Category Archives: North Africa

Culture, Iran, North Africa, Religion, Salafi

Tunisian Salafis Attack Persepolis, Television Manager, Free Speech, Imagination……….

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      BFF

“About a hundred men, some of whom threw Molotov cocktails, lay siege to the home of Nabil Karoui, the head of the private television station Nessma late on Friday, the station reported in its evening news bulletin. Karoui’s family had only just escaped, the news presenter said…….About 20 of the protesters had managed to get inside. This was the most serious incident yet in an escalating series of protests against the station’s broadcast of “Persepolis” on October 7. The globally acclaimed animated film on Iran’s 1979 revolution offended many Muslims because it depicts an image of God as an old, bearded man. All depictions of God are forbidden by Islam. Earlier on Friday, police fired tear gas at some demonstrators as some of the protests against the station degenerated. The main demonstration began peacefully at a central Tunis mosque after Friday prayers, with men and women chanting slogans against Nessma. Thousands of people, many of them Salafist Muslims, were present……………..”

One unfortunate result of the Arab uprisings is that the Salafi Wahhabis, who mostly remained on the sideline at the beginning, are taking some advantage. They are trying to impose their fundamentalist ideology on others. In Egypt they had alreday gained much influence under the Mubarak-Saudi alliance, even gained influence over al-Azhar. Now they are trying to impose their will on Tunisia, possibly one of the most secular of Arab states.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Britain, France, Libya, NATO, North Africa

NATO and the Arab World: Are Happy Days Here Again? When Potentates are Divine and Groveling is Hip…….

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“NATO planes are still in the air and bombing targets over Libya, and Moammar Gadhafi is still on the loose. Nonetheless, NATO is taking something of a victory lap in the wake of an operation that broke new ground for the military alliance……….. Throughout the conflict, NATO has insisted that its actions are limited to supporting the U.N. resolution that calls for protecting civilians and enforcing an arms embargo. But NATO certainly pushed the boundaries, and critics say NATO ended up providing close air support for anti-Gadhafi rebels. To most observers, NATO was clearly taking the rebel side in a civil war and backing efforts to oust Gadhafi. Those critics worry that NATO risks becoming an armed service provider for the U.N. and other allies. That job description is a long way from what NATO still insists is its core, founding mission: to protect its members’ territory and population…….”

A few decades after the last European imperialists departed the Arab world, militarily speaking, they are back. The major, the only imperialist powers that ruled the Arabs for decades are back to their old turf. That would be the British and the French. Interesting that the British leader (a minority leader) comes from the Conservative (Tory) Party of Winston Churchill but he is hardly Churchill-esqu, and the French president du jour comes from the conservative ranks as well, but he is hardly de Gaulle-esque. But they are here in Libya and looking speculatively toward Syria (while completely ignoring Yemen and Bahrain).
 
Mr. Cameron is doing an Allenby, or is it a Kitchener? While the strutting Sarkozy is more ambitious, if more delusional, and is apparently going for a Bonaparte. Maybe Berlusconi is also dreaming of the old Roman Province of Africa but he is a bit late. Now we can say that NATO, or various parts of it, control the skies and the seas and the land of almost the whole Arab World, save for a sliver in Gaza and a very iffy Syria that is also teetering, and parts of Lebanon. Now NATO also controls all of the Middle East, save for these mentioned parts and theocratic Iran (remember that Turkey is part of NATO and Israel is practically an honorary member).

All that because the corrupt Arab system, and not just the League of Arab States, has failed the Arab peoples for decades. There was a time, decades ago, when Arabs were hopeful and had expectations of something better. Maybe they were delusional, but they had optimism and hope. In recent years, they have been reduced to bowing to potentates and absolute monarchs and dictators. It is now cool, nay it is hip, in much of the Arab world to bow and grovel to the potentates. One, or perhaps two, of these potentates are increasingly assuming the air of something beyond statesmanship, more like quasi-divinity, egged on by their all pervasive vast dynastic media that control the Arab skies and waves and the squads of thugs and mercenaries.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa

