Happy Happy Turks, Iraq's Neighborhood and Gulf Beaujoulais, Hamas and Carter, A Lebanon Joke on Hegemony
Turks argue over Turkishness and, oddly, happiness. Trump Seahawks draft pick.
An Iraq meeting in Kuwait: ghosts of Versailles, picnics, and Gulf Beaujoulais.
Making sense of Jimmy Carter and Hamas, is it possible?
A Saudi joke of the week.
Gulf: New Middle East Sadr City: Old Middle East No Beaujoulais for Abu Qutada
(Well, not yet, not with us)
Something new I learned early this morning, very early, from The Seattle Times which I found more interesting than the Seahawks draft prospects this year: the motto of Turkey is quite wussy:
"Happy is the man who can say: I am a Turk".
Now this is inspirational. And you can go to jail for mocking the motto, or for other un-Turkish talk. Insulting Turkish-ness is a serious offense and can send someone to prison for three years.
With this kind of, dare I say inferiority, complex, Turkey doesn't need Europe. Now I think Turkey should apply to join the Arab League, particularly the moderate New Middle East version of it.
The non-moderate Old Middle East also has its own complexes.
An international meeting in Kuwait City on Iraq has ended with mixed results. Iraq has demanded the logical things for her to demand under the circumstances: debt forgivensss and reopening of embassies in Baghdad. The embassy issue is moving along: Kuwait and Bahrain are set to re-open their offices sometime in the future, in the Green Zone of course. The rest, including the leader of the moderate New Middle East Saudi Arabia, are still seeking volunteers for Baghdad postings.
As for debt forgiveness, al-Maliki, who represented Iraq, highlighted the negative impact of debts and reparations on the infrastructure of his country. He asked that "reparation" payments for the first "Persian Gulf" War be reduced or stopped. But debt forgiveness on the Gulf comes with stiff prices, and most potentates don't know the history of the Versailles Treaty and its impact on Germany. I know about Versailles: I have enjoyed a couple of picnics near it with some bread, some cheese, and some Beaujoulais- unfortunately not Beaujoulais Nouveau because one was in April, the other in May.
Jimmy Carter got Hamas to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, but without having to recognize Israel. It is a plan of two states, but without recognizing one of them or its right to exist. This is typical phony fundamentalist logic- all kinds of fundamentalism, not just Islamic.
Joke of the week: the Saudi cabinet asserted that Saudi Arabia "stands at the same distance from all Lebanese parties in the current political impasse. But it called on the Lebanese to resist current attempts to impose a new hegemony on their country. It did not specify which hegemony they meant: the Saudi, the Iranian, the Syrian, or the American hegemony?
Right now Lebanon is divided between two hegemonies, if that is possible.
In fairness, other regional and international players tell their own Lebanese jokes as well.
Cheers
mhg
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
An Iraq meeting in Kuwait: ghosts of Versailles, picnics, and Gulf Beaujoulais.
Making sense of Jimmy Carter and Hamas, is it possible?
A Saudi joke of the week.
Gulf: New Middle East Sadr City: Old Middle East No Beaujoulais for Abu Qutada
(Well, not yet, not with us)
Something new I learned early this morning, very early, from The Seattle Times which I found more interesting than the Seahawks draft prospects this year: the motto of Turkey is quite wussy:
"Happy is the man who can say: I am a Turk".
Now this is inspirational. And you can go to jail for mocking the motto, or for other un-Turkish talk. Insulting Turkish-ness is a serious offense and can send someone to prison for three years.
With this kind of, dare I say inferiority, complex, Turkey doesn't need Europe. Now I think Turkey should apply to join the Arab League, particularly the moderate New Middle East version of it.
The non-moderate Old Middle East also has its own complexes.
An international meeting in Kuwait City on Iraq has ended with mixed results. Iraq has demanded the logical things for her to demand under the circumstances: debt forgivensss and reopening of embassies in Baghdad. The embassy issue is moving along: Kuwait and Bahrain are set to re-open their offices sometime in the future, in the Green Zone of course. The rest, including the leader of the moderate New Middle East Saudi Arabia, are still seeking volunteers for Baghdad postings.
As for debt forgiveness, al-Maliki, who represented Iraq, highlighted the negative impact of debts and reparations on the infrastructure of his country. He asked that "reparation" payments for the first "Persian Gulf" War be reduced or stopped. But debt forgiveness on the Gulf comes with stiff prices, and most potentates don't know the history of the Versailles Treaty and its impact on Germany. I know about Versailles: I have enjoyed a couple of picnics near it with some bread, some cheese, and some Beaujoulais- unfortunately not Beaujoulais Nouveau because one was in April, the other in May.
Jimmy Carter got Hamas to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, but without having to recognize Israel. It is a plan of two states, but without recognizing one of them or its right to exist. This is typical phony fundamentalist logic- all kinds of fundamentalism, not just Islamic.
Joke of the week: the Saudi cabinet asserted that Saudi Arabia "stands at the same distance from all Lebanese parties in the current political impasse. But it called on the Lebanese to resist current attempts to impose a new hegemony on their country. It did not specify which hegemony they meant: the Saudi, the Iranian, the Syrian, or the American hegemony?
Right now Lebanon is divided between two hegemonies, if that is possible.
In fairness, other regional and international players tell their own Lebanese jokes as well.
Cheers
mhg
m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com
Comments