Under the above subject a professor Juan Cole talks about what he thinks are the 'myths' of the Arab Spring in a view to confirming what he saw in NATO-aligned news channels like foxNews and al Jazeera, we try to discuss each of the 'myths' to see where he was biased and where he might touch the truth.
"1. The upheavals of 2011 were provoked by the Bush administration’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq Bzzt! Wrong answer. None of the young people who made this year’s revolutions ever pointed to Iraq as an inspiration. The only time Iraq was even brought up in their tweets was as a negative example (“let’s not let ourselves be divided by sectarianism, since that is what the Americans did in Iraq.”) Americans are so full of self-admiration that they cannot see Iraq as it is, and as it is perceived in the Arab world. Iraq is not a shining city on a hill for them. It is a violent place riddled with sectarian hatred, manipulated by the United States, and suffering from poor governance and dysfunctional politics. I did interviewing with activists last summer in Tunisia and Egypt. The youth do not want to be like Iraq! They want to be like Turkey, or, now, Tunisia."
Under the first 'myth', the author talks about the crazy war the US former president George W Bush & his UK ally in crime Tony Blair waged on an independent sovereign country abbreviating the entire invasion of Iraq in 'overthrowing the leader of that country'. Obviously such a start is not promising one if you are seeking reality vs warmongering, however, we can tell the author that the invasion of Iraq was part of the NATO plan to take out 7 Middle Eastern countries starting with Iraq and including: Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran, a plan which was put in place 9 days after 9/11 and guess what? After the very high cost of invading Iraq and after the funds started drying up the NATO led by USA reverted to plan B which was already in process, a public revolution or uprising by the citizens of countries opposing NATO hegemony instead of directly getting involved, such revolutions were taking place in former USSR states and what was known as the Eastern Bloc of countries dubbed 'Colored Revolutions'. Lebanon worked in 2005 and they had to facilitate or for the time being we'll use the term 'abused' the assassination of a former Lebanese Prime Minister to ignite the 'Revolution'. Somalia was a huge stain in the memory so instead of invading they besieged the country till a famine was in place then fueled many sides who took arms against each other, till date. Libya, no need to remind the author that a 'Responsibility to Protect' 5,000 civilians from an alleged claim that the Libyan leader then Gaddafi wanted to kill, so they invaded the country and slaughtered over 60,000 civilians (& counting). The plan in Sudan was not that different from the one of Somalia where NATO fueled Southern Sudanese rebels and Darfour Rebels and even rebels to the east of the country under so many names and one reason 'Spreading Democracy', but no invasion was needed because the leader accepted the defeat and signed a deal to split one/third of his country and gift it to NATO agents. The biggest fails were Iran and now we're witnessing Syria. Iran 'Spring' was in 2009, and didn't work out in favor of NATO wishing because it's simply a founded civilization of thousands of years vs unfounded civilization of few decades, so deeply rooted intelligence won the battle and still fighting the war, and Syria now is almost the same redo of Iran. Of course Egyptian Mubarak was more dangerous because the guy was over 83 years of age, was very sick and wanted to pass the presidency to his son which would cause a huge chaos that might go out of hands so the USA orchestrated the 'ousting' of Mubarak to keep things under the control of their allies in the Military Council 'SCAF'. And the same goes for Tunisia Ben Ali, who was old and very weak in leadership or in other words: his political role expired; if you knew that he was selected by Italian intelligence to replace the former president Habib Bourguiba you'll know who controls his expiration date.
"2. President Obama was wrong to ask Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down. This position has been taken by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. It is a crazy thing to say. Mubarak could not have stayed in power, with nearly a million people in the streets and order breaking down in the country. If anything Obama was far too slow to act, and there was danger of Egypt turning seriously anti-American if he had not stepped in when he did. Trying to keep a dictator in power who has worn out his welcome is always a big mistake on the part of a great power, as was seen in the case of the shah of Iran."
Read our previous comment re the visit of Egyptian Chief of Staff to the USA to know how and who orchestrated the ousting of Mubarak, and who has the right to ask for it, keeping in mind that Mubarak refused to leave when asked by his friends in KSA and israel as well as he refused the calls by his people, he only left after Obama asked him! And just to prove how less informed the author is re the millions in the streets we refer him to this youtube video illustration (by the way, the entire post on gigapan.org was removed later for unknown reason - reduce the volume in the video and watch the doctoring of the photo that starts at 0:33 minute of the video).
