Obama's Bagman For Egypt

AMY GOODMAN (on Democracy Now):. The official U.S. response to events unfolding in Egypt has been mixed. For days, the Obama administration has refused to call for President Mubarak to resign, but said an orderly transition of power was needed. But on Saturday, the U.S. special envoy, Frank Wisner, explicitly said Mubarak should not resign.

FRANK WISNER: The President must stay in office in order to steer those changes through. I therefore believe that President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical. It’s his opportunity to write his own legacy. He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country. This is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward, not just in maintaining stability and responsible government, but actually shaping and giving authority to the transition that has to be underway.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Obama administration’s special envoy to Egypt, Frank Wisner. The Obama administration responded to Wisner’s remarks by claiming he was speaking in his private capacity and not as U.S. envoy. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, quote, "We deeply respect the many years of service that Frank Wisner has provided to our country, but he does not speak for the American government."

Meanwhile, the British journalist Robert Fisk has revealed U.S. envoy Frank Wisner works for the law firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government’s behalf in Europe and the U.S."

To talk more about this, we’re joined by Vijay Prashad, who has written about Wisner’s appointment as U.S. envoy to Egypt and the close relationship he has had with President Mubarak. Vijay Prashad, professor at Trinity College, most recent book called The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World.

Your piece was called, Professor Prashad, "The Empire’s Bagman." Talk about who Frank Wisner is, who it is President Obama sent to Egypt, and why the U.S. ambassador to Egypt wasn’t the one who was talking with the government.

VIJAY PRASHAD: Yes, the point is a very good one, why Margaret Scobey herself was not in charge of the deliberations. Instead, President Obama turned to Frank Wisner, Jr. Frank Wisner, Jr., has had a 36-year career in the State Department. He is the son of Frank Wisner, Sr., a man very well known at the CIA, who was the operational chief to conduct at least three coups d’état—Arbenz in Guatemala, Mossadeq in Iran, and the attempted coup in Guyana. He was also, Frank Wisner, Sr., the man who created Wisner’s Wurlitzer, where the United States government paid journalists to go and do propaganda in Europe and in the rest of the world.

Frank Wisner, Jr., had a more steady career in the State Department, was the ambassador in Egypt between 1986 and 1991. During that period, he became very close friends with Hosni Mubarak and, at the time, convinced President Mubarak to bring Egypt on the side diplomatically of the United States during the first Gulf War. Subsequently, Frank Wisner was ambassador in the Philippines and then in India, before returning to the United States, where he became essentially one of the great eminences of the Democratic Party. One of the things he did during this recent period is author a report for the James Baker Institute, where he argued that the most important thing for American foreign policy is not democracy, which they treat as a long-term interest, but stability, which is the short-term interest. So, Frank Wisner, Jr., is seasoned State Department official, a very close friend of Mubarak, a man more committed to stability than democracy, and, yes, an employee at Patton Boggs, where one of the portfolios is for Patton Boggs to lobby on behalf of the government of Egypt.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Vijay Prashad, a professor at Trinity College. Now, what he said, Vijay Prashad, that he said Mubarak should remain in power, the man who works for the lobbying firm, well known, Patton Boggs, that is working for—that boasts about working for the Egyptian government, now saying that another client of his firm should remain in power.

VIJAY PRASHAD: Yes. It’s interesting that in that same speech he mentioned that Mubarak should be able to, in a sense, author his own legacy. I mean, he is probably speaking partly on the basis of this broad policy that he has, which is that stability is more important than democracy, and secondly, partly from friendship.

It should be said that the United States government has essentially been chasing events in this period. There are two pillars of U.S. foreign policy that they’ve been trying to maintain at the same time as not lose their credibility in the world. And the two basic pillars, the first one is to maintain Egypt as a close ally in the war on terror. That includes, of course, things like extraordinary rendition, but also includes Egypt carrying America’s buckets in places like the Arab League. The second important pillar is to ensure that whoever comes to power in Egypt, whether Mubarak or a Mubarak successor, will uphold the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. These are the two principal pillars of U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis Egypt. What the Obama administration, it seems to me, has been trying to do is to ensure that if Mubarak himself cannot carry these two pillars, then some successor, a Mubarak-lite, Mubarak number two, will come in and carry the pillars forward. The United States does not have the best record in, you know, helping its dictatorial friends in the long term. We’ve seen that with Manuel Noriega. We’ve seen that with Saddam Hussein. So, the friendship that Frank Wisner, Jr., has for Mubarak might be a little liability, but broadly put, his attitude towards Mubarak and the Mubarak regime is quite consistent with the broad outlines of the Obama policy and of the State Department.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Prashad, this issue of Wisner, not only what he has represented now, but coming—I mean, his father, also named Frank Wisner, long lineage in the CIA family, his father, Frank, Sr., helping to overthrow Arbenz in Guatemala and, the example that is often brought up today, a year before, overthrowing the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq. The parallels to what we are seeing today?

