CIA declares Mission Accomplished, Mubarak says not so fast

[23]

... this is a disaster for Tunisia, Egypt, and any other nation that falls victim to "engineered chaos," as well as for Palestinians who will shortly feel the loss of their strongest advocate, whatever foolishness the spook Guardian claims (thanks C2W). The ruinous effects on Tunisia are already manifest: smashed economy, refugees by the thousands, internal chaos, bloodshed and violence, with the same in store for Egypt, although the media circus will of course have moved on. Now as to whether Mubarak or Ben Ali were popular, I have no doubt that they weren't, or that their exit was a welcome event to many, but that doesn't mean these aren't bogus revolutions. They are.

Are you identifying the events in Egypt as a "bogus revolution"?

If so, what would a real revolution in Egypt look like; and, how would it differ from the one you may be identifying as a bogus one?

In order to credibly identify anything as bogus, you must first have a grasp of what the genuine article looks like.

What would an authentic revolution in Egypt look like, and how would it differ from what is currently transpiring there?

[lupercal]

Those are good questions 23 and deserve a fuller response than this but I can tell you a few things the absence of which is a huge red flag: a leadership (not blow-ins like ElBaradei), a party or at least a cadre, an organization, an actual program, a communication system that isn't kindly provided by the CIA, and a history, to begin with. Cuba would be a good example. I'll add more later but hope that gives you a general idea. I expect there may be some disagreement which is welcome.

[23]

Those are good questions 23 and deserve a fuller response than this but I can tell you a few things the absence of which is a huge red flag: a leadership (not blow-ins like ElBaradei), a party or at least a cadre, an organization, an actual program, a communication system that isn't kindly provided by the CIA, and a history, to begin with. Cuba would be a good example. I'll add more later but hope that gives you a general idea. I expect there may be some disagreement which is welcome.

I think that you may be suffering from old-paradigm-itis, lupercal.

You raise attributes of an old paradigm of revolution to qualify what an authentic revolution looks like. And dismiss the new paradigm of revolution as a bogus one.

The Internet has created a new paradigm with new attributes.

Which is why despots, across the board, have taken and will take measures to incapacitate it.

And it appears that you are not recognizing that. Or mistaking a new paradigm to be a bogus one.

P.S.:

What you classify as a bogus revolution I'm inclined to describe as an open source revolution. Elaboration enclosed in the post that follows.

[23]

http://opensource.com/government/11/2/o ... revolution
The open source revolution

Last Friday, while the first true revolution of the Web 2.0 era was reaching its climax in Tahrir Square, I was watching events unfold from within the U.S. State Department in downtown Washington D.C. I had the privilege to attend the two-day Tech@State: Open Source conference, an event organized by the Office of eDiplomacy, a relatively new wing of the State Department led by one of most cutting-edge and dynamic teams in the federal government. Although the timing of the events in Egypt was purely coincidental, I could not help but marvel at the relationship between the subject at hand and the events unfolding half a world away.


Outside the tech world, open source is still an enigmatic concept. The notion of allowing a product, whether a piece of code or a can of Coke, to be built and supported by an entirely democratic, decentralized developer base seems entirely at odds with the traditional understanding of competition in a capitalist economy. To the uninitiated, it reeks of danger, unreliability and inefficiency. The truth of open source, however, could not be farther from those misconceptions.


What is open source?


Open source is basically a model for innovation driven not by intellectual protectionism but by cooperative competition toward a common, continuously expanding goal. On the battlefield of software technology, the big open source names are familiar even to non-tech savvy users: Mozilla (makers of Firefox and Thunderbird), Wikipedia, Wordpress, and Linux are all titans on par with their proprietary counterparts. Most people are probably not aware that social media services like Facebook have been built from open source building blocks such as PHP and MySQL. Programmers and developers have produced the technologies that power our modern lives because those building blocks are readily available through distributed code, APIs, and open languages. At its core, open source means we do not have to reinvent the wheel in order to build a better car.