The Right Wing Arab Spring: will Libya Join the New Humorous GCC?………

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      BFF

“The head of Libya’s National Transitional Council on Monday night delivered his first public speech in central Tripoli. Speaking to thousands of supporters in Martyrs’ Square, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil said Libya would adopt sharia law. But, as the New York Times reports, Jalil insisted that Libya would never again fall into the hands of extremists. We will not accept any extremist ideology, on the right or the left. We are a Muslim people, for a moderate Islam, and will stay on this road. We strive for a state of the law, for a state of prosperity, for a state that will have Islamic sharia law the basis of legislation. Meanwhile Amnesty International has accused fighters of Libya’s National Transitional Council of committing war crimes in their battle to overthrow leader Muammar Gaddafi……….”

This man, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, has decided that Libya will adopt the Shari’a. He has not asked the Libyan people, he has not ‘offered’ to allow them to vote on the issue. My, and others’, suspicions about these Libyan rebels are coming true. Many of the leaders were minions of Qaddafi until recently. The rest were Salafi and Muslim Brother fundamentalists who were either in exile or in Qaddafi’s prisons. A few among the exiles were pro-democracy. Qaddafi himself espoused some cocktail of Islamism-Arab nationalism-Qaddafiism-Africanism; but like all Arab despots, he was foremost for himself, his family, and his tribe. As they say, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The next Libyan regime will be fundamentalist, but not anti-western (nor fiercely independent) as the regimes in Iran and Gaza. It will be more like the Saudi regime, a theocracy that is acceptable to the West. I can almost see the Qatari, Emirati and others dancing a jig of celebration. That is what it will be for a while, until the ruling group breaks up into its warring factions, unless they find a formula to share the pie.
Speaking of all this: the new Libya may become another Saudi candidate for membership of the Gulf GCC. (I know, I know: Libyans probably have about as much humor as Jordanians, which is next to nil, but try telling that to the Gulf potentates).
Then there is Papa Sarkozy and Mama Cameron, or is it the other way around…………
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Human Right, Libya, North Africa

OFMQ: Old Friends of Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi…………

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“Khalid Saad worked for years as a loyal cog in Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s propaganda machine, arranging transportation to ferry foreign journalists to staged rallies, ensuring that they never left their hotels without official escorts and raising his own voice to cheer the Libyan leader. The day that rebels took Tripoli, Mr. Saad immediately switched sides. Now he works for the rebels’ provisional government, coordinating transportation for its officials and insisting that his previous support for Colonel Qaddafi was just business. “My uncle and my son were soldiers for the revolution,” he said in an interview. “Everyone will be happy now. Everything is changed now. Everyone is free.” As the curtain falls on Colonel Qaddafi’s Tripoli, many of its supporting actors are rushing to pick up new roles with the rebels……….”

Old friends of Ma’ammar Qaddafi (OFMQ) are braying for his blood, as are old foes. His former best pal Silvio Berlusconi, former admirer Nicolas Sarkozy, law-bending-for-money British politicians, assorted Europeans, Hillary Clinton, etc, etc. Only some of the Latins and some Africans seem to have not jumped off his Libyan ship. Interesting how the most murderous dictators and despots are tolerated and accepted by the “international community”, meaning Western governments, while in power, but are quickly set upon by their friends when they topple. As long as they play by the rules of the “international community”, they can continue their murderous rule, provided they can keep it quiet. From Batista to Papa Doc to Noriega to Saddam Hussein to Qaddafi and the absolute monarchies: play by the rules as set by the “international community” and you can do wtf you please inside your domain, as long as you keep a lid on things.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, France, Libya, NATO, North Africa

Sarkozy and his Celebrity Philosopher Have a Good War, Hit the Shores of Tripoli………

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      BFF

“NICOLAS SARKOZY has had a good war. The armed campaign in Libya was the French president’s biggest gamble, the moment he put his reputation, judgment and leadership on the line. France, along with Britain, carried out the bulk of the air strikes. Unlike President Barack Obama, Mr Sarkozy enjoyed cross-party support for the campaign and popular backing at home. The fall of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi ought therefore to yield some domestic reward. Yet Mr Sarkozy’s poll numbers remain grim, and, little more than six months before France’s presidential vote, his chances of re-election do not, on paper, look good. The Libyan air strikes were not Mr Sarkozy’s first armed campaign. He sent French soldiers into hostile territory in the name of democracy in both Afghanistan and Côte d’Ivoire. But his investment in the Libyan campaign was the most intensely personal. Before anybody else, and unbeknown at the time even to his foreign minister, he stuck his neck out and gave diplomatic recognition to the Libyan rebels, whose leaders he met at the Elysée palace at the urging of Bernard-Henri Lévy, a celebrity philosopher…………..”

