Monthly Archives: February 2015

Afghanistan, Caliphate, Libya, Syria

Washington’s Liberation Theology: Charlie Wilson’s Wars………

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Saw Senator John McCain on TV when I woke up this morning. He was making the rounds of cable networks. He was asked as expected about ISIS (ISIL, DAESH). He answered with the same old mantra of the past three or four years: “No Fly Zone, Free Syrian Army“.

Except the old Free Syrian Army that he and the Arab princes had been pushing in Syria is no more. It has been completely Wahhabi-ized, as ‘we’ warned of so long ago. The ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels, the wine-sippers, have left their five-star hotels along the Turkish border and departed for Paris, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and other venues. As ‘we’ predicted two years ago, it is now ISIS, DAESH, Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, WTF, etc.
It is amazing how they go back to the same playbook that created this mess to start with. The playbook of Afghanistan in the 1980s: Western weapons and Wahhabi oil money used in tandem to liberate a Muslim country from its present and hand it over to the joys of Wahhabism:

  • We saw it in Afghanistan after 1989, when the Mujahideen took over ‘liberated’ Kabul and set to destroy it, before handing it over to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to finish the job. But that was okay, we got a good Hollywood film out of Charlie Wilson’s War.
  • We saw it again in Libya, when NATO used a loophole in a UN resolution to bomb the country and hand it over to the current warring Wahhabi terrorist groups who now dominate it and are in the process of destroying it. Afghanistan Redux on the Shores of Tripoli.
  • They pushed for a repeat in Syria, and Obama and Hillary Clinton made the right political noises about the longevity of Bashar Al Assad.
  • Meanwhile John McCain and his sidekicks started their own war on the Syrian-Turkish border, with a lot of help from Turkish fundamentalists and repressive Arab oil princes eager to explore the delights of a democratic Syria where free speech would reign.

Can you repeat the same mistakes and expect better results? Miracles do happen.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Jihadis, Jordan, Muslims, Terrorism

Daesh or ISIS after the Fire: How the West Should Win?………

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It is the moment of truth for the United States…….

  • Forget this silly select incomplete coalition that basically caters to the whims and desires of some repressive Arab allies.
  • Forget self-serving sectarian Arab allies who keep on urging more wars and their strategies that serve their own goals.
  • Forget the Turks whose Islamist government has done so much to enable the ISIS Caliphate and other Jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq. Remember the Erdogan Trail?
  • Forget doddering John McCain and his pals in the Senate who seem to live in the bygone era of jingoistic gunboat diplomacy and colonialism.
  • Forget about the various Jihadis, overt and covert, who claim to want to liberate Syria for their own image of freedom and justice and the American way of life.
  • It is time to realize that there is no viable alternative to a shift on Syria. Forget the nonsense about Sunni Crescent or Shi’a Crescent. The real threat now is the Wahhabi Crescent stretching across Iraq and Syria, and beyond that to its financiers and supporters across the Middle East and Europe.
  • Do a reset if you will. Redraw this coalition to make it wider and more effective and not based on the whims of impotent allied regimes that effectively created ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
    Cheers
    Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Islam, Syria

Iranian Boots Now Officially ‘On the Ground’ in Iraq and Syria……..

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“Iran’s Supreme Leader has permitted a limited group of Iranian youth to fight along with “Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese brothers,” according to Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari. Jafari, while addressing a ceremony in Tehran last Friday, mentioned discussions he had with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, saying that “despite the number of youth who are permitted to join the fighting (outside Iran), no one else should leave the country” for resistance abroad, the Iranian Mashregh news agency reported……………”

Everybody has known for some time that there are Iranian advisers, and maybe some combatants, serving in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State and other armed groups. We have all seen ‘leaked’ photos of the enigmatic Brig. Suleimani in Iraq. Everybody has also known that there are Arab, American, and European fighters and advisers on both sides in Iraq and Syria. Some of the latter are official with the regulation boots, others who are mainly on the Jihadi side are free-lancers. This new report about Ayatollah Khamenei makes things ‘official’ now. Especially in view of the potential casualties which are impossible to hide in a Muslim society where a death and its rites are a very public matter.

Officially the wars in Syria and Iraq are now part of a multi-layered wider war: a sectarian war within a regional war within a global war. Which they have been for some years now, but unofficially. Now which box should be opened first? Which layer should be peeled first to reach the heart of the matter and solve it?

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Corruption, Jordan, Mecca, Money, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

New Religion: American Leadership Courted by Israeli Money and Jordanian Bakhsheesh…….

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“Gov. Chris Christie likes to live large on other people’s dime, The New York Times reports. Christie let King Abdullah of Jordan pay for a family trip to the country, which included a stay at a hotel that cost around $30,000. In 2012, Christie flew to Israel on a luxurious private jet loaned to him by mogul Sheldon Adelson, who was also opposing legislation to legalize online gambling in New Jersey at the time. Christie later signed that bill into law………..”

