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May 23, 2013
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 Dispatches From Cairo: Blood, Money and RevolutionPosted on Feb 23, 2012
(Page 2) On subsidized-fuel distribution days, when the trucks come by with their loads of big, rusty butane canisters, the people crowd around and fights inevitably break out. Recently these scuffles have become a little more aggressive amid the fuel shortage, which may be either real or tactically created by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The SCAF has used techniques of this sort often in the past to distract public attention from other inconvenient focuses. People who scrabble to get fuel but miss out because there are not enough canisters to go around may return to dirt-floor homes to watch their old television sets and be told by broadcasters that fuel was sold to Israel for a fraction of its worth because of a contract made by economic advisers of deposed President Hosni Mubarak under pressure from the U.S. and as part of the 1978 Camp David treaty … all of this information as usual bearing only a faint semblance to the truth but effectively raising the levels of suspicion and xenophobia. When I talked with my landlady, she tsked-tsked when I mentioned the fuel shortages and our sky-rocketing electric bills. No one is unaffected by the trickle-down effect of this crisis. She agrees that it may be a government strategy to punish the people and keep them dependent on subsidies. She has seen that before. Those still demonstrating in Tahrir Square are no longer revolutionaries, she believes—they are now only vandals and other bad people, there because they have nothing else to do besides make trouble. According to the state television, there have been thefts and break-ins at stores, which is a new development in the Egyptian “white revolution.” Advertisement And yet, this fuel shortage is so odd. In December, a joint venture was contracted between the U.K.’s Dana Petroleum and the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corp., which owns 70 percent of the Egyptian Natural Gas Co., as well as at least 38 industry-related companies. The details of the Egyptian corporation’s revenues and beneficiaries are deep within the black box of the obscure economic cabal of the government. The new venture will produce oil and gas from a concession on the Gulf of Suez. Egypt’s Petroleum Minister Abdallah Ghorab, commenting at the North Africa Technical Conference and Exhibition, which focused on managing hydrocarbon resources, said at the Feb. 20-22 Cairo gathering that international investors had pledged $8 billion in petroleum investments this year. The petroleum risk manager for the consultant firm PFC Energy, Hanan Amin-Salem, stated that the industry’s primary concern is not in fact political instability but “economic populism.” “Egypt faces potentially incendiary inflation if the central bank reserves fully deplete in the next several months, as expected, which could trigger further political unrest,” she added. Addressing investors’ worries about Egypt’s political future, Amin-Salem with a pointed look asked the audience, “Who’s in charge of economic policy?” Shell VP John Berry optimistically assured his listeners that increased global demand for oil and gas, as well as dwindling reserves, would cause the sector to continue to expand. “Petroleum production will require both more money and more ‘gray brain cells’ per barrel,” he said, referring to the development of new extraction technologies. “Egypt’s more mature oil fields may be ready for EOR [enhanced oil recovery],” and “powerful friends” such as the United States. Berry said further: “Egypt needs to create a climate where people who know what needs to be done will be able to do it. We need a good leader to create such a climate.” Sherif Ismail Mohamed, managing director of Ganope (Ganoub El-Wadi Petroleum Co.), one of the five branches of the Petroleum Ministry, talked about the critical issue of fuel subsidies, citing the necessity of reducing petroleum subsidies for the poor on the grounds that they are economically unsustainable and encourage smuggling. Meanwhile, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s son and a handful of other American NGO employees—staying at the luxurious U.S. Embassy in Cairo—are awaiting trial. Workers of the U.S.-funded International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House and 14 non-U.S. organizations, most of whom are surely without ulterior motives in their humanitarian purposes, were charged in the crackdown on NGOs. The SCAF has jockeyed to simultaneously appease the escalating anti-American sentiment among Egyptians and to reassure the military’s U.S. and other collaborators of the soft outcome of trials intended to be demonstrations of Egyptian national sovereignty. The move against the NGOs was driven by a powerful woman, Fayza Abul-Naga, the minister of planning and international cooperation, one of the last remaining high officials deeply rooted in the Mubarak regime. By brilliantly tapping into the public’s resentment and xenophobia, she has made herself a nationalist hero and untouchable politically. The $1.5 billion in aid that America has given Egypt each year since 1987 has long been used as leverage by Washington, and currently the U.S. threat to withdraw that aid is a means to pressure Egypt to back down in the NGO case and to ensure that the Camp David treaty is respected amid Egypt’s shifting politics. However, the Egyptian people know that $1.3 billion of the U.S. aid goes directly and exclusively into the military’s armaments and coffers each year and that the starved infrastructure and welfare of the country see only $200 million. Offers to replace at least that much are coming in from the private sector as well as Islamic and external Arab sources.
