I. The Status of the Corruption Cases Against the Mubarak Family and Some of Their Oligarchs 1. In reality, Egypt’s “Revolution” was a partial regime change. It brought down Hosni Mubarak’s presidency and the rule of his oligarchy, but it did not remove the military regime which has existed in Egypt since July 1952. The military [...]
The Supreme Court is asked to decide if government officials can be held accountable for torturing a US citizen Two of the most under-discussed afflictions in American political life are inter-related: (1) the heinous, inhumane treatment of prisoners on American soil (often, though certainly not exclusively, Muslim political prisoners), and (2) the virtually complete abdication [...]
If you’re a serious revolutionary, then you are not looking for an autocratic revolution, but a popular one which will move towards freedom and democracy. That can take place only if a mass of the population are implementing it, carrying it out, and solving problems. They’re not going to undertake that commitment, understandably, unless they [...]
How Did Obama Become Our Most Imperial President?
If Obama is the president of next to nothing on the domestic policy front, he has the powers previously associated with the gods when it comes to war-making abroad.He has few constraints (except those he’s internalized). No one can stop him or countermand his orders. He has a bevy of lawyers at his beck and [...]
10 of Thomas Friedman’s Dumbest “Big Ideas”
You know the world is flat — and hot and crowded — but that’s just the tip of Friedman’s iceberg of hackery. In conferring the honor of “Wanker of the Decade” on New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, blogger Duncan Black observed that “truly great wankers possess a kind of glib narcissism, the belief that everything is [...]
Arab security sectors across the Middle East today appear to share a number of generally negative characteristics, including the use of coercion and of the military to control internal dissent, the exclusion of particular ethnic or religious groups from the highest ranks of the security services, allegiance to the state as opposed to the citizen, [...]
Apocalypse Soon: Why Are Some Christians So Obsessed With the End Times?
How can Americans make major life decisions on the basis of faith that the world will end in the very near future? In the summer of 2010, I saw him several times a week: a portly gentleman, leaning against a pillar in Penn Station and holding out two fistfuls of pamphlets to the disinterested commuters. [...]
Facebook and Google Turned Into Government Spies? The Dangerous New Law Before Congress (CISPA)
A private company doing the government’s work does not face the same privacy restrictions. The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to pass a reprehensible cyber-security bill that seeks to protect online companies—giant social media firms to data-sharing networks controlling utilities—from cyber attack. It is reprehensible because, as Democratic San Jose Rep. Zoe Lofgren said this week, it gives the federal government too much access to the [...]
Following last week’s eviction of the Palestinian Natcheh family from their Beit Hanina home, Israeli Knesset members Michael Ben-Ari and Aryeh Eldad visited the house now inhabited by some eight settlers. To mark the occasion they posted a picture of themselves lounging on the Natcheh’s sofa on Facebook. “We are at the start of [...]
The Gas Fields off Gaza: A Gift or a Curse?
Al-Shabaka Policy Brief Overview Thirteen years after the discovery of gas fields off the coast of Gaza, efforts to develop them remain deadlocked despite the international backing the project enjoys. Meanwhile the besieged Gaza Strip suffers prolonged power cuts and the Palestinian economy bears a huge financial cost – as do the Western taxpayers keeping [...]
