WikiLeaks: Hot Egyptian Nights, Volume One..

First, to set the stage, lets flash back to late November(Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010).. WikiLeaks Fallout: Undermining Egypt as Mideast Mediator Excerpts:

The flood of classified U.S. diplomatic cables released on Sunday by WikiLeaks threatens to further undermine Egypt's already questionable role as a neutral mediator between Palestinian factions, embarrass the U.S. in one of its most important Middle Eastern allies and expose the authoritarian regime of President Hosni Mubarak to more criticism in the aftermath of a parliamentary election this past weekend that was marred by widespread accounts of fraud and abuse.

For Cairo, the country's current preoccupation with an election that fell on the same day as the WikiLeaks disclosure may serve to distract the public for the time being. Egyptian newspapers on Monday devoted some attention to the leaks, but focused on revelations regarding their neighbors and other countries — not Egypt. Meanwhile a Foreign Ministry spokesman declined to comment on the documents' impact — indicating that he was not up to speed on the details and was currently in Libya. But inevitably, analysts say, details of Egypt's hard-line stance on Hamas, as well as its close cooperation with Israel, will provide fresh fodder for Egypt's largest opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which suffered serious losses in the weekend's poll.

One of Brotherhood's strongest talking points against Mubarak's deeply unpopular regime has been its allegedly close relationship with Israel — a neighbor still widely vilified by the Egyptian public. Thanks to the diplomatic cables, Egypt may now have to account for fresh details regarding its cooperation with the Jewish state, as well as its role as a regional peace broker. "I think the most important thing is the link between these documents that explain everything and the crackdown on democracy and the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood," says Essam al-Erian, a member of the Brotherhood's politburo. "If there was a democracy in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood became more powerful, this would threaten this good relationship between Egypt and the Israelis."
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What may be more worrying to the Egyptian government,however, is a blow to the state's credibility as a regional peace broker. For years, Mubarak's regime has presented itself as the only diplomatic actor capable of resolving the 2007 split between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah that left Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Palestinians deem reconciliation critical to the success of any peace deal with Israel, but many accuse Egypt of being a biased mediator and therefore unfit for the job. The disclosed documents appear to leave little doubt as to where Egypt stands.

"Mubarak hates Hamas and considers them the same as Egypt's own Muslim Brotherhood, which he sees as his own most dangerous political threat," Scobey said in the February 2009 cable. Another cable detailing a meeting between Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and General David Petraeus, of the U.S. Central Command, in the same year revealed Suleiman was pessimistic about prospects of reaching a deal. "I consider myself a patient man, but I am losing patience," Suleiman told Petraeus. He said Egypt was committed to undermining Hamas and building popular support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West.

And from December 9th.. US ambassador tells Hillary Clinton that president will win rigged election next year, his 30th in power

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 Clinton last year.
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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.

So.. The United States knew, yet said nothing. I'm sure they've known for a very long time. That's probably common knowledge in Egypt. That knowledge might be one of the reasons the Egyptian people don't trust us.. Maybe? Maybe? Continuing on..

WikiLeaks Exposes New Egypt Docs Amid Protests. Will Anyone There See Them?

As Egyptian police fire tear gas canisters and rubber bullets at protesters in Cairo, WikiLeaks has been firing back with a stream of new State Department cables that reveal human rights abuses and political arrests in the country. But it shouldn’t expect those document dumps to fuel the mass movement there: As of Wednesday evening, Egypt’s government had shut off all four of its major Internet service providers, (ISPs) essentially instituting a nationwide digital blackout. (But the ones in November and December.. They probably got out there, right?)
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The blackout means there’s little chance of anyone in Egypt seeing a new round of WikiLeaks’ secret State Department cables that the secret-spilling group has released and linked to on its Twitter feed, apparently specially timed to highlight the injustices of the Egyptian regime and America’s ties to it. Those cables reveal that “police brutality continues to be a pervasive, daily occurrence,” with police often hanging criminal suspects from their arms for days at a time, and that bloggers and journalists live in fear of arrest. One cable admits that under Mubarak’s rule, which has long received military and financial support from the U.S., “torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread. The police use brutal methods mostly against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate bystanders.”

Remember this fall when Secretary Clinton was flying all over the world, "apologizing"? Maybe they had an idea as to the political impact these cables might have on specific countries, Egypt included. These statements make more sense now, doesn't they?" Excerpts:

“This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests,” said Clinton. “It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.”

“It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems,” she told reporters at the State Department.

Clinton would not comment on the specific contents of the cables but said the administration “deeply regrets” any embarrassment caused by their disclosure. Many of them contain candid and often unflattering assessments of foreign leaders, both friends and foes.

Speculation has already started as to who gets credit for starting the Egyptian revolution; Bush or Obama. Fuck the actual Egyptians. They only did all the work and shed all the blood.. But if I were to guess, I'd say Julian Assange had more motivational influence on Egypt than either one of our last two Presidents. He's the only one to tell the people of Egypt the truth.

While We Looked Elsewhere, Egypt Decided To Stage A Revolution..

Cairo erupts as Egyptian protesters demand Mubarak resign. From Raw Story. Excerpts:

Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Egypt Tuesday, facing down a massive police presence to demand the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in protests inspired by Tunisia's popular uprising.

