Monthly Archives: February 2013

Bahrain, Corruption, GCC, Persian-American Gulf, Weapons deals

Bahrain Navy all Set to Defend the Gulf against NBC and CNN …………

         

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“A special committee at the General Staff of the Bahraini Navy is said to have recommended the necessity of buying advanced defensive systems to confront nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) threats in the Gulf region. The following 358-word report sheds light on the Bahraini Navy’s recommendation and tells what about the Bahraini plans to buy the necessary NBC equipment and………………”

Field Marshal Admiral Shaikh Bin Technocrat Al Khalifa von Rommel Al Nelson Hornblower getting set to defend the Persian-American Gulf against all comers. Now we can all rest assured. Ever try some of all that teargas you guys have been using every day for two years on your people and their villages?
(Okay, so which Al Khalifa shaikh will get the commission for this purchase? Unless they have a common fund that the whole family shares, just like they do for waiters at restaurants).

Cheers
mhg

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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Salafi, Syria, Tunisia

Salafis of Tunisia: All Roads Lead to Syria and Iraq and Mali and…………

         

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“The cradle of the Arab Spring is increasingly looking like the birthplace of jihadists. Long before Tunisia ousted its dictator and inspired the North African pro-democracy movement, the small, relatively prosperous country had the more dubious distinction of exporting Islamic militants. Experts say the flow of fighters is getting worse……….. Though no one knows for sure just how many Tunisian fighters have traveled abroad, evidence suggests it remains one of the top exporters of jihadists per capita. Tunisians have turned up on the battlefields of Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Mali. The 32-man militant strike team that seized a gas plant in Algeria and took dozens of foreign workers hostage was more than one-third Tunisian………………”


“The left accuses these groups of affiliation with the ruling moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, and say it has failed to root out the violence. The party denies any link or control to the groups. But it is the rise of Salafist-associated political violence that is causing the most concern in the region. Banned in Tunisia under the 23-year regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, which ruthlessly cracked down on all forms of Islamism, Salafists in Tunisia have become increasingly vocal since the 2011 revolution………… Indeed, when an al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb cell was broken up in Tunisia last year, all its members were also found to be active in another Salafist grouping – Ansar al-Sharia…………Tunisian jihadists are said to have left for Syria..….……”

“Alquds Alarabi quotes Tunisian newssources that at least 50% of those Jihadis killed near Aleppo airport the other day were Tunisians………”

Odd that the most secular Arab state, actually what was the most secular Arab state, is now a major source of Salafi Jihadi terrorists. More than Saudi Arabia or other places closer to the heartland of Salafism in the Arabian Peninsula. Only a few years ago, France was the favorite destination for most young Tunisians fed up with things at home. It probably still is, only now many of them head east and south, to the killing fields of Arab and Muslim lands. To kill and massacre other Arabs and Muslims, based on warped doctrines and teachings of Wahhabi clerics.
For Salafi jihadis, almost all roads lead to Ba’athist Syria now, that is the prize these days. To Islamize the last remaining secular state in the Arab world, albeit a repressive police state. Preferably with the help of the hated heathens of NATO who also liberated Libya and Iraq before. These same Tunisian and other Arab Jihadis who flock to Syria to fight against the repressive regime would also flock to Bahrain to fight FOR the repressive tribal Al Khalifa dynasty. Some roads lead to the terrorist killing fields of Iraq, some to Libya, Mali, Algeria. Egypt does not need to import jihadis yet: it has plenty of the home-grown variety. They just need outside money, plenty of which they seem to be getting from “somewhere”.
Cheers
mhg

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Demographics, Economics, Finance, GCC, Iran, Middle East

Iranian and Arab Population Policies: It is the Quality, Stupid! It is the Economics, Stupid!………

         

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“Mohammadi represents a worrisome trend to the Iranian government: More young couples are wary of having babies in the climate of economic instability caused by international sanctions. The disenchantment comes as the ruling Islamist clergy, alarmed by Iran’s meager population growth rate — estimated at 1% in 2011 by the United Nations — has mounted a campaign for families to have more children. Iran’s leaders fear the prospect of an aging population that would burden the welfare system and severely diminish productivity. Without a change, Iran’s median age is expected to rise from 27 to 40 by 2030…………The desire to migrate has also played a significant role in the lack of interest among young Iranians to have children — along with a turn away by women from conservative religious values as they seek equal footing with men…..………”

I posted on this topic before regrading Iran, and also about the Gulf GCC population policies. I still suspect that the main reason for this policy reversal is economic and financial. The mullahs couch it in religious and nationalist terms because that is what their base, their political supporters, understands best. It is the same story in other places, especially Europe and Japan: as the population ages, there is more demand on retirement age-related resources and less money going in. They need to get creative and find ways of replenishing these resources and making them more productive. A huge population explosion now a la Egypt or India would only postpone the problem and have it pop up later on a larger scale.
Now there is an idea in our region that more people means strength. The rulers, especially on the Gulf, encourage population growth. It is probably a tribal-ethnic-sectarian thing. In the old days, and even now in some places, the larger the tribe the more powerful it is. Yet this is erroneous. Look at Israel with a population of around 6 million: she defeated all Arab regime armies in whatever combination one could think of, several times. Six million defeated more than 200 million. Look at Hezbollah: representing less than 50% of Lebanon, barely two and maybe a half million people, yet it defeated the mighty Israeli IDF, twice (in 2000 and 2006)! I have no doubt that they can also defeat any Arab army now (that includes the Bahrain and Abu Dhabi and Qatari and Saudi Wehrmacht combined).
It is not the quantity, stupid. It is the quality, stupid!

