A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Mubarak for life is Washington’s dream
• We are fighting growing PR power so we must strike back
• Nothing to criticise because hating Arabs isn’t such a big deal
• Top Aussie journalist calls for colleagues to defend Wikileaks
• Assange and Serco, quite a relationship
• Karzai is about as statesmanlike as Mugabe
• Google, Twitter et al on path to helping US imperialism
• Challenging authority is only beginning
• Why is the national broadcaster giving so much air-time to a propagandist?
• The rape of Africa, courtesy of shiny Shell

Mubarak for life is Washington’s dream Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:54 PM PST This is the reality of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Dictatorships for life: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt‘s long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and will “inevitably” win a poll that will not be free and fair, the US ambassador to Cairo, Margaret Scobey, predicted in a secret cable to Hillary Clintonlast year. Scobey discussed Mubarak’s quasi-dictatorial leadership style since he took power in 1981; his critical views of George Bush and American policy in the Middle East; and the highly uncertain prospects for a succession. The disclosures come one day after Mohamed ElBaradei, the former UN nuclear agency chief, announced he would not run for the presidency and urged all Egyptians to boycott the vote. ElBaradei dismissed last month’s parliamentary elections as fraud and vowed not to associated with a repeat performance. “We will not participate in this farce next year in the presidential election if changes to the constitution are not completed,” he said. Mubarak has not yet formally declared whether he will seek a sixth consecutive term. Scobey’s candid view, in a cable dated May 2009, is that Mubarak, 82, who heads the Arab world’s most populous and influential nation, is most likely to die in office rather than step down voluntarily or be replaced in a plausible democratic vote. “The next presidential elections are scheduled for 2011 and if Mubarak is still alive it is likely he will run again and, inevitably, win,” Scobey writes. “When asked about succession he states that the process will follow the Egyptian constitution. Despite incessant whispered discussions no one in Egypt has any certainty about who will eventually succeed Mubarak nor under what circumstances. “The most likely contender is presidential son Gamal Mubarak (whose profile is ever-increasing at the ruling party); some suggest that intelligence chief Omar Soliman might seek the office; or dark horse Arab League secretary general Amre Moussa might run. “Mubarak’s ideal of a strong but fair leader would seem to discount Gamal Mubarak to some degree, given Gamal’s lack of military experience, and may explain Mubarak’s hands-off approach to the succession question. Indeed he seems to be trusting to God and the ubiquitous military and civilian security services to ensure an orderly transition.”

We are fighting growing PR power so we must strike back Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:53 PM PST If any more evidence was needed, this is why sites like Wikileaks are so important: Between 2006 and 2009, news room budgets were cut by $1.6 billion. Meanwhile, on the government side, between 1996 and 2009, the number of documents and other communications containing information labeled secret has risen 1,000 percent. We are at the mercy of PR, an industry that in the space of a decade has more than doubled.

Nothing to criticise because hating Arabs isn’t such a big deal Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:48 PM PST What’s a little racism against Arabs? The heads of Israel’s legal establishment have yet to express a public position on a religious ruling signed by dozens of prominent rabbis calling for people not to rent homes to non-Jews. Neither Justice Minister Ya’akov Ne’eman nor Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has responded to a petition calling for legal action, and while aides have indicated that the matter will be dealt with, their stance on the matter remains unclear. A group of public figures, intellectuals and academics have asked Weinstein to immediately suspend any public servants among the rabbis who signed the document, those “who trample underfoot the pledges of the Declaration of Independence on which Israel was founded, turn Judaism into racism and openly break the law prohibiting incitement to racism.” The group of signatories, which includes professors Yaron Ezrahi, Chaim Gans and Joseph Agassi, playwright Joshua Sobol and authors Sefi Rachlevsky and Yoram Kaniuk, approached Weinstein several weeks ago about taking action against Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu for issuing the same type of call. “Because of dawdling, negligence and a feeble response to the breaking of the law, the fire has jumped from one coal, from rabbi to rabbi, and threatens to burn the whole forest,” they wrote in their petition.

Top Aussie journalist calls for colleagues to defend Wikileaks Posted: 09 Dec 2010 05:29 AM PST After winning the country’s top journalism prize last night, the Walkleys, reporter Laurie Oakes had a message for his fellow scribes. How many will speak up? Oakes also attacked Ms Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland for their response to the release of secret US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. “What they said was ridiculous,” he said. “To brand what the WikiLeaks site has done as illegal when there’s no evidence of any breach of the law, I think is demeaning… I think as journalists we should make that our view.”

