Israel’s Attack on The USS Liberty: An Act of War, A False Flag, A Gross Betrayal

Click here to access article by Craig McKee from Global Research.

Stephen Gowans' excellent new book entitled Israel: A beachhead in the Middle East reveals the context of the wider post WWII by the European nations and the USA to resist the efforts of the more independent Arab countries to possess and manage their own valuable oil and gas resources for the benefit of their countries instead of serving the British, American, and other European investors.

This Six-Day War was a crucial war that led to the decisive crushing of the influence of Gamal Nasser, President of Egypt, who became a hero to the Arabs who struggled to gain control of their oil from the colonial powers and the Americans. As such, the brief war also cemented the support by US capitalists in the emerging US Empire for Zionist Israel. 

As Gowans revealed in his heavily documented book:

In March 1967, tensions grew between Syria and Israel over their demilitarized zone separating the two states. The Soviets warned Nasser that Israel was preparing an attack on his ally. In April, the Jordanians and Saudis, taking their instruction from the CIA, accused Nasser of cowardice. He talked big, they said, but his inaction belied his words. He was nothing but a paper tiger. Their intention was to goad the Arab leader into attacking Israel, or lose face before his adoring Arab supporters if the didn't. 

Nasser built up his troops near the border between Israel and Egypt, and the Israelis went on the attack. The USS Liberty, equipped with power intelligence capabilities, was stationed near the battle-zone to monitor what was going. When the Israeli Army, equipped by the Western powers, launched their attack on nearby Arab countries and were decisive in their quick victory over the poorly equipped Arab nations like Egypt and Syria, the USS Liberty was a liability--they knew too much--and had to be destroyed by Israel. The directors of the emerging US Empire immediately recognized the value of Israel in helping to put down any resistance to their control of the valuable resources of the Middle East. And, as they say, the rest is history.

For an accurate description of the attempted sinking of the USS Liberty by the Israeli Air Force, I recommend my post from 2017 entitled Remembering the USS Liberty.

Censhorship and Detention in Egypt, a personal account

Click here to access the introduction to an article from Jadaliyya.

I was impressed by the enormous difficulties faced by an activist in Egypt, one of the favorite dictatorships of the Empire in the Middle East. If you think activists in the US face difficulties, read this introduction. (I didn't listen to the interview or read the transcript of the interview with the Egyptian activist, Alaa Abd El Fattah.)

Alaa Abd El Fattah is a writer, programmer, community organizer and activist who constantly generates new meanings to the notion of activism. 

Revolution in the Age of Social Media: The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet

Click here to access the transcript of interview by Jadaliyya with author Linda Herrera regarding her new book.

The Arab Spring phenomena generated of controversy which condensed into two views:

The compelling story behind [Egypt’s January 25] youth-led revolt of 2011 is not quite the romantic tale of liberation through the emancipatory power of communications technologies that many initially supposed it to be. Nor can Egypt’s internet politics be reduced to widely circulating conspiracies about hidden hands from the United States and elsewhere orchestrating people and events from behind the scenes. But let us be clear: there are some hidden hands that need to be brought to light and understood.

I think that the rest of the article suggests that we can learn much about this controversial issue from this author who identifies herself as a political anthropologist.

[Herrera] The memes, messages, and entities circulating on social media are often not what they appear. They require a high degree of “virtual intelligence,” painstaking research, analytical skills, and ability to work across all kinds of disciplinary and professional boundaries to decipher them.

.... It [her book] tells a blended story about the inspirational and oftentimes astounding ways people use new communication tools for freedom, to deliberate, create, organize, and confront oppression and injustice. It also tells a cautionary tale about ways virtual spaces are coopted by vested interests, and how they are susceptible to anti-democratic and even tyrannical regimes that put the lives and liberties of users at risk.

Everything Is for the Best: The US and Egypt one year after the coup

Click here to access article by Norman Finkelstein from his blog.

While Empire propagandists make enormous efforts to cover the crimes of their friends in the Middle East, Finkelstein insists that we look at the hideous facts.

