U.S. Now he’s turning to Yemen, which is no doubt a dangerous place that does have wider implications. However, why is everyone just shrugging at his Executive hubris? Why is he getting to do it without congressional approval?
The CIA is expected to begin operating armed drone aircraft over Yemen, expanding the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in a country where counter-terrorism efforts have been disrupted by political chaos, U.S. officials said.
The plan to move CIA-operated Predator and other unmanned aircraft into the region reflects a decision by President Obama that the al-Qaeda threat in Yemen has grown so serious that patrols by U.S. military drones are not enough.
Because it operates under different legal authorities than the military, the CIA may have greater latitude to carry out strikes if the political climate shifts in Yemen and cooperation with American forces is diminished or cut off. [...]
This is taking the excuse to bomb countries and send in covert forces, as long as there are no traditional boots on the ground, to a level that is potentially very messy.
Jon Huntsman has said he thinks we should no longer be in Afghanistan, that Libya is of non-strategic interest, and that he’d rethink our Middle East wars. I wonder what he thinks about drone power?
As commander in chief, Pres. Obama is so far off the reservation I’m not sure he could find his way back to the man who gave the anti Iraq war speech that snared him the nomination.
A U.S. government official said Saleh, who left Yemen on Sunday to seek medical care in Saudi Arabia, “sustained significant burn injuries and shrapnel wounds.”
“His condition is serious, and it’s likely that it will take him a while to recover fully,” the official said. Saleh has burns covering about 40 percent of his body and suffered extensive shrapnel injuries from wood splintered by the rocket attack on his palace, the official said.
On this day in history, June 5, 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Also on this date in 1967 the Six Day War erupted between Israel and the surrounding Arab states.
~Defense Secretary Gates is in Afghanistan saying his “goodbyes” and reassuring the Afghans that we will be there for the long haul. Obama has set himself up to have to battle not only the GOP on a myriad of issues but now his own party on Afghanistan. The troop surge didn’t work and the underlying problem- a corrupt, illegitimate government that is playing both sides- won’t be “fixed” by counterinsurgency.
~Speaking of Secretary Gates, why does the media help perpetuate the myth that Gates has been a leader in terms of cutting defense spending? Because really what he’s done is just moved money around. If people like David Gregory had stones they’d confront Gates with this but instead they fawn all over him in a rather embarrassing manner.
~Question: if the U.S. is willing to entertain the idea of having talks with the Taliban, a group that is killing Americans as we speak, why is negotiating with Hamas under certain conditions such a taboo? I’m not being sarcastic here, I’m honestly just asking the question.
~Are you tired of hearing about the Weiner scandal? Well, here’s the thing- we know the media loves anything having to do with sex, or anything that even hints of sex, because it’s so much easier to cover than, say, the latest Supreme Court decision. But it’s also a morality tale of sorts. Whoever was advising Rep. Weiner to go on the teevee box and give winding, circular, vague non-answers to basic yes or no questions should be fired or voted off the island.
~Yesterday was the 22nd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Any mention of the anniversary is forbidden in China and they have done everything in their power to erase the tragedy from China’s history.
~You have to hand it to Fox News, they really take on the big issues!:
~Never under estimate the ability of far right conservatives to dumb down almost any issue. They are allergic to nuance and prefer instead to see everything as Black or White, Good vs. Evil. That’s all well and good and it certainly makes for much easier political messaging but at the end of the day, that’s not how the world works.
~I realize that Sarah Palin supporters get really, really angry whenever someone criticizes her but I simply don’t understand why someone would defend someone with such a limited grasp on national and foreign policy. Every politician makes mistakes or stretches the truth and no politician can be an expert on every subject, but Palin’s statements are simply incomprehensible and it is just not acceptable for any candidate or political figure to blame their lack of basic knowledge entirely on the media.
~Ambassador Chris Hill has an interesting commentary about the Mideast peace process, or lack thereof. There seems to be a widening gap between long-time diplomats and foreign policy experts and politicians in both the U.S. and Israel. Regardless of where one stands on this issue one thing is certain, the current politicization of the peace process won’t help resolve the conflict or keep either the Israelis or Palestinians one iota more secure.
~The administration and the media have reacted dismissively to Sy Hersh’s New Yorker article about Iran’s supposed nuclear capability. It would seem that the media really haven’t learned anything since the Judith Miller, Scooter Libby days of reporting in the run-up to the Iraq War. Glenn Greenwald rips Politico for their journalistic hypocrisy and their acting as stenographers to those in power. The way in which the media has responded to the Hersh article is more proof that the media don’t report the news so much as decide what is and isn’t worthy of national debate. Irrespective of what one believes about Iran or Hersh’s reporting on this issue, it’s interesting how the administration and those in the media seem unwilling to even allow a debate to take place.
~Richard Cohen gets paid to write this stuff? Actual money?
~Rather than screaming non-stop about the debt, which has been a problem in the making for well over a decade, we should be screaming for campaign finance reform so that voting isn’t just window-dressing for democracy.
~This is interesting- some religious Christians are questioning the morality of the GOP budget proposals. Apparently some people think selfishness and screw the poor isn’t a great Christian rallying cry. Good for them. A politician’s faith is/should be a personal matter unless they make it a center piece of their political platform and in that case, questioning some of the more blatant hypocrisy is justified.
~It’s official, hardly anyone in Congress agrees with Obama’s Libya strategy. Of course, the irony of the GOP maneuver is rather rich given most of them never met a war they didn’t like. The wording of the congressional resolution should have been applied to the authorization for the use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Security forces in Syria met thousands of demonstrators with fusillades of live ammunition after noon prayers on Friday, killing at least 81 people in the bloodiest day of the five-week-old Syrian uprising, according to protesters, witnesses and accounts on social networking sites. – Security Forces Kill Dozens in Uprisings Around Syria
Welcome to another edition of America’s amateur foreign policy hour.
Having Sen. McCain say in Libya that “for the United States to withdraw our unique offensive capabilities at this time would send the wrong signal” is not only inappropriate, but reenforces the notion of an empire nation, which is the biggest reason our country hangs in continual economic limbo, something conservatives never consider when thinking of national security that must include our economic health.
The BBC is reporting that NATO has utilized armed Predator drones, with Pres. Obama approving the action earlier, which now have struck inside Libya for the first time. Unarmed drones have been used for intelligence and reconnaissance missions.
Pres. Obama could not have approved the use of anything that is a worse symbol of American imperialism than a hell fire missile coming from a Predator. This type of action has already proved counterproductive in Pakistan, but then U.S. policy has been in a perpetual state of chaos for over 10 years.
As an aside, I don’t watch Chris Matthews much anymore, but took a moment yesterday to do so only to hear him trip over himself opining that Predator drones might signify a way out of Libya, something that made him sound so incredibly ignorant I wanted to immediately turn off the TV, but curiosity stopped me, because I wanted to see how he was going to get out of this mess. As he interviewed Richard Engel, he asked the significance of the armed drones being utilized instead of an AC-130, with Engel saying the armed drones were like “a kite” in comparison, something Matthews didn’t know. What’s worse is that he didn’t bother to find out before he went on the air or do any homework on the matter, at least none that was evident. It’s no wonder people are stupid on foreign policy with the likes of Chris Matthews dispensing opinions that armed drone attacks might be the end, instead of simply positing questions and letting the experts tell you what is and is not true.
It seems to me the American people have to get reacquainted with a new thought, which war hawks and neocons are not going to like and neither are humanitarians.
Our standard for bombing or becoming militarily involved in another country that has not attacked us must have at its core that a clear and present danger to the United States must exist.
Unless genocide or ethnic cleansing are happening we stay out, with the ugly reality in geopolitics that you also need proof that it is. We shouldn’t bomb countries before something has happened, preemptively involving ourselves in something that is only a threat.
