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While scholars dispute whether Tunisia serves as model Arab world uprising, many agree that it was near-perfect US ally. It is part of the reality in the region that American strategic and ideological goals point one way and the popular will of the people point in the opposite direction. It is either hypocritical or a sign of deep confusion for American leadership to advocate democracy in the Middle East without being willing to alter its grand strategy. As of now, there is every indication of continuity in the American approach to the region, signaled by its passivity in the face of Israeli extremism, its continuing military presence in Iraq, and the degree to which keeping Gulf oil reserves in friendly autocratic hands is an unquestioned goal of American foreign policy.
Richard Falk Aljazeera 25 January 2011
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Ben Ali’s government was assumed to be immune to serious challenges to its widely validated power [AFP]
Almost six years ago, President George W. Bush’s otherwise inconsequential Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, gave a speech at the American University in Cairo that grabbed headlines.
While lauding the autocratic leadership of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Rice indicated a new approach to the Arab world by the United States in these much-quoted words: “For sixty years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither. Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.”
Explaining further this new approach in Washington, she went on to say, “Throughout the Middle East, the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty. It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy.”
Any close listener at the time should have wondered what was meant when at the same time she praised Mubarak for having “unlocked the door for change”, whatever that might mean. As it turned out, outlawing opposition parties and locking up their leaders seemed to remain the bottom line in Egypt without generating a whimper of complaint from the White House either in the Bush years, or since, in the supposedly milder presidency of President Obama.
And supporting “the democratic aspirations of all peoples” seems to have run aground for the White House after the Gaza elections of January 2006 in which Hamas triumphed, and the people of the Gaza Strip, regardless of how they voted, were immediately punished despite the internationally monitored elections being pronounced among the fairest in the region.
It should be remembered that Hamas was enticed to participate in the political process as a way of shifting the conflict with Israel toward nonviolent political competition, and that when victorious in the elections Hamas immediately declared a unilateral ceasefire as well as indicated its openness to diplomacy and a long-term framework of peaceful co-existence.
Maybe these Hamas initiatives were not sustainable, but they was neither welcomed, reciprocated, nor even explored. Instead, humanitarian assistance from Europe and the United States to Gaza was drastically cut and Israel engaged in a variety of provocations including targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders.
In mid-2007, after Hamas seized control of the governing process from Fatah in Gaza, Israel imposed its notorious blockade that unlawfully restricted to subsistence levels, or below, the flow of food, medicine, and fuel. This blockade continues to this day, leaving the entire Gazan population locked within the world’s largest open-air prison, and victimized by one of the cruelest forms of belligerent occupation in the history of warfare.
There is another aspect to the Rice/Bush embrace of democracy that was disclosed by their avowedly disproportionate response to the indiscriminate bombing campaign unleashed in 2006 by Israel on population centers in Lebanon in retaliation for a border incident. In the midst of the carnage Rice observed at the United Nations that the Lebanon War exhibited “the birth pangs of a new Middle East”, while her boss in the White House described the one-sided assault on a helpless civilian population as “a moment of opportunity”.
The point here being that when the people get in the way of imperial policies, it is the people who are sacrificed without even shedding a tear, really without even noticing. If their lives and well-being is so easily cast to one side in this callous geopolitical manner, surely the American posture of welcoming democracy in the region needs to be viewed with more than a skeptical smile. Supporting Israel’s aggressive wars initiated against Lebanon in 2006 and its massive assault for three weeks on Gaza at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 are clear demonstrations of the priorities of American foreign policy.
Looking back at the 20th century
Actually, this pattern has far deeper historical roots. During the Cold War there were strategic excuses constantly being given by Washington that overlooked oppression and corruption in Third World countries so long as they aligned themselves with the United States in the ideological struggle against the Soviet Union and put out a welcome mat to foreign investors. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this geopolitical argument evaporated, but the economic and strategic priorities remained unchanged.
This supposed American dedication to democracy has all along seemed schizophrenic, lauding its virtues, but often dreading its genuine emergence, especially if strategic interests associated with economic and military priorities are at stake as they usually are. [The same dichotomy obtains at home—Eds.] Consult the record of “gunboat diplomacy” in the Western Hemisphere carried out under the aegis of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) if any doubt exists.