"3. Muslim radicalism benefited from the revolutions in the Arab world. So far, at least, the beneficiaries of the upheavals have been both secular, left-leaning dissidents and Muslim religious parties. Neither is violent. In Tunisia, the new president, Moncef Marzouki, is a staunch secularist. The al-Nahda (Ennahda) religious party got about 40 percent of the seats in parliament. But neither sort of movement is radical or violent. Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is now peaceful and talks moderately, and is attacked for it by the radicals such as Ayman al-Zawahiri. Muslim radicals have not been able to take advantage of these largely peaceful movements in the way they could of George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, which really did fuel the spread of violent extremism. Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen argues that if democracy can be achieved in the Arab world, it will finish off violent extremism, which only flourishes under dictatorship."
In reply to this argument or 'Myth' as the author call it, we'll just point to his own point number 10 in the very same blog post where he literally says: "While it is true that the Muslim religious parties coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than were Ben Ali and Mubarak, the issue is more complex than that." trying to justify the stance towards israel the author contradicting himself, as in Tunisia the president he's referring to has less power than the govt ran by radical Islamist's now, and in Egypt it's the Military which is still in power although as he confirms that about 40% of the parliament seats are taken by the Muslim Brotherhood..! So did they benefit or they didn't, Mr. Author?! By the way, I think the author forgot to mention Libya which have a very radical Islamic rulers now with an extremists radicals controlling the rebels..
"4. Muslim religious groups spear-headed the revolutions. This allegation is made by Iran from one side and Western conservatives from the other. It is for the most part incorrect. Leftists, secularists, workers and students made the revolutions. The Muslim forces had often been devastated by government persecution and were weak (Tunisia) or had been made a junior partner in governance and were reluctant to risk entirely losing that position (Egypt). In Egypt, the revolutionaries are referred to in Arabic as the thuwar, and they are contrasted to the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces. In Egypt, it is these secularists and leftista who are are still calling for demonstrations in Tahrir Square. The most effective revolutionaries in Libya, the Berbers of the Western Mountain region and the urban street fighters of Misrata, were the least fundamentalist in orientation. While the Muslim religious parties may be good at organizing to win elections and so are perhaps the main beneficiaries of the revolutions politically, they did not make the revolutions themselves."
The term 'spear-headed' is so true the author used in denying it, because they were not planning it, but they were the tool behind the movements in financing it and in demonizing the govt to fuel the crowds by committing crimes under the guise of govt forces, their role is being uncovered in Syria where the Muslim Brotherhood branch had to carry out the jobs publicly and unashamedly because all their initial plots failed. Watch this interview with Dr. Webster Trapley reporting from Syria.
"5. The uprising in Bahrain was merely a manifestation of sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shiite. The protesters in Bahrain included reformist Sunni Muslims. And the conservative forces pressuring the king to crack down on the crowds included the country’s great merchant families which comprise both Sunnis and Shiites. The struggle in these islands, like that elsewhere in the Arab world, was over authoritarian forms of government versus popular democracy, accountability and transparency. The king’s constitution allows him to over-rule both houses of parliament, allows him to appoint the upper house, and allows it to over-rule the lower house. The Shiite protesters were upset that these arrangements, along with gerrymandering that reduced Shiite representation, preventing the majority from asserting itself (Shiites are about 58% of the population). But the discourse was about constitutional monarchy, not about Shiite rule or an Iran-style Shiite theocracy, with some small exceptions."
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"6. Iran was behind the uprising in Bahrain. There is no good evidence for this allegation, which is the basis for the Saudi and United Arab Emirates military intervention on behalf of the Sunni Arab monarchy. Bahrain’s Shiites are Arabs and probably a majority of them belong to the conservative Akhbari school of jurisprudence, which rejects ayatollahs in favor of the ability of laypeople to interpret the law for themselves. Bahrain Shiites of the Usuli school, prevalent in Iran and Iraq, are more likely to look for leadership to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, Iraq, than to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Bahrain’s Shiites claim educational and workplace discrimination, and dispute a constitution and electoral system that disadvantages them. They are not agents of Iran."
The author here writes with conscious because the fact in this case cannot be covered although he kept the last doubting words: "with some small exceptions"! However, we would like to thank him for unwillingly proving our first reply above that the plot is to demonize Iran among the other countries then to make it a target for radicals to attack, same thing that happened with Gaddafi's will to kill his own people, Mubarak and his $70 Billion as well as his ruthless oppression on peaceful protesters, and now president Assad of Syria whom they claim is shelling 'peaceful protesters with tanks' without providing a single proof, although there are over 65,000 video clips uploaded to the social networks, not a single one out of all of them actually shows a tank shelling anywhere, let alone protesters although again they show you so many tanks on roads.. well, thankfully it's not flying tanks. You can apply a small logic thing: a bullet can wound or kill a human being, a tank projectile can down a whole building, so imagine if one tank projectile was fired on thousands of 'peaceful protesters' flooding the streets!!