The philosophy behind open source extends beyond arguments for efficiency and quality. There is a shared understanding among open source converts and evangelists that it ultimately improves the world. Sharing code and data is only the grease that makes the machine work. The fuel is the collective understanding among the open source community that the combined effort of individual contributors is far greater that the sum of its parts.


Open source in the real world


Thanks to open source, we are finally creating ways to harness and share data in meaningful ways that can help solve the world's problems. Projects like Open 311 are revolutionizing the way citizens communicate with local government when problems arise. The awe-inspiring Code for America project is equipping brilliant young developers with the resources to solve national and local problems using open source technology.


At Friday's conference, rising federal stars like Aneesh Chopra (the first CTO of the USA), Macon Phillips (New Media Director for The White House), and Todd Park (CTO for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) demonstrated how agencies are turning to open source solutions to make government more reliable, transparent, and better able to solve the most pressing national and international issues.


Interest in open source technology as a means of conquering seemingly insurmountable problems has surged in nearly every field, from international development to education to disaster response. Startup initiatives such as CrisisCommons, which provides community and technology liaison support during and after disasters, are demonstrating the power of open source technology to save lives and livelihoods in the face of tragedy. SugarLabs, an innovative open source education platform, is already in use by over 1 million children in over 40 countries. These projects are not merely pipe dreams sketched out on whiteboards; they are already exerting a tangible, positive impact on our world.


Egypt: an open source model


Turning back to the Middle East, where events over the past few months have defied all previous expectations, we can also find echoes of the dynamic power of new technology. I take issue, however, with the pundits and bloggers who have called the events in Egypt a "Twitter revolution" or a "Facebook revolution." The conceptual boxes drawn by those titles are far too narrow and limiting to encapsulate the significance of recent events.


Egypt's revolution is an open source revolution.


Each participant is a change agent unto him or herself, whose power was amplified by the distributed networks of peaceful civil protest. No central leader or platform has emerged during the crisis; the revolt's decentralized nature may have actually contributed to its non-violent success. Put another way, Tahrir Square has given a whole new meaning to the idea of crowdsourcing.


Social media tools (including Facebook and Twitter, both of which incorporate open source into their design) were adopted and tweaked, not by corporations or institutions, but by individuals and teams motivated by a shared commitment to a higher goal. The evidence can be readily found in organic projects like AliveInEgypt (@AliveInEgypt), a network of distributed volunteers that has been providing translations of Egyptian tweets from Arabic to English.


The collective victory of millions of Egyptians is a powerful validation of open source philosophy. It is revolutionary without being destructive; it succeeds by building on what has come before to forge ahead. And in the face of challenge, it is unstoppable.

[lupercal]

I think that you may be suffering from old-paradigm-itis, lupercal.

You raise attributes of an old paradigm of revolution to qualify what an authentic revolution looks like. And dismiss the new paradigm of revolution as a bogus one.

Well, there may something to that 23, in the sense that we have may have different definitions of "revolution." Dramatic events in Tunisia and Egypt led to the removal of their presidents, yes, and the media are calling these "revolutions," but I would call them coups d'etat, different from the ones that removed Manuel Zelaya from Honduras and Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti only in that considerable effort was put into making them look like home-grown revolts, which they're not. If they were, I'd be happy to call them revolutions. Possibly that's a distinction you don't make?

The Internet has created a new paradigm with new attributes.

The internet is just another propaganda medium, like radio or phonograph records. The Nazis were taping Hitler's speeches and rebroadcasting them before we know what magnetic recording tape was.

Which is why despots, across the board, have taken and will take measures to incapacitate it.

That's how Mubarak managed to resist a US-backed coup until he was finally taken out, exactly how and by whom we don't know yet.

And it appears that you are not recognizing that. Or mistaking a new paradigm to be a bogus one.

I wouldn't call a CIA-backed coup d'etat a revolution, no, even if it's dressed up to look like one.

P.S.:

What you classify as a bogus revolution I'm inclined to describe as an open source revolution. Elaboration enclosed in the post that follows.

