The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring

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Mon, 2011-06-13 21:56

notaradical

A recent Journeyman video questions the roots of the recent Jasmin Revolutions.

The video looks at Otpor, a revolutionary training school that was instrumental in the toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s. Their logo is the logo of the Egyptian revolution.

Gene Sharp is the American author of the "revolution guide book" that was used in the recent revolutions to topple US-backed dictators. He has been branded by Hugo Chavez and the Russian regime as a "rabble rouse in the employ of the CIA."

Leaders within the Arab revolutions, as well as leaders of the revolutions of Eastern Europe in the 1990s, maintain that they were not coerced by free-market ideologies.

Believe this video or not, there remain forces within the Jasmine Revolutions that seek to blunt the effects of the peoples' struggle.

Tue, 2011-06-14 07:11

Bec.De.Corbin Bec.De.Corbin's picture

The USA Manufactured the Arab Spring

Must be one hell of a factory...

Thu, 2011-06-16 15:20

CMOT Dibbler

Good Christ! Have I mentioned how much I hate Babble?

Thu, 2011-06-16 15:23

Lachine Scot

So millions of people are just passive puppets to the great masters in the CIA, eh?

Thu, 2011-06-16 15:27

al-Qa'bong

We've had this discussion before. Some folks can't accept that there are people in the world who fight for freedom and democracy in spite of the USA.

Thu, 2011-06-16 15:56

Sven

al-Qa'bong wrote:

We've had this discussion before. Some folks can't accept that there are people in the world who fight for freedom and democracy in spite of the USA.

Indeed. One would think that the world would go spinning off into the sun without USA assistance in all thing non-USA...

Thu, 2011-06-16 16:20

Fidel

In the name of GOD, son, don't be bashin' gladio terrierists round here! You'll be labelled a heretic, gutted and strung-up by your chestnuts at dawn. Ye might as well just fall on your own sword, if ya know what I mean.

God bless us, and Happy Coincidenting Every One.

Establishment Media and babble Plagued by 'Coincidence Theorists'

Fri, 2011-06-17 00:31

notaradical

It is a little disheartening to see a report like this dismissed because it doesn't endorse the political well-wishing we project onto the Arab world. Are we content to simply accept that these linked instances of revolution were solely the result of popular dissent? How many of us towed the party line on 9/11? Yet there is compelling evidence and a formidable movement that suggests sinister forces were at work.

I don't necessarily endorse these ideas, but the video makes a considerable argument. It doesn't only espouse coincidental theory, but causal as well. The video shows current and previous revolutionary leaders confessing to the use of the revolutionary book written by Sharpe. Doesn't it occur to anyone that if this book was responsible for the ousting of US-friendly dictators, that Sharpe would at the very least by under FBI harassment? Yet there he is, fine as day, with only a secretary as his guide. Bradley Manning was imprisoned for far less. I don't mean to suggest that this is an irrefutable bit of evidence, but it is definitely provocative. If we have the confessions of these leaders to the use of the book, and their admission that Otpor was an organizing member, then all that's left to debate is whether Otpor and Sharpe indeed further Washington's interests, knowingly or not.

Lachine Scot wrote:

So millions of people are just passive puppets to the great masters in the CIA, eh?

Puppet or not, it wouldn't be the first time the CIA effected widespread change in the face of millions. Latin America, 1980s?

Fri, 2011-06-17 00:42

CMOT Dibbler

Does anyone around here relize how incredibly racist it is to assume that the white American intelligence establishment has a hand in every major political event in the modern middle east?

That sound you hear is Edward Said turning over in his grave.

Fri, 2011-06-17 00:52

#10

al-Qa'bong

Don't go cutting your own throat, Dibbler, some of us made that point the first time around. Mind you, the argument that the turbanned horde cannot conceive of such western ideas as freedom from despotism without the friendly guidance of gentle whitefolk nevertheless seems to hang around.

Fri, 2011-06-17 04:12

#11

Bec.De.Corbin Bec.De.Corbin's picture

I think it's more "anti-imperialism at any cost" than racism that drives this type of thinking (here).

Fri, 2011-06-17 04:48

#12

Fidel

<a href="http://sixthestate.net/?p=500">William Colby, CIA Director under Tricky Dick</a> wrote:
"Any document which officially shows American involvement in an assassination is a foreign policy disaster... The second problem is that of names. They have asked for all the records of our relations with PanAm, [redacted] ITT and others. If we acknowledge a relationship, we will kill these companies and our ability to place agents and get cooperation".

Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - George Warshington

Fri, 2011-06-17 09:27

#13

notaradical

A New York Times article of a Wikileak that chronicles the Washington meet n' greets with a young Egyptian revolutionary.

