Monthly Archives: March 2014

Islam, Malaysia, Sectarian, Terrorism, Wahhabi

A Dirty Open Secret of Malaysia: the Sectarian Angle, the Wahhabi Angle……

      

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“In early August, Malaysia’s Home Ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Abdul Rahim Mohamad Radzi announced the growth of the minority Shia population along with government plans to root out the movement. Radzi said, “The development of information technology is among the factors for their growth as the teachings are spreading through a range of social sites,” adding that as such, measures to curb Shia practices will “involve the Home Ministry, the police, Registrar of Societies, control of publications under the Printing and Publication Act, curbing the production of CDs and DVDs by the Film Censorship Board and monitoring by the Immigration Department.”…………..” 
This statement by a Malaysian bureaucrat titled Datuk Seri Whatever sounds like something uttered by Dr. Josef Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister of the German Reich.

Malaysia is more than just a country of incompetent feuding officials as we have seen from the fiasco of the MH370 tragedy. It is also another bi-polar Muslim state, while it tries to present a fake tolerant face to the outside world. Yet the country has been Wahhabi-ized over the past few decades. A couple of years ago in Malaysia, the Malaysian Islamic body, the regime’s National Fatwa Committee, went totally Wahhabi and announced that it is not permissible for Muslims to participate in any gathering or demonstration intended to oust a government. That is straight out of the playbook of the Saudi princes who use regime muftis and religious fatwas to stifle dissent.

Malaysia is now a fully officially a sectarian society: it does have a Wahhabi problem which also has led to its “Shi’a” problem. In the sense that Shi’as are persecuted and are forced to practice their faith in secret. They usually have to practice their faith in privacy, and often these gatherings are raided by regime security police and people are actually arrested. Apparently the religious establishment in Malaysia is dominated and managed by Wahhabi hardliners. Which also means the ruling regime, the establishment, has become more intolerant and Wahhabi. It is as sectarian as, say, Egypt has been under Mubarak and Morsi and Sisi combined. 

Even though Malaysia is so far away from the Wahhabi heartland of Riyadh. Very few in the West are aware of that. This also means that Malaysia has a “Wahhabi” problem: since it is Wahhabi influence and ideology of hate that has led to its Shi’a “problem“.

 
The country’s rulers, a bunch of Datuks and Seris, also treat its citizens, especially the women, quite different from how they treat Westerners. A few years ago there was the case of the native woman who walked into an establishment that legally serves alcohol: she reportedly ordered a beer and ended up being sentenced to death. Apparently she needed to become a foreign tourist and dye her blond to legally qualify to poison her mind and body.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Iraq, Islam, Media, Muslims, Saudi Arabia

Canned Media and Self-Appointed Leaders of World Muslims, Rome in Najaf……..

      

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“The visit was initially designed to mend fences with the Saudis, who claim leadership of the Sunni Arab world and, like other Gulf states, are upset about the thaw between Washington and Shiite Iran. The president hopes to smooth relations with one of America’s oldest allies in the Middle East and to better explain his Iran diplomacy to Riyadh and its neighbors. But now there are many new and – surprisingly, for the ultraconservative region – even young power players in the Gulf. And enmities between the kingdoms, emirates and sheikdoms are bubbling to the surface while their once fairly cohesive regional alliance, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is unraveling………… ut, as a Western diplomat who often visits Riyadh and other Gulf capitals told me, the Saudis, like the Qataris, consider Assad an Iranian puppet and Iran remains their chief enemy…………….”

Interesting how Western media, especially U.S. media, have bought into this Saudi propaganda bit about them being leaders of the Sunni world. Often they claim they are the leaders of the whole world Sunnis, not just Arab Sunnis. And like the mindless zombies the ‘canned’ media often tend to be, they insist on repeating it. They get this legend from the vast Saudi media and from some other Gulf media that cater to them. Ask any Sunni Arab from Amman through Cairo and Tunisia to Morocco if they consider the Al Saud princes their leaders. You would get a big laugh, at best; maybe something worse. What they are is the absolute unchallenged ruling family of the world’s Wahhabis (and Salafis).

FYI: Similarly, Saudi media often also hints (occasionally openly claims) that Shi’as give allegiance to Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran. Which is a deliberate untruth: he
is not the leader of world Shi’as, in either a religious or especially in a political sense. Not that he claims to be (well, not openly anyway). Almost certainly the religious authority is someone in Najaf, Iraq rather than in Iran. Rome is in Najaf not in Tehran or Qom.



