Tunisia's color-coded regime change: Bogus, fake, or..??

[lupercal]

As far as I can tell Tunisia's wiki-Twitbook enhanced "Jasmine revolution" is a 100% real MI6/CIA intervention à la their 1953 removal of Mossadegh, 1979 removal of Pahlavi, and lame 2009 "green revolution" that so far has failed to dislodge yet another troublesome Iran administration for making the mistake of running that country as anything other than a playground for oil barons, banksters, bomb-builders, drug lords, sex tourists and assorted other US-UK predators, profiteers, and soldiers of fortune. About the only difference I can see between Operation Ajax and the removal of Ben Ali is the substitution of "social networking" for Radio Free Iran in the idiotic scripts handed to newsreaders. Ajax operational details here, some of them anyway, and the uncanny likeness will send chills down your spine:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mi ... ndix-b.pdf

Whether Tunisia gets a Pahlavi or advances directly to Islamic fundamentalism remains to be seen but there's little doubt "Jasmine" has been a controlled western intel operation from the get go, particularly as the reports of rampant destitution and corruption appear to have been largely fabricated:

1. In September 2010, Tunisia ratified the international treaty banning cluster munitions, becoming the first country in the Middle East and North Africa to do so. Tunisia is not believed to have used, produced, stockpiled, or transferred cluster munitions. (Tunisia: Government Ratifies Cluster Munition Ban Human Rights Watch)

2. The 2010 Corruption Perception Index was released by Transparency International on 26 October 2010. The report shows that Tunisia is the least corrupt country in North Africa. (2010 Transparency International Index: Tunisia most transparent ...)

3. Tunisia's ratings in 2010. August 2010: The 2010 report of the Oxford Business Group on Tunisia referred to the stability and social peace prevailing in Tunisia.

4. September 2010: Tunisia has the most competitive economy in Africa, according to the report on world competitiveness 2010-2011 published by the World economic forum of Davos. It thus moves ahead of numerous EU member states such as Spain (42nd), Portugal (46th), Italy (48th).... Tunisia's ratings in 2010.

5. January 2010: Tunisia is ranked best Arab state as regards quality of life with 59 points out of 100, moving up 3 points compared with 2009, by "International Living'' magazine , out of 194 countries. Tunisia's ratings in 2010.

6. August 2010: US "Newsweek" magazine ranked Tunisia first in Africa in its "100 best countries in the world'' ratings based on social, economic and political data. Tunisia's ratings in 2010.

7. 2010: The report on human development published by the UNDP ranked Tunisia 7th out of 135 countries in terms of 'long-term development indicators'. Tunisia's ratings in 2010.

8. September 2010: Tunisia is ranked first in the Arab region and 6th in the world as regards the access of handicapped people to ICTs, according to ratings announced in Vilnius (Lithuania) by the United Nations at the 5th forum on the governance of the Internet (IGF 2010). Tunisia's ratings in 2010.

9. July 2010 Tunisia's foreign trade registers 31.1% growth.

10. Tunisia has a very low crime rate. In 2002 Tunisia's murder rate stood at 1.22 /100 000, the lowest in Africa. (Country Profile: Tunisia)

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/01/t ... frica.html

The exact purpose of the stunt is not clear to me but the fact that it's a spook job is laughably obvious. Question: How dumb do they think we are? Answer: Very.


Color Coded Revolution In Iran, from "Iran Bans Color Revolution Seeding Organizations," Sikh Archives, Wednesday, January 5th, 2011, http://www.sikharchives.com/?p=2891

[Wombaticus Rex]

See? Exactly. This schizoid hall of mirrors routine is now the mandatory, S.O.P. filter for how we're interpreting the news. It's deliberately crazy-making and then we get into big arguments about it.

False Flag Attacks are an even more effective weapon when they're not actually employed at all. They only need to exist, and the conversation is permanently fractured.

Is it live or is it Memorex?