Turning back to North Africa in 1992 when the FIS in Algeria won hotly contested elections for legislative representation. The military intervened to impose its will; Washington was silent and remained so during the “dark decade” of strife followed in which at least 60,000 Algerians lost their lives. It is part of the reality in the region that American strategic and ideological goals point one way and the popular will of the people point in the opposite direction.
It is thus either hypocritical or a sign of deep confusion for American leadership to advocate democracy in the Middle East without being willing to alter its grand strategy. As of now, there is every indication of continuity in the American approach to the region, signaled by its passivity in the face of Israeli extremism, its continuing military presence in Iraq, and the degree to which keeping Gulf oil reserves in friendly autocratic hands is an unquestioned goal of American foreign policy.
Given these considerations what are we to make of America’s cautiously affirmative response to the Tunisian Revolution, or as it often called, the Jasmine Revolution? It is certainly prudent to be wary of the words issued by our government in particular, and to keep an eye out for its contrary actions, although such a gaze may well be obstructed by reliance on covert activities, and only when the next Julian Assange steps bravely forward will the public get any real understanding of the realities that take refuge behind non-transparent walls.
There is no doubt that during the twenty-four years of cruel dictatorial rule of Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, the United States government, despite the words of Rice, the “democracy promotion” schemes of the Bush presidency, and the new approach to the Islamic world promised by Obama, found nothing to complain about – ignoring report from respected human rights organizations.
As Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist and activist dedicated to the Palestinian struggle has written of the American response to the violence directed by the police during the Tunisian uprising, “Not one word of condemnation, not one word of criticism, not one word urging restraint came from Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton as live ammunition was fired into crowds of unarmed men, women, and children”.
Compare the strong denunciations of Iranian authorities when they used similarly brutal tactics to suppress the Green Revolution in Iran. The point is that geopolitics calls the tune in Washington.
Old Tunisia as ideal US ally
Indeed, Tunisia exemplified what the United States believed serves its interests: a blend of neoliberalism that is open to foreign investment, cooperation with American anti-terrorism by way of extreme rendition of suspects, and strict secularism that translates into the repression of political expression.
The Arab regimes throughout the region that seem most worried by the regional reverberations of the unfolding story in Tunisia all resemble the Ben Ali approach to governance, including dependence in various forms on the United States, which is usually accompanied, as in the Tunisian case, by aloofness from the Palestinian struggle for self-determination that is so symbolically significant for the peoples in these countries. There is no way for any government in the region to follow the Ben Ali path without becoming beleaguered and led to rely on extreme repression, denial of rights, abuse of political prisoners, and police violence designed to induce fear in the population – and shield the privileged corrupt elites from accountability and public rage.
The spontaneous popular eruption in Tunisia that followed the tragic suicide of Mohammed Bouazizi in the central Tunisian city of Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010, was the spark that lit the revolutionary fire. This flame surge only could have occurred in an environment of acute grievance that was felt deeply and widely by ordinary Tunisians, so deeply and widely that in a few weeks time it shifted the locus of fear from the oppressed to the oppressed.
This shift was signaled by the abdication of Ben Ali on January 14, a pattern repeating the departure of another bloody dictator, Idi Amin, a few decades earlier. But the main lesson here is that oppressive regimes alienated from their populations are vulnerable to political bonfires that can be started by an insignificant spark in a faraway part of the country. Facing such a prospect can only make rulers dependent on force both more insecure and more inclined to extend the reach of political firefighting so as to achieve the impossible – spark prevention!
The martyrdom of Mohammed Bouazizi epitomized the plight of many young jobless and tormented Tunisians. This impoverished young vegetable street seller set himself on fire in a public place after the police confiscated his produce because he lacked a permit.
Such an act of principled and spontaneous suicide is not common in Arab culture where suicide, if it occurs in a politically relevant mode, is usually a deliberate instrument of struggle, relied upon by Palestinians for a while and currently by parts of the opposition to developments in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Such forms of political suicide are usually, although not always, targeting civilians, and are inconsistent with basic ideas of morality and law.
