Foreign Politics: How the Average American Can Become Smarter Twice……….

   


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There is a lot of talk about extremist groups, kooks, and fundamentalists collecting petitions for some states to secede from the American Union, i.e. the United States. Anyway, that is how most of the ‘mainstream’ media is labeling them, directly or indirectly.
One of my sources in a famous secession-prone Red State told me something strange. He swore to me that this secession, if it ever occurs, will be good for both ‘sides’: for the average American and for the seceding former citizens. He swore to me that it would make the average American noticeably smarter, practically overnight. He also swore to me that it would make the citizens of the seceding state(s) feel much smarter than before. I am still trying to figure it out, although I don’t even live over there. On the face of it, it seems to be good for everybody!

But I was also told that the seceding former citizens will sorely miss all the socialistic federal spending; may even negotiate keeping some of it as part of their secession deal. Sort of a deal sweetener, my source told me without explaining who will taste the sweetener.
Anyway, I plan to see “Lincoln” soon.

Cheers
mhg

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Palindromic Arab League Schedules a Gaza Meeting Soon, Sublime Porte Promises Self-Control………….

   


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My Cairo source reports that the Arab League has decided to declare that self-control is the best approach to the Gaza attacks. My source tells me that the Shaikh of Al-Azhar and former Mubarak crony, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, has consulted with the palindromic Saudi Mufti Shaikh Al Al Shaikh who consulted with palindromic Prince Saud Al Faisal Al Saud who informed him of the desires of the palindromic Sublime Porte of Riyadh to show restraint.
I have been told that the Arab League is divided between two strains, two parties if you will: the party of “let me at him, oh please let me at him (and her)” AND the party of “hold me back before I do something I’ll regret early tomorrow morning when I look at her face.
Asked

about the meeting next Saturday, a League official responded: “Saturday? I thought they favored Monday. By Monday we will know exactly what happened. We might even know what will happen. Hopefully. Besides, what is the rush? Both Gaza and Israel, er, the Zionist Entity, will still be there.
Someon
e was even overheard opining that Hamas will now know exactly where to spend the new Qatari money promised last week. Unlike the PA Ramallah authorities who are so befuddled that they prefer to spread the brotherly and sisterly aid money among various bank accounts.

Cheers
mhg

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Palindromic Arab League Schedules a Gaza Meeting Soon, Sublime Porte Promises Self-Control………….

   


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My Cairo source reports that the Arab League has decided to declare that self-control is the best approach to the Gaza attacks. My source tells me that the Shaikh of Al-Azhar and former Mubarak crony, Ahmed Al-Tayeb, has consulted with the palindromic Saudi Mufti Shaikh Al Al Shaikh who consulted with palindromic Prince Saud Al Faisal Al Saud who informed him of the desires of the palindromic Sublime Porte of Riyadh to show restraint.
I have been told that the Arab League is divided between two strains, two parties if you will: the party of “let me at him, oh please let me at him (and her)” AND the party of “hold me back before I do something I’ll regret early tomorrow morning when I look at her face.
Asked

about the meeting next Saturday, a League official responded: “Saturday? I thought they favored Monday. By Monday we will know exactly what happened. We might even know what will happen. Hopefully. Besides, what is the rush? Both Gaza and Israel, er, the Zionist Entity, will still be there.
Someon
e was even overheard opining that Hamas will now know exactly where to spend the new Qatari money promised last week. Unlike the PA Ramallah authorities who are so befuddled that they prefer to spread the brotherly and sisterly aid money among various bank accounts.

Cheers
mhg

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The Fear is Gone: Bahrain Proposes Common Lists of Dissidents for the GCC……………..

   


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Tuesday Nov. 13, 2012: The following tweets by the Bahrain Ministry of Interior (responsible for: police, security, mercenaries, looting, arrests, tear gas, shootings, torture, prisons, courts) were discovered:

Ministry of Interior ‏@moi_bahrain
Our countries expose to a colonial onslaught that uses the names of human rights, freedom or democracy

Ministry of Interior ‏@moi_bahrain
We expect those who deal with us to respect our civilized values and Islamic concepts that are based on respect for human rights.

