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7 July 2005        Free

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"Egyptian society is boiling. We have seen this only one or two times in the past 80 years,"



"They criticized Nour for meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a visit she made to Cairo last month... Nour...remains a pariah among other opposition groups."







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NEWSFLASH - Egyptian Iraq Amb Killed:    Al-Qaida in Iraq said in a Web posting Thursday that it had killed Egypt's top envoy in Iraq, showing a video of the blindfolded diplomat identifying himself. The video did not show his death.   ``We announce in the name of al-Qaida in Iraq that the verdict of God against the ambassador of the infidels, the ambassador of Egypt, has been carried out. Thank God,'' a written statement in the Web posting said.

EGYPT - 'It's Like 1952!'

Still U.S. Sells Egypt More Arms

MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 7 July:          
   Downtown Washington on Connecticut Avenue practically the first words from a former Egyptian Minister upon running into an old friend - "It's Like 1952!".    The American friend, much more aware of dates like 1948, 1967, and 1973, had to think for a moment before getting it.  1952!   The Egyptian Revolution that overthrew the King, put a group of military leaders in power -- with Gamel Abdel Nasser to emerge not only as Egypt's leader but as the leader of the much of the Arab world. 
    For many years, long before it became popular to do so, MER has pointed fingers at the Egyptian police state for gross forms of political and financial corruption as well as terrible forms of torture and repression. 
     Heady words indeed from a former high-ranking Egyptian official walking the protected streets of  downtown Washington:  'It's Like 1952!'


Appalled at Beating of Protesters, Egypt's Opposition Leaps to Action

New Groups Form; Established Ones Agree to Join Forces
By Daniel Williams

Washington Post - Wednesday, July 6, 2005; A10 - CAIRO, July 5 -- Youth for Change, Journalists for Change, Lawyers for Change. Ever since May 25, when a mob sympathetic to President Hosni Mubarak very publicly beat up a group of female protesters, advocacy groups that promise change -- as in change of president -- have been springing to life.

"Egyptian society is boiling. We have seen this only one or two times in the past 80 years," said Alaa Aswani, an author and dentist who is active in two other new groups: Writers for Change and Doctors for Change.

In addition to the new groups, established opposition organizations have created a common front for the first time. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, joined forces with Kifaya, a composite of small political, human rights and nongovernmental organizations. The union creates the potential for mass anti-government demonstrations of a kind not seen here for almost 30 years.

Egypt's activists have moved relatively quickly to take their place among reform movements that have blossomed in several countries in the Middle East. While not massive like the protests that rocked Lebanon this spring, their campaign is nonetheless notable in Egypt, which the Bush administration has singled out as a country in the "march of democracy" it says it is promoting.

Small protests, which only eight months ago were a novelty in Cairo, are now common fare, even if most are hemmed in by phalanxes of riot police. For the first time, activists are using the Internet to organize "lightning" demonstrations, with sympathetic bloggers taking the lead in calling out protesters on short notice.

Agitation has been building in advance of a presidential election tentatively slated for early September.

Most opposition groups dismiss Mubarak's proposal to hold a multi-candidate presidential race for the first time in Egypt's history. They call it a sham designed to prolong his rule. Under newly minted election rules, only candidates from officially endorsed parties can run against him. Emergency laws that have been in effect for almost a quarter-century inhibit free assembly and association and permit arrest and detention without charge.

The wave of protests is largely limited to the middle class, and it remains an open question whether Egypt's legions of working-class people and unemployed will eventually join. But in a country whose opposition was long politically dormant, the spread of opposition activity is nonetheless striking, activists contend.

Unlike mass protest movements in Ukraine and Lebanon, which from the outset featured sophisticated mobilization techniques, Egyptian activists have only recently exploited the Internet to recruit and activate a rank and file.

Alaa Seif set up a network of five Web logs that promoted a protest at the shrine of a Muslim holy woman, Sayeda Zeinab, earlier this month. Demonstrators held aloft brooms to symbolize the desire to sweep away Mubarak. Even that was a departure. Until then, leaflets that said "Mubarak, No" were about the flashiest protest tools in use.

Seif was moved to mobilize bloggers on May 25 when a crowd of men beat him while police stood idly by. "I believe we have to do something. Egypt is pretty wired. Internet can build opposition from the bottom up," he said. Postings on his blog increased from about 400 to 1,200 in a matter of days after the May 25 demonstration, in which stick-wielding men under the direction of Mubarak's National Democratic Party attacked protesters. Women in the crowd were particular targets.