Egypt Protests: Secret US Document Discloses Support for Protesters

Fri, 2011-06-17 09:28

#14

notaradical

Nowhere did I explicitly state that the people of the Arab states are incapable of developing their own democratic aspirations, although I suppose that, if you want to dig, that is tacitly suggested.

At the time of my original posting, my skepticism was well entrenched. I posted this video to elicit discussion. In light of several new reports and articles I've read, that doubt has gradually given way to a benign horror at what is probably just the latest in a long line of manufactured regime changes. Regarding conspiracy theories, especially ones that gnaw at our most optimistic projections of world events, I ask what amount of evidence is required to begin the process of doubt? Consider what you know of Canadian politics. The tendency of most of us here on the forums is to doubt the coverage of the mainstream press and seek out alternative sources of information, like this website. Why does that change with regards to the Arab Spring? Why are we so eager to embrace the status quo espoused by the corporate media, but apt to disregard the dissenting views of others who poke holes in the official version?

I suppose that in this case, we would love to believe that the Arab Spring was completely spontaneous. It affirms our belief as progressives that bottom-up social change is manifest - tangible. It could be the case, somewhere, someday. But right there right now?

Revolution U, article in Foreign Policy magazine

Quote:
In the summer of 2009, Mohamed Adel, a 20-year-old blogger and April 6 activist, went to Belgrade, Serbia... "I got trained in how to conduct peaceful demonstrations, how to avoid violence, and how to face violence from the security forces ... and also how to organize to get people on the streets," Adel said of his experience with the Serbs (Center for Applied Non-violent Action and Strategies).

Quote:
CANVAS participates in some workshops financed by...Freedom House, an American group which gets its money from the U.S. government. But CANVAS prefers to give Washington a wide berth, in part due to Otpor's experience. Like the entire opposition to Milosevic, Otpor took money from the U.S. government, and lied about it.

Quote:
The next idea was one the Serbs had learned from the American academic Gene Sharp, the author of From Dictatorship to Democracy...Popovic was first introduced to Sharp's ideas in the spring of 2000 by Robert Helvey, a former U.S. Army colonel who had served as defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Burma in the 1980s before becoming disillusioned with armed struggle.

Article on website of Webster Tarpley

Quote:
Since there was no real mass organization capable of seizing power, and no program of economic reconstruction, development, and reform which could have united the efforts of larger sectors of the Egyptian population, Egypt was left to the tender mercies of the now standard CIA/National Endowment for Democracy color revolution, people power coup, or postmodern putsch.

Quote:
The Obama-Zbigniew Brzezinski foreign policy tacitly concedes that the US is now too weak, too isolated, too hated, and too bankrupt to undertake direct military attacks on the long list of countries which Bush, Cheney, and the neocons were eager to assail. The new policy of subverting existing governments and replacing them with regimes far more susceptible of being played as kamikaze puppets against the regional enemies of the United States

Fri, 2011-06-17 09:36

#15

notaradical

One more, an analysis on the role of Gene Sharp and his progeny in the popular revolutions of the past 20 years.

Gene Sharp's Goal: Liberty in a World of Market Imperatives

Fri, 2011-06-17 10:01

#16

Slumberjack

Confusing two divergent issues is rarely helpful in analysing geo-political situations. On the one hand we've witnessed such genuine and heartfelt sentiments being expressed by people literally putting their lives on the line, if only for the opportunity to voice an opinion at all about their long standing conditions, and on the other, we have rumour and sign of the imperium's best men being assigned to oversee and direct the various situations as best they can, which amounts to a darn good turnout indeed when considering that thus far, nothing even remotely resembling a democratic changing of the guard has taken place in any of the circumstances which unfolded during the past several months.

Fri, 2011-06-17 15:54

#17

CMOT Dibbler

I am going to make a prediction. If the Jordanian monarchy (perhaps the most pro-US regime in the Arab world) collapses because of people power, and there are huge demonstrations by average Jordanians calling for the head of their Western educated, Star Trek loving King, the CIA will be blamed by babblers for the overthrow of Jordan's dictatorship.

Fri, 2011-06-17 18:30

#18

Fidel

Sibel Edmonds says Pepe's essay is briliant, so here it is:

<a href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ME21Ak01.html">Pepe Escobar</a> wrote:
So to make a story short, here's a concise New Middle East Obama policy. We support "our" bastards (dictators) who are sophisticated enough to beat, arrest and kill their own people in the low hundreds (Bahrain). We get slightly annoyed by "our" war on terror collaborators who crudely beat, arrest and kill their own people also in the low hundreds (Yemen). We're strongly inclined to ditch our support for unreliable, Iran-aligned dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in the high hundreds (Syria).

