The Egyptian Unrest: A Special Report

The Egyptian Unrest: A Special Report

www.stratfor.com

There is more to these demonstrations than meets the eye. The media will focus on the concept of reformers staging a revolution in the name of democracy and human rights. These may well have brought numerous demonstrators into the streets, but revolutions, including this one, are made up of many more actors than the liberal voices on Facebook and Twitter.

After three decades of Mubarak rule, a window of opportunity has opened for various political forces — from the moderate to the extreme...

(visit the link for the full news article)



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
Egypt: Be Careful What You Ask For!

Stratfor is a kind of private CIA that uses a subscription format. Normally a subscription costs several hundred dollars a year. They rarely allow their material to be re-published, but this is a happy exception and is allowed by them specifically.

They are basically saying here that every time one of these revolutions happens we in the West hail this as a victory for Jeffersonian Democracy, but in fact this could as easily wind up another extrame Islamist state like Iran that is anything but democratic and that it is we who are being manipulated into thinking otherwise, such as in my recent thread below - err - above. I didn't realize how this would split into two posts.

www.stratfor.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by schuyler


Star and Flag for you!! This is by far the best and most important thing I have seen on ATS all day!
Undoubtedly there is more going on there than meets the eye. We all need to pay attention to whats going on over there, beacsue this really could be the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.

reply to post by schuyler


There is an underlying current to this that is disturbing. Let's hope it doesn't materialize.
Things can go from bad to worse very quickly.

When you say that this thread is a "special" report, do you mean like "short bus" special?

reply to post by MMPI2


Clearly not. It is a Stratfor "Special Report". Usually they provide one free article a week, but when something particularly significant is occurring, like at the moment in Egypt, they tend to churn out a lot more free articles. These are in the form of short "Red Alert" articles, and larger and less frequent "Special Reports".

Here is an example of a "Red Alert", posted a few hours before the article in the OP:

The following is a report from a STRATFOR source in Hamas. Hamas, which formed in Gaza as an outgrowth of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), has an interest in exaggerating its role and coordination with the MB in this crisis. The following information has not been confirmed. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of concern building in Israel and the United States in particular over the role of the MB in the demonstrations and whether a political opening will be made for the Islamist organization in Egypt.

The Egyptian police are no longer patrolling the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. Hamas armed men are entering into Egypt and are closely collaborating with the MB. The MB has fully engaged itself in the demonstrations, and they are unsatisfied with the dismissal of the Cabinet. They are insisting on a new Cabinet that does not include members of the ruling National Democratic Party.

Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in destroying public property in order to give the impression that many protesters represent a public menace. The MB is meanwhile forming people’s committees to protect public property and also to coordinate demonstrators’ activities, including supplying them with food, beverages and first aid.

www.stratfor.com...

So, you are saying that the CIA wants us to know that an extremist regime could take form amidst the chaos?

And in your other thread, you compare it to Iran...

So in that case - the CIA must be afraid of losing influence in the country.

Viva la Revolucion!



ETA: Nope, thats not what you were saying. for me... gotta read it better.


This video makes similar points to the OP material:
post

This thread is NECESSARY.

When the government cant hold on to authority, every party from far left to far right will make a grab for power.

Not that i want to make a Nazi reference... But thats just how the NSDAP got power at the outset of Weimar, and how Lenin seized control during WW1

times, they are'a changin

okay I must be missing something because who really needs a 'special report" of a super secret agency to warn us that Eygypt is in danger of substituting it's current repressive totalitarian regime with and even more repressive this time antiwest totalitarian regime. there must have been over a hundred regime change coups since I can remember in various parts of the world ,NONE of them replaced their oppressive governments with anything like a free democratic human rights government,

which is why I'm against the violent overthrow of the US government we are just like theses Egyptians fighting hard for more slavery..

Live updates are available on your computer from:
Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

english.aljazeera.net...

