When They Open Fire

Image via Wikipedia2011 is 1989, and this year belongs to the Arab world and to Africa. People are rising. People will rise. They will take over the streets. This is a momentum game. If you let the momentum die you have to wait years, perhaps you have to wait for another generation. That would be too wasteful. The time is now. The time is today. The time is this year.

The streets are on fire. Stoke the fire.

Peaceful demonstrators have a right to demonstrate. Regimes that open fire on such demonstrators have to be countered by peoples and governments all over the world. The US government has to step in with everything at its disposal, upto and including use of surgical military strikes.

A regime does not have to accept the demands of peacefully demonstrating people, but no regime has a right to unleash brutality upon peacefully demonstrating peoples. There are reports demonstrators are being shot at, from the ground, from helicopters in the sky.
Image via Wikipedia
That can not be tolerated. America has to step in. It has to warn such governments. It has to use all levers of government power to make sure such brutality is not tolerated.

America was born with a mission. That mission was a total spread of democracy. 2011 is a special year. It is like 1989 all over again. And America has a role to play. People have a right to peacefully demonstrate. That right has to be protected.

A monarcy, any monarchy, is a feudal institution. Every single monarchy in the region has to go. Unelected leaders don't belong in the seats of power. If you were not elected, simply leave.

Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer
Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia
Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged
Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

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Barack Is Going To Need Me All Over Again

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeBarack is going to need me all over again during his re-election bid, and I am going to be there for him. Barack needed me in his run for the presidency. And he is going to need me all over again. I will be there for him in his hour of need.

I maintain the hunger of someone who was forced to skip the victory parties of June 2008 and November 2008, and felt Inauguration 2009 simply pass him by. I missed the celebrations. I stayed hungry.

I am going to bring that hunger to the table for Barack all over again.

I stopped being a Democrat. I became an Independent. I am an Independent for Barack. And I am going to be there for him.

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Iran: Brute Force Does Have An Answer

Image via WikipediaIt is only a matter of weeks now before the mullahs vacate the scene in Iran. These dumbfucks need to go. They never needed to be there in the first place. The democracy activists in Iran have suffered like nowhere else in the Arab world. They deserve to succeed more than the activists in Tunisia and Egypt.

Here's the message: there is an answer to brute force. A nonviolent movement for democracy can succeed in the face of brute force. But you have to exhibit superb organization.

An interim president has to be announced. Mossavi works. And a plan has to be hatched to get a million people out into the streets at once, in every city in the country. In Egypt taking over one square worked. In Iran that will not work. You will have to do what we did in Nepal in 2006. You are going to have to take over every single street in every single city. You have to come out in force all at once. You have to be prepared to see a few hundred of you shot down in the streets. But you can not vacate the scene. You have to get even more energized when that happens. You have to give them a week max. And then you have to march on to the presidential palace to mete out a Caecescu end to Khomeini and Ahmedijed - how do you spell that motherfucker's name?
Image via Wikipedia
Within a week of taking power the interim president is going to have to issue orders to execute all those who issued orders for the killing of peaceful protesters out in the streets. That still fits the definition of non violence. The antidote to Hitler was not a Gandhi fast.

When the generals in Burma killed hundreds and burned those bodies Hitler style, America needed to bomb that town where all the generals live. That would still have fit the definition of non violence.

Iran is like Burma. Khameini is Hitler. He has no place in the 21st century. Cast him off into the Gulf.

Now is the time to strike. Now is the time to get it done. No country in the region deserves it more than Iran. Iran goes then Saudi Arabia goes, then Libya goes, then goes Jordan, Syria.

Drive every single autocrat out. Absolutely every single one of them.
Image via Wikipedia
The tactics in Iran are going to have to be different than the tactics in Tunisia and Egypt. Khameini deserves a Caecescu death.

