Moral bankruptcy in Libya war

Foreign intervention in Libya is fuelled by ulterior motives, not goodwill.

The world community – the real world community, not the diplomatic charade code-named the UNSC – is thrown into a psychosomatic stupor and forced into a moral dilemma to choose between letting a psychotic tyrant maim and murder a nation (usually called "his own", as if he owned Libyans) or else stand still and witness the hypocritical abuse of that fact by US and its European allies in order to consolidate a military foothold into the dramatic unfolding of democratic uprisings in North Africa and beyond.
This evident dilemma, however, is a trick question, a false choice, and the answer to it, as to all others, is "none of the above". Visionary artists like Márquez have redrawn the moral map of our universe so that we do not have to make these banal choices.
Finding a military foothold
By luring the US into leading yet another war against a sovereign nation-state, Gaddafi has given the US and its allies a military foothold in the unfolding and open-ended democratic uprisings in the region and thus turned Libya into the crucible of a new meltdown of state power and national sovereignty.
In this act, and thanks to the revolutions that now sweep through two continents, we are back not to la vita nuda of Georgio Agamben but in fact to a renewed asabiyyah of Ibn Khaldun.
We are not helpless facing these tribal and postmodern acts of violence exacerbating each other; we are retrieving a collective consciousness of commitment and identity that can and will judge these atrocities – Gaddafi's and those who sold and now destroy his arms – and we will do so with historical agency, political prowess, and above all moral rectitude.
Seeing through the thicket of these events is no easy task – but we must. Leading Arab intellectuals are scrambling to strike a balance between support for the Libyan uprisings without appearing to endorse or condone the US-led invasion of Libya.
It is a difficult spot to occupy if you insist on implicating yourself onto that corner. Just shy of two years ago, if Obama as much as mentioned the name of Neda Aqa Soltan, the young woman who was cold-bloodedly murdered by the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran during the heydays of the Green Movement, many on the Left were quick to use the reference as an indication that the movement was in fact the handiwork of the CIA and financed by the Saudis.
Now the same folks find themselves in the rather embarrassing situation that Obama and his military might coupled with the military might of the entire EU, and now in fact extended to include NATO, are bombing Gaddafi's army in support of the democratic uprising in Libya.
The same folks were in a similarly embarrassing situation even earlier when the Egyptian army became instrumental in the success of the Egyptian revolution.
The money that the CIA had evidently allocated for regime change in the Islamic Republic was peanuts compared to the US investment in the Egyptian army to implicate and train it for its imperial projects in the region.
But do either of these two cases, the instrumental role of the Egyptian army in the Egyptian revolution or the military support of the US and its European allies for the rebellious uprising against Gaddafi's tyranny detract an iota of legitimacy from the veracity and grassroots authenticity of the Egyptian revolution or Libyan uprising? Of course not, not a scratch.
The glorious Egyptian revolution remains exemplary for the whole world to behold, and the world has unconditional support for the Libyan uprising against domestic tyranny and foreign domination alike, no matter how the US and EU imperial adventurism may want to abuse it.
The only embarrassment that remains is for what passes for "the Left" to figure out the limits of its own moral and political imagination.
To be fair, the Left is not the only block of thinkers and activists caught in the sectarian stupor – for or against the US-led invasion of Libya.
A group of mostly American scholars and think tank employees have just written an open letter to Obama urging him to "recognise, arm, and support the National Coalition Government in Libya".
No such letter was written by any one of these folks asking the US president to "recognise, arm, and support" Hamas for example, or Hezbollah, resisting the brutalities of Israel in the region.
Meanwhile, al-Qardawi's dismissal of the Bahrain democratic uprising as merely sectarian is yet another clear indication that moral and political bankruptcy is not limited to leftist or right wing sectarianism and has an equally prominent role in ageing, stale Islamism as well.
For a man of God – like al-Qardawi – to be so ungodly limited in his moral imagination must be a sign of the divine vengeance on a trapped faith that has lost trust in reality and confidence in the world.
Awakening a moral imagination
Beyond these banalities, stubborn remnants of old clichés, we need clear-headed moral rectitude to figure out what is happening in our midst and right in front of our own eyes.
Assimilating these extraordinary events backward to sectarianism of one sort or another will be a sure way to delusional confusions, of undoing in words what is happening in deeds.
If the dandy French guru, Bernard-Henri Lévy, is so in a rush to make sure the post-Gaddafi shape of Libya is Zionist-friendly that he rushes in public half naked and has somehow convinced his ego-maniacal banality that his juvenile dress code is really "cool", it is really his issue with his therapist and has no bearing on Libya and beyond.
The groovy "philosopher" (poor philosophy) knows only too well that the ultimate loser in these democratic uprisings is the settler colony of Israel, and it is just matter of time that the young generation of Israelis will want to join this block party and tear down those apartheid walls.
Meanwhile, the only way Zionists know how to handle such a (for them) "crisis" is to make a deal with corrupt politicians, for the democratic will of people frightens "the only democracy in the Middle East" out of its wits.
For all we know, Bernard-Henri Lévy has struck a deal with Moustapha Abdeljalil, a former justice minister turned rebel leader, to assume an Israeli-friendly Libya when Gaddafi finally exists.
But that possibility can not mar our reading of the Libyan uprising. They do their things (imperial designs and colonial settlements) and we do ours (we, the people).
Propaganda officers like Bernard-Henri Lévy or Muslim clerics like sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi (who at least has the decency of buttoning up his shirt when he shows up in public) are known and predictable factors.
Our categorical denunciation of violence – whether perpetrated by Gaddafi, Sarkozy or Obama – is a moral position and not a political proposition.
The unwavering solidarity with the democratic will of a people who have put their lives on the line – from Tehran to Libya and beyond – never oscillates because of any political consideration or because American Neo-cons or French Zionists are trying their best to kidnap it.
In a famous articulation of a "categorical imperative" in his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), Immanuel Kant proposes that we must act in such a way as if the maxim of our action were to become by our will a universal law.
This is a moral maxim, not a political dictum – a mandate by which a moral imagination can form a society of citizens and citizenship, and not the political proposition by which a polity might be formed or in its absence deformed.
States are not moral proposition, they are political machineries and as such they still function very much the same way that Max Weber defined them early in the twentieth century, as a political machinery that claims a monopoly of "legitimate" violence.
Weber always considered that "legitimacy" parenthetically – that a polity might grant or withdraw it from a state apparatus.
Investing a state – a tyranny like Libya or a democracy like the United States – with legitimacy is a political contract predicated on a moral choice; shooting your own citizens or invading another sovereign nation-sate is a political atrocity that ipso facto suspends that moral pact.
We as citizens, as "the people", must never presume to have the political prowess to order a military strike or to drop a bomb, for that would be at the heavy price of forfeiting our moral agency to invest or withdraw legitimacy from the state apparatus.
We, the people, were never consulted when millions of dollars of arms were sold to Gaddafi by the US or the UK; as we, the people, were never consulted when the UNSC resolution 1973 was ratified. So why must we be put in a position to condone or denounce the US-led invasion of Libya?
We are not, have never been, in a position to decide. But we are, and we remain, in a position to bear witness, to judge, and to act accordingly – and what we are witnessing from one continent to another is first and foremost a moral rebellion, and thus the persistence to call it for what it is, for "dignity".

