Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi

Fifth Column on the Nile: of Bodily Fluids and a Kingdom of Frustrations……..

   

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 “This version of Islam is not Egyptian. Real and honest moderate Egyptian Islam has receded in the face of Wahhabi Islam coming from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries. For thirty years masses of oil money has been used to drown Egypt in Wahhabi ideas. The purpose of this support for the Wahhabi school of thought is basically political, in that the Saudi system of government depends on an alliance between the ruling family and the Wahhabi sheikhs. Hence spreading the Wahhabi ideology reinforces the political system in that country. At the same time millions of Egyptians have migrated to the Gulf seeking a livelihood and have then come back to Egypt full of Wahhabi ideas……… As for the Salafists, who are more numerous than the Brothers, they stood quite openly against the revolution. Their sheikhs in Egypt and Saudi Arabia issued fatwas that demonstrations are haram and that Muslims have a duty to obey a Muslim leader, even if he is unjust. They asserted that democracy is haram because it advocates government by the people, while they believe that God alone can rule, not mankind. When the revolution succeeded in deposing Hosni Mubarak we found the Salafists suddenly changing their beliefs, forming parties and taking part in democracy, which had been haram a few days earlier. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists made a deal with the Military Council.……….”

So writes
Alaa Al Aswany about Egypt’s new/old political “elite”. Mr. Mubarak and his al-Azhar appointees helped to gradually convert Egypt into a quasi-Wahhabi society. Even the courts started handing down Wahhabi-style sentences not aligned with Egypt’s traditionally tolerant laws. They changed some laws to fit the Salafi ‘proclivities’, like allowing temporary marriages, vacation marriages, under-age marriages, and other exotic Saudi Wahhabi forms. You notice Salafi Wahhabi proclivities evolve mostly around “bodily” functions (and a lot of bodily fluids, both kinds of bodily fluids). Just to accommodate repressed male Saudi tourists who spend their holidays seeking ‘halal’ sex in Cairo (and Alexandria). Away from the Kingdom of Repression and Frustration.

(The Salafis also received a lot of Saudi and Gulf money for their election campaign. Which means they will likely always have a strong influence in the Egyptian government, as long as the money keeps coming. Which it will. A fifth column on the Nile).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

A Bahrain Think Tank and the Joys of Tribal Wahhabi Liberalism…………

    

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“Manama: Countries keen on boosting cultural and intellectual relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries should appreciate that they are dealing with a new elite of thinkers, the head of Bahrain’s main think- tank has said. “They have received their education in the world’s outstanding universities and have become remarkable contributors in strategic studies and international studies,” Dr Mohammad Abdul Gaffar, head of the Bahrain Centre for Strategic, International and Energy Studies and Special Adviser to King Hamad Eisa Al Khalifa, said. “This new elite of intellectuals from the GCC states are different from the previous generation at the cultural and educational levels Britain dealt with during the early stages of the formation of modern Gulf states…………..”

Oh, yes: a special adviser to King Hamad al-Khalifa, the acting Saudi governor of Bahrain. I suspect
 that by “new elite of thinkers” he means the Wahhabi tribal faux-liberals who are filling Gulf media and academic institutions with writings and opinions of glorification of the Saudi princes and their sidekicks in Bahrain and around the region.
By
 “new elite of intellectuals” he is probably also referring to the fundamentalist tribal alliances that dominate whatever passes for politics on the Gulf these days. The only real politics in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are done in prison and in exile. The only true politics in Bahrain are done at the people’s protests and barricades and in prison and in exile (with armed regime thugs and imported mercenaries playing the incumbents). As for the Wahhabi “so-called” intellectuals, in some places they correctly call them tribal and sectarian sycophants.
Cheers
mhg


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9/11, Arab Revolutions, Iran, Iraq, NATO, Syria, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Asinine Views of Evil: What the West Thinks, What Muslims Think………

    

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“Of course, it’s difficult to ascertain the views of Iranians. State censorship is tight, and foreign journalists are rarely allowed into the country. Nevertheless, it is possible to make contact with some Iranians. And when you speak with them, you learn something quite surprising: Even if they oppose Ahmadinejad, their radical president, most of these Iranians still view their country as the victim in the current circumstances. They also view the West as an enemy and fail to consider or acknowledge that there are massive differences between hawks in Israel and doves within the Obama administration. “After 9/11, George W. Bush systematically portrayed Iran as the bogeyman. That’s happening again now. I have seen no indication that we are building a nuclear bomb,” says one professor in Tehran…………..”