As for Mr. Obama’s coming visit to Riyadh, I have already posted on it once before when I mentioned the 1912 Olympics, King of Sweden, and American Gold Medal winner Jim Thorpe. Thorpe was born in Prague (Oklahoma not Czech), and became a versatile athlete. He famously told the King of Sweden who hung the gold medals around his neck and praised him as the greatest athlete in the world: “Thanks, King“. Very likely what he said was: “Gee, thanks King“.
Corruption, Interpol, Jordan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia

Of Interpol, Shady Princes, and a Humorless Jordanian Fugitive……..

      

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“An Interpol red notice, seeking the arrest in London of a Jordanian businessman at the centre of a high profile legal dispute involving two senior Saudi princes, has finally been withdrawn after more than two years. Faisal Almhairat claims that the notice authorising his extradition was issued in pursuit of a business vendetta. The international police agency, based in Lyons, France, has admitted belatedly that it was not “in compliance with Interpol’s rules”. Almhairat, 45, has been living a fugitive’s life in London, moving from hotel to hotel, because he says he fears that if extradited back to Saudi Arabia he would not receive a fair trial…………..”


In recent years Interpol has occasionally acted as a private security agency or a private outsourcing concern for some governments, but not all governments. The Saudi government is one of those lucky ones: can you imagine Interpol being so accommodating to Venezuela or Vietnam for example? 

If this Jordanian man was a Saudi national, it is almost certain that Interpol would have kept trying and would have succeeded in getting him sent packing to the tender mercies of the princes. As it is, they kept trying for two years to send him back. In fact it is also likely that even with him being a humorless Jordanian, he would have been sent back quickly if he were not enjoying the protection of the British legal system. Now I don’t know if this man is innocent of the accusations or just another crook: he can be either. As far as I know being humorless is not a punishable crime, especially not in Riyadh and certainly not in Jordan. (Why doesn’t he go home to Jordan? Is he worried that King Abdul will pack him back to the princes?).

Remember the young Saudi journalist who two years ago tweeted something the princes and their Wahhabi clerics had thought was blasphemy? Kashghari escaped to Malaysia, where Interpol quickly cooperated with the pro-Saudi authorities of that country in having him sent back to a possible death sentence. He was in fact imprisoned for over two years without a trial. (And no, they have never heard of Miranda or his rights in the Kingdom without Magic where rights for the average Mutlaq are sparse and far between).

Cheers
mhg

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Culture, Fatwas, Food, Saudi Arabia

Hooters of Arabia: Cleric Bans Buffet, Can Happy Hours be Far Behind?……….

      

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“A fatwa (religious edict) against “all you can eat” buffets by a Saudi cleric has stirred debate among users of social networking site Twitter. The cleric, Saleh al-Fawzan, recently issued a fatwa through a kingdom-based Quranic TV station prohibiting open buffets, saying that the value and quantity of what is sold should be pre-determined before it is purchased. “Whoever enters the buffet and eats for 10 or 50 riyals without deciding the quantity they will eat is violating Sharia (Islamic) law,” said Fawzan on al-Atheer channel. Using the Twitter hashtag “prohibiting-open-buffet” …………”

Shaikh Saleh al-Fawzan is usually an outspoken cleric. It was a matter of time before he came up with a new doozy. 

No more buffet. The Wahhabi cleric bases his ban fatwa on a technical point. It is purely scientific but in a Wahhabi way, perhaps based on old usury laws. I imagine the Mufti, the chief mufti Shaikh Al Shaikh, is royally pissed, in a Wahhabi sort of way. Doing a V-8: slapping his forehead with the heel of his hand: “Now why didn’t I think of that?” If this stands: no more all you can eat in Riyadh and Burayda and even in Mecca where the more privileged five-star and seven-star pilgrims like to tuck it in between bouts of spiritual piety. No more shoveling it in, even if you are at a 7-star hotel and hence closer to God than others. Which can be a good healthy thing. Of course some rude glutton might complain that ‘it is none of his fucking business‘, but not me. Freedom of Fatwa is guaranteed in the kingdom, even if nothing else is.


