via ReadWriteWeb: Now, for [Al Jazeera]’s coverage of the Egyptian uprising, it has released photographs via Flickr and video on a CC license.
Some remarkable stuff at the link. Like this of a TV camera and an injured but unbowed protester.
LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
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Whatever Works 
The people protesting are religious nuts, so the question is: will anything good come from all of this?
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Ben, I don’t think they’re religious. Not to say the religious won’t hijack this revolution to their own purposes. But I’ve been listening to and reading knowledgeable people – Richard Engle, Peter Bergen, Robin Wright – all of them say this is not religious – it’s about prices, jobs, and lack of freedom under Murbarak. We’ll see where it goes. But it feels a lot more like Poland etc than like Iran.
I’m also hearing that while the Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt and was very radicalized, they’ve pretty much exported the radical part of themselves and are – right now at least – more moderate than in the rest of the Arab world.
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Moe, you know alot more about such things than I, so maybe you can explain something to me that is going over my head….
I really do not understand why on earth America is supporting of Mubarak.
Yes, Egypt is our biggest ally in the region, and tolerant of Israel, blah blah…
But do these points justify supporting a dictator who denies his nation the right to organize and challenge his rule through legal means?
Perhaps I am missing something – but it all seems a tad hypocritical. I mean, if a man whose interests conflicted with our own was doing likewise in another land – then we would be boldly denouncing him for the very same crimes perpetrated by Mubarak.
Obama, however, is beating around the bush. How will we ever gain face in the arab world – or world period – if we base our political endorsements not on morality but with only american interests in mind?
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Sam, sadly our country has ALWAYS supported dictators and tyrannical regimes. Pinochet in Chile. The Shah in Iran. Batista in Cuba. So so many others. For many years we supported Saddam in Iraq; for the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war we supplied Saddam’s weapons. It’s an old old story with us.
And of course, all nations base their actions and make their alliances based entirely on self interest. We can advocate for democracy and moderation – and we do, with some success – but when the rubber hits the road, we do whatever we need to for ourselves.
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That is true, I suppose. It just seems so selfish and cronyistic.
I would not be surprised if Egypt becomes another Iran.
And with that said, let me ask you a question, Moe…
Why are we so concerned with Israel, besides the fact that the jews use their status in american politics and big business to pull our strings in that direction?
Yes, I know about the radical christians,, but seriously…
Isn’t it obvious that something is seriously wrong here?
Consider this:
WW1, Germany is winning. The jewish people from inside germany go and have a secret meeting with the english (this is documented), and tell the english that they will use their powers abroad to draw America into the war, if in return the english promise them Palestine (as if it was england’s to give).
The English agree – America comes into the war – Germany goes down.
Now, 1917 – the treaty of versailles – Germany learns of this betrayal for the first time. But even then, the jews go unharmed in Germany – even though the people were at that point ticked at them.
Okay, Hitler rises to power – and brings Germany up from the ashes of versailles. He abandons the gold standard – and immediately the backlash of international jews/bankers begin. They boycott German goods – Germany risks losing it’s entire import/export business. Hitler was up to that point Time Man of the Year. But he made a bad mistake in comprising jewish money.
When Germany begins to take back territories (that was stolen at versailles, and rightfully Germany’s!), they jews use their influence and call Hitler and conquerer and warmonger!!!
Now. It was wrong to evacuate the jews from Germany in such a vile manner – and nothing excuses it.
However… Hitler realized that having people within, whose loyalities lie ELSEWHERE, would not be a very good idea – especially in light of the fact that a new war had been forced on Germany.
Now – like I said – no excuse for the Holocaust.
But my point is, we have people in America whose interests lie elsewhere – namely in Gold and Silver. Greedy Corporations, whose loyalities lie not with the american workers, but in their own pockets.
We have religious people whose loyalties lie not in America, nor the State, but in their own religious interests – whether jew, christian, muslim, etc.
Our support of this war mongering Nation of Israel makes no sense at all – until you look at who is behind the power structure here in our country.
Loyalties that lie outside of ourselves. It breeds foreign entanglements – greed – corruption.
This is why we support Mubarak.