I appreciate that 23, I really do, but it's just a lot of ad copy, which is a polite way of saying propaganda, of the kind that's been plastered on media products for the last half century. I remember reading the same hype on the back of dusty educational LPs in a library media lab. "Caedmon hi-fidelity recordings, a revolution in learning!" No more schools needed, everyone will now become an independent open-source learner! Of course it didn't turn out that way did it? The internet won't make schools obsolete either. In other words it's just sizzle. Somebody is clearly planning, financing, and facilitating these coups, and the idea that they're just spontaneously happening via the miracle of Twitter is naive. I'm not picking on you personally 23, and you have a lot of company, but frankly that surprises me.

[/quote]

[23]

You remind me, lupercal, of a friend of mine who is also a coercively authoritarian parent.

She once justified her measures to coercively (intentionally repeated here for a reason) control her daughter's actions and reactions with the following comment:

"If I don't control her, someone else will."

I suspect that a despotic leader would have the same thought about his people.

It appears that you both share the same underlying, core belief:

"once a sheep, always a sheep."

[Hammer of Los]

Peaceful, swift, painless revolution from below; a revolution in thought.

You know don't you, that I have been wondering about the possibility of that for very many years now.

Of course, there is the psychological level, as well as the political level, and so on.

The internet's revolutionary potential has been understood by many for a long while. Some are wondering if they can get the genie back in the bottle. I don't think they can.

We are all becoming connected in thought. Communication is enhanced a thousand fold or more. Can we cooperate with each other, to put out the fires of conflict? Can we come to understand each other, and ourselves?

I can tell you a few things the absence of which is a huge red flag: a leadership (not blow-ins like ElBaradei), a party or at least a cadre, an organization, an actual program, a communication system that isn't kindly provided by the CIA, and a history, to begin with.

No leaders?! No party?! No program?!

Wu wei in politics. Hang on;

No leaders! No party! No program!

That's better. Those are actually slogans I wouldn't mind chanting.

When I recall revolutionary leaders, I think of Stalin, and Mao, and Pol Pot. I'm sure we don't want leaders and programs like theirs.

Oh, and as I've said before, I rather like El Baradei. I don't need to make a defense of him here, though, since you are all at liberty to look into his background and decide for yourselves what you make of him.

What interesting times we do live in!

[compared2what?]

The internet is just another propaganda medium, like radio or phonograph records.

Amen to that.



_______________

But there's the talkies and the printing press, too. Don't forget about them.

[wintler2]

You remind me, lupercal, of a friend of mine who is also a coercively authoritarian parent.
She once justified her measures to coercively (intentionally repeated here for a reason) control her daughter's actions and reactions with the following comment:
"If I don't control her, someone else will."
I suspect that a despotic leader would have the same thought about his people.
It appears that you both share the same underlying, core belief:
"once a sheep, always a sheep."

Authoritarians can't imagine any other way of being, because they're either extremely ignorant, too scared, or too 'successful' at exploiting other people.

[lupercal]

Deposed Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak speaks out for the first time since resigning

By Nina Mandell
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, April 10th 2011, 8:21 PM



Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

Now with a large amount of free time on his hands, ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak seems to be seeking out the spotlight again to restore his reputation.

On Sunday, he issued his first public remarks since resigning on Feb. 11, threatening to sue those who undermined his public image.

Speaking in a brief audio message on Al-Arabiya television, Mubarak blasted the Egyptian government's probe into his finances and denied any history of corruption and allegations he stole billions from his people.

"I will uphold all my legal rights to defend my reputation as well as that of my family," he said. "I have been, and still am, pained by what I and my family are facing from fraudulent campaigns and unfounded allegations that seek to harm my reputation, my integrity and my military and political record."

The longtime leader was ousted in February following prolonged massive demonstrations after nearly three decades in power. Since he stepped down, protestors have called for him to be arrested and prosecuted.

