spontaneous combustion fizzles out

UPDATED at the end.

The distraction of the American people goes on. Jared Lee Loughner. He did his job. He's doing his job. He gives us all things to ponder while he sits around smirking.

We may be missing other stories. 

Meanwhile, an Afghan girl, the daughter of a politician, has reportedly died from her injuries after being brutally raped, allegedly by US soldiers.

In Australia, the attorney general's office has signed a deal with Mamdouh Habib, an Australian citizen, to induce him to drop his civil lawsuit accusing the Australian government for being complicit in his 2001 arrest, rendition, detention and torture in Pakistan, Egypt and Guantanamo Bay. To be clear, they are reportedly paying him money to go away because he has witness statements that back up his claims that his government helped torture him. One witness, a detainee named Madni, said, "Egyptian, Australian, Israeli (Mossad) and US intelligence agencies were involved in my interrogations." Those countries again: EGYPT, AUSTRALIA, ISRAEL and the US.

Aangirfan has been keeping us informed of the contrived "people power" revolution in Tunisia.

Think of Blackwater/Xe, Triple Canopy, Dyncorps, Aegis...

Think of moving Tunisia out of the orbit of France and China and into the orbit of America-Israel?

Think of regime change in Tunisia being followed by regime change in OIL-RICH Algeria and Libya.

...People in Tunis have reported groups "prowling through neighbourhoods setting fire to buildings and attacking people and property."

Witnesses have spoken to Al Jazeera about "masked special forces" and "foreign militias."

"People Power is usually about changing regimes to suit the American Military Industrial Complex."

Ben Wedeman, CNN Senior International Correspondent, reports from Tunisia.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/15/tunisia.wedeman.scene/

Are jackboots already trampling the "Jasmine Revolution"?
It happened with breathtaking speed. Within a matter of weeks, Tunisia went from being a beacon of authoritarian, pro-Western stability to a country in open, nationwide revolt. A largely leaderless, spontaneous popular movement drove the head of state from power.

Hmm. So Tunisia was authoritarian, pro-Western (moderate?) and stable; and now it is a nation in revolt, caused apparently by a leaderless and spontaneous popular movement? How mysterious that the people rose up like that: leaderless, inexplicably, spontaneously.

Since this inexplicable turn of events:

• The army has stepped in to restore order.
• A dusk-to-dawn curfew is being strictly enforced.
• It seems more like a military takeover than a people-powered revolution.
• The television stations discontinued regular programming and take calls from Tunisians instead.
• The people are dealing with chaos, looting, maurading gangs, and fires.

The mysterious, leaderless, inexplicable, spontaneous decision to revolt is not working out too well for the Tunisian people. Instead, it appears to have justified a military takeover. We guess that was the whole point.

Nonetheless, according to Wedeman, some unspecified Tunisians, who can be located in the back streets away from the military and police, are still very angry with Ben Ali.

Everything they complain about plagues many other Arab countries....All of these aging autocrats must be pacing the floors of their palaces worrying the unrest in Tunisia will spread. Conditions in countries like Egypt are, if anything, far worse than in Tunisia. In Egypt, for example, it's estimated that 40 percent of the population has to get by on less than $2 a day. Unemployment is rampant, high-level corruption a given.

We agree that conditions in Egypt are far worse than conditions in Tunisia. Aangirfan explains:

• In Tunisia, about 80% of Tunisians own their homes.
• School is compulsory and free.
• Approximately one third of high school graduates go to university. (Prosperity - TIME) 

From the Prosperity link: "Anti-American sentiment may also be on the rise. The magazine's editor, Ridha Kéfi, hosts roundtable discussions between intellectuals and government officials. But, he says, many guests refuse to attend because the program is funded by the U.S. State Department's Middle East Partnership Initiative, which bankrolls efforts to promote democracy. Kéfi explains: "They don't want to be mixed up with American money."
That can hardly be said of Tunisia's business executives, who are busily promoting their country as an ideal launching pad for foreign investors seeking a cheap, well-located route into Europe's markets. Fifteen Tunisian businessmen flew to Washington in October to pump that message to Congressmen and executives, and a group of U.S. businessmen is slated to arrive in Tunis this month to scout for opportunities."

