Egyptian pilot remembers 1967

Interesting interview from the BBC of a former Egyptian pilot remember his dogfight with Israeli jets on 6 June 1967. Note that in terms of the technology used, it was basically Egyptians flying slower Soviet MiGs against Israelis in French Mystere and the newer Mirage jets. What comes across in this as in so many Egyptian testimonies is the inexcusable degree of unpreparedness for the attack, despite the high tensions at the time. No wonder the pilot has this to say:

The air force felt very angry and humiliated by this war. Once, during the war, two of my fellow officers had to stop me banging my head repeatedly against a pair of concrete pillars at our air base.

Another time, still during the war, I and some others were sent to stay in a hotel in Cairo, but the waiter in the hotel was too sympathetic and even placed his hand on my shoulder to comfort me.

This was so embarrassing, we asked to be taken back to the base.

Iraqi oil workers on strike

Between some of the most preposterously neo-liberal economic laws anywhere in the world and attempts to give oil companies some of the most generous formulas for production sharing, Iraq has suffered plenty at the hands of US-led efforts to remodel its economy. Now it’s the Maliki government that’s threatening to come down “with an iron fist” on striking oil workers:

WASHINGTON, June 6 (UPI) — On the third day of an oil strike in southern Iraq, the Iraqi military has surrounded oil workers and the prime minister has issued arrest warrants for the union leaders, sparking an outcry from supporters and international unions.

“This will not stop us because we are defending people’s rights,” said Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of IFOU. As of Wednesday morning, when United Press International spoke to Awad via mobile phone in Basra at the site of one of the strikes, no arrests had been made, “but regardless, the arrest warrant is still active.” He said the “Iraqi Security Forces,” who were present at the strike scenes, told him of the warrants and said they would be making any arrests.

The arrest warrant accuses the union leaders of “sabotaging the economy,” according a statement from British-based organization Naftana, and said Maliki warned his “iron fist” would be used against those who stopped the flow of oil.

IFOU called a strike early last month but put it on hold twice after overtures from the government. Awad said that at a May 16 meeting, Maliki agreed to set up a committee to address the unions’ demands.

The demands include union entry to negotiations over the oil law they fear will allow foreign oil companies too much access to Iraq’s oil, as well as a variety of improved working conditions.

“Apparently they promise but they never do anything,” Awad said, confirming reports the Iraqi Oil Ministry would send a delegation to Basra.

“One person from the Ministry of Oil accompanied by an Iraqi military figure came to negotiate the demands. Instead it was all about threats. It was all about trying to shut us up, to marginalize our actions,” Awad said. “The actions we are taking now are continuing with the strike until our demands are taken in concentration.”

While you might say Iraq has bigger problems than labor woes at the moment, and that keep the oil flowing should be a national priority. Fine. But then how about giving oil workers their fair dues and not resorting to the thuggish violence characteristic of the previous regime? Or is this about keeping them off the negotiating table for the already controversial oil law?

USS Liberty demo

The Arab American News:

Washington — Americans will gather in Washington on June 8th at 4:00 p.m. at the Navy Memorial Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue to honor U.S.S. Liberty veterans on the 40th anniversary of Israel’s unprovoked attack on their ship.

The American intelligence ship sustained 70 percent casualties but remained afloat due to the heroic actions of its crew after Israel’s two-hour attack. Thirty-four sailors and marines were killed and 172 wounded in the heaviest attack on an American ship since World War II.

According to the Department of the Navy, the only official American government investigation of the event was a 1967 Navy Court of Inquiry that found the attack to be a case of “mistaken identity.” That hastily conducted investigation has since been discredited by its chief attorney, Captain Ward Boston, as a cover-up ordered by the Johnson White House.

“It was a political thing. We were ordered to ‘put a lid on it.’ The facts were clear. Israel knew it was an American ship and tried to sink it and murder the entire crew. The outrageous claims by Israel’s apologists who continue to claim the attack was a mistake pushed me to speak out. The official record is not the one I certified,” said Boston, a former FBI agent. “My initials are not on it.”

According to senior naval officers, Johnson personally ordered the Navy to recall its aircraft and cancel its rescue mission while the Liberty was still under attack by Israeli forces before ordering the cover-up (www.ussliberty.org).