Now Sarkozy has his own favorite American-Style “celebrity” philosopher. Bernard-Henri Lévy as a Gallic Dr. Phil, or Deepak Chopra, or Jerry Springer, or Howard Stern, et al. I would advise Sarko not to strut in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner yet. Wait for the dust in the Libyan desert to settle, wait for the Sahara dust to settle. Remember: your old pal Rommel thought he was heading to Alexandria (then Cairo) when in fact he didn’t get beyond El-Alamein.

The French
 are notorious for being skeptic about their leaders, at least they think they are, yet they keep electing snake-oil vendors who almost always have to be investigated for corruption as soon as they leave office. De Gaulle excepted. Maybe they do that so they can quickly get back to their “French” norm and be skeptic about them.
Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Libya, North Africa, Qatar, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Muslim Brotherhood Colors: Qatari, Saudi, Iranian, Chinese……….

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“The Islamists seem to have the upper hand, enjoying the patronage of Qatar, the boiling-rich little Gulf emirate that hosts Yusuf Qaradawi, an influential mentor of the global Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Jazeera, the satellite-television channel that shapes perceptions across the Arab world. Qatar, some surmise, could yet play the part in nurturing Islamists in Libya that Pakistan played in Afghanistan. Mosques are already influencing the new order—often for the good. Within days of the rebel victory in Tripoli, imams broadcast calls for gunmen to stop firing in the air. They have used Friday prayers to tell looters to register their weapons with local offices answerable to the national council and have distributed reminders to be pinned to lampposts. In many districts the mosque is the seat of the new local council, receiving alms to subsidise its activities. Many have wells, and the national council has declared that supplying fresh water is a top priority. Tripoli’s new military commander, Abdel Hakim Bel Haj, once belonged to the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, regarded as an affiliate of al-Qaeda, which he subsequently renounced. His deputy, Mehdi Herati, sailed with a fiercely Islamist Turkish group in last year’s flotilla to break the siege on Gaza. Ali al-Salabi, a Muslim Brotherhood scholar, has returned from Qatar. Assorted Islamists are suspected of killing Abdel Younis Fattah, the rebel commander who died outside Benghazi in late July in mysterious circumstances……………..”

I told you so about two weeks ago. All Arab uprisings (none are true revolutions yet) end up with more power for the Islamists. That is the natural order now, if only because the dictators and despots had made sure there is no real political life other than in exile or in prison. That leaves out the mosque, in most Arab countries the only place where people can gather without police violence being visited upon them. Unfortunately for the regimes, they could not close down the mosques (most Arab regimes are not nearly as good in controlling the mosques as, say, the Saudis are).
The Qataris have for years had their own favorite Islamists, and they usually tended to be the ones the Saudis disliked: branches of the Muslim Brothers in various places like Egypt and Gaza. The Saudis mistrusted the Egyptian MB, the “Mother of all Muslim Brothers”, especially, partly because they were against Mubarak and partly because they did not think much of the Saudi system as an example to follow (unlike the Salafis).
That is a far cry from some years ago, when Egyptian MB’s found refuge and support in Saudi Arabia against the secular leftist regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This is not to say the Saudis don’t have their own favored Muslim Brothers: they do, especially in the Gulf region and parts of Iraq and Syria. Hell, even the Iranian (Shi’a) mullahs have managed to have their own (Sunni) Muslim Brothers in Gaza. (No, I don’t think the Chinese have their favorite Muslim Brothers, not yet, although I suspect that the West does).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, CIA, Libya, NATO, North Africa, Racism, US Foreign Policy, WTF

Gallicus Sarkozicus Africanus: Who Said the New Libya is Not Independent?………..

