The Egyptian Transition Is Not Going To Plan

Business Insider
Dan Murphy

Pity the reporters, political activists, and academics trying to keep up with Egypt's transition "plan." Every day, it seems, new moves by the ruling military, the courts, and the quasi-independent electoral commission turn expectations on their head.

It's human to want a see a pattern in all this, find a guiding hand behind all the maneuvering (a Machiavellian or a benevolent one, depending on your inclinations). Analysis is supposed to tease out the broader pattern, identify a narrative that helps make sense of events. But in the daily flow of statements, revelations, and warnings, I can't find anything but an unguided mess.

Writing at Foreign Policy, political scientist Nathan Brown calls "the phrase 'Egyptian transition process'... tragicomically oxymoronic in light of the dizzying series of developments over the past month."

The latest news is the disqualification of 10 Egyptian presidential aspirants a little more than six weeks from the scheduled May 23 vote. Most were no-hopers, but three are heavyweights.

Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, a fiery, and to many frightening, salafy leader (he called Osama bin Laden a "martyr" after the Al Qaeda leader was killed in Pakistan) was tossed from the race because his deceased mother was a US citizen (it's Egypt's own birther controversy; Abu Ismail denies the claim).

Authorities Bar 3 Leading Candidates in Egypt Race

New York Times
David D. Kirkpatrick

From left: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood;
Omar Suleiman, Hosni Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief;
and Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist.

The Egyptian election authorities eliminated three of the country’s leading presidential candidates in one broad stroke on Saturday night in an unexpected decision that once again threw into disarray the contest to shape the future of Egypt after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

The High Election Commission struck down 10 candidates in all, including the three who have generated the most passion in this polarized nation: Khairat el-Shater, the leading strategist of the Muslim Brotherhood; Hazem Salah Abu Ismail, an ultraconservative Islamist; and Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s former vice president and intelligence chief.

A little more than a month before the vote begins, the ruling raised new doubts about the credibility of the election, which is supposed to inaugurate a new democracy after decades of authoritarian rule. It capped a year of opaque decisions behind closed doors, shifting ground rules and timetables, conspiracy theories about who holds true power, turbulence in the streets and growing political polarization during the military-led transition after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.

And it comes at a time when the stakes of the presidential race have risen higher than ever: the Islamist majority in Parliament has clashed with the liberal minority over the writing of a constitution and with the military over the control of the government. Some warned it could set off new street protests.

At the same time, the commission, composed of five senior judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak, appeared to prove its independence, shutting down the candidate most linked to the Mubarak government and defying an angry mob of Islamists outside its door. It disqualified each of the candidates on narrow, technical grounds.

Explosive Revelations FROM EGYPT: Copts setup by Former Interior Minister Habib El-Adly

EIP News

Minister Habib El-Adly

By Assad Elepty
Right and Freedom for the Copts
 February 08, 2011

Johnny Cash in his popular song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”, says

“Well you may throw your rock, and hide your hand,

Working in the dark against your fellow man.

But as sure as God made black and white,

What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light.

You can run on for a long time, (rpt)

Sooner or later GOD’S gotta cut you down.”

How true those words are for Egypt’s former interior Minister Habib El-Adly, as he has just been cut down and his evil deviousness brought to light. The shocking news from Egypt is this evil man was the master mind behind the New Year Attack on the all saints Coptic Church in Alexandria.  Yes, the former interior Minister used the Copts as pawns as part of his
 wider political agenda to protect the NDP (Mubarak's ruling political party, the National Democratic Party) .

Egypt’s general prosecutor on Monday opened probe on former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly’s reported role in the New Year’s Eve bombing of al-Qiddissin Church in Alexandria in which 24 people were killed, an Egyptian lawyer told Al Arabiya.

The report is so damaging to Mubarak’s NDP, personal life long friend and confidant, that for some reason ”SBS did NOT show the daily Arabic news at 11.30am today”.

Laywer Ramzi Mamdouh said he had presented a proclamation to Egyptian prosecutor Abd al-Majid Mahmud to investigate news media reports suggesting that the former interior ministry had masterminded the deadly church attack with the intent to blame it on Islamists, escalate government crackdown on them, and gain increased western support for the regime.  Mahmud said the information contained in some reports were “serious.”

The proclamation, numbered 1450, pointed to the news reports sourcing a UK diplomat who explained the reasons why Britain has insisted on the immediate departure of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his regime, especially his interior ministry’s security apparatus previously directed by el-Adly. This is the same man that deployed 5000 security officers to attack 300 – 400 parishioners in a church on 24 November 2010.

