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HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER:  David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted  attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives by Tag 'Egypt'
Netanyahu’s Message to Obama Campaign
FRANKLIN LAMB
Beirut Presidential candidate Barack Obama is being targeted by the US Israel lobby from A to Z, (Ackerman, Gary & Aipac to Zuckerman, Mort & the Zionist Organization of America) as no American President seeking re-election has been in the country...
Whatever Happened to the Arab Summer?
PATRICK COCKBURN
Remember the euphoria early last year when long-established police states across the Arab world were tumbling down. Facile comparisons were made with the fall of communist states in Eastern Europe in 1989. Commentators spoke glibly of irrepressible political change in the...
Egypt in Discouraging Times
MICHAEL NEUMANN
In those great days of January and February, Egyptians taught the world what courage is. Before then, it was thought obvious that if you were up against live fire, you ran like hell. No one so much as conceived the possibility that you should stand and fight, let alone wi...
Our Muslim Brothers
URI AVNERY
Everybody knows by now why we are stuck in Palestine. When God instructed Moses to plead with Pharaoh to let his people go, Moses told him that he was unfit for the job because “I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Actually, in the He...
The Future Direction of Egypt’s Revolution
ESAM AL-AMIN
Against all odds the Muslim Brotherhood’s (MB) candidate, Dr. Muhammad Mursi won Egypt’s first presidential election since the ouster of dictator Hosni Mubarak…but barely. Although the official results will not be announced until Thursday, the final tally shows that...
The True Face of Egypt’s Military
ESAM AL-AMIN
The masks dropped. The cards are shown. For over a year, Egyptians have wondered who was leading the efforts to frustrate and obliterate their nascent revolution, or what was dubbed in the local media as the “third party” or the “hidden bandit.” But...
Back to Square One in Egypt?
ESAM AL-AMIN
On Thursday June 14, the High Constitutional Court in Egypt will rule on two pending motions that may radically change the future course of Egypt and determine the fate of its remarkable – but unfinished- revolution. The two motions are the constitutionality of the poli...
What’s Changed in Egypt?
DEEPAK TRIPATHI
The day of judgment for Hosni Mubarak arrived on June 2. The 84-year-old deposed president was given a life sentence with his interior minister Habib al-Adly for the killing of hundreds of protesters during last year’s uprising. Mubarak and his sons, Gamal and Alaa, we...
Sacrificing Mubarak to Save His Regime
ESAM AL-AMIN
When deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons were indicted in April 2011, legal observers cynically noted that the charges were not only politically motivated in order to quiet the massive demonstrations demanding their trial, but also that they were so weak...
Battlelines Being Drawn for Next Phase: a Plus for Palestinians?
FRANKLIN LAMB
Beirut The official results of the first round of the historic Egyptian presidential elections, the first ever in Mother Egypt where the results were not known in advance, present an encouraging snapshot of “new democratic Egypt” given that the choice...
The Sacking of a Revolution
ESAM AL-AMIN
Fifteen months after millions of Egyptians -led by the revolutionary youth- were united in their demand to end a corrupt and suffocating dictatorship, they were now divided as they headed to the polls in the last two days in order to elect a new president. During this tra...
Military Orchestrates Egypt’s Presidential Elections
CARL FINAMORE
The military was the lone Hosni Mubarak-era institution to survive the revolution that toppled the country’s longest-reigning dictator last year. It remains the real power to this day and is skillfully orchestrating the May 23-24 presidential elections to paint a democr...
The Making of Egypt’s President
ESAM AL-AMIN
Ever since the toppling of Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak, the United States has been very nervous with regard to its former client state. Likewise, most Israeli leaders have been sounding the alarms, warning that the peace treaty with Egypt is in danger and that...
The Arab Spring is Part of the General Strike of the South
PRATYUSH CHANDRA
Vijay Prashad’s new book, Arab Spring, Libyan Winter ...
Oil Wars on the Horizon
MICHAEL T. KLARE
Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time.  Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2...
Will Sadat’s Camp David and the Zionist Embassy be Next?
FRANKLIN LAMB
Beirut. The Egyptian people are demanding the return of their sovereignty.   According to recent opinion surveys they believe it was partially ceded to Israel by the two post-Nasser dictators, Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, at the behest of American admin...
The Calculus of Egypt’s Presidential Race
ESAM AL-AMIN
“President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from his position as president of the republic.” Uttered by former Vice President Omar Suleiman on the evening of February 11, 2011, these words set in motion jubilations by millions of Egyptians celebrating the ultima...
Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?
ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH
Within the first few months of 2011, the U.S. and its allies lost three loyal “friends”: Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Zine el-Abbidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Saad Hariri in Lebanon. While Mubarak and Ali were driven out of power by widespread popular uprisings, Hariri was ...
Who Runs Egypt?
CARL FINAMORE
The two best organized forces in Egypt today remain the military and Islamist organizations. They have been quite successful in leveraging their advanced organization to assert control of the government from the day dictator Hosni Mubarak was pushed aside on February 11, ...
Egypt: Marinated in Corruption
PATRICK COCKBURN
Who shall doubt “the secret hid Under Cheop’s pyramid” Was that the contractors did Cheops out of several millions? Or that Joseph’s sudden rise To Comp...
Egypt: A Culture of Subjugation is Dying
PATRICK COCKBURN
Cairo It is a gun battle people in the Shubra district in central Cairo still talk about six months after it happened. In a dispute over a piece of land he had seized amid the small shops and densely crowded streets, Mohammed Shaban, who had escaped from p...
“Stability” Trumps Democracy in Egypt
CHARLES DAVIS and MEDEA BENJAMIN
Confronted with popular protest, the country’s unelected rulers have doubled down on repression, jailing peaceful activists and killing dozens of civilians who have the gall to exercise their rights. Those who state security forces haven’t killed for demanding...
Rebellious Spring, Murderous Winter
RON JACOBS
The last twenty or so months have certainly been months of insurrection.  This is perhaps no truer anywhere on earth than in the Middle East and northern Africa.  Indeed, there is even a phrase describing this fact.  That phrase is “the Arab Spring.”  Exactly what...
Their Pope Dead, Egypt’s Copts Fear Worse Times
PATRICK COCKBURN
Cairo The death of Pope Shenouda, who led Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church for  40 years, has increased fears among Copts that they will face persecution  and discrimination as Islamic parties become more powerful. Hundreds of thousands of mourn...
US and Egypt: a Relationship on the Rocks
JAMES ZOGBY
The US-Egypt relationship is on the rocks. If it is to be salvaged, both sides will need to change course and pay attention to the concerns of their respective publics, both of whom now hold negative views of each other. In the year that has passed since massive an...