Protest in Egypt: Day 11

(The pic at right shows Christians forming a blockade to protect Muslims at prayer, as they have throughout the protest.)

A couple of thoughts/questions:

1. The Egyptian people's power lies in

a. preventing the economy from returning to normal WHILE

b. winning the p.r. war.

The people can't be sure of achieving their goal unless Mubarak is actually ousted a.s.a.p. And that won't happen unless they continue to do both of the above, because only the combination of both might motivate those with power within and outside Egypt to induce Mubarak to leave, who otherwise has everything to gain by simply waiting the protesters out.

2. Mubarak should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity – we've just watched while such crimes have been committed – but U.S. officials probably feel they must at least offer Mubarak a safe exit, partly because otherwise, the other dictators we've been propping up might decide we weren't a sufficiently reliable ally.

As one tweet put it, "Dear US government: We don't hate you because we hate your freedom; we hate you because you hate our freedom."

Meanwhile, The Nation has an excellent description of the pro-democracy organizers.

Current News Re- Egypt:

A few sources (in addition to others you may be following):

1. A more stable Al Jazeera live stream.
   
   
2. Al Jazeera live blog.
   
   
3. A thread aggregating posts and tweets from inside Egypt (this will probably be replaced by others on succeeding days, but if you're checking on a date after the date of this post, you can find links to new threads by looking near the bottom of the thread or searching DU for posts by the author of the original post that began this thread).

4. Another thread aggregating recent news (same caveat applies).
   

(Click on the images for larger versions.) Of great concern now is that, during the last day, there has been a concerted campaign of attacks on and arrests of journalists. The fear is that Egyptian authorities are planning something especially bloody that they don't want the world to see. Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters are expected to take to the streets for tomorrow's "March for Departure."

Meanwhile, the Deputy Director of the state-controlled Egyptian tv, Shahira Amin, has resigned: "I quit my job because I don't want to be part of the state propaganda regime, I am with the people. I feel liberated and relieved. I have quit my job and joined the people in Tahrir Square."

UPDATE: At least ten protesters are confirmed dead, over a thousand wounded, and per Amnesty International, some 1500 are being detained by Egyptian authorities. FURTHER UPDATE: As of Feb. 6, per Al Jazeera, Egyptian authorities report 11 protesters have been killed; the United Nations reports over 300 and estimates thousands injured.

I'm in awe of the pro-democracy Egyptians – their determination to demonstrate peacefully, their level-headedness and ingenuity, as well as their great courage. To the families of those killed, and to the many injured, and to all who persevere, I can't help recalling the speech Shakespeare wrote for his Henry V (Act IV, scene ii, Moby ed.):

What’s he that wishes so? [wishing they had more men from their homeland to help in their next battle, in which they'd be terribly outnumbered]
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss [i.e., if we’re to die, better that no more than we be lost]; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear [“yearns”: here, grieves];
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz [cousin], wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns [gold coins] for convoy [transportation] put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian [i.e., St. Crispian’s Day; Crispian was an early Christian martyr].
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil [here, eve] feast [give a feast for] his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian’;
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages [exaggeration]
What feats he did that day; then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Getting creative re- Egypt.

After a week of peaceful demonstrations, undercover Egyptian police and pro-Mubarak forces (many if not most of whom are hired thugs) have begun throwing rocks and molotov cocktails.

The anti-Mubarak protesters vastly outnumber the pro-, but they were frisked before being allowed into the Square and are largely unarmed. Gunfire has also been heard. The military apparently allowed the openly armed, pro-Mubarak forces into the area and then watched and did nothing as the violence unfolded. Hundreds are injured and at least one person dead.

This should eliminate any doubt about Mubarak's priorities.

If Mubarak remains in power until the next round of elections in September, he'll have eight months in which to track down and eliminate those who have opposed him, further enrich himself and his friends, destroy evidence, and otherwise improve his own position. (UPDATE: Apparently the Egyptian government's surveillance capabilities have been enhanced by a monitoring tool sold by Narus, a US company. The tool, "deep packet inspection," can be used to read e-mails, tweets, etc., to discover which individuals are involved in activist efforts and to geo-locate them, among other capabilities. See also "Egyptian police use Facebook and Twitter to track down protesters' names before 'rounding them up.'")

Thinking about pressure that could be brought to bear . . . .

Mubarak's wife and sons are reportedly in London (see here and here).

Julian Assange is still under arrest in London, for the purpose of "questioning" re- previously dismissed allegations.

Are there no allegations of crimes by Mubarak's wife or sons? (UPDATE: of possible interest, "$60 Billion US Aid to Egypt=$60 Billion Current Net-Worth of Mubarak Family.")

Al Jazeera live stream here.

UPDATE: Anonymous, the same loosely organized collective that launched DDoS attacks against Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, and Bank of America in an online "sit-in" in support of Wikileaks, "gathered about 500 supporters in online forums and used software tools to bring down the sites of the Ministry of Information and President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party, said Gregg Housh, a member of the group. The sites were unavailable Wednesday afternoon.

"The attacks, Mr. Housh said, are part of a wider campaign that Anonymous has mounted in support of the antigovernment protests that have roiled the Arab world. Last month, the group shut down the Web sites of the Tunisian government and stock exchange in support of the uprising that forced the country’s dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, to flee." More at The NYT.

Walk Like an Egyptian

Lots more great signs from around the world here.

Egypt's Future

Egypt's Internet Tourniquet; Wikileaks Publishes New Cables Re- Egypt

"[T]the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. . . . [E]very Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs . . . is now cut off from the rest of the world. . . .

"At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table. . . . Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.

"This is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow. The Egyptian government's actions tonight have essentially wiped their country from the global map.

