Reality Check: Egypt

[Dash-Ate]

Update on the sweet democracy we spread...Egyptians figured out who is trying to destroy their country and they protest it...but not allowed!! Nope.

Egypt still under a brutal military rule...yup we got scammed AGAIN!! Fool me once...

US Demands Egypt Crack Down on Protesters

Posted By Jason Ditz On September 11, 2011 @ 9:48 am In News | 20 Comments

Underscoring just how thin their commitment to the Arab Spring protest movements actually is, the Obama Administration is loudly demanding that the Egyptian military junta launch a crackdown on dissent to “meet its obligations under the Vienna Convention.” They warned the junta of “consequences” if they didn’t crush the protests around the Israeli Embassy.

The call was quickly praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he was confidenct the US “used all the means and influence” at its disposal to press Egypt to take action against the protesters.

On Friday, Egyptian protesters sacked the Israeli embassy, breaching an external barricade and swarming into the building, tossing Hebrew-language paperwork into the streets. No embassy officials were hurt in the attack, but some 450 Egyptians were wounded by security forces.

Egypt’s junta, predictably, has announced that it will be launching a new crackdown on all public protests, adding that it will take “harsh measures” against anyone who aims to damage Egypt’s image. They also vowed to use “all articles” of Hosni Mubarak’s emergency law, which for decades has been used to silence any and all dissent, and which was at the center of the first protest movement early this year.

The US government wasn’t keen on the first protest movement, which ousted Mubarak, but eventually came to publicly endorse it. It seems the protests against the “interim” junta, and the demands to finally set a date for elections, have reset the administration’s position to its default – crush all dissent.

[Expat]

Judging from recent events in the Middle-East, it is doubtful the new administration will ever be as friendly as the old dictator...

[Dash-Ate]

We spread freedom!! WE know he has WMD



http://uruknet.info/?p=m72192&hd=&size=1&l=e

November 25, 2010


Once upon a time, Iraq had the finest education system in the Arab world.



Once upon a time, Iraq exported its expertise in education to many countries.



Once upon a time, Iraq was considered by the UN "illiteracy free."


Once upon a time, Iraq led the Arab world in scientific development.



Once upon a time, Iraq had the most modern and efficient highway system and public transport facilities in the Middle East.



Once upon a time, Iraqi women could dress however they desired: in sweat shirts and jeans, in mini-skirts, with stylish fashion, or, if they preferred, with a veil.



Once upon a time, the Iraqi public listened to rock and heavy metal music.



Once upon a time, professional and amateur sports flourished in Iraq.



Once upon a time, the arts (of all kinds) were visible all over Iraq.



Once upon a time, Iraqi homosexuals were not condemned to death because of their sexual preferences.



Once upon a time, it was a criminal offense to kill Christians or Palestinians. The term used for any crime of this nature was "murder."



Once upon a time, world experts on archaeology and antiquities were welcome to Iraq in an effort to discover the history of the country and then preserve it.



Once upon a time, veterans of the Iran-Iraq War were highly revered by the Iraqi government and public.



Once upon a time, 55% of the Iraqi work force consisted of females.



Once upon a time, females held important positions in the government, business and the fields of engineering and science.



Once upon a time, foreign workers were welcome in Iraq. They provided many services in the areas of agriculture and the construction of the Iraqi infrastructure.



Once upon a time, any scholar of Arab history was welcome in Iraq as a guest of the government. They were allowed unlimited access to historical documents so they could enhance the writing of Arab culture and share books and articles with the world.



Once upon a time, Baghdad was called "The Paris of the Middle East."



Once upon a time, Baghdad had many parks and recreational areas that families safely used.



Once upon a time, the citizens of Iraq were called Iraqis, not Shia or Sunni or Turkomen or Kurds or Chaldeans or any other designation.



Once upon a time, Iraq had no depleted uranium that was responsible for the deaths and birth defects of thousands of children.



Once upon a time, Iraq’s drinking water was safe.



Once upon a time, diseases such as hoof-and-mouth disease and malnutrition had been eradicated from Iraq.



Once upon a time, Iraqis did not lock the doors to their houses and left them wide open.



Once upon a time, Baghdad nightlife was vibrant with street performers and the smell of mouth-watering food, not the odor of blood and death.



Once upon a time, Iraqi citizens could safely walk the streets with no thoughts of harm occurring.



Once upon a time, Iraqi children were not obliged to turn to prostitution to earn enough money for their families to buy food.



Once upon a time, a gallon of gasoline cost less than one cent in Iraq and there were no long lines at petrol stations.



Once upon a time, electricity was available 24 hours a day in Iraq.