Gamal Mubarak, son of President Hosni Mubarak, had fled the country along with his family, according to the Adnkronos International news service.
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Chanting "Down with Mubarak" -- in reference to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who has been in power for three decades -- they broke through several police cordons and began marching towards Tahrir Square, in scenes seldom witnessed in Egypt.

Others shouted "Tunisia is not better than Egypt" as the crowds began to swell.

A security official told AFP that at least 20,000 to 30,000 police had been mobilized in the center of the capital alone, and that the area housing the interior ministry had been sealed off.

And, as per the 21st century revolution suppression handbook, Twitter is down..(Same article)

The US-based microblogging service that allows people to use mobile phones to broadcast short text messages was out of service in Egypt on Tuesday, according to the herdict.org tracking website recommended by Twitter.

A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on what was causing the service outage in Egypt.

"Egypt is going wild and I'm not sure we'll really have a sense of it until the dust clears," Digital Democracy's Mark Belinsky told CNET. "Hard to say whether or not it's just getting overloaded though...(physically severing) Internet was done in Burma after a while but it usually leads to international uproar. What they generally do is slow down the signal to a crawl, as they did in Iran, which they can then say was infrastructure failure or any other made up excuse."

Cairo knows how to rock! Video here:
Man stand up to a bus/water cannon.
Protestors chasing police!

That was an active Day One. I wonder what tomorrow holds for both Egypt and the region?

Just In Case You'd Forgotten Greece Was In Meltdown..

2,000 locals attack riot police with Molotov's, sticks, stones and gun shots in Keratea, Attica; Athens gears up for long week of anti-cuts mobilisations and General Strike

In the past two days, local residents of the area of Keratea in Attica (Greater Athens) have been engaged in a fierce battle with riot police (MAT). The riot police are there to protect the construction of a waste burial site (HITA). Such burial sites have not only been judged to be illegal by European courts but additionally, the site in Keratea is of archaeological significance.

On Saturday, riot police arrived at the site to protect the ongoing construction works from the enraged locals. Clashes quickly erupted, with locals attacking the police with sticks, stones and scores of Molotov cocktails. The police responded with tear gas while for the first time ever in Greece, water cannons also made their appearance. On Sunday evening, gunshots were aimed in the direction of the police from nearby hills.

And there's a General Strike scheduled for Wednesday. As Greece's economy deteriorates, so does Grecian society. Don't look for an improvement in Greece's overall situation, either. No one seems to be getting anything right that might prevent catastrophe.

And, please don't forget who caused this crisis in the first place.. (Short answer: Creation of the Euro, Bankers gone wild, and Governments guaranteeing banker's gone wild bad debt.)

That Was Quick, or File Under: Hatian Election Riots

Haiti protesters rampage against election results  Excerpts -Italics:

Thousands of protesters rampaged through Haiti's capital and other cities on Wednesday, hurling stones and wrecking property in a wave of unrest against election results they say were rigged by the ruling government coalition.


At least two people were killed in the flaring violence, which appeared to dash international hopes that the U.N.-backed elections held on November 28 could create a stable new leadership for Haiti, an impoverished nation struggling to recover from a devastating January earthquake.


Port-au-Prince descended into chaos as supporters of popular musician and presidential candidate Michel Martelly, who failed to qualify for an election run-off in results announced by electoral authorities, set up burning barricades of timber, boulders and flaming tires across the city.
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Haiti's outgoing President Rene Preval, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon all appealed for calm, urging election candidates with grievances to address them through the legal channels provided by the country's electoral laws.  (This is funny, right?)


"Breaking everything, destroying everything is not going to solve the problem," Preval said in Port-au-Prince.
And:
Preliminary results from the turbulent November 28 elections announced late on Tuesday showed former first lady Mirlande Manigat and Preval's protege, Jude Celestin, going through to the January run-off, with Martelly narrowly in third place and so excluded


But these results flew in the face of voting returns previously cited by media and Haitian election observers that had shown Manigat and Martelly as the two run-off qualifiers, not government technocrat Celestin. Martelly had already accused Preval and Celestin of trying to rig the results.


The United States, through its embassy in Port-au-Prince, cast doubt on the CEP results late on Tuesday, saying it was concerned they were "inconsistent with" vote counts observed by "numerous domestic and international observers."


Why get mad when so many things in Haiti are flammable?


The protesters in Port-au-Prince set fire to the headquarters of Preval's ruling (Inite) coalition. Businesses and schools stayed closed and many fearful residents stayed home, off the rubble-strewn streets. There was no traffic apart from an occasional police or U.N. vehicle.
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Plumes of black smoke rose above the sprawling, crowded city, which bears the scars of the January 12 earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people in the Western Hemisphere's poorest state. Haiti is also battling a cholera epidemic.
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The protests erupted in the Petionville, Delmas and Canape Vert districts of the capital, among other areas.
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Local radio reported protests in the southern town of Les Cayes in which Martelly supporters burned down government buildings, including the tax and customs offices.
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Enraged Martelly supporters tore down, or hurled stones at election posters of Celestin and also of Manigat.
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"Hang Preval!" other protesters yelled.

So much for holding on to social order..  Again, the runoff election isn't scheduled until January 16th, so likely we'll more variations of this story..