"After they beat up the women, the opposition definitely got more popular," Seif said.

The melee also led Ghada Shehbendar, a former marketing executive, to act. She and other women set up a civil rights monitoring group called We Can See You that gathers information on corruption, poor social services and arbitrary arrest.

"I was angry and then sad," said Shehbendar, who saw the violence on satellite television. "On May 25, I felt that our whole value system was falling apart."

Shehbendar said she was not only shocked by the beatings but disturbed by the lackadaisical response of her two children. "They told me they thought this was normal for Egypt. Other mothers told me the same thing. Their children didn't have any other expectations," she said.

Youth for Change is trying to reach out beyond Kifaya activists by distributing leaflets in subway cars and on street corners and by setting up a Web site. At a meeting Saturday, about 70 activists pondered creating street theatrical groups and organizing support for worker grievances and women trying to find relatives lost in Egypt's opaque prison system. They were pleased when one activist reported that after passing out 350 leaflets on a Cairo street, two people called expressing interest in the organization.

The meeting's participants were diverse: Women in veils sat side-by-side with women sporting free-flowing locks; leftists addressed the audience as "comrades" while computer wizards used the label "colleagues"; rock aficionados proposed compiling a compact disc of protest songs. Ages ranged from 19 to about 30.

"It's a risk. We're not legal, but we're not underground either," said one of the founders of Youth for Change, Ahmed Salah. "Anyway, the beating of the women was not the worst thing that ever happened in Egypt, but it helped clear the air. We see what we're up against. We're not afraid."

Government officials recognize that the May 25 incident damaged efforts to promote Mubarak's election initiative as genuinely democratic, though they speak largely in terms of the sullying of Egypt's image. "It was a stupid thing to do," said Attiya Shakran, the government spokesman. "It was the NDP's fault."

But even before the violence, there were signs that active opposition to Mubarak was spreading among professional classes in Egypt. On May 13, magistrates rejected the president's call for them to participate in election monitoring -- government employees and National Democratic Party supporters would dominate the surveillance, the magistrates said.

The judges went further by demanding full judicial independence and an end to the control of judges' salaries by the government. They issued a report that said voter participation in the May referendum that passed Mubarak's election plan amounted to only 5 percent.

"The bottom line is that all elections in Egypt have been frauds for 50 years and we don't want to participate in this one," said Hesham Bastaweesy, a 30-year veteran of the bench. The last time magistrates revolted was in 1969, when many refused to join the ruling party and were dismissed.

Cooperation between the Muslim Brotherhood and Kifaya has been long gestating. The Brotherhood had resisted joining forces with secular groups, partly because, as an organization banned from politics, it would be lending its numbers to others and partly because its agenda of setting up a state ruled by Islamic law clashed with that of nonreligious groups.

Abdul Aly Fattah, a top Brotherhood official, attributed the new union to Kifaya's willingness to accept the Brotherhood as an organization and not just as individuals. The deal was negotiated at three June meetings.

For all the talk of unity, one notable breach has shown up in the opposition spectrum. The Brotherhood and Kifaya excluded opposition presidential candidate Ayman Nour and his Tomorrow Party from joining the new united front. They criticized Nour for meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a visit she made to Cairo last month. The Brotherhood and Kifaya are fiercely critical of the Bush administration.

Nour is battling government charges of fraud in a case his supporters say is a setup. He has called for a united front, but for the moment, he remains a pariah among other opposition groups. "Maybe we will get together later. We'll see," said the Brotherhood's Fattah.


 U.S. Agrees to Sell Arms to Egypt

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has authorized the sale of 25 Avenger anti-aircraft missile launchers to Egypt, calling its ally "an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East."

The Avenger, sometimes seen around Washington during terror alerts, is a Humvee that carries a launcher that fires Stinger surface-to-air missiles.

The total value of the deal, which would include technical support and other associated parts, could be as high as $126 million, according to a statement from the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

Egypt would be able to build two air defense brigades around the Avengers, the statement said.

"This proposed sale will reduce Egypt's dependence on its Soviet air defense systems and will enhance potential interoperability with U.S. forces," the Pentagon said.

