Category Archives: Muslims

Caliphate, Jihadis, Jordan, Muslims, Terrorism

Daesh or ISIS after the Fire: How the West Should Win?………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

It is the moment of truth for the United States…….

  • Forget this silly select incomplete coalition that basically caters to the whims and desires of some repressive Arab allies.
  • Forget self-serving sectarian Arab allies who keep on urging more wars and their strategies that serve their own goals.
  • Forget the Turks whose Islamist government has done so much to enable the ISIS Caliphate and other Jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq. Remember the Erdogan Trail?
  • Forget doddering John McCain and his pals in the Senate who seem to live in the bygone era of jingoistic gunboat diplomacy and colonialism.
  • Forget about the various Jihadis, overt and covert, who claim to want to liberate Syria for their own image of freedom and justice and the American way of life.
  • It is time to realize that there is no viable alternative to a shift on Syria. Forget the nonsense about Sunni Crescent or Shi’a Crescent. The real threat now is the Wahhabi Crescent stretching across Iraq and Syria, and beyond that to its financiers and supporters across the Middle East and Europe.
  • Do a reset if you will. Redraw this coalition to make it wider and more effective and not based on the whims of impotent allied regimes that effectively created ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
    Cheers
    Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Muslims, Names

American Education: from Czechoslovakia to Houthi……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

Poor American public. They had thought Ahmadinejad was a tough one to pronounce. Was just beginning to get comfortable with him, if that is possible, when our region provided new distractions. They had to learn how (not) to say Shi’a (or Shi’ite) and how to spell AlZarqawi and Abu Bakr Al Samarrai. Now with Yemen in the headlines they have been hit with how to pronounce ‘Houthi‘, which makes any American feel like they have a sore throat and maybe streptococcus (only if they say it the correct way).

But that is okay. A people that weathered Dzhugashvili (remember Joe?) and Czechoslovakia (phew, that one is over) and Shevardnadze (so is he) and Brzezinski and Gronkowski (of the losing team of upcoming Super Bowl XLIX) can learn to spell and pronounce anything, especially simpler Muslim names like mine and ours……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al Aqeda, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Media, Muslims, Saudi Arabia

Friedman Dumps Faithful Abdo for Two Saudi Intellectuals…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, one of the most respected Arab journalists, wrote Monday in his column in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat: “Protests against the recent terrorist attacks in France should have been held in Muslim capitals, rather than Paris, because, in this case, it is Muslims who are involved in this crisis and stand accused. … The story of extremism begins in Muslim societies, and it is with their support and silence that extremism has grown into terrorism that is harming people. It is of no value that the French people, who are the victims here, take to the streets………….. “Muslims need to ‘upgrade their software,’ which is programmed mainly by our schools, television and mosques — especially small mosques that trade in what is forbidden,” Egyptian intellectual Mamoun Fandy wrote in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat…………”

Friedman has finally dumped his all-wise Arab taxi driver. Abdo in Cairo, Abed in Beirut, Abul-Abed in humorless Jordan have all been ditched in favor of something new (at least new to me). Something he considers loftier (I disagree on this one). Friedman has settled on the prototype of great Arab thinker and intellectuals. And where did he find both? In a newspaper owned by Saudi Crown Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. Yep, in Prince Salman’s Asharq Alawsat. That font of intellectual power.

Al-Rashed, who is “one of the most-respected Arab journalists” but only in Riyadh and the Gulf states. He used to be the editor in chief of Asharq Alawsat, and is now general manager of Saudi semi-official Alarabiya network but also moonlights in Asharq Alawsat. Both parts of the vast Saudi royal media that spans the Middle East and Europe. Mr. Fandy is ‘very close’ to the Saudis. I remember him mainly for ranting during the late Mubarak months, maybe 2010 0r 2009, about the Muslim Brotherhood members of the tame parliament being Iranian agents and that they should not be allowed in the puppet Mubarak parliament. Apparently he thought that parliament was not puppet enough (the next one will surely be puppet enough). I mean, you can’t get any more intellectual than that.
Now one of them wants a million-man Arab march, but of course a march not in Saudi Arabia, the incubator of Wahhabism. I recall last time a million Arabs marched was in Cairo in 2011. They were eventually betrayed and the old Mubarak regime is back in power, even more beholden to Saudi and UAE money.

Besides, it is impossible to get any prominent Arabs, besides Mahmoud Abbas, to publicly claim that “Je suis Charlie”. Almost universally Arabs believe that Charlie Hebdo blasphemed the Prophet, which it did of course (the French are deep into blaspheming, and not just against Islam). Unless Friedman and his “intellectual” pals can get Generalissimo Al Sisi and a certain ailing old king to set the tone by joining the march. The palace muftis can also tag along for the ride.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Muslims, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

Chaste Saudi Cleric Excommunicates Frosty the Snowman……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, described them as anti-Islamic. Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country’s north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”……..”

