Israel will need to boost military spending and may seek an additional $20 billion in U.S. security assistance to help it manage potential threats stemming from popular upheavals in the Arab world, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday.
Still, he said Israel shouldn’t fear changes in the region or the risk of offering bold concessions in a renewed bid to achieve peace with the Palestinians.
“It’s a historic earthquake…a movement in the right direction, quite inspired,” Mr. Barak said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, surveying the youthful revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and the Gulf. “It’s a movement of the Arab societies toward modernity.”
In the short term, however, Israel worries that adversaries Iran and Syria “might be the last to feel the heat” of regional unrest, he said, and that public pressure could push new leaders in Egypt away from that country’s 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state.
“The issue of qualitative military aid for Israel becomes more essential for us, and I believe also more essential for you,” said Mr. Barak, a former prime minister. “It might be wise to invest another $20 billion to upgrade the security of Israel for the next generation or so….A strong, responsible Israel can become a stabilizer in such a turbulent region.”
What Egyptians have termed their “revolution” is now beginning to look like one. Seen from afar, it appears that the military rulers have struggled successfully to hold most state institutions intact and slow the pace of change, but the Egyptian political order is still being fundamentally rewritten. The core constitutional demands of a diverse opposition-for freer and more democratic politics-are not being silenced or diverted.
Yet if Egyptians will find their political system freer, it may not be in a fully liberal sense. There is already far greater pluralism and greater freedom of both expression and organization. Such trends are likely to entrench themselves more deeply. But from a purely institutional perspective, something else seems to be happening as well: a variety of strong actors are escaping from presidential control and finding their own voices. Egypt was always a state of strong institutions–when seen from the bottom up. From the top down, all those institutions have been dominated by a strong presidency. Labor unions, professional associations, parts of the judiciary, the parliament, large parts of the press, the military, the security apparatus, the ruling party, and even legal opposition parties have all been silenced, brought to heel, or remolded to serve presidential will. With the presidency vacant and Egypt now ruled by a military committee that governs by Facebook posts and short communiqués, all those institutions are now struggling to act on their own. And leaders within those bodies too associated with the old ways are coming under intense pressure and many may be tossed out. In many of Egypt’s institutions, mini-revolutions seem to be brewing against leaders who had been co-opted into cravenly serving the president.
The emerging outcome of Egypt’s revolution thus might be as much syndicalist as liberal. “Syndicalism” is a dimly remembered term at best, referring to a way of organizing society in strong and autonomous (generally class-based) constituencies; it was a leftist ideology that served as an alternative to communism and sometimes merged with anarchism. But Egypt’s syndicalism-as it is emerging-is neither fully leftist nor entirely class based. It is anything but anarchic. And its driving force is not a nineteenth century European ideology but a twenty-first century sense that those who have exercised political and economic power have done so only in their own personal interests; this is seen as a time to make them responsive instead to the needs of various groups in society.
In Riyadh the mood is tense; everyone is on edge wondering what will happen on Friday – the date the Saudi people have chosen for their revolution. The days building up to Friday so far have not been as reassuring as one would like.
On 4 March, there were protests in the eastern region and a smaller protest here in Riyadh. The protests in the eastern region were mainly to call for the release of Sheikh Tawfiq al-Amer, who had been detained after giving a sermon calling for a constitutional monarchy.
The protest in Riyadh was started by a young Sunni man, Mohammed al-Wadani, who had uploaded a YouTube video a few days before, explaining why the monarchy has to fall. After the protests, 26 people were detained in the eastern region and al-Wadani was taken in soon after he held up his sign near a major mosque in Riyadh.
It’s not just the people who are on edge; apparently the government is also taking this upcoming Friday seriously. Surprisingly, Sheikh Amer was released on Sunday, while usually political detentions take much longer.
All this week, government agencies have been issuing statements banning protests. First it was the interior ministry that promised to take all measures necessary to prevent protests. Then the highest religious establishment, the Council of Senior Clerics, deemed protests and petitions as un-Islamic. The Shura Council, our government-appointed pretend-parliament, also threw its weight behind the interior ministry’s ban and the religious decree of prohibition. But you can’t blame the clerics or the Shura for making these statements – the status quo is what’s keeping them in power and comfortable.
Aziz Meshiea, a Libyan reader of War in Context writes on his blog:
Qaddafi’s support inside the country is so wafer-thin and dependent on his ability to show continued strength in suppressing any resistance, is a pretty well understood fact inside the country.
As a Libyan myself, I see anti-interventionist essays and it truly irritates me. So here is a short list of what would be welcomed by Libyan’s trying to defeat Qaddafi.
1. A no-fly zone would NOT give Qaddafi more support but LESS. The mere idea that Western force will aid rebels will increase the rate at which his “followers” will defect to what they see as the winning side. The same can be said for targeted bombings, a tactic already called for by leaders of the rebel army.
2. As the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/opinion/05Gonzales.html) recently suggested communications for the rebels can be boosted by flying signal re-routers an boosters allowing the rebels to coordinate attacks and defense against the better equipped Government forces.
3. Similar to #2, jamming Government military communications would also be feasible and can be done from many miles away effectively blinding the fixed-wing forces and potentially handicapping the attack coordination of the government forces
4. Jam and disable all state media broadcasts especially but not limited to Libyan State TV. This would seriously hamper Qaddafi’s effort to demoralize the people in Tripoli who, like their brothers and sisters outside, would vastly prefer a nation without Qaddafi within it. This has the added advantage of silencing the Idiot Dictator.
