a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

Dear people of Bahrain:

As the majority of you are Shia and Iran is run by fundamentalist Shia, and the US uses Bahrain as its personal port, you are condemned forever to authoritarian rule. Even if everyone of you gets a facebook page and pledges allegiance to American style democracy we will be sure that you can still be manipulated by Iran.
Good luck, now you know how people in China and other places feel.

Sincerely,

Western governments (and anti-imperialists who believe you can only have democracy if you magically do it on your own)

I am not aware of any existing shi'a political organization that is not allied with/funded by/directly controlled by Iran but feel free to prove me wrong

my impression is that a lot of the protesters are not doing it 'as shias' if you see what i mean. it shouldn't be automatically reduced to that anyway. but i don't know enough, about, say, the economic lot of the bahrainians. do the protesters have sources of finance locally? or are the shias locked out of the economy?

(as well as the political hierarchy)

They're locked out of everythng else, very much the poor relations I think

I find it hard to believe Bahrainian Sh'ia could go ahead and set up political organizations easily anyway. Are all of the protesters there really Iranian funded and controlled?

Yemen: President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s grip on power looked increasingly tenuous Monday as top generals, tribal leaders and diplomats turned against him, apparently dividing the military and leaving the long-serving former army officer barricaded in his presidential palace W. Post

Guardian take:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/21/yemen-regime-army-chiefs-defect

As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston has reported, the unrest in Yemen worries counterterrorism experts. That's because "al-Qaida's arm in Yemen has been one of the terrorist group's most active affiliates. (And) it is home to radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the English speaking-imam who has been accused of inspiring and directing young jihadists to attack the West."

man, egypt and mubarak, possibly libya and Godawfulli, i love metal and jjjusten, and now yemen and saleh - this has been a crazy month

Probably shouldn't post this under my actual name, but fuck you Lord Bell. This morning has been soul destroying and I'd quit if I could afford to.

Afraid you're going to have to explain that

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/middleeast/22bahrain.html?hpw

Bahrain-

But in the past week or two, the nature of the protest shifted — and so did any hope that demands for change would cross sectarian lines and unite Bahrainis in a cohesive democracy movement. The mainly Shiite demonstrators moved beyond Pearl Square, taking over areas leading to the financial and diplomatic districts of the capital. They closed off streets with makeshift roadblocks and shouted slogans calling for the death of the royal family.

“Twenty-five percent of Bahrain’s G.D.P. comes from banks,” Mr. Abdulmalik said as he sat in the soft Persian Gulf sunshine. “I sympathize with many of the demands of the demonstrators. But no country would allow the takeover of its financial district. The economic future of the country was at stake. What happened this week, as sad as it is, is good.”

To many around the world, the events of the past week — the arrival of 2,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and other neighbors, the declaration of martial law, the forceful clearing out of Pearl Square, the military takeover of the main hospital and then the spiteful tearing down of the Pearl monument itself — seem like the brutal work of a desperate autocracy.

But for Sunnis, who make up about a third of the country’s citizenry but hold the main levers of power, it was the only choice of a country facing a rising tide of chaos that imperiled its livelihood and future.

x-post re Lord Bell pr man for Arab governments

Bell has come under fire for working for the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the Economic Development Board of Bahrain because of the uprisings in those countries.

He accused Radio 4's Today of getting its facts wrong when it said he represented the now fallen Tunisian government as part of a wider report into Bell Pottinger's work for controversial foreign regimes

we don't bomb bankers - never have, never will

xpost

Aaron Bady well worth reading on the West's approach to Yemen:

The situation in Yemen has been steadily intensifying for some time, but this was a big escalation. 46 people were killed — in videos like this one, you can see bodies being carried away every ten seconds or so — while many hundreds, easily, were wounded. And that’s what our ally’s security forces were willing to do in the open. Yemen’s government then declared a state of emergency, which raised all sorts of concerns; as Amnesty International notes, for example:

Torture and other ill-treatment are widespread practices in Yemen and are committed, generally with impunity, against both detainees held in connection with politically motivated acts or protests and ordinary criminal suspects.