Originally posted by MMPI2
When you say that this thread is a "special" report, do you mean like "short bus" special?

The way I understand the breaking news section is that it is mandatory to use the original headline, so that's what I did. However, looks like I messed up and should have put this in the breaking political section instead of breaking alternative. Sorry, first time I've used the breaking section and didn't quite get it.

Just a clarification. Stratfor is a PRIVATE intelligence company and not affiliated (AFAIK) with the CIA itself. You subscribe at an outrageous price and they send you situation reports from all around the world where they have on-site 'correspondents.' My sense is that their customers are largely corporate or government types who can give the bill to their companies since individuals would have a hard time affording it. I usually try to plead "retired" and try to hit their 'specials; to get a discount. I just renewed for $249, which is $100 off. They claim to be unbiased (Of course, so does CNN) and I'd have to say they are at least calm and unemotional and I've never heard them take sides.

They are also reporting that the border between Egypt and the gaza Strip is not being patrolled and that Hamas fighters are streaming across the border, armed. That can't be good. Stratfor, BTW calls the Muslim Brotherhood a moderate group/

My sense is that the various factions in the Middle East are seeing this as a free for all and an opportunity to try to take control. Strafor obviously feels the military is in charge and will decide the fate of the country.

I used to have access to these extremely expensive publications. I read the article you first posted and my opinion is that it is what I call (and am well versed in) international studies rhetoric. My stance is that you are not working to break the parameters of the paradigm policy makers world wide have set up for you to analyze situations from within.

The shear scale of these uprisings makes them different from the supposed lawyer led uprisings we saw a couple years ago in Pakistan. Those uprisings were part of a larger attempt by TPTB to reconstruct that region- a mission they have been on for decades. The uprisings in Egypt are different---- especially if YOU help them to be different. I agree with a previous poster: Egypt's standard of living has drastically changed and the people know why. They know that their government is not there for them. It doesn't seem as though they have a plan...it's hard to have a plan for something this big. Naomi Klein discusses this problem often. It's difficult to react in a constructive manner when society is in shock.

My hope is that all this rhetoric about democracy and the military vs the government is buried in discussion about HOW BRAVE AND HOW PROACTIVE the Egyptians have been in saying WE NO LONGER WANT TO NEGOTIATE OR TALK WITH THE GOV'T BECAUSE IT IS NOT OUR GOV'T.

Talking about vacuums of power is only furthering the notion that people can't find another way to exist, another way that breaks the parameters of the paradigm humans world wide have had presented to them.
Essentially, this article that you sited assumes that the people of Egypt want a military. I venture to say, when they talk amongst themselves, that they want gardens and clean water not more budgets that focus on bureaucracy or militarization.

reply to post by schuyler


Stratfor is a mercenary corporation. This kind of "unrest" is their bread-and-butter: their livelihood. And it benefits them to interpret the information in ways that require intervention, AKA government funding and contracts.

They have partners and some "competition" in the military industry, for example:

Former Spy With Agenda Operates a Private C.I.A.

...There's some good information and analysis in the document, but it needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt.

reply to post by soficrow


Indeed, I have a close friend who was Naval Intel in Colorado during his 6 year stint in the reserves. He did not ever divulge much but he did tell me that statfor was a staple source of info that we was told to utilize when doing research on intercepted comm (the Colorado stations seem to be geared for that specifically, why else would there be Navy in Colorado, right? LOL).

Obs out

reply to post by observer


Thanks for the ...validation, observer.

reply to post by K8sarvesbarkooh


That sounds very much like the "freedom" rhetoric during the Iranian revolution. Didn't turn out so well for them though, did it? Instead of the dictatorship of the Shah they have the dictatorship of radical Islam. Same thinh happened in the Gaza Strip. "Democracy" elected hamas, who then shut down the democracy. I don't really care what anyone thinks about Stratfor; it's just that you rarely get to reprint their stuff and I thought folks would be interested in their perspective. Naturally, their approach does not appeal to viva revolucion folks who, IMO, are more interested in listening to their own rah rah rhetoric than a dispassionate analysis of events. I certainly respect Stratfor's analyses more than I do personal opinion expressed here.