"7. The Arab Spring is a Western plot. This allegation was made by the Qaddafis in Libya and is currently asserted by many in Syria’s Baath Party. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is quite clear that the upheavals in the Arab world came as a surprise to the G8 nations, and were mostly at least initially unwelcome. France’s minister of defense offered help with police training to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia once the demonstrations got going last year this time. The US initially signalled support for Hosni Mubarak during the rallies against him of late January. Hillary Clinton said she was sure that the Mubarak regime was “stable.” Vice President Joe Biden was constrained to deny that Mubarak was “a dictator.” Obama only saw the writing on the wall with regard to Egypt at the last minute, and was starting to be a target of protest posters in Tahrir Square. The US was reluctant to lose an ally against al-Qaeda in Yemen such as Ali Abdullah Saleh, and still has never sanctioned him for killing hundreds of innocent protesters. Washington was likewise unhappy with the uprising in Bahrain, and at most urged the king to find a compromise (the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in the capital, Manama, and so the US did not feel itself in a position to support the protesters strongly). Obama was famously reluctant to get involved in Libya. There is substantial ambivalence over the upheaval in Syria, and so far the main form of intervention is targeted financial sanctions. If there is anything that is already clear as we catch history on the run here, it is that the uprisings were spontaneous, indigenous, centered on dissatisfied youth, and that and presented the status quo Powers with unwelcome challenges."
We refer you to our reply on point number 1, add to it the role of CANVAS Camp in Serbia and its heavy role in the 'Arab Spring' events and other colored revolutions as briefly explained here about Revolution U article in Foreign Policy Magazine and if we know that this camp is affiliated by many USA think tanks and we know the links of such think tanks to policy makers there.. we get a great idea how "spontaneous" and a "surprise to the G8 leaders" was the 'Arab Spring' and how it's away from being a "Western Plot". If you are familiar with Arabic or Turkish languages we ask you to visit our previous post to see an in-depth report on the role of CIA, US Think tanks, CANVAS and the 'surprising spontaneous public uprisings'.
"8. The intervention of NATO in Libya was driven primarily by oil. European sanctions on Libya began being dropped in the late 1990s, and US sanctions were lifted in 2004. Western oil companies had sunk billions into the Libyan petroleum sector by 2011, and it is highly unlikely that they would have wanted to risk instability there or the advent of a new government that might not honor their bids. The oil majors suffered substantial losses because of the loss of Libyan production last spring and summer. The conservative government of David Cameron in the UK and that of Nicola Sarkozy in France allegedly feared that if Qaddafi were allowed to crush the Libyan reformers by main force, he might drive them into the arms of al-Qaeda, as had happened in Algeria in the early 1990s. And, they may have feared that Qaddafi would provoke a big exodus to Europe at a time when European economies are poorly situated to absorb such immigrants in large numbers. Sarkozy may have felt the need for a quick victory to bolster his position in the polls ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Cameron, as a conservative, may have sought to rehabilitate the use of military force to enforce international order, which had been tarnished in UK public opinion by the Iraq disaster. Those who say Europe would not have intervened in the absence of the petroleum factor forget the Balkans, which presented similar challenges of massive violence on Europe’s doorstep. Likewise, oil isn’t everything; Bahrain has very little, and so it cannot explain Washington’s reluctance to lambaste the monarchy there. To argue that Western Europe had interests in Libya that drove its intervention is common sense. To peg everything to oil is vulgar Marxism."
Well, not only oil, you can add gas, you can read this article in NY Times for the race for Libya's oil, add to it the war on gas and the failure of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline project and the fact that Qatar has bought the Libyan oil for the coming 5 years at a fixed $80 a barrel to cover the cost of war, while at nowadays the barrel of oil is $99 & $107 at the time of writing this post, and the fact that Libya's share can reach 1.7 million barrels per day! France which was the 'spear head' for the NATO intervention in Libya secured third of Libya's oil production. So if it's not about oil and gas, was it really about the 'Responsibility to Protect' civilians from their dictator who wanted to kill 5,000 and they ended up killing over 60,000 of them?!