Vox Populi
Holding our grounds as moral agents, for us, the people – Libyans, French, British, or Americans, etc. – the US and its European allies and Gaddafi are the losers in this game, sooner or later. Triumphant will remain the democratic will of the Libyan people that will overcome this debacle.
The question is how. Gaddafi has bloodied this democratic uprising, and that cannot be allowed to mar and maim the post-Gaddafi choices.
The Libyan people, which cannot be reduced or limited to those who have taken up arms and must be extended to the civic foregrounding of a democratic future must think of enduring institutions beyond the obscenity of a doctorate in democracy bought and paid for at the London School of Economics for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the man who would be king.
Cliché and outdated forms of solidarity or opposition no longer make sense. Neither blind solidarity without an eye towards the formation of enduring institutions of democracy, nor the degeneration of opposition to adventurous imperialism into suspicion of democratic uprisings will find a way into the texture and contour of this long awaited revolutionary moment.
We need to keep our eyes on the ball – which is the democratic will of people, vox populi – rising to demand and exact enduring institutions of civil liberties and social justice.
The UN is the diplomatic arm of the US and its European allies. The US lacks any moral authority to pretend to be on the side of these democratic uprisings. NATO is abusing Gaddafi's slaughter of his own people to reclaim the Mediterranean Sea and environ as its theatre of operation.
China and Russia scarcely think of anything but their lucrative business dealings. Against the collusion of all these forces have arisen the moral authority and the democratic will of people from western Africa to eastern Asia.
What ever the will to dominate and exploit might be, it will lose to the infinitely superior will to defy and reclaim peoples' destiny. Tyrannies might be as conniving as the octogenarians ruling the Islamic Republic or as reckless as Gaddafi's Libya. But they will both fold facing these rises of democratic wills.
These revolutionary uprisings are realities sui generis, legitimate by what and where they are, and they must not be reduced to losing agential autonomy, and thus finding and losing legitimacy by the hypocritical and opportunistic attempts of military powers to embrace or repress them.
What Egyptians have achieved in Tahrir Square in particular re-conceives the very notion of "democracy".

Tahrir Square is today the symbolic site of rethinking the entire gamut of a political philosophy that can, happily, overcome the meaningless catastrophe codenamed "the West" as it redefines "government" in terms much closer to popular sovereignty, even before it is re-narrated into enduring institutions of civil liberties. 

The revolutionary uprising across two continents need the cultivation of a new language, the drawing of a new moral map. 

"Language is not just one of man's possession in the world," says German hermeneutician Hans Georg Gadamer inTruth and Method, "but on it depends the fact that man has a world at all. For man the world exists as a world in a way that no other being in the world experiences. But this world is linguistic in nature."

It makes no difference if Gaddafi and his children rule over Libya for one more day or one more century. 

The moral map and the grammatological syntax and morphology of our imagination have already changed. 

The political collapse of his regime, and the hypocrisy of the US-led invasion of Libya, is exposed the minute Libyans rose against his tyranny and said enough is enough – or just echoed the voice of Egyptians: al-sha'b yurid isqat al-nizam (tr: the people want the fall of the regime).   

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.  He is the author, most recently, of Iran, the Green Movement, and the US: The Fox and the Paradox (Zed, 2010). 

Obama's critics say Arab revolutions vindicate Bush's freedom agenda, but they overestimate US influence.

While many American conservatives were quicker to warm to the recent Arab revolutions than the Obama administration, they were wrong to have always assumed that American power was the essential ingredient for change in the region.

In his aptly (and mischievously) titled article, Project for a New Arab Century, Muhammad Khan alleged that the recent eruption of popular revolutions in the Middle East left conservative enthusiasts for democracy promotion "largely silent". In fact, conservatives have been very vocal as of late. In the midst of the Obama administration's waffling response to the protests, George W. Bush supporters have seized the opportunity to seek vindication for the former president's 'freedom agenda'.

Elliot Abrams, who served as Bush's deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy, was the first out of the gates. On January 29, Abrams highlighted Bush's comments on the universality of democracy and the instability of autocracy as prescient strategic insights confirmed by unfolding events. Why, Abrams asked, could Obama not follow Bush's example and express his support for the popular protests more unequivocally?

Others have gone much further than Abrams. For Charles Krauthammer, a popular conservative columnist and one of the chief theorists of democracy promotion, the current upheavals have been all about Bush. "Everyone," Krauthammer insisted on March 4, "is a convert to George W. Bush's freedom agenda" now.

If this is true, then it behooves us to ask what Krauthammer defines as the 'freedom agenda'. It turns out that, according to Krauthammer (all that talk about 'regime change' from 2002 to 2003 notwithstanding), the chief principle of the 'freedom agenda' can be reduced á la Abrams to the rather pedestrian insight that "Arabs are no exception to the universal thirst for dignity and freedom".

But Krauthammer does not stop there and advances quickly from the banal to the absurd. Apparently, in Krauthammer's words, "the Bush Doctrine set the premise" for the current revolutions, upsetting age old structures of power in the Arab world. Really? Did the Arab public truly require Bush's imprimatur on democracy before they rose up to demand greater justice and freedom with the tools provided by democratic discourses?

More serious and substantial commentary has come from William Inboden, a former senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council under Bush. On January 30, Inboden asked why the Obama administration did not see the Egyptian revolt coming and on February 11, he insisted that "not everyone was wrong on Egypt" - pointing to the intriguing (but marginalised) work of the bi-partisan Working Group on Egypt since 2010.

The Working Group on Egypt was perhaps the most persistent and vocal group in Washington circles warning of the decrepitude of the Mubarak regime. On April 17, 2010, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, received a letter from the group, led by Michele Dunne and Robert Kagan, warning that Egypt was "at a critical turning point". The group cautioned that unless the US took a serious interest, Egypt risked "sliding backwards into increased authoritarianism" rather than "progressing gradually on a path of desirable reform".