Ministry of Interior ‏@moi_bahrain
A need 4GCC National Security List of individuals, organizations &countries outline a clear &definitive security strategy 2deal with threats

Ministry of Interior ‏@moi_bahrain

GCC Interior Minister signed a security agreement to promote coordination and cooperation

Ministry of Interior ‏@moi_bahrain
GCC Interior Ministers condemned recent bombings in Bahrain that resulted in severe injuries and death to both civilians and police.

Forget the nonsense about ‘colonialism of human rights organizations’.
I found
the third tweet (from the top in red) the most disturbing. It tells me where they are heading, these potentates on my Gulf. It says: “GCC National Security List of individuals, organizations &countries”. Meaning they will create a common list of names of individuals, organizations tweepes, bloggers, etc. I suspect a majority of the people of Bahrain will be on that proposed “dangerous” list. With the twin goals of killing dissent and spreading fear in the citizenry. But, alas, the fear is mostly gone these days.

Cheers
mhg

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Iran and the West: Three Elections that may Determine War or Peace, Likud Nuts on a Persian Fire………….

   


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“The question of an attack on Iran has become the subject of intense debate over the past few months. What is puzzling about this debate is that it has not centered on Iran’s nuclear program or whether Iranians seek to obtain a nuclear bomb, but rather on whether Israel or the US (or both) will attack Iran to prevent this. The re-election of Barack Obama to a second term is important, yet the situation vis-à-vis Iran and Israel has not changed significantly. Iran still faces harsh sanctions and its economy is on the brink of collapse; nevertheless, its nuclear program continues to advance unchecked and the regime does not show signs of weakening its grip on power. Likewise, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces elections in January 2013, but is likely to win a resounding victory; Iranians will also go to the polls in 2013 to elect a new president and Majlis (parliament). The outcome of these elections will neither change the overall threat Iran’s nuclear program poses to Israel nor the military threat Israel poses to Iran. Caught between the risk of an Israeli attack on Iran or an Iranian attack against Israel is the United States, desperately trying to avoid the outbreak of an Iranian–Israeli war, the consequences of which are unpredictable…………………”

Israeli politicians sometimes go to war before elections. They did it in Gaza two years ago. Mr. Netanyahu must be tempted to drag the United States into another Middle East war, but he will hesitate. He knows the USA will intervene to help his country if its war on Iran fails, which it almost certainly will. But Mr. Obama owes Netanyahu nothing: he gambled on the American right winning the elections. Obama just may let Bibi’s nuts roast a little on the Persian fire before intervening either to join him or to stop the madness. Besides, American and Israeli interests don’t always coincide, in spite of the election year political rhetoric. And nobody knows for certain the exact consequences of an attack on Iran on Western interests and economies.
The American elections are done, with the next round coming in 2014 (Democrats will most likely regain control of the Congress). Iran will hold two separate elections in 2013: parliamentary and presidential. Israel seems heading toward new elections soon. It is a safe bet that the Israeli and Iranian elections will not change anything: the right wing will win in both countries. Especially in Iran if the reformists continue to be persecuted and their followers demoralized. Israeli elections are somewhat less predictable: they are now between the right wing AND the extreme right wing.
Then there are the Saudi and Qatari elections: it is not clear who will win the positions of King and Emir. I think I was just kidding………..

Cheers
mhg

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From America to France to the Middle East: Active Generals and Risky Sex, Catfights and the Federal Religious Police …….………

   


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“The FBI is making a new push to determine how a woman who had an affair with retired Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was CIA director obtained classified files, part of an expanding series of investigations in a scandal that also threatens the career of the United States’ top military commander in Afghanistan. Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell, a Petraeus biographer whose affair with him led to his resignation last week, marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession. “The issue of national security is still on the table,” one U.S. law enforcement official said. Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information…………….”