Yes, Great Cleric, there are snows in many Muslim Lands! There are snows in Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, etc, etc. And the children in these countries also build snowmen, even Frosty, in winter without anybody going either heathen or lusty. And their women are as chaste now as they would be if there were no snows there, no more nor less…..

So, I hereby issue a counter-fatwa: it is okay to make a snowman, and it is okay to fast pitch snowballs at a cleric. A snowman is not to be worshiped like a king or a potentate.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Europe, Muslims, Sectarian, Terrorism

Salafi Sectarian War and Terrorism in Europe……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Jan 2, 2015:  Reports of  protests against anti-Muslim attacks in Sweden.

Jan 5, 2015: Neo-Nazi anti-Muslim immigrant rallies in Germany.

Jan 7, 2015: Salafi terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

Jan 9, 2015: Two hostage situations involving Salafi terrorists in the                              Paris area.

What has gone below the radar in recent years is the low level Muslim vs. Muslim campaign being waged across Europe. It is a one-way Salafi vs. (other) Muslim campaign. It is overshadowed by the general Jihadi threat in Europe and by the sectarian war being waged by Wahhabi salafis against everybody else in the Middle East and by the Western military campaigns in the Middle East.

It is one-sided campaign in Europe by Salafis against other Muslims, especially Shi’as. It verges on violence, although it is more political so far. Salafi (Sunni) groups automatically strongly oppose the establishment of Shi’a mosques in European cities and try to derail them. Even as they complain of European prejudice against Muslims (which also exists).

Sometimes it gets violent. Recently a Belgian court sentenced a Moroccan to 27 years in prison for setting fire to the largest Shi’a mosque in Brussels and killing its Imam. He was acquitted of committing “terrorism” but convicted of setting the fire and causing death. This is not the first time Salafi terrorist plots have been uncovered in Europe against other Muslims (usually Shi’as). A Salafi who was arrested recently in North America admitted that he had plans to attack Shi’a establishments.

What some of the Wahhabi Imams in Europe teach is not just to go to the Middle East and fight the Western infidels. What the dominant message is, what resonates more, is their exhortation to go to the Middle East and fight/kill ‘other’ Muslims who are different. The thousands of civilians who are massacred every year by terrorist bombs and mass murdered in Iraq are Muslims. As are almost all those beheaded and shot in Syria.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Culture, Culture and Sports, Muslims, Racism, Sports, Taliban

The Taliban Invade the Rose Parade……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Woke up early, too early today on this very cold first morning of 2015. Watched the Rose Parade in Pasadena (on TV from the Northwest of course). Getting ready to watch the Ducks beat the WTF they’re called in Florida State (maybe the Seminoles that they killed off?). One nice float had a Sikh motif, with a bunch of Sikh people on it. Sikhs of India, and maybe elsewhere, wear turbans, sort of like some of us Muslims. Sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
I switched quickly to Fox News, expecting one of their Five, or is it Six, geniuses complain about the Taliban or other Muslim terrorists taking over the Rose Parade.
It has a ring to it if you are a regular watcher, occasionally with tragic results…………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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CIA, Culture, Gulag, Muslims, Torture, U.S. Foreign Policy

Comparative Torture in a Global Gulag: Islamic House of Glass, Western House of Glass……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2     ChristmasPeanuts

Have Yourself a Merry Little——-> Kenny G. Holiday 

“The CIA paid torture teachers James Mitchell and Bruce Jesser more than $80 million. As they now live out their wildest dreams, their barbarity has cost the U.S. far more. Call them the houses that torture built: Two sprawling luxury homes purchased by the CIA-contracted psychologists at the center of the scathing Senate report. James Elmer Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen are not the first Americans to employ waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” against our enemies. But they are almost certainly the only ones to get rich doing it. They did so by employing what is widely dismissed as “voodoo science”…………..”

And I had almost come to think that we are among the last barbarians left. Some of us, a few actually, behead others, a few slit throats, some blow themselves up among others (mostly the victims are of us) and kill hundreds, some sentence dissidents to public flogging. All rather primitive methods of inflicting death and/or pain by both Jihadi terrorists and repressive regimes. But these are old tried and true methods dating back deep into history, to long before Rome, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Islam. The cruel but unimaginative methods of execution and inflicting pain of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
Then we have the more imaginative, or more scientific methods of inflicting pain and causing death. That is the more civilized method. From the Nazis of Germany/Austria to the French in Algeria to Abu Ghraib and to the alleged CIA and the private contractor Gulag that spreads across the globe. From rectal (or anal) feeding to waterboarding to lengthy sleep deprivation to psychological torture to gas chambers to forced starvation, all the way back to the burning of people alive and to the fires and knives of the Inquisition. The more civilized methods of the non-Muslim West. I should not mention the odd questionable prison injections that cause convicts to die slowly and unusually painfully in some God-fearing states. But I just did.
Houses of glass are everywhere………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Anti-Semitism, Culture, GCC, Israel, Muslims