It is now a year since the coup took place, and barely a week passes without the media reporting yet another human rights atrocity committed by the Egyptian government. Still, the Obama administration, like Dr. Pangloss, optimistically maintains that Egypt is passing through a democratic transition. How does it manage to reconcile the shocking facts with its unshakeable faith? 

Revolution on Ice

Click here to access article by Elliott Colla from Jadaliyya. 

Colla thoughtfully examines one Egyptian author's recently released novel in an attempt to unravel the mystery presented by many Egyptian intellectuals who have supported the Egyptian military establishment's recent ruthless crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood and their ongoing suppression of dissent and protest in Egypt. Referring to the novel, Colla writes:

...it allows us to begin to recognize the author's deep skepticism toward the revolutionaries' proposition that another world is possible. Al-Jalid [the name of the novel] elaborates a form of Left pessimism, a Marxist, anti-imperialist critique of injustice and oppression, but without the utopian promise of justice or emancipation. 

Devastation is upon us

Click here to access article by Omar Robert Hamilton from Mada Masr (Egypt).

I think that this moving essay represents a cry of anguish emanating from deep in the throat of progressive Egyptians. They have seen their 2011 revolution crash upon the tidal waves of a militarized police state.  These disillusioned activists and many ordinary Egyptians were so full of hope nourished by dreams of a better life. 

Of course, these noble sentiments were manipulated by Western NGOs acting opportunistically in an organized fashion to bring about some moderate political changes in Egypt to better serve the Empire. But, revolutions or coups can never be engineered with any kind of precision as events in Egypt have demonstrated. The brutal naked fist of the Egyptian military, another hideous creation of the Empire, is now slamming down on the faces of these activists. Can you hear their cry of desperation in his words?

His cry of anguish reminds me of the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet which begins:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.

It is the classic cry of those who throughout the ages of class oppression have posed the most fundamental question: should one actively fight back against oppression and risk near certain death which "makes cowards of us all", or submit to the class authorities and continue to suffer the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". It is the ultimate question which we will all be confronting at different times as the juggernaut of capitalist exploitation increasingly wrecks havoc on societies and nature.

That never-ending path to democracy

Click here to access article by Ursula Lindsey from The Arabist.

The writer notices that Empire-speak is in sharp contradiction with reality. The directors of the capitalist ruling class always like to frame everything they do--even war crimes--in terms of "democracy" and "freedom". This is true everywhere in the world where they see opportunities to serve their class interests--not merely in Egypt.

Empire-speak uses words that reflect the deepest yearnings of humanity: the desires to live in egalitarian societies where citizens are fully engaged in important decisions affecting their lives. However, our masters use words and images to fool people into supporting their sociopathic habits of domination and exploitation. Of course, most of this is addressed to the American people, and unfortunately many believe it. 

Arming Egypt

Click here to access article by Nizar Manek from Le Monde Diplomatique.

Few Americans have any idea of how our economy is so dependent on weapons production funded through taxpayer money. Government contracts with the industrial complex are the most lucrative of all. They are frequently no-bid contracts that guarantee profits. This corruption of the US government by weapons producers has gone on ever since the end of WWII, and was heavily promoted by the military-industrial complex throughout the Cold War.

In this period of "austerity", cutbacks are occurring everywhere in services for the public good: education, health, retirement (Social Security), and welfare. But, do we see any significant cutbacks to the military-industrial complex? Did you notice this paragraph in the article?

The “aid” money is taken from the US federal budget. “Most of it never leaves US banks, and is mostly transferred not to the target country but to US defence manufacturers that sell the equipment to Egypt,” says Finardi. This goes for McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) for the Apache helicopters, Beechcraft for the 1900C aircraft, General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin for the F16 fighter aircraft, and General Dynamics Land Systems (for the M1A1 main battle tank components to be assembled in Egypt).

With only a few exceptions, this is the way "foreign aid" has always functioned. I well remember the rants of my ill-informed, but typical parents who thought that our government was always giving money away to "those furiners" (foreigners). 

The relationship between government and weapons manufactures is very much like what happened in Nazi Germany where major corporations brought Hitler to power and supported the German war machine throughout WWII (for example, read this). 