"9. The Arab dictatorships now overthrown or tottering were better for women than their likely Islamist successors. The postcolonial Arab states often pursued what my friend Deniz Kandiyoti of the School of Oriental and African Studies has called “state feminist” projects of female uplift. But because these policies were pursued by unpopular dictatorships, they created a male backlash. The Muslim Brotherhood’s patriarchal pushback against the upper class feminism of Suzanne Mubarak was a feature not of 2011 but of 1981-2010. The massive trend to veiling among Egyptian women took place in the past 20 years, not all of a sudden today. That is, “state feminism” often backfired because it was felt as intrusive and heavy-handed. Women’s progress was tainted, moreover, by association with hated dictatorships. Nor was Hosni Mubarak exactly Germaine Greer. Two of my Ph.D. students had their projects initially rejected by the Egyptian authorities because they included a focus on feminist issues, which were increasingly controversial in Mubarak’s dictatorship. If Tunisia and Egypt can now move to democratic systems, women will have new freedoms to organize politically and to make demands on the state. Nor can outsiders pre-define women’s issues. Their actual desires may be for social services, notably lacking under Mubarak and Ben Ali, rather than for the kinds of programs favored by the old elites. In any case, while women’s causes may face challenges from conservative Muslim forces, it is healthier for them to mobilize and debate in public than for faceless male bureaucrats to make high-handed decisions for women."
The first decision taken by the new Libyan ruler, who ironically was the justice minister under Gaddafi, his first decision when he 'celebrated the killing of Gaddafi' was to introduce Polygamy! and you can read this news article for some of such black fun. As for the Egyptian case you can read this article in The Stonegate Institute which we quote "There is no mistaking the Wahhabi foundation of the Nour Party's politics. Its male leaders and candidates affect the untrimmed beard cultivated by Wahhabis, in an alleged imitation of Muhammad. They claim to have a single real candidate: Muhammad. In an obvious mimicry of past Saudi-Wahhabi restrictions on women, the Nour Party relegated women candidates (whom Egyptian law required be included) to the bottom of their list to prevent any from being elected. The Nour Party's leader, Yasser Borhami, denounced participation by women in parliament as "corruption."" In Tunisia women might have a leverage over the other countries because the former president was more liberal to the extent that he prohibited any head scarf for women years before some European countries introduced the Burqa Ban covering only the face!!
"10. The Arab upheavals are an unmitigated disaster for Israel. This position has been argued by Netanyahu and others. While it is true that the Muslim religious parties coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than were Ben Ali and Mubarak, the issue is more complex than that. The Syrian National Council that is opposing the Baath Party in Syria has said that it will cease supporting Hizbullah and Hamas if it comes to power. The National Transitional Council in Libya is not anti-Israel. Moreover, you cannot gauge whether the changes are good or bad for Israel only by whether they might affect Israeli policy toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Dictatorships such as that of Mubarak were politically pathological, pursuing policies advantageous to the Israeli Right wing that were deeply unpopular with the Egyptian people. A democratic Egypt that actually represented public opinion would not necessarily be militant (no Egyptians want a return to a war footing), but it would be honest in its dealings with Tel Aviv. Israel has not been benefited by its denial of statehood to the Palestinians, by Mubarak’s corrupt collaboration in right wing policies, nor by the Syrian Baath Party’s cynical deployment of Palestine as a domestic issue. In a politically healthy Middle East, when Israel steals Palestinian land and water, it would get regional push back of a political and economic nature (as has finally started happening with regard to Turkey). That isn’t apocalyptic, it is politics. What has been wrong with Israel’s relationship with its Middle Eastern neighbors has been a lack of politics in favor of bribed sycophancy or ginned-up militancy, which has bred terrorism on the one side and arrogant hawkishness on the other. The changes in the Arab world, if they lead to more democracy, could well normalize Israel and Palestine in the region. It wouldn’t be the end of disputes, but it might be the beginning of the end of pathological politics."
This point by itself contradicts point number 3 as we explained above but if we think of the 'Arab Spring' as a product of NATO and US think tanks as we also explained above, this might be the only 'Myth' among the 10 the author mentioned, and it's exactly why the public and the majorities of Arabs were and still opposing the 'Arab Spring' and that's why we see it failing in Syria as we saw it failing in Iran where the stance against israel is very high because of the latter's continuous crimes and aggressive behavior towards the states in the region, its apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and its possession and development of weapons of mass destruction and mainly the nuclear ones.
We're sorry to point out that 9 out of 10 'myths' of the 'Arab Spring' the author tried to market were actually facts he tried to conceal in a method of taking over the minds of less informed readers who consists of the masses in the west in order to get their support towards completing the plan of controlling a region with rich resources and in the interest of israel only even if that would be at the cost of US & European citizens by using their tax money to commit crimes in their names and create enemies for their children.
Fortunately, the plot failing in Syria will have a huge counter effect and would correct all mistakes that the 'Arab Spring' has committed and to pass the same Spring onto those who invented it. We refer you to our post Is Obama Regime Next? for a future insight on how the USA is going to collapse into few states or blocs of states in the same way the USSR has collapsed, and how the EU will cease to exist as it is and hopefully such huge events will have less effect on the global scene than its real face value is.