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Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia

Image via WikipediaArab Focus, Microfinance Focus

Los Angeles Times: In Iran, Bahrain and Yemen, protesters take to streets: protesters inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia take part in street marches..... The tumult in a region normally kept tranquil under the heavy-handed security of conservative Gulf regimes underscored the widening reverberations of new pro-democracy movements in the Middle East ...... the protesters' numbers have been small ..... thousands more people who turned out for the main scheduled march were walking quietly along the sidewalks toward Azadi Square ...... clashes that in some cases involved young demonstrators beating security personnel ...... west of Imam Hussein Square ..... "The police support us, the Iranians support us." ...... "We would like to stress that Feb. 14 is only the beginning. The road may be long and the rallies may continue for days and weeks, but if a people one day chooses life, then destiny will respond." ...... Yemen, meanwhile, was undergoing its fourth straight days of protests ..... Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president for more than 30 years 

A political revolution is all about momentum. Right now there is momentum. The right thing to do is to stoke the fire. Get the people out into the streets. An amazing regional level political clarity has been achieved. This can not be let go to waste. 2011 is 1989. Two successes in a row are a lot of momentum. This has to be put to good use. Finally Iran's time has come too.

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Los Angeles Times: Egypt military dissolves parliament, suspends constitution: calling for elections within six months ..... the military, the most respected institution in the nation, was edging toward forming a credible democracy ..... the army left intact the ex-president's Council of Ministers to run the government. ...... Cars honked and drove around the city hub for the first time in more than two weeks as scores of soldiers fanned out into the remaining tent cities on the square and unceremoniously tore them down...... several hundred police officers held a protest of their own in front of the Interior Ministry demanding higher salaries, access to government medical care and rehiring of officers fired for disciplinary or administrative violations.

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Egypt: Suleiman Is Not An Option

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Image via WikipediaThe goal of the revolution is regime change. The goal is a total ouster from power of people who are in power. Mubarak has to vacate the scene, and he has to take his entire entourage with him.

Mubarak is not an option. The military is not an option. Suleiman - I don't even know what he looks like and would like to keep it that way - is not an option.

This is a revolution, people. It will settle for nothing less than a total reshaping of Egyptian politics. Democracy's time has finally come, and no dictator or the dicatator's minion is going go get in the way.

Out, Mubarak, out. Take your entourage with you. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

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Arab Democracy: What The US Needs To Do: Stay Deeply Engaged

Image via WikipediaThe US is uniquely positioned to conclude the War On Terror in 2011. The Cold War lasted decades. If we play our cards right, the War On Terror will have only lasted a decade. And Barack Obama might qualify for yet another Nobel Peace Prize.

The way the War On Terror concludes is when every Arab country has been turned into a modern democracy. The roadmap is simple. People come out into the streets and shut the country down completely until the dictator vacates the seat of power. They don't have to leave the country. They just have to vacate the seat of power without engaging in any bloodshed. Then an interim government takes over. That cabinet has one year to hold elections to a constituent assembly. And that's it.

Where the US federal government comes in is there is no other entity that has the option to stay deeply engaged with all levels of the state apparatus in these countries. The idea is to stay neutral politically in the beginning, but make sure there is no bloodshed. And then once the streets have boiled over and achieved tipping point, you call for the dictator's ouster in no unclear terms. You don't incite the street protests. You don't help escalate it. But once they hit that tipping point, you stand on the side of democracy. The clearer stand you take, less bloodshed there will be, and smoother the transitions will be in those countries.

This is not the time to stay neutral. Revolution is not a spectator sport, not for those braving the streets, not for the President Of The United States, not for the Vice President Of The United States, not for the US Secretary Of State.

This momentum that took centuries to build can not be wasted. This is our opportunity to turn the tables across the Arab world. If the sexism in the Arab world has been bothering you, now is the time to act. A country that becomes a democracy starts taking steps to curb all that sexism.

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Egypt: The Army May Not Take Over

Image via WikipediaMubarak might try to do that. He might decide to punish the people of Egypt by leaving but then handing over the reins to the top generals in the Egyptian army. That might be his way of saying if you think I was bad, how about this?

Mubarak does not have that option. The people of Egypt are not asking for a military dictatorship. That is what they have had for decades. They are in the streets asking for its end, not rejuvenation.

The mightiest army in the world is powerless in the face of a people who have woken up. And the people of Egypt have woken up.

This is how this drama ends. Mubarak leaves. He does not have to leave the country. He just vacates the seat of power. The constitution is amended to get rid of all anti human rights clauses and to make room for an interim government. An interim president - a civilian democrat like that dude who won the Nobel Prize - comes in with an interim cabinet. That interim cabinet brings in an interim constitution within six months and elections to a constituent assembly are held within a year of taking power. At that point the interim cabinet hands over power to that assembly.

That is the roadmap. The fuck with the military.

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