On the other hand, and more ominously, expect more. Expect the unexpected. Next to be fatwa-d into oblivion are the famous happy hours of Riyadh. Without the money-making Happy Hours, the famous watering holes from Najd to Hijaz to the Empty Quarter will go out of business. It is a good thing they don’t have any Hooters other than owls and some local singers in the kingdom……….

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Revolutions, Hezbollah, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria

New Sectarian Kids in Town: From Iraq Through Syria and Lebanon………

      

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“The newest inhabitants of the world’s biggest cemetery were killed not here in Iraq but in Syria, where they fought under the green flag of the Middle East’s most potent new Shia Islamic political force, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (League of the Righteous). The militia has been busy readying for the afterlife, buying up more than 2,500 square metres of burial plots and erecting shrines for its fallen. And in Baghdad, nearly 100 miles north, the group has been more occupied with the here and now, imposing its influence on Iraq’s fractured political scene and steadily asserting its will throughout the city’s Shia heartland suburbs. Since the American military left Iraq in December 2011, and within two months of the first national election since then, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq has quietly emerged as one of the most powerful players in the country’s political and public life. Through a mix of strategic diplomacy, aggressive military operations and intimidation – signature methods of its main patron, the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani – the group is now increasingly calling the shots in two countries………………..”

This sounds ominous, this fundamentalist group’s entry complicates thing (religious militias always complicate things they touch, adding one more point of contention). Yet something like it has been predicted for almost three years. Once the Syrian uprising, which had legitimate demands in 2011, became a mainly sectarian enterprise as a Saudi-Qatari proxy war. 

All this might be one factor behind the ratcheting up of Salafi terrorist attacks in Iraq and their recent expansion into Lebanon. It is partly an attempt by their patrons and financiers to try and reset things in both countries and see if something works in either country. A Shi’a-dominated government in Baghdad has always been treated in some Arab capitals, especially among the potentates of the Persian Gulf and their Salafi allies, as a ‘loss of Iraq’. As if that country has changed its skin and become something else. It takes a lot of petro-money to run a sustained terrorist enterprise of kind that has been murdering Iraqis. That might explain why a frustrated prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki openly accused both Saudi Arabia and Qatar of fomenting and supporting terrorism. 



The other angle is to try and get Hezbollah to pull its forces of Syria. Presumably the idea is that Lebanese deaths from terrorism will create popular pressures on Hezbollah to pull out. The ideal goal is to shift the allegiance of most Lebanese Shi’as away and toward ‘other’ politicians. But that is now as likely as pigs being declared halal and kosher and starting to fly. Those ‘other’ politicians are either discredited remnants (feloul) of past Shi’a feudal lords of the South or some known flunkies (a few politicians and clerics) in the pay of the Al Saud princes.

Of course all this can shift again if only Hassan Nasrallah takes down the picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that is probably hanging in his office and replaces it with a picture of the Saudi king.

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Politics, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Terrorism

Iraq and Saudi and Qatar: One Man’s Terrorist as another Man’s Proxy………

      

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“Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of seeking to destabilise his country by supporting insurgent groups and providing them with financial support. In an interview with French television channel France24, Mr Maliki said the two countries had effectively declared war on Iraq. “They are attacking Iraq through Syria, and in a direct way,” he said. Mr Maliki also accused Saudi Arabia of supporting global “terrorism”……………”

Such open sharp attack on the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar is uncharacteristic of Nouri Al Maliki. For years he has been silent as the two Wahhabi ruling dynasties heaped charges against him, mainly calling him a stooge of the Iranian mullahs. (Oddly, it was not the Iranians who initially paved the way to power for Al Maliki). His outburst is partly exasperation at the recent sharp escalation in acts of terrorism against civilians inside Iraq. Committed by uninvited Arab visitors to Iraq. Some Gulf states have been involved in Iraq for years, some of the more sectarian businessmen and clerics and zealots among Iraq’s neighbors started causing mischief right after the 2003 fall of the Baathist regime. Many of the Arab Jihadist terrorists that plague Iraq came from among the Salafis of the Persian Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, being the most notorious and most humorless of them all, naturally came from Jordan). Saudi money and tribal contacts in Western Iraq have no doubt influenced matters inside Iraq. Qatari potentates have the money to spend, or burn if need be, inside Iraq. They can afford, if they choose, to burn money in order to burn Iraq.