The Petraeus media reports highlight the cultural differences between various parts of the world. Besides all the strange FBI investigations of a private affair and the house raids (at least one so far), there the broader issues. You’d think the FBI are the American equivalent of the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice (the Religious Police,) the way they have undertaken to dismantle not only the professional lives but also the private lives of the people involved. All for being involved in a relationship that is not against the law. So let’s compare:


  • USA. Freedom of consensual liaisons between adult humans is guaranteed. But the remnants of that old Puritan Ethnic are hard to shake off. The shadow of John Winthrop hangs over many hooked up couples, whether they were in the back of a car in the old days or in a motel or a hotel, or at someone’s home. Americans concede that ‘it’ is part of life, even most Republicans concede that, but it is wise not to get caught doing it. If an aggrieved partner or rival doesn’t bloody you, then there is the brutal schadenfreude, which can and does ruin the ‘afterglow’. Then there is General Allen, who exchanged emails with some other chick. He called her ‘sweetheart’ and the Religious Police apparently interpreted that as tantamount to consensual sex. Shouldn’t these guys be catching terrorists, real or created or encouraged, rather than worry about emails and bedrooms? Then there are the and drug lords and traffickers , etc., etc.
  • France. Sex is a red line in France, even if it often becomes public. It is not haram to have sex before, during, after, inside, outside, and around marriage. It is haram to meddle in it, ban it, moralize about it, or use it in politics. A general can have all the mistresses he wants, all the mistresses who are willing to seduce him, all who accept his “attentions”, all that he can afford, as long as he performs well in the field (field of battle or whatever it is French generals are supposed to do at the office). That is part of French-ness: the French Tea Party and the French Salafis would insist on it. French Evangelicals would insist on it. Even Marine Le Pen would insist on it.
  • Britain. The Brits get really kinky and off the “beaten track” in their sex scandals of high officials. Quite interesting for a people known (perhaps mistakenly) for eschewing public sex. The mildest scandal involves at least hookers (i.e. prostitutes) and progresses to foreign spies, Russians, Chinese, Abominable Snowmen, and it degenerates and gets worse (or is it considered “better” over there). 
  • Middle East. Oh, never mind. Forget about it. In some ways we are more advanced: we have institutionalized it all. You can get thrown in prison or flogged publicly for being alone with a woman in a car or at the beach or even at a cafe in some countries. Yet a General Prince Bin Technocrat Al-Kleptocrat can lead his ‘private’ life as he pleases without, er, interruption. So can a Field Marshal Shaikh Bin Kleptocrat Al-Technocrat. But we also have our public solutions to the natural order of things. Polygamy, temporary marriages, part-time marriages, sex-only no-cohabitation no-responsibility marriages, and other creative “halal”, “kosher” if you prefer, sexual arrangements that take care of it all. We are, after all, more moral and holier than thou (that means you heathens).


Cheers
mhg

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A Funny Iranian Report on Syria, a Strange Meeting on Syria, SAT…………

   


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The Syrian government and opposition parties will send their representatives to Tehran next week to attend a “National Dialogue” meeting, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian announced on Tuesday.
“Syrian government officials as well as representatives of ethnic, political, minority, and opposition groups will attend this meeting,” Amir Abdollahian told FNA Tuesday evening. On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi reiterated the necessity for the peaceful settlement of the crisis in Syria, and called for more talks between the Syrian government and opposition forces.
Salehi’s remarks were made in a meeting with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Idris Barzani in Tehran. On Iran’s diplomacy about Syria, Salehi said that the Islamic Republic is in favor of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition groups to create stability in the Middle Eastern country. Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes. The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria……………………




Also sprach Iran’s Fars News Agency.
My first reaction on reading this was a resounding WTF? Only it was not just the acronym I uttered. An Arab League-West-Syria conference has just ended in Doha (Qatar). Now the Iranians are holding their own meeting on Syria. It is not clear who are the Syrians who will attend, but I suspect this group will never gain power in post-Assad Syria, nor will it compete for power. They can’t be too opposed to the current regime, otherwise they wouldn’t be invited to Tehran. Just a hunch. It would be like the Qataris inviting the Ba’ath Party or Hezbollah to “their” Doha meeting, or like the Saudis sponsoring a conference for the Bahrain government and calling it the opposition. You figure that last one out: it is a teaser, like those SAT questions.

Cheers
mhg

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Hollande Triggers Syrian Retaliation: From the Gulf to Paris to Kentucky…………..