It’s horrific to read and hear about the carnage erupting throughout the Middle East, but we simply cannot be involved in every skirmish, no matter how gut wrenching the reports. The founding of our own American freedom came through a lot of bloodshed and chaos, with the result of fighting for your own country part of what rebuilds a nation’s character. New American discipline needs to be instilled in our leaders to engage with the world community to bring thugs to justice, without everyone expecting U.S. military involvement for which taxpayers are on the hook.
I’d start with George W. Bush for Iraq, but then I’m a liberal, not one of the mealy-mouthed Democratic elite.
Released last night, Pres. Obama’s statement on Syria:
The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now. We regret the loss of life and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims, and with the Syrian people in this challenging time.
The Syrian Government’s moves yesterday to repeal Syria’s decades-old Emergency Law and allow for peaceful demonstrations were not serious given the continued violent repression against protesters today. Over the course of two months since protests in Syria began, the United States has repeatedly encouraged President Assad and the Syrian Government to implement meaningful reforms, but they refuse to respect the rights of the Syrian people or be responsive to their aspirations. The Syrian people have called for the freedoms that all individuals around the world should enjoy: freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and the ability to freely choose their leaders. President Assad and the Syrian authorities have repeatedly rejected their calls and chosen the path of repression. They have placed their personal interests ahead of the interests of the Syrian people, resorting to the use of force and outrageous human rights abuses to compound the already oppressive security measures in place before these demonstrations erupted. Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria’s citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies. We call on President Assad to change course now, and heed the calls of his own people.
We strongly oppose the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior more generally, including support for terrorism and terrorist groups. The United States will continue to stand up for democracy and the universal rights that all human beings deserve, in Syria and around the world.
I used to say about George W. Bush and the neocons that if they’d been around during the Cuban Missile Crisis we’d have wasted Cuba. But after Libya, I’m not so sure if Barack Obama doesn’t deserve his own sub-category, even as Sec. Clinton has already said we will not become engaged in Syria. The inconvenient geography of Syria renders it absolutely impossible, making a mockery out of the “humanitarian” angle of Libya, which never should have been uttered, let alone engaged militarily.
The problem with all of this is that Pres. Obama’s foreign policy makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Why Libya and not Syria? It’s not about “inaction” in Syria as much as it is irreconcilable stupidity for going into Libya, a decision that looks like the height of hypocrisy when reading, watching or hearing about the carnage in Bahrain.
Pres. Obama doesn’t have a Middle East strategy, policy or anything resembling a foreign policy road map, which is now nakedly exposed.
On this day in history, March 27, 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon set his eyes on what is today known as Florida.
I’ve rounded up some links so you don’t have to:
~Coalition airstrikes against Gaddafi on Saturday provide enough cover for the rebels to retake the city of Ajdabiya in the East.
~A quarter of a million people take to the streets in London to protest the government’s draconian “austerity” measures. Just as in the U.S., the British banking system received billions in bailouts and now the people made to suffer are the usual suspects- the middle and lower classes.
~Protests in Syria turned violent after government forces gunned down dozens of unarmed protesters.
~You would think that the cable news media could walk and chew gum at the same time given it’s a 24 hour news cycle which gives them more than enough time to cover more than one or two stories non-stop. For example, one would think they could cover the military action in Libya and the ongoing crisis in Japan. If you thought that, you would be wrong. Since the initiation of military action in Libya, coverage of the continued problems with the Fukushima nuclear complex in Japan has slipped off noticeably. Luckily print/web media is still covering the crisis.
~On a similar note if you haven’t seen the documentary, The Pat Tillman Story by Amir Bar-Lev, go run out and rent it. There have been several documentaries about his death, but this one is the best by far- I know it’s been available on DVD for some time now but I just watched it last night and it was incredible- and enraging. It’s all the more relevant given what has gone on in Afghanistan since Tillman died- it’s incredible to see just how many of the top brass involved in the cover-up failed upwards and not only were not held accountable, but got promotions. Of course, the people doing the promoting (in the Bush administration) seemed to also be involved in the cover-up.
~Hamas announced that Gaza militants had agreed to stop launching rockets into Israel if Israel would stop launching strikes against targets in Gaza in return. That seems unlikely. Tensions are rising daily and I can’t help but have the feeling that we are about to see the Second Act of Operation Cast Lead. I hope I am wrong.
~In today’s NYT Thomas Friedman tries to put a positive spin on the outcome of the Iraq War which he supported and argued for in 2002 and 2003 and argues, unconvincingly in my view, that the wonderful democracy that flourished there bodes well for the Arab Spring.
~While polls show that more and more Americans are supporting equality for gays and lesbians on a variety of fronts, it looks like the all of the likely GOP hopefuls are decidedly anti-gay. So, who is outside the mainstream now?
~European countries seem to be getting fed up with the United States’ primary role in the Mideast Peace process (or lack thereof). They want the United Nations to take over the peace negotiations and I can’t help but wonder if this is related to a) Angela Merkel’s extraordinary phone call with Bibi Netanyahu where her aides described her as being “furious” with him, b) the revelations in the Palestine Papers, which received much, much more coverage in Europe and other parts of the world than they did in the U.S. and c) the U.S. being the only country to veto the Security Council resolution condemning settlement expansion? Here’s the thing, the U.S. won’t hand over its leading role in “mediating” negotiations and coming up with a solution because Israel wants us in that position- in fact, Bibi doesn’t want anything to do with the Quartet. I’ve believed for a long time that the international community needs to play a larger role in all of this because it’s clear that due to domestic political considerations, the U.S. is incapable of being an objective, honest broker, which is what is necessary if the conflict is ever to end.
~Is this NJ nuclear reactor an accident waiting to happen?
~Glenn Beck has a new documentary (*yawn*) which I guess came out some time in February 2011 and guess what it’s about? **spoiler alert** Basically, the world is ending and those evil Muslims, socialists and atheists are responsible. It seems to focus a lot on Iran getting a nuclear weapon in the next 10 minutes and it contains a lot of commentary from people who have made a career out of fear-mongering and being a little bit crazy. Media Matters has some good information on Beck’s chosen “experts.” Sorry if I ruined it for you. Here’s a little taste:
~War-monger John Bolton has a swell idea- war with Iran. And soon. This is nothing new of course because I don’t think Bolton could name a single country in the Mideast region (other than Israel) that he doesn’t want to bomb. I’ve noticed something about neoconservatives- they seem to treat U.S. troops like expendable chess pieces on board which they control. If we end up in another war I think it will be time for a draft. Or how about a war tax since all this sh*t costs money? I think we’ve become an entitled, lazy nation that expects only about 2% of the population to sacrifice anything when it comes to war and thus it’s much easier to support something when most of us have no skin in the game. Remember back in the old days when our leaders demanded sacrifice from ALL Americans, not just service members and their families? Women worked in the factories and joined WAVES, certain food items and products were prohibited because they were needed for the war effort, people bought war bonds and people signed up for service in droves. These days what do our leaders ask us to do in a time of national crisis and war? They ask us to go shopping. Who doesn’t like shopping?
~Hey, it’s almost tax time, how much do you owe in federal income tax? If it’s more than $1 you owe more than Bank of America does. It’s called failing upwards. Where is the MSM (television, preferably) on this? The hypocrisy of the small government, budget-cutting, anti-tax crowd is unbelievable- Middle America is being the only one asked to sacrifice economically while the nations largest corporations (not just in banking) not only pay ZERO federal income tax, but receive BILLIONS- yes, billions- in tax relief while they use offshore accounts to dodge tax federal tax laws. Now there’s a loophole the size of the Grand Canyon that needs fixing. But nowhere in this budget debate is any of this being discussed. Now, not all corporations pay no taxes of course, but the idea that we actually have a truly free market system with all these corporate subsidies is a myth- and that’s without even bringing up the issue of bailouts.