Of course it is not all that simple. Al Maliki may also be thinking of the coming elections later this spring. It is a good time to appeal to his political base and try to get them agitated for the elections. Al Maliki probably wants another term as prime minister. (All Arab leaders always want to rule forever, that is the most common characteristic of the region: must be something in the water). 
It would be best for Iraq if someone else is picked by the next parliament. Keeping the same man as head of government is not a good way to cleanse the Baathist legacy of dictatorship. even if the man comes to power through an electoral system.
Of curse I know of one man who would be worse for Iraq than Mr. Al Maliki. That would be Ayad Allawi, whose chance of getting the job is next to zero percent. Fortunately my old fatwa of the last Iraqi elections in 2009 still holds. I believe I said that Allawi has as much chance of becoming prime minister of Iraq as I have of becoming prime minister of Israel (I now amend that by adding Saudi Arabia since only the king can be prime minister, no matter how old he is). Mr. Allawi also has as much chance of becoming the PM of Iraq as h has of becoming the PM of Saudi Arabia (where he is the only Shi’a that is considered kosher and halal in Riyadh).

Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC

Al Sisi in Abu Dhabi under Iranian Drones, Burning the Reichstag………

      

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Speaking of Egypt and hooking up with the Gulf GCC:

I fatwa here and now that it will not happen. Egypt will not become a member of the Gulf GCC. It just ain’t gonna happen, and that is all there is to it. That is also the fatwa I issued when the Saudi princes shocked everyone but not me by inviting humorless Jordan and floating Morocco to join the GCC. That was before they politely dis-invited them (is there a polite way, maybe an app to dis-invite someone?). The princes and the potentates often act as if they have no clue as to WhatTheFuck(1) is happening or will happen. So, I am saving them the trouble as a public service.


Speaking of which. Generalisimo (sorry, Field Marshal) Al Sisi is already exploring his putative future domain. He is in Abu Dhabi visiting the UAE. Allegedly reportedly the potentates of Abu Dhabi shared with the Saudi princes the cost of financing the military coup d’etat that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood and the ensuing police campaign that locked up anybody who is a member. No, the Reichstag was not burned down in Cairo, but pretty close to it. Egyptian media is speculating that he may resign as Minister of Defense next week in order to run for president. Yet he may have a problem: once he is not Minister of Defense, does not control the tanks officially, what authority will he have over the government? How can he guarantee a huge win (or, maybe 80%-85%)? How can he be sure of a win at all? Something for the General (sorry, Field Marshal) to think about.

The Iranians probably have their domestic drones flying right above his bald spot, getting the measure of the officer whom Morsi trusted. To his regret. 


——————
(1) Note: I don’t often use expletives, especially in composite form and the full WTF, but the potentates often inspire me. The best way I know to describe some of their statements and actions, succinctly.
 
Cheers
mhg

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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, GCC, Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

GCC Egyptian Hook-Up Game: Saudis Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places……

      

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“Saudi Arabia is also now bruiting the induction of Egypt into the Gulf Cooperation Council, presumably with the proviso that Egypt will be allowed to extract enormous strategic rent from the GCC. In return, Egypt will protect the very wealthy but very weak GCC from Iran and Shiite Iraq, and from the Brotherhood. Anonymous Egyptian sources I saw quoted in the Egyptian press when I was there last week were speculating that if al-Sisi becomes president, he can bring in $240 billion in investments and aid from the Gulf………………..”

“PAMP (Polygamous
Arab Male Potentates), seeking poor family-ruled Arab country that does
not believe in democracy, and is willing to send troops and security
agents when needed. Money is no object, up to a point. Preferably no
Shi’as or Hasidim or Haredim among the population.” Possible GCC Personal Want-Ad


That PAMP mock want-ad reflects the state of Gulf GCC regimes since 2011. It is actually the state of the Saudi royal family, since it is the princes who have been flailing to grasp some accommodating Arab regime that can be invited to keep order when needed in exchange for money. From Jordan to Morocco, and now to Egypt.
 

Perhaps they are better off staying with the U.S. Navy for external protection from any real or (more likely) imaginary foe. Whoever heard of the Egyptian navy? Or the Jordanian navy? Or the Moroccan navy? But protection from whom? What the princes really want is a land force for protection from their own people, protection from change: that is why they have hired mercenaries from Asia and Arab countries (Bahrain) and even Latin America and Australia (UAE).

