Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

Exiled Tunisian ruler Ben Ali reported to be in coma
February 17, 2011 9:46PM
DEPOSED Tunisian leader Zine el Abidine Ben Ali suffered a stroke a month after fleeing the country and was in a "worrying" condition in a Saudi hospital, French media have reported.
Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia on January 14 in the wake of a popular uprising against his decades-long rule, suffered a stroke earlier this week, Le Monde reported, citing the blog of French journalist Nicolas Beau, a veteran reporter specialisng in Tunisia.

Ben Ali was rushed to the hospital in Jeddah reserved for Saudi princes and was admitted under a false identity, the newspaper reported.

The report said the 74-year-old, who had suffered health problems before the collapse of his regime, was in a coma.

The collapse of Ben Ali's government in Tunisia prompted a wave of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, leading to the downfall of Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and continuing violent protests across the region.

First, there was no mention of a rape, Engineer. Repeated sexual assault can mean many things, but it doesn't necessarily mean rape. That's not to suggest that repeated sexual assaults are fun events either.

I stated that such an event was sad; did you miss that? And I never intimated for one second that these actions could or should be excused because of US policy.

I think, considering that the US has supported these brutal dictators for around sixty years that the Egyptians showed enormous restraint in dealing with any Americans that they might have encountered. Don't you?

As soon as something happens to an American, there is this huge kerfuffle, and lies, propaganda and threats of retaliation hit the airwaves. Much to Ms Logan's credit, she has asked that things be left out of the media, that she be allowed to deal with this privately.

But there is never mention, none, at all, of the enormous brutality that the US has heaped on the world's innocents. Even you, when you were set straight on the US's bullying Cuba into the US keeping a base [Guantanamo] on Cuba's sovereign soil, your reply wasn't much more than a "meh".

Quote:

How about Giffords being gunned down? No sympathy there because of U.S. policy. She's in Congress after all!

What has this to do anything? People are daily murdered all over the planet.

Bahrain's security forces are the backbone of the Al Khalifa regime, now facing unprecedented unrest after overnight shootings. But large numbers of their personnel are recruited from other countries, including Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Tanks and troops from Saudi Arabia were also reported to have been deployed in support of Bahraini forces.

Precise numbers are a closely guarded secret, but in recent years the Manama government has made a concerted effort to recruit non-native Sunni Muslims as part of an attempt to swing the demographic balance against the Shia majority – who make up around 65% of the population of 1 million.

Bahrainis often complain that the riot police and special forces do not speak the local dialect, or in the case of Baluchis from Pakistan, do not speak Arabic at all and are reviled as mercenaries. Officers are typically Bahrainis, Syrians or Jordanians. Iraqi Ba'athists who served in Saddam Hussein's security forces were recruited after the US-led invasion in 2003. Only the police employs Bahraini Shias.

The secret police – the Bahrain national security agency, known in Arabic as the Mukhabarat – has undergone a process of "Bahrainisation" in recent years after being dominated by the British until long after independence in 1971. Ian Henderson, who retired as its director in 1998, is still remembered as the "Butcher of Bahrain" because of his alleged use of torture. A Jordanian official is currently described as the organisation's "master torturer".

"Now they recruit young Bahraini Sunnis to open Twitter accounts to give the government point of view in the social media battle," a local journalist said.

The large-scale naturalisation of foreign Sunnis has been described by analysts as a "clear political strategy to alter the country's demographic balance in order to counter the Shia voting power."

Al-Wifaq, the leading Shia party, has long criticised these "political naturalisations". The government claims few foreigners are being naturalised, but it has convinced few Bahraini Shias. "This is in part because hardliners grouped around the royal court minister, Khalid bin Ahmad, and cabinet minister, Ahmed bin Atiyatallah, have successfully resisted calls for a transparent naturalisation system," the US embassy in Manama reported in December 2009, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks.

But the chief of public security, Major General Abdul Latif al-Zayani, was praised for blocking his subordinates' efforts to naturalise the mostly Pakistani special forces company that was due to deploy in support of US troops in Afghanistan. "Zayani reportedly cited the political sensitivity of naturalising Sunni expatriates and wanted to avoid provoking the opposition," the embassy said.

Opposition groups have protested that people chosen for naturalisation are not just Sunnis but religious fundamentalists who have strong anti-Shia feelings.

Bahrain's military says it has taken control of parts of the capital after riot police stormed a main square in Manama early Thursday to drive out thousands of demonstrators.

Western news reports quote the country's health minister as saying three people were killed and 231 wounded in the police operation to clear Pearl Square.

