Posts

Mubarak’s Loot: $38 Million Found! Still Hidden? $69,962 Million

/in , /by

The New York Times heralds that,

Swiss Locate Funds Linked to Mubarak

But what the story really reports is that the Swiss have located just “several dozen million Swiss francs,” which works out to less than $38 million of the up to $70 billion Hosni Mubarak reportedly looted from Egypt. The real headline of the story ought to be…

Former Western Allies Dragging Feet on Mubarak’s Millions

… as the important news of the story, appearing in paragraphs 11 and 12, is:

On Thursday, the United States Treasury Department advised American banks to monitor movements of funds by former senior Egyptian political figures that “could potentially represent misappropriated or diverted state assets, proceeds of bribery or other illegal payments.”

European foreign ministers are scheduled to discuss the issue at a meeting on Sunday and Monday. As of Friday, no reports had emerged that assets belonging to the Mubaraks or the five associates had been frozen in the United States or other countries in Europe.

In other words, while the Swiss have found some petty cash which might be Mubarak’s, no one in Mubarak’s former patron governments has bothered to freeze his assets (though the Treasury Department decided, a full week after Mubarak stepped down, weeks after Western intelligence services apparently listened in on urgent Mubarak family conversations about moving their loot, and almost a month since it looked like he might be forced to step down, to start monitoring funds that might be his or other former top Egyptian officials).

And it’s not like this is the first that Egyptians have asked the rest of the world to stop Mubarak from looting their country. This WikiLeaks cable, reporting a meeting with one of the leaders of Egypt’s April 6 movement (so probably someone who had a key role in the Egyptian uprising), not only dismissed the thought of overthrowing Mubarak before the 2011 elections to be “outside the mainstream” of Egyptian opposition.

XXXXXXXXXXXX offered no roadmap of concrete steps toward April 6’s highly unrealistic goal of replacing the current regime with a parliamentary democracy prior to the 2011 presidential elections. Most opposition parties and independent NGOs work toward achieving tangible, incremental reform within the current political context, even if they may be pessimistic about their chances of success. XXXXXXXXXXXX’s wholesale rejection of such an approach places him outside this mainstream of opposition politicians and activists.

But it also treated this activists’ suggestion that the U.S. freeze Mubarak’s accounts back in December 2008 with the thick disdain of scare quotes.

(C) XXXXXXXXXXXX described how he tried to convince his Washington interlocutors that the USG should pressure the GOE to implement significant reforms by threatening to reveal information about GOE officials’ alleged “illegal” off-shore bank accounts. He hoped that the U.S. and the international community would freeze these bank accounts, like the accounts of Zimbabwean President Mugabe’s confidantes. XXXXXXXXXXXX said he wants to convince the USG that Mubarak is worse than Mugabe and that the GOE will never accept democratic reform. XXXXXXXXXXXX asserted that Mubarak derives his legitimacy from U.S. support, and therefore charged the U.S. with “being responsible” for Mubarak’s “crimes.”

The diplomats who met with this activist made it clear to label the judgment that Mubarak’s looting was “illegal” as the activist’s viewpoint, not necessarily one they shared. So, too, did they mark U.S. “responsib[ility]” for Mubarak’s “crimes” with quotation marks signaling they didn’t necessarily agree.

This pisses me off all the more because — after seeing Yves Smith rave about it for weeks — I’ve been reading Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure Islands (I’m hoping we’ll be able to arrange a book salon when the book comes out in the U.S. in April). Normally, discussions of developing nation elites looting their countries focus on the corruption of the countries themselves. But Shaxson shows how the ability to loot a country like Mubarak has depends on a whole network of secrecy jurisdictions, of which Switzerland is now just the stodgiest. Indeed, Shaxon shows that the UK and U.S. have competed since World War II to set up the most extensive secrecy jurisdictions to ensure the looted funds from the rest of the world end up driving our financialized economies.

Mubarak’s looted billions — indeed, his ability to loot billions as representatives of our government scoff at activists who call such looting illegal — plays a fundamental role in our house of cards economy. And, given that we reward obedient client dictators with permission to loot their country, it plays a fundamental role in American hegemony in this world.

Yves predicted that authorities would find a few billion, seize a few houses, and declare victory.

If the authorities nab a few billion, plus all the tangible assets like houses, they can declare victory and try to cover up the fact that a great deal was lost.

That seems to be what this NYT article serves to do: dangle the discovery of a fraction of a percent of Mubarak’s total heist as a victory, as U.S. and British authorities very deliberately stall on doing anything to stop Mubarak from hiding the rest.

Senior Officials Wave Their SIGINT Around

/in /by

You’ve probably already read this story detailing how Hosni Mubarak used his 18 day delay in resigning to rob the Egyptian people. While the whole thing is worth a read, I wanted to point out how a senior Western intelligence official makes a point of revealing that we’ve been aware of conversations among Mubarak’s thieving family members.

But a senior Western intelligence source claimed that Mubarak had begun moving his fortune in recent weeks.

“We’re aware of some urgent conversations within the Mubarak family about how to save these assets,” said the source, “And we think their financial advisers have moved some of the money around. If he had real money in Zurich, it may be gone by now.” [my emphasis]

The reference to “urgent conversations” seems to suggest they were actually listening in on them. (It also raises the question of why we didn’t try to stop Mubarak from stealing the money, but I think we know the answer to that question.)

