{"id":12053,"date":"2012-08-24T09:33:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T16:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12053"},"modified":"2012-08-24T09:34:39","modified_gmt":"2012-08-24T16:34:39","slug":"western-imperialist-repression-in-mena-was-perdictible-and-predicted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=12053","title":{"rendered":"Western Imperialist Repression in MENA was perdictible and predicted"},"content":{"rendered":"

British Policy Towards The Arab Spring Has Been Entirely Consistent<\/strong>
\n24 August, 2012 – by Dan Glazebrook – JUST<\/p>\n

Over the past year, the British government have bombed rebels into power in Libya \u2013 and are desperately hoping to do the same in Syria \u2013whilst simultaneously aiding and abetting the crushing of rebel forces in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Some commentators have called this hypocritical. In fact, there is no contradiction: the British government is engaged in a vicious, region-wide attack on all independent, anti-colonial forces in the region, be they states or opposition movements. Client regimes \u2013 in many cases monarchies originally imposed by the British Empire \u2013 have been propped up, and states outside the orbit of Western control have been targeted for destruction. The policy, in other words, has been entirely consistent: a drive towards the total capitulation of the Arab world; and more specifically the destruction of any potential organised resistance to an attack on Iran. What is more, it has been planned for a long time.<\/p>\n

The Arab spring did not come out of the blue; it was both predictable and predicted. All demographic, economic and political trends pointed in the direction of a period of instability and civil unrest across the region, and especially in Egypt. The combination of growing and youthful populations, rising unemployment, corruption and unrepresentative government made some kind of mass manifestation of frustration a virtual certainty \u2013 as was recognised by a far-reaching speech by MI6-turned-BP operative Mark Allen in February 2009. In August 2010, Barack Obama issued Presidential Study Directive Number 11, which noted “evidence of growing citizen discontent with the region’s regimes” and warned that “the region is entering a critical period of transition.” Four months later, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia, sparking off the unrest that led to the downfall of President Ben-Ali.<\/p>\n

For the world’s imperial powers, wracked by their own economic crises \u2013 Britain, France and the US \u2013 it was clear that this unrest would present both a danger and an opportunity. Whilst it threatened to disrupt the Gulf monarchies imposed by Britain during the colonial period (Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait et al), it could also create the ideal cover for the launching of long-planned proxy wars against old enemies. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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British Policy Towards The Arab Spring Has Been Entirely Consistent 24 August, 2012 – by Dan Glazebrook – JUST Over the past year, the British government have bombed rebels into power in Libya \u2013 and are desperately hoping to do the same in Syria \u2013whilst simultaneously aiding and abetting the crushing of rebel forces in more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[3410],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12053"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12055,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12053\/revisions\/12055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}