Receiving little response, the group sent a second letter to Clinton on May 11 2010. Several weeks later Dunne and Kagan penned an op-ed in the Washington Post highlighting the gulf that had "opened between the government and the citizenry" in Egypt. Dunne and Kagan worried that if the US did not take action, then Egypt might be lost to radicalism.


A US-centric view

Before going any further, however, it is worth considering what exactly these critics of the Obama administration actually saw coming in the Arab world. After all, there was nothing particularly profound or prophetic about pointing out that the Egyptian people had little affection for Mubarak and his policies in 2010.  If we really want to know whether American conservatives 'saw it coming', it is better to look beyond their particular assessments of the Mubarak, Ben Ali or Gaddafi regimes to their general view of the relationship between power and change in the region.

Well before Bush II came into office, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a 'neo-conservative' think-tank based in Washington DC, began to mount a full-on assault against the 'realist' assumptions they perceived to be governing American foreign policy. Chief amongst their targets was the allegedly narrow 'realist' construal of national interest. Far better, the PNAC contended, to expand the concept of national interest to encompass things like the promotion of democracy abroad.

After 2001, the PNAC's arguments about democracy promotion and national interest gained momentum. Along with this argument came an unchallenged assumption about the nature of political change in the Arab world.

While conservatives such as Bush spoke enthusiastically about the universality of democracy they remained convinced that beneficial change would come about in only one of two ways: Regime change or gradual internal reform. In either case, American power and support were considered the essential element. American inaction meant either the maintenance of the status quo or the spread of Islamic radicalism.

In many ways, this myopic, American-centric view of power and change continues to govern both conservative and liberal American views of the Arab world. What conservatives never saw coming, along with the majority of American foreign policy analysts, was the manner in which the Arab world has changed in recent months. It turns out America was not the essential catalyst for change that everyone assumed.

Twice in a decade now, hitherto neglected non-state actors have seemingly come from nowhere to fundamentally alter both America's perception of the Middle East and the history of the region itself. Unfortunately, Americans were too mesmerised by the spectre of their own power to see such things coming.

At this juncture, as Americans ponder their future relationship with the Arab world, they might do well to consider the ideas of an important, but neglected theorist of political power, John Howard Yoder. He offered the sound insight that state power (whether 'soft', 'smart' or 'hard') is not equivalent to real power and that he who wields the sword is not the source of agency or creativity in history.


Todd M. Thompson is an assistant professor of International Affairs at Qatar University. 

The battle for Tahrir Square

Media in the line of fire in Egypt
Domestic and foreign journalists have come under siege amid the turmoil in Egypt.
Al Jazeera's online producer Last Modified: 03 Feb 2011 19:35 GMT

       Journalists in Egypt – domestic and foreign – are increasingly under siege, with Egyptian authorities detaining reporters and gangs of young men roaming the streets looking for anyone with camera equipment.
Some of the pressure has come from the government: Six Al Jazeera journalists were detained for several hours earlier this week, and while they were eventually released, their equipment remains with the police.

Earlier on Thursday concerns were raised as another three reporters went missing. They have now returned, safe and well, to their hotel.
Two New York Times reporters were reportedly arrested – or "taken into protective custody", as the government termed it.

'Israeli spy' rumours

Spotters stand outside many hotels, watching balconies with high-powered binoculars. When they see balconies with camera equipment or photographers, they use radios to call in the details.
Egyptian police sources say that information from those spotters has been used to conduct several raids on journalists' hotel rooms in recent days.

And the government has reportedly pressured several hotels not to extend the reservations of foreign journalists.
But most of the intimidation and violence has come from unofficial sources: Young men loiter outside the hotels where many reporters are staying, shouting at (and sometimes attacking) anyone with equipment.

Hotel lobbies are filled with journalists and camera crews wearing bandages, and many have been restricted to watching the events in Tahrir Square from their hotel balconies.
Egyptian state television has actively tried to foment the unrest by reporting that "Israeli spies" have infiltrated the city – which explains why many of the gangs who attack reporters shout "yehudi!" ("Jew!").

The area around Tahrir Square has become a virtual no-go zone for camera crews, which were assaulted on Wednesday almost as soon as they entered the area controlled by supporters of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Several of them were mistaken for Al Jazeera crews, and were chased off by young men wielding sticks and chanting, "Jazeera! Jazeera!".
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said his crew was also assaulted on Tuesday night after being mistaken for an Al Jazeera crew.

A reporter for the Al Arabiya network was kidnapped for several hours during Wednesday’s protest.
The violence has come exclusively from the Mubarak supporters: There have been no reports of pro-democracy demonstrators attacking or intimidating the media.

Egyptian journalists, too, have been the victims of angry mobs, all of them affiliated with the pro-Mubarak crowd. Sarah El Sirgany, an editor with the Daily News Egypt, tweeted that her brother was assaulted while trying to protect a group of reporters attacked by an angry mob.
An Al Jazeera reporter was held at knifepoint by a group of young men on Thursday morning. One man’s face was still bloodied from the previous night’s fighting.
Bloggers, too, have become targets: The popular Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey has reportedly been arrested (it's unclear by who).

International condemnation

The United States and Britain have condemned what they call the intimidation of foreign journalists reporting on events in Egypt.
Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, called for the release of any journalist who had been detained in the country and said acts to intimidate the media were "completely and totally unacceptable".
PJ Crowley, state department spokesman, added: "There is a concerted campaign to intimidate international journalists in Cairo and interfere with their reporting. We condemn such actions."

Britain's foreign minister also said the intimidation and harassment of journalists was "unacceptable and disturbing".
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists called the attacks on journalists an attempt at "blanket censorship" by the government, and listed a number of reported assaults against Egyptian, Arabic and international media.

         The battle for Tahrir Square

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/aljazeeraenglish/sets/72157625966223134/show/


      It was late on Wednesday as I slipped off to the Corniche road along the Nile to try to make my way inside Tahrir Square.

I had never seen a revolt up close and in real time, so it was with some trepidation that I had left the confines of our building after a full 10 hours of witnessing rock and Molotov barrages out of the window.
The street was empty but for a small army presence – a couple of armoured personnel carriers and some soldiers, most stationed near the Egyptian Museum.
To my left, 300m away, a pro-Mubarak crowd rained Molotov cocktails down on the anti-government protesters from an flyover leading from the 6th of October bridge.

