US Connected to Egypt Protesters 3 Years

The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police.

On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011.

He has already been arrested by Egyptian security in connection with the demonstrations and his identity is being protected by The Daily Telegraph.

...

The US government has previously been a supporter of Mr Mubarak’s regime. But the leaked documents show the extent to which America was offering support to pro-democracy activists in Egypt while publicly praising Mr Mubarak as an important ally in the Middle East.

In a secret diplomatic dispatch, sent on December 30 2008, Margaret Scobey, the US Ambassador to Cairo, recorded that opposition groups had allegedly drawn up secret plans for “regime change” to take place before elections, scheduled for September this year.

The memo, which Ambassador Scobey sent to the US Secretary of State in Washington DC, was marked “confidential” and headed: “April 6 activist on his US visit and regime change in Egypt.”

It said the activist claimed “several opposition forces” had “agreed to support an unwritten plan for a transition to a parliamentary democracy, involving a weakened presidency and an empowered prime minister and parliament, before the scheduled 2011 presidential elections”. The embassy’s source said the plan was “so sensitive it cannot be written down”.

Ambassador Scobey questioned whether such an “unrealistic” plot could work, or ever even existed. However, the documents showed that the activist had been approached by US diplomats and received extensive support for his pro-democracy campaign from officials in Washington. The embassy helped the campaigner attend a “summit” for youth activists in New York, which was organised by the US State Department.

Cairo embassy officials warned Washington that the activist’s identity must be kept secret because he could face “retribution” when he returned to Egypt. He had already allegedly been tortured for three days by Egyptian state security after he was arrested for taking part in a protest some years earlier.

The protests in Egypt are being driven by the April 6 youth movement, a group on Facebook that has attracted mainly young and educated members opposed to Mr Mubarak. The group has about 70,000 members and uses social networking sites to orchestrate protests and report on their activities.

The documents released by WikiLeaks reveal US Embassy officials were in regular contact with the activist throughout 2008 and 2009, considering him one of their most reliable sources for information about human rights abuses.

The truth is starting to come out about the number of people hurt over the last few days. It's far more than the single digit numbers we were being given on Friday. Israel Radio reports that 92 people have been killed and over 2,000 injured.

If I'm the leader of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or other non-Democratic allies, I'm not going to sleep too well tonight. I have to wonder whether the United States is planning with dissidents in my country to overthrow my government. Not a pleasant thought (for them).

The full Wikileaks document is here.

Labels: Cairo 25 January 2011, Egyptian riots, Politics, Wikileaks, World Politics

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:17 PM

Gaza Got Exactly What It Deserved

Earlier this week, I reported on the release of a Wikileaks cable that set out Israel's strategy for dealing with Gaza.

"As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (U.S. embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge," one of the cables read.

Israel wanted the coastal territory's economy "functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis", according to the Nov. 3, 2008 cable.

Writing in the National Post, Barbara Kay agrees with me that Israel had every right to keep Gaza 'on the verge' of a humanitarian crisis.

There should be nothing controversial or newsworthy in that statement. All it tells us is that Israel treats dangerous, sworn enemies on its borders with a lot more compassion than other countries would in the same circumstances. Of course Israel wants Gaza to suffer, as well Gaza should suffer.

The full 2007 blockade came about for a good reason. Hamas still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist; its militants have fired thousands of rockets inside Israeli territory, wounding and even killing Israeli citizens and demoralizing the country; Hamas refuses to return soldier Gilad Shalit, abducted from an Israeli border post in 2006. Most important, Hamas has given the world no assurances whatsoever that their ambition to drive every Israeli into the sea has abated.

In keeping Gaza “on the brink of collapse,” a phrase also cited in the leaks, Israel was acting in its own self-interest, as any normal state would and should. What Israel did for three years on Gaza’s borders is precisely what U.S. and EU sanctions aim to do with Iran in order to make them back down from nuclear weaponization: starve the economy without actually starving people. Rational people tend to get a message when their economy is suffocating, and surely economic pressures are preferable to bombs.