The problem with many in the West is that they often try to think for others, often assuming anyone who is against a repressive regime automatically agrees with the West on all issues.
Take Iran and the nuclear issue: most Iranians support their country’s nuclear program even as many of them are opposed to the regime. Many of the Syrian “rebels” are probably more militant than the Assad regime about the occupied Golan Heights (John McCain and Joe Lieberman have somehow missed that one). Many, but not all, of these Syrians certainly are Islamic fundamentalists who have no use for Western values, although they’d love Western weapons and Western troops to help against their dictator.
After 9/11, George W Bush and the neoconservatives could not exactly put the blame where it belonged, on the one country that provided the ideology, the fatwas, the volunteers, and the money for the terrorist attacks. The Bushes and the Cheneys could not offend their pals the petroleum princes in Riyadh. They focused on softer targets like Iraq and Iran. Hence the nonsense about “Axis of Evil” (so far the most asinine catch phrase of the first decade of the new century) that excluded the Salafi swamp. The West blockaded Iran; the West liberated Iraq soon after it ‘liberated’ Afghanistan, before the West went on to liberate Libya last year and is thinking of liberating Syria later this year.
Many idiotic neoconservatives, other sanctimonious Republicans, and a few Democrats seeking reelection are now pondering ways to liberate Iran.
Cheers
mhg


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Espionage, Iran, Israel, Mossad, Mujahideen Khalq, Terrorism

New Delhi Attack: Mossad Mujahideen or Iranian Agents?…………

   

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“A week after the terror attack in New Delhi, which seriously wounded Tal Yehoshua-Koren, the wife of an Israeli diplomat, the Indian government is still trying to brush over the accumulating evidence that the attack was part of a wider Iranian effort to orchestrate multiple attacks on Israeli targets in different countries. To date, no Indian official has referred to Iran’s involvement. Sources in New Delhi explain that the government is concerned that its close relationships with both Israel and Iran are becoming incompatible……….”

The Israeli media propaganda claims “accumulating evidence” of Iranian involvement. There is no such accumulating evidence, mostly speculation. Meanwhile the Israelis “brag’ about their role in terrorist killings of civilians on the streets of Tehran.
The Indians and Thais have not pointed the finger yet. If there are any Iranians involved, they are as likely to be Mujahideen Khalq agents of the Israeli Mossad as being agents of the Iranian regime. It is the Indians and Thais who are investigating the incident, yet Israeli and Western media have already decided what that evidence is. Either one can be responsible, but I am betting on the MEK and the Mossad as the most likely culprits. Helping the Mossad may be the price for getting the MEK Mujahideen off the U.S. terrorist list.

Cheers
mhg


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Britain, Corruption

Ugh: More on Tony Blair………..

   

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“A short note on the presidential website stated that Mr Blair discussed a speech Mr Nazarbayev was due to make on employment, industry and housing issues in the former Soviet state. “I agree with your message and the large scale tasks which need to be put into practice” the Russian-language version of the presidential website quoted Mr Blair as saying. “We’re ready to work and present to you recommendations on successfully implementing these tasks.” For an £8 million a year fee, Mr Blair reportedly set up a group last year to advise Mr Nazarbayev. Mr Blair’s spokesman has previously said that he is not profiting from the deal. The spokesman also said that Mr Blair’s only involvement had been to set up the group and that he was not personally advising Mr Nazarbayev………..”

Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Muslims, NATO, Persian-American Gulf, Racism, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Kipling on My Gulf: Native Rights, White Man Rights, Muslim Rights, NATO Rights…………

   

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 “Take up the White Man’s burden
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go send your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child
Take up the White Man’s burden
In patience to abide
To veil the threat of terror……..” Rudyard Kipling (White Man’s Burden)

When Israelis threaten Iran with a preemptive attack, unprovoked, the West takes it for granted: oh well, boys will be boys, as long as they are white boys. Western media like CNN immediately spin it as self-defense.

When Iran “threatens” to defend herself, the West acts shocked, calling for more sanctions, choking off the economy, leaving “all options” on the table until after the 2012 elections (after the American November elections not after the Iranian March elections; definitely not after the Saudi elections for that would be just after hell freezes over which would be no time for a war).