Another false impression that most Americans have is that capitalists are patriotic. Historical facts indicate otherwise: they are much more devoted to profits than to the countries in which they are based, and this reality began to emerge dramatically in years before and during WWII. There were many Western capitalists and major media supporting Nazi policies before the war. Many were major corporations thoroughly enmeshed with German corporations supporting the Nazis. Honest historians have had to struggle to reveal this history and especially the fact that many US corporations collaborated on both sides during that terribly destructive war. 

This was true of General Motors, Ford, ITT, Du Pont, Standard Oil (Rockefeller), and the investment bankers known as Harriman Brothers & Company to name a few. The Bush clan was intimately tied to the Nazis. (For more details, read Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler by Antony Sutton, Trading with the Enemy by Charles Higham, The Sovereign State of ITT by Anthony Sampson, and Facts and Fascism by George Seldes.) War and the threat of war is highly profitable, and thus will always be supported by capitalists--with one exception so far.

After the Cuban missile crisis, a new reality has emerged to discourage direct wars between major countries. The prospect of a nuclear holocaust was now very real, and world wars such as we witnessed in the 20th century are now avoided. However, other wars have been occurring everywhere.

The lies that states tell

Click here to access article by Paul Sedra from Mada Masr.

While there are those who would suggest that Egypt has now merely returned to the status quo ante of the Mubarak years’ security state, the persistence of the language and ideals of the 2011 revolution in various, often unexpected quarters reveals that the lies of the state are not left unchallenged. Indeed, the grassroots organizations taking action on issues ranging from sectarian discrimination to sexual harassment to neighborhood revitalization counter the notion that the revolution has failed.

We are all complicit; A timely play for Egypt today [Two reviews of Ibsen's classic stage play performed in Egypt]

1) Click here to access review entitled "We Are All Complicit" by Naira Antoun from Mada Masr.
2) Click here to access review entitled "A Timely Play for Egypt Today" by Nehad Selaiha  from Al-Ahram Weekly.

After reading the first review, memories of many such vital plays came flooding back into my mind from late 1960s and early 70s when young people were questioning everything. I especially recall the ones performed in Milwaukee (Milwaukee Repertory Theater), Chicago (Second City), UC Berkeley, and San Francisco (especially the SF Mime Troupe). Since then I've seen nothing of such gripping quality. After reading these reviews, I wanted to "hop a plane" to Egypt to see experience the play myself. 

Both of the above reviews were about Ibsen's play "An Enemy of the People", adapted and performed for the Egyptian audience of today. The first review, currently published, provides a much more subjective reaction to the play, while the second, reviewed earlier this year, is more comprehensive and objective, and provides many more details about the production. Together they complement each other very well.

The play, very creatively adapted and directed by Nora Amin, deals with some of the most profound questions not only facing progressive/revolutionary people in Egypt, but across much of the world today: can a revolution by ordinary people raised and indoctrinated in authoritarian, class structured, competitive, and materialistic societies create a socially just and inclusive society capable of living in harmony with nature? How can ordinary people, many with characteristics and personalities as depicted in the play, and which we all recognize in others and even in ourselves, create such a society? Consider such characteristics as described by reviewer Selaiha:

Ahmed El-Salakawi played Hovstad with the debonair charm of a man of the world, hiding his opportunism, moral cowardice and lack of principles under a mask of urbane geniality and candour. By contrast, Imad Hassan’s Billing, a character as hypocritical and unprincipled as Hovstad, was rendered as vulgar, gauche, ridiculously pretentious, slightly stupid and very easy to see through. Imad El-Raheb’s Aslaksen was dangerously smooth and slippery. Assuming the appearance of virtue and humbleness and a sanctimonious, obsequious, submissive manner, El-Raheb managed to betray by the look in his eyes, his tone of voice and body language the real baseness and moral unscrupulousness of the character. Ibrahim Gharib...[was cast] as the Mayor, Dr. Stockmann’s brother, and he performed the part with fitting stolidness, stodginess and pompous self-importance, showing no emotion and hiding behind his stern appearance the pettiness of his soul. Gharib’s Mayor was a typical specimen of Eliot’s hollow men, with a headpiece filled with Straw. 

