CIA declares Mission Accomplished, Mubarak says not so fast

[winsomecowboy2]

Jack
So a couple of questions and a couple of opinions is a screed?
Well gee that puts me in my place. Pompous twat. Sorry if I'm disturbing your self importance .

As to the use of the Internet by the Egyptians. Point taken but that has zilch to do with my opinion that condescenders not directly related to this particular convulsion arent doing much more than bystanding and that the idea that "we" should support the Egyptians is quite facile and delusive.

You want to address that, do so but spare me the fucking rooster act. You think some loose intellectually juvenile recursive point about how criticism of the Internet on the Internet makes all points made moot is novel? Valid in any but the most sophomoric way?

You contribute a lot of good stuff but at the end of the day it all comes down to being some sort of sandkicker in a Charles atlas strip.
Raise your fucking game.Address points made and questions asked rather than simply appearing ruffled. Less transparent.

[DoYouEverWonder]

As for Al Jazeera English it's literally difficult to distinguish it from the BBC. .

This is nonsense spoken by someone who wasnt watching even AJ - and probably not watching the BBC either.
Ergo, you have no basis of comparison.

1 The average Egyptian is much more pro Palestinian than the Mubarek policy would indicate.
2 Israel's response to Mubarek going is cold, verging on the icy.
3 Most UK and US TV has been two steps out of sync with what's happening.
4 BBC reporting from John Simpson and Jeremy Bowen has been excellent.
5 AJ's reporting was like BEING THERE, the BBC's like listening to someone who is there.
6 There has been no similarity to the Soros driven Colour 'revolutions' at all.
7 While all this has been happening in Egypt, the Tunisians are still kicking ass.
8 The money supplied from the US was for bribes and American security stuff - and an order of magnitude less than the Mubarek family stole.
9 Your view of the capabilities of the CIA is utter utter mythologising bollox.

That's what happens when people watch too much FAUX News or listen to too much Alex Jones.

[DoYouEverWonder]

Jack
So a couple of questions and a couple of opinions is a screed?
Well gee that puts me in my place. Pompous twat. Sorry if I'm disturbing your self importance .

As to the use of the Internet by the Egyptians. Point taken but that has zilch to do with my opinion that condescenders not directly related to this particular convulsion arent doing much more than bystanding and that the idea that "we" should support the Egyptians is quite facile and delusive.

You want to address that, do so but spare me the fucking rooster act. You think some loose intellectually juvenile recursive point about how criticism of the Internet on the Internet makes all points made moot is novel? Valid in any but the most sophomoric way?

You contribute a lot of good stuff but at the end of the day it all comes down to being some sort of sandkicker in a Charles atlas strip.
Raise your fucking game.Address points made and questions asked rather than simply appearing ruffled. Less transparent.

Gee you're a ray of sunshine. Aren't ya?

I'm getting sick of everything is bad, everything is evil.... Most of the world is made of good and decent people who just want to live a simple life. The age of hate and fear is coming to an end.

[Searcher08]

Jack
So a couple of questions and a couple of opinions is a screed?
Well gee that puts me in my place. Pompous twat. Sorry if I'm disturbing your self importance .

As to the use of the Internet by the Egyptians. Point taken but that has zilch to do with my opinion that condescenders not directly related to this particular convulsion arent doing much more than bystanding and that the idea that "we" should support the Egyptians is quite facile and delusive.

You want to address that, do so but spare me the fucking rooster act. You think some loose intellectually juvenile recursive point about how criticism of the Internet on the Internet makes all points made moot is novel? Valid in any but the most sophomoric way?

You contribute a lot of good stuff but at the end of the day it all comes down to being some sort of sandkicker in a Charles atlas strip.
Raise your fucking game.Address points made and questions asked rather than simply appearing ruffled. Less transparent.

Gee you're a ray of sunshine. Aren't ya?

I'm getting sick of everything is bad, everything is evil.... Most of the world is made of good and decent people who just want to live a simple life. The age of hate and fear is coming to an end.

