Monthly Archives: August 2011

Anti-Semitism, Arab Media, Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Racism, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Torquemada: Media Obsession with Jewish Roots……………

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You’d think Torquemada leads the royal Saudi media. Come to think of it the equivalents of Torquemada do run the media over there, and they run more than that. Thos obsession of the media, especially the semi-official Alarabiya TV which is almost official because it is managed by a royal prince although it is located offshore. Alarabiya is obsessed with the “Jewish” roots of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They report something on it every few months, sometimes every couple of weeks (I posted the last time they did it). They just did one today on their Arabic website (too clever to do it on the English version). I doubt that most people in Iran care either way what his “roots” are. I know the Al-Saud and their Anti-Semetic Wahhabi clergy care, as do their Anti-Semetic Salafi followers around the Gulf. Here they are allegedly quoting a website of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) repeating allegations about these roots and that for the first time the IRGC is paying attention and giving some credence to them. You’d think Alarabiya would be busy, along with its sister semi-official Asharq Alawsat (also royal-owned), disseminating counter-revolutionary messages against the Arab uprisings (which also threaten the theocracy in Iran as much as they threaten the theocratic oligarchy in the Arabian Peninsula). Maybe they are trying to rouse the Salafi faithful during this holy month of Ramadan, but there is no need: the Salafi of the Gulf region are a fully-owned and paid up subsidiary of Riyadh.
It would be interesting if all Arab leaders including the Saudi royals, as well as Iranian leaders, submit samples of their DNA to one of these laboratories that tell what ethnic/racial background they are from (and let’s throw in Mr. Netanyahu and Shaikh Al Al-Shaikh). Now that should be fun, even though it would be as meaningless as the stuff the crazy American “birthers” spread these days. In fact Alarabiya sometimes sounds like an offshoot of the birthers.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Finance, U.S. Congress, U.S. Politics

White House and U.S. Congress Engineer another Market Crash………….

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“What began as a weak day in the stock markets ended in the worst rout in more than two years, as investors dumped stocks amid anxiety that both Europe and the United States were failing to fix deepening economic problems. With a steep decline of around 5 percent in the United States on Thursday, stocks have now fallen nearly 11 percent in two weeks. Markets have been plunging as investors sought safer havens for their money — including Treasury bonds, which some had been avoiding during the debate over extending the nation’s debt ceiling…….With investors in the United States already focusing anew on fragile economic growth and high unemployment, waves of selling of stocks began in Europe and continued throughout the day in the United States. Analysts said the market still might have further to fall, as investors reassess the dimming economic prospects……..”

As someone said, or maybe as someone ought to have said: asinine politicians espouse asinine economic policies and create disaster. Clearly there is no shortage of asinine politicians in the United States Congress, from both parties, although the Republicans seem to earn the prize (in asininity). There is nothing more asinine in economics than forcing a contractionary economic policy during a deep recession. Even if it is for the sake of the higher goal of political expediency. Is like Roosevelt’s double-dip recession in the mid 1930s?
I know, I know, the situation in Europe helped, but the main culprits are in Washington, DC.
Cheers
mhg


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CIA, Espionage, Iran, Middle East Nuclear, Mossad

Another Unsolved Murder in Iran: Mystery of the Indispensable Nuclear Student………

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““Israel is not responding,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said earlier this week when asked if his country had been involved in the latest slaying of an Iranian nuclear scientist. It didn’t exactly sound like a denial, and the smile on his face suggested Israel isn’t too bothered by suspicions that it is responsible for a series of murders of physicists involved in the controversial Iranian nuclear program. There is little doubt in the shadowy world of intelligence agencies that Israel is behind the assassination of Darioush Rezaei. “That was the first serious action taken by the new Mossad chief Tamir Pardo,” an Israeli intelligence source told SPIEGEL ONLINE. On July 23, Rezaei became the latest victim in a mysterious series of attacks over the past 20 months which has seen the virtual decimation of the Islamic republic’s elite physicists. The 35-year-old died after being shot in the throat in front of his daughter’s kindergarten in east Tehran………According to the Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna has since confirmed what had already been reported by the Israeli media — namely that the physics student had worked on the development of high-voltage switching systems, a key component that is crucial to setting off the explosions needed to trigger a nuclear warhead…………..”

Barak’s reaction does not necessarily mean the (post-Dubai) Mossad did it. Even the Der Spiegel “contacts” could be, almost certainly are, part of a campaign of misinformation. They Israelis may have been involved, or they may be protecting other Western governments (they have less to lose).
Yet I am not sure about this ‘scientist’. He was reported as an academic, then a scientist, then a student. The latest Iranian report claimed he was a student who was killed by mistake, that they mistook him for a scientist. The Israelis now say he was a student who was crucial for a high-voltage switching system, etc, etc. Maybe he was, maybe not. Both sides, nay all three sides, have an interest in fudging things, misleading everybody else. The Mossad, and the comparable Western services, also have an interest in not looking foolish, killing a student instead of a nuclear scientist (either one would be considered a terrorist action against a civilian in front of his family if committed in Israel or the West).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Libya, Muslims, North Africa

Young Qaddafi Playing Poker with the West………..