We unleash war - via the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a weaponized arm of the United Nations - over unreliable oil-wealthy dictators who beat, arrest and kill their own people in alleged thousands (Libya). And we remain absolute mute about "our" monarchical bastards who pre-empt the possibility of democratic protests (Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia) or invade their neighbors to smash ongoing peaceful protests (Saudi Arabia).

Fri, 2011-06-17 20:09

#19

Noah_Scape

There is credibility to the idea.

I think it is more like Pres. Obama saw the writing on the wall - the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan people were going to rise up, so get on good terms with them so they will continue to deliver the oil to the USA when the dust settles. If the brutal dictators have control over their people, then fine, support them and the oil keeps flowing to the USA. Obama has to do this "dancing with Arab friendlies" very carefully.

There is another game behind all this, where "if the USA didn't do it, then China or Russia would be in there like a dirty shirt snapping up all the oil for themselves". So, America/Obama has to do whatever it takes to be the best friend of Arab nations with oil.

---

Aside: Fidel, is that an actual quote by the framer George Washington, but with a sarcastic spelling error? {Warshington}

Was "corporatism" a word used in the time of Pres. G Washington?

{RE:" Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - George Warshington

Fri, 2011-06-17 20:40

#20

al-Qa'bong

The quote is a distortion of Benito Mussolini's definition of fascism.. Fidel's trying to be funny...I believe.

Fri, 2011-06-17 21:05

#21

CMOT Dibbler

Slumberjack wrote:

Confusing two divergent issues is rarely helpful in analysing geo-political situations. On the one hand we've witnessed such genuine and heartfelt sentiments being expressed by people literally putting their lives on the line, if only for the opportunity to voice an opinion at all about their long standing conditions, and on the other, we have rumour and sign of the imperium's best men being assigned to oversee and direct the various situations as best they can, which amounts to a darn good turnout indeed when considering that thus far, nothing even remotely resembling a democratic changing of the guard has taken place in any of the circumstances which unfolded during the past several months.

Look, the Arab Spring is not a Michael Bay action movie. The activists in various Arab states are dealing with problems that are enormously difficult to solve. I think it's unfair to insist that something momentous has not happened in Egypt simply because the blockade of Gaza has not been completely lifted RIGHT NOW! Or that they have not taken an important step towards democracy simply because military rule didn't vanish overnight. It will take some time but in the end democracy will triumph in the Arab world, and just because the people involved in the pan Arab pro-democracy resistance have failed in achieving some of their goals, it does not mean that the big, bad(and, I think, largely clueless) CIA has complete control of the movement.

Dear God! It's almost like Babblers are collectively suffering from a very bad case of political attention deficit disorder.

PS yes I know I'm sounding like one of those Soviet era spin doctors that certain people on this board would probably love to chum around with, and I apologize for that, but don't you think it's a good idea to give the decent people who overthrew these tyrannical US backed assholes some time to heal the damage wrought by decades of mismanagement before we condemn them as collaborators?

Fri, 2011-06-17 21:13

#22

notaradical

Nowhere did I label the Arab masses as collaborators. There may be collaborators among them in the revolutionary leadership, and definitely within the ruling junta. I suggest that external forces might be manipulating the proletariat. I think the evidence is more than circumstantial.

Once again, I urge everyone to think about this critically - not just project your well-wishing on the situation. The two narratives of mass struggle and interference from the intelligencia are convergent, not divergent, and it would do well to analyze this from every possible angle.

I rather think that many of us suffer from political amnesia. Does nobody remember the Contras? The Cuban terrorists operating freely on American soil? Why is it so difficult to imagine? Unless, of course, we want to believe it so bad that we're willing to forego the critical analyses we afford to everything else.

Fri, 2011-06-17 21:47

#23

Fidel

Noah_Scape wrote:
There is another game behind all this, where "if the USA didn't do it, then China or Russia would be in there like a dirty shirt snapping up all the oil for themselves". So, America/Obama has to do whatever it takes to be the best friend of Arab nations with oil.

Except that China or Russia would prolly cut a better deal with Qadaffi. British Petroleo, for instance, were pretty ruthless in Iran last century and didn't even believe that the oil revs should be shared with the Iranian people at all.

And U.S. energy companies were darned near as crooked when signing deals with Russia for oil and gas development projects at Sakhalin Island in the early 1990s. Putin decided that those contracts were created at a time when Russia was at a disadvantage economically, and so decided to raise taxes on natural resource exports across the board. That was one more reason the west claimed the Russians were "backsliding" on democracy. IOWs they were daring to user perferctly legit free market mechanisms to raise oil revenues which the gladio gang's corporate friends didn't appreciate very much. That and some issues with US and European oligarchs, and probably with CIA seed money, attempted to bribe members of the Duma in 2003 in order to slide out of paying taxes they legally owed to the government in Moscow.