In response, Secretary Clinton produced the usual boilerplate:

We call on Yemeni security forces to exercise maximum restraint, refrain from violence, and permit citizens to freely and peacefully express their views.

“Maximum restraint” is an interesting development in the rhetoric, by the way, if you’re as morbidly fascinated as I am by the way words go into Clinton or Obama’s mouth to die. When live fire was used against protesters in Bahrain, for example, we got the same escalation in rhetoric from (state department spokesperson) Mark Toner:

The Bahraini government must exercise maximum restraint as it deals with this situation and must ensure that GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) forces do so as well.

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/yemen/

Moammar Gadhafi's snipers and tanks are terrorizing civilians in the coastal city of Misrata, a resident said, and the U.S. military warned Tuesday it was "considering all options" in response to dire conditions there that have left people cowering in darkened homes and scrounging for food and rainwater.

Heavy anti-aircraft fire and loud explosions sounded in Tripoli after nightfall, possibly a new attack in the international air campaign that so far has focused on military targets. But conditions have deteriorated sharply in Misrata, the last major city in western Libya held by the rebel force trying to end Gadhafi's four-decade rule. Residents of the city 125 miles (200 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli, say shelling and sniper attacks are unrelenting. A doctor said tanks opened fire on a peaceful protest on Monday.

just a dictator soin some dictatin', nothing to see here...

Dictators gonna dictate

Good luck Bell Pottinger:

The European Union has defended Bahrain's violent repression of pro-democracy protesters, with the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's right-hand man downplaying the crackdown with the comment "accidents happen".

Twenty-one people have been killed and up to 100 others are still missing after King Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa unleashed his security forces last week, putting an end to two months of growing protests that had threatened the legitimacy of Bahrain's monarchy and stoked sectarian tensions throughout the Gulf.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, has denounced the beating of medical personnel and the takeover of hospitals by security forces.

But Robert Cooper, one of the EU's highest-ranking diplomats and councillor to Ashton on the Middle East and the Balkans, told MEPs: "I'm not sure if the police have had to deal with these public order questions before. It's not easy dealing with large demonstrations in which there may be violence. It's a difficult task for policemen. It's not something that we always get right in the best western countries and accidents happen."

Briefing MEPs after a fact-finding mission to the Gulf, Cooper stressed that two of those killed were police. He said that Bahrain, home to the US fifth fleet, is "a rather pleasant, peaceful place".

The US is still worrying about the whereabouts in Yemen of that American-born Al Queda supporting cleric Anwar al-Awlaki that the Obama administration won't indict but wants dead. Even though the current corrupt brutal regime hasn't caught him, the US remains more worried about Al Queda in Yemen somehow taking over then anything else.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011323101423254390.html#

France has called on Syria to stop using excessive force and condemned the action that lead to the deaths, urging Assad to begin genuine reforms.

Syria has accused foreign parties of stirring up the unrest.

SANA news agency has reported "more than one million text messages had been sent to Syrians (encouraging them to) use mosques as a base to cause trouble."

I'm sure the French statement will scare Assad!

I've only just seen this

http://www.vogue.com/vogue-daily/article/asma-al-assad-a-rose-in-the-desert/

Some unfortunate lines, considering:

Asma al-Assad empties a box of fondue mix into a saucepan for lunch. The household is run on wildly democratic principles. “We all vote on what we want, and where,” she says. The chandelier over the dining table is made of cut-up comic books. “They outvoted us three to two on that.”

Fondue mix? Comic books? Filthy hipsters more like.

If only Gaddafi had a hot wife, we could all feel a bit warmer towards him

It's not really in 'the region', but ouch, Cote D'Ivoire. I've actually spent a couple of good chunks of time there, and they were mad happy times, only marred by the poverty and the sense that the country was teetering on the brink of exactly this. I've been hoping so hard over the last few years that they would get their shit together.

awful stuff going down in syria today, several protesters said to have been shot down

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/middleeast/26syria.html?ref=global-home

Like father like son sadly with Assad.

