Monthly Archives: November 2012

Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia

Gulf: Absolute Prince Wishes Absolute Shaikhs Well, of Financial Fellatio………

   

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“In a message sent by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, to The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, the recent unfortunate terrorist acts suffered by the Kingdom of Bahrain were denounced, Prince Saud said that both the Saudi government and people condemned the terrorist incidents that accrued in Manama recently, where blasts resulted in the death and wounding of innocent people. He stressed that his Government was united with Bahrain in combating terrorism in all its forms and all those who support such crimes, wishing the country and its people further security and prosperity..…………”

Okay. Apparently Absolute Prince Saud Al-Faisal Al-Saud, foreign minister of some forty years, is apparently alive and well. Why shouldn’t he be, since he is neither in Morocco nor in New York? In case you’ve been living on another planet: senior Saudi princes usually go to New York for medical treatment, after which they return to Morocco either to recover or to die (sometimes they do both: recover and die). The Prince is wishing the Al-Khalifa clan of Bahrain well (I probably wouldn’t, not yet). Many Happy Repressive returns. Great. Thanks, prince.
(FYI: junior princes live much longer; they don’t start hitting Morocco until middle-age. Unfortunately they keep multiplying, what with multiple wives and nothing else to do in Riyadh besides conjugal bliss, hopefully. As they multiply, they keep on sucking more of the resources of the peoples of the Arabian Peninsula. The Bahrain shaikhs don’t have access to similar resources, but they do wonders with what little resources their blighted island is blessed with. They manage to suck off more of less, quite a feat, and no pun was intended, and I am just referring to a form of financial fellatio).

Cheers
mhg
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Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Activist Goes Mad, Claims All Princes Want Democracy, Wants Future King Tried………………

   

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A known Saudi activist is reported to have gone mad, gone plum crazy as some would say around here. If the report in al-Quds Al-Arabi is true, if. Abdullah al-Hamid is quoted to have declared that most member of the Al-Saud ruling family support the idea of converting the absolute kingdom into a constitutional monarchy. He claimed that also included the king. He is also quoted as calling for the new interior minister Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef to be tried. He has called for a retrial of all those who were victimized by secret trials.


I call him plum crazy only because he seems to entertain the delusion that the king and most princes want a constitutional monarchy. His other proposals of retrials of victims and the trial of some princes are fine as far as I am concerned. The more (that are tried) the merrier. He could also be eventually committed as crazy for suggesting that the interior minister, probably the most important Saudi prince, be tried. Mohammed Bin Nayef, who controls the “police” part of the Saudi police state, is most likely to become the king of Saudi Arabia within the next few years. King as well as Custodian of the Cave of the Four Thousand Thieves that was exposed by Ali Baba.

Of course, it is possible he just being clever, too clever. FYI: he is disputing some of claims made by al-Quds Al-Arab about him.
Cheers
mhg
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GCC, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Saving the Syrian Opposition, Meeting Where Predatory Princes Roam………..

   

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“Syrian opposition leaders struck a hard-won deal on Sunday under intense international pressure to form a broad, new coalition to prepare for the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Delegates, who had struggled for days in the Qatari capital Doha to find the unity their Western and Arab backers have long urged, said the new body would ensure a voice for religious and ethnic minorities and for the rebels fighting on the ground, who have complained of being overlooked by exiled dissident groups. Some details remain outstanding, including who will head the new Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces and the final assent of some leaders not present in Doha. Diplomats and officials from the United States and Qatar, the tiny Gulf emirate whose oil and gas wealth has helped fund the 20-month-old uprising, have particularly been pressing the Syrian National Council (SNC), whose leaders mostly live abroad, to drop fierce objections to joining a wider body. “An initial deal has been signed. A final formulation has been agreed and signed,” Ali Sadreddine al-Bayanouni, a delegate for the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, told reporters…..……….”