~Over at Foreign Policy there is an interesting and somewhat critical commentary about Angela Merkel’s economic and foreign policy leadership.
~Whether one agrees or disagrees with military intervention in Libya there is no denying that very real and very important questions are being raised about its foreign policy implications. For example, this commentary asks why, if the intervention in Libya is based primarily on humanitarian grounds, the world and UN have largely ignored the growing violence and murder of large numbers of civilians in Côte d’Ivoire by the ruthless Laurent Gbagbo.
~Speaking of questions being raised about the foreign policy implications of military intervention in Libya, here Mark Sheetz arguing that Europe (and in particular France) alone should have handled this one. Agree or disagree, he raises some interesting questions.
~Careful what you wish for Floridians, you just might get it. Howie Klein of Down with Tyranny has a great post up about how Florida Governor Rick Scott has a plan to make Florida one of the states most hostile to public workers/unions, the poor and pretty much every living thing except large corporations. And given what’s been happening in Wisconsin, that’s quite an achievement!
~Speaking of Wisconsin and union-hating political leaders, Governor Walker has decided that following court orders is for lesser humans and the GOP is going to go ahead and ram the anti-union bill into effect. So much for being a law and order Republican. I keep wondering when middle America, including conservatives, are going to wake up and smell the hypocrisy. When ever you hear the Tea Party crowd talk about a) transparency, b) small government, c) cutting spending and d) the importance of the Constitution and the Rule of Law, be sure you read the fine print because there is a long list of self-serving exceptions to all of the above.
~Does the treatment of Pfc. Bradley Manning raise the possibility that despite Barack Obama’s executive order prohibiting torture, it is still being used at the discretion of the DoD/CIA? Why has the MSM not asked hard questions about this, particularly given the fact that Obama’s executive order has exceptions that have been interpreted to mean that torture is permissible in certain circumstances. Also, given the firing resignation of State Dept. spokesman PJ Crowley several weeks ago, you would think the MSM would connect some of the dots. I guess that’s just to much to ask of David Gregory, John King and others.
~On Monday Der Spiegel published shocking photos of US troops posing by dead Afghan civilians whom they had killed. The photos are graphic and horrible. The US soldiers involved are on trial for murder (one of them just sentenced to 24 years) but I am wondering, did I miss something or has the US media largely ignored this story (there were a few reports including the AP) and if so, are they doing so at the request of the US government?
~Thank goodness for Nicholas Kristof, who in today’s NYT is bringing more attention to the horrific story of the Egyptian women who were subjected to torture and a “virginity test” by the very same Egyptian military that the U.S. has been lauding for being so restrained and professional.
~Defense Secretary Gates said in a pre-taped interview (to air today on Face the Nation) that Gadhafi may be moving dead bodies in an attempt to claim that coalition air strikes have killed lots of civilians.
Some commentators love the Libya war; others hate it. But most agree that it’s profoundly unnatural that we were pushed into it by… France. Welcome to the post-American world. In the age we’re entering, most of the time, the choice will no longer be between humanitarian interventions controlled by the United States and humanitarian interventions where other nations take the lead. The choice will be between humanitarian interventions where other nations take the lead and no humanitarian interventions at all. – Peter Beinert
Pres. Obama is walking away from what Pres. Bill Clinton believed about the U.S. in foreign affairs. That we are the indispensable nation. In the year of the Arab Spring, that’s simply so ’90s.
This is what’s causing Republican heads to explode, with GOP presidential wannabes seeing this as their opening.
Rarely agreeing with Mr. Beinert, what he writes about today is the most important aspect of what’s going on over Libya, as Arab uprisings continue to spread and unwind.
He also has the most classic analysis of Gates since he uttered his own “on the fly” description of Obama’s war of choice in Libya.
I don’t know what it took to convince an obviously reluctant Robert Gates to permit American involvement in the Libyan no-fly zone, but it’s a reasonable bet that had Barack Obama not been able to promise that it would be a mostly European affair, Gates would now be a military analyst on Fox News. It’s not the 1990s anymore. The American public’s appetite for humanitarian war has always been meager. And now the American government’s capacity for waging it is meager, too.
Old school Republicans like Haley Barbour, Mitt Romney and to a lesser degree Newt Gingrich, as well as Sarah Palin, who simply doesn’t have the depth of foreign policy knowledge or study to do anything but parrot neoconservative ideology, are all caterwauling about Pres. Obama’s alleged lack of leadership. The problem with Newt’s fumbling analysis is that it reveals he’s absolutely paralyzed with fear at being humiliated in his quest for the Republican nomination, which seems baked into the plot. With Romney willing to say whatever it takes to nab the nomination this time around. The others simply refuse Obama’s premise.
Obama’s incoherence on Libya, especially Pres. Obama’s arrogant slight of Congress, is unquestionable. Sending Sec. Clinton out to do his job hardly puts to rest the argument that the women guided him into Libya, in fact it reinforces it. No doubt he’ll be center stage whenever this ill fated foreign policy misadventure concludes, taking credit, of course.
But Pres. Obama is attempting to transition the United States into a more humble foreign policy based on practicalities, not the least of which is our terrifying fiscal insolvency, even if Obama’s own mathematical solutions are as bad as Republican.
As impossibly scatterbrained as the Obama administration’s foreign policy is, looking at Republicans and their regurgitation of 20th century national security talking points that long outlived reality, is enough to scare anyone to death. Not only are they clueless about the emerging Arab world, but these fiscal numbskulls can’t even swallow that our means of making war can’t ever be again to deploy tens of thousands of troops. Modern warfare nimbleness hasn’t cracked their thick skulls yet.
But then Pres. Obama’s own stubbornness on Afghanistan is just as bad.
Beinert’s analysis of Europe is also noteworthy, as it’s the bookend change to what’s exploding in Arab nations. Part of it is due to Europe’s own experiences of war on their own soil, something America hasn’t faced. We still see bombs as flowers to people in countries we are invading to “save” for freedom, while European nations focus on the human carnage war making manifests.
Jeffersonianism has landed in Washington, which is why Obama’s taking such a hit politically.
Which leads us back to Beinert: Jeffersonians, to borrow Walter Russell Mead’s phrase, believe that preserving America’s economic and political solvency requires reining in American empire.
Ah, but countries have egos. The Republicans want to continue feeding ours, while Pres. Obama is trying to starve it.
If Pres. Obama wasn’t delivering confusion and chaos through his clumsy transition to America sharing the world’s stage with France and the rest of Europe, instead of making the case directly, which is a good one, the American people just might buy it.
“Is this the face of a terrorist?” asks the American poster for Julian Schnabel’s new film, Miral, about a young Palestinian woman of the same name. Dressed as a schoolgirl, looking ten years younger than her actual age of 26, Freida Pinto stares back, the sullenness in her eyes a residue of shouldering the twin burdens of adolescence and occupation at once. – ‘Miral’: Taking the Israel-Palestine Conflict Personally
A film about a young girl’s coming of age is causing quite a storm juxtaposed against world news of an Arab spring, as rockets fly between Gaza and Israel.
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren has been on something of a media blitz recently, seen on Bill Maher’s show last week, today speaking with Chuck Todd, because opinion of Israel remains problematic in Europe, according to a March BBC poll. That’s because, for one thing, people are exhausted with Israel’s continuing claim, as Oren pressed recently, that they are ready to deal any time, but it’s all the Palestinian’s fault. At this point everyone believes both parties are being hopelessly unpractical, which in the end hurts Israel far more, if only based on demographics.
