TUNISIA'S BEN ALI AND FAMILY RAN A 'MAFIA STATE' - JUST LIKE THE USA?

"Iraqi soldiers burst into a Kuwaiti hospital, found the premature babies ward and then tossed the babies out of incubators." (The disinformation campaign by Philip Knightley)

Aangirfan remembers listening to Margaret Thatcher, on one of her trips abroad, giving very high praise to a certain powerful president.

But this president was not doing enough deals with the USA.

Time magazine then ran a story exposing the president's 'corruption'.

The president was toppled.

A STAGNATING ECONOMY?

On 23 January 2011, Newzweek has an article entitled: "Tunisia's Ben Ali and Family Ran a 'Mafia State'"

According to Newzweek:

People in all corners of the stagnating Arab world dared to hope that the triumph of the Tunisian street might do for them what the election of Obama did for the people of the USA.

A lot of people in the Arab world have not forgotten the similar burst of enthusiasm that swept the region when Saddam flew off to Belarus and the US military brought peace and prosperity to Iraq.

The fall of Ben Ali has exposed the corrupt common denominator of every regime in the Arab world.

They are all, in effect, mafia states - entire nations run by families for their own benefit.

They do not have the good fortune to be run by such philanthropists as Bernie Madoff, Marc Rich, Ken Lay, the Bush family, Allen Stanford, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Oliver North, Barney Frank, Spiro Agnew, Sam Giancana, Henry Kissinger or the Rockefellers.

The nice Mr Karimov (West marks Karimov's rehabilitation)

It should be noted that, unlike in Tunisia, elections in the USA are not rigged.

And, unlike in Tunisia, the US economy is not dominated by a few big companies which ignore the welfare of the public.

Union Carbide and DynCorp serve the public well.

Rumsfeld meets Saddam

As Tunisia's intelligence chief in the 1980s, Ben Ali built close ties to the CIA.

But it should not be thought that the CIA put people like the Shah, Saddam, Mubarak or Ben Ali into power.

The CIA had no idea that the Ben Ali family was some sort of 'mafia family'.

The Ben Alis controlled the central coast region while the Trabelsis ran the Greater Tunis area.

Ben Ali's nephew Imed Trabelsi is alleged to have stolen a yacht.

It would be wrong to think that the fall of Ben Ali has exposed the corrupt common denominator of almost every regime in the world.

They are not mostly, in effect, mafia states - entire nations run by families for their own benefit.

~~

Aangirfan has been to Tunisia.

We can safely say that most of Tunisia is more civilised and comfortable than most parts of Florida.

~~

On 25 January it was reported that three people had died in protests in Egypt.