NYT: Wikileaks cables reveal details of US-Egypt diplomacy
US State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks, and analyzed today in the New York Times, show how the Obama administration avoided "public confrontations" with Hosni Mubarak over issues human rights.
Another cable, dated March 2009, offered a pessimistic analysis of the prospects for the "April 6 Movement," a Facebook-based group of mostly young Egyptians that has received wide attention for its lively political debate and helped mobilize the protests that have swept Egypt in the last two days. Leaders of the group had been jailed and tortured by the police. There were also signs of internal divisions between secular and Islamist factions, it said.The United States has defended bloggers with little success. When Ambassador Scobey raised several arrests with the interior minister, he replied that Egypt did not infringe on freedom of the press, but that it must respond when "people are offended by blogs." An aide to the minister told the ambassador that The New York Times, which has reported on the treatment of bloggers in Egypt, was "exaggerating the blogger issue," according to the cable.
American diplomats also cast a wide net to gather information on police brutality, the cables show. Through contacts with human rights lawyers, the embassy follows numerous cases, and raised some with the Interior Ministry. Among the most harrowing, according to a cable, was the treatment of several members of a Hezbollah cell detained by the police in late 2008.
Lawyers representing the men said they were subjected to electric shocks and sleep deprivation, which reduced them to a "zombie state." They said the torture was more severe than what they normally witnessed.
Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt's Leaders (NYT, via Jim Roberts)
(PHOTO: A protester displays a message on a placard of the Egyptian flag during a demonstration outside the press syndicate in central Cairo January 27, 2011. Demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, have raged since Tuesday in several Egyptian cities, with the biggest clashes in Cairo and Suez. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)
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Shit just got real:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfpzqsU9mE1qdvmmfo1_500.jpg
I can understand the "onstage relationship" being publicly supportive of Mubarak while the behind the scenes approach using more firm language about Egypt's human rights abuses. Yet it sounds like the 2 years of this strategy versus the public criticism of Mubarak by the Bush Administration didn't make any difference.
How long do you play nice with an important and strategic ally who at the same time is a royal asshole and human rights abuser along the lines of China?
Until it becomes a media scandal and thus politically damaging?
"He may be an asshole but he's our asshole."
There is an unstoppable wave of grass roots political activism galvanized by Wikeleaks disclosures which will roll over the corrupt and brutal tyrants who have managed to remain in power through a combination of terror against their citizens and secrecy for the past three decades. The new democratic governments will remember the western leaders who supported the abusive and corrupt leaders in the Middle East and the political dynamics will shift from US bribery and inducements underscored by threats and intimidation to one of overwhelming suspicion of the motives behind all US policies and overtures.
Something I have never understood about the opinion of U.S. influence. Maybe Boingers can explain it. People generally decry the U.S. being the "policeman of the world" and blame that mentality on why it is where is is now. Yet, it is somewhat that same mentality that gives them the clout to call other countries out on these abuses.
So which face of the US is more desirable and why? And does anyone think it can ever be balanced in light of what has come out due to Wikileaks?
While i can only speculate, i think it is the unilateralism that people decry when talking about "policeman of the world". And that whatever actions are taken are rarely "selfless".
Because the former refers to invasions and the latter to economic pressure.
Both of which lead to unnecessary deaths.
There is no such thing as an "unnecessary death" in a political context...tell me, what would be a "necessary death" in a political context?
There is nether he one nor the other: a red herring.
Not 'necessity', but 'intention', is the kley difference between different deaths in a political context, (ie wartime, insurrection):
Intentional death = eg invasion of Iraq, or putting prisoners to death
Unintentional death = eg deaths resulting from information being freely available (or so some, US Gov guys mostly, say), or from an accident, as in "collateral (that is , unintentional) damage".
The point : What counts as "necessary death", some Waziri guy destroyed by a drone strike in the remote mountains of Waziristan?
Both adjectives - "necessary" and "unnecssary" - as applied to death, are profoundly un-helpful ways of thinking about political violence.
There exists neither the one nor the other, except in hindsight: and only then, to those who would kill again, or to those who seek to excuse and/or justify the previous killing.
We are discussing politics, not medicine.
"They said the torture was more severe than what they normally witnessed."
And normal is... Gitmo?
My personal take: There are many kinds of influence. Before WWII we were rather isolationist; we left everything outside North America to Europe, mostly. Then suddenly the british and french and german empires were no more, and we were the only thing standing in Russia's way. Our military, industrial, scientific, and (perceived or real) moral advantage gave us tremendous influence globally. Hence we became the "policeman of the world." This is not, in itself, a bad thing.
What we discovered over the next half century (though lots of politicians never learned the lesson) is the military power is the least effective of our options at creating positive change. We lost in Vietnam. Korea is still divided. And so on. But our work at rebuilding Europe and Japan won us a lot of friends and goodwill, and Japan in particular went from a military empire to a peaceful democratic economic powerhouse of an ally very quickly.
Today, that means we should focus more on building schools, fighting malaria, and providing access to birth control, less on ousting dictators. Clearly, fed-up populations can oust their own dictators when they feel the need to.
We have clout because we are economically and militarily powerful, but more than that, we have clout because our history is founded on ideals with global appeal. It's simply untenable to think that the US will still represent a quarter of world GDP, or half of world military spending, a century from now; we're only 5% of world population. But we can still have clout if we can uphold our ideals and inspire people. Today, though, we're not really investing in that kind of clout. We're doubling down on being a policeman in the more literal sense, instead. And that just isn't gonna work in the long run.
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