The principal contractors are Boeing Aerospace Company of Huntsville, Ala., and International Telephone and Telegraph of Fort Wayne, Ind.

Congress has a month to pass a joint resolution opposing such a sale, which would effectively kill it. Such a move is regarded as unlikely.

The Bush administration also authorized the sale of 50 replacement engines for Egypt's CH-47 Chinook helicopters, a deal worth up to $74 million, the agency said in a separate statement.

The announcement came a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Cairo.

In the past, Israel has raised concerns about U.S. arms sales to its Arab neighbors. Israeli and American officials are in discussions this week as the Bush administration seeks to limit what technology Israel will sell to China and other countries.


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July 2005


Magazine






It's The Damn Policies Stupid!
(July 20, 2005)
Long-time MER readers will not find all this a total surprise. We've been 'preaching' for some time that what is happening today can in fact be traced back to what has happened ever since the end of World War I in the Middle East, to Western policies ever since the carve-up of the old Ottoman Empire. It was then, at the so-called 'Paris Peace Conference', that the Turkish Muslim Empire of old was ended by force of arms and the Arab peoples tricked once again by those who professed 'self-determination' (the 'freedom' slogan of that era) but were in fact determined to deny the Arabs their independence and any semblance of democracy.

American Terror and the Coming War With Iran
(July 19, 2005)
"In their ignorance and arrogance, the Bushists will almost certainly strike at Iran -- despite the fact that even Iranian dissidents support the effort to make their nation a nuclear power and would join the mullahs in retaliation. The result will be a conflict far surpassing the horror and magnitude of the Iraq disaster."

George Bush's Twisted and Perverted World
(July 18, 2005)
So much for real democracy. Even in the supposed 'bastion of freedom', the United States of America, we are all now closer than ever to living in what has to be considered a complicated modern day police-states using pre-fascist techniques. That is what omni-present 'survelliance', unchecked Gulags, 'Patriot Acts', Supreme Court 'stop the vote counting' decisions, torture techniques, legalized 'censorship', CIA covert and black ops, and continual press manipulation are really all about.

A BIG WARNING - Too Little Too Late Too Bad
(July 18, 2005)
Unfortunately, tragically, those who oppose what the Israelis are doing are not only very weak, they are badly organized and led -- miserably and probably fatally in fact. This 'Warning' Statement 'to raise the alarm' published over the weekend by three Israelis is an example -- correct in the warnings and conclusions, badly written, even more badly presented, and without any serious strategy other than a kind of pathetic assertion to sign another petition that has no chance of any kind of having any impact...only further misleading people as to what is really involved and what the situation really requires.


(July 18, 2005)



(July 18, 2005)


Greg Szymanski Articles - 9/11 Conspiracy
(July 18, 2005)


Witchhunt against Ward Churchill
(July 17, 2005)


ISRAEL and SHARON'S LATEST AND GREATEST DECEPTION
(July 16, 2005)
There are very few print magazines that deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a serious and sophisticated way. One of these is a bi-monthly English magazine called Challenge; and this editorial from the current issue is of particular interest and importance at this particular time. All the more so with the Israelis so outrageously trying to cajole and extort still further billions from the U.S. -- a financial swindle on top of what really rises to the level of a major historical and political scam. It is indeed always challenging to really understand the actual, rather than the public relations, policies of Israel; and of the U.S. as well. More and more in fact.

Arafat's 'Stealth Assassination' Confirmed
(July 13, 2005)
Last November, long before any other credible expert news and analysis media, and even as the Israeli/U.S.-chosen Palestinian leaders were strenuously denying it, MER repeatedly published articles detailing the "STEALTH ASSASSINATION" of Yasser Arafat.

Washington Prepares More Attacks in the name of the 'New World Order'
(July 12, 2005)
Nothing like more 'terrorism', more appeals to no-nothing patriotism, and more 'defending the homeland' jingoism to rally the people around the flag, no matter what the long-term costs, no matter how much social polarization and opposition... Washington's current political/military and domestic/international time-table goes something like this: Get one or two right-wing appointees within a few months onto the Supreme Court, get the Israelis out of little imprisoned Gaza giving the false impression of 'progress' in the 'Middle East Peace Process', claim to be fast-track training Iraqi regime troops so the Iraqis can be blamed themselves for not 'stabilizing' their country and/or for the escalating civil war; and then be ready to strike one way or another whenever the timing and excuses are suitable against the remaining 'evils'... Iran, North Korea, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas.