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“Nicolas Sarkozy, of all people, is trying to put to rest the controversy over Abdelhakim Belhadj, the head of Tripoli’s military council. Belhadj rings alarm bells because of his past association with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and later on fought in Iraq and again in Afghanistan. In other words, they had been among Ronald Reagan’s “Freedom Fighters.” Belhadj was captured by the CIA and reportedly turned against terrorism while imprisoned. The CIA helpfully released him to Qaddafi, which is surely a crime of some sort (civilized countries do not send even enemy prisoners to countries where they might be killed or tortured by the government on arrival). Sarkozy has been anything but nice to French Muslims (who mostly voted for a Socialist woman in the last election precisely because Sarkozy he was the alternative), and he has been accused of legitimating the racist anti-Muslim discourse of Marie LePen. So if Sarkozy is vouching for Belhadj, then I’d bet that Belhadj is not a danger to the West. And, of course, the members of the Transitional National Council, the leadership of the new Libya, have been carefully vetted by the US, Britain and France……………”

Libya is, will remain, independent. Its ‘new’ government will have the freedom to make independent decisions. Its ‘new’ government can be relied upon to make the right decisions. Its new government has been carefully “vetted” by the three leading powers of NATO (make that OTAN). The Libyan people have progressed from a repressive dictatorial dynasty to a government “vetted” by the democracies of NATO. It is a testimony to the truly screwed up state of the Arab world that a NATO-vetted government is an improvement. The sad thing is that it is a step forward: an improvement over the Qaddafi dictatorship, and probably an improvement over most other Ara regimes.

Sarkozy (a k a Le Weasel) is now the Western Gauleiter for Libya. As Cole says “Sarkozy has been anything but nice to French Muslims (who mostly voted for a Socialist woman in the last election precisely because Sarkozy he was the alternative), and he has been accused of legitimating the racist anti-Muslim discourse of Marie LePen…………” Gallicus Sarkozicus Africanus, indeed.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa, WTF

Three Goals of the Libyan (Rebel) TNC, Schmucks Watching Pinocchio……….

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So far the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) has focused on tow main goals: (1) Securing Tripoli and the rest of Libya from the Qaddafi loyalists and cronies (although many of the TNC were Qaddafi cronies until this year) and, (2) Killing Khamis Qaddafi, if only because they have claimed killing him so many times, like every two days, then denying it. It looks like securing Libya (from the Qaddafi loyalists should be easy, there aren’t many of the left). Securing the death of Khamis Qaddafi, which the TNC rebels seem obsessed with, will be difficult.

Aljazeera quoted a TNC military leader today that over 50 thousand Libyans have been killed since the beginning of the uprising. He may be a military leader and I am not, he may be inside Libya and I am not, he is a Libyan and I am not, but I doubt very much that anywhere near that number were killed. I just KNOW it, as he should, except that he uses his emotions instead of his brain.
I suggest a third goal for the TNC: (3) Telling the truth and nothing but about what goes on inside Libya.Watching Pinocchio might help.

Oh, and make sure you add term limits in the new Libyan constitution: no more president for more than eight years. No more of the usual Arab lifetime schmucks.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab League, Arab Revolutions, Libya, North Africa

Return to Tobruk: Liberated Libya, Lucrative Libya………….

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“The German government made a Transall military transport plane available for the journey, and the mission was headed up by Hans-Joachim Otto, a state secretary in the German Economics Ministry. In Benghazi, where the rebel movement is headquartered, the group handed over aid goods and medical supplies to the city’s hospitals. But the trip was far from just a humanitarian one. The Germans also met with representatives of the Libyan transitional council and of the country’s central bank in an effort to pursue economic interests in the country. The war in Libya, of course, has not yet come to an end, and autocrat Moammar Gadhafi remains at large, likely hiding in a bunker somewhere in Tripoli. But companies from around the world, including several based in Germany, have already begun preparing for peacetime. Once reconstruction begins, business opportunities, they hope, will be plentiful — and lucrative…….. The Italian oil concern Eni, for example, is doing what it can to defend its status as the largest foreign oil producer in the country. Even before the rebels stormed the Gadhafi residence in Tripoli this week, Eni technicians had begun preparing to restart the flow of oil. And Eni has the full support of the government in Rome. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is meeting with rebel leader Mahmoud Jibril on Thursday. It is France, though, that could have the pole position when it comes to doing business with the new Libya…………….”

