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A New Truth Dawns on the Arab World
And as these dreadful papers are revealed, the Egyptian people are calling for the downfall of President Mubarak, and the Lebanese are appointing a prime minister who will supply the Hezbollah. Rarely has the Arab world seen anything like this.
To start with the Palestine Papers, it is clear that the representatives of the Palestinian people were ready to destroy any hope of the refugees going home.
It will be - and is - an outrage for the Palestinians to learn how their representatives have turned their backs on them. There is no way in which, in the light of the Palestine Papers, these people can believe in their own rights.
They have seen on film and on paper that they will not go back. But across the Arab world - and this does not mean the Muslim world - there is now an understanding of truth that there has not been before.
It is not possible any more, for the people of the Arab world to lie to each other. The lies are finished. The words of their leaders - which are, unfortunately, our own words - have finished. It is we who have led them into this demise. It is we who have told them these lies. And we cannot recreate them any more.
In Egypt, we British loved democracy. We encouraged democracy in Egypt - until the Egyptians decided that they wanted an end to the monarchy. Then we put them in prison. Then we wanted more democracy. It was the same old story. Just as we wanted Palestinians to enjoy democracy, providing they voted for the right people, we wanted the Egyptians to love our democratic life. Now, in Lebanon, it appears that Lebanese "democracy" must take its place. And we don't like it.
We want the Lebanese, of course, to support the people who we love, the Sunni Muslim supporters of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination - we rightly believe - was orchestrated by the Syrians. And now we have, on the streets of Beirut, the burning of cars and the violence against government.
And so where are we going? Could it be, perhaps, that the Arab world is going to choose its own leaders? Could it be that we are going to see a new Arab world which is not controlled by the West? When Tunisia announced that it was free, Mrs Hillary Clinton was silent. It was the crackpot President of Iran who said that he was happy to see a free country. Why was this?
In Egypt, the future of Hosni Mubarak looks ever more distressing. His son, may well be his chosen successor. But there is only one Caliphate in the Muslim world, and that is Syria. Hosni's son is not the man who Egyptians want. He is a lightweight businessman who may - or may not - be able to rescue Egypt from its own corruption.
Hosni Mubarak's security commander, a certain Mr Suleiman who is very ill, may not be the man. And all the while, across the Middle East, we are waiting to see the downfall of America's friends. In Egypt, Mr Mubarak must be wondering where he flies to. In Lebanon, America's friends are collapsing. This is the end of the Democrats' world in the Arab Middle East. We do not know what comes next. Perhaps only history can answer this question.
83 Comments so far
Show All"new" to whom? who are "we"? this is one confusing "analysis".
no fancy "analysis by experts" necessary.
POWER to the courageous people of Egypt!
i shall do what i can, to support your revolution, by NOT feeding the parasites and the thugs that oppress you as well as me!
...from your keyboard.
What're you gonna do - boycott Loukoum?
Such courage.
And I would like to see CD cover this story, "UN human rights official claims 9/11 was US plot," about Richard Falk, who serves on the United Nations Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories. "The Telegraph" ( http://tinyurl.com/4ux9y9r ) managed to fit it in.
Yes, thanks for mentioning that, Fred. I read a piece on the same thing, though, I believe, at another source. Apparently Sec. Gen. Ban is in a tizzy over this. Bravo Falk!
Interesting, in the article you cited above, the US reaction was predictable.
------------------------
"Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which held its first hearing on the subject yesterday [TUESDAY], wants Barack Obama to pull the US out of the council.
"She has pledged to try to "kill all US funding for that beast," which she described as a "rogues' gallery" for "pariah states".
------------------------
Yeah, anybody concerned with human rights in this day and age is a "rogue and pariah." The US and Israel will swear to it.
Off to the vomitorium again, sigh.
Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban national, is of course the poster child for this project. She profits, directly benefits from and owes her political career to the continued US embargo against her own country of origin in which 11 million of her fellow Cubans are starving to death and dying of diseases easily curable by things like antibiotics. What else can be expected from such a pariah?
The global capitalist elites love "democracy", but only if that democracy plays their game and keeps them in power. If democracy means challenging their hegemony, as we see in Venezuela, or wants to run a different course, as we see in Iran, or challenges the status quo, as we see with Hamas - "democracy" be damned!
As long as capitalism can define "democracy", it is good. When the people want democracy that works for them, all hell breaks loose. The capitalist class will impose dictatorship (see Chile) before it will allow a true people's democracy.