"1. The upheavals of 2011 were provoked by the Bush administration’s overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq Bzzt! Wrong answer. None of the young people who made this year’s revolutions ever pointed to Iraq as an inspiration. The only time Iraq was even brought up in their tweets was as a negative example (“let’s not let ourselves be divided by sectarianism, since that is what the Americans did in Iraq.”) Americans are so full of self-admiration that they cannot see Iraq as it is, and as it is perceived in the Arab world. Iraq is not a shining city on a hill for them. It is a violent place riddled with sectarian hatred, manipulated by the United States, and suffering from poor governance and dysfunctional politics. I did interviewing with activists last summer in Tunisia and Egypt. The youth do not want to be like Iraq! They want to be like Turkey, or, now, Tunisia."
Under the first 'myth', the author talks about the crazy war the US former president George W Bush & his UK ally in crime Tony Blair waged on an independent sovereign country abbreviating the entire invasion of Iraq in 'overthrowing the leader of that country'. Obviously such a start is not promising one if you are seeking reality vs warmongering, however, we can tell the author that the invasion of Iraq was part of the NATO plan to take out 7 Middle Eastern countries starting with Iraq and including: Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran, a plan which was put in place 9 days after 9/11 and guess what? After the very high cost of invading Iraq and after the funds started drying up the NATO led by USA reverted to plan B which was already in process, a public revolution or uprising by the citizens of countries opposing NATO hegemony instead of directly getting involved, such revolutions were taking place in former USSR states and what was known as the Eastern Bloc of countries dubbed 'Colored Revolutions'. Lebanon worked in 2005 and they had to facilitate or for the time being we'll use the term 'abused' the assassination of a former Lebanese Prime Minister to ignite the 'Revolution'. Somalia was a huge stain in the memory so instead of invading they besieged the country till a famine was in place then fueled many sides who took arms against each other, till date. Libya, no need to remind the author that a 'Responsibility to Protect' 5,000 civilians from an alleged claim that the Libyan leader then Gaddafi wanted to kill, so they invaded the country and slaughtered over 60,000 civilians (& counting). The plan in Sudan was not that different from the one of Somalia where NATO fueled Southern Sudanese rebels and Darfour Rebels and even rebels to the east of the country under so many names and one reason 'Spreading Democracy', but no invasion was needed because the leader accepted the defeat and signed a deal to split one/third of his country and gift it to NATO agents. The biggest fails were Iran and now we're witnessing Syria. Iran 'Spring' was in 2009, and didn't work out in favor of NATO wishing because it's simply a founded civilization of thousands of years vs unfounded civilization of few decades, so deeply rooted intelligence won the battle and still fighting the war, and Syria now is almost the same redo of Iran. Of course Egyptian Mubarak was more dangerous because the guy was over 83 years of age, was very sick and wanted to pass the presidency to his son which would cause a huge chaos that might go out of hands so the USA orchestrated the 'ousting' of Mubarak to keep things under the control of their allies in the Military Council 'SCAF'. And the same goes for Tunisia Ben Ali, who was old and very weak in leadership or in other words: his political role expired; if you knew that he was selected by Italian intelligence to replace the former president Habib Bourguiba you'll know who controls his expiration date.
"2. President Obama was wrong to ask Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down. This position has been taken by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. It is a crazy thing to say. Mubarak could not have stayed in power, with nearly a million people in the streets and order breaking down in the country. If anything Obama was far too slow to act, and there was danger of Egypt turning seriously anti-American if he had not stepped in when he did. Trying to keep a dictator in power who has worn out his welcome is always a big mistake on the part of a great power, as was seen in the case of the shah of Iran."
Read our previous comment re the visit of Egyptian Chief of Staff to the USA to know how and who orchestrated the ousting of Mubarak, and who has the right to ask for it, keeping in mind that Mubarak refused to leave when asked by his friends in KSA and israel as well as he refused the calls by his people, he only left after Obama asked him! And just to prove how less informed the author is re the millions in the streets we refer him to this youtube video illustration (by the way, the entire post on gigapan.org was removed later for unknown reason - reduce the volume in the video and watch the doctoring of the photo that starts at 0:33 minute of the video).
"3. Muslim radicalism benefited from the revolutions in the Arab world. So far, at least, the beneficiaries of the upheavals have been both secular, left-leaning dissidents and Muslim religious parties. Neither is violent. In Tunisia, the new president, Moncef Marzouki, is a staunch secularist. The al-Nahda (Ennahda) religious party got about 40 percent of the seats in parliament. But neither sort of movement is radical or violent. Likewise, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is now peaceful and talks moderately, and is attacked for it by the radicals such as Ayman al-Zawahiri. Muslim radicals have not been able to take advantage of these largely peaceful movements in the way they could of George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, which really did fuel the spread of violent extremism. Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen argues that if democracy can be achieved in the Arab world, it will finish off violent extremism, which only flourishes under dictatorship."