Assange and Serco, quite a relationship Posted: 09 Dec 2010 04:05 AM PST Great letter in today’s Crikey about the ubiquitous Serco and its merry jobs. How many ways can this company make a buck from misfortune? Michael R. James writes: To top off a frenetic 24 hour news cycle of the harassment of Julian Assange, nothing was quite as chilling as seeing him being ferried to a gaol cell by a security van sporting a big Serco decal. It is perfect when you think about it. The huge companies that dominate the internet and its commercial transactions (Amazon, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard) doing the government’s bidding without so much as a D notice. Even Swiss Banks — well, yes that makes sense too when you realize Assange or WikiLeaks don’t have a lazy billion dollars to grease the sweaty avaricious palms of Swiss bankers. Now the world’s favourite policeman, well the private flunkies to whom governments like to outsource their dirty work. Serco is the company that runs most of the UK’S prisons and also Australia’s refugee detention camps/gulags. I would be pretty sure Serco would be able to handle extraordinary rendition which, no doubt, is excessively profitable. Unless a division of Halliburton or Blackwater has that market sewn up. Orwell would not be surprised at any of this.

Karzai is about as statesmanlike as Mugabe Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:43 AM PST So this is what mature diplomacy means. Working with a corrupt government to further another bromance? So sweet and so revealing: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called it “extraordinarily embarrassing,” which might also describe the sentiments beneath the decorous tableau on Wednesday night in the palace of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. A little more than a week after the disclosure of a cache of secret American diplomatic cables that quoted Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, describing Mr. Karzai’s “inability to grasp the most rudimentary principles of state-building,” among other criticisms, Mr. Karzai, Mr. Eikenberry and Mr. Gates shared their first public forum together since the cables were leaked. Not that anyone would have known that something was amiss. Mr. Eikenberry sat genially in the front row of American spectators, busily taking notes, as Mr. Gates stood alongside Mr. Karzai, smiling broadly. Asked about the cables obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, Mr. Gates first acknowledged that they were “extraordinarily embarrassing for the United States.” Then he tried to limit the damage. “At the end of the day, nations and leaders make decisions based on their interests,” Mr. Gates said. “And I would say that America’s best partners and friends, and I include among them President Karzai, have responded to this in my view in an extraordinarily statesmanlike way.” Mr. Gates shifted to a higher gear: “And I’m deeply grateful, and frankly I think the American government will not forget this statesmanlike response. I think I also could say with great confidence, President Karzai and I have been meeting together privately now for four years. I don’t think either of us would be embarrassed to have a single thing we said to each other made public.”

Google, Twitter et al on path to helping US imperialism Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:35 AM PST The introductory section of this recent essay in the London Review of Books paints a disturbing nexus between the US government and major web companies. They seem worryingly comfortable assisting US foreign policy goals. Putting a nice, sexy face to occupation. Beware: On a balmy evening in April 2009 Barham Salih, then deputy prime minister of Iraq, sat in the garden of his Baghdad villa while a young internet entrepreneur called Jack Dorsey tried to persuade him that he needed to be on Twitter. Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, was in Baghdad at the invitation of the State Department. Over the previous three days, he and eight other Silicon Valley bigwigs, kitted out with helmets and flak jackets, had been bundled around Baghdad in an armoured convoy, meeting anyone there was to meet. They’d been introduced to the prime minister’s council of advisers, glad-handed the Iraqi Investment National Commission and spoken to a group of engineering students from Baghdad University; they’d even had time to fit in a visit to the Iraqi National Museum. Among them were several high-ranking engineers from Google, the founder of the community organising tool Meetup, a vice-president of the firm behind the blogging platform WordPress, and an executive from Blue State Digital, the internet strategy firm that had done a fair bit to help Obama to the presidency the previous November. The person getting all the attention was Dorsey, because by then Twitter was all anyone wanted to talk about. In fact one reason we know so much about the trip is that Dorsey and his colleagues spent much of their time tweeting about it, sending news of their journey in electronic haiku to their followers back home. ‘Lots of helicopters,’ Dorsey observed on his Twitter feed: ‘Met the president of Iraq. Amazing palace.’ In another tweet, he tells his followers that he’s been ‘talking to Iraqis to figure out if technologies like Twitter can help bring transparency, accessibility and stability to the area’. When he finds a wi-fi network in the presidential palace, he says how happy he is to be back online: ‘Catching up on the rest of the world.’ ‘Lots going on out there!’ he writes. Barham Salih’s inaugural tweet was less upbeat: ‘Sorry, my first tweet not pleasant; dust storm in Baghdad today & yet another suicide bomb. Awful reminder that it is not yet all fine here.’ This was the first time the US government had organised a new media delegation to a country in the Middle East. The idea was to introduce the minds behind America’s internet start-ups to the movers and shakers who were going to rebuild Iraq, but as Dorsey’s excitable tweets indicated, the audience back home was just as important.