Bouazizi’s acts were expressive, not aggressive toward others, and recall practices more common in such Asian countries as Vietnam and Korea. When Buddhist monks set themselves on fire on the streets of Saigon in 1963 it was widely interpreted within the country as a turning point in the Vietnam War, a scream of the culture that was outraged by both oppressive Vietnamese rule and by the American military intervention. The intensity of Mohammed Bouazizi’s emotional funeral on Janurary 4 was intoned in these words exhibiting sadness and anger: “Farewell, Mohammed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today. We will make those who caused your death weep”. In the end one hopes that these almost inevitable sentiments of revenge, however understandable given the background of suffering and injustice, do not become the signature of the revolution.
‘Bread, freedom, dignity’
Another more hopeful direction was captured by a slogan that was said to draw inspiration from the French Revolution: “bread, freedom, dignity”. To be worthy of the sacrifices of those who took to the streets, confronting the violence of the state without weapons during these past several weeks, any new governing process must attend to the material needs of the Tunisian masses, open up the society to democratic debate and competition, and assert the protection of human rights as an unconditional commitment of whatever new leadership emerges.
Not many revolutions manage to carry out their idealistic promises that infused the period of struggle against the established order. Typically, they quickly succumb to the temptation to punish wrongdoers from the past and imaginary and real adversaries in the present instead of improving the life circumstances of the people.
It is not a simple situation. Such a revolution as has taken place in Tunisia is likely to beset by determined efforts to reverse the outcome. Powerful and entrenched enemies do exist, and rivalries among those contending anew for power will produce imaginary enemies as well that can discredit the humanistic claims of the revolution by tempting the leadership to launch bloody campaigns to solidify its claims to run the country. It is often a tragic predicament: either exhibit a principled adherence to constitutionalism, and get swept from power or engage in a purge of supposed hostile elements and initiate a new discrediting cycle of repression.
Will Tunisia be able to find a path that protects revolutionary gains without reverting to oppression? Much depends on how this question will be answered, and that will depend not only on the wisdom and maturity of Tunisians who take control at this time, but also on what the old order will do to regain power and the extent to which there is encouragement and substantive support from without. As Robert Fisk pointedly observes, “Tunisia wasn’t supposed to happen”.
Undoubtedly, Tunisia faces formidable challenges in this period of transition. As yet, there has been no displacement of the Ben Ali bureaucratic forces in the government, including the police and security forces that for decades terrorized the population. There were an estimated 40,000 police (2/3 in plainclothes, mingling with the population to monitor and intimidate).
It was said that friends were afraid to talk in cafes or restaurants, and even in their homes, because of this omnipresent surveillance. So far even prisoners of conscience have not been released from Tunisian jails, sites that daily exposed the brutality of the Ben Ali regime. Heading the interim government are longtime allies of Ben Ali, including Mohammed Ghannouchi, his main aide, regarded as being more aligned with the West than with the Tunisian people, although these days promising to step aside as soon as order is restored. But even if such an intention is carried out, is it enough?
We know that the revolution came about because of the courage of young Tunisians who took to the street in many parts of the country, faced gunfire and vicious state brutality, and yet persisted, seeming to feel that their life circumstances were so bad that they had little to lose, and everything to gain.
We know that the flames of revolution spread rapidly throughout, and beyond the borders of Tunisia, by interactive reliance on the Internet, many throughout the Arab world replacing personal pictures on their Facebook page with admiring pictures of revolutionary turmoil on Tunisian streets or as a sign of solidarity, posting pictures of the Tunisian flag.
There were even suicides of regime opponents in several Arab countries. What we don’t know is whether a leadership can emerge that will be faithful to the revolutionary ideals, and will be allowed to be. What we cannot know is how determined and effective will be internal and external counter-revolutionary tactics. We do know from other situation that elites rarely voluntarily relinquish class privileges of wealth, status, and influence, and that Tunisian elites have allies in the region and beyond who are silently opposed to the Jasmine Revolution, and extremely worried about its wider implications for other similar regimes in the region that stay in power only so long as their citizen is held in check by state terror.
We also know that policymakers in Washington and Tel Aviv will be particularly nervous if Islamic influence emerges in the months ahead, even if vindicated by electoral outcomes. Fisk reminds us that Ben Ali was praised in the past for keeping “a firm hand on all those Islamists”, which was itself code language for bloody repression and a terrorized populace. It may even be that if Islamic-oriented political parties demonstrate their popularity with the Tunisian citizenry by winning the forthcoming promised election for a new democratic selected leadership, then the counter-revolutionary backlash will be particularly severe.