The idea that one cannot make a difference to people who happen to be geographically separated from is one that I find mechanistic in the extreme. What connects us as humans, as people is stronger than what separates us. So it DOES matter that I post a poem for Alice, even it's dumb or say "No, actually, AJ has been nothing like the BBC and yes, I HAVE been watching them both..."
Am I part of the Eqyptian revolution. YES!
WHY?
Because my heart and soul were there.
Because my Context for posting is to make a difference, even if it is just to poke fun, to mock.
Above all other things, to move it forward.
WHY?
Because my alarm bells go off when I see skepticism degenerate into a disempowering "It's all crap. What's the use". It speaks to a spirit that feels crushed by the world rather than standing unbowed by it. The Egyptians in Tahrir Square were neither crushed nor manipulated, they were unbowed and unafraid. They are the physical embodiment of an idea, the idea of Eqyptian freedom - and THAT, is an Idea WhoseTime Has Come.

[23]

To anyone who did not receive an adequate amount of parental reassurance that your efforts were worthy of their support and that they believed in you...

permit me to offer that reassurance and belief in you now.

Now go out there and take a second look at the heroes and heroines of Egypt.

[lupercal]

lupercal, thanks for this thread. I'm reading with much interest. Your points are well made and quite compelling. Sadly. I didn't cry tears of joy at the "success" of what's going in Egypt any more than I did when the people of the United States voted for HopeTM and ChangeTM and the first minority president was elected, and the evil Bush/Cheney cabal was "gone." That's not to say that I don't genuinely salute the people's efforts, especially in Egypt.

Thanks ninakat, very glad to hear this, and thanks to the many others contributing actual perceptions on this and other threads. Why anyone would come here to rehearse the same damn platitudes being sung in every corporate choir I don't know. Why not go to DU or the NYT forums or some other bogus place? Anyhow you mentioned Obama and I just want to say a bit about that campaign because I got caught up in it too and looking back the most cynical part was that he waited until the very week or maybe the day Hilly threw in the towel to pull that 180 on the FISA bill and turn into the Palinator he's been ever since. I'm still glad Hilly didn't get the nom because she would probably have lost the race and even if she hadn't the prospect of another Clinton White House isn't pretty. What I wanted to mention though is that plenty of people I respect took a ride on the hope 'n' change express, including Caroline Kennedy, who subsequently got tossed under it when she ran for Senate much like Mubarak just did. So it's complicated and I completely sympathize with the true believers although all this troll business seems out of line but hell it ain't my forum so whatevs. Anyway peace out.

[compared2what?]

What did Mubarak do wrt to Gaza?

Shut the tunnels, closed the borders and did sweet FA to help the people of Gaza.

So fucking nothing.

Wrong again. He warned Bibi to keep his paws off of Gaza and permanently re-opened the Gaza border crossing at Rafah. I've posted this before but it doesn't seem to have sunk in so here ya go:

Egypt's Mubarak warns Israel against new Gaza war
AFP, Jan 6 11:47 AM US/Eastern

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday warned Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu against launching a new war on Gaza, as they met in a bid to break the impasse in Middle East peace negotiations.

Mubarak's remarks were made during joint talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, which came after several weeks of rising tensions and clashes along Israel's border with the Palestinian enclave.

At the meeting, the Egyptian leader warned of the "danger of the latest Israeli threats and their repercussions on the stability and security of the region and the cause of Middle East peace," the official MENA news agency reported.

"Mubarak affirmed Egypt's rejection of any new offensive on Gaza," it said.

Senior Israeli officials have warned in recent weeks that Israel could launch another strike on Gaza, like the devastating 22-day war that ended in January 2009.

That offensive killed some 1,400 Palestinians, around half of them civilians, and 13 Israelis, 10 of them soldiers.

Following the war, the number of rocket attacks dropped significantly, although 230 rockets and mortar rounds were fired into Israel last year, the army said.

Israel's vice prime minister Silvan Shalom said last month that Israel would be forced to "respond with all our force" if Gaza militants kept firing rockets into the Jewish state.

The warnings were made against the backdrop of almost daily rocket attacks and retaliatory Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

Late on Wednesday, Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians who were apparently trying to breach the border fence after a day in which militants fired seven projectiles, most of them mortar rounds, into southern Israel without causing casualties or damage.

Mubarak also warned the Israeli leader about the impact of a surge in violence on the deadlocked peace talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Direct talks between Netanyahu and Abbas stalled in September last year when Israel refused to renew a moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinians have refused to continue talking while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.

The Egyptian leader stressed the need for Israel "to revisit its stances and policies, and to take tangible steps to build trust" with the Palestinians, MENA said.