Al-Arabiya said it received Mubarak's statement hours before he was summoned by prosecutors looking into his alleged rampant corruption and the killing and abuse of pro-democracy protesters.

The allegations, which were widespread during and after his rule, have hurt the fallen dictator's feelings, he said in his statement.

"I have felt great pain – and still – due to the unfair campaigns and unjust accusations to which my family and I have been exposed, aiming mainly to endanger my reputation, question my honesty and mess with my military and political history during which I exerted big efforts for Egypt and its people … in war and peace," he said.

Mubarak promised he would account for all of his belongings, as well as his wife and sons' possessions, and denied holding any accounts or assets outside of Egypt. He agreed to let prosecutors contact all of the foreign ministries worldwide to confirm his claims.

It is widely rumored that Mubarak has millions in overseas accounts.

"This is for the Egyptian people to know that their former president has accounts only in one Egyptian bank, according to what I have mentioned in my final financial statement," he said.

Mubarak and his wife, who are banned from leaving the country during the investigations, have been living in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2 ... tml?r=news

[lupercal]

from the I told ya so department:

Tourists stay home after Egypt's revolution in blow to nation's economy
WaPo, Saturday, April 16, GIZA, Egypt —

Egypt’s revolution has scared away millions of foreign tourists, the lifeblood of the nation’s economy, and now this ancient kingdom of tombs resembles a ghost town.

“I’m losing a lot of money,” said Ahmed, 63, a retiree who sold property near his home in the province of Qena five years ago to buy one of the souvenir shops near the Great Pyramid of Cheops on Cairo’s outskirts.

A lot of people have been losing money after the uprising that forced President Hosni Mubarak from office more than two months ago.

Although the revolution has lifted the hopes of many Egyptians eager for a more prosperous, democratic future, the turmoil has walloped the nation’s economy, in no small part because of the drop in tourism. Merchants who cater to tourists say the post-revolutionary drop in business has been much more severe than the slowdown after gunmen killed a group of tourists in Luxor in 1997.

Between Jan. 25 and Feb. 1, at least 1 million tourists cut their visits short or chose not to come at all, Egypt’s new minister of tourism, Mounir Fakry Abdel Noor, said in an interview.

In February, tourism was off 80 percent compared with last year, and it fell 60 percent in March, Noor said. That is a crippling blow for a sector that accounts for one of every seven Egyptian jobs and makes up about 11 percent of the nation’s economy. “Tourism is the number one foreign-currency earner in Egypt,” Noor said. “It’s obviously very important.”

The revolution has also slowed other sectors. Jobs have been lost, foreign investment has dried up and inflation has increased. The stock exchange open only late last month after a two-month shutdown.

The government reported Monday that food prices have skyrocketed 48 percent in a nation that is already the world’s largest importer of wheat. Lines form in neighborhoods when trucks arrive with scarce canisters of cooking fuel.

All of this has added stress to an economy where 22 percent of people live below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures.

Finance Minister Samir Radwan said this month that Egypt’s economic growth had slowed to an estimated 2.5 percent this year, compared with 5.3 percent in 2010.

Radwan also suggested that Egypt might need to lean on the gulf oil states for aid — an idea tartly swatted aside by Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the leader of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which has run the country since Mubarak stepped down. Tantawi told Egyptian reporters that Egypt was not a “beggar.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tou ... story.html

No, Egypt was not a “beggar,” until its glorious fake revolution that is:

Egypt in Talks With IMF, World Bank on Loans, Radwan Says
Bloomberg - Apr 18, 2011 5:19 AM GMT-0700

Egypt needs help financing its budget deficit and has discussed obtaining as much as $6.2 billion in soft loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Finance Minister Samir Radwan said.

Egypt, whose economy is reeling under the impact of a revolt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February, needs between $3 billion and $4 billion from the IMF for the remainder of the current fiscal year through June and the following 12 months, Radwan said in Washington after talks with the global lender. He also discussed obtaining a $2.2 billion soft loan from the World Bank, according to state-run Middle East News Agency.