So any discussion of democracy MUST be placed in a class context. If it isn't, it's just empty words. When capitalist "democracy" is analysed from a class perspective, it quickly becomes evident that it is not a true democracy. A capitalist democracy consists of bourgeois elections that are bought and paid for by the ruling class. A capitalist "democracy" makes the electorate consumers rather than citizens and all the tools of the consumer society are brought to bear to influence the outcomes of these phony elections.
Struggle
So any discussion of democracy MUST be placed in a class context. If it isn't, it's just empty words. When capitalist "democracy" is analysed from a class perspective, it quickly becomes evident that it is not a true democracy.
When you say any discussion "MUST be placed in a class context"you are acting toward those that are in the discussion like a police person, solder, rapist or capitalist. Telling people what they better do for their own benefit.
Capitalism is a theory and a practice of finances.
Democracy is a theory and a practice of politics.
Anytime capital, capitalist or capitalism impacts a democracy it is called corruption. When this happens in a democracy and it is not addressed or is allowed to continue that democracy no longer exists.
Hey I could be wrong. I took poli sci a long time ago.
I guess you're not familiar with the phrase "political economy."
Economics and politics are not separate affairs. You're attempt to build rigid categories and then draw conclusions from those categories is sophmoric.
"Anytime capital, capitalist or capitalism impacts a democracy it is called corruption. When this happens in a democracy and it is not addressed or is allowed to continue that democracy no longer exists."
In that case American Democracy has never existed!
Now you get it.
Here in the US, we are too polarized, fat and stupid to tear down the walls of injustice. The biggest employer, the slave owners of walmart, preferred diet, junk food, most watched, fox network. There are many armed to the teeth wacos out there who would happily shoot their neighbor in the name of jesus and country.
For 70 years the lies have kept the Arab world under the thumb of the west. Is this to change? lets hope that they establish their own type of Democacy because ours is very in question.
I don't think it had anything to do with lies and everything to do with brutal force and repression.
Fisk illuminates where the failed policies of the US Empire were adopted, a fact not known to most. And yes it is invigorating to see North Africans finally arise to thrown off their US-backed oppressors. And as Fisk alludes, the key to it all resides in the Palestine Papers and the cables published by Wikileaks and the sordid truths they reveal: All who interact with the Great Satan are polluted by its lust to control everything. Capitalism, like Communism, is a great enslaver requiring massive indoctrination and ongoing propaganda to continue its existence. Small "d" democracy is the cure for those illfounded systems along with the adoption of an economics of communalistic cooperation that downsizes and returns corporations to sizes managable within such a system and legally confines them to just doing business on behalf of the whole community and mandated to do as little harm to the ecosystem as possible.
It's high time government returned to working for the people that formed it rather than people working to support a state system that drains them of their humanity while robbing their purse.
a fine post overall, sir, but I was especially struck by this line:
~ All who interact with the Great Satan are polluted by its lust to control everything. ~
this is a point to which I have been returning, lately, in efforts to explain to people why government cannot function as they wish to believe it does, or should...
while I have been using ol' Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby as example, your Great Satan illustrates precisely the same notion: once touched, disengagement is no longer an option...efforts to do so become more trouble than accepting the new unpleasantness...
in reality, this translates into the psychological vetting and manipulation of candidates...
as I have said before, I have personal knowledge of threats levied against the child of a seated British politician...an exchange that took place in one brief, face-to-face encounter on a street corner...the message was delivered by a woman he had never seen before, nor ever saw again...the message was: you have a darling little boy...it would be a shame for anything to happen to your little boy...don't shout so loudly on behalf of social causes...
you either reward or punish, but punish is harder to refuse, per the Godfather...
anyone anywhere anytime by decree
for us or agin
Remember the _Star Trek_ when they happened upon the planet run by a planet-wide mafiosi? Despite the campiness of that series and its sequel, they did address deep societal problems in ways no TV series has since. The great enemy of _Next Generation_, The Borg, is perhaps the best proxy one can employ to illustrate why the current system must be fought--it assimilates the individual and destroys its and its community's freedoms, while injesting the vital resources both need to survive.
"Small "d" democracy is the cure for those ill founded systems "
Hey, that sounds neat! Know where we can find some?
Venezuela and Bolivia are both dealing with the trying phase of establishing small "d" democracy, while several other countries are in the formative stage where it's too early to tell if they'll overcome their own oligarchies and enter the establishing phase. And yet some look like they'll soon enter the formative stage. One thing is clear: The more that's revealed about the authoritarian aspects of what are supposedly representative governments, the more the social ferment will grow. In many respects, we are hopefully seeing the small "d" revolution that ought to have occured after WW2 but was thwarted by the US Empire and its Colonialist European allies. Much is in the balance, which is why the US Empire is doing its utmost to staunch the light being shined by Wikileaks. It stands to reason that the metropole will be the last bastion of the reactionaries as that's where they exert the most control--as with Rome, the perifery of the Empire will fall first to be followed by the collapse of the rotten metropole at the center.