The other issue for Israel is that relying on neoconservatives is no longer working for them in the court of public opinion. From a guest post over at Pat Lang’s place(h/t Mondoweiss):
In relation to declining support in the West, Israel and its external supporters commonly talk about delegitimation, as though this decline reflected the malign efforts of people implacably hostile to the very idea of a Jewish state. But in relation to my own country, Britain, this is delusional. The decline of support for Israel simply does not reflect cunning propaganda from Palestinian advocates – whose efforts, taken in themselves, resonate among rather limited sections of the population. It is the actions and words of successive Israeli governments and their supporters in this country and in the United States which have shifted sympathy away from the country.
Coming together with the revelations in the ‘Palestine Papers’ in January about the extraordinary lengths to which Palestinian leaders were prepared to go to accommodate Netanyahu’s predecessors, the conclusion is increasingly being drawn that there is no Israeli ‘partner for peace’. And indeed, people have increasingly been asking themselves whether they have been deluding themselves, and failing to recognise that the continuation of the settlement of the West Bank throughout the period since the 1993 Oslo Accords meant that the whole ‘peace process’ has been misconceived.
In Britain, this scepticism has been moving into the journalistic mainstream. At the time of Obama’s attempts to resuscitate the ‘peace process’ last August, the international affairs editor of the Financial Times, David Gardner, published an article entitled ‘A poisoned process holds little hope.’ Having pointed to the ‘relentless and strategic Israeli colonisation of occupied Palestinian land’ as the fundamental problem vitiating the ‘peace process’, and he went on to remark…
PM Netanyahu, who just met with SecDef Gates, told him that Israel is prepared to act with “great force” to the spreading of violence that is now hitting Israeli – Palestinian regions. From AFP:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Friday that Israel is ready to act with “great force” in response to a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants and a deadly bus bombing in Jerusalem.
Israel had been “subjected to bouts of terror and rocket attacks,” Netanyahu told reporters before going into a meeting with Gates.
“We stand ready to act with great force and great determination to put a stop to it,” he added, with police saying Israel had not been hit by any projectiles Friday morning.
Netanyahu said he had received a “very warm” telephone call from US President Barack Obama on Thursday expressing his condolences after the latest flare-up in violence.
“Any civilised society will not tolerate such wanton attacks on its civilians,” he said.
Israeli nationalism is keeping Netanyahu and Mr. Oren, however well intentioned their efforts, from seeing the reality sitting in front of their great country. It makes you wonder if these two men are too preoccupied with the past to watch what’s unfolding in the present on Al Jazeera.
HayaAlfa Hayaa AlFadhel @NickKristof Stop spreading lies! where were u when 200,000 Bahraini went to celebrate our king peacefully! you’re a disgrace to reporters!
Troops and tanks have locked down Manama, the Bahraini capital, and a ban has been announced on public gatherings as pro-reform supporters bury their dead, a day after a violent security crackdown.
Tanks and armoured personnel carriers were patrolling the streets of Manama on Friday, where checkpoints have been set up by the country’s military.
Riot police using clubs and tear gas broke up a crowd of protesters in the city’s financial district in a pre-dawn swoop on Thursday, killing at least four people.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, reported from Manama on Friday that thousands of people observed the funerals of three people killed in the police raid on the protesters’ tents in the city’s Pearl Roundabout area.
For the first time since he was banned from leading weekly friday (sic) prayers in Egypt 30 years ago, prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi will lead thousands in the weekly prayers from Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday.
Sources told Al Arabiya that a military force will accompany the head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars from his home to Tahrir Square, provide security for the prayers and accompany him back to his residence.
Richard Engel in Bahrain, which sounds like a harrowing place to be fighting right now. Tweets:
Reports a group from a funeral decided to march to pearl.. Shot as they approached
In Yemen, today is being observed as the “Friday of Fury.”
The daughters of the missing opposition leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, told an opposition Web site that they had had no word from either of their parents since Tuesday and feared they had been detained. Security forces have surrounded their home, and all communications have been cut.
TM Note: The picture above came from Twitter, original source unknown.
“He gave me a lesson in democracy and said: ‘We see the democracy the United States spearheaded in Iran and with Hamas, in Gaza, and that’s the fate of the Middle East,’” Ben-Eliezer said. “‘They may be talking about democracy but they don’t know what they’re talking about and the result will be extremism and radical Islam,’” he quoted Mubarak as saying. — Mubarak slammed U.S. in phone call with Israeli MK before resignation
Conservatism didn’t inspire the Egyptian people, it was liberalism.
Control is the central tenet of conservatism. That’s what the Egyptian people were fighting against, the control of the regime in all facets of their lives.
Control is also what 20th century leaders and thinkers desperately try to hold on to in the wake of a multi-platform media explosion, which obliterates the notion you can control anything anymore.
What Mubarak warns against may happen, but eventually liberalism will win there too, even if in the confines of a religious society, a conservative construct forwarded from ancient times.
Freedom cannot be stopped. It can only be delayed.
Liberalism is what broke out in Iran during the Green uprising.
Liberalism is what kept France from accepting the burqa.
Liberalism is what sparked the uprising in Tunisia. The basic human desire to live life freely is something worth dying for, because without freedom there is no essential life.
Liberalism is what inspired Egyptians to rise up to demand freedom.
In fact, freedom itself is a liberal notion.
Women in the Mideast demanding respect are invoking liberalism, while the conservatives who prop up old rules want to inhibit their freedoms.
Gays fighting to stay alive in Muslim countries are fighting conservatism. In America, they’re fighting for the basic equality of life, which conservatives believe should be denied.
Women in America are fighting to be as free as men.
Conservatives and leading Republicans like Sarah Palin are fighting to stop that basic human right from manifesting against the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Conservatives in both political parties have made religion more important than the individual life being lived. Religion itself a conservative notion, which aims to control, unless you get beyond the organized into the self-spiritualized experience, which conservative society mocks.
Wherever liberalism is missing there is angst, anger and unrest.
Liberalism reaches out in support of our fellow man and woman, while conservatism demands up from your own boot straps mentality in a system rigged against the poor.
The Taliban and the Islamic extremists we’re fighting are all conservatives. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and many other countries are all conservative nations fighting against the freedom of people.
Conservatives, in whatever party they serve, wanted to gain control of Iraq, so they voted for preemptive war.
Conservatives wanted to control Palestinians, so they forced an election that delivered Hamas.
Conservatism is dry, infertile, cruel and deadly. It is about control and order versus freedom.
Liberalism is ripe, generous, infinite and hopeful. It is fundamentally uncontrollable, which is why people fear it. Like freedom itself, it is inexhaustible.
Everywhere in the world where people are rising up on the cry of freedom it’s because of liberalism.
Conservatism is bondage to rules, which in our country is well represented in Strom Thurmond, as well as Trent Lott, who bolted the Democratic Party to eventually form the Republican Party’s Southern wing, because they couldn’t stomach integration that was being heralded by the new liberalism of the ’60s.
Conservatism shuts off, where liberalism opens up.
Imagine if Iran’s mullahs were liberal.
Imagine if PM Netanyahu was a liberal.
Imagine if Democrats who voted for the Iraq war were guided by liberalism instead of 20th century conservative militarism.
When a small group of freshman Republicans voted against several tenets of the Patriot Act recently, they were joining liberals at a point of common ground, bipartisanship meeting organically. Liberals believing that government has no right to infringe on personal privacy without reason, with a few new conservatives agreeing because they think government’s role should be restricted so that it doesn’t impede on the individual.
Could this finally be a place to reboot, a new political beginning?
Then the Republican establishment rose up, including Rush Limbaugh, to say these conservative freshman were misinformed. The Right’s elite stepping in to curtail the freshman’s freedom to vote in favor of the people over government intervention. Their basic reasoning being that there is much to fear in the world, which makes impeding the American citizen’s freedoms worthwhile. Republican conservatism once again robbing people out of fear, which they also utilize on immigration.