According to UK diplomatic sources quoted in the reports, the former interior minister had built up in over six years a special security system that was managed by 22 officers and that employed a number of former radical Islamists, drug dealers and some security firms to carry out acts of sabotage around the country in case the regime was under threat to collapse.


The proclamation also pointed, sourcing reports on UK intelligence services,
that interior ministry officer Maj Fathi Abdelwahid of “preparing Ahmed 
Mohamed Khaled, who had spent 11 years in Egyptian prisons, to contact an
 extremist group named Jundullah and coordinate with it the attack on the
Alexandria church”.

Khaled (a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists
 groups) told the group he could assist with providing weapons he had
 allegedly obtained from Gaza and that the act was meant to ”discipline the 
Copts.”

After contact was made, a Jundullah leader named “Mohammed Abdelhadi”
 agreed to cooperate in the plot and recruited a man named “Abdelrahman Ahmed Ali” to drive a car wired with explosives, park it in front of the church and then leave it to be detonated by remote control, according to the report.
But Maj. Abdelwahid, who worked for the interior ministry, reportedly
 detonated the car before the Jundullah recruit got out, therefore killing 
him and 24 worshipers in the church. Killing him was imperative to 
protecting all those involved.

After the attack, the interior ministry officer asked Khaled to go meet the 
Jundullah leader in an Alexandria apartment and evaluate the success of the 
attack.

A few days later the two men met in an apartment in Alexandrian’s 
Abdel-Moneim Riad street. During their meeting Maj. Abdelwahid and his
 security forces raided the apartment and arrested them. They were then
 driven immediately by ambulance to an interior ministry building in Cairo.

They stayed in detention until Jan. 28 when the ministry of interior and its 
security system broke down allowing them to escape as did thousands of
 prisoners around the country.

When they fled, both the men went straight to the UK embassy in Cairo and
 told the story of how they were set up by the government to carry out 
terrorist attacks, according to the reports.

In light of these developments, one question is “will Mubarak stay true to
 his nation wide televised pledge to bring all those involved to Justice?”

The development comes a week after the US senate resolution demanding the Egyptian government hunt down and bring all those responsible to Justice.

There is no escaping the Mighty Hand of God, and those that attacked his 
Holy Church are been exposed by the same people they orchestrated this evil act with.

No doubt this will send shock waves around the world and place further
 pressure on the Mubarak Regime, “One of his own was the mastermind and
 schemer of the evil act”.

Let us not forget that Mubarak was quick to say “the attack was perpetrated
 by elements outside Egypt”.

The most important questions to be asked are, “was Mubarak privy to this evil plan, or was he sidelined and left out of the loop”?

“Was the newly appointed Vice president and ex chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman aware of this Plot”?

Swapping a Dictator for a Torturer in Egypt

James Ridgeway

 

Mubarik and Suleiman

This Can't Be Happening , February 4, 2011

As things now stand, the United States appears ready to have Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak tossed out in exchange for his newly-named Vice President, Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian spy master. That is, maintain the status quo by swapping one dictator for another. 

Of course, Israel must sign off on this deal aimed at assuring that Egypt can remain as America’s main base in the region, straddling as it does North Africa and the Middle East. Without that status quo, the U.S. would have to rethink its entire neo-colonial policies  in the region.
But Suleiman looks like a  nasty piece of work.  

You don’t get much about him in the US corporate media, but Agence France Press has pulled together the basics:

"For US intelligence officials, he has been a trusted partner willing to go after Islamist militants without hesitation, targeting homegrown radical groups Gamaa Islamiya and Jihad after they carried out a string of attacks on foreigners. A product of the US-Egyptian relationship, Suleiman underwent training in the 1980s at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School and Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina….

"After taking over as spy director, Suleiman oversaw an agreement with the United States in 1995 that allowed for suspected militants to be secretly transferred to Egypt for questioning, according to the book "Ghost Plane" by journalist Stephen Grey. ..

"In the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the CIA relied on Suleiman to accept the transfer of a detainee known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who US officials hoped could prove a link between Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The suspect was bound and blindfolded and flown to Cairo, where the CIA believed their longtime ally Suleiman would ensure a successful interrogation, according to "The One Percent Doctrine" by author Ron Suskind. A US Senate report in 2006 describes how the detainee was locked in a cage for hours and beaten, with Egyptian authorities pushing him to confirm alleged connections between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. Libi eventually told his interrogators that the then Iraqi regime was moving to provide Al-Qaeda with biological and chemical weapons. When the then US secretary of state Colin Powell made the case for war before the United Nations, he referred to details of Libi’s confession. The detainee eventually recanted his account."