None of the above suggestions would likely cost a single foreign life, would not involve foreign intervention on the ground and would greatly improve relations between the New Arab world and the West.
How anyone can argue [for] a hands-off approach in Libya, where the side of despotism is vastly better equipped and vastly more ruthless than any other Arab regime, is beyond me.
Reuters reports Gaddafi may be looking for a way out:
Al Jazeera said Gaddafi had proposed to Libyan rebels to hold a meeting of parliament to pave the way for him to step down with certain guarantees.
It said Gaddafi made the proposal to the interim council, which speaks for mostly eastern areas controlled by his opponents. It quoted sources in the council as saying Gaddafi wanted guarantees of personal safety for him and his family and a pledge that they not be put on trial.
Al Jazeera said sources from the council told its correspondent in Benghazi that the offer was rejected because it would have amounted to an “honorable” exit for Gaddafi and would offend his victims.
The London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat and the daily al-Bayan, based in the United Arab Emirates, also cited unnamed sources as saying Gaddafi was looking for an agreement.
A source close to the council told Reuters he had heard that “one formula being proposed by the other side would see Gaddafi hand power to the head of parliament and leave the country with a certain guaranteed sum of money.”
“I was told that this issue of money is a serious obstacle from the national council’s point of view,” he said, adding that his information came from a single source close to the council.
Essam Gheriani, a media officer for the council, said: “No such offer has been put to the council as far as I am aware.”
Long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi said Monday in an interview with TV network France 24 that his violent crackdown on opposition protesters is akin to Israel’s efforts to defend itself from extremism during its 2009 Gaza war against Hamas.
Libya has come under international scrutiny in recent weeks, in response to violent clashes between the Libyan military and anti-Gadhafi rebels, confrontations which caused what are estimated to be hundreds of deaths.
On Monday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dispatched a team to Tripoli to assess the humanitarian situation in the wake of the Libyan crisis, criticizing the Libya military’s “disproportionate use of force.”
Speaking with France 24 later Monday, however, Gadhafi defended his military’s right to oppress rebel activity, comparing his crackdown to Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2009, saying that “even the Israelis in Gaza, when they moved into the Gaza strip, they moved in with tanks to fight such extremists.”
The provisional government in Benghazi says it needs time and reinforcements but insists that it is making progress nonetheless. To oversee the ramshackle force, the newly formed National Council appointed a Defense Minister, Omar Hariri, a former general who led an unsuccessful revolt against Gaddafi in 1975. Military officers in Benghazi says Hariri’s appointment will signal a shift to a more organized fighting force.
For the moment, the motley army has an overwhelming, undisciplined spirit in the place of military organization. The young men whoop and yell and set off celebratory gunfire with the slightest excuse. At a checkpoint in Brega on March 4, a blast of heavy machine-gun fire shattered the desert silence even as some men tried to restrain the exuberance of their younger compatriots. Wanis Kilani, an engineer turned volunteer fighter, shakes his head at the chaos. “So much ‘Blah blah blah,’ ” he says. “You know, we can’t prevent them from coming here because they all want to help — even the crazy, the young, even sick people want to help.” He explains, mostly to himself, that it’s a people’s army coming together. “We are not rebels,” he says. “We are mujahedin.”
The word is a loaded one for Westerners, a reminder of the holy warriors of Afghanistan who turned from fighting the Soviet Union to aiding Osama bin Laden. But it bears weight in liberated east Libya as well. Islamic scholars here have said that pious Muslim men in particular were persecuted under Gaddafi, and they may yet be a vocal and determined force in the fight to bring down the dictator. “He tried to stop people from going to dawn prayer because people who do this are very devout,” says Sheik Abdel Hamid Ma’toub, a religious leader in Benghazi. “He knows that the most dangerous people in Libya are those who go to dawn prayers.” That’s because, he says, the men who pray fear God, not Gaddafi.
Caught on open mic: Petraeus and Gates joke about attacking Libya
The Obama administration, which famously pledged to be the most transparent in American history, is pursuing an unexpectedly aggressive legal offensive against federal workers who leak secret information to expose wrongdoing, highlight national security threats or pursue a personal agenda.
In just over two years since President Barack Obama took office, prosecutors have filed criminal charges in five separate cases involving unauthorized distribution of classified national security information to the media. And the government is now mulling what would be the most high-profile case of them all – prosecuting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
That’s a sharp break from recent history, when the U.S. government brought such cases on three occasions in roughly 40 years.
The government insists it’s only pursuing individuals who act with reckless disregard for national security, and that it has an obligation to protect the nation’s most sensitive secrets from being revealed. Anyone seeking to expose malfeasance has ample opportunity to do so through proper channels, government lawyers say.
But legal experts and good-government advocates say the hard-line approach to leaks has a chilling effect on whistleblowers, who fear harsh legal reprisals if they dare to speak up.
Not only that, these advocates say, it runs counter to Obama’s pledges of openness by making it a crime to shine a light on the inner workings of government – especially when there are measures that could protect the nation’s interests without hauling journalists into court and government officials off to jail.
President Obama reversed his two-year-old order halting new military charges against detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Monday, permitting a resumption of military trials under rules he said provide adequate rights for defendants but implicitly admitting the failure for now of his pledge to close the prison camp.