The Struggle Continues: Social Justice in Post-Morsi Egypt

Click here to access article by Andrew Leber from Muftah.

The author provides an excellent review of efforts by ordinary Egyptians to achieve some form of social justice within the past few years. What is clear is that such efforts are being thwarted by major players from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Empire who have their own interests, interests which don't appear to coincide. The author argues that movements for social justice will not go away, and this fact...

...implies a change from the status quo of social injustice, which has brought millions of labor reformers, Coptic rights activists, Islamists, journalists, intellectuals, farmers, and ordinary people from all walks of life onto the streets over the past few years.

Some revolutionary plan for social reform must be put forward if the Egyptian people are to accept the government as the guarantor of their rights and well-being, rather than a stern overseer or a political prize to be fought over.

The current government and whoever takes its place in the coming year are fooling themselves if they believe a narrow focus on security and economic growth will halt demands for greater justice. 

What Happened to Egypt’s Liberals After the Coup?

Click here to access article by Sharif Abdel Kouddous from The Nation. (A late posting because I thought it went very well with the post following this.)

He provides an interesting description of what happened to people on the left--not merely liberals-- in Egypt after Al-Sisi's army took back direct control of the nation. Some embraced the army, some did so temporarily, and some have remained in opposition from the beginning.

The opposition to Morsi began to coalesce in early May, when a group of young organizers launched Tamarod (Arabic for “rebel”), a grassroots initiative founded on a simple yet powerful idea: a petition declaring a vote of no confidence in the president and a call for early presidential elections.

....

“The story of Tamarod is the story of the co-optation of a popular movement,” says Mona El-Ghobashy, an Egyptian professor of political science at Barnard College. “It was this grassroots, fragmented, atomized initiative by definition, and the military saw an excellent opportunity and piggybacked on it....

A voice of dissent joins the nationalist chorus

Click here to access article by Ursula Lindsey from Mada Masr.

I'm posting this article because it is a good illustration of the effect on a significant number of Egyptians of the Empire's strategy of chaos that has influenced recent events in Egypt. This article reports on the author's interview with Sonallah Ibrahim, an Egyptian intellectual and writer, whom she has admired in the past, but is now shocked to learn that he supports the current Al-Sisi regime.

Given Ibrahim's tendency to question official narratives, and what struck me as his kind-heartedness, I was surprised this summer when I read an interview in an Egyptian newspaper in which he seemed to wholeheartedly support the crackdown on supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi — hundreds of whom were killed by army and police over the summer — and to unquestioningly accept the military leadership's presentation of itself as at the service of the people.

Ibrahim is an example of many of those Egyptians who currently support the Al-Sisi regime because they understandably want order restored--a welcome change from the violence ridden society of the past year. (Also, I see hints of the allure of identifying with powerful people in some of Ibrahim's statements.)

I think that Empire directors have understood this kind of psychological reaction. Thus, they have promoted the chaos while coaching the Al-Sisi regime on how to frame their actions in terms of controlling terrorism. That is, while promoting state terrorism against the Morsi government and its Muslim Brotherhood followers, Al-Sisi under Empire coaching has actually created the conditions of terrorism that he is now using to repress all popular opposition. I explained this strategy in my July 28th post:

There have been numerous reports surfacing which allege sitings of snipers being used against Muslim Brotherhood protestors (see this, this, and this).  

Over the past several years I've been noticing reports of unknown snipers being spotted in many other troubled areas of the world. I recall Mahdi Nazemroaya, a Canadian journalist, who reported about snipers while trapped in a hotel in Libya in August 2011.  (See first video regarding a video phone interview with Nazemroaya in article that I posted on August 22nd at segments 0:55 - 1:18 and 4:55 - 6:55m.) See also this and this.

It seems that this is a standard destabilization tactic used against targeted countries by agents of the Empire. In Egypt I think it is likely being used to terrorize the Muslim Brotherhood into submission or to incite a civil war, and to cause the rest of the population to turn to the Army to secure peace regardless of the policies of the latter. This Empire terrorist strategy is known as the Salvador Option.