In reply to this argument or 'Myth' as the author call it, we'll just point to his own point number 10 in the very same blog post where he literally says: "While it is true that the Muslim religious parties coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than were Ben Ali and Mubarak, the issue is more complex than that." trying to justify the stance towards israel the author contradicting himself, as in Tunisia the president he's referring to has less power than the govt ran by radical Islamist's now, and in Egypt it's the Military which is still in power although as he confirms that about 40% of the parliament seats are taken by the Muslim Brotherhood..! So did they benefit or they didn't, Mr. Author?! By the way, I think the author forgot to mention Libya which have a very radical Islamic rulers now with an extremists radicals controlling the rebels..
"4. Muslim religious groups spear-headed the revolutions. This allegation is made by Iran from one side and Western conservatives from the other. It is for the most part incorrect. Leftists, secularists, workers and students made the revolutions. The Muslim forces had often been devastated by government persecution and were weak (Tunisia) or had been made a junior partner in governance and were reluctant to risk entirely losing that position (Egypt). In Egypt, the revolutionaries are referred to in Arabic as the thuwar, and they are contrasted to the Muslim Brotherhood and other forces. In Egypt, it is these secularists and leftista who are are still calling for demonstrations in Tahrir Square. The most effective revolutionaries in Libya, the Berbers of the Western Mountain region and the urban street fighters of Misrata, were the least fundamentalist in orientation. While the Muslim religious parties may be good at organizing to win elections and so are perhaps the main beneficiaries of the revolutions politically, they did not make the revolutions themselves."
The term 'spear-headed' is so true the author used in denying it, because they were not planning it, but they were the tool behind the movements in financing it and in demonizing the govt to fuel the crowds by committing crimes under the guise of govt forces, their role is being uncovered in Syria where the Muslim Brotherhood branch had to carry out the jobs publicly and unashamedly because all their initial plots failed. Watch this interview with Dr. Webster Trapley reporting from Syria.
"5. The uprising in Bahrain was merely a manifestation of sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shiite. The protesters in Bahrain included reformist Sunni Muslims. And the conservative forces pressuring the king to crack down on the crowds included the country’s great merchant families which comprise both Sunnis and Shiites. The struggle in these islands, like that elsewhere in the Arab world, was over authoritarian forms of government versus popular democracy, accountability and transparency. The king’s constitution allows him to over-rule both houses of parliament, allows him to appoint the upper house, and allows it to over-rule the lower house. The Shiite protesters were upset that these arrangements, along with gerrymandering that reduced Shiite representation, preventing the majority from asserting itself (Shiites are about 58% of the population). But the discourse was about constitutional monarchy, not about Shiite rule or an Iran-style Shiite theocracy, with some small exceptions."
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"6. Iran was behind the uprising in Bahrain. There is no good evidence for this allegation, which is the basis for the Saudi and United Arab Emirates military intervention on behalf of the Sunni Arab monarchy. Bahrain’s Shiites are Arabs and probably a majority of them belong to the conservative Akhbari school of jurisprudence, which rejects ayatollahs in favor of the ability of laypeople to interpret the law for themselves. Bahrain Shiites of the Usuli school, prevalent in Iran and Iraq, are more likely to look for leadership to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf, Iraq, than to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Bahrain’s Shiites claim educational and workplace discrimination, and dispute a constitution and electoral system that disadvantages them. They are not agents of Iran."
The author here writes with conscious because the fact in this case cannot be covered although he kept the last doubting words: "with some small exceptions"! However, we would like to thank him for unwillingly proving our first reply above that the plot is to demonize Iran among the other countries then to make it a target for radicals to attack, same thing that happened with Gaddafi's will to kill his own people, Mubarak and his $70 Billion as well as his ruthless oppression on peaceful protesters, and now president Assad of Syria whom they claim is shelling 'peaceful protesters with tanks' without providing a single proof, although there are over 65,000 video clips uploaded to the social networks, not a single one out of all of them actually shows a tank shelling anywhere, let alone protesters although again they show you so many tanks on roads.. well, thankfully it's not flying tanks. You can apply a small logic thing: a bullet can wound or kill a human being, a tank projectile can down a whole building, so imagine if one tank projectile was fired on thousands of 'peaceful protesters' flooding the streets!!