Once upon a time, Iraqis were not worried about poisoning themselves when they drank water from their taps.



Once upon a time, Iraq led the Arab world in technology.



Once upon a time, Baghdad’s streets were clean, not strewn with garbage and human bodies.



Once upon a time, Iraq had a functioning government that addressed the needs of the citizenry of Iraq.



Once upon a time, Iraq was great.



Once upon a time is the opening phrase of many fairy tales. In the case of Iraq, once upon a time was once true. For today’s young Iraqis, the facts are hidden from them and they may consider them to be fairy tales because their Iraq differs greatly from the one depicted here.

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

That is absolutely amazing. The U.S. is again, the devil! No reason to invade Iraq (or any other of those democratic peaceful nations) Let me add to your list. I will be inserting a Wikipedia clip for ease of understanding.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq participated in an event that is historically separate from Operation Anfal (the 1986-1989 campaign conducted by Saddam Hussein's regime's in order to terrorize the Kurdish rural population and end the peshmerga rebellions by brutal means), as the Iranian troops allied to the rebels were also involved in the Halabja events.Nevertheless, the victims of the tragedy are often included in accounting the deaths attributable to the Anfal campaign, which was characterised by the widespread and indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by Iraq. (182,000 to 1,300,000 Kurdish civilians were murdered)

So , seeing as how Iraq was so great, I guess Stephen Harper should move forth and gas protesters / execute those who are not in support so we can be as great - and as free at the Iraqi's .

[Beefitarian]

I don't disagree with the general idea that what happened with the Kurdish people was atrocious but, did you just use a figure with a + or - range of 1 118 000?

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

I don't disagree with the general idea that what happened with the Kurdish people was atrocious but, did you just use a figure with a + or - range of 1 118 000?

In my post - i cited Wikipedia simply to make a point. IMO , 100,000 confirmed murders is enough and does not differentiate from 1,000,000. Their figures ranged - however, if you use google for a few short minutes, the figures are all above the 100,000 mark. Any genocide on a massive scale has a range but usually no less than _______ value.

http://www.gendercide.org/case_anfal.html Some pictures for expat to wrap his head around

The al-Anfal Campaign:

The worst human rights abuses of Hussein's tenure took place during the genocidal al-Anfal Campaign (1986-1989), in which Hussein's administration called for the extermination of every living thing--human or animal--in certain regions of the Kurdish north. All told, some 182,000 people--men, women, and children--were slaughtered, many through use of chemical weapons. The Halabja poison gas massacre of 1988 alone killed over 5,000 people. Hussein later blamed the attacks on the Iranians, and the Reagan administration, which supported Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, helped promote this cover story.
The Campaign Against the Marsh Arabs:

Hussein did not limit his genocide to identifiably Kurdish groups; he also targeted the predominantly Shiite Marsh Arabs of southeastern Iraq, the direct descendants of the ancient Mesopotamians. By destroying more than 95% of the region's marshes, he effectively depleted its food supply and destroyed the entire millennia-old culture, reducing the number of Marsh Arabs from 250,000 to approximately 30,000. It is unknown how much of this population drop can be attributed to direct starvation and how much to migration, but the human cost was unquestionably high.
The Post-Uprising Massacres of 1991:

In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the United States encouraged Kurds and Shiites to rebel against Hussein's regime--then withdrew and refused to support them, leaving an unknown number to be slaughtered. At one point, Hussein's regime killed as many as 2,000 suspected Kurdish rebels every day. Some two million Kurds hazarded the dangerous trek through the mountains to Iran and Turkey, hundreds of thousands dying in the process.

It's really not that tough to see how the figures work their way up

[Beefitarian]

Yeah I think once you've got past accidently killing a couple people there's a problem. I understand it's wikipedia that's the issue here but the margin for error seems a bit large. Probably just me.

Anyways, somewhat back on track. Wether or not he was used or which side he was "really" on I don't really see how Saddam can be thought of as a good guy or totally an innocent victem.

I personally think most of the good things about Iraq happened almost dispite him.

[Siddley Hawker]

Once upon a time I-rak sounded like a veritable paradise on the Tigris. I'm surprised more people didn't up stakes and move there.

[winds_in_flight_wtf]

Yeah I think once you've got past accidently killing a couple people there's a problem. I understand it's wikipedia that's the issue here but the margin for error seems a bit large. Probably just me.

Anyways, somewhat back on track. Wether or not he was used or which side he was "really" on I don't really see how Saddam can be thought of as a good guy or totally an innocent victem.

I personally think most of the good things about Iraq happened almost dispite him.