New 'anti-Brotherhood, anti-military' front launched to 'achieve revolution goals'

Click here to access article from Ahram Online.

Def. Sec. Hagel in Cairo to give orders to satrap, Apr 2013

A new front, dubbed "Revolution Path Front" aimed at providing an alternative to the current "polarisation" between the military and Muslim Brotherhood has been launched on Tuesday in a press conference attended by tens of leading political figures, activists and groups.

Apparently the Egyptian revolution has still not been killed by the Empire's satrap Al Sisi.

 

Egyptian Addition to: “US Power Elite: At War Among Themselves?”

Click here to access article by Andreas Schlüter from Wipokuli. 

This is an updated addition to his primary essay entitled "US Power Elite: At War Among Themselves?” published in December 2012 and is also well worth reading. The author is a 65 year old German sociologist living in Berlin.

This piece offers a deep political analysis of the US power structure, or what I often refer to as "the directorate" or "shadow government" (in place of the staged version of "democracy" performed by the ruling class), which is nearly always missing from the views of other Western geopolitical analysts. These are the people who make the important decisions about policy matters; and as this analyst argues, they consist of two factions. 

Unfortunately, this article has some rather serious English flaws due to a poor translation in some places. I have offered below what I think he meant in the more seriously flawed places.

The fraction faction of the Neocons is more for direct action done by the US military, thus formerly dubbed the “Warriors”. ("fraction = faction throughout the article)

They are closest to Israel´s Power Elite and their dream of “having the whole cake” which means the perspective of the Palestinians “Transfer” over the Jordan. the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan.

The neocon ties into the US military and the ties of those to the Egyptian military gave the clue. This IMO should read "Neocon ties to the US military and the latter's ties to the Egyptian military offers the clue."

But that military coup could have been countered by the Obama administration if not the Saudis would also support had not supported the Egyptian Junta. And they do so! But they did! The Saudi regime is good friend of the Bush Clan (http://tinyurl.com/8t7rd), they consequently step in and compensate Western financial aid thus they stepped in and offered substantial aid (http://tinyurl.com/mlcl4ea).

 “Seven Countries in Fife Five Years”

After all, the enormous recourses resources of gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea are the general reason for fierce the strong US influence in the region as well as Geo-Strategy geo-strategic interests, but there is also Israel´s desire to trigger an “all out war” in the region for the desired “Transfer” (of Palestinians).

Labor politicized or politicized labor.

Click here to access article by Jano Charbel from Mada Masr. 

It seems that in the Empire's Egypt asking to be paid for work is tantamount to treason.

The demands of the Suez Steel Company workers include the payment of their wages for the month of July and the payment of overdue profit-sharing. Meanwhile, workers at the Scimitar Petroleum Company have been demanding overdue bonuses and the reinstatement of several sacked workers, along with better wages and working conditions. 

The crushing of union protests and other actions by Egyptian police and army show whom these instruments of state violence really serve. Of course, behind these instruments of violence there stands the armed might of the capitalist Empire that supplies them with $1.3 billion worth of weapons and training annually. 

Egypt: ‘the revolution lives as long as we will die for it’

Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from Reflections on a Revolution. (Note: be sure to read the comments following the article.)

I felt a bit uncomfortable with parts of this essay, but nevertheless it is a thoughtful review of the revolutionary struggle manifested in Egypt up to this point. I definitely agree with the headline, and believe that Egyptians will be forced by circumstances to be willing to "die for it".

I see this struggle as a process, a trial by fire that ordinary Egyptians are confronted with. Of course, a new equilibrium could theoretically be attained under the control of the Egyptian military, the regional power of the Empire; but I think that this is unlikely. It is unlikely because the Empire and its rule is extremely unstable at this point in history. Thus the subplot of resistance to Empire control in Egypt cannot, in my opinion, attain any kind of stability even with the overwhelming military power of SCAF backed by the Empire and its crony Medieval allies in the region. 