In a few minutes, I had made it south down the Corniche to Kasr al-Nil bridge, which empties into central Cairo from the west and becomes a road that leads directly into Tahrir.
The anti-government protesters in Tahrir had arranged a field of debris 40m in front of their barricade, forcing anyone approaching to stop their stride and hop over.

Twenty metres beyond, they had strung a heavy electric cable about waist high from heavy metal fences on either side of the road, and 10m beyond that lay the final barricade, a stacked mix of metal barriers and spiked fences.
Two wooden boards were jammed length-wise across a side path to bar easy entrance.

I hopped down and walked through a small grassy park, approaching a small squad of men guarding a nearby path that led around the main barricade.
I held my hands up, palms out. They asked me for ID, so I showed them my US driver's license. I also told them that I came from Al Jazeera.
Unlike the pro-Mubarak people, the Tahrir protesters have a passion for our network. You tell the truth, they told me. One of the group patted me down and apologised for the inconvenience.

"It's for security," he said.
'Remember my name'
I approached the Kasr al-Nil barricade from behind, cautiously, and asked permission to take pictures.
Rocks were stacked in piles around the street, and Molotov cocktail bottles sat next to one another near a tree; a revolutionary armoury.

I was referred to the 'boss' of the checkpoint, a man with a lengthy black beard, a white, bloodstained headwrap, and a heavy grey peacoat spattered with blood.
He introduced himself as Hossam Eid al-Sharqawy and took hold of my shoulder. Time was short, I should take pictures quickly and go, he said.
He had blunt words for Egypt's 30-year president, whose two rounds of concessions and promise not to run again have failed to placate protesters. "Hosni Mubarak kills his own people," Sharqawy said.

"Remember my name," he said. "If I die here tonight, you will tell our story."
I told him I would, then photographed the barricade and continued into the square.
The chaos taking place to the north at the Egyptian museum was inaudible.

The square was peaceful but eerily empty; just 24 hours earlier, hundreds of thousands of anti-government protesters had staged what might have been the largest political demonstration in Cairo's history, a show which likely prompted Wednesday's violent response.

Men prayed on a large banner that had been laid out on the pavement.
It carried the two words that have become the slogan of anti-government protests from Tunisia to Egypt: "Game Over."
Farther into the square, small groups huddled around fires and inside tents.
The jubilance that had turned the square into a giant camp ground just a day before was gone; people now feared being overrun and killed by the surrounding pro-government mob, many of them reportedly hired thugs.

Apocalyptic scene

As I progressed toward the fighting near the museum, the square became decidedly more apocalyptic.
The roads were carpeted in broken rocks, making it hard to walk.
Men with crowbars and long metal rods – probably stolen from the construction site at the remodeling of the Ritz in the square – chipped away at curbs and at the road to make more projectiles for their comrades.
In the distance ahead, the orange glow of the street lights and the continual Molotov cocktail fire lent an air of medieval combat to the front lines of the fight.

The closer I got, the more frenetic the activity among the anti-government protesters.
Men and women hustled up huge bags of rocks. Another group dragged a metal barricade into a new backup position.
The source of the cacophony that had been echoing off Cairo's streets and through our window was revealed: protesters behind the lines were rhythmically banging on the metal pavement fences in a primal drumbeat to keep the crowd's spirits up.

One storey above us, two men crouched on a balcony and chucked rocks at the pro-Mubarak crowd.

I knelt down behind a pavement about 20m from the barricade.
Fiery Molotovs streamed down toward the pro-Mubarak crowd from above my head, as the government supporters on the 6th of October flyover above and in front of me responded with their own.
The anti-government barricades lay just out of the throwing reach of most of the Mubarak supporters, but occasionally an energetic rock barrage would slam against the metal sheets separating us from them.

Anti-government rock throwers launched their own rocks from behind the barricade, where it was impossible to see where they would land.
Other men crouched in between the sheets, in the shadows, making sure the barrier stayed up and occasionally sneaking a glance out.
What they saw was no-man's land.

War zone

An open space that had once served as a cramped artery of traffic toward Tahrir in one direction and Ramses Square – the main train station – in the other, had become a war zone, covered in rocks and dotted with the fire of petrol bombs.
An army personnel carrier sat parked 75m away, facing us, doing nothing as pro-Mubarak protesters milled about, throwing rocks and taking cover behind bridge supports.

Above, it was hard to discern spectators from rock throwers.

But onlookers eventually withdrew, leaving only dozens of men dancing about, gesturing angrily toward us and throwing rocks.
Everytime an anti-government protester managed to land a petrol bomb on the bridge above, a cheer went up from the barricades, accompanied by joyous cries of "God is great!"

Eventually, the anti-government lines began to advance; skirmishers in front of the line became braver, throwing rocks and petrol bombs with little or no cover.
Loud gunshots rang out, likely from the personnel carrier in front of us, which had been surrounded by pro-Mubarak men.

It was hard to tell exactly when, but at some point the anti-government protesters outflanked the Mubarak crowd on the overpass.
'Take the bridge'
Shouts of "take the bridge" rang out along the line. The anti-government crowd began to advance past the metal sheets, and the Mubarak supporters fled.

Men dropped their rocks and bowed their heads to the ground in prayer.

Others began to immediately scrub the pro-Mubarak graffiti off of the monuments in the area that had, for around 12 hours, been occupied by the government crowd.
On the overpass, a tank roared toward the direction of the retreating Mubarak supporters, flooding the air with fumes.

As I stepped back through the barricades to Tahrir, a group of men dragged someone inside.
I tried to take pictures but was told to walk away. It was unclear if they were detaining a pro-Mubarak supporter or bringing back one of their wounded.

Inside, men gathered in groups to assess the victory. Others walked back motorcycles that they had captured. One held a bloody Egyptian flag as he returned.
A crowd across from the Egyptian Museum pressed in around a wounded man. Doctors carried him away, leaving a puddle of blood on the concrete.
One who remained, dressed in a white coat and a cotton mask, told me that the man had been shot in the head by Mubarak supporters, but that he still had a pulse.

Behind me, a similar crowd gathered around another bloody, wounded man who looked completely unresponsive. They carried him away.

I ran into a 22-year-old man named Mohammed Hassan, a blogger, activist and self-described "revolutionary" carrying a stick.

He showed me a catapult the anti-government protesters had erected at a side entrance to the square, which he said they had used to launch flaming debris at the approaching crowd.
I watched as three men tested its tension.
Bandaged face
Further into the square, Hassan led me through a human chain and down the steps that lead into the Sadat metro station.