So on the one hand, Tunisian intellectuals and government officials WISELY prefer to steer clear of the US State Department's twisting influence; and on the other hand Tunisian business executives are GREEDILY sucking up to US congresspeople.

Which hand do you think will prevail?

Perhaps Tunisia has not been pro-Western enough.

Aangirfan:

The USA wants a change of leadership in Tunisia so that more American companies, rather than European companies, can move in.

AND, Tunisia is a moderate Moslem country.

The influential pro-Israel elite in the USA are not fond of Moslems.

AND, Israel would like to paint all Moslems as being poor and useless.

Perhaps the spooks would like Tunisia to be more like Egypt, where the businesspeople and politicians are rich and everyone else stays poor.

Despite the US sending billions and billions of dollars to Egypt over the past several decades, many Egyptian people suffer in miserable poverty.



Netanyahu and Mubarak met in Egypt on January 6, 2011 to discuss the "peace process."

There are similar problems now reported in Jordan.


January 14, 2011: Jordanians call for sacking government

AMMAN - Thousands of Jordanians took to the streets of Amman and other cities on Friday to protest soaring commodity prices, unemployment and poverty, calling for the sacking of the government...."Jordan is not only for the rich. Bread is a red line. Beware of our starvation and fury," read one of the banners carried after mid-day Muslim prayers, amid a heavy police presence, according to an AFP reporter....The Muslim Brotherhood, its political arm the Islamic Action Front (IAF), and the country's 14 trade unions said they will hold a sit-in outside parliament on Sunday to "denounce government economic policies."

Meanwhile, Israeli jets have been violating Lebanese airspace over the past week.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon will submit a draft indictment in the Hariri case on Monday.

The pending indictment has split Lebanon's unity government, pitting Hizbullah against a camp led by the Saudi- and Western-backed Saad Hariri.

The STL was created by a 2007 U.N. Security Council resolution to find and try the killers of Hariri, assassinated in a massive car bombing on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 other people.

Hizbullah, which dismisses the tribunal as part of a U.S.-Israeli plot, has repeatedly said it would not accept the indictment of its members and warned of repercussions, raising regional fears of renewed Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.

See: plenty of evidence

We noted also that Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad are singing the narrative on Tunisia.

15/01/2011 Hezbollah expressed on Saturday its "pride in the Tunisian people's uprising which paves its way towards the hoped-for freedom," calling on Arab leaders to "draw lessons from what happened in Tunisia."  In a statement it released, Hezbollah said it respects and appreciates the people’s will that amazed the world through its strength, unity and cohesion. “This is a proof that truth rises from the people and reflects its free will, not the foreign powers.” Hezbollah urges leaders to draw lessons from Tunisia events
 

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Saturday expressed their respect for the Tunisian people, whose uprising led to the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ban Ali....Meanwhile, Islamic Jihad congratulated the Tunisians on gaining their freedom "through blood, sacrifices and the expression of free will."...The Tunisian uprising was a message to hegemonic powers that a nation could restore its freedom, the Islamist movement said. Hamas, Islamic Jihad applaud popular uprising in Tunisia 

We don't think that is what's happening.

SPOOKY.

Also see at Penny's blog: Hillary Clinton's veto and the collapse of the Lebanese government 

And at Aangirfan's blog: TUNISIA R.I.P. - THE CIA'S JASMINE REVOLUTION


Selected key events:

2000 - President Ben Ali broke all diplomatic ties with Israel
2009 - Tunisia signed an economic and technical cooperation pact with China

October 2010 -> Sakhr El Materi, chairman of the Tunisia-US Parliamentary Friendship Group, had talks with top Americans in the Pentagon and the State Department.

November 2010 - A cable from the US embassy in Tunis released by wikileaks describes Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's family entourage as a "quasi Mafia" because of its "organized corruption".

And voila! A "revolution" was born. And died shortly thereafter. Just living long enough to accomplish a few small things, NONE OF WHICH SEEM TO HAVE BENEFITED THE PEOPLE WHO SUPPOSEDLY STARTED IT.