Exxon and the rest signed some pretty crooked oil deals in Iraq in the 2000s. Blood for oil hounds really were after the oil in Iraq as it's right there in the ground same as Libya's lowest cost to extract oil fields. They've been right bloody bastards these mass murderers.

If you listen to some of the wishy-washy lefties on this site, there is no such thing as the corporatocracy. It's all above board, and fascism just isn't possible without goosestepping thugs and private railroad companies with fat contracts for transporting tourist class box cars loaded with old people and daycare groups to the outskirts of Kracow for "tea and delousing" on a steady basis. They just don't get it or don't want to one or the other.

---

Quote:
Noah_Scape]Aside: Fidel, is that an actual quote by the framer George Washington, but with a sarcastic spelling error? {Warshington}

Was "corporatism" a word used in the time of Pres. G Washington?

{RE:" Democracy should more appropriately be referred to as corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - George Warshington

I made it up. It's really describing fascism according to a quote by Mussolini. he he It should begin with, Fascism should more appropriately ...

Fri, 2011-06-17 23:43

#24

notaradical

CMOT Dibbler wrote:
largely clueless...CIA

Clueless? In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba?

More recently, so clueless they basically warned the US administration that there were no WMDs in Iraq?

Sat, 2011-06-18 00:38

#25

CMOT Dibbler

In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba?

The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

Sat, 2011-06-18 00:52

#26

CMOT Dibbler

In other words they are collaberating.

This is the problem with all these ideas about CIA medeling. They portray the arabs as at best stupid and at worst evil.

Sat, 2011-06-18 10:47

#27

notaradical

CMOT Dibbler wrote:
In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba? The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

You're very right that the US meddling in those countries generally didn't achieve its goals. I concede in the failure of the CIA there. That doesn't erase the fact that they did meddle and caused untold suffering. The CIA basically ruined any hope for democratization in Iran, at least in the short term. They starved the Cubans. They murdered tens of thousands of Nicaraguans. Yet that is not the official narrative we find in the American media. That's why I'm skeptical.

I think that the masses had every right to revolt. I don't endorse the meddling of any external forces. Revolution has to come from within. That's why, when I see evidence that there was a guiding hand at play, red flags immediately start popping up. What will we say when the Egyptians or the Tunisians elect a free-market racketeer as their new leader? Someone who will effect policies in stark opposition to the popular demands articulated by the revolution.

I have presented evidence here that casts doubt that the movement was completely spontaneous. I am still waiting for anything to concretely refute these claims.

Sat, 2011-06-18 11:35

#28

Fidel

CMOT Dibbler wrote:
In Iran? Nicaragua? Cuba? The Shah was overthrown, and the Islamic Republic that replaced him is still in existance today. The Sandanistas eventually won in there struggle against Samosa and the yanks, and the revolutionary government in Cuba still fuctions. Yup, petty clueless.

They've worked pretty hard to pave the way for militant Islam in the "Middle East" and Central Asia. The US and Israelis allowed a militant Hamas to form at a time when the PLO was cut off from international funding.

The US and western allies paved the way for militant Islam in Iran once their brutal dictatorship under the Shah had run its course. Muslim clerics wondered how they themselves could be deemed fit to run a country. Iran's Revolutionary Guard aided Clintonites in creating a militant Islamic base in 1990s Bosnia. They worked closely with "al-Qaeda" in achieving their goals on the edge of Eastern Europe. And the oil companies love Ahmadinejad. Every time he utters the word Israel or oil, the price of a barrel of oil skyrockets.

They crippled the Sandinistas before electing one of their neoliberal stooges who basically ran the country into the ground for years. It's all about preventing socialism and maintaining poverty and backwardness in the colonies.

US Democrats have at least had the sense to admit that they created the Gucci Mujahideen, Taliban, and even al-Qaeda. And it could just as easily have been called Saudi bin Laden with all the western aid and assistance that country has received from the west in propping up imperialism there.

Hawks in the west love militant Islam and right wing extremists in general. What they did was create another unseen enemy in Central Asia and headed by Emanuel Goldstein's protege, Elvis bin Laden.

What they fear most is legitimate political opposition on the left like the political wing of Hamas today. They fear people's revolutions and so work hard to re-install another stooge, or in the case of Egypt ensure that the old military order remains in control.

And they fear stooges like Karzai and his drug trafficking brother being woo'd away from CIA/ISI controllers by Asian leaders. Anything resembling democracy is fighting dirty as far as they are concerned. They really are working overtime to maintain empire. It's slipping away though.

Sat, 2011-06-18 11:47

#29

Papal Bull

Man, Fidel. You should invest in some synonyms for 'stooge'.

Your overuse of the term has stripped Larry, Curly, Moe and even Shemp of all their powers.

