North Africa and the middle east: just the US Government re-arranging their puppets?

[dylans]

Ugh.

I like Chavez and I support the Venezuelan revolution but if he gives sanctuary to this murdering bastard he should be condemned by everyone on the left without hesitation or condition. Gadaffi should be tried by his own people, put up against a wall and shot. If Ahmadinadjed falls will Chavez give him sanctuary too?

 

[quimcunx]

*consults scribbled notes on Chavez beermat*


was military officer
staged unsuccessful military coup
popular president with the poor having done genuine good for them - indigenous, women
cocks a snook at the US, anti capitalist
made/wants to make changes to constitution so he can stay in power longer (?)


Sounds a bit familiar.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Chavez probably had posters of Gaddafi on his wall when he was younger.

 

[dylans]

*consults scribbled notes on Chavez beermat*


was military officer
staged unsuccessful military coup
popular president with the poor having done genuine good for them - indigenous, women
cocks a snook at the US, anti capitalist
made/wants to make changes to constitution so he can stay in power longer (?)


Sounds a bit familiar.

Chavez was democratically elected and constitutional changes were made by referendum and only allow a candidate to run for office indefinately not to stay in power indefinately. He's not a dictator. (Just seems to want to make common cause with vile dictators. )

 

[quimcunx]

Which is worrying.

 

[dylans]

Which is worrying.

Yes it is.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

We can apply this concept of revolution as process to the wave of revolts that are tearing across north Africa. Most obviously in the domino effect of one successful uprising inspiring the next etc but also in other ways.

First it is true that inspiring though these uprisings have been neither Egypt or Tunisia have resulted in regime change, rather they have stripped away layers of the old regimes and forced the militaries to bend to popular demands, a process that is still fluid and whose end results are not yet apparent. In Libya however this may be about to change. For in Libya we are witnessing what looks like total regime change. Such a result will have a massive effect. First in inspiring further revolts across North Africa and perhaps into sub saharan Africa where conditions are similar (long standing dictators, the effects of neo liberalism- rising food prices etc, young educated populations with fading prospects, poverty and corruption etc) .

Secondly, this is not solely a linear process, a succesful regime change in Libya will in turn fall back onto those countries where newly liberated and emboldened populations are struggling with damaged regimes desperately on the back foot. In Egypt we have a military regime now facing a population that has tasted its own power and much of which is still pressing its demands. In Tunisia we are seeing the desperate remnants of the Ben Ali regime struggling to save their skins. Both countries show no sign of a let up of the struggles, on the contrary, in Egypt the strike waves engulfing the country are unprecedented as are public demonstrations and spaces being created for public debate and organisation. This is not something we should dismiss lightly.

To declare that these events are merely arranging puppets or that they are not "real revolutions" is to ignore the ongoing process that is rolling across the region and to ignore the massive role played by ordinary people in shaping their own futures. Across the region, this is an unfolding revolutionary process and it is barely beginning. I would go as far as to say these events are some of the most significant political events of our lifetime

If there's ever a time not to look at what the US wants, this is it.

Two of the best posts I've read on urban recently (saying something as there's been some excellent stuff lately).

 

[discokermit]

Yes it is.

but gadaffi is spouting a completely different line about bin laden. maybe he's not looking to escape but flirting with the u.s. instead, for back up.

 

[dylans]

but gadaffi is spouting a completely different line about bin laden. maybe he's not looking to escape but flirting with the u.s. instead, for back up.

Yes. He's playing the Mubarak card. Desperate measures. It's interesting that he briefly flirted with the "I'm the anti imperialist leader of the revolution" bit (actually, it was more of a scattergun blame everyone and everything line) in his first speech but dropped it in the second. He's obviously been focus group brainstorming with his son and decided to play on his new found friendships with Blair etc in the hope the US will save him. Fat chance

 

[discokermit]

Fat chance

yeh, it's hard to see it.

 

[quimcunx]

Wrong thread really but I think Gadafi's speeches are our biggest hope and sign that he can't win; that he doesn't have the confidence that he will.

 

[discokermit]

Wrong thread really but I think Gadafi's speeches are our biggest hope and sign that he can't win; that he doesn't have the confidence that he will.

dunno. if he was that confident, wouldn't he be preparing the groundwork to leg it?

 

[quimcunx]

dunno. if he was that confident, wouldn't he be preparing the groundwork to leg it?

eh?

I'm saying he doesn't seem confident. And how do you know he isn't preparing to leg it, apart from no one offering sanctuary?

 

[discokermit]

eh?

I'm saying he doesn't seem confident. And how do you know he isn't preparing to leg it, apart from no one offering sanctuary?

i'm just saying, if he were preparing to leg it, he would be making overtures to chavez, rather than going on about bin laden.

 

[goldenecitrone]

i'm just saying, if he were preparing to leg it, he would be making overtures to chavez, rather than going on about bin laden.

He must hate Bin Laden with a passion. Stole all his thunder.

 

[Streathamite]

I like Chavez and I support the Venezuelan revolution but if he gives sanctuary to this murdering bastard he should be condemned by everyone on the left without hesitation or condition. Gadaffi should be tried by his own people, put up against a wall and shot. If Ahmadinadjed falls will Chavez give him sanctuary too?

Agreed-really crap judgment call, Hugo

 

[dylans]

Unbelievable I know (and I honestly never thought I would ever say this) but there is a g-g-g-g-g-g good article in the Telegraph (aaaagh. Imagine me biting my knuckles till they bleed as I type this)

The article is entitled "How Will America Handle The Fall Of Its Middle East Empire" and with the exception of its bullshit "we need to be America's frank and honest friend" line at the end, it is pretty accurate.

In a nutshell it is arguing that the events in North Africa represent a seismic shift in global power and nothing less than the end of the US Empire in the Middle East. In fact the beginning of the End of the American Empire itself. That this decline is inevitable and the only question is whether the US will recognise the writing on the wall and go gracefully or whether, like Empires in the past, will it go down fighting and attempt to stem this inevitable decline. It argues that if the 1989 events represented an end the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe then these events represent an end of the US empire in the Arab world. I think he is right.

Apart from anything else it gives as good an answer as any to the OPs question about whether the uprisings in the Arab world are merely the rearrangement of puppets. No is the answer. The opposite is the case. These uprisings may be the first blows that bring the end of the American Empire

America’s global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen. Since 1956, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles pulled the plug on Britain and France over Suez, the Arab world has been a US domain. At first, there were promises that it would tolerate independence and self-determination. But this did not last long; America chose to govern through brutal and corrupt dictators, supplied with arms, military training and advice from Washington.

The momentous importance of the last few weeks is that this profitable, though morally bankrupt, arrangement appears to be coming to an end. One of the choicest ironies of the bloody and macabre death throes of the regime in Libya is that Colonel Gaddafi would have been wiser to have stayed out of the US sphere of influence. When he joined forces with George Bush and Tony Blair five years ago, the ageing dictator was leaping on to a bandwagon that was about to grind to a halt.

He also gives a good summary of David Cameron's approach and argues that it incicates a fatal failure to recognise the epoch changing nature of events and nothing more than a continuation of the Blair doctrine under a different party flag.

His (David Cameron's) regional tour of Middle Eastern capitals with a caravan of arms dealers made sense only in terms of the broken settlement of the last 50 years. His speeches might have been scripted by Tony Blair a decade ago, with the identical evasions and hypocrisies. There was no acknowledgment of the great paradigm shift in global politics.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/p...ca-handle-the-fall-of-its-middle-east-empire/

"America's global interests are under threat on a scale never before seen?" I say good. Bring it on.