[lupercal]

See? Exactly. This schizoid hall of mirrors routine is now the mandatory, S.O.P. filter for how we're interpreting the news. It's deliberately crazy-making and then we get into big arguments about it.

False Flag Attacks are an even more effective weapon when they're not actually employed at all. They only need to exist, and the conversation is permanently fractured.

Is it live or is it Memorex?

I see your point about confirmation bias Wombat and one does develop a habit of skepticism but what I'm getting at is that there's not just smoke, there's a cheerful blaze of familiar flames, and this thing is practically identical to Ajax and similar to about a dozen other recent regime changes I can name, mostly successful, Iran and Venezuela being the only exceptions I can think of, leaving Cuba out of the picture anyway.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Indeed, a blaze of flames the whole world round. I wasn't just implicating you and me, this is pathology and it's everywhere in our culture. Tomorrow, more than ever! What a bright, shining future.

[lupercal]

Indeed, a blaze of flames the whole world round. I wasn't just implicating you and me, this is pathology and it's everywhere in our culture. Tomorrow, more than ever! What a bright, shining future.

Ah. Okay now I see what you're getting at, all the world's an Operation Ajax, oh brave new world? I'd agree with that although outside the English-language media bubble, including Al Jazeera English, I'm not sure people are as gullible, so I don't see the spooks fooling all the people all the time by any stretch, although I'm sure they'd like to think they do.

As for "flames the whole world round," I'd agree in a practical sense also, as there seems to be a full roster of color revolutions waiting in the wings. Here's how Webster Tarpley put it on Jan. 16:

Tunisian Wikileaks Putsch: CIA Touts Mediterranean Tsunami of Coups; Libya, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Jordan, Italy All Targeted; US-UK Want New Puppets to Play Against Iran, China, Russia; Obama Retainers Cass Sunstein, Samantha Power, Robert Malley, International Crisis Group Implicated in Destabilizations

Washington DC, January 16, 2011 – The US intelligence community is now in a manic fit of gloating over this weekend’s successful overthrow of the Tunisian government of President Ben Ali. The State Department and the CIA, through media organs loyal to them, are mercilessly hyping the Tunisian putsch of the last few days as the prototype of a new second generation of color revolutions, postmodern coups, and US-inspired people power destabilizations. At Foggy Bottom and Langley, feverish plans are being made for a veritable Mediterranean tsunami designed to topple most existing governments in the Arab world, and well beyond. The imperialist planners now imagine that they can expect to overthrow or weaken the governments of Libya, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Yemen, and perhaps others, while the CIA’s ongoing efforts to remove Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi (because of his friendship with Putin and support for the Southstream pipeline) make this not just an Arab, but rather a pan-Mediterranean, orgy of destabilization.

http://tarpley.net/2011/01/16/tunisian- ... ks-putsch/

I don't agree 100% with Tarpley's domestic political analysis, as Obama and Hillary's support from what I've seen has not been wild, and I hope the AEI crowd runs into a snag before they can finish remaking the Middle East in the image of Fallujah, but I don't doubt that it's on the agenda.

[AlicetheKurious]

Lupercal, that rosy picture from aangirfan has very little to do with the reality experienced by the Tunisian people themselves. Tunisia was a country where bloggers and journalists and even rap music artists could be and were arrested for straying one word beyond the party line. Dissidents were tortured, raped and frequently killed. Tunisians were living in terror. During the Tunisian uprising, before Ben Ali fled, a Tunisian dissident climbed up on the wall of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate and screamed at them: "Stop eating our flesh!" Her cry prompted an investigation that revealed that many of Egypt's most prominent journalists had been receiving cash and expensive gifts in exchange for saying nothing negative about Tunisia, even as the Egyptian cyberspace was churning with constant news and smuggled photos and videos of what was really happening there.