Therefore, a trial by fire will be unavoidable for Egyptians as well as many others in the region. They will be forced by the onslaught of economic and political chaos to learn not only who their real enemies are, but how to effectively combat them in order to secure their very survival. I fear for their future. It is not a future that I would wish on anyone, but history will have its way. Hopefully, in this terrible process they will also learn how to construct an inclusive, sustainable democratic society.

Thinking about Egypt: between cynicism and wishful thinking

Click here to access article by Peter Storm from libcom.  

I have posted a number of articles on the ongoing Egyptian revolution since January of 2011. This is for two basic reasons: first, we as citizens of the US are involved through our government's funding of the Egyptian military and other supports; second, what we are seeing in Egypt is an ongoing revolutionary development that we can study and learn from. It is the latter reason that I think is of critical importance for our own salvation. Let me explain.

Humanity must, in order to survive, rid itself of the dangerous cancer of capitalism which is destroying one society after another as well as an ecology capable of supporting human and many other life forms. Thus, revolution must be on the agenda of every serious activist. We must learn how to do them; and to do this, we must learn all we can about revolutionary and counter-revolutionary events. The current scene in Egypt provides a living experiment that we can study and learn from to create our own mandatory revolution. 

Empire directors have at their disposal a long history of ruling class techniques that they have consolidated into a finely honed expertise in controlling, manipulating, and exploiting populations in support of their interests of power and wealth. We must develop ours, and do so in a hurry because our lives and those who follow us are at stake. This article makes an excellent contribution to this vital project.

Egypt’s Junta Has Nothing to Lose

Click here to access article by M. K. Bhadrakumar from Strategic Culture Foundation.

One might say that "the more things change, the more they stay the same". As one country after another is destabilized using death squads, terrorist groups, and adjunct militaries, the change of US administrations changes nothing. That is simply because behind the smoke and mirrors of capitalist electioneering, there exists the same shadow government dominated by banksters and their hired operatives that have the same agenda--world domination by any means necessary.

The appointment of Robert Ford as the new American ambassador to Egypt was indeed an ominous sign that the Obama administration expected civil war conditions to arise in Egypt. Ford’s forte during his hugely successful "diplomatic" assignment in Baghdad in the middle of the last decade was to organize the notorious death squads, which tore Mesopotamia apart and destroyed Iraq almost irreparably.

Equally, Ford played a seminal role in his subsequent ambassadorial assignment in Damascus in 2011 in successfully triggering the Syrian civil war. Ford is the living embodiment of the stunning reality that between the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, there has been no real shift in the United States’ policies in the Middle East aimed at perpetuating its regional hegemony…

However, I don't share his cynical regard for the great Egyptian tragedy of the past month as just another geopolitical game being played by Empire directors. The author is no anti-capitalist, he just wants geopolitical players to play nice, and when they don't--which is nearly always--he trots out his cynicism, and even goes so far as to justify the military's brutal repression. (Note in the following paragraph that "pluralist democracy" is Empire newspeak for capitalist electioneering.)

... a strategic ambivalence has developed – as had happened during the brutal civil war in Algeria – to the effect that political Islam is a pernicious thing and is antithetical to pluralist democracy and human rights, and sometimes coercion and even military force may become necessary to counter its surge.

Nowadays ruling classes and empires are being threatened by freedom and peace loving people everywhere. The "Arab Spring" was an example of this. As a result we see the capitalist directors and their Medieval cronies resorting to the most barbaric methods possible to make the Egyptians, the Libyans, the Iraqis, and the Syrians as examples to deter any more freedom loving people from aspiring to a better life. However, I don't think this story is over yet. 

Bloodbath on the Nile

Click here to access article by Esam Al-Amin from CounterPunch.

I offer this post because the author reports details that I've not seen elsewhere on the tragic and dramatic events that are still unfolding in Egypt. He captures their profound significance and that they will likely have a major influence on future political events in the region. Where he falls down, in my opinion, is his weak liberal-democratic analysis of the event that is typically found in the Western world's progressive-liberal media. He doesn't seem to understand that the Egyptian military regime is an authoritarian monster created by the capitalist Empire and must be seen in the context of the dynamics of that Empire.