Protesters demanding sweeping political change had set up camp in the square. Security forces firing tear gas, percussion grenades and rubber bullets moved into the square before dawn, attacking the mostly Shi'ite demonstrators - including women and children - who had occupied the area since Tuesday.

In one sentence, you say that the you did not imply that US foreign policy excuses the sexual assult of a South African (American by marriage) reporter and then turn around and say that such is to be completely expected.

And indeed there have been no calls for lies, propanda or threats of retaliation in this case either.

Concerning Gitmo, I agreed that you were correct. Do you ever get that anywhere else?

As to the brutality heaped upon innocents, you here have done the exact same here in reverse. If you had posted some article about brutality heaped upon innocents and someone had said "So sad. How about that white woman tourist killed in Bermuda?" you'd have flipped. But they said "so sad" before moving on to what they care about, so what is the beef? Compassion for the many does not exclude compassion for the one.

Lash wrote:

Most people would say the US and UK have meddled enough in the direction of the ME and other countries...

Lash, this type of understatement is simply another form of lying. The US/UK haven't simply "meddled", they have committed war crimes, they have illegally invaded sovereign nations. They have committed genocide.

"meddled" - for Christ's sakes, Lash, call a spade a spade!

I just wish we didn't make these sorts of personal assertions about each others characters & motives, that's all. Let's stick to responding to the arguments in debate.

February 17, 2011 12:08 PM EST

Amidst growing political unrest in Algeria, one of the country’s founding fathers has called for a peaceful change in government, accusing the present regime of incompetence.
Abdelhamid Mehri, the former secretary general of the ruling party, wrote an open letter (published by the press) to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika demanding widespread political reforms.

"The voices calling for a peaceful change of this system are many. This change cannot be postponed any longer," he wrote.

"I address myself to you in this letter in a particularly delicate and dangerous context," he wrote, adding that the current regime is "incapable of solving the thorny problems of our country, which are multiple and complex, and even less so of preparing efficiently for the challenges of the future, which are even more arduous and serious."

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/113745/20110217/algeria.htm#ixzz1EEqPcwV4

Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia says the country's 19-year-old state of emergency will be lifted by the end of the month.

Mr. Ouyahia on Wednesday referenced the impact that protests taking place in several Middle Eastern countries have had on Algeria.

His announcement follows a statement by Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, who told a French radio station Monday that the state of emergency would end within days. More

Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball's WMD lies

Former US secretary of state asks why CIA failed to warn him over Iraqi defector who has admitted fabricating WMD evidence


Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi aka Curveball Curveball or Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi who gave dubious information on Iraq's secret biological weapons programme. Photograph: David Levene

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons capability.

Responding to the Guardian's revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or "Curveball" as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq's secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.

In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon's military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.

Powell said that the CIA and DIA should face questions about why they failed to sound the alarm about Janabi. He demanded to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war and into his own speech to the UN.

Does JTT have incredible compassion? It seems that when the focus is placed on these people, JTT wants to shift the focus on to the US. How is that compassion?

I've been in conversations about people who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and JTT's contribution has been to diminish the significance by drawing comparison to other larger war atrocities. Can this be considered compassion? I think it's losing the forest for the trees.

It isn't enough for Lash to concede the US's role,

JTT does NOT restrain the personal assertions about people's character and motives. JTT asserts his own licence to declare who here is a liar, propagandist, etc. He is the only authority on who is "being honest with themselves."

Does JTT have incredible compassion? It seems that when the focus is placed on these people, JTT wants to shift the focus on to the US. How is that compassion?

I've been in conversations about people who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, and JTT's contribution has been to diminish the significance by drawing comparison to other larger war atrocities. Can this be considered compassion? I think it's losing the forest for the trees.

It isn't enough for Lash to concede the US's role,

JTT does NOT restrain the personal assertions about people's character and motives. JTT asserts his own licence to declare who here is a liar, propagandist, etc. He is the only authority on who is "being honest with themselves."

Nor does failing to add to your typically well writen and documented posts imply disagreement or neutrality. Why should I have to rant against US policy vis-a-vis Cuba when you already made your argument and I agreed you were right?

I would think that getting someone to agree in writing that you were correct on a politics thread would be a great victory. Sorry I didn't realize you wanted a medal to go with it. I read a good number of threads here and typically only respond if I think I have something of value to add. Posting a note saying "JTT is right-on" is not worth my time to post or others to read.

If you want to trawl around in the past, I guess that speech made you feel good.

If you want to talk about the PRESENT, is Obama correct for laying low - or as the guys responding to the article I linked say - is Obama and the UK leadership wrong not to take some noisy public stand?