“Compassionate conservatism” is finally understood to be the oxymoron it always was.
Pres. Obama is the latest elite politician to err on the side of conservatism over liberalism under his fear and ignorance moored to marketing more than truth. Because without liberalism Barack Obama would not be president. His conservatism evident amidst the Egyptian revolution, because he didn’t trust the Egyptian people’s freedom cry and know instinctively that they were in the right, no matter the outcome.
The Iranian Green uprising teaching a lesson Pres. Obama and his administration didn’t learn. The thirst for freedom will eventually win out.
If Barack Obama trusted liberalism, which he never has, he would have known what to do on Egypt from the start. If Sect. Clinton had trusted liberalism she would never have uttered that Mubarak’s government was “stable.” And V.P. Joe Biden would never have embarrassed himself by stating Mubarak shouldn’t step down or that he wasn’t a dictator. In the Administration’s struggles to get Egypt right the answer was always right in front of them, but they simply couldn’t see it and definitely didn’t trust it. It’s not just their failure, however, it’s the failure of a world coming out of the 20th century where control was policy.
Freedom cannot flourish in the confines of conservatism.
When Ronald Reagan shouted to Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was a liberal demand.
When a conservative is crying out for freedom’s justice he’s simply pleading for a release from bondage that conservatism itself has imposed.
There’s no denying it.
Wherever freedom is breaking out, demanded or being defended, liberalism is at its heart.
Glenn Beck proves fear really is a product of ignorance.
Beck is very afraid of The Arab, whom he equates to The Terrorist. Beck is also just another fundamentalist believing his religion is perfect, while Islam is unholy. It doesn’t appear he’s ever seen Al Jazeera English and evidently can’t be bothered with following their excellent live blogging on the story either.
Rush Limbaugh and his “Imam Obama” rants add another angle to the continual demonizing of Pres. Obama. The Egypt situation is filled with opportunities for the Right to channel crazy and they’re doing it with glee.
The collective cacophony of the Right on the subject of Egypt has been deafening and dumb.
After the anti-regime protests in Egypt, whenever Mubarak steps down, the world will change and our relationships in the Middle East will, too. The 20th century paradigms have been smashed to smithereens. Whether Americans are ready to gear up and accept reality and our new challenges or if Frank Gaffney talking points and scare tactics will infect the 2012 presidential election season is a real choice.
You can bet foreign policy will be a central focus, even as the economy remains the biggest issue. It bodes ill for people short on national security credentials, which I believe will be important in the general election and may even be the biggest reason Sarah Palin won’t cut it, though will that matter to primary voters? Pres. Obama is in a much better position, but a lot depends on how Egypt shakes out. Whether conservative primary voters accept and appreciate the political pitfalls of putting up someone inexperienced on foreign policy matters will begin to play out soon.
Is Glenn Beck talking to Republican primary voters and are they listening? We know they’re listening to Rush & Co. Does the Right really believe the U.S. is in danger if we respect what the Egyptian people want for themselves?
If you want to know the road the Right is taking on Egypt and how they plan to capitalize on it by further demonizing Pres. Obama, see their current “Obama is Losing Egypt” campaign.
Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.
Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni protesters all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they’re protesting. However, the U.S. actually has much greater inequality than in any of those countries. Specifically, the “Gini Coefficient” – the figure economists use to measure inequality – is higher in the U.S. – Naked Capitalism
Richard Eskow, progressive writer and longtime activist, has a must read in Huffington Post on American income inequality in comparison to Egypt’s. This is really stunning stuff and shows that if we don’t get a progressive movement going again things are going to deteriorate further.
Here’s the reality: Income inequality is actually greater in the United States than it is in Egypt. Politicians here have close financial ties to big corporations, both personally and through their campaigns. Corporate lawbreakers often do go unpunished. Poverty and unemployment statistics for US minorities are surprisingly similar to Egypt’s.
What made the income inequality even worse over the recent years that helped lead to this crisis in the nation of Egypt? Austerity cuts, lowering taxes for those who do not need it, and prioritizing the deficit over those in real need. Sound familiar yet?
How do you say “deficit commission” in Arabic?
Egypt’s been plagued by the same contradictory “cut taxes and reduce the deficit” logic we’re hearing in the US. And why not? It serves the same web of financial interests. Eskow:
Spurred on by the IMF and the World Bank, Egypt eased corporate regulations and began privatizing its bank sector. It lowered individual and corporate tax rates, while at the same time setting new deficit targets for slowed-down government spending. that won praise from Middle Eastern news outlets and corporation-friendly multinational institutions. …
The Heritage Foundation continued to celebrate Egypt’s increased investment and trade “freedoms” and its lower tax rates, while chiding it for adopting a modest 1.5% stimulus program after the fiscal crisis. (This information can be found on the Foundation’s unironically-named “2011 Index of Economic Freedoms.”) As their personal economic picture remained bleak, Egyptians were told that all was well. …
But profits didn’t “trickle down.” A UNICEF study showed that those years of stock market growth also saw an increase in the number of Egyptian children living in poverty. “This growth,” said the report, “has not led to a proportionate reduction in income poverty or deprivation.” And we saw this headline in the United States, just before the financial crisis struck: “U.S. Child Poverty Rates Increase Despite Rising National Incomes.”
Egypt’s government pressed on with privatization, despite a study which showed that “only 20% of citizens considered privatization to be beneficial to Egypt’s economy” (just as in the US, a laundry list of the public’s strongly-held opinions continued being ignored in Washington.) And despite soaring food prices, Egypt’s government declined to boost food subsidies and promised to impose a “means test” that would restrict access to this form of assistance. (While the government held the line on food assistance, it did increase its subsidies for fuel – a form of assistance which, unlike food aid, benefits domestic and foreign oil interests.)
This next statistic may sound familiar: There haven’t been enough new jobs created in Egypt to keep pace with the number of new job seekers. Despite this stagnation,the austerity-minded government hasn’t invested additional funds for jobs and economic growth. … Egyptian officials thought that an unemployment rate of 9% could become the “new normal” without serious political repercussions….
Obama and the international financial firms are doing some of the same things here. So did Bush. And Reagan. Mubarak thought he could let the high unemployment numbers remain without investing in job creation programs. He thought people would be okay without work for years on end.
…Poor voter turnout, slanted media coverage, intimidation, corruption … and Egypt’s elections aren’t very good, either. If you want to win elected office in the US, it helps to be from a politically powerful family. Then you’ll need to raise enough corporate money to earn a nomination from one of the two major parties.
Mubarak’s wealth is estimated to be in the $30 to $40 billion range. US leaders are pretty wealthy, too: The average net worth of a U.S. Senator is $1.7 million, and that of a member of Congress is just under $1 million. Their most popular investments include Bank of America (the worst foreclosure lawbreaker in the country), Exxon Mobil, Citigroup (which deceived its investors), Wells Fargo (which has repeatedly laundered drug money), the fraudsters at Goldman Sachs …
This is sobering for America, I think:
…19.6% of Egyptians and 14.5% of Americans live below the poverty line. 21% of Egyptians are considered “near poor,” and 40% of Americans will fall below the poverty line at some point in their lives. One in six American children lives in poverty. So do one in four African Americans, which means the poverty rate for African Americans is greater than it is for Egyptians.
Life for the Egyptian poor can be much harsher than we’re used to seeing here. Roughly 3.8% of Egyptians live in “extreme poverty,” which means they don’t have enough to eat on a daily basis. While that level of poverty’s much rarer here, 14.7% of US households experienced “food insecurity” in 2009, according to the USDA..
Eskow points out this is a moment for us to reflect on our own serious problems here at home with income inequality, record poverty rates, and the austerity fest in DC., and be inspired to use people power to push Washington to work for us.
