Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Cablegate And Egypt : Reactions in The Region

We are still with the Cablegate , I am sorry if I am not covering the elections circus as I should but the Cablegate is completely ignored in our mainstream media and this is where our role as bloggers comes.
First of all the U.S Embassy in Cairo has issued an official press statement on the Wikileaks. The statement is contradicting itself as Margret Scobey says :
The owners of the WikiLeaks website claim to possess some 250,000 classified documents, many of which have been released to the media. These documents were purportedly downloaded from U.S. Defense Department computers and appear to contain U.S. diplomatic personnel’s assessments of policies, negotiations, and leaders from countries around the world, including Egypt, as well as reports of private conversations with people inside and outside other governments. “Whatever WikiLeaks’ motives are in publishing these documents, releasing them poses real risks to real people. We deeply regret the disclosure of information that was intended to be confidential. And we condemn it. For our part, the United States Government is committed to maintaining the security of our diplomatic communications and is taking steps to make sure they are kept in confidence. We are moving aggressively to make sure this kind of breach does not happen again.
So at first she says that the Wikileaks website “claim” then she says that documents were “purportedly downloaded from U.S. defense department computers” and continued speaking that these documents are authentic and original to that the U.S government is deeply sorry for the disclosure of this information !!

Scobey herself is in a deep trouble after all she made not so pleasant remarks about Mubarak who would wage his finger in front every American official reminding them that he had warned Bush and Cheney against Iraq invasion !!?? The press statement from Cairo comes after the press conference of Hilary Clinton yesterday about the Wikileaks. There is no doubt that this is a huge challenge to the Obama administration.
Wikileaks
Despite Cairo has not officially addressed the Cablegate other capitals in the region began to react. Saudi Arabia, at last commented on the leaks , the leaks do not concern the Kingdom  and there is no way to assure the authenticity of these documents thus there will be no comment on what came in the cables !!Saudi Arabia is being portrayed in the cable as a country that supports a war against Iran. Iran has attacked the WikiLeaks and considered its leaks as dubious and a Western scheme against Iran.
Such documents was part of an effort to sow discord among regional countries and fuel Iranophobia in the region.
Very smart move from Tehran , seriously very smart move. Israel thinks the Wikileaks’ cables are good because they showed how hated Iran in the region is.
I do not know when or how the presidency in Egypt will react towards this scandal , of course, the Egyptian regime depends on the fact that regional Arab media is speaking generally about the Wikileaks avoiding to go deep for fear the anger of their rulers and the rulers of sister countries. May be they will wait to see more reactions , already depending on the reaction of presidency on Bush’s book we should wait till the end of next month !! The ministry of foreign affairs told Time magazine that it was still weighing the documents and was not yet prepared to respond.
The national media is busy in the elections circus whether willingly or unwillingly as they have began to speak generally on the Wikileaks  , all printed media is speaking on how President Mubarak warned the Americans from the invasion of Iraq and how he declined to participate in the war on Gaza ; that’s it. Nothing is mentioned about how Mubarak called the Iranians are big fat liars or how Gamal Mubarak spoke about Bashar Al Assad or how Omar Soliman bragged about our spies in Iran, Iraq and Syria.The Egyptian mainstream media is allowed to speak about our Arab sisters countries but also with in the limits.
Of course, when it comes to Iran , everything is allowed.
Original Dostor website has been publishing a full translation of the cables in Arabic still the name of Omar Soliman is not mentioned for some legal issues I suppose. I think Dostor website is the only Arabic website that started to translate the cables.
The translated cables are the ones are related to Egypt. There are currently talks online to have a website in Arabic dedicated for the cables in the Arab world or related to the Arab world.
International media spoke about Egypt in the cables , mostly criticizing and highlighting how Hosni Mubarak was attacking the Iranians. The old man of the middle east seemed to be careful about the public anger and opinion despite what it is obvious in front of us.
Former presidential candidate Dr. Ayman Nour commented on the Wikileaks saying that he is so grateful to God when he knows that Mubarak gets angry and furious whenever he hears his name.
By the way, I think you should watch this interview of Noam Chomsky in Democracy Now , Chomsky was like Julian Assange in 1970s

1 comment:

  1. Cablegate also showed clearly how Iran faciltated the invasion of Iraq through its militias that are working against the Iraqi resistance.

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