The Tunisian media, needless to say, was terrorized into singing the praises of Ben Ali's wonderful, democratic leadership all day long, until after he was deposed. In other words, information was very tightly controlled. That the Western media and governments also conspired with the Tunisian dictatorship to promote this false image to Western audiences, helps to explain a lot of those items on aangirfan's list.

In contrast to Operation Ajax in Iran, the uprising in Tunisia was not led by armed mobsters and hired thugs paid by the CIA, but by millions of ordinary Tunisians from all walks of life who risked their very lives to demand their freedom from the suffocating repression they'd been living in for decades. The first stage following Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation was pretty much confined to a region populated by the poorest, agrarian population. It would have stayed there if the regime's response hadn't been so brutal, but instead it spread to other poor regions and only became a nationwide movement when first the lawyers' union and then other professional and labor unions joined.

It was when the middle class, the university students, the professionals and the urban populations joined that it became unstoppable. Do you really believe that the CIA or anybody else could successfully mobilize such a near-unanimous uprising across an entire country like that? Even as the regime's snipers shoot demonstrators in the head from the roofs? What would make people do that in such incredible numbers unless they were really determined to be free at any cost?

Look at Iran's so-called "Green Revolution": it was centered almost totally in Tehran, with a significant number of the protesters enrolled in certain universities owned and run by the opposition. Within one day of the opposition demonstrations, an even greater number of Iranians turned out in mass demonstrations to express their support for the regime. There was nothing at all like that in Tunisia, even as protesters were being shot and beaten and otherwise terrorized for declaring their opposition. Nobody supported Ben Ali, and once he was gone, even those who had supported him said that they'd been too scared not to.

Also, compare the massive, wall-to-wall coverage in the Western media, repeating the claims of rigged elections etc., from even before the first demonstrations in Iran, with the almost total silence in the Western media about the turbulent events in Tunisia until only a few hours before Ben Ali fled. Compare the "Neda" coverage with the absence of photos and film of the hundreds of civilians shot and beaten to death. There are photos of Tunisian demonstrators with half their head shot off and their brains spilling out; none of the victims got even a fraction of the indignant coverage that Neda got.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that dozens of corpses showing evidence of torture had been dumped far away from where they'd been taken into custody, so that their relatives would have difficulty finding and identifying them. Was that reported in the Western press? I'm not aware of it.

Compare the organized campaign to demonize Ahmedinejad that prepared the propaganda groundwork for the "Green Revolution", to the praise that was lavished on Tunisia's regime and its dictator in the Western media and in reports associated with Western governments.

I really don't understand how you can compare what is happening in Tunisia to what happened in Iran in 1953 or 2009. They couldn't be more radically different.

[Searcher08]

I saw a BBC report which was interviewing the people in the town where the market stall holder had first set himself on fire. IN so much as I had no idea if the Arabic translations were accurate or not, there were a lot of interviews with people in broken but passionate English. This revolution was authentic - the thing of calling it the Jasmine revolution isnt Tunisian - the Tunisians are naming the revolution after the stall holder who literally started the fire of the revolution. A number of things emerged from the report -

There seemed to be a big population of poor but educated young men with zero nada zip prospects of working.
The Tunisian people detested the police, but respected and trusted their army much more.
The Tunisian people had had a non-reversible change in their sense of empowerment.

The other thing that was apparent was that technology DID seem to have a huge role in starting it - mobile phone footage being shared via Youtube and the Anonymous attacks on the Tunisian government websites and information sharing of how the ordinary people could circumvent these fascistic Internet restrictions - which they then did in a tsunami of information sharing.

[lupercal]

I saw a BBC report. . . .