Mr. Obama said in a statement he remains committed to closing Guantánamo some day and to charging some terrorist suspects in civilian criminal courts, as occurred throughout the administration of George W. Bush administration and has continued under Mr. Obama. But Congress has blocked the transfer of prisoners from Guantánamo to the United States for trial, undermining at least for the time being the administration’s plan to hold civilian trials for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, and other accused terrorists.
An executive order signed by the president on Monday sets out new rules requiring a review of all detainees’ status within a year and every three years after that to determine whether they remain a threat to Americans. The order also requires compliance with the Geneva Conventions and the international treaty that bans torture and inhumane treatment.
Civil liberties advocates, who had been expecting the moves since they were forecast in an article in The New York Times in January, expressed deeply mixed feelings about the new policies. On the positive side, some said that the executive order may permit detainees imprisoned for years without trial to have their cases heard and potentially settled by plea agreement. In addition, the executive order avoids enshrining a system of indefinite detention in law and is restricted to the 172 prisoners currently held at Guantánamo.
But Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, said that despite those factors, the continuation of detention at Guantánamo and military commissions more than two years after Mr. Obama took office is a disappointment.
“This is a step down the road toward institutionalizing a preventive detention regime,” Ms. Massimino said. “People in the Mideast are looking to establish new rules for their own societies, and this sends a mixed message at best.”
Storming Egypt State Security
The video speaks for itself. We stormed into the notorious political police main HQ in Cairo after the authorities didn’t dismantle the apparatus. We did it ourselves.
The end of the video shows an former Islamist detainee who discovered an electric torture tool explaining how he was tortured on it.
Glory to the martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution. (Mohamed Abdelfattah)
Hamas makes first contact with new Egyptian leaders
Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Monday contacted Egypt’s new leadership for the first time since a popular revolt toppled Hosni Mubarak from power last month, a statement from the Islamist group said.
Hamas leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh telephoned Egypt’s new Prime Minister Essam Sharaf to congratulate him on his post and urged him to help lift an Israeli blockade of the coastal territory, a statement from Haniyeh’s office said.
Gaza shares a border with Israel and Egypt. Both countries have limited the movement of people and goods into and from Gaza since Hamas seized the territory in 2007, a policy which has crippled the enclave’s economic growth. (Reuters)
West Bank wind of change
The PLO leadership called for a Day of Rage across the occupied territories on 25 February, following the US veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution one week earlier condemning Israel’s continued settlement building. It sought thereby to deflect growing discontent at the Palestinian Authority (PA) and direct indignation at the US for protecting Israel. Though Hamas also condemned the veto, Gaza remained calm.
In Hebron, a thousand turned out to protest against the Jewish settlements in the heart of the city, clashing with Israeli soldiers (IDF); as the protests spread, the PA sent in their riot police to help the IDF. In Ramallah, the PA failed to mobilise support for their Day of Rage. A day earlier, Palestinian youth had already taken to its streets, in a separate protest, to demand national unity between the PA and Hamas. Scuffles broke out between supporters of PA president Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinians demanding an end to the Oslo accords.
After the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia fell, the PA had moved quickly to counter the spreading wave of people power. Al-Jazeera’s release of the leaked “Palestine papers” in January, exposing a relationship between the Palestinian leadership and Israel based on concessions to, and collusion with, the occupation, had already undermined PA legitimacy. The PA watched nervously as Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak was forced from office, and adopted a policy of containment. The chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat resigned, Abbas declared there would be presidential and legislative elections by September, and prime minister Salam Fayyad dissolved his cabinet.
According to PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib, Erekat’s departure was in response to the Palestine papers, not the events in Egypt. Khatib explained that there was a vast difference between the Palestinian situation and the rest of the region: “The cabinet reshuffle was overdue but the events in Egypt sped it up. Here it’s not the same as elsewhere; there is a democratic process that has been disrupted by occupation and the internal division” between competing authorities in the West Bank and Gaza.
Though the call for elections suggests the PA’s concern to move with the winds of change, Khatib said it had other intentions: “President Abbas didn’t imagine elections in the West Bank without Gaza. For elections to happen in Gaza, it would require national unity, and I think the chances of that are very low.” The call for elections – a show of intent, not a decree – was “an attempt by the PLO to put pressure on Hamas to go ahead and allow elections in Gaza”. (Joseph Dana and Jesse Rosenfeld)
A few short weeks on, utopic expectations of a sweeping break with the old regime are colliding with concerns that the country is edging towards political and economic crisis.
“There’s a big discussion underway between those that are concerned that genuine revolution be realised, and those that are really concerned that the power vacuum will lead to chaos,” says Michael Willis, a lecturer at Oxford University’s School of Oriental Studies.
Tunisians are split into two general camps: what might be called the ‘idealists,’ who refuse to rest until every last relic of the old regime has been stripped away, and the ‘realists” who fear that, however imperfect and in need of reform the existing institutions may be, instability and lack of governance could open the way for either the military or the barely-ousted regime to take power.
The idealist group includes a tactical alliance of Islamists, trade unionist and far-left groups, while the reformers include centre-left opposition parties, conservatives, former allies of Ben Ali and independents who have stepped into the political sphere for the first time.
Until the deadlock between the two sides is bridged, the country is floating in a state of limbo.