The Europeans lining up to get their “fair share” of the Libyan war booty. This time, not only are the Italians back, but the French as well, and the Germans, and others. Seventy years after World War II, European landmines are still killing Arabs (and Berbers) in North Africa. Now their forces are back, some of them disguised as Qataris and foreign residents of the UAE.

The fact that Libya needs “reconstruction” after only a few months of “low level” fighting indicates the dismal state of Qaddafi’s Great Libyan Socialist Jamahiriya. With huge oil reserves and revenues, and only about 5 million people, the dictator could not do even a mediocre job on the economy.
The carnage also indicates something else: the amount of destruction NATO forces have unleashed on Libya.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Economics, Egypt, Finance, Iran, North Africa

Arab Revolutions and Oligarchs: with a Little Help from their Friends…….

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      BFF
“What would you think if I sang out of tune,

Would you stand up and walk out on me.

Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song,

And I’ll try not to sing out of key.

Oh I get by with a little help from my friends,

Mmm,I get high with a little help from my friends,

Mmm, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends……..” The Beatles (also sung by Joe Cocker and Arab Oligarchs)

“It is hard to say for sure who took down the portrait of the revolution’s most famous martyr, Mohamed Bouazizi, from its perch atop a garish gold statue on the street where he set himself on fire, touching off a season of revolt across the Arab world. One man said unnamed counterrevolutionaries did it, and another man said it was damaged by rain. Mr. Bouazizi’s neighbors say it was taken down in disgust, several weeks ago, after his mother, uncle and siblings left Sidi Bouzid, an act the neighbors considered a betrayal……. But more than that, they said they were furious at being left behind, in a place with no jobs, money or hope, without the famous Bouazizis to give voice to their despair……. It is a measure of the deep frustration in Sidi Bouzid that a few people have lashed out at the town’s favorite son. That anger is misplaced, most residents say, blaming the lack of progress here on the transitional government, which has moved slowly to address one of the revolution’s central complaints — youth unemployment — especially here in the towns of central Tunisia, where the uprising began. The bitterness here stands in stark contrast to a guarded optimism elsewhere in Tunisia about the progress of the revolution, and it threatens to undermine the gains: Several times in the last few months, disputes over jobs have led to deadly episodes of violence……..In Tunisia, as in Egypt, the optimism fueled by a popular uprising has crashed into the cold reality that life has not quickly improved, and in many cases has even grown more challenging as economies stall and interim leaders struggle to build a new system……….”

The Tunisian revolution is still unfinished, anymore than the revolution in Egypt. In both countries long-term dictators were overthrown but their appointees, whether civilian or military, are trying to keep the old order in place. In Egypt the military is asserting its supreme power and it looks set to keep on playing a leading role no matter who wins the ‘election’. The military rulers are almost certainly looking to oversee a “soft democracy”, slightly more open than under Mubarak, perhaps with leaders having term limits as in Iran (but the power of the military in Egypt, like that of the clergy in Iran, will have no term limits). In Tunisia there is probably more consensus among the people about the future of the country, but real change will be hard.
 
Both countries will eventually look more to the IMF and World Bank for financial help and advice on how to manage their economies. The IMF and IBRD are the same institutions that funded and advised the old regimes: ergo, don’t hold your breath expecting anything new. Both countries will also look to the West for help and advice, look to the same insane deregulated economic/financial system that has driven us to the brink of another depression.
Then there are the Arab counterrevolutionaries, flush with cash, who did not wish for the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings to succeed but now seek to subvert them. Now the Arab absolute monarchs and their media are talking as if they were behind the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt the whole time. They are holding the line, these Arab counterrevolutionaries, in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, and they are making sure it does not start elsewhere. With a little help from their friends.
Cheers
mhg


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