Thus our loyal ally Egypt provided the fake information used by the United States to justify go to war in Iraq.

Stephen Soldz of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and  co-founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology  provided the following excerpts from authors who discussed Sulieman:
Jane Mayer, in The Dark Side, pointed to Suleiman’s role in the rendition program:

"Each rendition was authorized at the very top levels of both governments….The long-serving chief of the Egyptian central intelligence agency, Omar Suleiman, negotiated directly with top Agency officials.  [Former U.S. Ambassador to Egypt] Walker described the Egyptian counterpart, Suleiman, as 'very bright, very realistic,' adding that he was cognizant that there was a downside to 'some of the negative things that the Egyptians engaged in, of torture and so on. But he was not squeamish, by the way'" (pp. 113).
Stephen Grey, in Ghost Plane, his investigative work on the rendition program, also points to Suleiman as central to the program:

"To negotiate these assurances [that the Egyptians wouldn't 'torture' the prisoner delivered for torture] the CIA dealt principally in Egypt through Omar Suleiman, the chief of the Egyptian general intelligence service (EGIS) since 1993. It was he who arranged the meetings with the Egyptian interior ministry…. Suleiman, who understood English well, was an urbane and sophisticated man. Others told me that for years Suleiman was America’s chief interlocutor with the Egyptian regime — the main channel to President Hosni Mubarak himself, even on matters far removed from intelligence and security.

Suleiman’s role in the rendition program was also highlighted in a Wikileaks cable:
"The context of the close and sustained cooperation between the USG and GOE on counterterrorism, Post believes that the written GOE assurances regarding the return of three Egyptians detained at Guantanamo (reftel) represent the firm commitment of the GOE to adhere to the requested principles. These assurances were passed directly from Egyptian General Intelligence Service (EGIS) Chief Soliman (sic) through liaison channels — the most effective communication path on this issue. General Soliman’s word is the GOE’s guarantee, and the GOE’s track record of cooperation on CT issues lends further support to this assessment. End summary."

"Shortly after 9/11, Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was captured by Pakistani security forces and, under US pressure, torture by Pakistanis," writes Soldz. "He was then rendered (with an Australian diplomat watching) by CIA operatives to Egypt, a not uncommon practice. In Egypt, Habib merited Suleiman’s personal attention. As related by Richard Neville, based on Habib’s memoir":

"Habib was interrogated by the country’s Intelligence Director, General Omar Suleiman…. Suleiman took a personal interest in anyone suspected of links with Al Qaeda. As Habib had visited Afghanistan shortly before  9/11, he was under suspicion. Habib was repeatedly zapped with high-voltage electricity, immersed in water up to his nostrils, beaten, his fingers were broken and he was hung from metal hooks. That treatment wasn’t enough for Suleiman, so:

To loosen Habib’s tongue, Suleiman ordered a guard to murder a gruesomely shackled Turkistan prisoner in front of Habib – and he did, with a vicious karate kick.

After Suleiman’s men extracted Habib’s confession, he was transferred back to US custody, where he eventually was imprisoned at Guantanamo. His "confession" was then used as evidence in his Guantanamo trial."
 
JAMES RIDGEWAY, an occasional columnist with ThisCantBeHappening.net, is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones Magazine. For 30 years he was Washington correspondent for the Village Voice. He has his own blog called Unsilent Generation, where this article also appears.

Israel places resources at Suleiman's disposal "to protect the Egyptian regime"

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (C)
welcomes then Egyptian intelligence
chief Omar Suleiman in 2008

Middle East Monitor

Well-placed Israeli sources have disclosed that the Zionist state has offered to place "all its capabilities" at the disposal of General Omar Suleiman, the recently appointed Vice President of Egypt, for the "protection of the regime in Egypt". This offer includes the implementation of "various operations to end the popular revolution". Israel has also asked Suleiman to work on preventing arms being smuggled into the Gaza Strip.

An official in Benjamin Netanyahu's office said that the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu called Suleiman, who is also the director of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, and expressed his concern about the situation in Egypt. Netanyahu apparently suggested the possibility of Israeli intelligence personnel undertaking various specialist operations to bring an end to the demonstrations. The source added that Netanyahu and Suleiman also discussed ways of securing the border between Israel and Egypt.

The Hebrew newspaper Ma'ariv revealed that in recent days highly placed individuals in Netanyahu's office have conducted a series of telephone conversations with Suleiman to impress on the Vice President the necessity of coordinating on security with Israel. The telephone conversations were described as "urgent" and were designed to alert the Egyptians about the consequences of losing control of the tunnels described by many as Gaza's "lifeline" during the Israeli blockade. Israel is, claims Ma'ariv, concerned about increased activity in the tunnels "given the developments in progress inside Egypt" which have seen the Egyptian army "softening its anti-smuggling activities". In addition, it is claimed that there has been an increase in the number of illegal immigrants entering Israel from Egyptian territory.