There was more than one campaign contributing to the genocide- hence the high numbers which have brought the toll close to the 7 digit mark. I wish I had more reliable information however I suppose the Rwandan genocide was remotely similar . The numbers had to range given the unprecedented scale of murder.

However, Iraq was once .... a great place apparently. So pre-Saddam era ? That is something I was completely unaware of - that one single Islamic nation pioneered human rights for homosexuals, women, etc. I may have to dig up some more information on that one.

[Dash-Ate]

OT: War On Terror Or War On Freedom?
By . Baldwin on September 23, 2011

A recent major investigative report by the Los Angeles Times sheds light on what all this “war on terror” is actually costing–and actually accomplishing. According to the report,

“A decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, federal and state governments are spending about $75 billion a year on domestic security, setting up sophisticated radio networks, upgrading emergency medical response equipment, installing surveillance cameras and bombproof walls, and outfitting airport screeners to detect an ever-evolving list of mobile explosives.

“But how effective has that 10-year spending spree been?

“‘The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It’s basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year,’ said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.”

The LA Times report goes on to say, “Like the military-industrial complex that became a permanent and powerful part of the American landscape during the Cold War, the vast network of Homeland Security spyware, concrete barricades and high-tech identity screening is here to stay. The Department of Homeland Security, a collection of agencies ranging from border control to airport security sewn quickly together after Sept. 11, is the third-largest Cabinet department and–with almost no lawmaker willing to render the U.S. less prepared for a terrorist attack–one of those least to fall victim to budget cuts.

“The expensive and time-consuming screening now routine for passengers at airport boarding gates has detected plenty of knives, loaded guns and other contraband, but it has never identified a terrorist who was about to board a plane. Only 14 Americans have died in about three dozen instances of Islamic extremist terrorist plots targeted at the U.S. outside war zones since 2001–most of them involving one or two home-grown plotters.”

The report also notes, “Large sums of Homeland Security money, critics complain, have been propelled by pork barrel politics into the backyards of the congressionally connected.”

See the LA Times report Is Homeland Security spending paying off?, By Kim Murphy, August 28, 2011.

[Expat]

Here is a good article on the results of the revolution. Basically nothing has changed, except for the worse. The army has basically taken over the revolution, as if none happened. The stakes were too high, for Israel and the US to let it happen. Now the real revolution is about to come, I think.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/op ... 11947.html

[JakeYYZ]

If I were the Egyptian military, as soon as NATO declares ‘mission accomplished’ in Libya, I’d fabricate some pretext and invade. Take over Libya’s oil resources and annex its territory. The rebels are no match to the Egyptian superior firepower. The Egyptians gain a revenue stream and the West sees a stable Libya and Egypt. Otherwise, Egypt is FUBAR’D.
Am I right or just not wrong again?

[Beefitarian]

I like it Jake. Send a memo!

[crazy_aviator]

It has been said " follow the money to find the perpetrator" NOW you can say " follow Israel to find out WHO is their puppet! Folks, USA and Canada ARE the Zionists puppets and if anything even remotely can affect the jews , than you can bet your 3 dollar bill that the USA and CANADA will be against that country or regime and in support of "Israel"

[JakeYYZ]

I like it Jake. Send a memo!

It won’t be long before Egypt eyes Libya’s oil fields. Do the math: Eighty million Egyptians with no natural resources facing six million Libyans with plenty of oil and a huge hard to defend territory. It WILL happen.

[Beefitarian]

I get 34.

[Dash-Ate]

Libya great success!! Our bombs brought sweet freedom. I only hope that bombs rain down on my neighborhood one day, it's the only sane evolved thing to do..

Better hope this is all lies....otherwise you got a date with the devil. Enjoy.

From

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/ ... news-hour/

NATO's Imperial Aggression

Since March 19, NATO waged lawless aggression against a nonbelligerent country, mischaracterized as humanitarian intervention responsibility to protect.

It violated UN Charter's Chapter VI calling for peaceful conflict dispute resolutions. Humanitarian intervention authority never permits military force or other hostile acts.

It ignored Chapter VII authorization to impose boycotts, embargoes, blockades, and severed diplomatic ties when justified - never war, except in self-defense and only until the Security Council acts.

No justification whatever existed. A humanitarian crisis didn't exist until NATO arrived. For seven months, it terror bombed Libya relentlessly. Targets included schools, hospitals, mosques, civilian neighborhoods, and others unrelated to military necessity.

Tens of thousands of Libyans have been massacred in cold blood, including women, children, the elderly and infirm. Areas across the country were ravaged. Food, water, medical supplies, electricity, and fuel were cut off.

NATO is a rogue killing machine. It's mission isn't liberation. It's slaughtering, ravaging and pillaging for power and profit.