VIJAY PRASHAD: Yes. I mean, this is—you know, the tragedy of American foreign policy has been, on the one side, you’ve had the sort of CIA operations, and on the other side, you have the soft diplomacy, the kind of soft politics of the State Department. And we see that a little bit. As Frank Wisner, Jr., arrives in Cairo and goes to huddle with Mubarak and Omar Suleiman and others, Margaret Scobey, who, essentially cast aside by American foreign policy, goes to meet ElBaradei. This has been a big feature in American foreign policy. On the one side, you have sections in the State Department under the illusion that they are carrying forward a policy based on freedom and human rights, and on the other side, there is this much darker foreign policy apparatus conducted by the CIA special envoys, who are actually better called "proconsuls," and of course the United States military. There seems to be this contradiction at work, but it may not in the end of the day be a contradiction, because on one side you can say that the iron fist is being shrouded by the velvet glove. So, Margaret Scobey talking about human rights, going to see ElBaradei, talking about supporting the kind of upsurge of democracy, and on the other side, in much darker, more dangerous rooms, people like Frank Wisner, perhaps the CIA chief, discussing with Mubarak and Omar Suleiman how do we maintain your authority and change perhaps the face of that authority before the Egyptian people and the world.

AMY GOODMAN: And Professor Prashad, the issue of the money that the U.S. government has funneled into Egypt for decades, for the 30 years? We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars. Over the weekend, France announced it would not be giving military aid to Egypt, but the U.S. has not cut off the money flow, the weapons flow, as far as we know, and of course has not called for the immediate removal of Mubarak, the immediate resignation of Mubarak.

VIJAY PRASHAD: This is quite true. The Obama administration mentioned that they have been spending money on democracy promotion. But that’s just in the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 30 years. $1.3 billion a year goes towards military. Most of that goes towards subsidizing essentially the security apparatus of the Mubarak regime. So all the thugs that you see beating ordinary protesters, civil liberties people, etc., they are being essentially subsidized by the United States exchequer. You saw pictures from Tahrir Square of people holding tear gas canisters on which was written the words "Made in the U.S.A." This is very frustrating for people in the region to watch this subvention—on the one side, Israel being funded by the United States, on the other side, Egypt. This money is not going to end. I know that when Mubarak spoke to Christiane Amanpour, he looked very hurt. He said that the words of the President had hurt him. But it’s unlikely that when Washington says that we would like to see some progress towards a transition, anybody is saying, "We’re going to cut the money." Egypt is too valuable as an ally in the war on terror, and it’s too valuable as an ally for Israeli state interests, for the United States to start threatening a cut in that massive subvention that goes towards its military and security services.

How Aid to Egypt Is Returned to U.S.

As protests rage on in Egypt, the close relationship between the U.S. government and the regime of Hosni Mubarak has already garnered a lot of attention. But it's also worth taking a moment to examine the lobbying muscle that Egypt employs to secure its interests in Washington, including a mammoth $1.3 billion annual military aid package.

Seven firms are currently registered foreign agents for Egypt, including one, the Podesta Group, that has close ties to the Democratic Party and the Obama administration.

Founded by brothers Tony and John Podesta in the late 1980s, the Podesta Group has been retained by some of the biggest corporations in the country, including Wal-Mart, BP and Lockheed Martin. Tony Podesta's bio boasts that "if you want something done in Washington, DC, you go to Tony Podesta." After starting the firm, John Podesta went on to serve as Bill Clinton's chief of staff and, more recently, to found the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely associated with the Obama administration.

The Podesta Group counsels Egypt "on U.S. policies of concern, activities in Congress and the Executive branch, and developments on the U.S. political scene generally," according to forms filed with the Justice Department in 2009. 

Records also show Tony Podesta himself meeting with members of Congress, governors and generals in recent years to discuss U.S.-Egypt relations and the military aid package and to introduce Egyptian officials to American power brokers.

For this work, the Podesta Group has profited handsomely. The Egyptian government in 2007 signed a deal to pay $1.1 million annually, plus expenses, to the PLM Group, which was a joint venture of the Podesta Group and the Republican firm the Livingston Group. (That's the lobbying shop of former Louisiana congressman Bob Livingston, who, on the eve of becoming speaker in the late 1990s, resigned from the House following revelations of extramarital affairs.)

PLM Group agreed to lobby Congress "to facilitate approval of commercial and non-subsidized government-to-government arm sales, and to improve the terms of the aid package." PLM would also "provide general, high-level strategic advice relative to the Egyptian image among American decision-makers." 

ProPublica last year reported on work done in 2008 by lobbyists for Egypt to strengthen the military relationship with the U.S. governments and top defense contractors who sell arms to the Mubarak regime:

Lobbyists for Egypt had at least 279 contacts on military issues, the bulk of which occurred when PLM Group accompanied delegations of Egyptian military officers to meet members of Congress, administration officials and representatives from defense contractors — including BAE Systems, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. All five have done business with the Egyptian government, selling tanks, fighter jets, howitzers and radar arrays to its military.