A statement from Netanyahu's office described the meeting as "friendly and comprehensive."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1
......................................

Well.

Since I've already spoken to that Rafah Crossing thing, may I just start by saying: Oh, man. Nothing says "Andrew Breitbart" like:

"The Palestinians have refused to continue talking while Israel builds on land they want for a future state."

I mean, it's phrasing like that that separates the right-wing totalitarian apparatchiks from the useful idiots, chattering classes, and assorted other propagators of news to a predominantly American readership these days.

Because -- and if you haven't been reading the regular, vanilla, dominant-cultural-narrative American media propaganda on what's more usually described as Israel's refusal to halt construction in the settlements so that talks can continue, you might have missed this -- once you remove enough of the suggestive Breitbartian touches to get a clear look at what Mubarak himself said, it's not too difficult to see that he was just doing his job as a proxy spokesman for the United States.

Specifically, one who's got more natural latitude on the bad-cop end of the spectrum than most American statesmen do. Primarily as a function of the difference between what's domestically politically permissible for a political leader to say here and what's domestically politically permissible for a political leader to say there.

Nevertheless. On the fundamentals, that wasn't a departure from neo-lib talking points, it was just the repetition of them that was best-suited to the neo-lib who happened to be speaking. When David Remnick took up the same message a week or two earlier, it came out as:

New Yorker editor David Remnick to Yediot: ‘I can’t take the Occupation anymore’

On December 24 2010, Yediot’s Friday Political Supplement ran an interview with New Yorker editor David Remnick by Adi Gold. Most of the interview was dedicated to his new biography of Barack Obama. Gold did ask a political question on Israel and Reminck’s response was very blunt. Note that this is a reverse translation (Hebrew original of section here.)

Do you see a certain change in the US Jewish community?

“A new generation of Jews is growing up in the US. Their relationship with Israel is becoming less patient and more problematic. They see what has happened with the Rabbinical Letter [proscribing rental and sale of property to Arabs -- DR], for example. How long can you expect that they’ll love unconditionally the place called Israel [sic]? You’ve got a problem. You have the status of an occupier since 1967. It’s been happening for so long that even people like me, who understand that not only one side is responsible for the conflict and that the Palestinians missed an historic opportunity for peace in 2000, can’t take it anymore.

“The US administration is trying out of good will to get a peace process moving and in return Israel lays out conditions like the release Jonathan Pollard. Sorry, it can’t go on this way. The Jewish community is not just a nice breakfast at the Regency. You think it’s bad that a US President is trying to make an effort to promote peace? That’s what’s hurting your feelings? Give me a break, you’ve got bigger problems. A shopping list in exchange for a two month moratorium on settlement construction? Jesus [sic].”

Links in original. Also, please note that while he happened to be speaking to the Israeli press when he spoke those words, they're well within the continuum of contemporary non-far-right American media consensus. Which doesn't differ at all from the stated views of Israeli media figures speaking from more or less the same political orientation, at least that I've seen. Incidentally.

Also incidentally, while I don't have the time to find it right now, Jeffrey Goldberg (whom I would have called a neocon myself, albeit a comparatively moderate one) wrote something for either The Atlantic or for his blog at The Atlantic that wasn't less fed up by all that many degrees at roughly the same time, as well as -- IIRC -- subsequently.

Which I mention because -- to me, at least -- that was surprising. But the other stuff -- not excluding Mubarak's remarks -- were more or less what you'd expect them to be, as far as I can see. The Obama/Clinton axis of American political power is no friend to (at a minimum) Netinyahu's Israel. And that much, at least, has been crystal clear since September, however circumscribed by various evil machinations their official remarks on the subject may be.

So. My opinion only, but I don't really see how Mubarak's remarks there would have ignited enough of a shitstorm to lead to his ouster by U.S. imperialist forces. They think the same thing themselves.
__________________

Also, and not my opinion only: Joe was not wrong again. Or wrong to begin with. Mubarak didn't do anything for Gaza. And he hasn't done much against Israel that would displease the United States, either. We're pissed off at them.

And pathetic and morally bankrupt as it may be, it would be totally compatible with U.S. interests and in complete conformity with traditional U.S. methods if we were showing them the stick by doing stuff like issuing directives about water-withholding to Mubarak. Like that has a hope in hell of making a damn bit of difference.