Readings

Where I lazily dump links to recent articles and a few notes.

– I know I can be a bit of a grouch about the American (and other) media. Actually I think the US press, especially magazines, is the finest in English — better, in general, than Britain’s in terms of the resources it devotes to serious reporting (the best newsmag is still the Economist, though.) And I certainly like the New Yorker (well apart from the fiction and cartoons and the celebrity worship). But David Remnick’s recent article on the 1967 war is a case in point about bias on the Israeli-Arab conflict. The entire article discusses the emotions Israelis felt about the war — the elation when reaching the Wailing Wall, the military planning, the change the war caused among Jews around the world and Israel’s image. But there is nary a mention of the impact on the Arab world generally or the Palestinians specifically. Even if this is a book review of Tom Segev’s 1967, which is about Israel, considering that the article is by the editor and came out on the fortieth anniversary of the conflict, something doesn’t quite feel right. Luckily, the same issue has a great article on Tintin and another good one on Turkmenistan.

– Similarly, the Economist’s coverage (it’s on the cover this week) is interesting but displays the same bias in the leader (but the reporting is excellent as always on the conflict). Also don’t miss the Economist’s original reporting, which is a great example of the symbolic impact of the war and Israel’s triumph in the Western media at the time.

– Iraqi Refugees Turn to the Sex Trade in Syria:

Mouna Asaad, a Syrian women’s rights lawyer, said the government had been blindsided by the scale of the arriving Iraqi refugee population. Syria does not require visas for citizens of Arab countries, and its government had pledged to assist needy Iraqis. But this country of 19 million was ill equipped to cope with the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of them, Ms. Asaad said.

“Sometimes you see whole families living this way, the girls pimped by the mother or aunt,” she said. “But prostitution isn’t the only problem. Our schools are overcrowded, and the prices of services, food and transportation have all risen. We don’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with this. We don’t have shelters or health centers that these women can go to. And because of the situation in Iraq, Syria is careful not to deport these women.”

Incidentally I am in Jordan at the moment. Yesterday I asked my taxi driver how many people lived in Amman (which is a very spread out city). He answered: “Four million. And one million Iraqis.”

– Not entirely unrelated to the above, Egypt To Send 120,000 Women To Saudi As Maids:

Cairo, Egypt (AHN) – The Egyptian Minister of Labor, Aisha Abdel Hady, has signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia to send 120,000 young Egyptian women to work as maids. The signing has angered local dailies, who called the accord “a scandal” and “part of the Gulf’s plan to humiliate Egypt.”

– Arab powers seen taking over P.A.:

Egypt and Jordan eventually will be required to keep order in the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli official predicted.

Cabinet Minister Rafi Eitan of the Pensioners Party said Monday that Israel’s current fight against Hamas will lead to foreign intervention in the Gaza Strip akin to the boosted deployment of peacekeepers in southern Lebanon after last year’s war with Hezbollah.

“Today Hezbollah is no longer on our border,” Eitan told Israel Radio. “The same thing, sooner or later, will happen in the Gaza Strip, with the senior partner in such a force being Egypt, because it has no choice.”

Eitan added, “We are getting there gradually; we are aiming toward that. And the same will happen in Judea and Samaria with Jordan.”

Egypt controlled Gaza and Jordan controlled the West Bank before Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Six-Day War. Egypt has been active in trying to stabilize Gaza, while there have been reports in the Israeli media of a Jordan plan to re-establish administrative rule in the West Bank.

– More Muslim Brothers arrested as Egypt gets closer to the Shura Council elections. That makes it nearly 80 in the last two weeks, as well as two MPs who had their immunity lifted and the 34 facing trial in a military tribunal.

– From conservative French paper Le Figaro, just because I like the headline: Les Teletubbies sont-ils gays?

– Via Kafr al-Hanadwa, the Swiss vs. the minarets:

Across the country, there are only two small minarets, one in Zurich and one in Geneva, neither of which are permitted to make the call to prayer. In Switzerland’s capital Berne, the largest mosque is in a former underground car park…

Mutalip Karaademi, an ethnic Albanian who has lived in Switzerland for 26 years, was at first pleased when his proposal for a 5m-high (16.5ft) minaret was approved by the local authority.