For those interested, according to Stratfor, the Egyptian Army and the separate Internal Security Forces (ISF) have historically been at odds with one another. The ISF and the police are separate entities, BTW. Right now the "struggle," if you will, is between these two main groups who appear and disappear mainly to thwart each other. The ISF has allegedly been behind much of the recent unrest, staging break-ins and robberies in order to portray the demonstrators as violent. The Army, for its part, has been, at least so far, benign toward the demonstrators.

Demonstrators, whomever they may be, have broken into the Egyptian Antiquities Museum and trashed many of the exhibits (in the name of freedom, I guess.) in an attempt to steal the treasures of King Tut. Good thing I saw the museum last November. I also met a couple of ISF guys. They wear business suits and carry .45's. They were very pleasant, but they don't talk much. Of course, I wasn't in their way and their job was to guard ME. I just wonder what those guys are doing now.

The Egyptian economy depends on tourism and Suez Canal fees. Both of these will now be suspended, of course, worsening the plight of many. That kind of begs the question of the standard of living for Egyptians. Before the peace treaty with Israel, few Egyptians had any kind of communications at all and they were all dirt poor. Today the freeways (Yup, they have them) are clogged with traffic and everyone runs around with a cell phone to their ear. BTW there are very few traffic lights in Cairo, a city of 20 million. They just go for it. Freeway lanes are optional. If there are four painted lanes one way, they make six out of the space. It's amazing to see. As one Egyptian told me, "We trust each other." (as far as driving goes, he said.)

Of course, this unrest will kill tourism entirely in the whole region, even into Israel. I was in Turkey a few years ago at an archaeological site where they had a public restroom. The deal wa sthat you paid a quarter to us ethe restroom to a guy who kept them (more or less) clean. The cleaner had his entire family with him, so I paid my coin. he grabbed me by the arm and said, "God damm Sadam!" I'm a bit startled as he runs me over to his little cart where he shows me a cigar box. The bottom had a few bills in it. He repeated himself and in broken English I got the story. The Gulf War (#2) was about to start. The US 2nd Army was parked in a harbor in Ismir, Turkey, and as a result of the turmoil tourism dried up. The cruise lines no longer stopped in Ephesus. This guy made his living cleaning the restroom, but the tourists were not there in sufficient numbers for him to make a living. This guy was no dummy. He knew what the problem was and whom to blame.

The irony here is that Mubarak was already on his way out and has been for the last year. It was just a matter of when. He and the Army have been at odds over who would succeed him. He wanted his son, Gamal (sometimes written Jamal), but the Army did not want that because Gamal was not a military man, as every previous president has been. They wanted an air force general to be appointed vice president and to succeed to the presidency. Obviously, Mubarak has not done that.

Given how the Army has treated the demonstrators, one can't help but wonder if the Army isn't attempting to take advantage of the demonstrators to finally get Mubarak out. The wrinkle is the ISF, whose back must be broken to let the Army take over, plus all the jihadists running into the country with AK-47s.

Originally posted by hybridkate
reply to post by schuyler

 

Star and Flag for you!! This is by far the best and most important thing I have seen on ATS all day!
Undoubtedly there is more going on there than meets the eye. We all need to pay attention to whats going on over there, beacsue this really could be the beginning of the end of the world as we know it.

Just so you know the Muslim Brotherhood was behind these protests i have seen a news article where the Muslim Brotherhood was bribing the protesters with food.

This why i told ATS users in one of the Egypt threads don't jump on the bandwagon, don't support the protests lets see and wait what happens after.


Muslim Brotherhood wants to Install an Islamic state and the Islamic law just so not only they will have the power to attack Israel but they will have the power to destroy the last remaining christians in egypt.