Sat, 2011-06-18 12:31

#30

Fidel

Oh I'm simply making up for the five or six decades that it was entirely underused in this Northern Puerto Rico. Whether stooge, kleptocrat, hireling, toady, sycophant, I've used them all but have settled on stooge for ease of typing. Our stooges are not worth the extra keys. Only 0.18% of Canadians actually voted for our latest head stooge.

Sat, 2011-06-18 12:35

#31

al-Qa'bong

Quote:
Hon. John Baird (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the reasons that Parliament voted unanimously back in March to impose sanctions against the Libyan regime and undertake a UN sanctioned mission exist today. We are there to protect the vulnerable civilian population that is under attack by its own government.

We believe the military mission is incredibly important but so too is adding humanitarian support, additional diplomatic measures and, as has been suggested by others in the House, support for good governance from the transitional council.

Some honourable members: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

Sat, 2011-06-18 12:37

#32

Fidel

But then again they tend to turn their backs on people like Libby Davies when presenting motions in the House calling for a real investigation into shady dealings surrounding 9/11.

They must blush a little when voluntarily defending team false flagellum gladiolas the way they do every now and then, and the same hawks on the right they claim to be at odds with over Palestinian issues. Nay it was pious Muslims who did the deed. lol!

Sat, 2011-06-18 12:38

#33

Tommy_Paine

I think we tend to look back at a string of events and try to post hoc ascribe some kind of master plan. I don't think that's what happened at all, it's very much the same as what the British used to call "bungling through."

Dulles, Ike and Churhill probably thought it was a great idea to stymie democracy in Iran in the early 50's, and never bothered to give thought to who they were setting up as opposition-- fundamentalist religious leaders stepped into the vacuum. And the U.S. was very much asleep at the switch when their buddy the Shaw was overthrown by those leaders-- giving a victory to those fundamentalists.

The error was hugely compounded when it seemed like a good idea at the time to support the various factions in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet occupation. The unintended end result being that it gave the fundies yet another victory, and cemented the idea that the only thing that works for Arab independance was fundamentalist religion. Hey. Nothing succeeds like success.

And our eventual withdrawl from Afghanistan will be seen as yet another victory for religious fundamentalists. Or at least, it will be spun that way in the Middle East.

All of these things seemed like good ideas at the time, but did not follow some "blue print".

I think the U.S. would be more than happy to still have Mubarak in Egypt, but decided to get out in front of the democracy parade once they sensed the inevitable, as Noah Scape pointed out. Cut above the Carter administration, at least, which backed the Shaw far beyond the point of no return.

And all of this was touched off in Tunis, due in no small part to the increase in the price of food. Which increased because the U.S. thought it a jolly good idea to deregulate food speculation on Wall Street.

Is the Arab Spring some master plan by Goldman Sachs, or their partner in de-regulation, Slick Willie Clinton?

Sat, 2011-06-18 13:15

#34

Fidel

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I think we tend to look back at a string of events and try to post hoc ascribe some kind of master plan. I don't think that's what happened at all, it's very much the same as what the British used to call "bungling through."

Dulles, Ike and Churhill probably thought it was a great idea to stymie democracy in Iran in the early 50's, and never bothered to give thought to who they were setting up as opposition-- fundamentalist religious leaders stepped into the vacuum. And the U.S. was very much asleep at the switch when their buddy the Shaw was overthrown by those leaders-- giving a victory to those fundamentalists.

That's right. Instead, US, British and Israeli hawks, Saudi princes, and the military dictatorship post 1947 gave intense consideration to who they did not want running various countries, ie. communists, socialists, pan Arab nationalists etc. They've dealt with the devil, from Hitler and Pol Pot to Saddam Hussein and Elvis bin Laden, in order to prevent socialism from scoring goals around the world.

Tommy_Paine wrote:
The error was hugely compounded when it seemed like a good idea at the time to support the various factions in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet occupation. The unintended end result being that it gave the fundies yet another victory, and cemented the idea that the only thing that works for Arab independance was fundamentalist religion. Hey. Nothing succeeds like success.

I think they simply hated socialism, communism, Pan-Arab Nationalism that much that they never committed any errors as far as they were concerned. Fascists have had nightmares about reds under their beds for a long time. Fascism was born of the French Revolution as a political and militant opposition to socialism.

Tommy_Paine wrote:
And our eventual withdrawl from Afghanistan will be seen as yet another victory for religious fundamentalists. Or at least, it will be spun that way in the Middle East.

All of these things seemed like good ideas at the time, but did not follow some "blue print".

They would withdraw if they could leave in place a brutal right wing fundamentalist regime, say, one led by a pro-Mujahideen/Northern Alliance coalition partnered with Taliban mullahs and corrupted by the ISI and CIA funded by taxpayers in several countries to finance the bribes. And they want paying these stooges - they don't come cheap.