Western powers, Arab potentates and assorted despots, and Syrian opposition groups are meeting to “save” the Syrian opposition, basically saving it from itself. Which is something that is sorely needed. And where are they meeting? In Doha, Qatar, where not even dog-catchers (as Americans would say) are elected, where not even sheep-herders are elected (as the Mufti should say but won’t). They meet in an absolute unaccountable monarchy, aided and abetted by such great supporters of freedom, self-determination, and democracy as the Al-Saud and Al-Khalifa.
While they are at it, why not discuss repression in nearby places. Like a stone’s throw across the Persian Gulf waters in Bahrain, or just across the border in the Arabian Peninsula where the wild and avaricious and predatory princes roam and plunder?
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Counterrevoltion, Fatwas, Saudi Arabia

A New Friday Scientific Fatwa, a Warning of Treason, and WTF in Arabic……………

   

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The Saudi Mufti Shaikh Abdulaziz Al Al Shaikh, who is also president of the Commission of Higher (Ulema) Scientists, has issued a new (scientific) fatwa. He has made it (scientifically) ‘haram’, taboo, not kosher, to communicate with foreign satellite television networks and cooperate with them in publicizing the country’s secrets. His shaikhness noted that these networks aim at spreading confusion, anarchy, and division (fitna) among all Muslims and that they destroy the unity of the umma (wtf that be).
His Scientific Muftiness said that the proper Shari’a way to deal with public issues and concerns is to write to officials about them rather than go to media outlets or protest publicly. (Like you can write the King about stopping all the Al-Saud prices looting the country’s resources and end up spending the rest of your life in prison, probably without being tried for it).
His Scientific Muftiness said that providing any information to such media is a form of treason and helps the “enemies” of Islam. He also warned against covering up for or helping hide or sheltering anyone who tries to organize assassinations or other unlawful acts.
At the end of his sermon during the Friday prayers at the Imam Turkey Bin Abdullah he no doubt left some of his congregation muttering: WTF, in Arabic?
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Media, Mossad, Sex

Tzipi Livni’s Sex: Intimacy with Arab Leaders, Scientific Shaikhs, and the Secret Fatwas……….

   

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“A leading Egyptian daily falsely claimed that former foreign minister Tzipi Livni conducted sexual relations with Arab officials during her years as a Mossad agent in an attempt to entrap them, and used what it said was a 2009 interview with The Times of London as ostensible proof. The article in Al-Masri Al-Youm, an independent and widely read Egyptian daily, was headlined: “Livni: I had sex with Arabs in return for ‘political concessions.’” It featured prominently in the paper’s Saturday print edition and was still leading its website on Sunday afternoon. The article went up on Al-Masry Al-Youm’s website Friday night and was its most widely read story over the weekend. It had garnered 20,000 Facebook shares and 1,800 tweets as of Sunday morning, and was quoted extensively in Egyptian and Arab media. Sources close to Livni told The Times of Israel that “this report is ludicrous and crazy.” Needless to say, they said, the story was without foundation. “There are apparently those who fear Livni’s return to politics, where she will strengthen Israel’s standing domestically and internationally,” the sources said………………”

The idea that Tzipi Livni slept with Arab politicians and leaders in exchange for information and other benefits is taking hold in Arab media and in the wild Arab imagination. Sexual repression does lead to wilder imagination. I think secretly she must be considered to be still “hot” among some of the region’s potentates and opinion makers (hey, it’s a matter of personal taste).
The normally not excitable Al-Quds Al-Arabi headlined an article today (November 10, 2012): “Arab leaders in Livni’s bed”. The piece quotes a London Times interview in which she allegedly admitted having used sex against (or is it with) Arab leaders and scientists. It seriously wonders which leaders were among the chosen (or is it ‘targeted’) ones.
Personally I don’t know if Tzipi Livni slept with any Arab potentates for her country. As for ‘scientists’ I can’t think of any scientific information that we in our region have that the Israelis need. Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of information, but I was talking of the ‘useful’ kind. Most of the ‘scientists’, especially in the Gulf region, are called “ulema” which also doubles as clerics or religious shaikhs (or scientists). BY that measure, any Mufti or Imam is a “scientist”.
Maybe they gave Tzipi information about how they reach their famous secret fatwas that make no sense to anyone else, especially me.
Cheers
mhg
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Arab Revolutions

Metamorphosis of the Syrian Uprising: Another Gulf Hijacking of an Arab Cause……………

   

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“According to a new report, the presence of Salafi groups among Syria’s armed opposition is an irrefutable and damaging trend. In this interview with Kersten Knipp, Peter Harling talks about why the makeup and character of Syria’s opposition has changed………There again that option was a failure, and gradually the opposition moved towards an ever more religious and fundamentalist narrative and also towards increasingly violent tactics of their own. We had some large bombings for instance causing considerable casualties among civilians. In some urban areas we’ve had kidnappings and other kinds of criminal activity cloaked as opposition to the regime. Gradually I think the evolution of the opposition was very much a result of how the regime responded to the initial challenge that the uprising posed. That evolution has been self-reinforcing. The more Islamist, the more thuggish the opposition became, the fewer people were willing to support it. In fact, in some places its base of support has narrowed to those people who have been subjected to such forms of violence on the part of the regime, that will support anyone fighting it………………….”