Challenging authority is only beginning Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:26 AM PST Wikileaks as an inspiration: John Young, whose website cryptome.org has published about 60,000 classified and non-classified documents over the past 14 years, believes the storm will pass. “This is just typical arm-waving and yelling. If anything, this will just further wind people up to oppose authority and send in more documents.”

Why is the national broadcaster giving so much air-time to a propagandist? Posted: 08 Dec 2010 11:32 PM PST What an embarrassment. The US government is upset about Wikileaks and also pissed off that one of its best assets, Kevin Rudd, is being smeared in some leaked cables. Damage control time. But why did ABC TV’s 7.30 Report allow a senior US official 10 minutes last night to slobber over the client state known as Australia? KERRY O’BRIEN, PRESENTER: Kurt Campbell is the US State Department’s most senior official, with responsibility for the Asia-Pacific region, and he asked to come on the program to counter the damage from today’s exposure in Fairfax newspapers of the US embassy cables critical of Prime Minister – or then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s foreign policy record. I recorded this interview with the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in our Washington studio. Kurt Campbell, Australians woke up to a headline this morning that said “US condemns Rudd”. What do you say to that? KURT CAMPBELL, US ASST SECRETARY OF STATE, ASIA-PACIFIC: Ah, I have to say we’ve been living over the course of the last two or three weeks with just enormous challenges. Every day we wake up, issues associated with WikiLeaks. It’s been extremely difficult for us. And to be perfectly honest, this is another one that causes us great heartache. No relationship’s more important to us than Australia. And to be perfectly blunt, I’ve worked with a lot of people over many, many years and I’ve really focused on Asia for most of my career. Few people have made such an impression, not only on sort of the foreign policy national security imperatives of a country like Kevin Rudd has done in Australia, but he has an enormous respectful following in the United States and throughout Asia. So I think these are just deeply, profoundly unfair and he’s just taken some very unfair shots and I think it’s important for both friends and admirers to stand up and speak out, and that’s what I’m doing here tonight. KERRY O’BRIEN: But does that mean that your own embassy in Canberra is out of step with the sentiment at the State Department and the White House level? KURT CAMPBELL: Well, look, you know, some of these cables come from a previous administration. I don’t know all the context. And frankly, the release of cables are in the tens, hundreds of thousands, so, I can’t speak to specific cables. We don’t know the validity of all of these in particular. All I can tell you is that in meetings talking about Asian architectural issues, about China, about how to think about security challenges of the 21st Century and climate change, in meetings with President Obama, with Secretary Clinton, with Secretary Gates, no leader I’ve encountered has the respect and level of when he speaks people listen, as Kevin Rudd has had in the American administration. And I say that with no bias. I’ve seen very clearly how much he punches above his weight and frankly how much Australia punches above its weight in our diplomatic undertakings. KERRY O’BRIEN: But everything you’re saying right now is going to be seen by a lot of people as an exercise in damage control, that these are the things you have to say to undo the damage? KURT CAMPBELL: Look, all I can tell you is that this has hit us broadside in almost every country. I’ve not talked with Foreign Minister Rudd about this. It’s late at night. I can tell you that we have many of these challenges on really an hourly basis. I called you, I wanted to do this. I don’t see this as damage control, I see this as stating very clearly how I see it and how our government sees it. We were – when we look at what Kevin, what Foreign Minister Rudd has accomplished in terms of – we would not have joined the East Asia Summit if it weren’t for his prodding. He played a role that was enormous in trying to salvage a success last year in Cancun. He has played a critical role in how to think – how we should think about China’s role for instance on the Korean Peninsula. On almost every issue of consequence – Burma, South-East Asia, the role of India in Asia, we consult with Rudd on a very regular basis. There’s no foreign official that I spend more time with in quiet consultations. And so this is just a fact. And all I can tell you is if you have any doubts about this, take a look at the pictures from the AUSMIN that took place in Australia just a couple of months ago, or look at the US-Australia Leadership Dialogue. It’s not just respect, it’s true affection. KERRY O’BRIEN: He’s been painted in these US cables as impulsive, not consultative with the US. And if we go back to last year, I remember talking to you about what you had to say at your confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where your comments were interpreted as pouring cold water on Kevin Rudd’s call for a new strategic Asia Pacific community. Was that a case in point? KURT CAMPBELL: No, no, I disagree with that, and in fact if you look at what I said, I tried to be very clear in my confirmation hearing where the United States stood and where I stood. Confirmation hearings are – you know, your whole life is hanging in the balance, and you’re stressed and you’ve been up for days preparing, and so sometimes things come out slightly different. And what I tried to convey to both Foreign Minister Rudd and to the mission here was that, you know, I think my tone wasn’t exactly right. The truth is that we came out with a slightly different position than the one Foreign Minister – then Prime Minister – Rudd advanced. However, the overall conversation in the United States – we weren’t even thinking about joining the East Asia Summit. We weren’t even thinking about engaging deeply in South-East Asia. His role was decisive. Everything I’ve seen in my interactions with him, he’s deeply consultative. He has his own views and he will advance them strongly, and frankly that’s what’s impressive. KERRY O’BRIEN: You told me in that interview that Kevin Rudd was one of President Obama’s best mates. Can you say with confidence that that’s still the case? KURT CAMPBELL: Yes, but I think as importantly today – remember, Kevin Rudd is now serving as Foreign Minister. I would say, today, when we had discussions with the secretary and her staff, she was very clear about how uncomfortable she was with these revelations, understood that it put Foreign Minister Rudd in a very difficult position. But what’s impressive over the course of the last several months is they have developed a very close relationship. They consult regularly. So, the depth of his engagement with our administration is not just at the presidential level. It’s with our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, key Asia staffers at the White House and also the Secretary of Defence. KERRY O’BRIEN: What is the State Department’s current view as to what laws WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has actually broken by releasing the leaked documents and diplomatic cables? Because there’s been confusion about what actual laws the US believes he’s breached. KURT CAMPBELL: You know, to be perfectly honest, I am not a lawyer. We have teams of lawyers that are working on this and there is lots of speculation in the public. I don’t think I can advance the case here in that respect. And so I best not talk directly about those issues. All I can tell you is that, as you well understand, they have been deeply challenging, embarrassing and they’ve created great damage. But I will also say we have enormous important work to do in the US-Australian relationship and I am proud of what we’ve accomplished and what we need to accomplish in the future and I stand by the relationship and I stand by our relationships inside the Australian Government. KERRY O’BRIEN: Kurt Campbell, thanks very much for talking with us. KURT CAMPBELL: Thanks very much.