On the rubbish-strewn stairs, several bloody men sat nervously. The protesters told me they were captured Mubarak supporters.

One man, allegedly a former employee of the defence ministry, had his face nearly completely bandaged, but made a great effort to explain to me that he was not a lover of the government.
It was hard to watch; every few seconds, he seemed overcome by the pain and stopped to gently touch the wounds on his head.
He denied being paid or ordered to come. "It's my creed," he said in English.

As I stood in the makeshift prison, more people were dragged down the steps.
Some fought back and were shoved against the wall by several anti-government protesters.

A skinny man, almost a boy, with a bleeding head wound, pleaded with the captors and tried to convince them that he hated Mubarak.
Another young man, more calm and less wounded, was accused of using a police handgun to fire on the protesters.
The anti-government protesters could not find evidence that their captives were government employees, either police or interior ministry security, but they promised me that others were.

An official from the defence ministry checked on the condition of the alleged former ministry employee, they pulled him up the stairs to turn over to the army, though the protesters assured me the army was simply releasing those prisoners who were turned over.
Metallic drum beat

I left the prison and headed back to the Kasr al-Nil barricade, navigating a chokepoint made of turned over cars set at sharp angles.
I exchanged a few words with the men I had met on the way in; one told me what name to use if I wanted to re-enter.
Then I climbed through the wooden barricade blocking the path to the side of the wall and left.

As I approached our building, a soldier climbed down a tank and halted me. He found my camera in my pocket and demanded the film.
I had removed the SIM card and hid it, and though the soldier at first indicated that I should go with him to his commander, I finally convinced him to let me go, losing only my battery in the process.

Back inside, dawn was beginning to break over Cairo.
The protesters had reformed their barricades, in preparation for the pro-government attack which would come just hours later.

The metallic drum beat never halted. Deep in the square, the crowd remained.

Mubarak's third force terror tactic
President Mubarak unleashed his 'personal' thugs in a failed attempt to silence protestors seeking an end to his regime.

The apparently sudden and unexpected violence against Egyptian protesters that started on February 2 has an interesting historical ring to it. The date marks the unbanning of liberation movements in South Africa in 1990, and the start of political negotiations between the apartheid regime and the African National Congress. It also marks the start of the most violent period in South Africa’s turbulent political history.

The parallels with Egypt start with Mubarak’s speech to the nation on February 1, ostensibly making a significant concession to the protesters and a commitment to Egypt’s democratic future. The next day thugs, many now clearly identified as members of the security forces, rallied in central Cairo and launched attacks on hitherto peaceful demonstrators.

The tactics of deploying so-called third forces is a tried and tested method of autocratic regimes, usually utilised when the regime realises that it is on the strategic defencive politically. The focus of the regime then shifts from merely ruling as usual to extending its reign as long as possible, while at the same time sapping the material and political energy of its opponents.

In South Africa this tactic was intended to legitimise the regime as the only thing standing between an orderly transition to democracy on the one hand, and chaos on the other. At the same time it sought to drain the energy of the liberation movement by killing some of its leaders, forcing it into a defencive mode of thinking and compelling it to accept a compromise favourable to the regime. Mubarak’s statements prior to the unleashing of his ‘police-in-civilian clothing’, the inaction of the army and the apparently reasonable response of his Prime Minister after the fact that they will vigorously investigate the violence and bring the perpetrators to book, are well rehearsed elements of a ‘third force’ strategy.

Like in South Africa, the Egyptian ‘third force’ will be constituted of a variety of elements, including members of the security services operating as civilians, party loyalists and some civilians who are attracted by financial incentives. Even criminal gangs will be increasingly utilised, providing further ‘evidence’ that the violence is not perpetrated by the regime but plainly criminal. In the end the entire effort is neither spontaneous nor independent.

Any decent investigation will find that this force is organised, resourced and directed by elements within the Mubarak regime. The Tahrir Square protesters have already collected ample evidence to this effect. In South Africa it took the brave Justice Richard Goldstone  (of the UN Gaza Report fame) to expose a similar and wide-ranging network of regime instruments masquerading as various independent third forces.

Unless the army intervenes on the side of the Egyptian democracy movement, this ‘third force’ will continue to strike, not only in Cairo and other cities but increasingly also in the rural parts of the country. In South Africa the third force violence lasted from 1990 to 1994. In Egypt Mubarak’s regime has until September to produce a disorganised, leaderless and desperate opposition unable to execute a proper election campaign. The lessons of South Africa are instructive in how to defeat this effort by a desperate regime.

The continued unity of South Africans, in protest, was the central element that defeated the efforts of the apartheid regime to continue governing. If the Egyptian people continue protesting, as they have for the last two weeks, any claims of legitimacy by the regime are transparently ridiculous. In South Africa the central demand of the liberation movement at the height of third force violence became one for a transitional government.

No autocratic regime can oversee its own demise, and a real election could only take place if the entire state apparatus, including its security forces, were placed under the control of an interim government. The South African Transitional Executive Council established in 1993 and acting as an interim government, ensured the holding of free and fair elections in April 1994.

Anything less than the departure of Mubarak and his key allies will mean a transition always under threat of violence by a so-called third force, and an election that might disappear amidst the violence visited upon the Egyptian resistance.

David Africa is an independent security analyst based in South Africa. He has previously worked in counter-terrorism intelligence and research, and served in the underground of the then-banned African National Congress in South Africa.

Algeria to lift emergency powers - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Algeria to lift emergency powers - Africa - Al Jazeera English

The battle for Tahrir Square - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

The battle for Tahrir Square - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

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News Bulletin - 1935GMT update

Understanding the Protests in Egypt

Understanding the Protests in Egypt
by Bryan Farrell 01-27-2011
The massive anti-government protests that flared in Egypt yesterday, in which tens of thousands filled the streets of several Egyptian cities, was perhaps the most dramatic display of civil unrest the country has seen in decades. Most media sources have been quick to link the protests to the recent Tunisian uprising, hinting that it may be a sign of a domino effect taking place across the region. But how much of this early analysis is just misinformed anticipation? Jack Duvall, president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, D.C., spoke to this concern in an interview with Waging Nonviolence yesterday:
Egypt has had what might be called the formation of an inchoate movement based on students, labor, human rights activists and traditional opposition parties—both left and right (if you can classify the Muslim Brotherhood as right). It’s been going on for several years and it would be unfair to them to say that the protests today are a function of Tunisia. Whoever called the protests today probably was expecting a response because of Tunisia, knowing there would be enthusiasm to participate. And there were a lot of people who did come out. But I don’t think one should place too much political importance just on what has been happening today and it certainly shouldn’t be attributed to what is happening in Tunisia.
Jamila Raqib, the executive director of the Albert Einstein Institution in East Boston, echoed this sentiment:

To view the events taking place in Egypt as simply inspired by Tunisia, with no attention given to an ongoing struggle for human rights and an end to Mubarak rule (that has been waged for decades) would be a mistake. What is happening has been brewing for a very long time, and what we see is a result of at least some planning. To what degree, we don’t know, and certainly the effectiveness of the struggle as it continues will depend on the degree to which planning was involved.
Rather than pinpoint the uprising in Tunisia as the catalyst, Duvall suggested more attention be paid to the recent events in Lebanon, where thousands have been protesting Hezbollah:
Lebanon needs to be looked at closely too because that could be the beginning of a long period of both traditional political instability as well as two different civilian based movements in the streets—a recrudescence of the so-called Cedar Revolution, which is based on Sunni Arabs and Christians as well as an indigenous Lebanese opposition allied with Hezbollah. Part of this is a traditional jockeying for power mirrored by supporters in the streets, but some of it is really home grown. It’s absolutely interesting because of the so-called Cedar Revolution, which forced the Syrians to get out of Lebanon and was a major accomplishment of people power. Lebanese have a fair amount of experience with people power unlike the Tunisians. So what is now beginning to happen in Lebanon may be of more importance if one is just paying attention to the history of people power than what has happened in Tunisia—not to take anything away from what the Tunisian protesters accomplished.
All potential influences and inspirations aside, the events in Egypt could not have honestly been foreseen, according to Raqib:

The events in Egypt could not have been predicted by anyone, especially in terms of how rapidly they took place. There have been predictions about a possible domino effect similar to what happened in Eastern Europe with the collapse of Communist governments, however, there were and remain too many unknown factors that prevent us from drawing any meaningful and definitive parallels.
What I am hearing and reading about is the definite spreading of a new awareness: that people are not helpless in the face of repression, that the seemingly all-powerful dictatorships in the region—against whom struggle was perceived as futile—are actually not so powerful when faced with the real power of ordinary people, and that bringing about massive change is not predicated on the use of military power by a foreign government. It can happen organically, self-reliantly, and nonviolently, and also, importantly, with less casualties than a protracted guerrilla struggle or terrorism. This change can come not only without the help of outsiders, but perhaps even in spite of their support for the opponent, or even their attempts to derail a popular movement. What an amazing realization with massive, far reaching consequences!
That awareness on its own is not enough, however.  What needs to take place is a process of careful thinking and planning. One danger is that what occurred in Tunisia (while stunning) will give the impression that people, with simple protest and no real planning or strategic thinking, can produce sweeping and long-lasting, positive political change so quickly. In most cases, it is much more complex.
Even in the case of Tunisia, affecting positive political change is still complex, as Duvall explained.

There was no movement [in Tunisia] and that’s why elements of the old regime as well as traditional opposition parties began to immediately occupy a vacuum and there is now a struggle for power in Tunisia. Movements are a struggle for power, but if there is no movement and only protest, all it is is an uprising… The best distinction that can be made is between civilian based protest and organized campaigns or movements using civil resistance in order to accomplish a more decisive political change in a country. When the latter happens, as it’s happened historically, then there can be something that you could call a revolution.
So, rather than jump to conclusions about the direction of events in Egypt, perhaps the best thing we observers from afar can do is applaud the willingness of ordinary people to resist a corrupt and dictatorial regime and encourage further use of nonviolent means. The existence of that kind of bravery is the one thing we can be sure of.
[This article appears courtesy of a partnership with Waging Nonviolence.]
Bryan Farrell is a New York-based writer, covering topics that range from the environment and climate change to foreign policy and militarism. His work has appeared in The Nation, In These Times, Plenty, Earth Island Journal, Huffington Post, and Foreign Policy In Focus. Visit his website at BryanFarrell.com.

http://blog.sojo.net/2011/01/27/understanding-the-protests-in-egypt/

MILITARY HOLDS BACK
Tens Of Thousands Storm Cairo Streets In Defiance Of Mubarak.. ElBaradei Speaks: 'People Will Not Go Home Until Justice Is Restored'

 
The AP adds:

Protesters have filled the street in front of the Egyptian embassy in Washington, demanding that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak step down.
The demonstrators on Saturday also criticized the Obama administration's response to the clashes in Egypt, where thousands of protesters have thrown the country's 30-year-old regime into tumult.
Those in Washington waved Egyptian flags and held signs that read "Obama: Democracy or Hypocrisy?" and "Victory to the Egyptian People!"
Tamim Barghouti, a 32-year-old professor, said he was angered by Mubarak's choice for a vice president Saturday. He says the new vice president would simply be another puppet of America.

Today 1:53 PM Tunisia Minister Weighs In
The protestors have said that they were inspired by the successful ousting of the Tunisian president. Now Tunisia's new foreign minister has given his take on the Egypt. Reports the AP:
Tunisia's new foreign minister says his country isn't going to lecture Egyptians on what path their country should take, following this week's anti-government protests.
Ahmed Ounaies says the two Arab countries are different and must each chart their own course.

He told The Associated Press Saturday "it is up to the Egyptian people to decide their present and their future for themselves. We are not going to decide on their behalf or give them any lessons."

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CAIRO — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak named a vice president Saturday for the first time since coming to power nearly 30 years ago — a clear step toward setting up a successor in the midst of the biggest anti-government protests of his regime.
After five days of protests, Cairo was engulfed in chaos. There was rampant looting and lawlessness was spreading fast. Egyptian security officials say at least 62 people have been killed nationwide over the last two days. The officials say an additional 2,000 people have been injured.
Residents of affluent neighborhoods were boarding up their houses against gangs of thugs roaming the streets with knives and sticks and gunfire was heard in some neighborhoods.
At least three people were killed as they stormed the Interior Ministry, Al Jazeera reported.

NBC News' Richard Engel reported dramatic scenes of tanks and armored personnel carriers fanning out across the city of 18 million, guarding key government buildings. He told msnbc there was rampant looting and protesters, many smeared in red, screaming and yelling in the streets.
The military was protecting major tourist and archaeological sites such as the Egyptian Museum, home to some of the country's most treasured antiquities, as well as the Cabinet building. The military closed the pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo — Egypt's premiere tourist site.

Egypt tense after bloody protests - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

    click this link for full post
Egypt tense after bloody protests - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Protesters in the Egyptian cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez have defied a nighttime curfew and continued with demonstrations demanding an end to Hosni Mubarak's 30-year presidency.