Egypt’s budget deficit may widen to 9 percent of gross domestic product this fiscal year, Radwan said on April 3 in Cairo. Economic growth may slow to as low as 2.5 percent in the same period, compared with 5.1 percent in the previous 12 months, he said. The minister couldn’t be reached for comment.

The deficit “is still manageable but we cannot sustain that for a long time with a debt-to-GDP ratio at 70 percent,” Mona Mansour, a research director at CI Capital, a Cairo-based investment bank, said by telephone today. “For the short term yes, but we can’t continue like this because it could affect the country’s sovereign rating.”

Egypt had its credit rating lowered at Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s following the protests that led to Mubarak’s departure. The crisis has prompted tourists to stay away from Egypt, weakened the currency and pushed government borrowing costs through treasury bills to two-year highs.

(snip)

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on April 13 that the lender is ready to help Middle East and North African countries that may need financing after a wave of popular revolts that swept the region this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-1 ... ys-1-.html

Always "ready to help" wreck a country, that's our IMF.

[lupercal]

Mubarak’s wife ordered detained
By Ernesto Londono, Friday, May 13, 6:17 AM

CAIRO — Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, suffered a heart attack Friday after learning that prosecutors had ordered her detention in a broadening criminal probe into the source of the family’s wealth, Egyptian state television reported.

The former first lady, 70, was being treated in the intensive care unit at Sharm el-Sheikh Hospital in the Sinai resort town, to which her family fled after a popular uprising led to her husband’s ouster three months ago.

A report on the Web site of the government-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) said the former first lady would be detained for 15 days as the investigation into allegations of corruption continues. Her husband and sons have been remanded in custody for a month on similar detention orders.

Suzanne Mubarak became an influential figure in Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, serving as the public face of many of the government’s social and welfare programs.

The MENA report said prosecutors ordered her detention because they suspect she obtained “illegal wealth using her husband’s position and political authority.”

The Mubaraks fled to the Red Sea resort city Feb. 11, after an 18-day popular uprising forced Hosni Mubarak to step down.

Since then, investigators acting at the direction of the country’s interim military leaders have been trying to ascertain the source of the Mubarak family’s wealth.

Rooting out the graft and cronyism for which Mubarak’s National Democratic Party became infamous was one of the demands of the leaders of the revolution.

The former president, 82, has been detained in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh since April 13, when prosecutors ordered his arrest. Officials have said they expect to move him to Cairo for interrogation when he is healthy enough to travel.

Hosni Mubarak has denied the allegations of corruption. He also faces charges stemming from the killing of demonstrators during the early days of the uprising. note to Alice: the term is agents provocateurs, but believe whatever the hell your telly tells you to, you'll get no grief here.

Mubarak’s sons Gamal, long deemed the heir to the presidency, and Alaa were detained the same day he was. They are being held in a Cairo prison.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mub ... s_homepage
...............................
. . . and so the threadbare 16mm film unreels yet again, splits cracks hisses and all, and let's all pretend it still looks real.

[crikkett]

The MENA report said prosecutors ordered her detention because they suspect she obtained “illegal wealth using her husband’s position and political authority.”

Why the facepalm?
I don't get it.

[lupercal]

hi crikkett, it gets a facepalm because a) it's so mind-bogglingly petty, b) it would be difficult if not impossible to disprove and c) the Marie Antoinette routine has been done to death.

p.s. hate to ask a dumb question but who's the girl in the blue dress in your avatar?

[crikkett]

hi crikkett, it gets a facepalm because a) it's so mind-bogglingly petty, b) it would be difficult if not impossible to disprove and c) the Marie Antoinette routine has been done to death.

p.s. hate to ask a dumb question but who's the girl in the blue dress in your avatar?

Alright then, I agree with you on all counts.

{on edit: I'm cruising your "freeforum" - you've got some great stuff going on over there!}

The girl is Madonna. I love this dress.
NEW YORK, NY - MAY 02: Madonna attends the "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" Costume Institute Gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 2, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)