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You speak of the Jews as if they are some evil, monolithic conspiracy. Not true, most Jews are regular folk like you and me, and you’d be surprised at how many dissaprove of some Israeli policies and of the arrogant Zionists that claim to stand for them.
It is speculated (although this cannot ever be truly known) that had the United States never entered WW1, the Entente and the Central Powers would likely have continued to fight until social, economic, and political exhaustion, and either there would have been widespread revolution or simply unrest for a few years. I don’t know what propoganda the US education system is feeding you guys these days, but there was greater liklihood that the war would have ended in stalemate rather than German victory. Remember that there were significant powers outside Europe involved in the conflict, both state actors and non-state actors.
Also, the whole “power-behind the throne” conspiracy is overblown: yes, there are unscrupulous groups that have a tremendous and undue level of influence on our governments, and foreign policy is greatly (and normally to terrible effect) affected by groups whose allegiance is not ours, but to say that the government is under the absolute, complete control of these groups strikes me as paranoia.
Just because you do not believe in the offical story, doesn’t mean you are a free thinker. If you lap up everything that Alex Jones and the likes of him say as absolute truth, then you are just as brainwashed as the fools that take every word of the corporate media as the word of God.
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Also, the accustation that all of de Jooz were traitors to Germany and without allegience is a historical falsehood, and was merely used by the ruling orders of Germany (whether Imperial or Nazi) to provide Germans with a domestic scapegoat upon whom to demonize and whip up mass support. It was the tyrants’ classic game of devide and conquer:
http://www.germanjewishsoldiers.com/introduction.php
http://www.juden-in-bamberg.de/Letter_from_bamberg/Letter_17/lfb17_L.htm
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No – not all jews were traitors to Germany. In fact, Himmler of all people acknowledged this in a secret meeting – something about how every german has his one good jew.
That is not my point. To hell with the nazi scum for killing jews – I myself have german and jewish ancestry.
My point is – Sometimes pluralism within a society must be purged for the greater good.
When it comes to a point when we do not even know the difference between the zionist interests and american interests – all because the two have became fused to the detriment of a brainwashed society – then it becomes time to clean house, human decency be damned!
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How does the fact that there are a few bad apples that just happen to be Jewish make it neccessary to reject pluralism?
Do you honestly think that the Zionist interest is in anyone’s interest, even Israel’s? Think about it: these people would prefer to cram all Jews in the world into a tiny blot of contested land, and surround them with perpetually hostile enemies (by refusing to make peace with them and saddle their children with a historical burden). Get rid of the sick Zionist bastards, for sure. But don’t be condemning all Jews for the actions of a sick twisted few.
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Sam, I’ve been trying to find time to address this post properly, but I haven’t yet and don’t want to let too much time go by. The reading of history you describe here is not correct. Most of it sounds like it’s lifted straight out of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”.
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903. The text was translated into several languages and widely disseminated in the early part of the twentieth century. Henry Ford published the text in The International Jew, and it was widely distributed in the United States. In 1921, a series of articles printed in The Times revealed that the text was a fraud, and some of the material was plagiarized from earlier works of political satire unrelated to Jews. The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late 19th-century meeting of Jewish leaders discussing their goal of global Jewish hegemony. Their proposals to engender such include subverting the morals of the Gentile world, controlling the world’s economies, and controlling the press. The Protocols is still widely available today on the Internet and in print in numerous languages.”
That’s from the wikipedia entry. You should read it all, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocols_of_the_elders_of_zion
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We support Mubarak not because it is in the interest of America – but because it is in the interest of a select few americans.
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I found it interesting today that MSNBC was quoting Wikileaks for news about the situation.
Now protests in Washington, NYC, and London…!
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Egypt has shut down internet and cell towers, now they’ve shut down Al Jazeera. I think those actions guarantee the eventual success of hte protestors.
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marylee: They say wikileaks was instrumental in the Tunesia uprising. Assange is to be on 60 Minutes tonight.
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Ms. Holland,
If I may, I would like to add to your explanation because I believe you were incomplete. You said that we have supported dictators for our own self interest, but you never explained what that self interest was . That self interest in many cases was the dictator being anti communist. During the cold war that was very important as we co0mpeted with the Soviets for influence.