We're just not in the driver's seat in that region any more. We still wield much too much power not to be a regular and major consideration. But the days when the U.S. could say "Jump," or "Cower," or "Roll over on the Palestinians to the left," or "Okay, now roll over on the Palestinians to the right" without the least fear of going unheeded are in abeyance at present, at the very least.

And it's not like no one could have predicted that, broadly speaking, either. As the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Okay. Gotta go. Love to all, and carry on.

[Searcher08]

lupercal, thanks for this thread. I'm reading with much interest. Your points are well made and quite compelling. Sadly. I didn't cry tears of joy at the "success" of what's going in Egypt any more than I did when the people of the United States voted for HopeTM and ChangeTM and the first minority president was elected, and the evil Bush/Cheney cabal was "gone." That's not to say that I don't genuinely salute the people's efforts, especially in Egypt.

Thanks ninakat, very glad to hear this, and thanks to the many others contributing actual perceptions on this and other threads. Why anyone would come here to rehearse the same damn platitudes being sung in every corporate choir I don't know. Why not go to DU or the NYT forums or some other bogus place? Anyhow you mentioned Obama and I just want to say a bit about that campaign because I got caught up in it too and looking back the most cynical part was that he waited until the very week or maybe the day Hilly threw in the towel to pull that 180 on the FISA bill and turn into the Palinator he's been ever since. I'm still glad Hilly didn't get the nom because she would probably have lost the race and even if she hadn't the prospect of another Clinton White House isn't pretty. What I wanted to mention though is that plenty of people I respect took a ride on the hope 'n' change express, including Caroline Kennedy, who subsequently got tossed under it when she ran for Senate much like Mubarak just did. So it's complicated and I completely sympathize with the true believers although all this troll business seems out of line but hell it ain't my forum so whatevs. Anyway peace out.

How is a popular revolution that succeeds (despite hundreds of deaths and thousands tortured) in getting rid of a dictator, despite a tsunami of actual real violence against them - in any way way similar to people hypnotised into a freak show called the American Presidential Election? Sure you were caught out that time - I wasnt. Could it be that you are OVER compensating? I appreciate that having the vision of Obama smashed must have been shocking for those who believed.
Egypt is not like that - you are conflating things which deserve, for the integrity of each, to be kept separate.
You are ignoring the direct sensory information of what is happening in Egypt - and appear to be dealing with 'abstractions of abstractions' - and you dont get that you dont get the difference.

[JackRiddler]

So a couple of questions and a couple of opinions is a screed?

You're right.

screed |skrēd|
noun
1 a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious.

You win: Your comment wasn't long, merely tedious.

I fail to see that you made a point worth addressing in your first post, other than insulting people (not me, at that point) without evidentiary basis (since you don't know them or what they do) for being poseurs and sucker-slaves to the distractions and delusions of the Internet, which would have to mean they were unlike your enlightened, activated worthiness. This sounds like the definition of condescension to me, and thus an invitation for me to note the absurd reflexivity of your comments.

But we can skip the tit-for-tat part, at least until you've undergone your Charles Atlas training, since that's apparently how I make you feel. Okay?

.

[lupercal]

Oh, man. Nothing says "Andrew Breitbart" like:

"The Palestinians have refused to continue talking while Israel builds on land they want for a future state."

I mean, it's phrasing like that that separates the right-wing totalitarian apparatchiks from the useful idiots, chattering classes, and assorted other propagators of news to a predominantly American readership these days.

C2W, it's great to see you here and your comments are welcome, but you know this is a wire story right, and Breitbart is just an aggregator? It's from Agence France-Presse and says it right on there (AFP). Were you thinking it's from that other AFP? Anyhow I thought I'd mention it because I did check out the Breitbart site before posting this story as I couldn't find it elsewhere and it looked to me to be clean, like a portal site for the small business market. In any case Andrew Breitbart didn't write this article or comment on it or even edit it, and has this warning directly below it:

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.

The article is from last month by the way. Anyway your points are all well taken though I don't see how they change the substance of either story. Mubarak opened Rafah and objected to Netanyahu's plans for another campaign against Gaza and neither fact seems to be in dispute.

[lupercal]

Egypt is not like that - you are conflating things which deserve, for the integrity of each, to be kept separate.

And you know this how? From watching your TV?