Washington Firestorm over Rove, Court - Calculating Next 'New World Order' Strikes
(July 12, 2005)
"...and then be ready to strike one way or another, whenever the timing and excuses are suitable, against the remaining 'evils'... Iran, North Korea, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas."

Recent MER Articles
(July 09, 2005)


Has Karl Rove Finally Screwed Himself?
(July 11, 2005)
If you read MER and BlogWashington.com you have known for some time that the Karl Rove/White House scandal would soon be exploding in Washington with potentially devastating political results. It's a modern-day Watergate-like cover-up saga so far missing a modern-day Deep Throat. But in the past few days this major story is beginning to emerge from journalistic hesitation and cowardice on the part of what we all now call the 'mainstream' and 'corporate' media. It was more than a week ago on 2 July that the following appeared at BlogWashington.com:

POPE FANS FLAMES OF CHRISTIAN - MUSLIM WAR
(July 10, 2005)
Add to these acts and statements of the Pope of Rome, certainly the most visible and powerful symbol of Christianity, the ever-increasing Evangelical 'Born Again' nature of American society these days on top of George W. Bush's public assertion of 'Crusade' both in word and deed, and you have a formula for escalating religious-inspired warfare for a long time to come. Things are now escalating further out of control into a real 'Clash of Civilizations'; though this certainly did not have to be.

The Apartheid Wall - A Year After the Historic ICJ ruling
(July 9, 2005)
Meanwhile the Israelis have continued racing ahead not only with 'The Wall' but also with their grand design to further build and consolidate the great majority of settlements they plan to keep and expand, while feinting 'withdrawal' from the small few they have always planned to give up as far too costly, isolated, and 'dispensable'. It is all a receipe for much further conflict, bloodshed, and turmoil in the years ahead; just as it is this Jews Vs Arabs conflict in the 'Holy Land' which in the past has so poisoned the region and indeed now the world.

Britain had been warned says Robert Fisk
(July 8, 2005)
"If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours."

The Most Cowardly War in History
(July 8, 2005)
"The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our intelligence, and our future."

Egypt - "It's Like 1952"
(July 7, 2005)
"Egyptian society is boiling. We have seen this only one or two times in the past 80 years,"

Receiving MER - Free, Easy, Necessary
(July 7, 2005)
"Finally, I am beginning to understand, as I see so many parallels right here. I look forward to more valuable insights coming from your publication."

White House Threatened?
(July 6, 2005)
Is it really conceivable that in 2005 a legal investigation about who in government leaked the name of a secret CIA operative to the media could unravel the Bush Administration? There are so many differences from what happened to President Nixon in his second term. But even so legal proceedings have a kind of insolation from normal politics, none other than top Bush Adviser Karl Rove is being fingered as the man who did it, and supoenas are said to have now been issued for White House and Air Force One records involving Rove.

Front Nixon to Bush - 'Where Is The Press Now?' Asks Actor Robert Redford
(July 5, 2005)
He was the big star in the ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN Movie that made the Watergate scandal and 'Deep Throat' famous. Now he is saying quite loudly that President Bush is like President Nixon but that the press is not doing its crucial investigative job as it should. Redford chose American Independence Day, the 4th of July, to make his comments. And it was The Sunday Times two Sunday's ago now that published their tale of "Britain's Deep Throat":

Judith Miller and Karl Rove
(July 4, 2005)
"Miller...has a formidable track record of egregious violations of journalistic standards and best practices, and a habit of sending the public off on what turn out to be wild goose chases. Relying on a small circle of highly interested parties (often anonymous "sources"), she became the leading journalistic purveyor of the fallacy that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that he was tied to Al-Qaeda."

Iraq Quagmire Indeed! 42% support Impeaching Bush
(July 3, 2005)
"...more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country."

Karl Rove Fireworks Looming
(July 2, 2005)
It's been rumored for some time; but now that the long investigation is going to definitely and legally 'out' Karl Rove as 'the source' -- in this case according to federal statute an illegal act knowingly revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent -- what is fast approaching is some fierce political and legal fireworks immediately after the 4th of July fireworks.

Recent MER Articles
(July 1, 2005)


From Germany To America
(July 1, 2005)
"What no one seemed to notice...was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider.... What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security."




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