In Mubarek’s case it was because he brutally suppressed radical Islamists. Of course he brutally suppressed the rest of his population as well. It has turned out that he did a better job on his middle class than he ever did with Muslim Fundamentalism. The radicals are actually fairly powerful in Egypt.
The number of Arab leaders who were friendly to US interests being somewhat limited, Mubarek was tolerated. President Bush tried to push Mubarek on making human rights reforms . The professionals in the State Department told Bush to cool it because they said Arabs can’t really handle democracy.
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Are you sure that it is purely ideological? The news I have read from Egypt seems to portray a frustration with the Mubarek government’s failure to address the problems of extreme poverty and feeling that the government and their favoured groups are profitting spectacularly while the vast majority of Egypt continues to get poorer, relatively speaking. This outrage is similar to Tunisia, and probably in most Arab states.
“The number of Arab leaders who were friendly to US interests being somewhat limited, Mubarek was tolerated. President Bush tried to push Mubarek on making human rights reforms . The professionals in the State Department told Bush to cool it because they said Arabs can’t really handle democracy.”
So we Westerners are morally free, even obliged, to interfere in the affairs of other nations and societies as we see fit to secure our interests? Arrogance at its finest, my friend.
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Alan, you are saying we had good reasons to support dictators. I don’t dispute the reasons, I do dispute whether they were ‘good’ or not. We perceived that support to be in our own interest. That doesn’t make our decisions good or bad so much as it makes me question what we call our ‘interests’.
For example, in the Middle East, were it not for our desire for oil, we’d not even be involved in that part of the world. We really did need it in the beginning, but our careless use of oil after WWII meant we would do anything ot have enough of it even in peacetime.
Our Cold War was real and fought entirely with ‘proxies’ which meant supporting dictators because we determined brutality was better than socialism. Cuba turned to us during the revolution for help. We wouldn’t give it because we supported Batista. So Fidel turned ot the USSR which was dying to get involved. And look where that took matters.
And had we not created a coup unseating the democratcially elected and Westernized Iranian president Mossadek because we perceived him to be ‘left leaning’, Iran would probably had been fully Western and a strong ally all these years. Cerrtainly the Iranian (Islamist) revolution of 1979 would never have happened. Stuff comes back to bite us.
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By the way, Alan, I am not disputing the truth of the reasons you listed. Indeed we supported Mubarek because he controlled his radicals. Just like we supported Iraq because they held back Iran after 1979.
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D.D.D. ,
” So we Westerners are morally free, even obliged, to interfere in the affairs of other nations and societies as we see fit to secure our interests? Arrogance at its finest, my friend. ”
Arrogance ?? More like reality . Interference or engagement ? We are in the middle east, reality. Muslim Fundamentalists , who would cut your throat in a heartbeat because you are not them, interfere all the time. Our good friends in Iran interfere all of the time . You sound like a 1930s isolationist.
” Are you sure that it is purely ideological? The news I have read from Egypt seems to portray a frustration with the Mubarek government’s failure to address the problems of extreme poverty and feeling that the government and their favoured groups are profitting spectacularly while the vast majority of Egypt continues to get poorer, relatively speaking. This outrage is similar to Tunisia, and probably in most Arab states. ”
Of course it is not only ideological. On another post I mentioned the global wheat shortage. The severe drought last summer in Russia and the current floods in Australia ( Global Freaking Warming ), have caused grain prices, mainly wheat to spike. Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer. When your life already sucks, food shortages will push you over the edge.
The current food shortages will stress test governments all over the place. As a food exporter, we can help. If we stopped moonshining our corn crop into ethanol , there would at least be more corn on the world markets.
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[We are in the middle east, reality. Muslim Fundamentalists , who would cut your throat in a heartbeat because you are not them, interfere all the time. ]
Um Alan? It’s their home. Not ours.
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Congratulations, Moe.
I’ve never had a real live Dolchstoss conspiracy theorist and Protocols of the Elders of Zion believer in my comments before.
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We aim high here desertscope!
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