Lurking in the shadows, both groups are quick to say, are Ben Ali loyalists poised to profit from any ambiguity to re-establish their political might. Each side accuses the other of being infiltrated by former members of the recently disbanded RCD (Constitutional Democratic Rally) party. (Al Jazeera)
[L]iberal interventionists are highly selective in their moral outrage, and … suffer from a “Saving-Private-Ryan” complex – they will intervene to save people with whom they identify, people on their side. But if the civilians happen to be on other the side of their tribal divide, they become silent.
Indeed. None of those now calling for a no-fly zone over Libya have called for a no-fly zone over Gaza. The difference clearly hinges on whether one has a greater affiliation with those dropping the bombs or those getting bombed.
But does this shed any light on the question of whether a no-fly zone should be enforced over Libya? Not really.
If we reduce such questions to questions of affiliation then all we will ever do is look to see where “my people” stand. If enough progressives start calling for a no-fly zone, then suddenly it becomes the right thing. But if its advocates are all neocons or neo-liberals, then it can’t be right.
This isn’t analysis — it’s politics reduced to the expression of allegiance.
So, turning back to the question of a no-fly zone, let’s forget about whether Charles Krauthammer or Sarah Palin think it’s a good idea, and let’s at least expose the array of questions embedded in what is falsely being presented as a single question. The question is not simply, do you favor or oppose a no-fly zone being imposed over Libya?
The first question is: who, if anyone, has the capability to effectively impose a no-fly zone?
I can’t give an authoritative answer to that question, but I would assume that a combined NATO force would have the capacity — though I might be wrong, given the commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Arab League now backs a no-fly zone. If some of its members also contributed forces, this might diminish the perception that a no-fly zone was strictly a Western intervention.
The second question is: would a no-fly zone have a desirable impact on the civil war?
So far, Gaddafi does not seem to have relied heavily on his ability to bomb or fire missiles on his opponents, so even if a no-fly zone was already in place, it’s not clear that it would have had much impact on the fight thus far. Even so, if Benghazi ends up getting flattened, no one will be served by the hindsight that a no-fly zone could have prevented that from happening.
The third question is: on whose authority could a no-fly zone be implemented?
This can be viewed as a legal question but it’s really a question of political legitimacy.
As with so many good intentions, there is a narcissistic current underlying many of the current calls for intervention:
the perceived need that “we must do something” even when it’s not clear that the proposed course of action can be implemented or will be effective
the need to promote the image of the United States as a force for good in the world
the need to show the world that the US is capable of limiting the power of tyrants
the need for prominent figures to assume a proactive political posture in order to sharpen the contrast with their political opponents
None of these serves well as a lens for focusing on the actual needs of the Libyan people.
In an editorial, The Guardian notes:
Some Libyan rebels have called for a no-fly zone, but until now – and this may change – the mood of the Libyan uprising is that this is their fight and their fight alone. Quite apart from the unwarranted legitimacy a bombing campaign would (once again) confer on the Libyan leader among his rump support in Tripoli and the damage it would do to attempts to split his camp, a major western military intervention could have unforeseen political consequences for the very forces it would be designed to support. A no-fly zone saved lives in Kurdish northern Iraq, but failed to protect the Shias in the south under Saddam Hussein. The moral strength of the Libyan rebels and their political claim to represent the true voice of the people both rest partly on the fact that, like the Egyptians and the Tunisians, they have come this far alone. The revolt is theirs, they are no one else’s proxy, and the struggle is about ending tyranny rather than searching for new masters. Even if Gaddafi’s forces succeed in checking the advance of rebel forces, and the civil war becomes protracted, it is the home-grown nature of this revolt that contains the ultimate seeds of the destruction of Gaddafi’s regime. Thus far, it is Gaddafi and his sons who have had to import hired guns from abroad.
The need to maintain a self-reliant revolution can be overstated. I doubt that any of the weaponry of any value that either side is using right now was manufactured in Libya. This is a fight engaging Libyan hands and hearts but using foreign arms. What those outside the fight must attend to above all else is the Libyan voice.
President Obama has already said that Muammar Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy as Libya’s leader, so an important and necessary precursor to the whole debate about providing military or non-military assistance to Libya’s revolutionaries, is formal recognition of their leadership: the Interim National Transitional Council in Benghazi.
The Council has formed an executive team headed by Dr Mahmoud Jebril Ibrahim El-Werfali and Dr Ali Aziz Al-Eisawi who will represent Libya’s foreign affairs and have been delegated the authority to negotiate and communicate with all members of the international community and to seek international recognition.
The Transitional Council’s third decree dated March 5, ends: “we request from the international community to fulfil its obligations to protect the Libyan people from any further genocide and crimes against humanity without any direct military intervention on Libyan soil.”
That seems to leave open the question about whether a no-fly zone is being sought.
If Obama want to show he’s a man of action, the most decisive thing he could do right now is recognize the Transitional Council and send an official US representative to Benghazi to find out exactly what forms of assistance the revolutionaries seek and see what kinds of assistance the US and its allies might be able to provide.
As a debate continues in Washington and other Western capitals on the necessity, advisability or feasibility of some kind of foreign intervention in Libya, Britain has demonstrated why Libyans of any persuasion have good reason to question the intentions of outsiders.
After a British “diplomatic team” made up of six SAS special forces soldiers and two MI6 intelligence officers was captured four days ago, Libyan revolutionary commanders reasonably asked how they were supposed to know that their captives represented the British government and were not in fact a group of Israeli spies.