You are ignoring the direct sensory information of what is happening in Egypt

Uh, were you there? TV is not real Searcher, not even close. It's a manufactured reality and as for overcompensating, no I don't think so, because my analysis is based on well-established patterns of spook behavior which you could easily make yourself aware of if you can ever unglue yourself from the telly. Start by googling Operation Ajax.

[compared2what?]

Oh, man. Nothing says "Andrew Breitbart" like:

"The Palestinians have refused to continue talking while Israel builds on land they want for a future state."

I mean, it's phrasing like that that separates the right-wing totalitarian apparatchiks from the useful idiots, chattering classes, and assorted other propagators of news to a predominantly American readership these days.

C2W, it's great to see you here and your comments are welcome, but you know this is a wire story right, and Breitbart is just an aggregator? It's from Agence France-Presse and says it right on there (AFP). Were you thinking it's from that other AFP? Anyhow I thought I'd mention it because I did check out the Breitbart site before posting this story as I couldn't find it elsewhere and it looked to me to be clean, like a portal site for the small business market. In any case Andrew Breitbart didn't write this article or comment on it or even edit it, and has this warning directly below it:

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.

My apologies. I wasn't thinking.

The article is from last month by the way. Anyway your points are all well taken though I don't see how they change the substance of either story. Mubarak opened Rafah and objected to Netanyahu's plans for another campaign against Gaza and neither fact seems to be in dispute.

I guess I wasn't as clear as I meant to be in that case. Mubarak did not open Rafah. And that's not in dispute.

For real, luper. There are articles from Rafah shortly after he claimed to have opened it at which the people running the crossing state quite unambiguously that it's not any more open than it ever was. Please do yourself a favor and research the point yourself. You have a very mistaken impression of it.

I don't know that Bibi even has a plan for another campaign in Gaza, though he might. However, if he did and Mubarak objected to it, as I said: That would have been him and the entire American establishment objecting. And rightly fucking so, obviously.

All best.

[lupercal]

You might look more closely at what the Rafah crossing ever really consisted of before you become compelled. At it's peak, Rafah was open for two days a week, and allowed a few hundred to come through while thousands stood wishing.

Not so. To borrow your preferred technique, Google "Egypt opens Rafah crossing for three days" and you will get 21,700 results spread over the last few years. Here's a typical one:

Rafah crossing to open 3 days
Published Saturday 08/05/2010 (updated) 09/05/2010 09:53

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Gaza's sole border crossing with Egypt will open in both directions Saturday until Monday, authorities said.

Officials say they hope the crossing will remain open an additional two days to alleviate pressure at the terminal.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=282739

Why didn't Egypt open the border for more than three days at a stretch? The answer is "a U.S.-brokered agreement" requiring Israeli monitors to be present, which Israel refused to send or by other accounts Hamas refused to allow:

A U.S.-brokered agreement, signed in 2005 when Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza, stresses that the crossing can operate regularly only when pro-Abbas forces and European Union ( EU) monitors be present. However, Egypt opens the crossing from time to time before humanitarian cases and people who had got security clearance from Egyptian authorities.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 296376.htm

So while the crossing was not open 24/7, Mubarak did open it frequently, apparently in violation of his "international" treaty obligations.

I don't know that Bibi even has a plan for another campaign in Gaza, though he might.

Now you know. If you have reason to believe that the meeting reported in the article didn't take place or that Mubarak didn't make the remarks attributed to him, fine, but otherwise the facts are not in dispute, as I said above, n'est-ce pas?

[DoYouEverWonder]

Oh my, the Egyptians might have opened the Rafah border for three whole days. Our overlords are so kind. In the meantime, US/Israel has made sure the Middle East was a military controlled prison camp (ah, the Nazis always loved cheap labor) for decades.

[Belligerent Savant]

.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/1 ... 22520.html


Fred Armisen returned to Weekend Update as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on last night's "SNL," and this time the joke was directed as much at the United States government as it was at the recently resigned dictator.

After explaining to anchor Seth Meyers how bittersweet it was for him to step down from office and how much his people were going to miss him, he went on to insist that he take the opportunity to thank the American people:

America, thank you. You propped up my regime for over 30 years. I could never have done it without all of your money and support and tear gas. You know what they say, Seth, behind every horrible dictator is an enabling super power. America, you are the wind beneath my wings.