Unfortunately the bitter fact is that the Syrian uprising was undone by the people who claimed to support it the most. Once money and volunteers started flowing from the Persian Gulf GCC states into Syria early last year, I knew the cause was doomed. Nothing kills revolution more effectively than infiltration of  counter-revolutionary forces.
I know the Gulf, its potentates and its Salafis: whatever they are, they are not supporters of freedom or tolerance or democracy. At the forefront were the Salafis, Muslim Brothers, and other Jihadists. In addition to the absolute tribal petroleum monarchs whose main goal was (is) to change regional strategic alliances rather than free the Syrian people from a decades-long dictatorship. Which made sense from their perspective: all they wanted, all they want, these potentates on my native Gulf, is to hand the Iranian mullahs a defeat, restructure Lebanon, and recreate a new Syria in their own undemocratic image. A repressive Syria minus the fake socialist or revolutionary pretensions of the Ba’ath Party. They want a Syria that is like Yemen or Jordan or Bahrain, with phony pretensions to democracy. A Syria that is hungry enough for their money to toe the line.

I think I just shocked myself. I said a moment ago that “whatever they are, they are not supporters of freedom or tolerance or democracy”. I meant many on my Gulf, but you know something? This also applies to almost every major Western government. Just look at the record in our region: from Damascus to Riyadh to Manama and Doha and Abu Dhabi. As an example, Mr. David Cameron visited the region this week, peddling democracy and freedom in the Gulf region, but only for Syria. Not democracy and freedom for the peoples of the countries he is visiting, not for the peoples of the Gulf or the Arabian Peninsula. Those, the rest of us, can always buy more expensive weapons systems, with all the attendant bribes, as a substitute for freedom and democracy.
Cheers
mhg
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Drones, Iran, US Foreign Policy

Intern Drones over the Gulf: More on the War of Drones…………………..

   

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“Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon reporter (more accurately known as: the Pentagon’s reporter at CNN), has an exciting exclusive today. Exclusively relying upon “three senior officials” in the Obama administration (all anonymous, needless to say), she claims that “two Iranian Su-25 fighter jets fired on an unarmed US Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf last week,” while “the drone was in international airspace east of Kuwait . . . engaged in routine maritime surveillance.” The drone was not hit, but, says CNN, “the incident raises fresh concerns within the Obama administration about Iranian military aggression in crucial Gulf oil shipping lanes.” First things first: let us pause for a moment to extend our thoughts and prayers to this US drone. Although it was not physically injured, being shot at by the Iranians – while it was doing nothing other than peacefully minding its own business – must have been a very traumatic experience……………”

Was the drone in training? Was it an expendable “intern” drone? Was it testing Iranian reaction? Was it playing a ‘game of chicken’ with the Iranian fighters? Some might say “You Betcha”. Personally I am tempted to suggest that the “Iranian” fighters and naval units ought to stop patrolling the “Persian” Gulf, straying so many thousands of miles from their homeland, harassing the natives of NATO.

I have posted my insight and wisdom on this escalating War of Drones here:
World War Drone: Patience of Job and Ayub with Israel and Iran……

Israel and Hezbollah and UN Resolutions, Goose and Gander and Racism…..

Drones Over Israel: Iranian or Hezbollah?……..

New International Band: “Barack Obama and the Drones”……

Cheers
mhg

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Human Right, Iran, Torture

Another Prison Death in Iran…………..

   

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“Iran has been accused of torturing to death a blogger who was arrested last week for criticising the Islamic republic on Facebook. Iran’s cyber-police, known as Fata, picked up Sattar Beheshti from his home in Robat-Karim last week on suspicion of “acting against the national security” because of his online activities on social networking sites. He was then taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. Beheshti’s family heard no news of him until Wednesday, when they were phoned by prison officials asking them to collect his body from the Kahrizak coroner’s office. The opposition has accused Iranian officials of torturing the 35-year-old blogger to death. Beheshti’s body was washed according to Islamic rituals on Thursday in Behesht-e-Zahra’s cemetery, south of Tehran, and later buried in his home town amid a tight security presence. Only one family member was allowed to attend the ceremony, carried out by security officials..………….”
Cheers
mhg

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Anti-Semitism, Espionage, Iran, Israel, Jews

Rabbi Nejad of Iran, President Flower of Turkey: Iranian Rabbis vs. Israeli Rabbis…………..