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“A high-profile son of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi said Wednesday his family had forged an alliance with Islamist rebels to drive out the secular opposition to his father’s 40-year rule. Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, who along with his father had long branded the entire opposition as radical extremists, told The New York Times: “The liberals will escape or be killed… We will do it together.” “Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran. So what?” he added, in what the Times described as an hour-long interview that stretched past midnight in a nearly deserted Tripoli hotel..…….”

Is young Qaddafi trying his hand at poker? Trying to bluff the West with this “Islamist” threat? Arab leaders have been doing that, raising the threat of a theocracy, for a couple of decades now, just as African and Asian leaders raised the threat of Communism in the old Cold War days.He is no different from the rulers of Bahrain or Syria or Yemen who also raise the threat of Salafi al-Qaeda or pro-Iranian Islamists to explain their peoples’ uprisings against oppression. Or is he also addressing the Libyan rebels in Benghazi? Most likely he is addressing both, but he is not subtle enough for a good game of poker.
Cheers
mhg


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Economics, Iran, Iraq, nuclear wepoans, Sanctions, US Foreign Policy, Weapons deals

On Iraq Sanctions, Iran Sanctions, Cuba Sanctions, Smart Sanctions, Asinine Sanctions, ………….

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“Economic sanctions rarely hurt a disfavored regime or its powerful supporters, at least in the short run. They hurt those at the bottom of the ladder. This is a point that we Westerners, with our addiction to the imposition of sanctions to punish bad behavior, should take more seriously than we do………..  This has always been the problem with the West’s sanction addiction. Sanctions nip at those whose lives are already marginal…….. Dictators everywhere try to control the economy, to funnel resources to their friends……… In the case of Iran, the sanctions are manifestly failing, unless their point was to force the government to redistribute the wealth. The regime is proceeding with its nuclear weapons development, and may even be picking up the pace. Western experts differ on how close the regime is to completing its research. The head of Israeli military intelligence recently estimated that Iran may have the capacity to build at least one nuclear explosive device by next year. Things may change. The Iranian regime may give up its nuclear dreams, making the world that much safer, and, incidentally, handing the Obama administration a much-needed foreign-policy victory. But no matter the result in Iran, let us remember, the next time we debate the imposition of sanctions on a rogue state, exactly whom we are really punishing…………”

It is highly unlikely that the ruling Iranian mullahs (or any replacement regime) will suddenly give up their nuclear program anytime soon.
As for the forces behind economic sanctions: they are more complex than the writer notes. The famous sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime in Iraq did not harm the dictatorship or its elites: it hurt the ordinary people. But these were broad wartime sanctions, not as selective or nuanced as what Iran “supposedly” faces currently. Then there are so-called smart sanctions that are as almost dumb as other sanctions, but maybe not as dumb as asinine sanctions. One reasonable definition of asinine sanctions is that they are the kind that neoconservatives usually prefer. A good example of asinine sanctions are those no one believes in but they are kept in place out of political fear or expediency, like the sanctions against Cuba. In fact, the American sanctions against Cuba are some of the most asinine in history.
Take the sanctions against Iran: they are only partly driven by IAEA requirements, but their depth and scope also reflect the influence of domestic American political pressure groups. These groups include the Israeli lobby (AIPAC, etc), as well as defense hawks on the right (and some on the left). These sanctions are also partly driven by a regional rivalry for domination between the United States (directly and/or through its proxy allies) and Iran. In summary, the scope of the sanctions is the result of domestic American politics as much as Iranian “infractions”. Then there is the ego of some regional allies that the U.S. administration needs to massage, in this case the Israelis, the Saudis and possibly the UAE potentates (there is oil and huge contracts at stake). Then there is the need of some in both Israel and the USA to inflate the Iranian threat and its urgency in order to divert attention away from the urgent need to resolve the issue of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Among other things………
(Personally, I believe the only “smart” sanctions are those that target weapons and individuals, not institutions. Targeting large institutions almost always tends to harm many ordinary people).

Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Religion, UAE

Ramadan on the Gulf: Potentates Potentate-ing, Shaikh-ing it………….