   


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Media report that French President has decided today to “elect” the new Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people. The French president is also reported to have recognized the Al-Saud clan as the sole representatives of the “Saudi” people, and the Al-Khalifa clan as the sole representative of the Bahrain people, and Saad Hariri as the sole representative of all the Lebanese people. 
The Al-Assad regime for its part, in retaliation, has decided to recognize Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni as the sole representatives of the French people. The Syrian regime has also threatened that if the Obama administration recognizes the new Syrian National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people, Damascus will retaliate accordingly. The Syrians will announce that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), Elaine Chow, and Newt Gingrich (WTF-Georgia) are recognized as the sole representatives of the true American people.
Cheers

mhg

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Sudanese WTF: Al-Bashir Going Nuclear or Democratic?…………..

   


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“Omar al-Bashir emerged on Sudanese television shortly after his second surgical procedure in four months on Thursday to issue a series of threats to Israel and assurances to the Sudanese people.“I am in good health and our reaction to Israel will be painful,” he said. “Israel is our enemy, our number one enemy, and we will continue calling Israel our enemy,” he added. Various Sudanese government officials have already vociferously blamed Israel for the explosion which shook the heart of capital shortly last month, but this is the first time the president has spoken about the event.The 68 year-old leader told Sudan there are two possible reactions to Israel’s alleged military transgression. The first would be to normalise relations with the Jewish State, a move he said he would never make.“The second choice is to have a technology that allows us to do an identical attack against Israel. I cannot say this is impossible. We are trying
to have this technology,”…………….”

Which means Al-Bashir will have to do two things: go democratic and go nuclear. First he can go democratic: once he goes democratic, after 25 years of dictatorship, then he can defeat anyone. He could even have kept the South Sudan. I submit that even the Syrian regime could defeat Israel and regain the Golan if it goes completely democratic and allows the freedom of expression. So could the Jordanians and the Saudis (they might even defeat the Huthis of Yemen) and all the rest of the Arab potentates. 

Back to Al-Bashir, who is allegedly wanted by the Interpole and the International Court but nobody seems eger to arrest him when he travels (unlike Saudi dissidents). After going nuclear (easy peasy) he will have to train his staff on how to fly ‘undetected’ over the Red Sea and through the Negev.
But the Israelis have one important trump card: they know this is not going to happen. But it is no great secret: we all know that.

Cheers
mhg

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Syria: New Ineffectual Coalition, Little Arab Napoleons with Shadow Clerics …………..

   


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“Until now, concerted action on Syria has been thwarted by divisions within the opposition, as well as by big power rivalries and a regional divide between Sunni Muslim foes of Assad and his Shi’ite allies in Iran and Lebanon. Cajoled by Qatar and the United States, the ineffectual Syrian National Council, previously the main opposition body based abroad, agreed to join a wider coalition on Sunday. “What happened in Doha is a step forward,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in Paris. “It is still not sufficient to constitute a provisional government that can be recognised internationally. But it’s on the right track.” Britain’s foreign minister, William Hague, also said more needed to be done to rally support inside the country before London would recognise the coalition led by AlKhatib as the rightful government of Syria. “It is a very important milestone,” Hague told reporters at the meeting of Arab and European  ministers at the Arab League………………….”

Western powers gave lukewarm encouragement to yet another alleged representative body of the “Syrian people”. That was wise. This new body, Syrian National Coalition, confirms the Islamist take-over of Syria‘s exile opposition even as it claims to be seeking to broaden its appeal. That is all fine and dandy. This new body, like the old body, will get a lot of money and diplomatic support from our freedom-loving potentates of the Gulf GCC. They will get to “mobilize” media and exiled politicians and try to get NATO to liberate Syria in the way it liberated Iraq in 2003. But this still does not make the Syrian uprising a “liberation” movement. Successful liberation movements are unified: this cannot be said of Syria.

Clearly the gangs and bands of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) are not going to coordinate with or take orders from this exile ”Coalition” or its “Council” part. They will continue to do what they do on the ground: attacking regime forces, kidnapping people they suspect and people they don’t like, slitting throats and beheading and doing what they have been doing. They have their own shadowy sources of money and weapons and volunteers.

Once

broken away from the Al-Assad grip, every Syrian captain or major or colonel thinks of himself an a Napoleon, before Waterloo. Before this civil war is over, every FSA captain or major or colonel will have a Muslim cleric shadowing him. Some already have their clerical shadows who apply the new “law” of the land according to their own unique interpretation of the Holy Book and Hadith.
As I wrote last month: the old tolerant secular Syria is no more.


Cheers
mhg

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