There is some reason to believe that Islamic political forces currently enjoy great popularity in Tunisia, and that the main voice of the most important political party with an Islamic identity, Ali Larayedh (imprisoned and tortured for 14 years; and harassed for the past six years by Ben Ali’s secret police), articulates a moderate line on the relation of Islam to the future of Tunisia that resembles the development of recent years in Turkey rather than the hard line and oppressive theocratic developments that have so deeply tainted the Iranian Revolution.
The future of the Tunisian Revolution is filled with uncertainty. It remains at this moment a great victory for the people of the country, and those of us in sympathy with the struggle for “bread, freedom and dignity” must do all in our power to honor these goals and preserve this victory. A Palestinian journalist living in Norway, Salim Nazzal, put the situation well: “Arab observers agree that even if it is difficult to know where things would go in the future what is sure is that the Arab region is not the same after the Tunisian Revolution”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Richard Anderson Falk (born 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, writer (the author or co-author of 20 books and the editor or co-editor of another 20 books),[1] speaker, activist on world affairs, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories. He has been a key figure in the development of the political theory of cosmopolitan democracy.[citation needed] A 9/11 truther,[2] Falk has been condemned by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and others for suggesting that the George W. Bush administration, rather than al-Qaeda, was responsible for the September 11 attacks.[3]
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Washington facing the ire of the Tunisian people
by Thierry Meyssan* | 25 January 2011
The real of power in Tunisia is no longer the Republican Palace, but the Embassy of the United States (right). This is where the Ghannouchi government was concocted. Located on the outskirts of Tunis, in a vast gated campus, the Embassy is a gigantic bunker that houses the main CIA and MEPI functions for North Africa and part of the eastern Mediterranean.
While western media are celebrating the “Jasmine Revolution”, Thierry Meyssan lays bare the U.S. plan to curb the anger of the Tunisian people and salvage this insconspicuous CIA and NATO backwater base. According to him, the insurrectional process is still ongoing and could rapidly give rise to a real Revolution, to the great dismay of Western capitals.
From Beirut (Lebanon)
The big powers abhor political upheavals that escape their control and thrwart their plans. The events that have electrified Tunisia for the past month are no exception, quite the contrary.
It is therefore rather surprising that the international mainstream media, staunch cohorts of the world domination system, should suddenly acclaim the “Jasmine Revolution”, churning out reports on the Ben Ali family fortune which they had up until now turned a blind eye to, despite their ostentatious luxury. Western countries are chasing after a situation that has slipped from their hands and which they are trying to rein in by painting it as it suits them.
First and foremost, what must be borne in mind is that the Ben Ali regime was supported by the United States, Israel, France and Italy.
Regarded by Washington as a country of minor importance, Tunisia fulfilled a security role more than an economic one. In 1987, a soft coup d’état deposed President Habab Bourguiba in favour of his Interior Minister Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, a CIA agent trained at the U.S. Army Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, Maryland. According to revelations that have recently come to light, it would seem that Italy and Algeria were akin to that power takeover [1].
The minute he settled into the Republican Palace, Ben Ali set up a military commission in conjunction with the Pentagon, which has met in May of each year. Wary of the army, he relegated it to a marginal role, keeping it under-equipped with the exception of the Tunisian Special Forces which train with the U.S. military and take part in the regional “anti-terrorism” device. The ports of Bizerte, Sfax, Sousse and Tunis host NATO vessels and, in 2004, Tunisia joined the “Mediterranean Alliance” under NATO auspices.
Not expecting anything in economic terms, Washington allowed Ben Ali to systematically bleed his country. Every expanding firm was requested to yield 50% of its capital plus the accompanying dividends. However, things turned sour in 2009 when the ruling family, which jumped from greed to cupidity, intended to impose their extortion racket also to U.S. firms.
For its part, the State Department began to prepare for the inevitable demise of the president. The dictator meticulously eliminated his rivals and had no heir. A solution had to be found and some sixty figures apt to play a political role in the future were brought on board. They each followed a three-month training at Fort Bragg and received a monthly salary [2].
Although President Ben Ali parroted the anti-Zionist rhetoric prevailing in the Muslim world, Tunisia extended several facilities to the Jewish colony of Palestine. Israeli citizens of Tunisian descent were authorised to travel to and trade in the country. Ariel Sharon was even invited to Tunis.
