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On Tunisia

Like many of this blog's readers, I was unable to stop watching al-Jazeera today. The scenes from Tunis have been incredible. Alas, despite a little time spent in Morocco and Egypt, I know very little about North Africa and nothing at all about Tunisia. So you'll have to go elsewhere for analysis. For those who can read or otherwise understand French or Arabic, your options are better than the options for those who do not. Al-Jazeera, al-Jazeera English, and Le Monde may be worth checking out.

Tunisia

13 comments

People do get upset if they

People do get upset if they can not afford to eat.

Wonder if high unemployement

Wonder if high unemployement and economy was a factor?

It was one of the nicest

It was one of the nicest countries in Northern Africa. Sad stuff....

@ Vistor 1 Read the comments

@ Vistor 1

Read the comments on Aljazeera Arabic, Tunisians are very annoyed by any suggestion that their only demand is to be able to 'afford to eat', they were not starving by the way. I am quoting here 'unemployment exists everywhere, we are fighting injustice, oppression and for our dignity and the freedom to speak out'.

Reading the online comments on the tunisian intifada has been instructive. It's not just the governments and the meda in the west, most people really think this region is inhabited by a lesser breed of humans who have no conceptions of their own rights and so don't deserve any. Democratic societies seem to identify with the official view of what is in their foreign policy interest, unlike Egyptians. First most reader comments supported Ben Ali because he is better than the 'inevitable ayatollah', and when intifadhat alyasmin was sucessful it was reduced to bread riots because Tunisians can live on bread alone. If this happened in Syria, Iran or Libya - before it became an ally - we would be deafened with celebrations preceded by a month of intense media coverage and endless denounciation of murderous regime this and the oppessive regime that.

Don't get me wrong, online Tunisans were only annoyed when there was a hint of western interference. The majority seem to have appreciated the silence and even the hilarious hypocrisy of Clinton, Crowley, and the multitude of French pronouncements, especially now that 'sucess has many fathers'. The US ambassador reported Tunisian gossip, not what he had discovered, and wikileaks cables as well as publically available comments show both Bush and Obama officials heaping praise on the 'moderate government' of Ben Ali inspite of their propaganda about 'spreading democracy' and 'change' respectively.

Mabrouk Tunis and, as the protesters said, Shukran Aljazeera (the journalists, not the emir). Even if this victory is stolen away from the Tunisians by the manouverings we are hearing about now, they have taught us all what we need to do if we want to be free. If we think the price is to high then maybe we don't deserve any better than interal and external oppression. Alhurra tv should be shut down by the way, they were in another universe most of the time, even Egypt TV was more relevant.

I was hoping you would

I was hoping you would comment on the great Jon lee Anderson's NYer piece on the defeat of the Tamil insurgency. There is no one better than JLA.

Note to terrorist wannabes

Note to terrorist wannabes who claim to be upset about governmental injustices:

This is a better tactic than suicide bombings targeting innocent civilians - or attempted assassinations of Congressmembers

That's what started off the Tunisian uprising - a vegetable seller did the same thing.

As far as the international picture, Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst,did have an interesting take on this:

    How does such an unpopular oppressive regime stay off the radar of the international community?

    The so-called international community has been traditionally silent about totalitarian practices and abuses within its member states, except in cases where certain Western countries or powers have invoked questions of regime oppression either as a tool of foreign policy or championing the cause of human rights for public consumption.

    So that when those regimes, as in Tunisia, co-operated with their Western counterparts on economic or strategic issues, their abuses of power have been generally ignored. . . which explains Western leaders' silence or confusion regarding the Tunisian "uprising", but their rush to support the "uprising" of the Iranian opposition following the elections last year. Call it hypocrisy.

That's precisely why dictators sneer whenever the US State Department talks about "human rights violations" - they know that if they just go along with the economic agenda of the State Department and its private partners, those accusations will be quietly dropped into the memory hole.

Hence, you won't probably won't see Hillary Clinton dropping "security cooperation" or pushing for economic sanctions against a country like Uzbekistan, which is probably the most repressive in Central Asia - oh, you will see some lip service to the "human rights question," but that's about it. Condi Rice was the same.

However, I wonder if the same thing that happened in Tunisia could happen in Saudi Arabia? Outspoken groups there are publicly criticizing the second-in-line Prince Nayef for his "systematic human rights violations" too...

His response? "But.. but.. but look at how Israel is treating the Palestinians! Aren't you upset about that?"

Here is an interesting

Here is an interesting one....

http://www.examiner.com/independent-in-chicago/illinois-tax-hike-and-str...

Obama and Clinton came from Chicago. Obama is considering Chicago as 2012 campaign headquarters......

It is surprising, that international interests could motivate a state body to do what it did. The bad part is the people in power did nothing about how the government affairs got into such a mess.

Rahm wants to be mayor, he already fudged his residency.....guess all the news media of him living in Washington DC did not matter.

Got Corruption? The new Ilinois slogan. Does not matter if your dead, you can vote in Chicago !

Gunboat....... Give it up,

Gunboat.......

Give it up, the show is over.

Obama already got his 20 minutes and moved on to education.

Question of the day: What

Question of the day: What happens when the good people of Kabul does the same to *their* corrupt government? Wich way will the US guns be headed?

60 Minutes had a good special

60 Minutes had a good special on TV tonight AM. Perhaps we should start focusing COIN on Yemen. Afghanistan is tame and war is doing well... Will the US invade / occupy Yemen in the next 3 years? Guess we will have to wait and see, won't we?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBnUNOj4Boo

Terrorists like Abdul Majeed Zandani and Anwar al-Awlaki are moving freely, gaining power, training and educating radical Muslims in Yemen right now. Individuals like these, need to be stopped as soon as possible, their rhetoric and propaganda has been extremely infectious.