Not to beat a dead horse but when it comes to high profile oil ops the BBC is basically a branch of MI6, with even less daylight than between the CIA and CNN if that's possible. It was a truly ridiculous BBC World "interview" with an Arabic "reporter" last night that inspired this post. The Arabic guy was dutifully answering the utterly predictable questions with utterly predictable flack about social networking that literally sounded like he was stumbling over a script. The newsreader lady was fully in character and covered for the guy's cluelessness about what he was supposedly "reporting" but it didn't really help. I can't find the story now but I notice the BBC World homepage is wall-to-wall Tunisia.

p.s. yes, when security forces start acting like agents provacateurs and abusing the populace, even middle class people will take to the streets if a path is opened to them. The point is that British, American, and no doubt French spooks infiltrate domestic security forces with plants and assets who pull this shit to provoke telegenic protests, which explains why Ben Ali was caught off guard and couldn't get a handle on the situation.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I saw a BBC report. . . .

Not to beat a dead horse but when it comes to high profile oil ops the BBC is basically a branch of MI6, with even less daylight than between the CIA and CNN if that's possible. It was a truly ridiculous BBC World "interview" with an Arabic "reporter" last night that inspired this post. The Arabic guy was dutifully answering the utterly predictable questions with utterly predictable flack about social networking that literally sounded like he was stumbling over a script. The newsreader lady was fully in character and covered for the guy's cluelessness about what he was supposedly "reporting" but it didn't really help. I can't find the story now but I notice the BBC World homepage is wall-to-wall Tunisia.

p.s. yes, when security forces start acting like agents provacateurs and abusing the populace, even middle class people will take to the streets if a path is opened to them. The point is that British, American, and no doubt French spooks infiltrate domestic security forces with plants and assets who pull this shit to provoke telegenic protests, which explains why Ben Ali was caught off guard and couldn't get a handle on the situation.

There's also the fact that brutal dictators use their security forces to brutalise populations and really the power is with the people cos if a population decides it wants to tear its country down it can.

Of course you quoted the NYT and a CIA document, assuming its not an elaborate feint itself. More interestingly you quoted a blogger citing Transperancy International as claiming the Tunisian regime had no corruption issues. I suggest you research TI a bit more.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Here a hint - western oil interests?

[lupercal]

when security forces start acting like agents provacateurs and abusing the populace, even middle class people will take to the streets if a path is opened to them. The point is that British, American, and no doubt French spooks infiltrate domestic security forces with plants and assets who pull this shit to provoke telegenic protests, which explains why Ben Ali was caught off guard and couldn't get a handle on the situation.

There's also the fact that brutal dictators use their security forces to brutalise populations and really the power is with the people cos if a population decides it wants to tear its country down it can.

Do you have any pre-Jasmine evidence that Ben Ali was more brutal than any other permanent president? We heard the same media song and dance about Castro for 40 years here but no one I've met who's actually lived in or visited Cuba, even Castro haters, can support the allegations, and the record as it's emerging doesn't either.

Of course you quoted the NYT and a CIA document, assuming its not an elaborate feint itself.

Fine, here's a non-NYT link, and apparently the Times never published this particular appendix anyway except online, which explains why I can't find an HTML version, only this PDF, or I'd quote from it. It's well worth perusing and if anyone has challenged its authenticity I haven't heard about it, but frankly I don't have any reason to. Do you?

http://cryptome.org/iran-cia/b.pdf

No doubt there are more damning docs that haven't come to light but this one gives a pretty good idea of how it was done, and no Alice, they didn't just hire a few thugs and prostitutes, they spread the payola up and down the food chain and bought off enough reporters, editors, military personnel, police and politicians to produce exactly the same effect in Iran as in Tunisia.

More interestingly you quoted a blogger citing Transperancy International as claiming the Tunisian regime had no corruption issues. I suggest you research TI a bit more.

From what I can tell it's a business site, reporting on business concerns, in this case "corruption." If you know more about it please share. How many sources are irreproachably non-suss anyway? In any case if you don't like that source you can ignore it as it's one link out of ten.

Here a hint - western oil interests?