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“UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan received His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in the presence of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, at the Rawda Palace in Al Ain on Tuesday evening. The President also received Their Highnesses the Supreme Council Members and Rulers of the Emirates, Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi of Sharjah, Shaikh Saud Bin Rashid Al Mualla of Umm Al Quwain, Shaikh Hamad Bin Mohammad Al Sharqi of Fujairah, and Shaikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi of Ras Al Khaimah, and Shaikh Humaid Bin Rashid Al Nuaimi of Ajman who offered their greetings on the occasion of Ramadan. Shaikh Khalifa also received Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai’s Crown Prince, Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance, Shaikh Sultan Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Salem Bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, Shaikh Ammar Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi, Crown Prince of Ajman, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Hamad Bin Mohammad Al Shatqi, Crown Prince of Fujairah, Shaikh Rashid Bin Saud Bin Rashid Al Mualla, Crown Prince of Umm Al Quwain, Shaikh Saud Bin Rashid Al Mualla, Deputy Ruler of Umm Al Quwain, and Shaikh Mohammad Bin Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Crown Prince of Ras Al Khaimah. The reception was also attended by Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, other Shaikhs, Ministers, Executive Council Members, and senior officials. Shaikh Khalifa hosted an iftar banquet in honour of his guests…………..” Gulf News

Just a huge bunch of potentates doing what potentates do: that would be potentate-ing. In case you were interested in such activities.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Human Right, Saudi Arabia

Congo and Darfur on the Gulf: Spitting, Urinating, Image of a Monarchy………….

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“Signs of revolt simmering just beneath the surface are everywhere in the island kingdom of Bahrain, five months after protesters first demanded reform. Inspired by the Arab awakening, thousands of demonstrators took over Pearl Square in the centre of Manama, the capital. A month later, on 15 March, government security forces, backed by a military contingent from Saudi Arabia, drove out the protesters, bulldozed the square and launched a pogrom of extraordinary ferocity against the majority Shia community, which had supported the protests. Bahrainis, both Shia and Sunni, are still traumatised. “I was expecting the government to thank us for treating so many people during the crisis,” recalls one doctor of previously moderate political views, who instead found himself subjected to beatings and sleep deprivation. A 64-year-old man, active in defence of human rights, named Mohammed Hassan Jawad, who is still in jail, gave details to his family about how interrogators had tortured him with electric shocks to his genitals, legs, ears and hands. They made him bow down before a picture of the Bahraini King, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and told him to open his mouth so they could spit in it, adding that “unless you swallow the spit we will urinate in your mouth instead“…………..”

One thing stands out about the Bahraini rulers and their security thugs: they have operated on a very primitive level this year. Something very nasty and especially “tribal” about it, reminders of the Congo and Darfur and other afflicted places, albeit on a smaller scale. So have behaved their imported mercenaries and invading forces. Somehow bodily functions, especially bodily waste both liquid and solid, have great significance for the regime and its enforcers and its interrogators, both local and imported. That explains their seeming obsession with involving their victims in these bizarre rituals that have to do with human waste: threatening people with urine and feces, using urine and feces on the detainees, using toilet brushes, using spittle, using threat of (and possibly actual) rectal rape against the male prisoners (as well as the threat of rape against the women). This makes the favorite torture method of the Cheneys, water-boarding, seem clean and wholesome, doesn’t it?
All allegedly, of course.
Cheers
mhg


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Culture, Finance, GCC, Saudi Arabia, UAE

Saudi Arabia: a Political Statement or a Twenty Billion Dollar Phallic Symbol………..

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“SAUDI billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has launched a project to build the world’s tallest tower at more than 1000 metres in the Red Sea city of Jeddah. The project to built a tower topping Dubai’s world’s highest building, Burj Khalifa, “will soon see the light after the signing of a $1.2 billion agreement” between Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Co and construction giant Bin Laden Group, the Saudi tycoon said. It will take 36 months to build the tower, said the Saudi businessman, a nephew of King Abdullah and one of the kingdom’s wealthiest men. He did not say when construction will begin. Prince Alwaleed said the tower was intended to “send a message of strength” reflecting the OPEC kingpin’s economic and political stability….The tower, which will be part of a $US20 billion ($18.29 billion) project north of Jeddah, would top Dubai’s 828-metre Burj Khalifa, which was opened last year……..“Our message is political,” he said…………..”

A political message at the cost of $ 20 billion.
What is all this obsession with tall(est) towers in the Middle East these days. First there was Burj Dubai, whom they changed to Burj Khalifa after Shaikh al-Nahayan who pulled the nuts of the Dubai rulers from the fire. Then there was talk of which tower is more ‘leaning’ the Tower of Pisa or some other UAE tower. Then the Saudis built the tallest clock tower in the whole fucking wide world: an ugly travesty right over the Holy Mosque, possibly built over the destroyed remains of some ancient Islamic monument (they princes have been busy destroying houses of the Sahaba of the prophet and other ancient monuments to build their high-rise money machines). Now they are going to build this: the tallest tower in the whole wide world, relegating the Khalifs (al-Nahayan) Tower to second class status. I bet the al-Nahayan will add a few stories on top of the Burj Khalifa to make it taller by about the proverbial ‘nine inches’. It is all symbolic phallic game-playing, I suspect. Maybe there are feelings of “inadequacy” somewhere and this si just another way of trying to make up for it.
(I figure a $ 20 billion makes as much sense as a $ 20 billion political statement).
Cheers
mhg



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Iran, Israel, nuclear Iran, nuclear wepoans, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Weapons deals

Nuclear Theocratic Powers of the Middle East and Beyond…….