According to Guardian sources, the British intelligence and special forces unit were caught near the al-Khadra Farm Company, 18 miles (30km) south-west of Benghazi. A senior member of Benghazi’s revolutionary council said: “They were carrying espionage equipment, reconnaissance equipment, multiple passports and weapons. This is no way to conduct yourself during an uprising.
“Gaddafi is bringing in thousands of mercenaries to kill us, most are using foreign passports and how do we know who these people are?
“They say they’re British nationals and some of the passports they have are British. But the Israelis used British passports to kill that man in Dubai last year.”
The six SAS troops and two MI6 officers were seized by Libyan rebels in the eastern part of the country after arriving by helicopter four days ago. They left on HMS Cumberland, the frigate that had docked in Benghazi to evacuate British and other EU nationals as Libya lurched deeper into conflict. The diplomatic team’s departure marked a perfunctory end to a bizarre and botched venture.
“I can confirm that a small British diplomatic team has been in Benghazi,” said William Hague, the foreign secretary. “The team went to Libya to initiate contacts with the opposition. They experienced difficulties, which have now been satisfactorily resolved. They have now left Libya.”
Audio of a telephone conversation between the UK’s ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and a senior rebel leader was later leaked.
Northern suggested in the call that the SAS team had been detained due to a misunderstanding.
The rebel leader responded: “They made a big mistake, coming with a helicopter in an open area.”
Northern said: “I didn’t know how they were coming.”
Despite the failure of the mission, Hague indicated that Britain would continue to try to make contact with the opposition.
“We intend, in consultation with the opposition, to send a further team to strengthen our dialogue in due course,” he said. “This diplomatic effort is part of the UK’s wider work on Libya, including our ongoing humanitarian support. We continue to press for Gaddafi to step down and we will work with the international community to support the legitimate ambitions of the Libyan people.”
The oppositions’ volunteer forces have shown a willingness to go into battle, but lack the capacity to launch a big offensive. The fighting over the oil towns of Brega and Ras Lanuf has been over in hours and it has not been clear if regime forces tactically withdrew or were defeated. Col. Gaddafi’s forces have air superiority and are better equipped, but appear to be concentrated on regaining control of the western cities of Zawiya and Misurata, and there has been no major battle for cities in the east. The opposition has ruled out any negotiations and know that if they did give up their fight they would probably be the victims of a backlash from the regime.
What started as a popular uprising increasingly bears the hallmarks of a civil war and a country split between the opposition-controlled east and the regime’s strongholds of Tripoli, Sirte and Sabha in the south. Army, air force and navy units have defected and increasing numbers of civilians are donning looted military uniforms and taking up weapons to fight Col Gaddafi’s forces.
The opposition says that if the international community imposes a no-fly zone and launches air strikes against regime forces’ strongholds, they can win although they have repeatedly warned against the deployment of foreign ground troops, saying that would create another Iraq or Afghanistan. But Col Gaddafi has proved that he is willing to use all means to retain power and will not give up without a huge fight.
Reuters political risk correspondent, Peter Apps, reports:
Foreign powers hope threatening Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with a war crimes trial at The Hague will help drive him from office, but some worry such talk might instead leave him thinking he has no way out.
The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to refer Libya to the International Criminal Court following its crackdown on protesters. ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said on Monday attacks on civilians could be a crime against humanity and warranted a full investigation.
But — just as with previous ICC probes into Congolese warlords, Sudan’s president and Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army — there is the lingering worry that prosecutions will make compromise and finding a solution harder.
Part of the problem, experts say, is that there is simply no real way to know what impact the threat will have on Libya’s always somewhat erratic leader.
“It’s a difficult balancing act,” said Alia Brahimi, a research fellow on North Africa at the London School of Economics. “There is a risk that taking an absolute moral and legalistic approach and talking about war crimes charges simply reinforces Gaddafi’s idea that he has nowhere else to go and no option to step down. But on the flip side, it sends a strong message to those around him.”
The rush and tumult of events makes it hard, sometimes, to draw the most important general conclusions from their significance. This said, the revolutionary tidal wave, which began in Tunisia and Algeria, reached its crest in Egypt and is currently sweeping other countries such as Libya and Bahrain, offers a unique opportunity to watch how people can reshape history as they reconstruct their fates and futures. It also offers a rare scientific window to observe the birth of the new from the old and to study a moment of qualitative transformation that culminated from a long process of quantitative accumulation and that manifests the dialectical laws of social dynamics with utmost clarity.
What happened in Tunisia and then in Egypt, and what will certainly follow in other places, cannot be produced or fabricated by a political party, movement or force, domestic or otherwise. The uprisings are the product of a long cumulative evolution, lasting years, decades or perhaps even centuries in some areas, that eventually erupted into millions-strong grassroots protest movements of a magnitude unprecedented in the modern history of the Arab world, and perhaps in its entire history. Perhaps the only moment of similar size, scope and breadth is the first popular Palestinian Intifada, in its first year (1987-88). Sadly, the Oslo Accords undermined the magnificent initial results of this uprising and destroyed a historic opportunity to end the Israeli occupation. We should add that this Palestinian revolutionary moment was never sufficiently documented, first due to the differences in size and strategic importance compared to the Egyptian case, and second due to the lack of media coverage and unprecedented sophistication in communications technology that was available to Egypt today.
