Re: Re: Egypt-inspired protests gain pace across region

[Guest guest]

Something like this?

On December 23, 2008, a young Egyptian dissident sat down with US embassy officials in Cairo to share highlights from his recent travels, and to discuss plans to topple Hosni Mubarak's regime before the country's 2011 election.

He had just returned home after a trip to New York and Washington DC that was paid for by the State Department. Activists from Egypt, Burma, Darfur, Columbia, and elsewhere had been invited to attend a State-sponsored event dubbed the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit. With support from a medley of sponsors -- Google, Facebook, Howcast, YouTube, MTV, Columbia Law School, and Access 360 Media -- the three-day Summit was packed with seminars, speeches and workshops focused on finding the "best ways to use digital media to promote freedom and justice, counter violence, extremism and oppression." They met officials on Capitol Hill, produced "a field manual for youth empowerment," and even met The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/the-idealism-clinic-on-the-origins-of-egypts-revolution/71132/

This is just one of the articles that can be found with a quick search and that go into some detail, such as this from the same article:

During his sit-down at the embassy, the activist "expressed satisfaction with his participation" in the Summit, according to a WikiLeaked cable describing the meeting and written by Hill-Herndon, now the embassy Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs. The other Summit attendees, the dissident informed his interlocutor, were supportive of the opposition movement in Egypt, and shared tips for evading internal security forces, such as how to keep switching a mobile phone's simcard. (The activist's homecoming was noticeably less positive: he said that upon arrival back in Cairo, security police interrogated him at the airport and confiscated all his notes from the Summit.)

In a message dated 2/16/2011 3:26:20 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

If a causal link can be demonstrated to support the allegations, it would cause people to lose faith in the US government and throw them out. Quite a risk.Administrator