Read the comments on the Vogue article -they eventually get negative but at first there was this one:

In the midst of the chaos in the Middle East today, it is refreshing to read about Mrs. Assad. Polished, poised, well-educated, articulate, beautiful, she is a woman to admire in these tumultuous times.
Posted 2/25/2011 2:25:27pm

Is it wrong to be darkly amused by the NYTimes headline indicating that Al Qaeda in Yemen is taking advantage of the national chaos there to resume plotting against US targets? The implication being that they've just been biding their time, and the second they get a chance, bam, their monomaniacal inclinations compels them to immediately resume plotting against the US above all else.

Beware an impending rash of underwear bombs capable of singing the front part of an armrest

Ha. That is the Yemen argument.

http://m.smh.com.au/world/aljazeera-is-changing-minds-and-hearts-20110408-1d7rj.html

lovin this domain name

so is it me or does this pattern seem to be fizzling out under a grim fist of repression (bahrain, yemen, syria)

Well, that was always going to be the case - the revolution would start in the most vulnerable societies and would eventually end up in places like Bahrain and Libya, where the force the people would meet would be great. It would help a great deal if the west wouldn't insist on defending countries like Bahrain from the same forces it's supporting elsewhere.

Bahrain is a sad situation. The folks in power and in the know worldwide just assume that the people there are pawns of Iran thus they have to be stuck with their current system

Bahrain is much more related to Saudi Arabia than Iran - hell, my Dad spent time there during the '90 Iraq war. Given Saudi's commitment to the regime in Bahrain any support for the protests there becomes anti-saudi. Perhaps it's time to say 'so be it'.

Saudi Arabia is committed to the Bahrainian government which is non-Shia, because it does not want Bahrain's Shia population to get power and possibly be connected with Iran's Shia fundamentalist government.

^^ in a nutshell

Saudia Arabia

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/amid-the-arab-spring-obamas-dilemma-over-saudi-arabia/2011/04/07/AFhILDxC_story.html

Martin Indyk from the Brookings Instit.:

President Obama urgently needs to negotiate a new compact with King Abdullah. He has to find a way to convince him that defining a road map that leads to constitutional monarchies in his neighborhood, and eventually in Saudi Arabia, is the only effective way to secure his kingdom and the interests of his subjects. Abdullah has been willing to undertake important reforms in the past. But if the king is to be persuaded to embark on this road again, he will need to know that the president will provide a secure safety net of support, rather than undermine him. And he will need to know that the United States will not make a deal with his Iranian enemies at Saudi expense.

Just heard on the BBC that an Egyptian blogger was imprisoned for three years, by the military government, for criticizing the military. So it begins. Again.

Fuck.

AP Wire story on Egypt

Rights groups have criticized the new military rulers for arbitrary arrests and speedy trials for civilians, saying their activities were reminiscent of those of the former regime.

Ramadan said more than 10,000 civilians have been convicted and sentenced by military tribunals since the army took over two months ago.

Military trials are swift, do not follow the procedures and rules of evidence of civil courts and their sentences cannot be appealed.

It's tough to stay positive when the world is so fucking bleak. That is awful.

Yemen president won't leave

Eleven suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed and many others injured in a series of raids by security forces in Yemen's southern province of Abyan late last week

This seems like a ploy to keep the West off his back, as he had been ignoring US requests re Al-Qaeda for a year or so

Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak has been taken to hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, security sources say.

lolz going for the classic "too ill to stand trial" gambit

In Bahrain (from NY Times):

Human rights groups say arrests of medical workers are meant to instill terror in doctors, so they will not care for wounded protesters

And I guess "experts" are still saying that the Bahrain government is better than what could happen there if Bahrain's Shia were no longer 2nd class citizens (when they will be bought off by the fundamentalist Shia Iranians or just subjected to Iranian influence). I guess that is a concern but surely there must be some middle ground way (no matter how complicated it would be to bring it about).

the Bahrain government is better than what could happen there if Bahrain's Shia were no longer 2nd class citizens

better for who

Saudis are simply not going to let a Shi'a gov't exist on their doorstep. that's the problem

Right--better for the Saudi government and for those experts convinced that a Sh'ia government there would take marching orders from Iran. The current system is obviously not good for Bahrain's Shia citizens.