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By truedigger3, February 24, 2012 at 1:43 pm Link to this comment
Re: By gerard, February 24 at 12:01 pm
gerard,
I lived and worked in Egypt for several years. I have fair command of the language to the extent that I can read the newspapers on the web. It is a different society with its different circumstances and its severe problems.
Report thisDemocracy is the last and least of importance for most Egyptians right now. What Egyptians want most is jobs and an honest competent government that tackle the country difficult situation.
The problem with you gerard, is that you are too theoritical flying high with the clouds. It is my turn to ask you what make you a judge about the situation in Egypt and the Egyptian?. Just because you read mostly dishonest and biased reporting that make an expert on Egypt??!!
By jimmmmmy, February 24, 2012 at 1:39 pm Link to this comment
a little strong but almost true. using the term “everybody” assumes facts not in evidence and should be avoided.
Report thisBy gerard, February 24, 2012 at 1:01 pm Link to this comment
truedigger3: You are on dangerous territory, rationally speaking, if you think you know what is the “last thing Egyptians” (means the entire society) “think or worry about” is democracy. How could you possibly know?
Report thisBy truedigger3, February 24, 2012 at 7:10 am Link to this comment
Tha last thing the Egyptians think or worry about is the so called “democracy”. All what the Egyptians think and care about is jobs with living wages and reforming the stifling government bureacracy and its corruption.
Report thisThe revolution was not about “democracy” but it was about the unrelenting continuous rise of the price of food, corruption and the lack of jobs.
The Egyptians have eyes and ears too and they see and hear what the so called “democracy” did and doing in Iraq and Libya where it brought nothing but chaos, internal division, destruction and death!!
By gerard, February 23, 2012 at 6:36 pm Link to this comment
What upsets some commenters so much? The article is not meant to be specifically political. It paints an probably accurate picture of this person’s daily life—unsolved problems, oppressive uncertainties, desire for a better future, people trapped by problems so old and so large that they are extremely difficult to solve. Varieties of types make their appearance briefly, realistically, as though her readers were actually visiting her. Extreme tensions in the background due to unsolved problems and unanswered needs, plus the implications of independence versus outside influences, the problems of “Westernization! etc. I think she is very good at what she does, and I apprediate her work.
Report thisBy truedigger3, February 23, 2012 at 4:11 pm Link to this comment
That Lauren Unger-Geoffroy is full of shit and she knows it.
Report thisYeah, gerard, she might be a talented writer, but unfortunately, that is not an obstacle against being a dishonest journalist and a grade A bullshitter.
I am sure she know the real situation in Egypt, but she opted to follow a scripted agenda.
By vector56, February 23, 2012 at 2:34 pm Link to this comment
I wrote a post awhile back on the Kos called “Mubarak and What Army” that pointed out that the real power behind the power (America) that oppressed the Egyptian people for 30 years was the Egyptian Military.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/29/1040726/-Mubarak-and-What-Army-?via=blog_744899
Mubarak turned out to be a third string puppet.
Report thisBy gerard, February 23, 2012 at 1:08 pm Link to this comment
This woman is a very talented observer and writer.
She should at the very least get the Truthdigger award for the next six months.
Report thisBy Ronald Thomas West, February 23, 2012 at 10:48 am Link to this comment
Evan
In a nutshell, I attacked a specific aspect of her reporting, that is her excusing
with a few passing references these organizations with a long CIA history of
fomenting regime change. I’m sticking to that aspect.
Now, I did quote Phillip Agee for you on the matter and for my readers in my
article which is specific to the subject I have addressed, if you were to go
through Agee’s explanation, it is really quite long. The others not nearly so and
of those, the somewhat longer ones will give you what you ‘might’ be looking
for in a first quick glance.