One cannot "find" it; one must make it along with other members of the community.
I don't think the key is Wikileaks or other papers. It is the rising cost of food and energy and the increasing perception throughout the world that corruption is out of control.The precipitating factor is the economic slow down which is perceived, I think correctly, as a sign of corruption, the consequences of which are shouldered by the not rich. This is about security (food, jobs)though also about freedom.It started when a man set himself on fire for being denied the opportunity to work (JOB) selling FOOD. They sympathize with him because they also have trouble getting JOBS and FOOD.
Yes, there is a shared reality providing its impetus that combines well with the vivid proof of corruption and betrayal provided by the documants published by Wikileaks and its partners. All is combined with a societally shared loss of dignity that can only be rectified by a wholesale change in the governmental system--not just Regime Change, but Institutional & Regime Change. As the extent of the perfidy of the US Empire and its allies is exposed, more people will be able to understand the nature of their betrayal and seek freedom.
This development calls to mind the history of the Crusades.
Initially, the corrupt leaders of the arab world refused to rally against the crusaders. They were overthrown and a militant leadership began a successful war against the crusaders. This took a couple centuries.
Today, events move much more swiftly. The arab world is wide awake and taking action that could very well spell the end of the 21st century crusades, and also the end of Isareali tyranny over Palestine.
re: "Today, events move much more swiftly. The arab world is wide awake and taking action that could very well spell the end of the 21st century crusades, and also the end of Isareali tyranny over Palestine."
Let us hope you are correct. However, let's also hope the transition away from current conditions moves towards a happier, and less horrific future. How often has one tyranny been removed, just to have another take its place?
I sincerely hope you are right.
"Initially, the corrupt leaders of the arab world refused to rally against the crusaders. They were overthrown and a militant leadership began a successful war against the crusaders. This took a couple centuries.
"
No not really. Initially, the rulers of the Arab world did not rally together against the crusaders, because:
they were often rivals against each other
the crusaders were also rivals against each other
In the first crusade, in the earlier years, Arab muslims kingdoms would sometimes ally with one group of crusaders against another group of crusaders who would be allied with another Arab city.
I agree. My comment was an attempt at a quick summary.
The focus of the arab leaders on rivalries, and their willingness to form tactical alliances with the crusaders was IMHO a result of corruption.
In any case the rivalries and alliances with the invaders certainly are still true today, but perhaps not for long.
the blood sucking brits have been in the mid-east since 1890 when they discovered the oil
william engdahl has covered that in his book century of war
http://www.rense.com/general80/wilmce.htm
ww1 was in no small part about the brits keeping their cousins the germans from getting the oil - much as today the amerikans are trying to keep the chinese from the oil
same old same old - those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it
as for the arabs - they have been psyop'd for so long they barely know which way is up - their leaders puppets for the west - everyone from the shah to mr abbas to nasser/mubarak
my hope is that they throw the bums out from tunisia through to pakistan and take back control of their own lives - away from the war machines that have choked them for centuries - first the brits and then amerika
together the arabs could seriously fuck the zion plan to kill the palestinians
then, maybe, inspired by the outbreak of freedom abroad, we may be inspired to do the same right here at home
best hope for the u.s. citizens is global rejection of the u.s. government
then all the dominoes fall
Reverse Domnio Theory. How marvelously interesting.
Oh how I love the karmic cycle.
Pray for Karma.
"as for the arabs - they have been psyop'd for so long they barely know which way is up "
You mean the Americans don't you? I have never seen a population more spoon-fed on propaganda, dumbed down, and generally ignorant of most anything over the international horizon than the Americans. From Istanbul to Kabul and from Karachi to Cairo I have found more people with acute understanding of global realities and the nuances of power than ever I found in America. I have met many people over the last 40 years or so and believe me I have travelled a lot in all those geographic areas as well as America.
I have believe that the leap forward to "freedom" will have some pretty dire consequences. The poor people who demand power in Tunisia for example may actually get it along with the empty coffers left behind by Ben Ali, his family and cronies, and a global financial system that is neither able nor willing to lend the necessary funds to establish the developments demanded in the short to medium term by the millions of mostly young people. Now multiply that by 100 or 1000 or 10,000, spread it across the Middle East and South Asia, and add the desperation and destruction of the civil wars such as provoked in Iraq, and as what might be expected in Egypt in view of the strength and power of the army and security forces there. Then over the next ten or twenty years add the cumulative effects of draughts, floods, and other climate related disasters such as what we saw Pakistan has just suffered, and you will be able to count on hundreds of millions of dying and starving people.