"7. The Arab Spring is a Western plot. This allegation was made by the Qaddafis in Libya and is currently asserted by many in Syria’s Baath Party. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is quite clear that the upheavals in the Arab world came as a surprise to the G8 nations, and were mostly at least initially unwelcome. France’s minister of defense offered help with police training to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia once the demonstrations got going last year this time. The US initially signalled support for Hosni Mubarak during the rallies against him of late January. Hillary Clinton said she was sure that the Mubarak regime was “stable.” Vice President Joe Biden was constrained to deny that Mubarak was “a dictator.” Obama only saw the writing on the wall with regard to Egypt at the last minute, and was starting to be a target of protest posters in Tahrir Square. The US was reluctant to lose an ally against al-Qaeda in Yemen such as Ali Abdullah Saleh, and still has never sanctioned him for killing hundreds of innocent protesters. Washington was likewise unhappy with the uprising in Bahrain, and at most urged the king to find a compromise (the US Fifth Fleet is headquartered in the capital, Manama, and so the US did not feel itself in a position to support the protesters strongly). Obama was famously reluctant to get involved in Libya. There is substantial ambivalence over the upheaval in Syria, and so far the main form of intervention is targeted financial sanctions. If there is anything that is already clear as we catch history on the run here, it is that the uprisings were spontaneous, indigenous, centered on dissatisfied youth, and that and presented the status quo Powers with unwelcome challenges."
We refer you to our reply on point number 1, add to it the role of CANVAS Camp in Serbia and its heavy role in the 'Arab Spring' events and other colored revolutions as briefly explained here about Revolution U article in Foreign Policy Magazine and if we know that this camp is affiliated by many USA think tanks and we know the links of such think tanks to policy makers there.. we get a great idea how "spontaneous" and a "surprise to the G8 leaders" was the 'Arab Spring' and how it's away from being a "Western Plot". If you are familiar with Arabic or Turkish languages we ask you to visit our previous post to see an in-depth report on the role of CIA, US Think tanks, CANVAS and the 'surprising spontaneous public uprisings'.
"8. The intervention of NATO in Libya was driven primarily by oil. European sanctions on Libya began being dropped in the late 1990s, and US sanctions were lifted in 2004. Western oil companies had sunk billions into the Libyan petroleum sector by 2011, and it is highly unlikely that they would have wanted to risk instability there or the advent of a new government that might not honor their bids. The oil majors suffered substantial losses because of the loss of Libyan production last spring and summer. The conservative government of David Cameron in the UK and that of Nicola Sarkozy in France allegedly feared that if Qaddafi were allowed to crush the Libyan reformers by main force, he might drive them into the arms of al-Qaeda, as had happened in Algeria in the early 1990s. And, they may have feared that Qaddafi would provoke a big exodus to Europe at a time when European economies are poorly situated to absorb such immigrants in large numbers. Sarkozy may have felt the need for a quick victory to bolster his position in the polls ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Cameron, as a conservative, may have sought to rehabilitate the use of military force to enforce international order, which had been tarnished in UK public opinion by the Iraq disaster. Those who say Europe would not have intervened in the absence of the petroleum factor forget the Balkans, which presented similar challenges of massive violence on Europe’s doorstep. Likewise, oil isn’t everything; Bahrain has very little, and so it cannot explain Washington’s reluctance to lambaste the monarchy there. To argue that Western Europe had interests in Libya that drove its intervention is common sense. To peg everything to oil is vulgar Marxism."
Well, not only oil, you can add gas, you can read this article in NY Times for the race for Libya's oil, add to it the war on gas and the failure of the Nabucco Gas Pipeline project and the fact that Qatar has bought the Libyan oil for the coming 5 years at a fixed $80 a barrel to cover the cost of war, while at nowadays the barrel of oil is $99 & $107 at the time of writing this post, and the fact that Libya's share can reach 1.7 million barrels per day! France which was the 'spear head' for the NATO intervention in Libya secured third of Libya's oil production. So if it's not about oil and gas, was it really about the 'Responsibility to Protect' civilians from their dictator who wanted to kill 5,000 and they ended up killing over 60,000 of them?!