The events in Egypt today — as was the case in Tunisia and in all great revolutions, such as the French and Russian revolutions — epitomise what sociologists call a “revolutionary moment”. Such a moment occurs when the governed refuse to be ruled as they had been and when the rulers can no longer govern in the same manner. It is a momentous event. It is one that political parties, movements and forces, and intellectuals and spontaneous popular action can prepare for. But it is far bigger than anyone could have expected, planned for or attempted to produce. Great revolutions cannot be made. They erupt, like volcanoes, atop of the mounting force of huge and long-suppressed social and political contradictions.
It is precisely because these contradictions have been pent- up for so long, prevented from expressing themselves and unable to vent their anger, that the moment of explosion is too powerful to cap or control. Therefore, political parties and forces should be careful not overrate their own size, role and or abilities with respect to this condition. They might be akin to a midwife who is there to help with a safe delivery, but they did not produce the embryo or induce the birth, and they are not the mother (the people), or even the surrogate mother.
Rather than blaming themselves for their actions in the past, political forces should focus on their role at present, which is to ensure the safety of the birth and the health of the infant, and to safeguard it against any attempts on the part of the old order to abort, kill or stunt it. The revolution, or the eruption, may produce a newborn, but it cannot guarantee its survival and wellbeing. This is one of the tasks of an organised and aware intellectual vanguard.
The phenomenon that is unfolding before our eyes today is not restricted to Egypt; it has its roots in the state of the Arab world as a whole. That Tunisia was the first country to react is due to the fact that it was the weakest link in the chain of an interconnected order, whose profound internal contradictions, some of which are old and others of which are relatively new, have long needed to be resolved.
Michael Moore, speaking yesterday in Madison, Wisconsin:
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Right now, this afternoon, just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Let me say that again — and please, someone in the mainstream media, just repeat this fact once. We’re not greedy. We’ll be happy to just hear it once: 400 obscenely wealthy individuals — 400 little Mubaraks — most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer “bailout” of 2008, now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.
[Crowd chants: Shame! Shame! Shame!]
If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month here in Madison Wisconsin, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.
With single young men at the heart of Arab world revolt, China might seem a country ripe for uprising. But while it’s got millions of single young men, they don’t appear interested in amassing a movement for change.
China now has at least 20 million young men with no chance of ever finding a female partner, according to population experts. In short, there are too many men. Demographers predict the gender gap will grow to 35 million by 2020. The reason: China’s one-child policy and a culturally ingrained preference for male children, along with a rise in accessible ultrasound technology and sex-selective abortion, led to a staggering surplus of young men born in the 1980s and 90s.
The overall trend is beginning to change for new families, but there remains a bubble of young men that can’t be reversed or repaired. So why aren’t they rising up and causing trouble for the authoritarian regime of China? In short, they’re too busy.
Andrea den Boer, co-author of the 2005 book “Bare Branches,” an in-depth investigation of surplus males and related potential security issues in Asia, said China’s situation is different than that of Egypt, which suffers from what is know as a “youth bulge.”
China has the millions of single young men, but what it’s missing is massive unemployment and economic decline. With the world’s fastest-growing large economy, opportunity is abundant. Development has reached every corner of the country and work opportunities have begun taking tens of thousands of young Chinese men to Africa and other parts of the world.
“The bare branches in China could potentially mimic the effect of a youth bulge given the large numbers of males, but they would have to have a motivation for unrest,” said den Boer, referencing her book title, taken from a Chinese term for unmarriageable young men. “Given the relative stability of China and the continued economic growth and low unemployment in the state at present, China isn’t at risk for large scale unrest.”
Chinese officials have repeatedly stated that their country’s authoritarian but economically vibrant system has nothing to fear from the spectacle of dictatorships crumbling in distant Arab lands. Yet officials have mobilized massive resources to chase what at times seem to be little more than phantoms of unrest.
Anonymous calls on the Internet for Chinese to rally each Sunday in protest, in Beijing and other major cities, have brought out throngs of uniformed and undercover police, but few actual protesters. Foreign journalists have been harassed and, in a few cases, beaten. Human rights groups estimate that scores of dissidents and lawyers have been detained or confined to their homes.
China’s so-called “jasmine rallies” are inspired by Tunisia’s January uprising, the first in what has since become a region-wide convulsion. There is no sign that most Chinese want to follow Tunisia’s example, but the heavy-handed response of authorities has played into the hands of the mysterious organizers of China’s so-far nonexistent revolt.
Egypt and Tunisia’s unfinished revolutions
It’s been just seven weeks since President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fled Tunisia, and just over three weeks since Hosni Mubarak was unceremoniously dumped from the presidency by the Egyptian military — but both countries have already unseated their interim prime ministers. Egypt’s Ahmed Shafiq on Wednesday followed last week’s decision by Tunisia’s Mohammed Ghannouchi to step down, heeding the will of those who had taken to the streets to oust the autocrats who had appointed them. The two countries have chosen different models for their transition to democracy: Tunisia has a civilian government supported by the military; in Egypt, a Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has taken charge and has suspended the constitution. But in both countries, the interim rulers face a crisis of legitimacy, with controversy surrounding some of the personalities now in charge and their transition plans contested by many of the same forces that took to the streets to demand political change. And at the same time, they must deal with the mountain of problems left behind by the dictators, from corruption and cronyism to collapsing state authority and anemic economic performance. (Issandr El Amrani)
Whereas 70% of Saudis are under the age of 30, and their median age is 19, the Saudi cabinet ministers average 65. Some senior princes have held their jobs as ministers or provincial governors for decades; one has governed the Northern Borders Province since 1956. Whereas 40% of Saudi youths have no jobs and nearly half of those in work take home less than 3,000 riyals ($830) a month, every prince (of whom there are probably 7,000-8,000) gets a monthly stipend ranging from a few thousand dollars up to $250,000, according to an estimate in a WikiLeaks cable.