   

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“After former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni disclosed personal details of her former career in Mossad, Rabbi Ari Shvat, one of the most famous rabbis of Israel, allowed Israeli women to have sex with the enemy in exchange for information, but Iran’s Grand Rabbi Mashallah Golestaninejad described adultery as forbidden in Judaism, and stressed that Shvat should be stoned to death. In an interview given 14 years ago but published in full for the first time last Friday in a pro-Livni newspaper and then cited by the British Sunday Times weekly, she described working undercover for Bayonet, Mossad’s elite hit squad, where she answered the question if she had ever had sex to get information. “If I’d been asked to do it, I don’t know what I’d have said. In the office (Mossad’s term for itself) there is a job tailored for everyone.” After the release of Livni’s remarks, Rabbi Ari Shvat, one of the most famous rabbis of Israel, allowed Israeli women to have sex with the enemy in exchange for important information, claiming that Jewish law permits this type of action. His remarks created chaos in the Jewish world and the Rabbis from different parts of the world reacted to Shvat’s comments. “The sources of Judaism have not allowed such a deed at all and it (adultery) is forbidden in our religion and based on the explicit instruction of the Ten Commandments, no one can embark on adultery at all,” Iranian Grand Rabbi Mashallah Golestaninejad said……………”

Iran’s Chief Rabbi is named Golestan-Nejad: Golestan means some kind of flower garden in Persian. Gol or Gul also means flower in Persian and Urdu and Turkish (Turkey’s President Gul is Mr. Flower). But the Rabbi is presumably no relation of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad. Although the semi-official Saudi Alarabiya network has tried for some years to spread in the Arab world the story that the Iranian president is a converted Jew. The idea is to “discredit” him by their standards. Most Iranians and Arabs don’t pay any attention to these Anti-Semitic stories; it only excites the Wahhabi clerics and their Salafi base.
Frankly Ahmadinejad doesn’t look THAT smart, although he is smarter than the folks at Alarabiya. No doubt.
Cheers
mhg

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Culture, GCC, Qatar

GCC: Francophone or Hindi-Phone Qatar, South Asian Gulf, Le Dauphin Salman, Le Roi Hamad WTF……………

   

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“There was a time when most French couldn’t place Qatar on a map. Now, Qatar – a small Gulf state with marginal ties to French culture – is a member of an international Francophone organization. Some have raised eyebrows at Qatar’s new Francophone identity since it has just expelled the director of a secular French lycée from its borders………….. Qatar became a Francophone country with a blink of an eye. Without fulfilling any of the conditions to become part of the organization, the IOF gladly obliged the emir’s request and officially inducted Qatar as a full “member-state” last month. This caused quite an uproar within the IOF and the French media, especially in light of the fact that Qatar was immediately accepted as member-state, without having to go through the “observer” stage that many of the new inductees had to go through. Some news sources reported that Qatar “created a pressure group within the IOF – particularly among some African countries – to support its membership bid.” Meanwhile, frustrated IOF officials pointed out that Qatar was not even a Francophone country to begin with to deserve directly becoming a member-state.…………..”

I believe that the languages spoken by an overwhelming majority of people in Qatar are Hindi and Urdu and Bengali (with some Tagalog and Persian and Pashtu). That is because some 80% or so of the people in Qatar are foreigners and a majority of these are Asians who are not speakers of Arabic (or French for that matter). Clearly the Qataris, who are focusing on investments in France, have bought themselves an undeserved but quick membership in the Francophone group. I wouldn’t b surprised to see the Al-Nahayan brothers who own and rule the United Arab Emirates (UAE) decide to join the Francophone group: they also have an overwhelming majority of Asians who do not speak Arabic. And they also have deep pockets.
Come to think of it: an overwhelming majority of people who live on the southwestern shores of the Persian Gulf are not Arabic speakers. How does the Indian Gulf sound to you? How does the United South Asian Emirates sound to you? How does the South Asian Gulf Cooperation Council sound to you?
Question: will we soon have French-ified names and titles for our Gulf potentates? Will Qatar be rule by L’Emir Hamad 1er? Will Bahrain be ruled by Le Roi Hamad WTF? Will Abu Dhabi be ruled be Les Frères Al-Nahayan? Better yet, will Saudi Arabia be ruled by Le Roi Abdullah et Le Dauphin Salman?
Finally: how does one say WTF en Français?
Cheers
mhg

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