That’s similar to the way another senior official–this one identified as American–brags to CNN about the satellites we’re using to collect intelligence in Egypt. (h/t Tim Shorrock)

As the Obama administration reacted, Washington was using a variety of intelligence assets to see what was happening in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, CNN has learned.

The U.S. military and intelligence community are using “national technical means” in the sky over Egypt to gather information about the demonstrations and the deployment of Egyptian security forces.

The phrase “national technical means” is used by the U.S. government to generally refer to the use of reconnaissance satellites to gather imagery or signals intelligence.

A senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of the operation confirmed the intelligence-gathering but declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter.

The official declined to say to what extent the Egyptian government is aware of the activity. The official would not say specifically which intelligence-gathering elements were being used but indicated that operations were being conducted in a manner that would not be visible to the Egyptian populace.

The official said the decision to use intelligence-gathering assets came in part after violence erupted in the early days of the Cairo demonstrations. [my emphasis]

Now, it should surprise no one to know that the US has been collecting signals intelligence from Egypt. We would be focusing on Egypt anyway because of our Israeli and counterterrorism interests. And SIGINT will undoubtedly be more important as our relationship with Omar Suleiman shifts along with his position in the government. But normally it’s considered polite not to admit to using SIGINT so blatantly.

What seems to be a key intent of these public admissions of our spying is to disclose to whom we were listening–Mubarak’s family (and presumably other top officials)–and why we shifted our normal focus away from counterterrorism targets–because of Egyptian security forces had used violence against protesters.

In other words, this seems to be a message to top officials in Egypt–both Mubarak and our partners in Egypt’s military–that we’ve shifted our gaze away from counterterrorism and onto the government itself.

I thought we weren’t supposed to tell the people we were eavesdropping on that we were doing so?

Dear Egypt: We Love You for Your Freedom

/in /by

Remember when that ignorant fool opined, “They hate us for our freedoms”?

As one American still ashamed by that comment, let me thank Egypt for such an amazing display of what freedom is about. Congratulations!

May it inspire those of us watching from America to reclaim our own democracy.

Our Industrial Policy Needs to Do More than Arm Dictators

/in , , /by

Spencer has a useful catalog of all the war toys Egypt buys with our military aid.

Whatever Egypt’s military does next, chances are they’ll do it with American weapons.Al-Jazeera showed M1A1 Abrams tanks carrying Egyptian soldiers through Cairo in what its correspondents called “a show of force.” Those iconic American tanks have been co-produced in Egypt since 1988; the Egyptians have about 1000 of them. As was endlessly re-tweeted, canisters containing tear gas that the police used on protesters — before the hated police melted away over the weekend — had “Made in America” stamped on them. (Our colleagues at Ars Technica take a look at what’s inside the Pennsylvania-manufactured tear gas.)

On Sunday, fighter jets flew low over a Cairo crowd, turning on their afterburners to deafen their audience. Most likely they were part of Egypt’s fleet of 220 F-16s.

Most of the $1.3 billion that the U.S. annually provides to Egypt in military aid goes for weaponry to defend Egypt against foreign assault, like Patriot air-defense missiles, Multiple Launch Rocket System rocket pods and TOW anti-armor missiles. That’s not particularly relevant for crowd control against protesters.

He’s right: the spectacular images of the Egyptian military showing its presence amid protesters serves to highlight the war toys at the heart of our influence with the Egyptian military, and therefore at the heart of our relationship with Egypt. No more spectacular, of course, than the video from al Jazeera, above, showing US-made F-16s buzzing thousands of protesters in Tahrir (Liberation) Square.

Meanwhile, in far less spectacular news, today Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu will quietly be rolling out the White House’s effort to “Startup America,” which is either an effort to focus an investment on jobs or a cynical election year stunt.

The contrast, though, is instructive.

We have long publicly forsworn anything that resembles an industrial policy here in the US. But we actually do have an industrial policy; it’s called the Military Industrial Complex (recently enhanced with the Intelligence Industrial Complex). While we refuse, as a country, to invest in technologies and jobs in manufacturing peaceful goods, an enthusiasm for investing unlimited amounts in military technology (the jobs are a critical side benefit) is almost a requirement among our elected leaders.

Not only do those toys provide desperately needed jobs around the country. Not only do these toys allow us to extend our empire around the world. But just as critically, they serve a critical role in maintaining our hegemony. We give millions and (in the case of Egypt) billions in aid to friendly leaders, and they turn around and spend it on our war toys. Many of these friendly leaders are dictators that use the toys as a veiled threat and occasionally a blunt instrument to sustain their own power.

Which leads to uncomfortable moments like these, where a dictator’s last gasp consists of unleashing American war toys against his own people.

While the juxtaposition of those F-16s buzzing the brave protesters with this latest attempt to try to solve the jobs crisis in the US is just an odd coincidence, it needs to be instructive as the Administration tries to “Startup America.” Not only do we need a more proactive jobs policy, an investment in goods that someone besides friendly dictators will want to buy. But if we don’t do that–if we don’t find something to make that won’t inevitably end up playing a starring role in a dictator’s brutality–then we’re going to have a lot more problems down the road.

Obama may really believe that we will “Win the Future” by out-innovating, out-building, and out-educating our competitors. Good. Because it’s increasingly clear the way to “Win the Future” is not by brutalizing other countries’ mobs.