In forums where Saudis are able to express discontent, anger is rising. Out of 1,600 asked in a recent web poll to rate the credibility of statements by Saudi officials, 90% ticked “untrustworthy”. (The Economist)
Egypt security building stormed
Egyptian protesters have stormed the headquarters of Egypt’s state security force in Alexandria, with several people suffering injuries in scuffles with riot police.
Around 1,000 people encircled the State Security Agency building late on Friday, demanding that the officers inside come out or they would storm the building.
Protesters then entered into the building and scuffled with riot police before military forces intervened and took control of the building.
Demonstrators said officers inside had been shredding and burning documents that may have proven past abuses. (Al Jazeera)
Continued disappearance of Iran opposition figures raises concerns of torture
Iranian officials should immediately end the illegal, incommunicado detention of four leading opposition figures: Mehdi Karroubi; Mir Hossein Mousavi; Fatemeh Karroubi; and Zahra Rahnavard, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said today.
The Campaign warns that the incommunicado nature of their eighteen day long detention in an undisclosed location increases the likelihood that the four are facing psychological and physical torture for the purposes of extracting false confessions.
“Arbitrary and incommunicado detention in unknown locations is often associated with torture and ill treatment, and even extrajudicial execution in Iran,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the Campaign’s spokesperson.
“Time and again opposition figures in Iran are detained without contact with their families or lawyers, only to undergo abuse and appear on TV weeks later confessing to baseless charges,” he said. (International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran)
Youths ‘attack Algerian protesters’
Anti-government protesters have been attacked in the Algerian capital and an attempt made to lynch a prominent opposition politician, local media have said.
The reports said that protests organised by the National Co-ordination for Democracy and Change (CNDC) in Algiers were violently suppressed on Saturday morning.
According to the the Algerian daily newspaper El Watan, a group of youths tried to lynch Said Sadi, the president of the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD).
Dozens of youths wearing banners supporting Abdelaziz Bouteflicka, the Algerian president, forced Sadi to flee in his car after they threatened to kill him in the al-Madania neighbourhood of Algiers, the publication said. (Al Jazeera)
Qatari blogger detained
Amnesty International says a blogger and human rights activist has been detained incommunicado in Qatar and is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
The UK-based human rights group said Sultan al-Khalaifi was arrested on March 2 by around eight individuals in plain clothes, believed to be members of the security forces.
According to information received by Amnesty International, al-Khalaifi had told his wife earlier that day that state security had contacted him, asking him to report to them, but that he did not know why.
The reasons for his detentions and his whereabouts are unknown, Amnesty said in a statement on Friday, adding that it is believed he is being held in the custody of state security. (Al Jazeera)
Bahrain protesters encircle state compound
Tens of thousands of Bahraini opposition protesters encircled a sprawling government compound on Sunday, forcing the cancellation of a meeting of senior lawmakers and further escalating pressure on the ruling Al-Khalifa family to accept sweeping reforms.
Protesters began assembling before 9 a.m., taking up positions at each of the complex’s four gates and repeating opposition calls for the fall of the government. Behind the compound’s gates, hundreds of riot police stood guard, while police helicopters circled overhead.
The protest forced government ministers to abandon their weekly council meeting, where Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa coordinates policy with the heads of Bahrain’s top ministries. Opposition groups cite the resignation of the Prime Minister, who has been in his post for 41 years, as one of their top demands.
Opposition leaders said the demonstration expanded their strategy of escalating pressure on the ruling family by marching on politically sensitive locations across the capital.
“We are attacking peacefully all the institutions of state. This is really a regime change without overthrowing the monarchy,” said Ebrahim Sharif, a Sunni Muslim and former banker who heads the National Democratic Action Society, one of the groups tasked with unifying the opposition’s message. (Wall Street Journal)
“Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to fail,” said an Obama administration official. And what would cause failure? For the monarchy to be overthrown and replaced with a democracy.
From Washington’s perspective, the people in Bahrain, the other Gulf states and especially in Saudi Arabia cannot be trusted with the power to determine their own futures.
Saudi Arabia is preparing to launch a ruthless crackdown on dissent and when pro-democracy demonstrators get slaughtered, as they probably will, if President Obama has anything to say we can be sure he will go no further than issue one of his usual mealy-mouthed appeals for restraint. The House of Saud has already been given the green light to do whatever it must in the name of preserving “stability.”
The stability to which the Middle East’s rulers and their American friends now cling, is a stability whose foundation is built on graves and torture cells.
Saudi Arabia was yesterday drafting up to 10,000 security personnel into its north-eastern Shia Muslim provinces, clogging the highways into Dammam and other cities with busloads of troops in fear of next week’s “day of rage” by what is now called the “Hunayn Revolution”.