Tommy_Paine wrote:
I think the U.S. would be more than happy to still have Mubarak in Egypt, but decided to get out in front of the democracy parade once they sensed the inevitable, as Noah Scape pointed out. Cut above the Carter administration, at least, which backed the Shaw far beyond the point of no return.

There were powerful Wall Street bankers lobbying Carter to grant their former stooge political refuge in America. Wall Street made a lot of money handling Iran's enormous oil wealth siphoned out of the country by the Shah. And the banksters knew that to allow the former dictator to live in the lap of luxury and disgrace in exile in Morocco or any of the other shitholes would be to send the wrong message to western-backed dictators - that their enablers would abandon them so easily in times of need.

Buth the whole world has one thing in common, and it's common desire for social democracy. The name of the game for hawks and superrich is to prevent it from happening as always. They have and will continue dealing with the devil in waging war on democracy. It's what they do. Because if this coincidence theory is true, the one that says the CIA and ISI, Mossad, MI6 etc are intel agencies run by thousands of Elmer Fudds and Barney Fifle-alikes, then why did those two ficitious TV characters never make it as billionaires the same as the heads of and friends of right wing extremism here in the west? Surely if they are too stupid to run intel and black ops, then they surely can't benefit monetarily or politically. Barney and Elmer were just too dumb to fall on riches and dynastic political rule accidentally or by wild coincidence.

It's time to consider that the mistakes are not really mistakes at all. - Naomi Klein

Sat, 2011-06-18 16:25

#35

notaradical

Tommy_Paine wrote:

I think we tend to look back at a string of events and try to post hoc ascribe some kind of master plan. I don't think that's what happened at all, it's very much the same as what the British used to call "bungling through."

Dulles, Ike and Churhill probably thought it was a great idea to stymie democracy in Iran in the early 50's, and never bothered to give thought to who they were setting up as opposition-- fundamentalist religious leaders stepped into the vacuum. And the U.S. was very much asleep at the switch when their buddy the Shaw was overthrown by those leaders-- giving a victory to those fundamentalists.

The error was hugely compounded when it seemed like a good idea at the time to support the various factions in Afghanistan fighting against the Soviet occupation. The unintended end result being that it gave the fundies yet another victory, and cemented the idea that the only thing that works for Arab independance was fundamentalist religion. Hey. Nothing succeeds like success.

And our eventual withdrawl from Afghanistan will be seen as yet another victory for religious fundamentalists. Or at least, it will be spun that way in the Middle East.

All of these things seemed like good ideas at the time, but did not follow some "blue print".

I think the U.S. would be more than happy to still have Mubarak in Egypt, but decided to get out in front of the democracy parade once they sensed the inevitable, as Noah Scape pointed out. Cut above the Carter administration, at least, which backed the Shaw far beyond the point of no return.

And all of this was touched off in Tunis, due in no small part to the increase in the price of food. Which increased because the U.S. thought it a jolly good idea to deregulate food speculation on Wall Street.

Is the Arab Spring some master plan by Goldman Sachs, or their partner in de-regulation, Slick Willie Clinton?

A destabilized Muslim world is the best thing the US administration could ever have hoped for. It means endless war and endless profiteering for the military-industrial complex. Their victims are largely states that can't fend off the American military. Things were different when it was them against the Soviets and the Soviets had a comparable number of soldiers and nukes. Who wants to risk mutual annihilation? Now though, the US administration can prance across the globe, picking out unlucky nations one after another and justifying war under pretext of combating terrorism. It doesn't happen in every case. Obviously, you can't be at war with the whole world, regardless of what the US administration thinks of itself. When it's more profitable, stage a revolution, mop up the real revolutionaries, and install your despot. When the price is right, claim that this or that country is harbouring Islamic fundamentalists and bomb them kingdom come.

Sat, 2011-06-18 21:09

#36

Tommy_Paine

What the U.S. wants, what the financial totalitarians want, and what business wants is stability. They manage shit that happens as it happens, with an eye to maintaining or promoting something predictable.

Sat, 2011-06-18 21:34

#37

Fidel

CMOT Dibbler wrote:
"It's time to consider that the mistakes are not really mistakes at all. - Naomi Klein" Hold on a second. Are you trying to show that Kline believes that the Arab Spring is a American plot?

No she was talking about something called disaster capitalism when she wrote that. Think opportunistic jackals taking advantage of a bad situation which they themselves contributed to.

They did it in the former Yugoslavia when that country fell apart after following the neoliberal voodoo for too long.

And even though Libya owns the best human development index of all African countries, the west's economic hit team was pressuring Qadaffi to get with their plan. He was doing exactly that according to the IMF in a news article that praised Qadaffi up and down just a few months prior to start of the "Arab Spring".