Umma with Paranoia: What is in a Little Blue Star of David?……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Later, it turned out the complaint had been obtained by a female officer in the police operations room, who explained she did not know that wearing Jewish symbols was against the law and must be dealt with. However, when the story about the man was published in the Kuwaiti newspaper, the authorities quickly tracked the man down and arrested him. A similar case was published in Egyptian media in March. Egyptian authorities arrested a 24-year-old man in the Sohag Governorate in southern Egypt, who according to reports had a tattoo of the Star of David on his arm……………”

A personal tattoo of a Star of David is a crime in Cairo, nay it is ‘treason’. A tattoo of a Swastika is almost certainly not a crime, it is considered kosher and halal. A big blue Star of David on the Israeli flag over the Cairo embassy is also okay. He is now suspected of doing “takhabur” with the Mossad, and being stupid enough to announce it with a tattoo.
Consistency is not a hallmark of an alleged Umma that is struck with the apparent insecurity of doubt and collective paranoia, with a dash of stupidity.

(Which makes you wonder when will they add that absurdity to the list of other absurd crimes they are throwing at Morsi, who is Egypt’s first and last freely elected president and an anti-Semite to boot).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Caliphate, Iraq, Jihadis, Muslims, Syria

White Noise: ISIS Caliphate Beginning to Lose It? A Pivot to Elsewhere………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“After a week in which Islamic state (Isis) has suffered a wave of setbacks, it is determined to show that it plays a long game. On all of its active fronts, things have not been going well for the terror group. Iraq has been a particular problem: Isis appears to have lost control of one of its prized possessions, the Baiji oil refinery, following a push by Shia militias and the Iraqi military…………….”

I opined from the beginning of this Caliphate affair months ago that this Western media panic about ISIS taking Baghdad was just ‘white noise‘ (no pun intended). That they will be pushed back, eventually. But wars like this one in Iraq and Syria seesaw until a clear trend develops. Is this a sign of a clear trend? It is a trend, for now.

Other Arab media, mainly Lebanese, and a few Western outlets, have claimed that Iraqi forces and militias, reportedly advised by Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Suleimani, have pushed ISIS out of several conquered towns (possibly with Western air support?). Western media prefer to say that the bombings from the air have helped turn the tide. I suspect it is a combination of both: Western bombs from the air and Iraqi (and Syrian) boots on the ground.

P.S: Is it too much to ask that this be the last Western military campaign over any Muslim (or Arab) country? That this habit of the past couple of decades of maintaining open-ended ‘open season’ on Muslim lands be broken? That maybe perhaps hopefully the liberators take a Muslim hiatus and seek other targets? Just for variety? Some other ‘new’ target outside the Middle East might ease the possible withdrawal symptoms. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a pivot to Burma or even Myanmar.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Burma, History, Muslims, U.S. Senate

U.S. Senate Love Affair with Muslims: Bombing Burma and a New Crusade…….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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I read that President Obama will visit Burma (a k a Myanmar) this week to reward the clinging military regime for offering a good spin in talking a democratic line.

I also read that Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, like the broken LP records of the U.S. Senate, are again calling for launching new invasions of and attacks on Muslim countries. Many senators of both parties agree with them, so long as the targets are Muslims: after all, how many Muslim voters do McCain and Graham have in their states? Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, African Sahel, possibly a couple others. And they are always seeking to set the ground for the Mother of All Middle East Wars, against Iran if they can swing it. Always on Muslim countries.
Nobody credible ever proposed attacking the Soviet Union even during the Hungarian or Czech or Cuban crises. Douglas MacArthur was fired for proposing a possible counterattack on China. Nobody seriously proposed attacking Nazi Germany until after Hitler, in a moment of monumental but characteristic stupidity, declared war on the USA. Nobody has even seriously proposed defanging Kim Jong Un, not even the perennial chickenhawk John Bolton. But they all want to bomb more Muslim countries.

So, perhaps, maybe, could be the Western powers need to take a breather, lay off their Muslim wars. Even if they think they are well-meaning and have lofty ideals, which most “natives” don’t think they do. Many Muslims, especially Arabs, quietly and loudly think of all this as a new Crusade aimed at getting Western hands on their petroleum or at helping maintain Israeli strategic supremacy. And not just Al Qaeda and other Wahhabis or Ayatollahs or the few remaining leftist types.

So, why not Burma, par exemple? Why is Burma never bombed, even as it has opened Nazi-style concentration camps for some of its ‘ethnic’ people like the Rohingya Muslims? Go for it, make history, just for once in this century to bomb some country that is neither Muslim nor Arab, for a change…………

(Someone suggested that maybe this should be AFTER they take care of the Caliphate of ISIS).

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

[email protected]