Wherever it intervenes, human misery follows. Death, disease, starvation, depravation and desperation haunt the living. Libya is one of history's great crimes.

Against overwhelming odds, loyalists tied down the world's mightiest military force for seven months, determined to resist, live free, and rebuild.

NATO and major media scoundrels claim victory is close at hand. NSNBC's daily updates tell a much different story.

On October 15, it said early on October 14, TNC fighters controlled parts of Sirte, as well as small areas of Sabah, Bani Walid, Benghazi and Tripoli. "This picture would change dramatically over the next 24 hours."

Overnight, Zuwara residents attacked TNC rebels, burned their local office, "and forced the occupiers to flee....taking heavy casualties."

Elsewhere across Libya, early morning hours were marked by demonstrations. Loyalists won't tolerate NATO terror, "oppression, massacres and atrocities for one moment longer. Libya was at the brink of exploding from anger and frustration."

In Tripoli, demonstration began at 8:00AM. They grew in size when Wirsh Fana Tribal members joined it. Chants said, "This is it. Today we take our city and our country back."

TNC fighters fled in haste from Bani Walid, Sirte, and Sabah, taking heavy casualties. "The retreat in Tripoli was a drive through a shooting gallery as people all over Libya rose to the occasion."

By early afternoon, mass demonstrations waved green flags across Libya. TNC Tripoli forces attacked them. NATO helicopter gunships strafed nonviolent civilians.

The scene proved "what brand of 'Democracy' (NATO) advocates," showing no regard whatever for human life.

At 6:00PM, reports suggested heavy fighting in parts of Tripoli. Abu Salim and other areas were "firmly" under loyalist control. At 6:30PM, "a NATO Apache helicopter was shot down."

Losing control of Tripoli, NATO sent reinforcements from Zawiya. En route, they were "ambushed. The entire convoy was destroyed, and there were numerous casualties and prisoners."

By late evening, most of Tripoli was liberated, 80% of Benghazi, and other large areas across Libya. TNC's Benghazi headquaters was "stormed. Over 90% of TNC members had resigned." Those in Tripoli fled.

NATO planes began bombing Abu Salim. A caller said "they are carpet bombing our district." More Wirsh Fana Tribal members arrived, "entirely changing the military situation."

"Attacks on heavily fortified TNC and NATO positions began, while special operations units from the Libyan forces began deploying to capture key Libyan and foreign political and military figures."

Gheriyan is again free. Residents there like elsewhere say they'll "never accept a TNC that is forced on them by NATO."

On October 15 overnight, loyalists attacked the Rixos Hotel, Military Camp 77 and Green Square. Bodies there provided evidence of a NATO/TNC massacre. Unconfirmed reports said Washington's ambassador is missing.

Zlitan and Gheriay-based tribes said they'll send reinforcements to Tripoli and Sirte. Early Saturday morning, "a NATO Chinook helicopter was shot down near Zlitan."

Heavy fighting continued overnight through early morning. TNC fighters took heavy casualties. Courageous loyalists persist against their best military might, including daily terror bombing.

Showing no regard for human life and welfare, their imperial mission focuses solely on conquest, colonization, resource control, exploitation, and unchallenged dominance. Libyans want none of it and won't quit, no matter the odds.

Reports circulated about Kmamis Gaddafi's death, including on Syria's Arrai TV. He commands Libya's 32nd Elite Brigade. However, Algeria ISP called his death fabricated NATO propaganda. So far, no confirmation either way is available.

NATO and major media scoundrels have gone all out to control the message. Nothing they say is credible. On October 16, Algeria ISP said NATO and TNC officials implemented a disinformation campaign to help locate loyalist government and military officials.

Whether they're captured or free, dead or alive, diverts attention from what matters most - the committed will of millions of Libyans to resist. Fighting for their lives, liberation and futures drives them daily.

New leaders stand ready to replace fallen ones. It's working, as loyalists so far bested NATO's killing machine for seven months. They'll fight seven more or as long as it takes to live free.

Military conditions are "volatile, but in spite of NATO's" air power, rebel mercenaries, and Special Forces directing them, loyalists keep making "slow but steady progress."

New reports NSNBC got say most Tripoli residential districts "are controlled by Libyan forces and popular resistance. The green flag was hoisted over the Rixos Hotel and Military Camp 77."

Heavy clashes continue across greater Tripoli and Tarhuna. Loyalists control most of Bani Walid. Zawiyah is free.

Stepped up loyalist resistance Friday in Tripoli forced NATO to shift Sirte forces there. Nonetheless, Sirte has been relentlessly terror bombed and shelled by "light, medium range and heavy artillery."