On Tunisia and Wikileaks
Michael Totten recommends that you read Barry Rubin on Tunisia. I second the motion.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Michael Totten recommends that you read Barry Rubin on Tunisia. I second the motion.
The Rubin article says:
Sorry, please ignore my previous posting. It wasn’t formatted correctly.
The Rubin article says:
But the Wikileaks cables on Tunisia did not say that “the situation in Tunisia was so bad that a revolt might erupt.” They gave specific examples of the lavish lifestyle of the President’s immediate family, such as this Wikileaks cable:
“After dinner, he served
ice cream and frozen yoghurt he [El-Materi, the president’s son-in-law] brought in by plane from Saint Tropez [in France]. […] El Materi has a large tiger (“Pasha”) on his
compound, living in a cage. He acquired it when it was a few
weeks old. The tiger consumes four chickens a day.
(Comment: The situation reminded the Ambassador of Uday
Hussein’s lion cage in Baghdad.)”
Oh, I don’t know.
Supposedly these cables are such a big threat to our security there must surely be rivers of American blood and the blood of America’s allies. And also, I often hear about how the only reason wikileaks exists is to embarrass America, obviously that must mean SOME foreigners -perhaps even Tunisians- are reading them, after all, we can’t be embarrassed if we are the only ones reading these cables!
Of course I don’t believe wikileaks is actually culpable for much that goes on in the world, thus I’m more than willing to give up on Tunisia if some people would admit that so far we can’t trace a single death directly to wikileaks.
P.S I’m looking forward to the documents from Bank of America. It’s always good to see what a bunch of people obsessed with hawkish foreign policy will let the powers that be get away with in terms of their currencies and banks.
We are beginning to live in interesting times.
if some people would admit that so far we can’t trace a single death directly to wikileaks
That’s only a matter of time. You actually think the Taliban will go easy on Afghans cooperating with US forces?
Actually, pay attention to Zimbawe and in particular the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. If he ends up on trial for treason, that is due to Wikileaks. If he’s found guilty, he’ll be executed. That’s something one can easily follow.
I wonder why Obama is not helping this change. In 2007 he was campaigning for Kenya’s Odinga for change. Oh wait, that’s right. Odinga is a Marxist and/or Muslim. Whatever it takes to get power. He don’t care.
Nobody has surfaced yet in Tunisia who has stated their intent to become either a Marxist or Muslim tyrant. When they do, Obama will be there. To campaign for them.
See the link for Obama’s history of campaigning for Odinga:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/12/obamas-kenya-ghosts/
Good observation Curtis. Obama stood for autocracy in the Middle East when he denounced the introduction by force of democracy and promoted Islamists’ fantasies in his Cairo speech. He got an ovations for that. I mentioned in an earlier post that the Moslem Brotherhood was specifically invited to the speech while the Arab pro-democracy activists boycotted it.
Combine the adulation from fascist Arabs with the vituperation from pro-democracy activists in the Middle East with his effort to end democracy in Honduras, the positioning of himself and his party as rulers rather than servants of the people with regard to Obamacare, his hatred of George Bush and Bush’s Neanderthal belief that all men have a right to be free and his need to prove himself smarter than George Bush, his inability to see that the war on terror is a war against the political culture of the Middle East and I think you have an explanation why Obama is not going to be enthusiastic about a democratic revolution anywhere let alone the Arab world.