Neck of the woods

Remember the long ago old days, until a few weeks ago, when Myanmar (actually Burma) was on the “dreaded list”? Not as dreaded as the Cuban or Iranian or the Sudanese list, but dreaded nevertheless. Wait: did I add “Sudan” to the list? Isn’t that the Arab African country whose president has an arrest warrant for him since March 2009? An arrest warrant by the International CourtOfSomethingOrAnother. Yet he is selling oil as freely as, say, Saudi Arabia or Texas or Alaska. I need to research this some more, the legal aspects of it. The sale of oil and the import of weapons. Then the way he travels freely around the Middle East. You’d think Interpol, which is always eager to arrest Saudi dissidents and send them back home to be flogged and beheaded (Kashghari, et al), would act against al-Bashir as soon as his sorry arse lands in Cairo or Tehran or other places.
Back to Burma. Weren’t the ruling military junta accused of smuggling everything under the sun only a few weeks ago? Precious stones, rubies, drugs, possibly people including trafficking in “mothers”? And committing “small” genocides here and there? Doesn’t this sound a little like the Qaddafi deal with the West in Libya a couple of years before the Arab uprising? Would Tony Blair again show up and kiss the cheeks (both cheeks) of the junta leader? One difference: Libya did not have someone like Aung San Suu Kyi. That would be funny: a Libyan or Syrian or Egyptian Aung San Suu Kyi.
If there was some Arab woman like her, she can’t be a Muslim Brother. Would she be a Muslim Sister or a Muslim Mother? Maybe the next time some Saudi woman gets behind the wheels and drives a car the West would declare her an Arabian Jeanne d’Arc, Maid of Hijaz (sorry, Najdis). The Scandinavians would quickly give her a Nobel Prize for driving under duress for fifteen minutes. Some may claim that she would probably deserve it as much as that Yemeni lady, certainly as much as Arafat.
Cheers
mhg
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