This has been an extraordinary week. What follows is a remarkable story I’ve done my best to unpack and requires a lot of investment on your part. I don’t claim this is perfectly packaged, but I’ve done the very best I can on a story I think is historic, including news late last night that Egypt had left the Internet, as well as flummoxing for U.S. leaders.
The cables, which cover the first year of the Obama presidency, leave little doubt about how valuable an ally Mr. Mubarak has been, detailing how he backed the United States in its confrontation with Iran, played mediator between Israel and the Palestinians and supported Iraq’s fledgling government, despite his opposition to the American-led war. Privately, Ambassador Scobey pressed Egypt’s interior minister to free three bloggers, as well as a Coptic priest who performed a wedding for a Christian convert, according to one of her cables to Washington. She also asked that three American pro-democracy groups be granted formal permission to operate in the country, a request the Egyptians rejected. – Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt’s Leaders
The Obama administration needs to up its game. Al Jazeera is watching and broadcasting to a region that is convulsing with freedom pangs in the era of transformative media access through Wikileaks, Twitter and Facebook that empowers people held in bondage by brutal regimes, which we often bankroll, including $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt yearly.
When Al Jazeera English became available in parts of the U.S., like the Beltway, it was a seminal event as far as I am concerned. It’s the most important channel not enough people are watching, a tiny part of that because it’s not available everywhere. It’s the first successful channel to connect the Arab world while blasting what is happening into America, which the U.S. media ignores at our peril and they do so because it doesn’t pay and we’re such a navel gazing country most don’t understand the repercussions of our own ignorance. It’s also why too many Americans accept Beck-Palin-Rush stereotypes of the people whose countries we are occupying and the regimes we continue to bolster, even against what the people want.
The first post I did on the beginnings of the Arab eruptions this week, on Monday, was centered around Al Jazeera’s prominent role in the Palestine Papers. This story revealed Sect. Clinton allegedly saying the Palestinians are “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy,” with Al Jazeera reporting the U.S. as anything but an honest broker. Watching the Palestine Papers unfold on Al Jazeera English, as well as on Twitter, was stunning, all of which came on the wave of what happened in Tunisia.
Today, Friday, the New York Times writes in more detail what I began covering on Monday, which is that Al Jazeera is at the center this story as much as anything else. (My tweet below mirrors what others tweeting that day were also witnessing on Al Jazeera English, which the New York Times confirms today, the “finally” meaning they finally woke up.)
On Tuesday afternoon, as the street protests in Egypt were heating up, Al Jazeera was uncharacteristically slow to report them, airing a culture documentary, a sports show and more of its “Palestine Papers” coverage of the leaked documents.
Many Egyptians felt betrayed, and Facebook and Twitter were full of rumors about a deal between Qatar — the Persian Gulf emirate whose emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, founded Al Jazeera in 1996 — and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who visited the emir in Doha last month. Within a day, Al Jazeera was reporting from the streets in Cairo in its usual manic style.
Al Jazeera’s freewheeling broadcasts have long made it the bête noire of Arab governments, and in some earlier instances they have succeeded in reining it in.
In 2007, the channel received orders to soften its blunt coverage of Saudi Arabia after Qatar and the Saudis mended a smoldering political feud. That remains a weak point for Al Jazeera — as for most of the pan-Arab press, which is largely owned by Saudi Arabia.
Yet for all its flaws, Al Jazeera still operates with less constraint than almost any other Arab outlet, and remains the most popular channel in the region. To many Arabs, Al Jazeera’s recent exposé on the Palestinian Authority documents — sometimes called “Pali-leaks” — is of a piece with its reporting on protests against autocratic Arab regimes.
The story continues to widen with Vice Pres. Joe Biden’s unhelpful statements to PBS last night, the latest foreign policy fodder to be subject to Twitter and Facebook responses and relays that ricochet.
JIM LEHRER: Has the time come for President Mubarak of Egypt to go, to stand aside?
JOE BIDEN: No, I think the time has come for President Mubarak to begin to move in the direction that — to be more responsive to some of the needs of the people out there. These are — a lot of the people out there protesting are middle-class folks who are looking for a little more access and a little more opportunity.
And the two things we have been saying here, Jim, is that violence isn’t appropriate and people have a right to protest. And so — and we think that — I hope Mubarak, President Mubarak, will — is going to respond to some of the legitimate concerns that are being raised.
JIM LEHRER: You know President Mubarak.
JOE BIDEN: I know him fairly well.
JIM LEHRER: Have you talked to him about this?
JOE BIDEN: I haven’t talked to him in the last three days.
I — last time I — actually, I haven’t talked to him in about a month. But I speak to him fairly regularly. And I think that, you know, there’s a lot going on across that part of the continent, from Tunisia into — all the way to Pakistan, actually. And there’s — a lot of these countries are beginning to sort of take stock of where they are and what they have to do. [...] [...]
JIM LEHRER: The word — the word to describe the leadership of Mubarak and Egypt and also in Tunisia before was dictator. Should Mubarak be seen as a dictator?
JOE BIDEN: Look, Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things and he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interests in the region: Middle East peace efforts, the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing the relationship with Israel.
And I think that it would be — I would not refer to him as a dictator.
When asked about Pres. Mubarak being a “dictator,” Biden’s first response even in the face of what has been covered on Al Jazeera just this week, was to talk in terms of our “geopolitical” relationship that in the 20th century was the way people talked about foreign policy, before it became as multidimensional as it is today.
I also cannot figure out why, considering Biden knows Mubarak “fairly well” and speaks to him “fairly regularly,” he hasn’t spoken to him “the last three days.”
The State Dept.’s spokesman P.J. Crowley went down a similar road on Al Jazeera, as I wrote about yesterday and it was ugly.
Others may disagree with me, but all of this combined with the Wikileaks cables on Egypt that has us saying one thing privately about human rights, then in public making statements that might aid Mubarak while Al Jazeera is broadcasting reality, add in the Palestine Papers revelations, makes for potentially vulnerable geopolitical ramifications Biden seems not to have considered.
There is no way we can survive humiliation through our current 20th century thinking in a world now connected via Twitter and Facebook and with Al Jazeera beaming into homes across the Arab world, especially now that we can also see what the Arab world is seeing.
The contagion since Tunisia is proof, regardless of whether “governments topple,” something Biden at least had the humility to admit he could be misjudging.
I have no opinion on this, because I don’t think anyone knows what the new media platforms working in synchronicity with the people driving them at once can achieve today.
But it’s simply none of the U.S.’s business to declare whether Mubarak is a “dictator,” a nice word for what he’s leveled on his own people, or say he should or should not step down. Not even our financial investment or geopolitical alliance gives us this right and that we still think it does is one of the problems of our foreign policy in this converging new media century.
After Sect. Clinton’s very first meeting with Pres. Mubarak at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik, March 2009, which the cables at the top of this post reference, Clinton was reported to have said something much more tuned in than what she initially said this week. Back in 2009, on a question on Egypt’s human rights, Hillary responded as follows, emphasis added.
“We hope that it will be taken in the spirit in which it is offered, that we all have room for improvement,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding that Mr. Mubarak and his wife, Suzanne, were friends of her family, and that it was up to the Egyptian people to decide the president’s future.
Yet her first response on Tuesday, like Biden ridiculously stating Mubarak wasn’t a “dictator,” however his splitting hairs definition defines it, was to bolster the Egyptian government and describe it as “stable.”
Clinton’s first statement looked even worse when ElBaradei landed in Cairo yesterday, with CNN’s Ben Wedeman tweeting his message from Cairo: ElBaradei at airport says the point of no return has been reached must be peaceful change govt must stop using violence.
Much earlier Thursday, so it was leaked on Wednesday at some point, it was reported that an anonymous administration official was saying Pres. Obama was “poised to intensity U.S. criticism of Egypt’s Mubarak.”