Sources inside the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Israel does not rule out General Suleiman "sacrificing his ties to Israel in order to satisfy the Egyptian street and bestow a measure of legitimacy on his appointment in the general opinion of the public". Suleiman maintains strong ties with Israeli officials and was responsible for several files linked to the Zionist state, including those relating to the ceasefire and a possible prisoner exchange deal with Hamas.

Egyptian Regime Applies Israeli Plan to Crush Resistance

Kawthar Salem

The miserable and unwanted Egyptian regime headed by Hosni Mubarak has started to implementat the Israeli plan for crushing the revolution in Egypt. The zionists’ plan was prepared by the high ranks of the israeli military and presented by the office of the israeli prime minister to General Omar Suleiman, the head of the Egyptian intelligence who was recently appointed by Mubarak as his deputy. The plan aims at crushing and ending the peaceful protest demos which seek the end of the Mubarak regime, relying on the experience gained by the israeli intelligence while perpetrating atrocities against the Palestinian resistance and peace demos in over 62 years  in the occupied territories.

Mubarak’s speech last night Tuesday, delivered in Arabic, was the speech of an old terrorist, it was a declaration of war against the people and the nation of Egypt. Mubarak threatened in symbolic words which are ONLY understood by Arab people, but not by foreigners who must translate the Arabic language to English or other languages. In his speech, Mubarak implied that he intended to burn down Egypt over the heads of everybody, if the Egyptian people insisted in removing him from power before the end of his mandate as a President of Egypt.

Mubarak told the people with implied threats and in indirect words during his speech that they should “go screw themselves”, and that he wanted to stay ruling Egypt until the last day of September 2011. He further threatened the Egyptians and offered them to choose between “quite and security under his rule” or chaos without him. It was a clear that Mubarak was threatening the Egyptian nation, all the nation. His speech can only be compared to the message of a crazed Roman Emperor Nero in which he says that he wants to burn down all of Egypt before leaving. His attitude reminds everybody of the crazy Roman Emperor Nero, who chose to burn down Rome before his fall.

After his speech, Mubarak started implementing the plans of the Israeli war criminals, and sent gang of thugs riding horses, donkeys and camels for theatrical effect, to terrorize the peaceful demonstrators who refused and challenged his words, to deliver a deadly warning. Mubarak’s mafia of civilian police and and assorted thugs, most probably infiltrated with death squads sent from Israel, the violent groups seen on TV as “pro-Mubarak activists”, are armed. Until now, all of those captured have been found to be members of the secret police, the Intelligence (mukhabarat). During the whole day they have mounted armed attacks on the anti-government demonstrators in Cairo, who are only asking Mubarak to leave. Over 750 people have been injured until now, and the clashes continue.

It is now clear that the thugs of Mubarak were allowed by the Egyptian military to attack the opposition protesters. They dragged away the protesters and beat them with the connivance of the military, which clearly had received orders from the government to not intervene. Earlier, the military commander had called upon the Egyptians to return to a “new normal life with open schools, universities and organizations” as if nothing had happened during the last nine days, and as everything was over and forgotten.

The clashes began a mass of hundreds of violent demonstrators supporting President Mubarak brought with them more than 20 thousand supporters to encircle the outskirts of the Tahrir Place, entering from the side of the Egyptian Museum, the League of Arab States street and Al-Giza.


Pro-Mubarak “demonstrators” were riding horses, camels and donkeys. Several eyewitnesses said that the pro-Mubarak “demonstrators” were paid thugs and from the security forces from the ruling National Democratic Party wearing civil cloths. They started throwing stones and small pieces of metal before the arrival of a second bigger group of supporters of Mubarak, also riding camels and horses, and then they started beating the peaceful protesters with old truncheons and iron rods. Many climbed to the roofs of building overlooking Tahrir square and started throwing big stones at the demonstrators, and guiding their companions on the streets.

A new chapter of terrorism and bloody violence was started by the thugs of Hosni Mubarak, the unwanted President who is fighting to stay in power. The chapters of this new plan were drawn up in Israel, and handed over to the Egyptian authorities to be applied as stated. It was clear that the death squad and bullies and the civilian police were paid very well by the Egyptian regime and its strongest ally Israel. The question is, what will it serve them to pay these thugs to suppress and subvert the will of the people.