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“Particularly worrisome in the Saudi case is the potential departure from the Gold Standard established by the UAE 123 agreement. If, as has been suggested, the Saudi agreement is concluded without an accompanying commitment to abjure reprocessing and enrichment technologies, there could be profound consequences for the administration’s nonproliferation objectives and for the long-term stability of the Middle East. Although Saudi Arabia has not previously been judged to be a proliferation threat, as it “lacks the technological expertise, industrial base, and disciplined commitment required to develop an indigenous weapons capacity,” recent developments may have altered this assessment. The alacrity with which the United States dispensed of its long-standing support for the regime of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak no doubt gave pause to the House of Saud, which continues – 30 years later – to be troubled by American abandonment of the Shah on the eve of the Iranian revolution. Nor is Saudi threat perception likely to be relieved by the regional meddling of its frequent ideological competitor. This is to say nothing of the Kingdom’s concerns regarding Iranian weaponization. Indeed, Saudi Arabia appears increasingly unnerved by the trajectory of the Iranian program, a trend that can be seen in the country’s shifting characterizations of its own nuclear ambitions. ……..”

  • There are fears that Saudi Arabia may try and shift any nuclear program toward military use. In fact that is exactly what Prince Turki al-Faisal warned about last month. There is now this fear, but the difference is that the Saudis will need American (and maybe other) help in any nuclear plan they have.

  • There are, there have been, fears of the Iranian nuclear program. These fears are based on possibilities that the Iranian may be trying to either build nuclear weapons or, more likely, reach the point ehre they can build nuclear weapons.

  • Then there is Israel. Everyone knows that Israel has many nuclear warheads, although no one can prove it. Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), hence it is not under any Western pressure to allow international (IAEA) inspection.
  • Pakistan has several nuclear weapons, and it is not an NPT signatory either. Pakistan was created as a quasi-theocratic state: it was carved up as an Islamic state from parts of India. The country has been veering toward fundamentalism and back over its history. It may be closer now than at any other time.


What do all these West and South Asian countries have in common? No, not the geographic proximity. They are all either declared theocracies, undeclared theocracies, quasi-theocracies, or threatened theocracies. They are all within one of these categories I noted above. Scary, no? (The United States is not a theocracy, although the Tea Party and other elements would like it to be and try to push it that way).
Cheers
mhg


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Bahrain, Culture, Economics, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

Jordanians Space out with Star Trek, about that Missing Humor…….

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“A Star Trek-themed attraction is set to boldly go ahead in Jordan, as US$1.5 billion of funding has been secured for a major tourism and theme park development. Construction work on the 74-hectare Red Sea Astrarium project in Aqaba, which will include four hotels and 17 entertainment developments, is expected to start early next year. The project is being funded by investors from the US and the Gulf, according to a partner in the project. The Amman company Rubicon Group Holding, which makes animated films, said in May it would design and produce the entertainment elements of the resort. The total investment in the project will be $1.5bn (Dh5.5bn), said Randa Ayoubi, the chief executive of Rubicon. “They have a group of investors. The main Jordanian investor is the King Abdullah Fund,” Ms Ayoubi said, in reference to the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD). “There are many American and investors from the Gulf [as well],” she added, without giving further details……..”

I guess there will be no more travel for the king and queen of Jordan. They may move the palace into the theme park. Not even another invitation to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress would lure the king away from Spock and Kirk and Uhura.
Fine and dandy, a good way to spend Gulf aid and investment money, but that still leaves out what Jordanians, including their king need the most: humor. The country, even with a funny Star Trek theme park will still lack the sense of humor necessary to make it a true first class tourist attraction like, say, Egypt. Maybe they can hire William Shatner (Captain Kirk) away from Priceline to work at the park?

On a more serious note: I don’t believe Jordan gets the massive volume of tourism that would make a Star Trek park profitable, especially not on the Red Sea where most Jordanians probably don’t go. It is just too far from the population centers. Unless they think they can lure a big chunk of the Saudi tourism that now prefers Lebanon, Dubai, Cairo, and Bahrain. Not clear when the hookers (les girls) will be back on the beat in Bahrain, with the uprising still in full swing: the Jordanians need to import some of those to Aqaba to attract enough of the Saudi male tourism. All this after Ramadan of course.
Cheers
mhg


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