So what to make of V.P. Joe Biden’s interview on PBS Thursday night? From where I sit it was a serious and embarrassing misstep from a foreign policy veteran, but also the Administration, who hasn’t caught up with how world events are zipping around the globe on multiple and converging media platforms that everyone can see.
Pres. Obama didn’t address what’s been happening in Egypt publicly until yesterday. That may have been good for his time table, but it was woefully late considering Tunisia and what happened this week.
Once upon a time not so long ago, in a century that now seems so far away where communication, media and social platforms are concerned, the Obama administration might have caught a break.
It’s been the week that Al Jazeera has been waiting for, coming on the heels of Wikileaks, as Twitter and Facebook continue to rock the globe, with Pres. Obama and his administration still not quite getting what they’re up against, the most challenging of which may yet be to come.
Pres. Obama talked about the people first, stressing the importance that there be no violence. He stressed the important relationship with Egypt, stating reforms must be made, which he relayed to Mubarak. Backs Mubarak, but strongly leans towards the people and once again reiterated that it’s up to the people of Egypt. Importantly, Pres. Obama finished by saying we’ll know more in the morning. It clearly stated to me that after the Egyptian people digest what Mubarak said we’ll see if the protests continue and what the govt. does about opening up the communication gateway. Pres. Obama transmitting the real dangers in the situation and walking very, very carefully, as he should. This is a long play not a one act. It will be developing for a while.
UPDATE 6:30 pm: Waiting for Pres. Obama to speak. Via Chuck Todd he finally spoke to Pres. Mubarak and the conversation reportedly lasted 30 minutes.
UPDATE 5:19 pm: Mubarak saying demonstrations representative of “freedoms” offered by Egypt through his presidency. Will “always adhere to the right of freedom…” Mubarak then sacks his whole government, but he continues on. Outside the protesters continued to yell “Down, down with Mubarak.” Via CNN’s Nic Robertson, chants “We don’t want him” rising. Mubarak obviously has gotten assurances from Egyptian military. We’ll see what develops when the Internet and communications are switched on again. Nothing in Egypt will ever be the same.
UPDATE 3:15 pm: Gibbs after being challenged about his words (3:54 pm): “I’m not tempering one word or one syllable of one word. .. we’ve reached a point where grievances have to be addressed.” Robert Gibbs: “We will be reviewing our assistance posture based on events now and in the coming days.” Chip Reid: Has he tried to reach Mubarak? Gibbs: “Not that I’m aware of.” MESSAGE SENT TO EGYPT. Why isn’t the President standing where you’re standing? Not much to say on that one, so Gibbs vamps. At top, Gibbs invoked “legitimate grievances” people have must be addressed by Egyptian gov. “immediately,” emphasizes it, including communication. Gibbs rightly points story back to the Egyptian people, “this will be solved by the Egyptian people.” Again stresses “grievances” re Mubarak. Never been a fan of Gibbs, but this is one of his best moments and it comes at a critical time for Pres. Obama & the US govt. Chuck Todd: Has anyone condemned house arrest of ElBaradei? Gibbs: “a Nobel Laureate… type of activities gov has responsibility to change.”
UPDATE 2:55 pm: picture via Mike Memoli.
UPDATE 12:56 pm: STILL WAITING FOR MUBARACK TO SPEAK. Marc Lynch on Twitter: Mubarak’s silence is increasingly becoming the story. Egyptians continue to defy curfew.
UPDATE 12:14 pm: Sect. Hillary Clinton just spoke condemning internet shutdown and urging govt to address “grievances” of people. She made a shift towards people (finally), putting them before government. The trouble is that though the US is powerless here, our govt. props up Mubarak against the people’s will. A very sobering moment for the US.
Picture above is the NDP in flames. Egyptian’s National Museum is near.
UPDATE 11:26 pm: Pictures from AJE… Iconic imagery now. Huge plumes of deep black smoke rising from NDP (National Democratic Party) headquarters & complex of buildings, which is the ruling establishment of Mubarak, going back to ’80s.
BREAKING… MUBARAK TO SPEAK SOON. CURFEW NOW IN EFFECT… loud cries still being heard. People are not leaving the streets. Egyptian state media says Pres. Mubarak has ordered the Egyptian State Army on to the streets.
UPDATE 10:27 a.m.: Curfew now imposed in Egypt, which is 30 min. away.
UPDATE III: A very important point by media expert on Al Jazeera, Kevin Anderson, correctly reporting that in Egypt the “overlap betweeen internet activists and activists is almost complete. The activists in Egypt have long been using the internet.” Primarily from blogging, with Egyptian political bloggers well known.
“Egypt has enjoyed a long history of internet activism,” Kevin Anderson continues. “Now they have a very sophisticated way of not just using FB & Twitter… but also SMS and mobile networks, which have also been effective in this clampdown.”
ElBaradei has already criticised the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, for describing the Egyptian government as stable and he stepped up his calls for the rest of the world to explicitly condemn Mubarak, who is a close ally of the US.
“The international community must understand we are being denied every human right day by day,” he said. “Egypt today is one big prison. If the international community does not speak out it will have a lot of implications. We are fighting for universal values here. If the west is not going to speak out now, then when?”
AL JAZEERA: “Has anyone in the Administration spoken to Pres. Mubarak?”
P.J. Crowley: uh… hummena… hummena… hummena… Oh, but “We’re seeing a fascinating dynamic unfold in the Middle East.” This man needs a vacation.
It’s as bad as Sect. Clinton’s first statement after the protests erupted, bolstering Mubarak against the people who have been tied to wide unemployment and poverty, corruption and the U.S. propping him up. Clinton is still being criticized by Egyptians even after she tried to undo it.
Like Israel, the initial response from the Obama administration was very 20th century.
It’s fitting here to mention Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller is blasting Micheal Oren’s prognostications on the Middle East and the Palestine Papers, teasing an interview with him for next week. Tucker’s headline is the same thing I began reporting from Middle East forums out of Washington since 2009, which means that time has actually run out.
For what it’s worth and if you want to believe an anonymous source saying so, Obama is now gearing up to challenge Pres. Mubarak. Always enjoining after the push. We can only hope Obama won’t do for the people of Egypt what he did for the Palestinians on settlement building in Israel. The man has no plan beyond delivering grand pronouncements.
The Obama administration needs to move cautiously, said Anthony Cordesman, a senior defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
“There isn’t just the morning after to think about, there is the decade after,” he said in a telephone interview. “For the U.S. to get out in front now would be premature and potentially dangerous.”
Shadi Hamid, an expert on Islamist politics and democratic reform in the Middle East at the Brookings Institution, said the large pro-democracy protests may have broken the “psychological barrier of fear” among Egyptians.
“The U.S. does not want to see the Egyptian regime fall any time soon,’’ Hamid said in a telephone interview. “But people who are protesting, the tens of thousands, do want to see the regime fall some time soon. They are diametrically opposed interests.”
“In Suez we have, today, petrol companies…, we have factories, we have customs and we have the Suez Canal. And despite all of that, there is enormous unemployment in Suez,” said 40-year-old local lawyer Kamal Hassan.
A 55-year-old man in glasses and a sweater who declined to be identified sat at the restaurant he ran downtown. He said he was born in Suez in 1956, the year of Egypt’s Suez War with France, Britain and Israel.
He pulled an empty tear gas canister from the latest protests from his desk and held it up: “American,” he said, smiling. “The Americans and Israelis are experts in destruction.” He said the tipping point came for many people in late November when the NDP secured a crushing victory in parliamentary elections denounced by rights and opposition groups as blatantly rigged, something the government denied.
Sean Paul raises the thing I’ve been wondering about, the Muslim Brotherhood. Right now there are reports of the MB joining the protests at Friday prayers. If they do Mubarak will be really up against it and so will everyone backing him, including the U.S, because even as the youth lead in the streets, the Muslim Brotherhood still has power.