The point being the self serving and corrupt West, and their puppet dictator oppressors abroad had no answers either and now that they start to run away to their Swiss accounts or with their gold bars to Saudi, avoiding prosecution in the Hague, the freedom their people are finding may be just the freedom to die with self respect and dignity in the social, environmental and economic disasters that follows.
This is just the rich rats leaving the sinking ships.
yes amerikans have been dramatically psyop'd
they'd rather have no health care than health care
they watch tv endlessly
they eat shit for food
they are heavily medicated
they are confused
It's not that one-sided. The "rich rats" among Arabs have, since 1890, been all too eager to be lulled into collaborating with the Western capitalist Great Satan, to the point of abandoning their brothers and sisters in Palestine, to the point of misappropriating the huge aid payouts from the West and brutally oppressing their own peoples. An Iraqi acquaintance of mine told me it was not the West her friends were angry at, but their own politicians who sold everyone down the river for their own enrichment. "Rich rats" in the Muslim world will also skitter over each other along the anchor chain, on their way to their little multi-$bn pieds-a-terre in Geneva, Paris, and London.
I can already hear the pitter-patter of little "rich rat" feet.
redballon, you missed my point:
"The point being the self serving and corrupt West, AND THEIR PUPPET DICTATORS ABROAD" those INCLUDE the - "Arabs [that] have, since 1890, been all too eager to be lulled into collaborating with the Western capitalist Great Satan,..... that is what I meant. So we are in complete concurrence.
The subtlety is not two dimensional. It is multi and yes there will always be powers local and foreign that fill vacuums and minions that follow tyrants. But as I said, our best hope is to die with our self respect.
Indeed.
Lucitanian
"add the desperation and destruction of the civil wars such as provoked in Iraq, and as what might be expected in Egypt in view of the strength and power of the army and security forces there."
What you have written suggests that those poor people across the middle east will suffer struggling to gain democracy.
On the other hand the people who brought us mathematics and live across the middle east maybe poor and oppressed but they are not stupid.They can band together and help each other. Standing together against the British and American intervention and excluding them.They have been destroyed and need to rebuild. They will. They have, however, the choices to help each other and exclude us and our bankers and our fantasies of global domination.
Personally and as Americans I think that most of us wish the protesters well in hopes they can gain freedoms, rights, and democracy but we will not let this go. Hillary and gang are already, I am sure, spending our money to return the spilled milk to the bottle.How many young boys and girls and how much more money are you willing to spend to continue to dominate those people?In most areas we are behind other industrialized nations. Health care, infant mortality, homelessness, incarceration,internet connectivity, and education are all sub standard compared to other nations. How much are you willing to give up?
Already the American people have said "enough" to war by poll. When we say enough and it does not stop it is long passed time to examine our democracy to see if it is real or not.
"a global financial system that is neither able nor willing to lend the necessary funds to establish the developments demanded in the short to medium term by the millions of mostly young people."
If the arab world was actually in control its own resources, there would be plenty of capital to modernize. Instead those resources are controlled by the West and its local elite minions.
The end game of the current people's risng will be another pan-arab or perhaps pan Islamic risng that will oppose the Western invaders/crusaders and vie with the West for control of the region's oil reserves.
I knew we've been psy-opped for my entire life, but when those towers came down I knew we were in for an Orwellian nightmare. I expected it, and I wasn't disappointed. But I was not prepared for the sheer effectiveness of it all. I had the naive notion that most Americans were more intelligent than that.
Was I ever wrong. I haven't changed much over the last twenty years, politically speaking. I once thought I was somewhat morally conservative yet tolerant and nonjudgmental, but politically and economically liberal. Turns out I am a flaming commie anarchist - but only because the 'center' has been dragged so far to the right that the national moral compass has become utterly useless.
I blame the effectiveness of the psy-ops of the last decade on government refusal to enforce anti-trust laws governing the media, on the rise of fascist fundamentalism, and on the de-funding (and privatization) of our education system. And, of course, deregulation of banking and trade - which has led middle America to a panic in which they are grasping for stability (blind conservatism) rather than for the sweeping reforms needed to repair our nation.
Orwell's tales, while I agreed with them, seemed fantastic to me, as if they were deliberately exaggerated for the sake of drama. I know now that there was no exaggeration - and if anything, he was conservative.
You thought you were part of a nation, but woke up to find out that you live on a feedlot, and it really doesn't matter what the animals think.