The article is designed to be short reading with links to back the articles
assertions for those who would care to go into greater depth. You know,
attention spans are not what the were prior to Edward Bernys effect on many
mentalities
Speaking of laziness, if you really wanted to know, to lazy to click a link is
pretty bad
Just in case you’d ever like to give my ‘facts’ a real perusal, I’ll post the article
[exposé] on the fraud in these ‘democracy fronts’ for you as many times as need
be
http://subversify.com/2012/02/17/analyzing-fraud-in-democracy-
Report thismovements-for-21712/
By jimmmmmy, February 23, 2012 at 10:38 am Link to this comment
this is a top notch article the best i’ve read in some time, and i read a lot of them. however , i think it’s kinda mis-labeled . ngo,s were infiltrated by corporate interests about 20 years ago [like planned parenthood was co-opted by anti- abortionists who shape policy] so there may be some some truth in that these ngo,s are working against what some egypttions see as their interest. pretty much the same as whats happening to brad manning and some o.w.s. people that are now jailed in the u.s.. i argue [in the coffee shop] that most of these “risings’ around the mediterrian are food riots and this article supports that contention. wonderful!
Report thisBy Evan Stevens, February 23, 2012 at 10:18 am Link to this comment
Ronald, I read that page, seeing that your post did present a link, and in the hope of finding something of use there. You do present a web of intrigue that I’m sure is, if not precise or complete, certainly representative of reality. I should think any serious person would concede this sort of organizational structure and this sort of manipulation has been going on for a very long time.
However, though you might find me lazy, I refuse to go through - what is it, twenty more links? - to finally arrive at a conclusion. On that basis, surely you can understand how I might find you lazy. Couldn’t you have used quotation marks and done some compiling of facts for the benefit of readers? Do these links prove Lauren Unger-Geoffroy, (the author in question), to be a spy or in some way unsavory? Do they prove this report to be false?
You have attacked the creditability of a report. Do you claim this specific report is false? In a nutshell, if you please.
Report thisBy sharonsj, February 23, 2012 at 9:45 am Link to this comment
Anti-Jewish and anti-Christian propaganda has been unchecked in Egypt for decades. The U.S. never did much about that, continuing to fund Mubarak instead. Perhaps if we’d withdrawn our money, or at least made sure money got directly to the people who needed it, these problems wouldn’t exist. Meanwhile, the author hasn’t said a word about the violent campaign against the Copts.
Report thisBy Ronald Thomas West, February 23, 2012 at 9:42 am Link to this comment
Well, Evan, I addressed the “Freedom House” and associated organizations the
author brought up and backed my claims with facts, so love your bacon-
cheeseburger lazy fat American and read the facts provided at the link
http://subversify.com/2012/02/17/analyzing-fraud-in-democracy-
movements-for-21712/
Former CIA officer Phillip Agee quote:
”One may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were
Report thisseveral reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA’s long experience
and huge stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around
the world. By joining with the CIA, NED and [US] AID would come on board an
on-going complex of operations whose funding they could take over while
leaving the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers. In
addition someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local
recipients’ activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor
would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was
ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry out
discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients,
especially if they were in opposition to their governments. Finally, the CIA had
ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required”
By Evan Stevens, February 23, 2012 at 9:24 am Link to this comment
I for one have seen far too much incrimination of others evidently based entirely in bias and weakly delivered via innuendo.
Ronald Thomas West and sofianitz:
On or about the 13th of February, was or was not a vendors stall in Cairo violently raided and removed by military force, and has any vendor present at that time since returned to that stall?
Do either of you claim to know the exact routing of money and petroleum products in Egypt?
Your personal attacks against the author of this article don’t amount to a pinch of salt, but please do counter her claims with any facts about the specific events she reported here. Until then, eat salt and bark at the moon.
Report thisBy Ronald Thomas West, February 23, 2012 at 8:39 am Link to this comment
The author is either ignorant of the facts of the so-called ‘democracy
organizations’ or the article is a shallow effort to deflect attention from the
activities of the known CIA front Freedom House and affiliated groups.
http://subversify.com/2012/02/17/analyzing-fraud-in-democracy-movements-
for-21712/
With her apparent familiarity with the [CIA Military Assistance Programs
Report thisassociated] Egyptian generals internal economy, I recommend ‘truthdig’ begin
digging into the extent it may have been penetrated by intelligence agencies
By sofianitz, February 23, 2012 at 7:02 am Link to this comment
Anyone living in Egypt who is not anti-American is either an idiot, a stooge, or a paid CIA employee, of which there are lots, particularly among the journalists there.
Report this