The U.S should probably start a drone focused thermobarique campaign in Yemen. Surgical strikes on radical schools and training camps. Any thoughts?

What do I think? I think that

What do I think?

I think that Democrats focused on health care rather than the economy and finally got a taste of what armageddon looks like.

Obama made a joked about armageddon, didn't he?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0r7pCHpSkQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pUeDfoukpk , and all the Democrats laughed.

Wonder if the mid terms were close to armageddon? Was for the Democrats, that was about the economy and health care.
Was Safeway armageddon? Was for the people involved, Gifford's problems started with health care.
Is 20% unemployment / underemployment armageddon? Is if you are part of the 20%, that is about the economy.

Little insensitive for the Democrats to be laughing, a crowd so about human rights (DADT, Immigration, Sporting goods hate?).

Democrats, The Party of Shame.

Now the Democrats want to play fair. Hugs all-a-round,shuffle the seating arangement, trying to take top Republicans out to dinner, and offering plane rides on Air Force One. Is somebody trying to buy someone? Obama is, he is HONORING the Chinese at State Dinner (have we gotten the currency thing figured out........Are Democrats about human rights, how is China doing these days.....hello, PEACE PRIZE Liu Xiaobo Didn't Pelosi burn a bunch of climate heating JET A just to go to Norway?).

Now Chuck Schumer is talking about armageddon.

Sky is going to fall if the debt ceiling is not raised. People will be dieing in the streets of gun laws are not enacted (Chuck....people ARE dieing in the streets and we have a TON of gun laws, wake up. Did we talk about banning Jumbo jets after 9/11. ... NO.... Have we talk about limiting speed of cars to 70 mph? ...NO. ... Are they any laws on the books for keeping people with drug or mental problems from going into POLITICS? .....NO...., we have had some doosies. Keep druggies and mentals from buying cars? ....NOPE......., you can he high as a kite and speaking babble, everybody drives. Are there laws keeping people that are users of illegal drugs, done domestic violence, DUI convictions, mental illness, and felony convictions from buying firearms.......YES.... had have been for years. Many firearm owners have gone through fingerprinting, police inspections of homes, local background checks, FBI investigations, and then finally having to certifiy that they are not mental ill, hooked on drugs, done domestic violence, convicted of DUI, or a felon on paper then put through a call-in background check at point of sale.........then have to get permission from the ATF to take their firearms across state lines......all to exercise their 2nd amendment right . Does a DEMOCRAT in California have to go through all that legal back ground checking to grow LEGAL POT in their homes so the can get STONED out of their minds? ......Nope..... Courts do not hold people responsible if they are gooded up on legal pot driving a car, but the law holds a firearm owner responsible 24/7.....every day, hour, minute, and second).

At least the Repulicans listen, they will not be as tone deaf as the Democrats have been for the past two years.

It might feel like armageddon for those on social programs and bloated government, but the Republicans will not block the debit ceiling expansion.

Democrats, The Party of Shame.

Heh, I wonder how many

Heh, I wonder how many government employed provocateurs are now infiltrating the movement in order to make it more violent so as to scare the remaining authocratic arab nations? Im guessing every secret service in the Maghreb area is scrambling pretty quick to make this a one off...

17 January 2011 BBC - Man

17 January 2011 BBC - Man sets himself on fire in Cairo protest

    A man has set himself on fire outside the parliament building in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. He shouted anti-government slogans before pouring fuel on his clothes and setting himself alight, witnesses said.

    Policemen nearby managed to put out the flames, and the man is now in a stable condition in hospital, officials said. The action echoes that of a 26-year-old Tunisian whose self-immolation sparked a wave of protest in the country that brought down the government.

    Also on Monday, a Mauritanian man said to be unhappy with the government there was taken to hospital after setting himself on fire."

P.S. - 'visitor' - Obama wasn't too pleased with Giffords, either. Here she is making Obama's Energy Secretary Chu look like a stumbling clown (yes, he is):

Rep. Giffords Questions Energy Secretary Chu in Science and Technology Hearing 3.17.09

You see, Obama is largely a tool of Midwestern and Canadian energy interests, hence his support for coal-to-gasoline, boondoggle nuclear power plants, and tar sand imports. This is in contrast to GW Bush and Sarah Palin, who are largely tools of the oil and gas sector, i.e. Houston and the Saudi oil axis (that's who put Palin in office in Alaska, and Bush in Texas). They did join hands over BP's offshore drilling, 'tis true.

Yes, I know you may not have read about this in the US corporate press, nor seen it on MSNBC on FOX... but then, Tass and Pravda didn't cover Brezhnev's energy deals either, you know?

Point is, neither faction liked Gifford's strong support for renewable energy, or her advocacy for a military with a strong renewable base - which of course would mean less vulnerability to actions like this:

Gunmen Torch 14 NATO Oil Tankers in Pakistan, Youtube, Jan 15 2011

I do wish that Loughton had just poured a couple gallons of gasoline over his head and torched himself, though. Maybe that would have lead to a real Tea Party revolution in Arizona, huh? A very effective protest against the terrible economic conditions in middle-class Arizona suburbs and the savage dictators who run that state, that would have been. Yah think? Worth a shot, maybe? Buddhist monks are tougher than Tea Partiers, is it?

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