The revolt
The desperate act on 17 December 2010 of Mohamed el-Bouzazi, a street vendor who set himself on fire after the police confiscated his cart and produce, touched off the initial protests. This personal drama, which resonated with the Sidi Bouzid residents, sparked a general uprising. The clashes spread to several regions before engulfing the capital. The General Union of Tunisian Workers, best known under its French acronym UGTT, and lawyers’ groups joined in the demonstrations, thus sealing spontaneously an alliance between the popular and middle classes around a structured organisation.
On 28 December, President Ben Ali attempted to regain control of the situation, making a bed-side visit to young Mohamed el-Bouazizi and addressing the nation that same evening. Yet his televised speech exposed his obliviousness. He treated the protestors as extremists and paid agitators, promising a ferocious crackdown. Instead of appeasing the people, his intervention transformed a popular revolt into an insurrection. The Tunisian people are not only mobilised against social injustice, they are also questioning the political power system.
Producer and Nessma TV magnate Tarak Ben Ammar (left) is an associate of Silvio Berlusconi and the uncle of Yasmina Torjman, wife of French Industry Minister Eric Besson.
It became clear to Washington that “our agent Ben Ali” had lost the reins. The National Security Council, Jeffrey Feltman [3] and Colin Kahl [4] concurred that the time had come to drop this spent dictator and to organise his succession before the insurrection could morph into a genuine revolution, i.e. a challenge to the system.
The media were enlisted, in Tunisia and the rest of the world, to circumscribe the insurrection. The attention of the Tunisian people would be focused on social issues, the corruption of the Ben Ali family, and press censorship. Anything to stave off a debate on the reasons that, 23 years earlier, had prompted Washington to invest the dictator and to protect him while he pilfered the country’s economy.
On 30 December, private Nessma TV channel defied the regime by broadcasting protest reports and organising a debate on the need for a democratic change. Nessma TV is owned by the Italo-Tunisian group of Tarak Ben Ammar and Silvio Berlusconi. The message rang out loud and clear for those who were still sitting on the fence: the regime was split.
Concurrently, U.S. experts (as well as Serbian and German) were detailed to Tunisia to channel the insurrection. Exploiting the collective emotional wave, they attempted to plant their slogans during the demonstrations. Attuned to the techniques of the so-called “coloured revolutions”, fashioned by the Albert Einstein Institution of Gene Sharp [5], they shone the spotlight on the dictator to forestall a debate on the country’s political future: “Ben Ali, out” [6]
On 2 January 2010, the group Anonymous (a CIA front) hacked the official website of the Prime Minister, inserting an ominous message in English on the home page. The logo corresponds to the international Pirate Party, whose Tunisian member Slim Amanou will be propelled by the U.S. Embassy within the “national unity government” as Youth and Sports Minister.
Hidden behind the pseudonym of Anonymous, the CIA cyber-command – already deployed against Zimbabwe and Iran – hacked Tunisian official sites, implanting a sinister message in English.
The insurrection
The Tunisians continued to spontaneously brave the regime, stage massive street demonstrations, and set fire to police precints and shops owned by Ben Ali. Courageously, some have even shed their own blood. Pathetic and overtaken by events, the dictator stiffened without understanding.
On 13 January, he ordered the army to open fire on the crowd, but the Army Chief of Staff refused. Having been contacted by Africom Commander General William Ward, General Rachid Ammar informed the President that Washington was enjoining him to flee.
In France, kept in the dark about Washington’s decision, the Sarkozy government failed to analyse the various repositions. Foreign Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie set out to save the dictator by dispatching law-enforcement specialists and equipment, enabling him to hold on to power through more orthodox means [7]. A cargo plane was chartered on Friday the 14th. By the time customs formalites were completed in Paris, it was too late: Ben Ali no longer needed the aid; he had already taken flight.
His erstwhile friends, in Washington and Tel-Aviv, Paris and Rome, denied him asylum. He ended up in Riyad. He is said to have taken with him 1,5 tons of gold stolen from the Public Treasury, which the authorities still in place have denied.
Marketing: (left) the logo of the “Jasmine Revolution” is unveiled at the exact moment of Ben Ali’s flight. In the center, a raised fist, which is the ex-communist symbol used in all the “colour revolutions” since Otpor in Serbia. From Washington’s perspective, what is important is to affirm that the events are over and that they are part of a liberal international order. Also, the title appears in English and the Tunisian flag has been reduced to a simple ornament on the letter R.