Cheers
mhg

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Iran, Jews, North Korea, nuclear Iran, nuclear wepoans, Pakistan, US Foreign Policy

North Korean Bomb: Israeli Speculation, Iranian Angle, Joe Stalin and the Rosenbergs, Frying Burgers at the Sing Sing Greasy Spoon……….

         

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“In addition to provoking the West, North Korea’s nuclear test on Tuesday may have also been carried out on behalf of Iran, and in the presence of Iranian atomic scientists, a security expert warned on Tuesday. North Korea is making progress both in its nuclear weapons capabilities and its ICBM missile research, Dr. Alon Levkowitz, coordinator of Bar-Ilan University’s Asian Studies Program and a member of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, told The Jerusalem Post. “The most disturbing question is whether the Iranians are using North Korea as a backdoor plan for their own nuclear program. The Iranians didn’t carry out a nuclear test in Iran, but they may have done so in North Korea,” Levkowitz said. “There is no official information on this… but Iran may have bypassed inspections via North Korea. If true, this is a very worrying development.”………………”

This is purely Israeli speculation. But it is to be expected under the circumstances. It would be stupid not to speculate on this issue, even if the speculator is the right-wing Jerusalem Post which has an axe (possibly even ax) to grind. After all: it was Pyongyang which provided Bashar Al-Assad with all those nuclear facilities that probably existed only in Western and Saudi media but the Israelis bombed anyway for mysterious reasons.

Besides, does anyone know any country that willingly provided either nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology to another country? Other than the USA giving it to Joe Stalin, something which exposed both the two Rosenbergs to the undeniably barbaric horrors of the electric chair at Sing Sing. Justly or unjustly, I don’t know. A few years earlier, the Nazis would have tortured then beheaded them on the guillotine for it (or just for being there). But the electric chair must be more barbaric than beheading (provided the blade is sharp and the executioner is sober). I read somewhere that it took long minutes to die on the chair in those Rosenberg days. Like frying a burger at a greasy spoon. I don’t think anyone uses ‘the chair’ it anymore, I hope not, probably not even Texas nor any God-fearing neighboring states that we see in those BP commercials on TV. Executions of any kind  are barbaric and only some theocracies (Muslim and Christian and other) in third world countries and the USA impose them.
(Speaking of pushing nuclear weapons technology: I know there were reports about nuclear ‘pusher’ A.Q. Khan of Pakistan, who became their national hero, even more so than Osama Bin Laden. There have even been reports of the Pakistanis promising to supply the Al-Saud and the Wahhabi Mufti with nukes at some future date, if and when the princes decide to become a world power).
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Gulf states

Photographic Back to the Arab Future: Thinkers, Plutocrats, Former Hacks, Seat-Warmers……..

         

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I refer to my earlier post titled A Pointless Arab International Conference on the Gulf: Missing Ahmed Shafiq and Adnan Arour:

This is a photo of the participants of the mentioned conference.


Back to the Arab Future…………….

These gentlemen (okay, okay, and lady) are supposed to represent fresh insights into the future of the Arab world. With these folks in charge, it’s got to be a bleak future. I discern the following assorted: thinkers (dunno of what), intellectuals (maybe a stretch), hacks, yes-men, crooks, oligarchs, plutocrats, and mischief-makers:
Ayad Allawi (briefly appointed PM of Iraq, by mistake), Fouad Saniora (cash-and-carry seat warmer for Saad Hariri), Amr Mussa (but no Kussa), Prince Turki al-Faisal, Hanan Ashrawi (Tyrannosaurus Regina). And a few more. Same old, same old.
Too bad General Ahmed Shafiq and Mo Dahlan are body-guarding the sons of Al-Nahayan in Abu Dhabi. Could have been entertaining.
Cheers
mhg

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Bahrain, GCC

Halloween in Bahrain: Hugely Despised Prime Minister to Supervise Media………

         

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“A Supreme Authority for Information and Communications is to be established – to protect freedom of expression. Chaired by His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the weekly Cabinet meeting approved a draft decree to launch the initiative. The planned Authority will be mandated to propose information and communication policies and follow up their implementation. It will also draw up a national strategy for information and communication, and be in charge of defining rules and regulations to promote the media and communications profession….………”


I hear that his highness Shaikh Khalifa Al Khalifa will start on Valentine’s Day, since it is too late for last Halloween and too early for next Halloween.
Cheers
mhg

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