"9. The Arab dictatorships now overthrown or tottering were better for women than their likely Islamist successors. The postcolonial Arab states often pursued what my friend Deniz Kandiyoti of the School of Oriental and African Studies has called “state feminist” projects of female uplift. But because these policies were pursued by unpopular dictatorships, they created a male backlash. The Muslim Brotherhood’s patriarchal pushback against the upper class feminism of Suzanne Mubarak was a feature not of 2011 but of 1981-2010. The massive trend to veiling among Egyptian women took place in the past 20 years, not all of a sudden today. That is, “state feminism” often backfired because it was felt as intrusive and heavy-handed. Women’s progress was tainted, moreover, by association with hated dictatorships. Nor was Hosni Mubarak exactly Germaine Greer. Two of my Ph.D. students had their projects initially rejected by the Egyptian authorities because they included a focus on feminist issues, which were increasingly controversial in Mubarak’s dictatorship. If Tunisia and Egypt can now move to democratic systems, women will have new freedoms to organize politically and to make demands on the state. Nor can outsiders pre-define women’s issues. Their actual desires may be for social services, notably lacking under Mubarak and Ben Ali, rather than for the kinds of programs favored by the old elites. In any case, while women’s causes may face challenges from conservative Muslim forces, it is healthier for them to mobilize and debate in public than for faceless male bureaucrats to make high-handed decisions for women."
The first decision taken by the new Libyan ruler, who ironically was the justice minister under Gaddafi, his first decision when he 'celebrated the killing of Gaddafi' was to introduce Polygamy! and you can read this news article for some of such black fun. As for the Egyptian case you can read this article in The Stonegate Institute which we quote "There is no mistaking the Wahhabi foundation of the Nour Party's politics. Its male leaders and candidates affect the untrimmed beard cultivated by Wahhabis, in an alleged imitation of Muhammad. They claim to have a single real candidate: Muhammad. In an obvious mimicry of past Saudi-Wahhabi restrictions on women, the Nour Party relegated women candidates (whom Egyptian law required be included) to the bottom of their list to prevent any from being elected. The Nour Party's leader, Yasser Borhami, denounced participation by women in parliament as "corruption."" In Tunisia women might have a leverage over the other countries because the former president was more liberal to the extent that he prohibited any head scarf for women years before some European countries introduced the Burqa Ban covering only the face!!
"10. The Arab upheavals are an unmitigated disaster for Israel. This position has been argued by Netanyahu and others. While it is true that the Muslim religious parties coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than were Ben Ali and Mubarak, the issue is more complex than that. The Syrian National Council that is opposing the Baath Party in Syria has said that it will cease supporting Hizbullah and Hamas if it comes to power. The National Transitional Council in Libya is not anti-Israel. Moreover, you cannot gauge whether the changes are good or bad for Israel only by whether they might affect Israeli policy toward Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Dictatorships such as that of Mubarak were politically pathological, pursuing policies advantageous to the Israeli Right wing that were deeply unpopular with the Egyptian people. A democratic Egypt that actually represented public opinion would not necessarily be militant (no Egyptians want a return to a war footing), but it would be honest in its dealings with Tel Aviv. Israel has not been benefited by its denial of statehood to the Palestinians, by Mubarak’s corrupt collaboration in right wing policies, nor by the Syrian Baath Party’s cynical deployment of Palestine as a domestic issue. In a politically healthy Middle East, when Israel steals Palestinian land and water, it would get regional push back of a political and economic nature (as has finally started happening with regard to Turkey). That isn’t apocalyptic, it is politics. What has been wrong with Israel’s relationship with its Middle Eastern neighbors has been a lack of politics in favor of bribed sycophancy or ginned-up militancy, which has bred terrorism on the one side and arrogant hawkishness on the other. The changes in the Arab world, if they lead to more democracy, could well normalize Israel and Palestine in the region. It wouldn’t be the end of disputes, but it might be the beginning of the end of pathological politics."
This point by itself contradicts point number 3 as we explained above but if we think of the 'Arab Spring' as a product of NATO and US think tanks as we also explained above, this might be the only 'Myth' among the 10 the author mentioned, and it's exactly why the public and the majorities of Arabs were and still opposing the 'Arab Spring' and that's why we see it failing in Syria as we saw it failing in Iran where the stance against israel is very high because of the latter's continuous crimes and aggressive behavior towards the states in the region, its apartheid policies towards the Palestinians and its possession and development of weapons of mass destruction and mainly the nuclear ones.
We're sorry to point out that 9 out of 10 'myths' of the 'Arab Spring' the author tried to market were actually facts he tried to conceal in a method of taking over the minds of less informed readers who consists of the masses in the west in order to get their support towards completing the plan of controlling a region with rich resources and in the interest of israel only even if that would be at the cost of US & European citizens by using their tax money to commit crimes in their names and create enemies for their children.
Fortunately, the plot failing in Syria will have a huge counter effect and would correct all mistakes that the 'Arab Spring' has committed and to pass the same Spring onto those who invented it. We refer you to our post Is Obama Regime Next? for a future insight on how the USA is going to collapse into few states or blocs of states in the same way the USSR has collapsed, and how the EU will cease to exist as it is and hopefully such huge events will have less effect on the global scene than its real face value is.
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