A bit of jasmine to calm the Tunisians
The U.S. communications strategists tried next to blow the whistle to call the end of the game, while the outgoing Prime Minister was assembling an interim government. It is at this juncture that the press agencies launched the “Jasmine Revolution” mantra (in English, if you please!), assuring us that the Tunisian population had just lived through its “colour revolution”. A national unity government was on the rails … and all is well that ends well!
The epithet “Jasmine Revolution” evokes bitter memories to Tunisians of older generations: it is the same one alread used by the CIA in its communications at the time of the 1987 coup that placed Ben Ali in the seat of power.
The Western press – henceforth better controlled by the Empire than its Tunisian counterpart – turned its floodlights on Ben Ali’s doubtful fortune. No mention was made of the report by IMF Managing Dominique Strauss-Kahn commending Tunisia’s decision-makers in glowing terms just a few months after the 2008 hunger riots [8]. Nor was any mention made of the latest Transparency International report stating that Tunisia was less corrupt than certain members of the European Union, such as Italy, Romania and Greece [9].
The regime militia which had terrorised the civilian population during the riots, forcing it to organise through self-defense committees, disappeared from the scene overnight.
The Tunisians, considered as depoliticised and malleable, proved to be extremely muture. They realised that the Mohammed Ghannouchi cabinet is tantamount to the earlier version without Ben Ali. Despite some cosmetic changes, the bosses of the sole ruling party (RCD) held on to the key ministries. The UGTT trade unionists refused to be associated with the U.S. manipulation and walked out of the coalition government.
An opponent “made in the USA”.
With a little help from Nessma TV magnate Tarak Ben Ammar, film director Moufida Tlati was nominated Culture Minister. Less in the limelight, but far more significant, Ahmed Néjib Chebbi, a National Endowment for Democracy pawn, was given the Ministry of Regional Development. The obscure Slim Amanou, a blogger familiar with the methods of the Albert Einstein Institute, filled the slot of Youth and Sports Secretary under the label of the shadowy Pirate Party attached to the self-proclaimed hacker group Anonymous.
The real of power is no longer the Republican Palace, but the Embassy of the United States. This is where the Ghannouchi government was concocted. Located on the outskirts of Tunis, in a vast gated campus, the Embassy is a gigantic bunker that houses the main CIA and MEPI functions for North Africa and part of the eastern Mediterranean.
Needless to say, the U.S. Embassy did not invite the Communist Party to be part of the so-called “government of national unity”.
On the other hand, preparations got underway for the return of Rachid Ghannouchi (unrelated to the Prime Minister), a legendary leader of the Rennaissance Party (Ennahda) who was exiled in London. A Muslim (formerly of the Salafist tendency), he extols the compatibility between Islam and democracy and has been preparing a reconciliation with the Democratic Progressive Party headed by his friend Ahmed Néjib Chebbi. In case of a coalition government breakdown, this pro-US duo could offer an illusion of change.
Tunisian street power is still alive, with the people expanding the slogan that had been handed down to them: “RCD, out!”. In the villages and workplaces, they stalk the collaborators of the fallen regime.
On the road to Revolution?
Contrary to what has been reported by the Western media, the insurrection is not yet over and the Revolution has not yet commenced. It is clear that Washington has channeled nothing at all, except for western journalists. Today, even more than last December, the situation is out of control.
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French political analyst, founder and chairman of the VoltaireNetwork and the Axis for Peace conference. He publishes columns dealing with international relations in daily newspapers and weekly magazines in Arabic, Spanish and Russian. Last books published in English : 9/11 the Big Lie and Pentagate. • |
[1] Declaration made by Admiral Fulvio Martini, then Chief of theItalian Secret Services (SISMI).
[2] Direct testimony recorded by the author.
[3] Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.
[4] Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East.
[5] The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 4 January 2005.
[6] The Technique of a Coup d’État, by John Laughland, VoltaireNetwork, 5 January 2010.
[7] Proposition française de soutenir la répression en Tunisie ReseauVoltaire, 12 January 2011
[9] “Corruption Perceptions Index 2010“, Transparency International.
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CROSSPOST: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/01/201112314530411972.html