Sat, 2011-06-18 21:34

#38

NDPP

Experts Fear Israeli Design To Balkanise Arab States

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56140

"...The western campaign against Libya wasn't undertaken to protect human rights or foster democracy, it was launched with the aim of breaking Libya up politically so as to prevent the unification of three revolutionary Arab states - Egypt, Libya and Tunisia - which together might pose a threat to Israeli regional dominance...

The primary objective is to weaken the Arab states of North Africa, which, if they ever united, would represent a potential threat to Israel and western interests. Libya's significant oil wealth, of course, constitutes a secondary reason for the intervention."

Sat, 2011-06-18 21:57

#39

CMOT Dibbler

"It's time to consider that the mistakes are not really mistakes at all. - Naomi Klein"

Hold on a second. Are you trying to show that Kline believes the Arab Spring to be an American plot?

Sat, 2011-06-18 22:14

#40

Veeravel

Gene Sharp's work that was spread around the Arab spring was a work on strategy so I think his anti-communist leanings are irrelevant in the use of the material (it can be used by fascists, liberals, communists or what not) but its probably certain that his anti-communism/anti-sovietism probably fueled him, much like Clauswitz and Thucydides had been fueled by certain ideological motives but the application of their work itself is up for grabs.

What we must ask ourselves (and what the Arab peoples will decide in the end) is whether democratic gains along with some unsavoury/free-market elements is better than what was there before. We must also be always willing to critically examine "anti-imperialist" leaders, not just "pro-USA" leaders in the third world as well. I don't think the black and white approach of the right is any better when its inverted by the Left. Nationalim and Anti-imperialism are great things for the third world's fight against colonialism of old and colonialism of new but its also a great way for regimes to divert people from criticism, as Fanon has written even back in 1961.

Sun, 2011-06-19 07:38

#41

Slumberjack

I think Tommy is right. Profit is the master plan. Everything else is just disaster management, maintenance, and enforcement of the capitalist order of things, such that it is.

Sun, 2011-06-19 13:15

#42

Fidel

Yes it's all about profit and nothing more. Hawks are little more than Elmer Fudds and Barney Fifes embedded in US government for decades at a time, like Rumsfeld and Cheney have been since the 1970s. There are just some things the vicious empire would not stoop to doing in order to crook and rob other countries of their oil and other mineral wealth. Mass murder, economic warfare and false flag terrorism are fairly serious charges. Surely the Gladio Gang are above all that. The Soviets, on the other hand? Well, we know all about them and could rhyme off a list of things they were guilty of without prompting.

Sun, 2011-06-19 13:30

#43

500_Apples

The people who ignore the role of power-relations and imperialism in analyzing third world developments are the real enablers of imperialism and white supremacy.

Of course the CIA had a hand in the Arab spring, the only question is how witting that hand was.

Sun, 2011-06-19 13:42

#44

clandestiny

The USSR was innocent of so much of what it's been accused of. Am I the only one who read 'Siber' , Farley Mowat's 1972 report on travels through the USSR? The Soviets built ICE DAMS up north, saving a fortune by replacing concrete with ice- and that's something we never heard about. The USSR OPENED the NorthEAst passage in the 30's to 700 vessels a year-we still haven't opened the NW passsge! The USSR defeated fascism in WW2, w/out barely any help from so called 'allies'; it deployed deliverable nukes by 1950, preventing fascism from using the bomb since then! The USSR put satelites/men into space, BEFORE the grunting pig west! Gensec Stalin SIGNED every death warrant carried out during his time in office; he never became wealthy (reagan left WHouse with $32 million in his 'blind trust') and his indifference to his family is tragic IF one sees him as a desperate revolutionary trying to keep USSR alive despite overwhelming fascist oppo ...blah blah blah!

Fact is, one day humanity gonna wake up, and realize the disaster that destroying the USSR (thus the revolution) was to us, to the future.The pig lies about everything. The fascasti murdered Trotsky (through agents in Comintern) and FDR (who respected the USSR, unlike truman) They went on to murder JFK, Malcolm X, Hammershald, Patrice Lumumba, Chile's Allende, Pope JohnPaul1st, John Lennon, Frank Church, Mel Carnahan, Paul Wellstone, Hunter Thompson and the hundred of NYPD/FD officers on 911. And they murdered Joe Stalin's name- made him like hitler or bush; spending billions to falsify the record! Someday, if humanity survives, maybe Joseph Stalin will take his place among the true heroes of the human race. He was certainly more saintly then JP2nd, or that idiot regan, or fricking churchill, or cecil rhodes, or george junyer ...imo

Sun, 2011-06-19 13:48

#45

Merowe

500_Apples wrote:

The people who ignore the role of power-relations and imperialism in analyzing third world developments are the real enablers of imperialism and white supremacy.

