The 32 nations of the Libya contact group, meeting in Istanbul, have decided to recognize the Transitional National Council in Benghazi as the legitimate government of Libya. The US was among those agreeing to do so, for the first time. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made it clear that it took the US so long […]
Archives for July 2011
Egyptian Government Backs Down as Tahrir Protesters Gear UP
The renewed protest movement at Tahrir (“Liberation”) Square in downtown Cairo beginning last Friday, July 8, has pushed the transitional government to make a further set of concessions to a still-angry public. Whether these steps will be enough to assuage the youth, who are camping out in the square in tents and gathering in the […]
Cole, ACLU, Sue CIA, FBI seeking Bloggergate Documents
Spencer Ackerman at Wired reports on the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit launched on my behalf by the American Civil Liberties Union against the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. See also the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press. In the text of the lawsuit, ACLU lawyers […]
Is Murdoch’s Media Empire a Cult?
The scandals besetting billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s British properties simply cannot be ignored in the United States. Murdoch owns a newspaper of record, the Wall Street Journal, and his Fox Cable News dominates US television news and opinion with regard to cable (and it has a global reach despite its supposed American-nativist emphases). He […]
Ahmad Wali Karzai Killing Points to More Instability
The murder Tuesday of Ahmad Wali Karzai, the behind-the-scenes authority over Qandahar province and brother of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, shows the continued instability in that country. It is not entirely clear the killing was a political assassination. The bodyguard who pulled the trigger is rumored just to have had a personal grudge with his […]
Clinton: al-Asad has lost Legitimacy after Mobs Storm US, French Embassies
The mob attacks on the US and French embassies by ‘pro-regime elements’ in Damascus on Monday provoked a heated response from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said that President Bashar al-Asad had now “lost legitimacy” by neglecting to live up to his obligations in international law to protect foreign diplomats. She warned him that […]
Today’s Top 5 Crises in the 2011 Arab Revolutions
1. The protest movement in Egypt, which started up in earnest again last Friday, is expanding. Thousands were camped out in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo throughout the weekend, and people streamed there Sunday evening. The crowds closed the Mugamma` administrative building. They are demanding a cleaner break with the old regime, trials for security […]
On Panetta and Defeating al-Qaeda
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on his arrival in Kabul that the US could be on the verge of defeating al-Qaeda, and could do so in the wake of the killing of Usama Bin Laden by keeping the pressure on in Afghanistan, northwest Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. According to the Department of Defense, Panetta […]
Egyptian Revolution 2.0?
Thousands of protesters came back to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday. Despite the sometimes dark depictions of continuing unrest in the Western press, from all accounts the atmosphere was light and carnivalesque. Crowds chanted, “No parties, no Muslim Brotherhood! The Egyptian people are in the square!” (La ahzab, la Ikhwan! Al-Sha’b al-Misri fi al-Maydan!” according […]
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