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“The Arab World Is on Fire” by Noam Chomsky

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by Noam Chomsky
http://www.inthesetimes.com
February 2, 2011

“The Arab world is on fire,” al-Jazeera reported on January 27, while throughout the region, Western allies “are quickly losing their influence.”

The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a Western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator’s brutal police.

Observers compared the events to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences.

Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless it is properly tamed.

One 1989 comparison has some validity: Romania, where Washington maintained its support for Nicolae Ceausescu, the most vicious of the East European dictators, until the allegiance became untenable. Then Washington hailed his overthrow while the past was erased.

That is a standard pattern: Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Chun Doo Hwan, Suharto and many other useful gangsters. It may be under way in the case of Hosni Mubarak, along with routine efforts to try to ensure that a successor regime will not veer far from the approved path.

[…]

via ‘The Arab World Is on Fire’ — In These Times

see

Noam Chomsky: This is the Most Remarkable Regional Uprising that I Can Remember

As things fall apart By William Bowles

Uprising in Egypt: A Two-Hour Special on the Revolt Against the U.S.-Backed Mubarak Regime

The media battle for Egypt + Changing the US vision of the Middle East + Eliminate the Witnesses

Egypt – The Peoples’ Voices by Felicity Arbuthnot

US Media and Egypt Coverage: Dodging the Real Issues and Fudging the Real Culprits by Sibel Edmonds

The Egyptian Tinderbox: How Banks and Investors Are Starving the Third World by Ellen Brown

Israeli Spy Arrest in Egypt Points to High Stakes for Washington and Tel Aviv by Finian Cunningham

Robert Fisk: Obama Admin Has Been Gutless and Cowardly + Eyewitnesses to a Massacre

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