Fresh protests erupt in Egypt
Army reportedly on the streets of Cairo as curfew is imposed from 6pm to 7am local time.

Protests have erupted in cities across Egypt, with demonstrators demanding an end to Hosni Mubarak's presidency.
Tens of thousands took to the streets across the country following Friday midday prayers.
State TV said a curfew will be imposed from 6pm to 7am local time.
Egyptian military vehicles were sighted on the streets of Cairo on Friday after a day of violent clashes between police and protesters demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

Protesters had previously chanted slogans calling for the army to support them, complaining of police violence during clashes on Friday in which security forces fired teargas and rubber bullets.

"Where is the army? Come and see what the police is doing to us. We want the army. We want the army," the protesters in one area of central Cairo shouted, shortly before police fired teargas on them.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Cairo, said protesters reacted positively when an armoured vehicle with troops showed up, possibly indicating that it belonged to the military.

"The army is a respected establishment in Egypt, and many feel they need their support against what they see as excessive force by the police and security forces," he said.
Earlier, clashes between protesters and police erupted outside a mosque in Cairo.
Protesters reportedly threw stones and dirt at the police after security forces confronted them. They held up posters saying "No to dictatorship" and stamped on posters of Mubarak.
Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, said protesters streamed out of mosques shortly after prayers to chant slogans against Mubarak. Police responded immediately, firing tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Alexandria is a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's technically banned but largest political opposition group, but Rageh said the crowds in the city predominantly consisted of "ordinary citizens".
"This is the same mosque where protests were held against police brutality in June after a 20-year-old man was beaten to death by police," she said. "It’s very symbolic that the current protests are taking place at the same place all over again."
Protests were also reported in Suez, a port on the Red Sea east of Cairo, and in the Nile Delta cities of Mansoura and Sharqiya, witnesses said.
Friday marked the fourth consecutive day of protests in the Middle East's most populous nation coming on the heels of a social uprising in nearby Tunisia that ousted that country's president of 23 years.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog and an opposition leader in Egypt, returned to the country on Thursday night after telling reporters he was ready to lead a "transition" if asked. On Friday, he prayed with thousands of worshippers at a mosque in Cairo and had reportedly been prevented from moving freely by security forces.
The countrywide violence has so far left seven people dead.
In response, the government has promised to crack down on demonstrations and arrest those participating in them. It has blocked internet, mobile phone and SMS services in order to disrupt the planned demonstrations.
Internet shut down
Before Egypt shut down internet access on Thursday night, activists were posting and exchanging messages using social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, listing more than 30 mosques and churches where protesters were to organise on Friday.


"Egypt's Muslims and Christians will go out to fight against corruption, unemployment and oppression and absence of freedom," a page with more than 70,000 signatories said.

The Associated Press news agency reported that an elite special counterterrorism force had been deployed at strategic points around Cairo, and Egypt's interior ministry warned of "decisive measures".

Safwat Sherif, the secretary-general of the ruling National Democratic Party, told reporters on Thursday:  "We hope that tomorrow's Friday prayers and its rituals happen in a quiet way that upholds the value of such rituals ... and that no one jeopardises the safety of citizens or subjects them to something they do not want."

Meanwhile, a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood said that 20 members of the officially banned group had been detained overnight.

Abdel-Moniem Abdel-Maksoud said two of the most senior movement members were detained: Essam El-Erian, its main spokesman, and Mohammed Moursi, a prominent Brotherhood leader.
Fierce clashes
On Thursday, protesters hurled petrol bombs at a fire station in Suez, setting it ablaze. They tried but failed to set fire to a local office of the ruling National Democratic Party. At another rally near Giza on the outskirts of Cairo, police used tear gas to break up hundreds of protesters late at night.

Cairo, normally vibrant on a Thursday night ahead of the weekend, was largely deserted, with shops and restaurants shut. In the city of Ismailia, hundreds of protesters clashed with police who used tear gas and batons to disperse them. "This is a revolution," one 16-year-old protester said in Suez . "Every day we're coming back here." "The intensity continues to increase," Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal reported from Suez. "There have been fierce clashes with rubber-coated steel bullets being fired by the riot police as well as tear gas." Restraint urged Human Rights Watch said Egyptian police had escalated the use of force against largely peaceful demonstrations and called it "wholly unacceptable and disproportionate". Barack Obama, the US president, urged both the government and protesters to show restraint as they expressed their "pent-up frustrations". Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, had earlier said that the protests offered the Mubarak government an opportunity to institute social, economic, and political reforms. "It is very important that people have mechanisms in order to express legitimate grievances," Obam said as he answered questions from an online audience on the YouTube website. Obama also urged Mubarak to make changes to the political system to appease the angry protesters. "I've always said to him that making sure that they are moving forward on reform - political reform, economic reform - is absolutely critical for the long-term well-being of Egypt."

Insiders blab about Afghan war

By Richard GwynColumnist

The most important aspect of American investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book, Obama's Wars, about the conflict in Afghanistan, is not the inside dope that he was able to dig out. It is rather that he so easily got many insiders to blab.

Woodward did ferret out some interesting stuff. One of the best bits is on how President Barack Obama's generals kept trying to get him to give them more troops. As soon as he'd set the number at 30,000, rather than the 40,000 they'd demanded, they immediately proposed he send in 4,500 “enablers” — that is to say, more troops under a different name.

Obama actually comes out well. He was trapped: He couldn't bug out after George W. Bush's “surge” had seemed to have worked in Iraq. But he knew the Afghan war was unwinnable in conventional terms, telling White House aides there had to be a plan “about how we're going to hand it off and get out.”

Gen. David Petraeus, now the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also comes out well. In an interview with Woodward, Petraeus said, “I don't think you win this war . . . You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives, and probably our kids' lives.”

Both are highly intelligent men. Each has a private agenda. Obama described his by his now much-quoted comment, “I can't lose the whole Democratic party.” Republican critics have made much of this, but any president who doesn't worry about votes won't be president for long.

Petraeus's private agenda is the honour of the U.S. military. His purpose in Afghanistan is not to win — the goal all generals have sought throughout history — but not to lose, or at least not to be seen to have lost.

So why did so many White House and Pentagon insiders blab so readily to Woodward?

Because they, too, if less perceptively than Obama and Petraeus, know they are engaged in an unwinnable war.

Call it a new kind of war, a postmodern war. It has no beginning: Afghans have fought almost continuously for centuries, against outsiders but as readily against each other.