Modern Egyptian military history, its effectiveness, is very iffy (I am being polite here). In spite of the heroics of Al Sisi. After all, the four wars with Israel were not exactly ringing victories, starting with the first defeat at the hands of the ragtag Haganah bands in 1948, what we call the Palestine War. Actually in that war five Arab armies were defeated by graduates of the European concentration camps and survivors of the butchery of the civilized world. It was all downhill from then.
They may have won their last campaign at home: the war Mr. Mubarak declared on Egyptian swine in 2009, the so-called War on Pigs. Egypt’s native swine, the country’s largest minority for thousands of years seem to have all but disappeared, reportedly eliminated. Long before anyone ever heard of Mohammed Morsi. Although some of them are probably hidden inside the government and the military, sanctioned within the bureaucracy.
 

The Saudi princes are notoriously unstable (or maybe just stupid). They surprised everyone, perhaps even each other, by unilaterally inviting Jordan and Morocco to join the GCC in 2011. Then they spent the next couple of years trying to walk back from that stupid proposal.
Now they are toying with economically strapped Egypt, a country that keeps getting more crowded along the banks of the Nile. Egypt needs to stop and then reverse its population explosion, otherwise no GCC money can help. Besides, dreams of tens of billions are just that: dreams. They will get a few billion, but at a price of letting the Gulf princes and potentates pick their leaders (as they did in 2013 and 2014), and at the price of deciding their foreign policy. At the price of turning the country even more into a ‘watering’ hole for hungry and thirsty and, er, ‘socially’ frustrated and repressed Wahhabi men.
Here are some links to previous postings on this topic:

GCC Summit in December: Auld Lang Syne and L’Internationale

Bahrain Poised to Import Even More Jordanian Mercenaries?

Morocco and Jordan and GCC Constitutional Monarchy

Moroccans are from Mars, the GCC from Venus? Democracy and Humor

Saudi Leadership of GCC: Three Major Failures, Three Strikes but not Out, not yet

Gulf GCC: on Jordanian Accession, Roman Dinarius, Israeli Shekel, and Kosher Currency

Saudis in Denial: Expanded GCC? What Expanded GCC?

Expanded GCC? Picking Security over Economics, More on Black Magic

Gulf GCC: Moroccan Couscous Controversy, Jordanian Humor Controversy

Riyadh Marriage Proposal: GCC, Morocco, Jordan……

Freedoms the GCC will Bring to Morocco and Jordan……

Fatwas on GCC Expansion: Jordan, Morocco, and the Muftis

Cheers
mhg

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Asia, Malaysia, Terrorism

Malaysian MH370: the Terrorism Angle, the Vegas Angle, the Mario Batali Angle…….

      

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Media headlined a few minutes ago about the Malaysian Airlines MH370 tragedy: two passengers with false passports bought tickets through an Iranian intermediary.

Details are not out yet, but BBC now reports the holders of stolen Euro-passports were really Iranians. Oh oh, Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez are probably ready to lead the Charge of the Heavy Brigade into Iran. John McCain will fatwa to ban all trips by Mohammed Jawad Zarif (Iran FM). No more more Vegas trips, no more blackjack, and no more Mario Batali cuisine for Zarif in the Piazza. 

Some Chinese groups even (predictably) claim the Uighurs may be involved. Hamas has so far refrained from blaming the Israelis, but give it time. Netanyahu is probably already kicking somebody for not having Ahmadinejad available “when the moment is right”. He probably wonders what Hezbollah may have been up to lately: like where did Hassan Nasrallah spend these past few days and where is he now? (I bet he would love to get the answer on that very last one).


Corruption, Europe, Russia

Sanctions and Corruption: From Ukrainian Oligarchs to Pure Princes………

      

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Speaking of Russia and Ukraine and imposing selective sanctions on select individuals. The Western power (the U.S. and maybe the EU) will basically do the following: they will sanction and freeze the assets of former (corrupt) Ukraine officials in order to support current (corrupt) Ukraine leaders who used to be former (corrupt) Ukraine officials. Cute, no? So what about the assets of certain Middle East princes and potentates who have accumulated ill-gotten fortunes that dwarf anything some Ukrainian or even Russian oligarchs could boast about? How come they don’t get sanctioned for selective corruption as well?

Cheers
mhg

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