Black and hispanic Americans have been experiencing powerlessness and the police state for a couple of decades now.
What's happened is that the range of people subject to the police state has been expanding and is lapping up onto the shores of the liberal professional classes.
Combining this expansion with the decimation of civil rights and the weakening of safeguards against police brutality, the US National Security State has created a foul and frothing beast ever eager to expand its range.
To be honest I haven't lived in the 'America' of most people. I've been living in some of the smaller towns of Alaska for the last thirty years or so, and it's quite far from the rat-race most Americans experience. Not to say there isn't still struggle, but the opportunities are more abundant there than anywhere else I've been. But I've even seen the police state increasing like gangbusters up there.
the Sunni Muslim supporters of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination - we rightly believe - was orchestrated by the Syrians...
I thought his assassination was orchestrated by the Israelis.
At any rate, Go Middle East! Maybe we in the U.S. can learn about Democracy from you.
lefttown you are a smart person and beat me to the question/thought about Rafiq Hariri's assassination being orchestrated by Syrians (surprised Mr. Fisk used the word "we" when phrasing that sentence "whose assassination - we rightly believe - was orchestrated by the Syrians..."
from everything I've read it most likely was the the Israeli's who pulled that off along with the Iranian Nuke Scientist that was just murdered. so yes you are most likely right on that point.
and yes, I echo your sentitment, "go middle east", do what your people want not what the U.S. government forces down your throats.
there is a great film that one can watch about "democracies" that the U.S. has built and torn down in Latin America by John Pilger called the The War on Democracy" that is a real eye opener about how much the u.s. really cares about democracies in the rest of the world.
Yeah, that line got my attention, too. Especially because after four years of trying to impugn the Syrians in the crime and coming up empty, the Empire, via the Special Tribunal on Lebanon (STL), a sham, rigged panel the 'West'(read the US, Israel, and their European lapdogs) has forced on the UN, has now decided that, lo and behold, it actually was Hezbollah and none other than... (drumroll)... Iran! that was behind the Hariri assassination. This was in Ha'aretz, Jan. 15 (if memory serves) and has been hinted at elsewhere in crumbs thrown to the court stenographers of the MSM.
You can't script this stuff. After years of hysterically screaming 'Syria! Syria!' our overlords, faced with failure, say 'never mind,' and now it's Hezbollah and Iran! Or, since the Murkans just love to focus on their selected demons, it's Nasrallah and (gasp!) Ahmadinejad!
Gee, when have we seen this sort of switcheroo of the bete noire du jour before?
So, what's up, Fisk? Who's it gonna be? Syria or Hezbollah (Iran)? And why no mention of Nasrallah's pretty convincing (if perhaps circumstantial) evidence that it was indeed Israel that done the deed?
Except for this peccadillo, good article by Fisk.
Hi clovis--Did you view the evidence presented by Nasrallah detailing Israel's direct involvement suggesting it's the most likely perpetrator? He presented the evidence last Navember, and the videos are archieved here, http://www.google.com/#q=nasrallah+speech+november&hl=en&prmd=ivns&source=univ&tbs=
vid:1&tbo=u&ei=1a5ATfuKA4WosQO_zbGHCg&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum
=1&ved=0CCkQqwQwAA&fp=caf330ad9f908a9f
I prefer to watch the shorter segments as they load better. The material is very important and was of course totally blackedout by Western media.
Thanks for the links, karlof. I saw a few things when the story first broke (on I forget which alternative news website), but I'm not sure I've seen these. And of course I read some stuff outlining what the evidence. I'll definitely have a look at these, and everyone else should too.
The Palestinian Authority is A totally corrupt CIA operation working with the Israelis to keep their people in cages and now that this reality is clear for everyone to see maybe Hamas will get even stronger and seriously challenge the American-Israeli-Quisling forces that are keeping their people down. The Palestinians need hope and more weapons.
"whose assassination - we rightly believe - was orchestrated by the Syrians."
This is a pretty big assumption that Mr. Fisk slyly drops in the middle of the piece.
There are a lot of question about the Hariri assassination that need to be answered before assumptions such as the above can be stated especially by a reporter of repute such as Mr. Fisk.
See my above post, Polycarpe. Apparently the STL (Special Tribunal on Lebanon) has now decided to point the finger (whichever way the wind blows!) at Hezbollah and Iran (Ha'aretz, Jan 15) for Hariri's death, which makes Fisk's comment even more mysterious.
I'm pleased this is all happening on Mrs. Clinton's watch. This will end any presidential aspirations she may have.
In the end, the Arab countries will pick another representative government and the cycle will begin again. Only direct democracy lasts.