The king of humorless Jordan could only pay for Governor Christie’s hotel and food and booze, Jordan not being nearly as rich as Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas vice and the Likud. Mr. Adelson is famous for his genocidal suggestion, I believe in 2013 (google it), that the U.S. should drop nuclear bombs over parts of Iran. Republicans, like Democrats, are hungry for campaign money, any money. What else explains why I should suggest that the Washington Redskins be renamed, if anything else, the Washington Lobbyists?

It is possible the king of Jordan was just doing what Arabs traditionally do for guests, especially prominent guests; he was being hospitable, as only Arabs from tribal societies naturally are. The Governor, being a governor and a politician, could not refuse, not such a large amount of money: many people in his state earn much less every year.

The hunt for money is the only great bipartisan unifier in America now: even foreign policy and national security are divisive now. Money is almost a religion: it makes leaders of both parties bow down and pray, not only five times a day as we Muslims do, but full-time 24/7. And not toward Mecca or Jerusalem or Bethlehem. They pray toward where the money is: be it Las Vegas or Tel Aviv or the nearest Mujahideen Khalq offices in DC. The supremacy of this religion was edified and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling a few years ago (Citizens United vs. FEC).

The monarch of the Humorless Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan could only pay a paltry 20k or 30k for hotels and booze and food, just like a little bakhsheesh, a little royal tip. The King of Las Vegas and Tel Aviv (or is it Jerusalem) can buy these ‘American leaders’ wholesale. Just imagine what it would be like if some of the kleptocratic oil potentates of our Gulf could openly buy some of these leaders, just as Mr. Adelson buys them. Imagine the possibilities: the sky would be the limit……….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Arab Media, Bahrain, GCC, Saudi Arabia

Prince Al-Waleed Suspended in Bahrain……….

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“Alarab, the pan-Arab news channel, was suspended from broadcasting from its home in Bahrain on Monday, just hours after it went on air.
The station said on its official Twitter feed that coverage was halted for “technical and administrative reasons,” and that it hopes to be back on the air soon. It went live on Sunday afternoon……….”

It is located in Bahrain, although like other Saudi networks it is owned by a prince, Prince Al-Waleed. Bahrain is now a Saudi appendix, and the new King Salman may not be finished with his palace coup against his relatives. So you can reach your own conclusions……
This AlArab network is/was supposed to compete with Alarabiya (also Saudi semi-official network) and Al-Jazeera (Qatari official).
Stay tuned….
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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Al-Qaeda, Caliphate, Iran, Iraq, Sectarian

Iraqi Alibi: One American Sectarian View of the ISIS Rampage……..

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“The Hezbollah-ization of Iraq’s military and security forces has been overseen by the IRGC-QF, another U.S.-designated terrorist entity, which is headed by Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, a man personally sanctioned by the Treasury Department for his role in propping up Bashar al Assad’s mass murderous regime in Syria. In Iraq and Syria the enemy of our enemy is not our friend, he is our enemy, too………. Another one of Suleimani’s major proxies, the Badr Corps, is headed by Hadi al-Amiri, who happens to be Iraq’s former minister of transport, in which capacity he was accused by the U.S. government of helping to fly Iranian weapons and personnel into Syria……………….”

The title of this article reads like a concocted alibi for expected failure against ISIS in Iraq. And we’ve all had the apparently mistaken belief that ISIS sprang from Al-Qaeda which sprang from Saudi money and Wahhabi ideology and volunteers! Now we have beens set straight: the Iranian mullahs are behind ISIS. Disguised as Wahhabi Jihadis.

Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t dabble much in Muslim sectarianism, otherwise I would have suspected him of being behind this article. The best of Saudi royal media couldn’t have written anything more sectarian than this piece. It almost reads as if written by a Hariri pro-Saudi (Lebanon’s March 14) journalist for NOW Lebanon, or by some American neoconservative hawk from one of their many well-funded think tanks. Making the case for yet another Western war in our region (hence the netanyahu angle)………..

This is not to deny some of the basic facts in the article. The Iraqi militias are nasty ombres. The Iranian are active and scheming in Iraq, as is almost everybody else that I can think of outside Monaco. I am not sure about the Hezbollah angle: this sounds like a “Lebanese” partisan insertion. Don’t they say that “all is fair in war and love“? Everybody seems to believe that, even if they profess not to.

But then the Iranians, and some others in the neighborhood, have been stung from Iraq in the past, invaded and attacked with WMD. The Western powers, some of whom supplied the WMD or its ingredients to the Baathists, did not seem to object to either at the time………..
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter

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