Yes I'd agree that's been the tail wagging the dog all along, certainly in 1953, no less now, but how the heck does that support your people-power argument? It seems much more helpful to the point I'm making here so thanks for mentioning it.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Transperancy international has a reputation for supporting western oil interests, especially when compared to say Venezuelan state owned oil companies.

http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2008/05/lit ... atter.html

Yes all sources must be checked out, and if there is evidence of their susness it needs to be pointed out.

Personally I am sus on the cos of who works for them in the Phillipines - a judge who was fined for basically ignoring the procedures they were sposed to follow. As of yet tho I can't find out whether the judge did a good or a bad thing. Their Phillipines e voting thing seems a bit iffy too. And yes I was having a go at you over using TI while criticising others for "trusting" wikileaks. But I wasn't trying to be a complete prick about it.






Why ben Ali may be sus: (PS I've never heard Castro described as brutal by anyone with any credibility.)


WRT Ben Ali himself, lets leave aside for a moment the accusation he was trained in intelligence in Maryland.

"Negli anni 1985-1987 noi organizzammo una specie di colpo di Stato in Tunisia, mettendo il presidente Ben Alì a capo dello Stato, sostituendo Burghiba che voleva fuggire".

Can you read that? Its an italian discussion of the coup they arranged in the years leading up to Ben Ali taking power.

http://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/a ... /tuni.html


WRT to the regime of Ben Ali:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... 2010-03-15

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 010en.html

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... d-20091105

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... e-20091103

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 009en.html

etc etc etc



Just a random selection from Amnesty international on tunisia.

Now that may not be more brutal than any permanent prez, but given the rural reaction to Phosphate mining by a state owned company (wehere the profits seem to have disappeared with Ben Ali) that doesn't make him any better:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 2009en.pdf

Page 7 above

Further details on the brutal repression of rural Tunisians by the state owned Phosphate co:


http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8705

[lupercal]

Transperancy international has a reputation for supporting western oil interests, especially when compared to say Venezuelan state owned oil companies.

http://oilwars.blogspot.com/2008/05/lit ... atter.html

Yes all sources must be checked out, and if there is evidence of their susness it needs to be pointed out.

Fine, I don't like a lot of mainstream sources either, and this is one link out of ten in the excerpt I posted, but if nothing else it points to the fact that Tunisia wasn't isolated or blockaded, like Cuba, and had a relatively healthy economy propped up by western extraction interests.

Personally I am sus on the cos of who works for them in the Phillipines - a judge who was fined for basically ignoring the procedures they were sposed to follow. As of yet tho I can't find out whether the judge did a good or a bad thing. Their Phillipines e voting thing seems a bit iffy too. And yes I was having a go at you over using TI while criticising others for "trusting" wikileaks. But I wasn't trying to be a complete prick about it.

Sorry Joe, no clue as to wtf you're talking about, but I'll give you whatever point you're making about the Philippines. As to trusting wikileaks, I don't really feel strongly about whether anyone does or doesn't, I just hate being pickled in CNN-grade saturation propaganda. If I wanted to watch CNN I'd get cable TV. CNN is what made me cancel it years ago. Disgusting crap, hate listening to it at airports, hate reading it here.

Why ben Ali may be sus: (PS I've never heard Castro described as brutal by anyone with any credibility.)

Turn on CNN for an hour.

WRT Ben Ali himself, lets leave aside for a moment the accusation he was trained in intelligence in Maryland.

"Negli anni 1985-1987 noi organizzammo una specie di colpo di Stato in Tunisia, mettendo il presidente Ben Alì a capo dello Stato, sostituendo Burghiba che voleva fuggire".

Can you read that? Its an italian discussion of the coup they arranged in the years leading up to Ben Ali taking power.

http://www.repubblica.it/online/fatti/a ... /tuni.html

I can read it well enough, and it seems to suggest that Italy played a role in Ben Ali taking power. Wouldn't doubt it, but if as Tarpley claims Italy is also scheduled for regime change, that might help explain why they took out Tunisia first:

the CIA’s ongoing efforts to remove Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi (because of his friendship with Putin and support for the Southstream pipeline) make this not just an Arab, but rather a pan-Mediterranean, orgy of destabilization.