In fact this “news” should redound to Israel’s credit. Clearly it is well within Israel’s power to cause a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Contrary to international accusations, this it refuses to do, and never wanted to do. The cable backs up that claim. So much for the Israel-haters’ frequent, favourite comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany.

Indeed. We have nothing of which to be ashamed.

Labels: Barbara Kay, Gaza plenty, Wikileaks

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:08 AM

Assange States Arab Ambassadors Work 4 CIA

In an interview with al-Jazeera's Arabic language network on Wednesday, Wikileaker Julian Assenge claimed to have names of Arab diplomats who are spying on their own countries for the CIA.

“These officials are spies for the U.S. in their countries,” Assange said, according to Qatar's Peninsula newspaper. More:

The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA. [...]

Some Arab countries even have torture houses where Washington regularly sends ‘suspects’ for ‘interrogation and torture’, he said.

He then complained, "Washington is also projecting me as a terrorist and wants to convince the world that I am another Osama bin Laden."

Observers have long speculated about the massive "insurance" file that WikiLeaks posted on the Pirate Bay, which has by now been downloaded by thousand of people all over the world. Opening the file requires an encryption key that presumably would be released upon Assange's incarceration or untimely death. I guess it's the motherlode.

At Foreign Policy, Blake Hounshell doesn't believe it.

I have my doubts about these new claims, though. The CIA vigorously protects the identities of its sources, and would have no reason to let any old schmo at a U.S. embassy know their names. It is also highly doubtful that the cables would talk about "torture houses" -- the United States has always denied that it (knowingly) outsources rough treatment to foreign governments. Not everyone believes this, mind you, but I'd be surprised if any embassy cables said otherwise.

Maybe Assange and Mansour are confusing ordinary visits of Arab officials to U.S. diplomats with "spying," but it's hard to say for sure without seeing the cables themselves.

Hounshell is too quick to dismiss the stories of outsourcing torture. You can watch a CBS 60 Minutes report on outsourcing torture to Egypt and Jordan here, and there are reports that US was outsourcing torture of terrorists to those countries dating as far back as 2002. (To make it clear, I'm not criticizing that; I'm acknowledging the reality).

As to disclosing the names of Arab officials who are spying for the CIA, Hounshell knows this region well enough (he's based in Qatar) to know that ironclad evidence that would hold up in court is not a necessity. The accusation - especially coming from someone like Assange who is seen as somewhat credible - would be sufficient to put these peoples' lives in danger. I'd bet on the Qatari government telling al-Jazeera not to discuss this again. Because it's probably true.

Read the whole thing.

Labels: Arab spies for the CIA, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Espionage Charged Dept of State Cables

Fearing disclosure of State Dept. secrets leaked by an Army intel analyst, the feds took the hard drive of the man who turned him in. Will Bradley Manning be charged with espionage?

Defense Department investigators are weighing espionage charges against a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist accused of leaking highly classified documents to the website Wikileaks. On Saturday, the investigators took custody of electronic records from a former computer hacker based in California who has emerged as the Pentagon's key informant in the case, the informant tells The Daily Beast.

The former hacker, Adrian Lamo, first alerted the Defense Department to the leaks by Army Specialist Bradley Manning—including a 2007 video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad, which created a sensation when posted recently by Wikileaks, as well as a cache of sensitive State Department cables.

Lamo said in an interview Saturday night that he had voluntarily turned over his computer records, including contents of one of his hard drives, to the Pentagon earlier in the day. He said criminal investigators from the Defense Department were scheduled to interview him again on Sunday near his home in California.

Lamo said he first learned that Manning might face espionage charges, a crime that could carry the death penalty, when the word "espionage" appeared on a formal release form that he was asked to sign by the Pentagon criminal investigators who took custody of his electronic records. "It's one of the statutes that was written down on a piece of paper that I signed to authorize the search," Lamo said. Calls to the Pentagon press office were not immediately returned Saturday night.

Philip Shenon, The Daily Beast