". . . . This has never happened before, and the unknowns are piling up." Details at renesys | blog.

span style="font-weight: bold;">The point of a tourniquet is to stanch bleeding from an expendable appendage; Mubarak is using it to cut the body off from the head (I'll let you to decide whether the people represent the body, the head, or both).

UPDATE: According to reports here and here, Christians and Muslims alike are involved in the demonstrations, and some police have removed their uniforms to join the protesters. More news re- the Egyptian uprising at the World; Al Jazeera's English-language live video stream here. Al Jazeera's live blog here (Jan. 29; you may need to click around to find subsequent days).

Also, recall that the U.S. is known to have rendered suspected terrorists to Egypt for torture, some of whom proved innocent (UPDATE: see FireDogLake).

Meanwhile, Wikileaks released a new batch of cables today:

"The Egyptian 'people blame America' now for their plight under Mubarak" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10DOHA71.html

"10 Yemeni children were trafficked to Egypt for organ harvesting" http://wikileaks.ch/reldate/2011-01-28_0.html

"A new round of political arrests..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO197.html

"Mubarak's terror against writers, bloggers and journalists" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1447.html

"Egypt's abuse of Emergency Laws" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/01/10CAIRO64.html

"Military will ensure transfer of power..." http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/07/09CAIRO1468.html

Mubarak private briefing for senator Lieberman http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/02/09CAIRO326.html

"Rogue Egyptian priests feed US adoption racket" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO344.html

"Welcome to Egypt, FBI director...here's what's going on" http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2010/02/10CAIRO179.html

How to Donate to Wikileaks (Using Flattr or Other Means)

The old info power structure has mobilized to destroy Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Through proceedings probably contrary to law, Sweden has secured Assange's arrest. Amazon and others kicked WL off their servers, and PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Bank of America, and other major banks are working to strangle the organization financially (even though it has yet to be charged with any crime under the law of any nation).

As a result, there's a lot of confusion about how to safely donate to Wikileaks.

"We have been losing more than 600,000 [Swiss] francs a week since the start of the publication of the diplomatic cables," Assange has told a Swiss newspaper. "To continue our business, we would need to find a way to get this money back."

Here's how you can help:

1. You can donate to Assange's defense fund through his lawyers' PayPal account, here. Whatever you may think of Assange, he's been a driving force in founding WL and creating its successes so far – I personally believe he's one of few people on the planet who understand the strategic challenges – and given the chance, I believe he'll continue to contribute to human advancement. Plus, it's worth it if only to help give the oligarchs a little h*ll.

2. You can donate to WL by mailing them a check. This may be the most fool-proof method. HOWEVER, it probably won't work if your checking account is with Bank of America or one of the other banks that's refusing to process payments to WL (another great reason to move your money to a local credit union); so confirm with your bank that they'll process it. Checks can be mailed to:

WikiLeaks (or another name likely to avoid interception in your country; say, Sunshine Products)
BOX 4080
Australia Post Office - University of Melbourne Branch
Victoria 3052
Australia

3. You can find instructions here for wire transfers to WL. (Again, make sure your bank isn't one of the ones refusing to process payments to WL.)

4. (UPDATE: I cannot recommend attempting to donate to Wikileaks using Flattr at this time. After repeated efforts during the last week, the fate of the money I deposited with Flattr remains uncertain. Also, the way the interface is designed, it's easy to think you're donating to Wikileaks when you're really donating to someone who submitted a post mentioning Wikileaks. If you'd like more details, please feel free to contact me.)

You can find a summary of the case for Wikileaks plus more ways to help here.

FURTHER UPDATE: Ten mos. after my original post, someone submitted a comment with a link to a page where you can donate to Wikileaks using Flattr; I've published this comment below (click on "comments" below if the comment isn't showing up). The link yields a page with posts that can be "flattred" in order to donate to Wikileaks.

Now, I don't want to disparage what appears to be a generally well-intentioned enterprise. But when I tried to donate to Wikileaks using Flattr ten months ago, there were several issues. First, you had to set up an account with Flattr, and it seems that at least some of the info associated with the account and your use of it will therefore be public, and of course all of it will be available to the owners of Flattr, who may or may not be good guys now but later could be the Koch Bros. Second, the site denominated funds in euros, not dollars; so since my funds are all denominated in dollars, it was impossible to put funds into my Flattr account and end up with a round number that could be fully allocated to Wikileaks. Third, I ended up having to exchange emails with Flattr support to figure out how to make a one-time donation of most of the funds to Wikileaks, because the Flattr system is built for monthly donations, not a one-time donation, and the way to do it was not well-labelled. Fourth, any funds left in your account at the end of the month, whether because you had an odd amount that couldn't be fully allocated or for any other reason, would go to a charity of the Flattr owners' choice rather than yours. And, like, how do I know they actually did that?

Hopefully, Flattr has resolved some of these issues by now. But having already spent way too much time on Flattr without getting it to work all that well for me, I'd personally be inclined to just go here.

Julian’s To-Do List February 2011

If all goes well with the extradition hearing…

1) Write screenplay for upcoming docudrama Mathematics is Complicated, So Am I. So Shut Up.

2) Do screen-tests for Hacking With The Stars.

3) Create a response to Stuxnet called Beyond The Palin.

4) Master the demanding yet genteel sport of falconry.

5) Publish leak which proves Team America actually exists - yes, DARPA has created artificially intelligent marionettes for counterinsurgency operations.

6) Consult with hairdresser about curtailing comparisons to Tilda Swinton and other ‘pigmentally-challenged’ public figures. Again.

Thank you, F*ck Yeah, J.A. Go there and scroll down for the visual.