Moving along:

WRT to the regime of Ben Ali:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... 2010-03-15

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 010en.html

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... d-20091105

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-upda ... e-20091103

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 009en.html

etc etc etc

Okay most of these pertain to a 2008 labor dispute in Gafsa involving several dozen protesters who were arrested, tried, and sentenced. The problem is that Ben Ali released them in November 2009:

5 November 2009
Tunisia: Releases welcome but repression must end

Amnesty International welcomes the recent release of 68 prisoners imprisoned in connection with popular protests last year in the phosphate-rich Gafsa region. They had spent more than one year in prison and included many prisoners of conscience, held solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

All 68 prisoners were released under a presidential pardon issued by President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali on 4 November to mark the 22nd anniversary of his accession to power on 7 November 1987. The releases all appear to be conditional, however, and former prisoners who breach the conditions attached to their release are likely to be re-detained and required to serve out the remainder of their prison terms or placed under house arrest for the same period.

Those released include trade union leaders Adnan Hajji, Bechir Laabidi, Adel Jayar and Tayeb Ben Othman, who were among 38 people sentenced to prison terms of up to eight years on appeal in February 2009 after grossly unfair trials. They were accused of leading the unrest which occurred in Gafsa in the first half of 2008 and which involved protests against unemployment, high living costs, nepotism and the unfair recruitment practices of the major employer in the region, the Gafsa Phosphate Company. They were accused of “forming a criminal group with the aim of destroying public and private property” and “armed rebellion and assault on officials during the exercise of their duties”. Those released also included protestors who had been arrested in the towns of Mdhilla and Metlaoui.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 009en.html

No it's not nice to arrest protesters, or try them, but he eventually released them, which seems to have been a pattern with Ben Ali, so I don't think this was coup-worthy or million-man-march worthy, at all.

Just a random selection from Amnesty international on tunisia.

Not so random. There doesn't seem to be much to write about except that mining town.

Now that may not be more brutal than any permanent prez, but given the rural reaction to Phosphate mining by a state owned company (wehere the profits seem to have disappeared with Ben Ali) that doesn't make him any better:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset ... 2009en.pdf

Page 7 above

Further details on the brutal repression of rural Tunisians by the state owned Phosphate co:

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=8705

All or most of this pertains to the same incident and as I pointed out Ben Ali released the protesters. I don't think you've shown much more than that keeping this French mining operation going was a headache, and I imagine France would rather deal with someone less sympathetic to protesters, whom they'll no doubt get. So basically I don't see much of a case that Jasmine isn't just another bogus "color revolution."

[Joe Hillshoist]

Well it was a small section of the 20 or more pages of Amnesty links on Tunisia.

However a clear trend with this revolution is it started in rural areas, and there are cases of state owned mining cos treating poor rural people like shit in Tunisia for most of this century. Did you read the bit about the banner the mining co hung across the road basically swearing at the local people?

Calling it "jasmine" may be bogus as Alice mentioned. But branding sfter the fact isn't the same as setting the fact up to begin with.

[stefano]

mobile phone footage being shared via Youtube

Youtube was unavailable in Tunisia until Friday the 14th, when the thing was well on its way.

As for Tunisia not being corrupt, that's a fucking joke. It was not small-time corrupt from the point of view of the visiting foreign businessman, ie you don't have to slip a guy money to get your cargo through customs etc. But the systemic corruption that saw about 25% of the economy go to the Materis and Trabelsis was incredible, you can read a good post by vanlose kid in the other thread with some detail. The Oxford Business Group which you cite makes a living from working with gvts to promote their countries as terrific places to invest.

Another objection, lupercal, feel free to ignore it again: what do you make of the three young men who committed public suicide? How's that a psyop?

I'd like some source on your statement that Iran's 1979 revolution was a CIA op, as well.