Western (and Saudi media) continue to call the Iranian presence in our region a “threat”. Iranian warships in their own neighborhood in the Gulf are called a danger, while “foreign” Western warships from ten thousand kilometers away, practically clogging the Gulf, are not a “danger”. Now, where else can the Iranian navy go? After all it is the “Persian” Gulf according to the UN resolutions (okay, Persian-American Gulf now). It is jointly “owned” solely by Iranians and Arabs and by nobody else. Yet Israeli and Western leaders and assorted political climbers continue to threaten to bomb Iran for just ‘being there’, or for looking sideways at Netantyahu.
Such threats are considered a right, an entitlement of the “white” man, something God-given. Even Ban-Ki Moon (Mooney) agrees with that, although not in so many words. Moony does want to be re-elected for another term and he knows the history of Butrus Ghali (Egypt) and Kofi Annan (Ghana).
Even the Wahhabi Salafis agree on that last point, the one of going to war against Iran for looking sideways at Benjamin Netabyahu. They also agree with Rick Santorum and the other GOP clowns about the necessity of another war in the Gulf. As long as they don’t have to fight it (with three or four wives, one has no time for war). They pray for it to some Salafi God of their own, as their royal princes pray for rain, even as they curse the Gods of their “heathen” benefactors whom they want to wage war “on their behalf”.

Who would have thunk life would get so complicated in our region in just a few years.
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Iran

O Canada: Canucks and Disgruntled Natives, Iranian Diplomacy and NGOs, Eh?………

   

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“WINNIPEG — Former Roseau River chief Terry Nelson is asking Iran for help with the governance issues on his and other First Nations. A referendum on how Roseau River chooses its leaders was postponed Thursday. Aboriginal Affairs said it needed more time to work with the community, which has been plagued by issues at the ballot box. When the news came down Thursday, Nelson decided to lead a caravan of cars to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in about two weeks. He plans to thank Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his condemnation of Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people, and ask him for help in bringing attention to the issue of missing and murdered women. “I am not going to spend my time trying to get the immigrant governments to hear our plight, it is time to ask other nations to investigate and support us directly,” he wrote. “Ottawa police and RCMP………”……..” Toronto Sun


“TEHRAN, Feb. 22 (MNA) – Former Roseau River chief Terry Nelson plans to ask Iran for help with the governance issues on his and other First Nations, Toronto Sun reported on February 18. According to the report, Nelson had decided to lead a caravan of cars to the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in about two weeks and plans to thank Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his condemnation of Canada’s treatment of aboriginal people.. ……” Mehr News

I don’t think Canadians, even the natives, cotton up to a cleric presiding over them. No Wilayat el-Faqih for the Canucks, not even the original natives, eh? I liked the part about the Canadian government being an “immigrant government”: you’d think Harper is some kind of Hindu or Muslim.
Now the Saudi princes will start worrying about the Roseau River and other First Nations going Shi’a. After The Comoros and Egypt and Morocco, the Wahhabi potentates are now in a state of panic. Imagine, what next? Could Barack Obama himself convert from a secret Wahhabi to an open over Shi’ite Shi’a? Could Prince Bandar (he of the al-Yamama and BAE Systems and SFO and Tony Blair $2 billion bribery case) be heading to Karbala and Najaf instead to the funny tribal wastelands of Iraq and Syria?)

On a serious note: the white man’s crimes against native populations continue in Canada, eh?
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

The Game of Preemption: Israelis Tough as Nail, Iranians Soft as Pussycats, Americans Lost……….

     

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“Growing tensions over Iran’s disputed nuclear program have provoked speculation that Israel may be contemplating a military strike against nuclear facilities, which Iran says are for peaceful purposes, but which the West suspects are inching toward the capability to produce nuclear weapons. Without mentioning Israel directly, Mohammad Hejazi, the deputy armed forces head, said Tuesday, “Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions.” Divisions in Iran’s leadership make it difficult to interpret the government’s intentions, but the statement showed a new level of aggressiveness……………”


The Iranians are just trying to make a point, show the absurdity of this Western and Israeli sense of being exclusively ‘entitled’ to bomb a country as a preemption. Everybody else seems to be getting into the “preemption” game these days, so why not the Iranians? Nobody has a “right” that others don’t have to threaten “preemption”.
Compared to what Israelis and American Republicans candidates mouth everyday, this Iranian statement is soft, squishy soft, pussycat stuff. McCain and Lieberman (Joe not Avigdor) would call it appeasement; Mitt Romney would declare a preemptive war before he has even lost the election; Rick Santorum would invoke a mean-spirited God of his own imagination, Newt Gingrich would remind everyone of his Plan B to go to the moon with Callista.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Politics, GCC, Gulf states, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia

Honey and Onion: Do Saudi Princes Trust Qataris? Do Qataris Trust Saudi Princes?………….

