All posts tagged: the guardian

From the Archive: Being with “The Bad Guy” on a Big Day

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Qaddafi is a topic of conversation in and of himself, and his family an entirely separate discussion as well. He is the center of gravity of his own regime, naturally. The U.S. has announced it is not engaging in regime change (although not quite in those words), but has struck the compound where he resides with a missile. On another war front, Der Spiegel has announced to an e-mail list of its subscribers that in its print edition to hit news stands tomorrow, it will publish three images of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghan civilians. The Washington Post writes, “The photos are among several hundred the Army has sought to keep under wraps as it prosecutes five members of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, for the alleged murders of three unarmed Afghan civilians last year.” The consequences may prove more devastating than the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Guardian follows up with additional details about a dozen members of the unit, already on trial in Seattle and confronting life in prison or the …

To Borrow a Title, Revolution: A User’s Manual

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In 2006, I attended an event at the New York Public Library, “Revolution: A User’s Manual,” with Adam Michnik, Baltasar Garzon, Giaconda Belli and G.M. Tamas and moderated by Christopher Hitchens. It was my first encounter with Michnik; we would meet again a year and a half later one October day in his Warsaw office to discuss German MP Erika Steinbach’s efforts to build a Center Against Expulsions in Berlin and the prickly question of monuments and historical memory. A partial reading, watching and listening list relevant to the craft of revolution since the manuals are being rewritten yet again. Links to source material from this and past revolutions is provided when available free and online: 60 Minutes/CBS News, “Wael Ghonim and Egypt’s New Age Revolution.” Airdate: February 13, 2011. Al Jazeera English, “Egyptian Actor Supports the Protesters.” Airdate: February 1, 2011. “They think they can hijack 85 million voices saying ‘enough.’” – Khalid Abo Al-Naga The Atlantic Tumblr, “The Most Subversive Protest of All: An Egyptian Protestor [sic] Kisses a Riot Police Officer.” January …

From the Archive: Revolutionary Times

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Yesterday, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned after 30 years at the helm of Egypt following 18 days of protests across the nation. Over 300 people are estimated to have died for Egypt’s revolution to succeed. The protests turned violent at times as Mubarak clung to power, yet in the end once the fear barrier was crossed and blood was shed, there was no turning back for the Egyptian people. After 30 years, no Egyptian was prepared to return to living as they had once lived. In my lifetime, the world has witnessed few such truly revolutionary moments. Nineteen eighty nine is the natural crutch or starting point for discussion in the twenty-first century; this is a mistake. Timothy Garton Ash, author of The Polish Revolution, rightly reminded readers of The Guardian that this is not 1989 and nor is it Tehran 1979. Nor is it 1917, 1848, 1789. It is Cairo in 2011. Today, Egypt will wake up with a profound hangover and Egyptians will slowly come to the realization that democracy not only takes …

Cablegate Continued: The System Is Watching and Other Sordid Tales From the Day’s Affairs of State

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Accessing the WikiLeaks site has gotten difficult, if not impossible now despite mirror sites and domain names registered at last check in France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. However, those that visit the site undoubtedly receive a malware infection pretty fast. Similar tactics took down The Guardian’s website yesterday when it attempted to host a live, online chat with WikiLeaks founder, Interpol fugitive, and known loon, Julian Assange. I hate to ask an obvious question of Mr. Assange, but how does he expect a nation-state, a superpower notably to react? If he gets away with it, so can anyone and the United States of America cannot have that. Joking aside, there is a serious, massive question of what to do with Mr. Assange, how to prosecute him, all the while keeping in mind he may have made himself into a willing martyr of the data revolution and that the U.S. arsenal includes everything from drones to nuclear weapons, neither of which will be used in this case given the strategic predicament. To date, there has been …

The Day in Cablegate: As The World Turns…

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The cache of news and events surrounding the WikiLeaks Cablegate affair for December 3, 2010: WikiLeaks loses American domain server, wikileaks.org, moves to Swiss, wikileaks.ch, which also appears to be down at present: “WikiLeaks Dropped by Domain Name Provider,” The Associated Press “WikiLeaks Vanishes From Web As U.S. Company Removes DNS Support,” The Guardian Update from Amazon in The Wall Street Journal on the fairly obvious reason why WikiLeaks got booted off its servers (violation of its Terms of Service): “Amazon Says WikiLeaks Violated Terms of Service,” Wall Street Journal 8:37AM EST – The Guardian is holding a live webchat with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as soon as it can: “WikiLeaks cables: Live Q&A with Julian Assange,” The Guardian 9:32AM EST – Crippling attacks continue, take down Guardian website during online Q&A with Assange: “WikiLeaks fights to stay online amid attacks,” The Associated Press “WikiLeaks’ Assange to Fight Any Extradition: Lawyer,” Reuters “WikiLeaks Struggles to Stay Online After Cyberattacks,” The New York Times “Julian Assange Answers Your Questions,” The Guardian Afghanistan: “Foreign Contractors Hired Afghan …

The Best in WikiLeaks Cablegate Coverage from News Sites Around the World

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December 2, 2010: “El ‘antiamericano’ Garzón tuvo especial seguimiento,” El Pais [in Spanish] Published under a headline on the homepage of the website, “El ‘antiamericano’ Baltasar Garzon” – photographs of Baltasar Garzon on Amanda Rivkin PhotoShelter archive. “Mafia Analogy for Aliyev Dynasty: Ilham Aliyev and Corleone Brothers (Wikileaks),” AzeriReport ” In US diplomatic cables newly released by Wikileaks, Aliyev clan’s rule over Azerbaijan is compared to mafia, specifically to the Corleones family in the famous ‘Godfather’ movie series. Ilham Aliyev himself ‘described alternately as a mix of “Michael” and “Sonny.”‘ Maintaining ‘a clever, realistic foreign policy’ that he inherited from his father, he reminds of the cold-calculated alliance builder Michael Corleone. But his domestic policies, with crude retaliation against even minor challenges to his authority and criticism, resemble the ‘brash, impulsive’ Sonny Corleone.” related posts: “Mafia Analogies for the Aliyev Family in WikiLeaks/U.S. State Department Cablegate: Is He Michael or Sonny?” Includes links to relevant background articles and blog posts to understanding the Aliyev/Corleone cable: “Donkey Video,” Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizade/OL! “Shown Trial,” Fortnight …

“A Caususes Wedding,” A Pictoral Accompaniment to the Cable of the Same Name

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The recent “Cablegate” affair, 270,000 of leaked U.S. Department of State cables, appearing on the Wikileaks website and excerpted in five newspapers, The New York Times, El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian simultaneously, has prompted wide disclosures of snarky observations about foreign leaders by U.S. diplomats abroad, disclosed to the world that Arab governments across the Middle East hoped Israel would attack Iran – positions they never would take publicly, and brought out a host of regional and national issues in a series of countries across the globe from Argentina to Albania to Pakistan. But consensus appears to be that a single cable, “A Caucuses Wedding,” by Deputy Chief of Mission to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Daniel Russell, contains some of the finest prose, wittiest detail and overall storytelling. Although not Dagestan, these Bakuvian wedding pictures reveal some commonalities and quotes from the original cable have been excerpted in the caption section of the photographs when you click them open. Without further ado, a proposed pictoral accompaniment from last July in …