The rape of Africa, courtesy of shiny Shell Posted: 08 Dec 2010 10:24 PM PST Who says Wikileaks isn’t providing essential new information into the public domain? The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The company’s top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew “everything that was being done in those ministries”. She boasted that the Nigerian government had “forgotten” about the extent of Shell’s infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations. The cache of secret dispatches from Washington’s embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo-Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti-aircraft missiles. Other cables released tonight reveal: • US diplomats’ fear that Kenya could erupt in violence worse than that experienced after the 2008 election unless rampant government corruption is tackled. • America asked Uganda to let it know if its army intended to commit war crimes based on US intelligence – but did not try to prevent war crimes taking place. • Washington’s ambassador to the troubled African state of Eritrea described its president, Isaias Afwerki, as a cruel “unhinged dictator” whose regime was “one bullet away from implosion”. … Campaigners tonight said the revelation about Shell in Nigeria demonstrated the tangled links between the oil firm and politicians in the country where, despite billions of dollars in oil revenue, 70% of people live below the poverty line. Cables from Nigeria show how Ann Pickard, then Shell’s vice-president for sub-Saharan Africa, sought to share intelligence with the US government on militant activity and business competition in the contested Niger Delta – and how, with some prescience, she seemed reluctant to open up because of a suspicion the US government was “leaky”. But that did not prevent Pickard disclosing the company’s reach into the Nigerian government when she met US ambassador Robin Renee Sanders, as recorded in a confidential memo from the US embassy in Abuja on 20 October 2009. At the meeting, Pickard related how the company had obtained a letter showing that the Nigerian government had invited bids for oil concessions from China. She said the minister of state for petroleum resources, Odein Ajumogobia, had denied the letter had been sent but Shell knew similar correspondence had taken place with China and Russia. The ambassador reported: “She said the GON [government of Nigeria] had forgotten that Shell had seconded people to all the relevant ministries and that Shell consequently had access to everything that was being done in those ministries.” Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil producer and the eighth biggest exporter in the world, accounting for 8% of US oil imports. Although a recent UN report largely exonerated the company, critics accuse Shell, the biggest operator in the delta, and other companies, of causing widespread pollution and environmental damage in the region. Militant groups engaged in hostage-taking and sabotage have proliferated. The WikiLeaks disclosure was today seized on by campaigners as evidence of Shell’s vice-like grip on the country’s oil wealth. “Shell and the government of Nigeria are two sides of the same coin,” said Celestine AkpoBari, of Social Action Nigeria. “Shell is everywhere. They have an eye and an ear in every ministry of Nigeria. They have people on the payroll in every community, which is why they get away with everything. They are more powerful than the Nigerian government.”