Saudi Arabia’s worst nightmare – the arrival of the new Arab awakening of rebellion and insurrection in the kingdom – is now casting its long shadow over the House of Saud. Provoked by the Shia majority uprising in the neighbouring Sunni-dominated island of Bahrain, where protesters are calling for the overthrow of the ruling al-Khalifa family, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is widely reported to have told the Bahraini authorities that if they do not crush their Shia revolt, his own forces will.
The opposition is expecting at least 20,000 Saudis to gather in Riyadh and in the Shia Muslim provinces of the north-east of the country in six days, to demand an end to corruption and, if necessary, the overthrow of the House of Saud. Saudi security forces have deployed troops and armed police across the Qatif area – where most of Saudi Arabia’s Shia Muslims live – and yesterday would-be protesters circulated photographs of armoured vehicles and buses of the state-security police on a highway near the port city of Dammam.
Although desperate to avoid any outside news of the extent of the protests spreading, Saudi security officials have known for more than a month that the revolt of Shia Muslims in the tiny island of Bahrain was expected to spread to Saudi Arabia. Within the Saudi kingdom, thousands of emails and Facebook messages have encouraged Saudi Sunni Muslims to join the planned demonstrations across the “conservative” and highly corrupt kingdom. They suggest – and this idea is clearly co-ordinated – that during confrontations with armed police or the army next Friday, Saudi women should be placed among the front ranks of the protesters to dissuade the Saudi security forces from opening fire.
If the Saudi royal family decides to use maximum violence against demonstrators, US President Barack Obama will be confronted by one of the most sensitive Middle East decisions of his administration. In Egypt, he only supported the demonstrators after the police used unrestrained firepower against protesters. But in Saudi Arabia – supposedly a “key ally” of the US and one of the world’s principal oil producers – he will be loath to protect the innocent.
After weeks of internal debate on how to respond to uprisings in the Arab world, the Obama administration is settling on a Middle East strategy: help keep longtime allies who are willing to reform in power, even if that means the full democratic demands of their newly emboldened citizens might have to wait.
Instead of pushing for immediate regime change—as it did to varying degrees in Egypt and now Libya—the U.S. is urging protesters from Bahrain to Morocco to work with existing rulers toward what some officials and diplomats are now calling “regime alteration.”
The approach has emerged amid furious lobbying of the administration by Arab governments, who were alarmed that President Barack Obama had abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and worried that, if the U.S. did the same to the beleaguered king of Bahrain, a chain of revolts could sweep them from power, too, and further upend the region’s stability.
The strategy also comes in the face of domestic U.S. criticism that the administration sent mixed messages at first in Egypt, tentatively backing Mr. Mubarak before deciding to throw its full support behind the protesters demanding his ouster. Likewise in Bahrain, the U.S. decision to throw a lifeline to the ruling family came after sharp criticism of its handling of protests there. On Friday, the kingdom’s opposition mounted one of its largest rallies, underlining the challenge the administration faces selling a strategy of more gradual change to the population.
Administration officials say they have been consistent throughout, urging rulers to avoid violence and make democratic reforms that address the demands of their populations. Still, a senior administration official acknowledged the past month has been a learning process for policy makers. “What we have said throughout this is that there is a need for political, economic and social reform, but the particular approach will be country by country,” the official said.
A pivotal moment came in late February, in the tense hours after Mr. Obama publicly berated King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa for cracking down violently on antigovernment demonstrators in Bahrain’s capital. Envoys for the king and his Arab allies shuttled from the Pentagon to the State Department and the White House with a carefully coordinated message.
If the Obama administration did not reverse course and stand squarely behind the monarchy, they warned, Bahrain’s government could fall, costing America a critical ally and potentially moving the country toward Iran’s orbit. Adding to the sense of urgency was a scenario being watched by U.S. intelligence agencies: the possibility that Saudi Arabia might invade its tiny neighbor to silence the Shiite-led protesters, threatening decades-old partnerships and creating vast political and economic upheaval.
“We need the full support of the United States,” a top Bahraini diplomat beseeched the Americans, including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffery Feltman, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, and other top policy makers.
Arab diplomats believe the push worked. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emerged as leading voices inside the administration urging greater U.S. support for the Bahraini king coupled with a reform agenda that Washington insisted would be have to be credible to street protesters. Instead of backing cries for the king’s removal, Mr. Obama asked protesters to negotiate with the ruling family, which is promising major changes.
Israel was also making its voice heard. As Mr. Mubarak’s grip on power slipped away in Egypt, Israeli officials lobbied Washington to move cautiously and reassure Mideast allies that they were not being abandoned. Israeli leaders have made clear that they fear extremist forces could try to exploit new-found freedoms and undercut Israel’s security, diplomats said.
“Starting with Bahrain, the administration has moved a few notches toward emphasizing stability over majority rule,” said a U.S. official. “Everybody realized that Bahrain was just too important to fail.”
All protests and marches are to be banned in Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry has announced on state TV.
Its statement said security forces would use all measures to prevent any attempt to disrupt public order.
The announcement follows a series of protests by the kingdom’s Shia minority in the oil-producing eastern province.
Last month, King Abdullah unveiled a series of benefits in an apparent bid to protect the kingdom from the revolts spreading throughout many Arab states.
“Regulations in the kingdom forbid categorically all sorts of demonstrations, marches and sit-ins, as they contradict Islamic Sharia law and the values and traditions of Saudi society,” the Saudi interior ministry statement said.
It added that police were “authorised by law to take all measures needed against those who try to break the law”.
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