--Salon

Obama's Mubarak Envoy A Patton Boggs Lobbyist

As the United States continues to press Egyptian officials to begin the “orderly transition” President Barack Obama called for on Tuesday night, more attention is being paid to Frank Wisner, the retired American diplomat who met with Hosni Mubarak on behalf of the administration this week.

In my colleague Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s profile of Mr. Wisner, she reported that the 72-year-old retired ambassador and businessman trusted with this delicate mission “joined the lobbying firm Patton Boggs” two years ago.

As the Mideast Wire blog noted on Tuesday, Mr. Wisner’s lobbying firm has worked on behalf of the Egyptian government for two of the three decades Mr. Mubarak has been in power.

According to a description of the lobbying firm’s experience in Egypt on its Web site:

Patton Boggs has been active in Egypt for 20 years. We have advised the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and have handled arbitrations and litigation on the government’s behalf in Europe and the U.S. Our attorneys also represent some of the leading Egyptian commercial families and their companies, and we have been involved in oil and gas and telecommunications infrastructure projects on their behalf. One of our partners also served as the Chairman of the U.S.-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, promoting foreign direct investment into targeted sectors of the Egyptian economy. We have also handled negotiation of offset agreements and managed contractor disputes in military sales agreements arising under the U.S. Foreign Military Sales Act.

-- posted in NYT

Obama Mubarak Policy Shifts With Tide Of Violence

We've all heard the political strategies that inform Obama's decision not to disown Egypt dictator Mubarak in the face of massive protests by the Egyptian people. We know that Egypt gets the most U.S. dough to back up its undemocratic regime, second only to Israel, who has not disowned Mubarak, either. Two billion dollars each year. Yesterday on Democracy Now!'s video news, we learned where that money goes: back to U.S. corporations.

1.3 of the 2 billion dollars given to Egypt are for security, mainly used in two ways: to buy U.S. weapons and to send U.S. technicians to keep them running. So that aid given to Egypt is a kind of money laundering, where U.S. corporations such as Boing, Lockheed-Martin, and GE end up with the dollars given to Egypt. Naturally, these corporations, like Obama, would like to see this system continue in countries like Israel, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. Perhaps that's why Obama's new Economic Advisory Board head is Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE.

UPDATE: On Feb. 1 Sen. Kerry posted an op-ed in the NYT suggesting that Mubarak not run in Egypt's Fall election, that more U.S. Aid be spent on the people and less on the military, and that the Obama administratio take that position. After the "million" citizens protest, Mubarak said he will not run again, but will remain in office until then, and Obama said he had suggested to Mubarak that he step down in an orderly transition.

UPDATE: All this week the Obama administration has been trying to catch up to the rapidly changing events in Egypt. By Thursday evening, Feb. 3, it's position is that Mubarak leave "now" and let his right hand man, the new VP, run the election. Meanwhile, as the VP apologizes for the violence against the protesters, the violence continues and journalists are being beaten, arrested, detained, disappeared, and harassed by paid thugs and Mubarak police in plainclothes, thought by many to be a sign of greater violence to come.

Michele Bachmann Sings

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the courses I took
But I do know one and one is three
And If you'll agree with me
What a wonderful T-Party we'll be



Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry
Don't know much about algebra
Don't know what a slide rule is for
But I do know one and one is three
And I know you agree with me
What a wonderful President I'll be

Why You're Not A Republican

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.

This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.

But that was then. Today’s G.O.P. sees much of what the modern federal government does as illegitimate; today’s Democratic Party does not. When people talk about partisan differences, they often seem to be implying that these differences are petty, matters that could be resolved with a bit of good will. But what we’re talking about here is a fundamental disagreement about the proper role of government.

Regular readers know which side of that divide I’m on. In future columns I will no doubt spend a lot of time pointing out the hypocrisy and logical fallacies of the “I earned it and I have the right to keep it” crowd. And I’ll also have a lot to say about how far we really are from being a society of equal opportunity, in which success depends solely on one’s own efforts.

But the question for now is what we can agree on given this deep national divide.

In a way, politics as a whole now resembles the longstanding politics of abortion — a subject that puts fundamental values at odds, in which each side believes that the other side is morally in the wrong. Almost 38 years have passed since Roe v. Wade, and this dispute is no closer to resolution.

Yet we have, for the most part, managed to agree on certain ground rules in the abortion controversy: it’s acceptable to express your opinion and to criticize the other side, but it’s not acceptable either to engage in violence or to encourage others to do so.

What we need now is an extension of those ground rules to the wider national debate.

Right now, each side in that debate passionately believes that the other side is wrong. And it’s all right for them to say that. What’s not acceptable is the kind of violence and eliminationist rhetoric encouraging violence that has become all too common these past two years.

It’s not enough to appeal to the better angels of our nature. We need to have leaders of both parties — or Mr. Obama alone if necessary — declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law. --Paul Krugman