Of course the CIA had a hand in the Arab spring, the only question is how witting that hand was.

Yup. That works for me!

Sun, 2011-06-19 16:27

#46

Fidel

Everything We're Doing Now Was Planned BEFORE 9/11

Quote:
We've been told that 9/11 changed everything.

Is it true?...

The G8 Map of Washington's Greater Middle East extends right to the borders of China and Russia and West to Morocco February

Quote:
Washington's NED in a larger agenda

If we make a list of the countries in the region which are undergoing mass-based protest movements since the Tunisian and Egyptian events and overlay them onto a map, we find an almost perfect convergence between the protest countries today and the original map of the Washington Greater Middle East Project that was first unveiled during the George W. Bush Presidency after 2001.

Washington's NED has been quietly engaged in preparing a wave of regime destabilizations across North Africa and the Middle East since the 2001-2003 US military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The list of where the NED is active is revealing. Its website lists Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Sudan as well, interestingly, as Israel. Coincidentally these countries are almost all today subject to "spontaneous" popular regime-change uprisings.

Israel, too? The hawks did similar things throughout the cold war era in Europe. They shit disturbed and funded fascist uprisings, and then backed off when they needed military support from NATO. They might be throwing Israelis to the wolves similarly after years worth of arming to the eye teeth Israel's enemies. A CIA report of a few years ago stated that Israel will become an unviable nation state in so many years. The writing is on the wall for Israel, and so the NATO gang have been planning to move into other countries for years(before 9/11) and probably abandoning Israelis to their own devices. They were never friends of Israel in the first place.

Sun, 2011-06-19 18:14

#47

Noah_Scape

History points to "a manufactured Arab Spring" -

World War II was enabled by America helping Germany build up it's military as a force against perceived USSR expansion;

The Cold War was not what it seemed to be, or at least "was not necessary" - it was another American ploy to "create an enemy to keep fear alive and the military budgets

The Vietnam war was made possible only by the idea that Communist China was threatening expansion [not!], and again, creating an enemy to keep the endless wars going ;

The Korean war was over before it began, except that then Gen MacArthur decided to march across the 38th parallel;

South America - 1980s era CIA stomping out socialism by assassinating socialist leaders etc. [and using illegal drug money to arm and fund the militias that did the killing]

So sure, America is up to something other than their stated purpose in Libya. Endless war, Imperialism, etc. - Here is an article saying "oil is the reason" > http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25200

Sun, 2011-06-19 18:26

#48

al-Qa'bong

Before the whirring of black helicopter blades completely drowns out any other sound here; while they clearly have a lot to gain by undermining Syria and Libya, could someone explain why the Illuminati would want to betray their loyal Egyptian, Bahrainian, Yemeni and Tunisian puppets, and thereby make their Israeli client state very nervous?

Sun, 2011-06-19 19:26

#49

Catchfire

Whoa, what the...when I first saw this thread title I thought it was either a) referring to the impetus for the uprisings (i.e. Western hegemony) or b) was satirical. Instead, it is offering some seedy, half-baked "evidence" meant to undercut the pan-Arab popular movement. "Thinking critically" doesn't mean ignoring the incredible evidence which shows an entire group of people refusing to accept the yokes of their dictators. Posts like the OP are based on racist, orientalist assumptions, and have no place on babble. Notaradical, keep your conspiracy theories to yourself in the future, thanks.

Thank you to CMOT for your incredulity and to BdC, Lachine Scot, and al-Q for your incredulous ridicule. The CIA. Cripes. What will Obama think of next?

Sun, 2011-06-19 20:44

#50

Noah_Scape

Satirical Manufacturing 'R Us!! But Catchfiremod, nobody here is "trying to undercut the pan-Arab popular movement". Its great the they are ousting their tyranical leaders.

Some of us here are just saying that America gets involved for it's own reasons, which are different than the upriser's reasons. Do you doubt that, Catchfire? Or is it as the MSM says - that NATO is just there to lend a helping hand, motivated only by a sense of duty, but without any expectations afterwards?

Furthermore, with apologies for usurping [I love that word!], you are not really asking Notaradical to "keep his conspiracy theories to himself", are you? Be they "Whacko", "TinFoilHatBrigade" or "Logical Radical", Conspiracy Theories 'R Us too.

Sun, 2011-06-19 20:53

#51

NDPP

Yes, there is a pan-Arab popular movement and people refusing to accept the yoke of dictators. There is also Great Gaming, elite planning, and ongoing attempts to 'steer' the aforementioned movements. And there are indeed conspiracies involved as well as the CIA. The above intervention, its manner (or lack of), characterization and claims made, leaves much to be desired incidentally.

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