 

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“A secret meeting was held between members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh last month to discuss Saudi Arabia’s concerns over the “smuggling of Iranian arms to Hezbollah by sea,” according to an article published on February 15 in the German newspaper, Die Welt. The article stated that “the faltering of Syria, and Iran’s attempt to procure other ways to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah prompted a perturbed Saudi Arabia to hold a secret meeting with other members of the GCC in the capital, Riyadh, on January 18.” GCC members – apart from Qatar, which was excluded from the meeting – also discussed the threats made by senior Iranian officials to close down the Strait of Hormuz, a strategically important route linking Gulf countries to the outside world. The newspaper obtained data from “Western intelligence agencies” and mentioned that the oil-rich kingdom refrained from inviting Qatar to the secret congregation since “it is not reliable on issues related to Iran.”………….”

Also sprach al-Akhbar from Beirut.
The mistrust between Qataris and Saudis runs deep, too deep for the usual public platitudes that are mouthed at GCC meetings to cover up. During the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia sponsored a plot to overthrow the current Emir of Qatar. Saudi security officers directly participated, and several of these Saudis were arrested and imprisoned in Doha after the coup failed. They were not released until about two years ago. There were also reports that members of some local tribes that have Saudi roots and possible divided loyalties were implicated in that plot.
The Qataris fancy their own independent foreign policy. They have moved away from the Saudis and cultivated good relations with the Mullahs in Iran, as have the Omanis. They also have hosted the US Central Command, as another way to keep the Saudi danger at bay (real and near Saudi danger not the far away Iranian danger).
The Qataris and Saudis had started a honeymoon of sorts when the Arab uprisings started a year ago. Now this honeymoon may be over. The month of honey (shahr Asal) may becoming the month of onion (shahr bassal). An Arab saying, it sounds much better in Arabic and it rhymes. Onion and homey rhyme, but only in Arabic. Go figure.

Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Europe, Islamophobia, Muslims, Racism

European Racism: New Ghettos, Same Old Bierhalle Mentality……………..

 

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“The victimization of Muslims in Europe is all too real. During the Bosnian Genocide and Kosovo War in the 1990s, over 200,000 Muslims were massacred, 50,000 Muslim women were raped and 2.2 million Muslims were forced to flee their homes, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. These brutal actions were taken in part of an “ethnic cleansing campaign.” In a 2009 referendum, Swiss voters approved a ban on new minarets on Muslim mosques. Minarets neither pose a threat to the national security of Switzerland nor disrupt the pristine beauty of the Swiss Alps. The ban is narrowly targeted towards Muslim places of worship. The tower-like shikara of Hindu temples or the dome of the Sikh Gurudwaras are exempted from this ban. As a person of Hindu heritage, I do not find any solace in this exemption. This past April, France implemented their ban on the niqab, a full face-covering veil. In a study titled, “Are French Muslims Discriminated Against in Their Own Country?”, it was found that in the work force, Muslims have only a 2.5 percent chance of receiving a job interview compared to others. These prejudices are also harbored by minorities. In a private conversation, an Indian restaurant owner in Southern France related, “In India, like in France, most of the problems are because of these Muslims.”……..”

This writer is saying nothing really new, nothing that we didn’t know; but she is citing some interesting examples, also some quite interesting, nay shocking, data.
Everybody who is sober knows that racism is openly rampant in Europe now, that it is mainly aimed at Muslims and Arabs these days. It has always been there, but not so virulent, not so openly accepted, not so legitimized. That is especially true on the “continent”.
Racism and xenophobia have always been a European trait. Sometimes they are submerged for various reasons. That racism is becoming almost institutionalized in the New Europe, with right wing parties from France to Holland and Austria winning elections based on their own un-compiled little “Mein Kampfs“. It is becoming “halal” now in much of Europe to be openly anti-Muslim, just like it used to be “kosher” to be antisemitic, in fact still is in some quarters.

Cheers
mhg


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Multidisciplinary: Middle East, North Africa, Gulf, GCC, World, Cosmos…..