But following a vociferous campaign against the plans, including a petition with thousands of signatures, the cantonal government in Berne delayed the project indefinitely. …

“We don’t have anything against Muslims,” said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People’s Party.

“But we don’t want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it’s a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over.”

Nice moral posturing from a country whose purpose appears to be giving financial refuge to war criminals and genocidal maniacs.

– Great Satan sits down with the Axis of Evil.

Bacevich on his son’s death

Boston University Professor Andrew Bacevich, an opponent of the war on Iraq who recently lost his son there, wrote this WaPo op-ed. Here’s the bit about what he blames for his son’s death:

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.’s life is priceless. Don’t believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier’s life: I’ve been handed the check. It’s roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. It confines the debate over U.S. policy to well-hewn channels. It preserves intact the cliches of 1933-45 about isolationism, appeasement and the nation’s call to “global leadership.” It inhibits any serious accounting of exactly how much our misadventure in Iraq is costing. It ignores completely the question of who actually pays. It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It’s the way our system works.

Congressional delegation meets with MB – again

Remember how a few weeks ago a Congressional delegation met — both in parliament and at an embassy function — MPs from the Muslim Brotherhood? That time around, the Egyptian government did not respond, even though it has always opposed contacts between foreign countries and the MB. Yesterday, another delegation met with MP Saad Katatni, the MB’s leader in parliament, and Egyptian officials were this time quick to speak out:

Egypt criticized the U.S. Sunday after four Congress members met with a lawmaker from the banned Muslim Brotherhood, less than two months after House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met the same politician.

The bipartisan delegation headed by Rep. David Price, D-N.C., met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak early Sunday before heading to parliament to talk to a group of lawmakers that included the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Saad el-Katatni.

“The United States says that it doesn’t establish relations with a banned group, whether in Egypt or outside Egypt,” said Mubarak’s spokesman Suleiman Awaad. “The U.S. says it is meeting with the Brotherhood as Parliament members, but doesn’t make the same distinction and refuses to talk with Hamas, who is heading the Palestinian government and is occupying the prime minister’s seat.”

While that’s an excellent point about Hamas (there’s nothing wrong with meeting with them, just like there’s nothing wrong meeting with the MB MPs) it’s rather disingenuous to trot it out when Egypt is a full partner in the US-Israeli strategy to bring down the Hamas government. And it’s not like the Egyptians are particularly fond of Hamas anyway, or that they’re likely to change their approach to the group. As an American official recently told me (I paraphrase), “the Egyptians think they’re doing us a big favor with Hamas, but we keep reminding them that it’s in their interest too.”

Anyway, the interesting thing with this second US congressional meeting with the MB is that things are beginning to look like a pattern. The first meeting a few weeks ago looked like a feeler, as if US diplomats were testing the waters. That may still be what’s taking place, particularly if it’s something that the congressional delegation asked for (I believe the previous one wanted to see something different than the usual NDP apparatchiks). Or it may be a genuine change in policy, using the loophole the US embassy has always reserved — that it feels free to meet any elected official, but will not meet MB leaders outside of parliament.

The question then becomes, to what purpose? Simply to keep a channel open to what is, after all, the largest elected opposition group in Egypt? To send a signal to the regime that the US is not happy with the current state of things, notably the campaign against the Ikhwan, the continued imprisonment of Ayman Nour and the recent constitutional amendments? Or maybe I am reading too much into it and it’s just a few curious congresspersons. It’s worth noting, though, that the head of the delegation, David Price (D-NC) is the chairman of the House Democracy Assistance Commission (and a former political scientist at Duke University). Part of what that commission does is help “emerging democracies” develop better parliamentary practice and infrastructure.

YouTube blocked in Morocco

Why is YouTube blocked in Morocco? I remember seeing some nice historical archive of Hassan II on there, but nothing too compromising on King Muhammad VI. That’s the only political reason I could think of, as well the many critical videos on the Western Sahara. If YouTube is indeed being blocking by Morocco’s main ISP, the very corrupt Maroc Telecom, for political reasons there are grounds to take things further. Maroc Telecom’s main shareholder is the French mega-corporation Vivendi. Surely newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who made a big deal of supporting freedom and democracy in his victory speech, would be rather embarrassed to learn that a French company is collaborating in censorship? This is worth looking into.

Update: It’s unblocked.