It will have no end but will eventually peter out whether the Americans are there or not. Certainly there will be no victory parades, by anyone.

It has no particular purpose. There's jihad, of course. But Afghans aren't by nature religious fanatics.

Americans, understandably, are afraid that if the Taliban win, Al Qaeda will use the country as a base.

But Al Qaeda doesn't need a physical base. It's a virtual terrorist organization, an idea, a brand name, nothing that anyone can wrap their hands around and blow up.

Al Qaeda will also peter out one day, destroying itself because its principal activity has become motivating and training Muslims to kill Muslims — that's what's now going on in Iraq no matter that the Americans have gone.

Killing has become for the terrorists a self-justifying cause. For suicide bombers it's also an immensely satisfying one since there's no clearer proof of having power — as all the teenage bombers lack completely in their own lives — than being able to decide who to kill and how many.

Those insiders broke the rules and blabbed to Woodward because they know the war in Afghanistan is insane, and know as keenly that no aspect of it is more insane than that American troops are still there because no one in Washington has yet been able to figure out how to get them out without being seen to have lost.

By this book, Woodward has done a real service to Americans. Probably without intending to — since while a good journalist, Woodward is no deep thinker — he's told them the truth.

God in America | Extended Preview | PBS

WE SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT

         Subject: The Arrogance of being President while Black
 
  A  good explanation of what seems to be happening in this Country.  Even the First Lady has received unwarranted negative press.
  
 Arrogance of being President while being Black

 I don't think anyone was under some real illusion that the election of Barack Obama actually means the end of racism in America . I'm pretty sure that the president-elect knew it better than anyone. After all, he saw it every day, from the moment he announced his candidacy. To some degree, he saw it within his own party during the primaries. And he saw it in all ugliness during the general election. For half of this country, he was "That One". No matter how big and clear his victory was. No matter how smart he is. No matter how decent he is. No matter what a true patriot he is. No matter how optimistic and positive his vision for America was. All that didn't matter. Because at the end of the day, he was still black.

 I'm quite old. I remember, vaguely, where my parents were on November 22, 1963. I've seen so many presidents. Some were feared, some were hated, some were adored, some popular and some not. But all of them, without exception, were treated with the highest respect deserving the office of the president of the United States .

  That is until a black man won the right to occupy this office. It's been 13 months now, and in the eyes of so many, Barack Obama is still that one. He is being disrespected and at the same time being held to the highest standard of any president I've ever seen – and not just by the Republican side! He has to perform three times better than any president in history, and even that may not be enough.

  For the media, he is many more times just "Obama" than "President Obama". They create scandals out of nothing issues. It took them at least 6 years to start giving Bush a small part of the sh-t he deserved. It took them 6 months to begin crap all over Obama because he's yet to fix the catastrophe that was left for him.

  They use condescending tones when they talk about him, and only mildly less condescending when they talk TO him. With anyone else, CNN wouldn't dare go to commercials every time the president speaks, like they did during that summit on Thursday. They wouldn't dare be counting how many minutes George Bush or Bill Clinton were talking. Chris Mathews wouldn't dare make an issue out of Ronald Reagan calling members of congress by their first name, like he is not actually the president. They fully cooperate with the Right-Wing smear machine when it comes to president Obama's national security performance – even if almost every independent and military expert actually thinks that he's a terrific Commander-in-Chief. You'll never see them on TV, and virtually no one from the Left, in congress and outside, defend the President on this matter.

  I don't care about the Far-Right. They're just crazy ignorant Neanderthals. It's the way the beltway and the mainstream treats this President that is shocking. On Thursday, almost every Republican had no trouble interrupting him in the middle of a sentence. They looked like they're going to vomit every time they had to say "Mr.President". They all had this Eric-Cantor-Smirk whenever he spoke. Then they went out and started to spit their stupid talking points, to the delight of the media. Sarah Palin, a woman who can hardly read, thinks that he was "arrogant" towards John McCain, and somehow this is an important news. Because you see, "Obama's Arrogance" is the talking point of the day.

  Oh, those talking points. He is arrogant (because he knows the facts better than all of them combined). He is an elitist (because he uses big words that they don't understand). He is weak on national security (because he actually thinks about the consequences). He divides the country (well, he did that the day he had the audacity to win the election). Worst of all, he actually thinks that he's the President. He even dared to say so on Thursday. How arrogant of him. You'd think that previous presidents didn't have any ego. Somehow it turned out that the one president who treats even his biggest opponents with the utmost respect – is the arrogant one. I wonder why?

  I expected that his winning the Presidency would bring out some ugliness, but it's been far worse than I imagined. The racism coming from the Right is obviously clear and shameless, but there's also some hidden and maybe subconscious and disturbing underline tone behind some of the things that I read here and throughout the Left blogosphere, even before the end of Obama's first year - 'He's weak, he's spineless, he's got no balls, primary him in 2012'. It'll be dishonest to deny that.

  The fact is that for millions in America , Barack Obama is this uppity black man (Not even a "real" black), who received good education only due to affirmative action, and has no right to litter the sacred Oval Office with his skin color. They just can't accept the fact that the President is a black man, who unlike his predecessor, was actually legally elected. But what's really sad is that it's not just the fringe, its deep deep in mainstream America .

  Barack Obama's ability to remain above all this slob, to keep his optimism and his strange and mostly unjustified faith in people, while continuing to gracefully deal with an endless shitstorm – is one of the most inspiring displays of human quality I have ever seen. And I can only hope that the Cosmos is on his side because God is and He never makes a mistake.

Gerald A. McIntosh (G-Mack)

WE SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT BY GOING TO THE POLLS.  HE NEEDS US TO SHOW
UP SO THAT THE HOUSE AND CONGRESS CAN SEE THAT THE PEOPLE SUPPORT HIM.

Evangelical leaders: Gulf oil spill

                Oil In The Gulf
       Evangelical leaders: Gulf oil spill raises moral issues
The Associated Press
Leaders of a group that encourages evangelical Christians to care for the environment say the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico raises moral challenges for the country.
The Revs. Jim Ball and Mitchell Hescox, leaders of the Evangelical Environmental Network, are visiting southern Louisiana to pray with people who have lost jobs because of the spill.

Joining them is the Rev. Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Ball says they took a boat ride off the coast Thursday and were saddened by sights of oil-spattered marshes where birds were nesting.

He says the oil spill is a stain on the nation's stewardship of God's creation, and should inspire people of faith to embrace cleaner energy sources. Ball says how the nation responds to the disaster is a matter of values.