The heat wave is starting to abate here on the East Coast, but I can only imagine what its like in other parts of the country (hence the photo).
Some Links to go with your morning coffee (or tea): On this day in history, July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in N.J. And so it goes.
Here is a run-down of who is on the Sunday talk shows. H/T Firedoglake.
~Sunday’s World Cup Soccer match-up: the Netherlands vs. Spain. (I’m rooting for the Netherlands because I always root for the underdog.)
~Upon taking office (and prior to) Obama had vowed to restore scientific integrity within federal agencies and end the politicization of science which was so prevalent during the Bush years and as of yet, nothing has been done to move forward on that goal. In fact, many of Bush’s people are still entrenched within key agencies.
~Google’s back doing business in China. I guess so long as monied business interests turn a blind eye to China’s censorship and repression, the U.S. government will have little incentive to apply real pressure on this issue. While some of Google’s internet search results may escape China’s Great Firewall, it’s likely that most won’t. Given that China was likely behind the hacking incident that compromised Google and quite a few other international technology firms, I think this sends a very bad message- you (China) can do almost anything to us (U.S. firms) but we’ll still come back begging for more. Some people of course disagree with this analysis and argue that Google, by staying in China, does more good than harm.
~I posted this in a separate diary yesterday but I feel it bears repeating- the Pentagon’s study about troop attitudes about gays in the military is highly suspect and chock full of negative stereotypes and leading questions, not to mention it’s a total waste of taxpayer dollars. Some of the survey questions were leaked to the media. Perhaps if the Pentagon really wants to find out what people believe, they should let unbiased, independent professionals take over the survey. Or even better, they should scrap the survey altogether and send the message to the troops that the change in policy is ultimately a positive one and that they will do everything possible to make the transition as smooth as possible. If this is going to work then the DoD needs to stop undermining efforts at changing this policy by sending mixed signals to the troops (in my opinion).
~The world seems to have forgotten about Haiti, but in many cases, the situation is getting more dire.
~Orrin Hatch learns the hard way that anger at Wall Street bankers is not a partisan issue. Watch him back track and squirm.
~A sobering look at how Yemen may become the next Afghanistan and how the U.S. war on terror may be creating as many enemies as it is killing them.
~BP has been working to swap oil well caps. At this point, the entire nation pretty much has rightfully determined that BP is totally incompetent and couldn’t lead ants across a picnic table.
~Glenn Greenwald wrote a great post the other day about how the so-called Liberal Media has turned into the final arbiter of what is and isn’t permissible in terms of the opinions of journalists, at least as far as the Mideast goes- the context is the firing of Octavia Nasr. Glenn reviews the long list of people fired for essentially making comments or perhaps evidencing private views which don’t fall in line with neoconservative orthodoxy. It’s really quite stunning to see the list all in one place with all the dots connected.
~Reports are surfacing that Benjamin Netanyahu met with Bill Clinton and asked him to mediate talks with Hamas regarding the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. This has NOT been verified by Clinton’s people.
~The nation’s governors descended on my home base, Boston, to discuss economic issues and they seemed to agree on one thing- the feds should give them more money. What is of course interesting about this is that the GOP can’t seem to reconcile it’s big-government-is-evil rhetoric with its tendency to keep its hand held out for federal alms during a crisis.
~Judge Tauro of the Federal District of Massachusetts, a Republican Nixon appointee, made short shrift of all the government’s claims regarding the reason for upholding DOMA as applied to the state of Massachusetts. His opinion has been described as “sweeping” and he has been described as a “liberal activist.” Not exactly. Having practiced law within the federal court system in MA I can tell you that Tauro is no liberal activists and that while his rhetoric in this case is at times sweeping (and quite moving in its legal condemnation of state-sponsored discrimination), the ruling is still a narrow one. Is it a long-overdue condemnation of DOMA from a respected jurist? Yes. Is it helpful to gay couples in MA? Yes. Does it contain wonderful dicta that other states can use to challenge DOMA? Certainly. Does it put the Obama administration in a very bad position given they may appeal the decision? Yes. Does it give conservatives their long-overdue comeuppance by having the decision rely, in part, on their favorite and most-vague Amendment in the entire Constitution- the 10th Amendment? Yup. The irony of course is that the moderate-to-conservative Tauro is actually interpreting the legislation in a way that any state’s rights junkie would want it interpreted- the fact that some social conservatives don’t like the subject matter of the legislation is neither here nor there with respect to what is and isn’t considered a legitimate state interest under the 10th Amendment.
“There will almost certainly be full negotiations but no formal conference,” the House staffer says. “There are too many procedural hurdles to go the formal conference route in the Senate.”
[...] “I think the Republicans have made our decision for us,” the Senate staffer says. “It’s time for a little ping-pong.”
“Ping pong” is a reference to one way the House and Senate could proceed. With ping-ponging, the chambers send legislation back and forth to one another until they finally have an agreed-upon version of the bill. But even ping-ponging can take different forms and some people use the term generically to refer to any informal negotiations.
But the post of the day is compliments of the SEIU, with Rush Limbaugh playing the lead. It’s priceless. Mr. Limbaugh will be back on radio Wednesday. So, we still have him to kick around. Prayers answered.
On Tiger’s fall, Brit Hume should remember it’s more about the Golden Rule, which has absolutely nothing to do with religion, Christian or otherwise, something my husband Mark reminds me of often.
Great photo from Dubai, compliments of my friend Steve Clemons, who was there for the big fireworks as the tallest building in the world opens.
On the terrorism front, the New York Times reports, U.S. Intensifies Air Screening for Fliers From 14 Nations:
Citizens of Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, countries that are considered “state sponsors of terrorism,” as well as those of “countries of interest” — including Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen — will face the special scrutiny, officials said.
Seriously, Cuba? No wonder we’re still chasing our tails on terrorism.
And to answer Kris’s question “In the News”(with more over there), the last thing Sect. Clinton could do was jump into the middle of the muddle the Obama administration set into motion by Napolitano’s “the system worked” gaffe, which by the way was orchestrated by someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
TM Note: As the New Year opens, as I said weeks ago, my long and very busy days are directed towards a project, which I’ll talk about down the line some time. I’m juggling a lot that’s for sure, but it’s a great adventure, which is the whole point to life, really. Following your bliss isn’t easy and is filled with struggles and disappointments challenges along the way to manifesting your intentions, but it sure as hell beats the alternative.
A Christmas Eve air strike has reportedly killed 30 militants in Yemen. An anonymous official said Al Qaeda were meeting at the house of Anwar al-Awlaki, the preacher who exchanged emails with Fort Hood suspect Maj Nidal Hasan, that was struck. From Reuters:
Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said.
If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden’s network.
Interesting interview on Obama’s shifting Yemeni strategy gives details behind recent military strikes in that country, which takes our aiding Yemeni leaders with anti-terrorism support through military equipment to another level.
Some of The President’s Faith Allies On the Diane Rehm show today, according to my husband who sometimes listens to NPR while he’s driving from order [...]
Women Want Their Birth Control “The Peggy Noonan piece left some things out. … But I have to say, the article appears to be very [...]
Al Sharpton Schools Morning Joe The Catholic League, according to CBS, is “poised to go to war with Obama over mandatory birth control payments.” A [...]
Capitalism Out of the Closet **UPDATED** Would we be any worse off with Stephen Colbert as president? I doubt it. Politifact has watched the video [...]
Not Disappointed in Pres. Obama **Postscript added** President Obama is now neck and neck with a generic Republican challenger in the latest Real Clear Politics [...]
Fan Politics Despite rising public concern about the federal budget deficit, Americans favor keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are [...]
Good morning and welcome to Sunday!
